My back is itching like so much itching powder has been poured upon it. It is like a thousand mosquitoes have descended upon it, and they are just feasting upon the blood in the vessels on my back. It's like Horace Greeley just mentioned the possibility of heading to the West, and I am feeling young. I almost just broke my poetry vow, but it wouldn't be mine (it's a Housman, and it is gloriously macabre).

Basically, Washington sucks, so go to the West. I suppose Charleston and Charlotte are west of Washington, so advice noted.

Also, it is chilly in Davidson, but I will be returning to my dear most recent home tomorrow, and it shall be wonderful. I am also probably typing quite loudly and annoying my sister who is sleeping in the next room. Revenge, clearly, is mine, and given the temperature of the night, has been served cold. I'm not entirely sure what the revenge is for, but I'm sure there's something. given the usual older sister/younger brother dynamics.

Well, maybe it wasn't that bad after all. Sorry about the loud typing.

Meanwhile, I'm being told to just type and type and hope that I can come up with something, even though last night was an exceptionally rambling post. THESE MESSAGES ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ONE ANOTHER. Meanwhile, I should probably keep writing in the hopes of inspiration striking. Ha HA! I doubt it.

Well, the continuation in writing was ineffective, mostly because I wasn't exactly writing (although I did see several bugs that turned out to be pieces of lint. I do not currently have my contact lenses on. They could actually be pieces of lint, OR they could be Weeping Angels. I prefer my theory.), but hopefully that will be ending presently. I finally received a solid indirect topic suggestion, which is namely, dating.

So, what do I think about dating? It sucks. It has sucked for quite some time. Yes, you have people who somehow do it well. They constantly meet groovy people and then get out of bad relationships before they're actually bad (but with enough reason to avoid looking like an ass).

There are at least 5 signs in this very picture. Try to find them all.

These people have found some sort of Holy Grail, and they are incredible assholes because they are refusing to share any of the Graily goodness that lies within. I mean, good for them, but I will shiv them the first chance I get JUST in case they have that grail on them. Sure, maybe I'm taking this metaphor a little hard, but what if I'm not? What if there IS a sweet dating grail out there? Wouldn't you want a piece of that action? Of course you would. Once again, Rob for Dictator for Life: He'll Find You The Dating Grail.



First stop: All well lit caves.

But okay, let's look at the biggest pet peeve in terms of dating advice. "Blah blah don't come up to women with a line, just introduce yourself and strike up a conversation blah blah." In theory, this makes perfect sense. Most pickup lines are derivative and cliché, and they are certainly immediate red flags. But let's flip this.

You're in a bar. You're out with some friends, just having a nice beer. Suddenly, this person comes up next to you and says, "Hi there. I'm Thus and Such. How are you doing?" What do you do?

We've been over this. Shoot. The. Hostage.

Well, you probably politely say something like, "I'm doing fine. How are you?" and hope the conversation ends. You probably even give terse answers to help it along. Worst case, you ignore the approacher, and you go about your evening.

See, there's the problem. You're out with your friends. Do you really want someone to come up and interrupt you while you're with your friends? You came out with them for a reason. You probably aren't looking to meet anyone. Meanwhile, this person has come up to you, tried to start a conversation, and they get stonewalled.

Named for Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who once famously turned down over fifty attempts at flirtation.

Well, let's say that this person brings a drink. That means it's story time. Let's travel back to a while ago, when I was out with two friends (let's say Zelda and Chantal)...



Wrong ones, but I like your style.

Now, we're out at a bar, because Zelda wanted to grab some drinks. Zelda gets approached by a young pup named (I shit you not) Colt. Colt even brought a drink along, and he claimed that it was an extra that the bartender gave him accidentally. Colt offers it to Zelda and strikes up a conversation.

Well, a few minutes later, Zelda is mouthing, "Help." Well, dang. Chantal switches places with Zelda, and we quasi-canoodle for a bit as Chantal (erroneously) claims that Zelda and I are dating. No hard feelings, Colt. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Now, where were Colt's problems?

1.) His name is Colt. Not his fault, but he could go by any number of other names. Surely his middle name isn't that bad, and even if it is, other nicknames are available. But Colt? Are you a pistol or a 40? Neither one of these is something that seems like a good thing in a first introduction.

2.) He brought a drink from the bar. Now, Colt didn't seem like a bad guy to me (name aside). He seemed like a nice enough college boy. That said, we don't know where that beer's been. He just approached us. We didn't see the drink get poured. Zelda didn't drink any because she was afraid it had been drugged.

3.) Well, he approached a girl who was in conversation with friends. Didn't he read the first part of this? What is this, amateur hour?

Now, yes, you could buy a young lady/gentleman a drink AT the bar, but that requires starting up enough of a conversation to make it not entirely creepy that you're offering to do so. Even once you've bought the drink, he/she can just as easily make an escape, and then you can feel good about yourself, because you're quite the philanthropist.

Or philcanipist? Don't buy dogs drinks. They shouldn't be driving home anyway.

Sometimes you might luck out and catch someone in line, and a conversation might even develop. I've had one incredibly awkward one, and if she didn't know what arrestin did before, well, boy howdy, she sure does now. It's a shame that she had to go take that call from her dying grandmother (even though I couldn't hear the phone ring)- I was just about to get to the part where they start internalizing guanine nucleotide-binding protein coupled receptors and the potential translational applications that the study thereof may provide. But she promised she'd meet me later and we'd talk about it. I'm not sure where and when we're supposed to meet, but she promised, so it's totally happening. Of course, that assumes that you can find someone who's weak enough in their pack of friends that you can approach them, start a conversation, and garner enough interest to keep them intrigued even if they go sit down with their friends.

HI I'M ROBBIE CAMPBELL I STUDY MEDICINE CAN I BUY YOU A DRINK

"Well, OBVIOUSLY, Rob," you might well say. "Bars are an antiquated and inefficient means of meeting people. They go in friend groups and it can be hard to break into the conversation. Do you take us for buffoons? Everyone knows that to meet people, you go to the ____." Ah. Thank you. I forgot all about the ____. Clearly, I have much to learn from you. I would never have thought to try to approach people in the ____. There is really no doubt that the _____ is the greatest place to meet new people, and I will recommend it to all those what read THIS VERY BLOG.

But while I've got you here, let me ask you a few questions.


This can only end well.

When you go to ____, how do you know that the person wants to be approached? I mean, at a bar, you don't know either, but they're at least putting themselves in a social situation that is commonly accepted as a place in which one might meet like-minded persons of the opposite or same sex in which to engage in certain like-minded activities.

Like sultry card games.

Oh, you're using "signals." Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm self-deprecating when it comes to signals. I'm downright oblivious in terms of flirtation. But sometimes if he/she is looking at you, they're just wondering why this creepy person is staring at them? Is it a staring contest they want? Well, then a staring contest they shall have.

They are staring contest champions, LADIES.

Well, what about friends? Or friends of friends? Or iterations thereof that I cannot even fathom? Let's say something starts up. Things are great. And then, well, something happens. She clips her nails into your toilet, and you are very particular about what goes into the toilet and by gum, it's your toilet, so it's your rules. Now, amongst all your friends, forever and ever, you are known as the guy who is super anal retentive and creepy about nail clipping. I mean, is this some sort of weird fetish? And then, well, say goodbye to those friends.

Now, don't get me wrong. We seem to be at a point where you have to make your own opportunities as best you can, but do you really want to take that kind of risk? Sometimes, you manage to strike up a conversation with a nice person that you randomly meet, and that develops into a few dates, and suddenly you're deeply, deeply, for reals this time, truly in love (or you would be, if only she didn't trim her nails into the toilet. That is just unsanitary and is asking for a clogged septic tank, which will lead to all sorts of infections in your two boys and a girl. How inconsiderate). Nine times out of ten, you'll probably be left with a feeling of soul-crushing anxiety about what you could have done to screw things up.

Please don't be the nail-clipping again. I just got new friends.

Like I said, dating sucks. That's why you should get out now. I mean, thank heavens you have someone like me to take on this burden and tell you the right way to do things. You're lucky to have me as a friend. I'll keep an eye out for the bad ones, and if they have any nail clippers, I'll be sure to let them know that you were wondering where they clip their nails. I mean, what are true, totally for real, not trying to turn you off of this thing to get rid of competition, friends for?

Annoying the family

Yes, I'm half-heartedly and haphazardly writing this while I sit with my aunt and sister and watch an episode of Buffy. Say hi Martha and Susan! They didn't say anything of course, because we're supposed to be watching Buffy. Yes, it's okay for guys to watch Buffy. It has Alyson Hannigan, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Alyson Hannigan, and Anthony Stewart Head, and Alyson Hannigan, and Alyson Hannigan, and also Alyson Hannigan. If not for Alexis Denisof, she would be mine. In fact, if both are okay with it, she still can be. So, Alyson. Alexis. What do you think? I will refrain from further metaphors, because there are ladies reading this (and not the LADIES type to which I constantly refer, although some of them are around reading, and to them, may I say, "Well hello, LADIES."), and I would hate to offend a lady. I also have a text message that is eagerly awaiting my attention. A text message that may possibly be from a lady, so I shall attend to that, and we'll meet back here shortly for a debriefing. Aaaand break.

It was from a lady. I should tell her that she's being discussed AS WE SPEAK (well, as I write and not as you read, because this isn't some sort of live blogcast or some such). Oh, and Xander has the funny syphilis now. And all the other funny STIs, which autocorrects to "Stud." Oh, the delicious wordplay in autocorrect.

Oh Anthony Stewart Head. You are just the dreamiest, what with your library and your other British qualities, like being on that episode of Doctor Who and the whole Merlin thing.

Plus, the episode is topical, except for Riley's hair, because it's a Thanksgiving episode and middle parts are not a valid hairstyle (unless we're talking about preteen Rob, because he could totally ROCK that hairstyle and there's not a damned thing you can do about it).

On a less nineties TV show related note, I stiffed you two hundred words last night. That's ab unfortunate consequence of this whole "hey, Rob is going to be all hip and tends down at the sock hop by clogging on his phone with the tiny keyboard. And with the autocorrect that tried to turn blogging into clogging. Well, either that or he hit a c instead of a b, which is easy given the tiny size of this keyboard and the stubbiness of Rob's thumbs" thing. Clearly I need to use shorter words to up my word count per line. I'll do better next time, or, you know, you can deduct it from one of my previous posts that hit eighteen hundred something words. But hey, we'll see what we can do here. We need like three hundred lines in order to hit this word count. and how many do we have AT THIS VERY MOMENT? SEVENTY NINE, which would almost make for a very funny and juvenile joke.

Well, seventy nine (now eighty-twoish lines of text), and I haven't exactly gotten to any overarching theme or plot or thesis here, now have I? I blame the public school system for making me the successful student and ridiculous writer that I am today. And for the funny ideas about Scientology. (A bit of backstory. See, in my AP US History (APUSH, for short) class, there was the odd chapter on culture and the like in our inimitable textbook, The American Pageant. On the one regarding the denominations that arose in the mid-to-late 1900s, they talked about The Church Of Jesus Christ, Scientist (which is an AWESOME name for a religion. Honestly, a very deceptively awesome name, given their views on medical care). During their brief discussion of Church of Jesus Christ, SCIENTIST, they said that in contemporary times, they became known as the Church of Scientology. It wasn't until sometime in college that I realized that this was not even remotely the case.)

But enough about the whole "Rob's textbooks were of minimal quality and just a riveting experience. Tell me more of these tales of wacky misunderstandings, because they are just cracking me up and are in no way boring" tales. Oh man. There are just so many lines to go, and I have got nothing. There were wonderful sandwiches earlier today (and they proved most of my sandwich theories to be correct to an n of one), and there was walking. Riveting, right? Nothing but the most charmed of lives this Thanksgiving. Heck, I even got to look at pictures of skin diseases and genital warts! Be still my heart! This is just the best vacation ever.

In other news, Rob id eagerly awaiting the end of Step 1 (or at least the dermatology, pediatric, and reproductive block). Yes, that should have been is, and all of that should be in quotes, but we've established my problems with this keyboard and authority.

Also, why was the Initiative in a frat house? Dr. Walsh had to walk through a frat house where one of her teaching assistants lives? That is just in no way sketchy. Of course, I have my doubts that most of this audience gets what even just happened, so we'll move on, shall we? Good. Great. Splendid. Wonderful. They called my wonderful. So I said wonderful- if you insist.

I could accept that I am basically just going to keep typing about random things, but does that seem right to you? I thought it night, which id AT&T I have all these typos. Well, we already know the real reason why. I suppose that I almost made some variety of idle threat, which would be downright unacceptable, just like ny use of these long words that are taking up lines without adding enough words. And I call that sloth. Because there are one, two, three, four, five, six pockets on a table, six pockets on a table that separate a gentleman from a bum! And who wants.to be a bum anyway? I mean, having one seems to work out great for J. Lo and Christina Hendricks. So I guess it's just a great big wash.

Man, it sure would be nice to have some pictures around now. Maybe get some caption action in here, throw in some pictures of maybe cats, and then say something like, "OH HEY THIS ONE TIME, THIS.CAT TODAY, IT LIKE TOTALLY RAN UP TO THE WINDOW AND WAS TRYING TO ATTACK A MOTH. I MEAN, WHAT IS IT THINKING? IT CAN'T PASS THROUGH GLASS. IT'S NOT SHADOWCAT- IT JUST THE REGULAR TYPE! SILLY CAT THAT DOESN'T REALLY LET ME PET IT WHICH IS PROBABLY GOOD SINCE I'M ALLERGIC, BUT I'M STILL A BIT OFFENDED." Yeah. That sounds like something I would say after a picture of a cat with an appropriate caption. I'll bet you can just imagine it now. There would be a cat, and it'd have some sort of funny face or hat, and you would say something about how cats sleep too much to br grumpy and really have no calendar to our knowledge, so how can they hate Mondays? And why is it wearing a lime for a hat? That is not the proper use of a lime, and a cat doesn't even need a hat, when you think about it. There are just some highly problematic themes in these sundry pictures of cats. And that's trouble. Oooh you've got terrible, terrible trouble.

So, yeah. Our cdbytal. No. CENTRAL. Theme for tonight seems to be the shortcomings of this app. (Also cats are now bathing each other and it is just super adorable.) I mean, it is certainly a handy app if you're on the go and find something worthy of a photo and feel an urgently burning need to blog about it (in which case you should probably get that looked at by a medical professional. Or, if you're feeling all active voicey and want your prepositions all in a row, I suppose you would want to have a medical professional take a look at that. We are not savages, after all.)

So it can be a great app for those sorts of, well, applications, but if you're trying to do something with lots of wacky pictures from around the Internet, or if you're trying to write around two thousand words about what really amounts to nothing (like so much Seinfeld), then it can be a bit on the problematic side of things. I mean, isn't blogger somehow affiliated with Google? Couldn't they bundle in a Google Images sort of thing so you could search for and upload a picture without having to go over ti Browser, search the image, find the image, copy the image, come BACK to Blogger, paste the image, find your train of thought again, and then write a witty yet relevant caption and resize the image. That seems like way too many steps, and I take dozens of steps just to.make.my mac and cheese (which is absolutely delicious by the way. I am also convinced that if I die of a heart attack, it will be due to that mac and cheese), so I know a thing or two about excessive numbers of steps. I will also point out for my.own simplification that we're around two hundred and forty five lines, so we are getting closer (but not nearly close enough ahurrrr see what I did there? I used a cliché. This takes training that I don't have. Clearly I am some sort of clogging prodigy here), and it should be much simpler for me to count up the lines and make erroneous claims about the average number of words per line. If only there were some sort of word counter function on this app (or inside the app. IN SIDE THE APP. WHICH IS IN SIDE THE PHONE. Break it open.). Make it happen, you various teams pf smart phone application scientists. Obey my whims as commands from your apparently clogging god. Bwaha. I would add more has, but it would still be just one word. Rest assured, it is a maniacal one word. I wouldn't dream if skimping kn the mania in a laugh like that. You've got to have standards in what you do, see. Well, maybe not in the content if the blog sometimes, but we'll just nod and smile and act like you're enjoying reading this. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with a better topic tomorrow (along with some sweet pictures, because let's face it, looking at my dulcet voice just doesn't cut it on its own. Like so much Will Ferrell, it relies on a strong supporting cast of topics and vaguely amusing pictures to properly weave a Novemblog), because I will once again have wireless, so I'll be able to use my laptop and just crush the posts like... well, some sort of foodstuff that is easily crushed. Potato chips? I prefer to eat those in a manner most sparkle, but I suppose I could.crush one in anger or triumph, just to mix things up. Of course, I could also just have a decent idea of what I wanted to talk about, just for old times' sake.

Anyway, tomorrow we hopefully return to not using the phone to blog, and on Sunday we can move back to the desktop in my dark, cold.little room, far, far away from the judging stares that lie in wait outside the apartment. I mean, once the outside world has easy access to Netflix, maybe we'll be onto something. I am now getting a strange feeling that I underestimated my number of lines, so I am going to assume that I hit 300 and met my quota, so I'ma peace out. Chuck town, fo' life.

Farenheit Four Fifty What?

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the future, and it is a dark future indeed. Yes, dear readers, we are in a future that is going to cause just SO many typos. I'm afraid it is going to be quite terrifying, and you may believe that I have had some sort of stroke to the language centers of mu brain. See? Tgat's hopefully the first (abc second and now third) of the night. The first (and second and third)of of many, I'm certain.

You see, today, steps have been taken. Several steps, some of which are of minimal importance, but one of which is just so important. I can only speculate as to what the global consequences of such an action might be, but I'm anticipating hurricanes, fire and brimstone coning down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, cats and dogs.lying down together, mass hysteria.

The first of these changes is the I locked my phone the heck DOWN. A year and a half after I got mu phone, I finally threw a password on it beyond "Swipe your finger to the right. Wait, the touchscreen isn't registering it right now. Turn it off and back on. Swipe the finger to the right. Repeat as needed." And no, you can't know what it is. I barely know what it is, because it's just so long. Rest assured, though, it is quite clever.

The other, potentially more important change (and the reason for all these freaking typos) is that I found the Blogger app for my phone and have duly installed it. Now, there are two distinct disadvantages to this course I'd action (that's supposed to be an of, but whatever. Also, we're talking disadvantages to you, my dear audience (all 5 of you, although apparently there are a bunch of you in the UK and Germany now. Fancy that. Also, if you're German and just learning English, please don't take these posts as paragons of proper spelling and vocabulary. But DO take them as the Pinnacle of humor, and apparently my phone spells Pinnacle with a capital P which standard for pool.) and not the disadvantage to me of having no excuse to not post whenever I have any sort of phone signal.). The first is that, due to the fact that I'm writing on a phone with my thumbs while my wrists are in a relatively uncomfortable position, there are typos a-plenty. Well, okay- UNINTENTIONAL typos a-plenty (bur not the lesser known cht unnaturally delicious typos polenta). I have faith in your abilities to read these posts with a mind to what little context I provide and come up with your own unique but invariably correct assessments of the situation at hand (WOCKA WOCKA). Besides, the typos are really my fault, because I'm a.) The one making them with my stubby and clumsy thumbs, and b.) I'm bot going back ti meticulously correct the typos. ALL THE TYPOS. "Well, okay, Rob, you handsome angel-faced devil, you. You've got me convinced of that one. But what could the other disadvantage possibly be?"

Well, that's really more a matter of functionality (which, if I had my way, would really be a matter of FUNKtionality, because who doesn't want a world with a little more funk? Fascists, that's who. We beat them once, and by gar, we'll do it again if we have to. But, oh shoot, I'm rambling again. I suppose you've cone to expect this from my meandering mind/my obsession with hitting the proper number of words. I'm fairly certain that I'm over 250 at this point, but it's hard to say. Heck, that's even one I'd the disadvantages. But I didn't tell you that. Nope. Ain't nobody here but us parentheses.). See, you may have taken note I'd my lack of funny yet cibtextuallu appropriate (that should say cintextyally. Cintextuallu. CONTEXTUALLY. Just look at your keyboard and then look at my  thumbs. All will become clear.) pictures and witty captions. Well, it is very possible to add pictures to these posts with this app. Ir even seems reasonably user-friendly. However, it DOES seek like it would take a fair bit of time to find an image from the internet to add in here. I think I'd have to save it to my phone, then go to add the picture, and then find the file in my phone. Given the massive turkey headache that I'm rocking right now, that is just way too much work.

The other big disadvantage (beyond the time it takes to write it) is that I have no readily available means to get a word count on this business. I could be at 20 words, I could be at 2000, and I have absolutely no idea. As such, the posts for today and tomorrow might be a bit shorter, as I have no Widow, which should say wifi, you stupid autocorrect software. Without this wifi, I can't use my laptop to get on the internet, and that's a but of a hindrance. What, I'm supposed to use this more portable bit of hardware to write this blog? Are toy insane? But seriously, I don't want to spend hours writing an amazing post on my laptop (possibly about sandwiches, because I'm sure you all just loved that one (Author's Note: New readers- take a look at that post to see what I mean. Or don't. It's frankly quite poor, because I really know nothing about sandwiches that don't consist of peanut butter and strawberry preserves. Strawberry jam? I am off my game and out of my element, Donny, if you throw that at me.)) just to have to type it all over again in this phone that jeeps resulting in typos, strange autocorrect results, and the addition of words that I didn't even want to spend hours writing an amazing post on my laptop (possibly about sandwiches that don't and now it's just repeating what I've already typed. What a sassy birch, and sure, I'll close the parentheses for the sake of decorum). At this point, I have about 165 lines of text on my phone. Based on a survey of about 7% of those lines, I'm averaging 7 words per line. That means that (with the five lines that I've added since the 165 count), I should be at somewhere around one thousand one hundred and ninety words. With the extra numbers and time explaining this, I would hope that I've now broken two hindered.  Sorry. One thousand two hundred. That's better in almost every conceivable way. (You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.)

Now, normally I might give a blow by blow on Thanksgiving, or maybe if I'm feeling super sentimental (for I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam-ah.... A seen-ti-meeeeen-tal... Mahahaaaaaan) I could talk about the many things I am thankful for (German grammar students: that should be "for which I am thankful," because we don't like ending sentences with prepositions, even though it always makes perfect sense to everybody). But, man, I'm writing this post on a phone (for which I am thankful), and it is just tough to keep up with all the words and the phrases while I get the text messages from the friends asking for trivia team names. Also, this apartment has cats, to which I am allergic. Not terribly allergic, mind you, but I'm getting a bit of that cough and that itchiness in the eyes right now. I also have a crazy headache from the whole dinner and eating too much and drinking too much of too many wines. I know, my life is just so hard right now. Cat allergies with a headache after gluttony and alcoholism.

Also, congratulations to the Davidson Wildcats for beating Vanderbilt in the Old Spice Tournament Quarterfinals. One day, maybe your man can be like the Davidson Basketball Team. Or maybe not. But with Old Spice Shower Gel, your man may be able to smell like them. The ball is now diamonds. I'm on a horse.

Well, it was either that or me pretending to be Bruce Campbell playing piano like a lounge singer and singing "Hungry Like the Wolf." Despite my impressive chin, I fear that I would be unable to live up to the lofty standards of thespianship set by The Right Honorable Bruce Campbell, MP (he'll always be a member of the Parliament of my heart, where Christopher Walken is the leading whatever it is in Parliament. Prime Minister, I suppose). With that, I'm going to guess that I've hit somewhere in the ballpark of one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven words, which means it's time for me to get off if this and try to get some sleep.

Gobble gobble, y'all.

Shubbadah?

Okay, first off. Yes. There are pictures that don't work from yesterday's post. I am aware of this, and I intend to fix it. However, I'm also el tired, and I'm going to try to get through this as quickly as possible so that I can close my eyes and think of England, or better yet, something that's a bit less creepy than Victoria's marital advice.

Saucy minx.

Second off, I finally looked at another person's blog, and boy howdy is mine spartan. Spartan? I don't know if it's a proper adjective anymore. I blame the Athenians. "Derp tiddles, phemales are slaphes, and so are those beaten bu us." I mean, seriously. History's written by the winners and all, and the Spartans certainly weren't the greatest folks ever, but they're far from the backwards soldier boys we tend to think they are. They had to learn how to give awesome retorts! That was part of their training! Who gets to do that anymore?

London calling.

But anyway, having looked at this other blog, I clearly need to add some sparkles to this thing. Well, not literally, because I'm not a vaguely creepy almost 40-something's fantasy. Nor am I MySpace (although it's always a hoot to check out what's still going on over there) or a webdesigner from the 1990s. However, despite this clear need for bedazzlement and glitz and glamour (because apparently it's Brit Time at the Blogpollo), we'll just have to see what happens. I have received suggestions (some involving soup for some as yet unascertained reason that most likely will provide the key to the end of the world in a mere 30 days, so get cracking on those Bucket Lists) that might get put into play once I figure out how I would do such a thing. And also if such a thing is even possible.

Why, I say, old chap, I do believe that it is. Quite right.

Until then, you'll have to content yourself with whatever oddness happens to come out of my little sausagey fingers (not that I have psoriasis or anything along those lines. At least, I hope not.), and just wait for the change to happen. And that's what brings us to the things I already wrote before I decided to move this whole bit into an earlier section of the blog. What will it be, you ask? Well, I really wasn't sure. I didn't have too much in terms of ideas, but we'll see where I ended up. Well, I already know, what with already having written it, but I'm sure that you're just DYING to know what lies beneath whateevr hopefully clever picture -- that hyphen was due to a sneeze but it just works so perfectly well that I'll go back and add a second to make it a full dash before returning to the present and closing this not-actually-a-parenthetical with another dash, thereby closing the circle and restoring balance to the blog-- whatever hopefully clever picture I happen to find on the Bing images to serve my potentially unsavory purposes. Mwaha.

It's Ian McKellen talking about acting. It's pretend, you see. And now, off to the future while you read the past!

Some ideas for tonight have been suggested. One of them was, "Well, gee, Rob, because you're such a great cook and a wonderful person (to say nothing of your innumerable other dashing qualities), what did you do to celebrate Thanksgiving in France two years ago? Surely that was hard for you, being on your own in a new country, but I bet you came up with just the greatest little feast ever, possibly with a young lady named Babette!"

Come on, Rob. Nobody understands that.

Well, let me tell you a tale. What a tale it is! I don't think you can even comprehend the degree to which this is a tale that is about to be told, or rather written, in a manner hardly befitting of such a tale, given its immense complexity and deep characterizations. Truly, it is a tour de force of literature, drama, cinema, and sculpture, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Description defies the events that transpired on that cold November evening in the dead of night (well, the dead of very dark outside, because it's the north of North Dakota, and we all now how crazy people get in Fargo), but on this one occasion, all will be revealed. You will have the privilege of knowing what transpired that fateful evening, and through knowledge, you may understand the madness that emerged.


This can't possibly be a huge, huge letdown.

I ate some spaghetti. Well, don't go away yet. See, there's more to it than just that.

I ate more spaghetti than I normally would have. I probably also tried to listen to my iPod to tune out Bev's questions and/or (which really should be the logical or, because dude, logical operators or whatever the proper term for those things are I'M TIRED) Bev and Elmo's yelling. And I mean, of COURSE there was more to my day than just eating spaghetti. The very idea of it just being spaghetti is absurd. I mean, I had to work that morning! I don't really remember what work consisted of, but I'm sure it involved saying "Red cat. A red cat. No, not, 'A cat red.' A red cat," and possibly telling the story of The Gingerbread Man about 30 times. It was always funny to watch French kids puzzle over the meaning of "gobble" and try to say "fox." It... well, it tended to sound like something else that would be rather awkward to explain were they ever to travel to the United Kingdom or the United States (and yes, those are blatant attempts to pad this word count. You should get this by now.).

Yes, it was quite a man's life in the Programme des Assistants de Langues Vivantes. Oh, what's this? I'm getting a cease and desist order from the British army from the 1970s. Well, I'll just have to ignore that. I mean, what could possibly go wrong in angering the Brits?

Oh, DO give it a try. Cheerio.

Oh, you finally caught up. I was wondering when you might do that. I hope you enjoyed the references to the Falklands, an obscure and old episode of Monty Python, and the delightful letdown that ensued. Plus, Margaret Thatcher. Mmm. Almost as saucy as Queen Victoria. ALMOST. I mean, it's really a Betty or Veronica sort of thing, except British. And yes, I just checked- it doesn't seem as if there is a British version of Archie out there, but if there were, you can bet that it would be written by Alan Moore and would fully deconstruct the entire love triangle by making Archie into a sociopathic ladykiller who is just waiting to see which one of them provides him with a better incentive. Meanwhile, Betty is obsessed with Archie because she has Munchausen by proxy and compulsively HAS to be a caregiver to fulfill her twisted desires, and Veronica is trying to date Archie in order to get her distant father's attention. Ultimately, the relationship between the three deteriorates and is destroyed. And by whom?



He's been in love with Archie the whole time. Also, he has 2 weeks to live due to the severe atherosclerosis from eating all those cheeseburgers. He... he did the right thing in the end, didn't he?

Well, now I want to see that comic. I would ask Mr. Moore, but he's rather scary himself. Somehow, Neil Gaiman manages to handle that, but I'm not unconvinced that they're a real world Aziraphale and Crowley (except, you know, more competent and effective). Besides, have you seen him? HE'S TERRIFYING. He could crawl into your mind and haunt your dreams, night after night. Just a little bit at first- maybe he's the random fellow who's standing in a doorway in the corner of your eye. Slowly, though, he starts moving from the periphery, encroaching on your hopes and fears and twisting them to his own sinister desires (and also there may be some angry trousers involved).



Whatever holds the image of an Alan Moore ITSELF BECOMES AN ALAN MOORE.

At some point tonight, we entered a very dark place, but we kept calm and carried on.

Oh no. No. That's not supposed to be how it goes. I thought I was in control of the British stuffiness (the aforementioned Brit Time at the Blogpollo). I thought I could handle it. I was wrong. I need an infusion of red, white, and blue, STAT.



GAH!

No, not that. Not that. Um.... beer! What could be more American than- ooooh, no, you're not tricking me like that, Brits. No, no. You'd have to get up pretty early to pull one over Young Master Camer-

Son of a BITCH.

No, this can be done. Okay, American. Not British. Um... Golf? No, that won't work. Scottish is better, but I need American. Mel Gibson? Shit- Australian, so he's like Diet Brit.

KEANU! Keanu freaking Reeves. Physical actor extraordinaire, but master of the dull surprise. I just need to find some Keanu, and it'll be fine. I mean, he was Ted. How much more American can you get than Theodore Logan? Not much, I'll tell you that. He plays guitar, meddles in history, and wins basically through cheating, only to come out as one of the saviors of the world. He was Neo! He was Jack whatshisface in Speed (apparently it's Traven. A good American name if ever I saw one).  If there's any way I can get out of this, it's with a good dose of Keanu. He had his Own Private Idaho! Only an American could get a state to themselves! Well, I suppose it's not HARD with Idaho. I mean, nobody there but those potatoes (well, and some harpies I'm sure). Nothing could go wrong there. Nothing at all. Okay, just need to find some Keanu and

FUUUUUUUU-

God save the Queen.

WEEEE ARE THE CHAAAMPIONS

Okay, this isn't a trivia recap, really, but here's what happened.

See, a year ago, my cousin Bob, who is a wonderfully awesome person, came into town. We grabbed dinner with his mom, and we got to trivia late. Against all odds, we came back from a double digit deficit to tie for first and win it.

Not even re-sizing it.

Tonight, Bob and I grabbed dinner with his mom. We got to trivia absurdly late. Against all odds, we came back from a double digit deficit to straight up win first place. No tie. Just a win. We are champions. Take that, radiologists who were apparently jerks to my team.


And you know what? You can have an extra for good measure, because we're about to talk about me. Some of you have heard this, so you can skip it, if you're into that sort of thing.

I'M A CHAMPION

That's right. We're talking about The Prom Saga.

Some of you may think that I'm exaggerating this. You would be wrong. Prom was a freaking ORDEAL for me.

See, junior year of high school, there were some miscommunications. I asked this cute girl, and she said she'd "think about it." Now, any guy who has seen any sort of pop culture knows to take this as a no. I did not, but after a few weeks of not hearing anything, I assumed it was an understood no. I started asking, word got back to her, miscommunication was elaborated as her having meant to say yes, but whoops, I suck, so there was no prom for me.

This was all in the context of my AP US History class, which, God bless them, was committed to getting me a prom date, SOMEHOW. The problem was that they left it up to me that year. I mean, geez. I can hardly ask a girl on a date as it is. If I'm feeling super bold, I might gaze upon her countenance. The genes I got for romance belong in the freaking Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or SOMETHING, but not where I am now. Maybe I'll capitalize a few more words while I'm at it. It's LATE, and I'm TIRED, and I need to get this done, so I might just say a few random words now hurdy gurdy blips and bops for a thousand little tears dripping along the course of years. That's good for what, ten words? Okay, it was good for seventeen. DO BETTER, ROB.

Do. Better.

Well, that's Junior year. I ended up not going to prom, and I instead went to a family reunion. I... I stand by that decision. You haven't been around all my family at once. Sure, we have our squabbles and the like, but then we get the folks on the porch, and suddenly it's a party for everyone. You may think your family is cool, but, sorry. You don't understand. We've got 2 Susans, 4 Roberts, a few Bens (I think), a Jaden, AND a Sofia.

We will end you and all you love.

But back to the prom issue. See, this is back before I even had the terrible attempt at the Jesus beard. I didn't have the magnetic facial hair that I have now.

We're trying so hard to break away. It just... can't... be... done.

No, this is me around this time:

The H is for "Hardcore." No, seriously.

If only these pictures counted for words. I just have to keep captioning all of them. Hopefully I'm keeping your interest with this cavalcade of photos of me. I know I usually offer you some hipster Christina Hendricks or some Ancient Aliens Guy, but that just can't be done tonight, because I am very tired, and this is as late as I've been blogging on a school night. It's quite a sacrifice on my part, but that's the price of quality, I'm afraid. That and a firstborn child. Boy or girl. We're not picky.

But anyway, senior year starts, and by God, I am going to get myself a prom date.

Things do not start well. I go to the fall dance with the same girl I went with the year before and briefly dated before realizing that, really, she wasn't for me. Then, I go to the winter dance with another young lady who was quite nice, but we really just needed to be friends. Clearly, I was a ladykiller somewhere deep down, but these two both basically asked me to go.

Things were not shaping up well for Rob's ability to dig deep for his big boy pants and aks a girl to a freaking dance.

Well, while all this is going on, I've stepped away from theater (i.e., I auditioned for shows and had just too much crap to do). Instead, I started doing college applications, 5 AP classes, Knowledge Bowl, Model UN, Wordsmith, some side projects for theater, and probably some other clubs that I was in that didn't really take up that much of my time. Somehow, I wasn't drinking much/any coffee.

Well, Model UN picks up. We go to LA for a competition, where I do poorly. I was Romania on the Security Council. Those of you who have tried to have a political conversation with me are pretty well aware that I have a tenuous grasp of current affairs at best, and at worst I'm woefully uninformed. I bomb it pretty hard. I had initially thought that my coach had a lot of faith in me, and I guess that's not entirely untrue. I did well in his class, I showed I was able to think, and I was usually willing to do the work. Well, when I asked him about it later, his response basically amounted to, "I wanted to put you in a situation where you could not possibly win so that you and I could see what you would do."

Well played, sir.

"But Rob, why are you talking about Model UN? You're just trying to get your word count up!" Well, duh. Why do you think I took that question? But no, there's actually a point to the Model UN stories if you give it a minute.

So, spring comes. For some reason (I guess I passed the test?), I get selected to go to New York for this conference at the UN. The conference itself was pretty terrible, because it was a bunch of high school students (and even some adults) getting up there and talking about how the UN should regulate Wal Mart. One person talked about it in favor of the free market, and honestly? He was the best spoken one of the bunch. Maybe I'm biased because I got SO FREAKING TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT HOW WAL MART IS THE DEVIL. WE GET IT. THEY TREAT THEIR EMPLOYEES LIKE CRAP. LET'S MOVE TO ANOTHER COMPANY. GEEZ.

However, due to the UN voting about something "important" like a "world affair," our first morning session was cancelled. We find this out once we've gotten into New York. So, we spend the night wandering around New York, seeing various things that we were going to do with our morning off.

Like being badasses.

 Well, all these folks know of my problems with prom. It's also March, so there's plenty of time.

Then we pass by Rockefeller Center, and a joke is made. A joke about a show where people have posters and how, haha, wouldn't it be funny if Rob (then Robbie) went on with a poster about a prom date? Well, showman that I am, I take that challenge. My friends help me out with a poster (which was phenomenal), and I commit to getting up at the crack of dawn the next day to make my way over to Rockefeller Center to stand in the long line between me and GLORY.

Well, it was a Friday morning, and it was cold and snowy. There really wasn't much of a line. There were some folks from New Jersey or Wisconsin or some such, and they see my sign and let me go to the front. They think it's hilarious. They tell their parents about the idea, and their parents agree to tape it. (I do NOT tell my parents, because I figure they're going to try to talk me out of it, because let's face it- I'm about to make a royal spectacle of myself on national television).

Well, while I'm doing this, Stephen (the guy in the middle up above) and Coach are going to grab some bagels for breakfast. They come back, look up on the Jumbotron, and see the following.

Pan, pan, pan, pan, Rob, pan, pan, stop. Reverse pan, reverse pan, Rob, stop.

Oh, cool. I just got to be on the Today Show. Let's see where this goes from here.

About 20 minutes later, I'm sitting with my new friends from New Jersey/Wisconsin, when these three folks come outside. There's this short lady between a black guy and a white guy. There's also a camera and microphone. These people are talking to the cameras.

The following may disturb you. Heck, when I watch it (I tried to figure out how to upload the DVD version I have, but I haven't quite figured it out yet), I find it disturbing.

Before I register what's going on, Katie Couric is right next to me saying, "Hi. I like this. What's your name?"

I deftly respond with, "HI I'M ROBBIE CAMPBELL FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE."

Smooooooth.

It continues from there. Some highlights though:

• Katie drops multiple hints that I should ask HER to the prom. I'm not biting, because hindsight is well beyond 20/20 here.
• Al Roker disses my bowtie. That's right. I was wearing a bowtie.
• Matt Lauer insists that the bowtie is cool.

  

  I knew it!

• Al Roker hangs his head in shame and proceeds to ask the crowd if there's anyone who would be my prom date. There's an impressive response.

So where did it go from there? Well, I had to go home at some point. Getting the poster onto the plane was quite a feat, but they let it slide. There were even some folks on the flight back to Memphis talking about "that kid who got on the Today Show looking for a prom date."

Never heard of him.

Of course, there were calls from someone who said they were a producer on the show, and Lord knows if anything was going to come of it, because I lost my phone about a month after that. So, no dice on getting that prom date via the Today Show.

But I have my ways. And a snazzy tuxedo.

Yep. The Soapbox is back

Well, tonight, in honor of my parents (and the rest of the Davidson College Concert Choir), I'm playing some classical music rather than the customary (i.e., you know, those nights when I got the writer's block super terrible and decided to write about sandwiches and whatever else I decided to talk about) Powerglove. For those of you who don't know of Powerglove, they're a rather ridiculous band that does metal remixes of 90s video game music and I just closed the Youtube tab with the music. Strong work, Rob. But yes. Powerglove does remixes of video game music and 90s cartoon theme songs. They are quite epic. They also do a mean "Heffalumps and Woozles."

It's so bad.

But that's not what I'm going to talk about tonight. I mean, the very idea of that first paragraph (or even this one) being relevant to the topic at hand is laughable. No, I was originally going to talk about a little bit of fan mail that I got last night. It reads as follows:

"It is apparent that you don't read the comments to your blog. If you don't read the comments, how are you going to get more soup??? Do let me know if you ever actually read this.

"Oh, nice blog."

I went on a bit of a wild goose chase about this, as two and a half (because I don't know how thoroughly Sujin actually reads this) readers are aware. See, the comment is anonymous. There is little indicating who the author might be in the comment itself. My first thought was the dear Ajax, but he tends to go on a bit more and have a bit more snarking and references in his comments. My next thought was Sujin, because she was on Facebook when I discovered this comment, and she was worth asking. Of course, both of these folks have commented before and have usernames that give them away. I was pretty worried that it might be spam. I was going to do a careful and probably quite snarky analysis of this comment. You know, to draw the culprit out.

Well, I probably shouldn't do that, because it was my Dad. Hi, Dad! Yes, I do read the comments. I'm sure that I'll get more soup at some point, but as you are aware, soup itself isn't so much my thing (with notable exceptions, such as your chili recipe, which I will find one day! You'll rue the day you cheated me of my birthright! Oh, wait, that was Jacob.).

Team Cheating Jerk Who Went On To Found A Nation, Sorta

 But no. We're not talking about that anymore. But hey, it was a good run while it lasted.

No, we're having a flashback to France. But we're not talking about Bev this time. No, we're going to school. And, oh boy. We're going to talk about teachers. Namely, the just plain screwed up stuff that they believed (and I assume still believe).

See, they all seemed pretty groovy. I mean, I'm hardly super social, because I just worked with Annette (who is a straight up awesome lady. She and I joked around about drinking, she helped me calm down when I was freaking out about my visa, she hooked me up with some GREAT Chablis, and she was just generally a joy to work with and know. I'm sure I could have made that a non-parenthetical sentence, but there was no time for that.).

The Chablis is pictured here, along with our Mystery Commenter. No soup, though.

So one day, we're in class, probably talking about America or some such, and we hear some kids arguing. Upon further investigation, we discover that they're arguing over whether or not the moon landing occurred. Mind you, these kids are around 8 years old, tops. These are also the kids who, on my first day of observation, said, "I don't go to McDonald's, because it supports the war in Israel." We figure that they've heard this from their parents. Whatever. We can't change what their parents say to them- it's their business.

Author's portrayal of their home life.

As we find out, no. It was not the parents. It was, rather, one of the staff members who basically amounts to a gym teacher named Farouk. When we ask him about this, he says that he just meant that they should know all the theories and have all the facts before making decisions themselves. Well, thank God, Farouk. I remember how when I was 8, I was entirely capable of finding and interpreting all the facts in such a manner that would allow me to make an informed decision. Hell, I still can't do that. I'm half expecting my Cousin Mary to win a school board position in Charleston, because I couldn't think of anyone else for the write-in only positions. (Not entirely true- I also put my advisor and my MSTP director's names in there. I have no doubt that my one vote tipped the balance for them.)

Annette and I go back into our classroom, and then she does something for which I will always adore her. She goes on a very calm and composed rant. It basically consisted of, "How dare he. These kids are here in a not great neighborhood, and they need something to believe in. He had no right to take something that powerful and say, 'Haha, no, it really didn't happen. Look at the crosshairs in that one picture. Look at the flag. Those things don't match up with what NASA is telling us about the moon. They were never there.' That's taking one of the greatest things we have ever done and deciding that it couldn't possibly have happened because..."

His day has come.

I mean, it comes back to my whole rant about scientists needing to be proactive. We're certainly not going to get all the conspiracy theorists to suddenly say, "My word! I have been adhering to a dogma based around spurious evidence, and it really doesn't make a difference! I have seen the error in my ways, and I will honor science in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the biology, the chemistry, and the physics. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!"

And as Thierry Meyssan said, "IT'S ALL A BIG LIE."

And of course, there's nothing that we can really do about parents teaching their children what they're going to teach them. But good Lord, schools are NOT supposed to be where kids are hearing that sort of thing. I remember my 8th Grade Science teacher being one of these types (more with, "THERE'S A SUPERVOLCANO UNDER YELLOWSTONE THAT'S GOING TO EXPLODE. ALUMINUM IN DEODORANT CAUSES ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE." (and no, there's no apostrophe, because Alzheimer) "ALSO PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES ARE SUPPRESSING THE CURE FOR CANCER AND AIDS, WHICH IS LIKE THIS LITTLE SOAP BUBBLE THING THAT WILL DISRUPT MEMBRANES." So, yeah. This beef isn't just with Farouk and the instances I saw at Joliot-Curie.

As is often the case, XKCD says it better.

That's right. The school was called Joliot-Curie. (You know, for Irène Joliot-Curie. The French lady that won that Swedish honor in some science. Oh, gosh. If only I could remember the name of that award. Hmm... The Duke Grant? No, that's something else. The Patrician Award? Ah well, it'll come to me eventually.) What do you think she'd make of all this? Shall we slap them in her face a bit more with our ideas about how science ACTUALLY happened (i.e., with magical fairies, or dragons, or, well, you know what I'm going to say next (it's aliens))?

Geez, and we wonder why kids don't do well in science. If they can't believe in it, why should they care? I mean, a conspiracy theory (or a conspiracy, period) spices up history and literature and the rest of the humanities, but in science? The kids stop trusting it, so they stop getting excited about it, and they stop seeing the point in actually understanding it, because we clearly can't do much with it. (I won't speak about math conspiracies, because I'm not sure how that would even work. "Kids, gather round as I tell you about the tyranny of the decimal system and how it's been lying to you for years. Did you know 6 x 9 can be 54? It can! You just have to belieeeeeeve it." (..and do a base change to base 13 numbers, and who knows how to count in that?)) I mean, tracking back to Farouk and the moon landing, who hasn't been a kid and wanted to be an astronaut? I mean, I grew out of that when I found out that space will make you lose your bones and can cause problems with your heart, but still- I wanted to be an astronaut at one point. Space is the one area where the kids can see what you're talking about (unlike cells and atoms and the like), where they can actually do/make things involving it without a bunch of safety precautions (unlike electricity and the like), and where it's exciting and unexplored (unlike rocks and plants). It's what starts a lot of kids off in liking science, and then they get excited about blowing things up in chemistry and getting to dissect a frog in bio. Take that wonder away, disillusion them early, and you get students who won't get excited about the harder (but really interesting) subjects later on.

That said, I have no idea how to fix it. Teachers need the freedom to teach effectively, and kids need to be able to deal with conspiracy theories when they hear them. But for the love of God, keep them away from our science and outside the classroom. We already have plenty of adults who buy into some of this crap. Hell, they keep getting publicity and get to talk to the UN (because that is a wonderful use of the international community's time and in no way sullies what the UN represents). The last thing we need is to start teaching it to children.

Have some glow kitties.

Wherein Alan Rickman swears a bit

And I had such high hopes about getting this started early. Instead, I've been looking at the screen for about 30 minutes, trying to figure out how to start things out. In fact, I think it's time that I bring my good friend Jim into play.


This had to go in here somewhere.

No, Jim's not the deer. That would be ridiculous, calling a deer Jim. (They prefer names like Grachn'r, Destroyer of Tree Bark. Or Janice.) No, Jim is my deer (WOCKA WOCKA. That was totally an intentional pun and was certainly not, under any circumstances, me misspelling the word "dear." That would just be absurd and foolish.) friend that I'm about to pour into a glass with some water and ice. If I had some ginger ale, I would totally rock some of that. One of the many joys of living in the Charleston area. Well, the South in general, really.

Wrong one. Also, ew.

God. That is freaking delicious. Oh, Jim. You're so good at helping with the writer's block. Well, I suppose it's not actually Jim. I intend to pretend it is for the duration. I'm still not rightly sure how I didn't get into this more in college. I suppose I was cultivating my taste for gin and the like. But my burgeoning alcoholism is not what we're going to be talking about (well, me, but we'll pretend that there are several of me, because wouldn't that just make things so much easier?).



Sean Connery is pointing a glass at you.

Well, there was once an idea about what to write about (ooh what to write about), but I think that it rather petered out. Time for something new, I suppose. Let's go to the random sentence generator for some ideas.

"Whatever required tutorial opposes another storm." Hmm. Nope. Not really helping. What else you got?

"The impressive variant errs." There's a commercial with a male lion stalking antelope (with night vision goggles). Come on, Geico. Third graders know that's not right. You can do better. Uh oh, and apparently cafinated shampoo has become the vogue. Yes, I just ran into a streak of describing commercials. Let's get away from that. Let's get away that and grab some candy.

I have strong suscpicions that this won't go well with the bourbon. Also, this TV has gotten straight up distracting, so off it goes. And 20 minutes later, I'm still only this far. I have got to lead a more interesting life.

You know what? Screw it. It's story time. I would post a picture around here, but Bing Images doesn't really have anything that fits the theme I'd be going for there (namely, angry storyteller).

I remember one of the big questions that they asked me in practice interviews for med school was, "Why do you want to be a doctor?" I was able to come up with a decent set of answers for the two times I got asked that during interviews (despite my pre-med committee implying that I would fail because I didn't know what I was doing. You were very wrong, and you have no idea how most MD/PhD interviews go. Good day.), it was almost always theoretical. I hadn't done much (okay, any) shadowing, and I certainly didn't have any profound and good patient experiences to share (and I count my blessings that I didn't). I had gotten sick just about once a year in elementary school, usually with ear infections and strep throat, and I got a couple of ear infections in high school. Aside from the broken collarbone and camp physicals, I don't think I ever really went to the doctor. Even then, the doctor that we had (although a solid doctor who was good at forming relationships with patients, as you would like in a family practitioner) tried to talk me out of going into medicine.

So, obviously, I didn't have much in terms of good things to say about medicine. But oh boy, did I have a bad story. And unlike some others (see: broken clavicle, the time I went blind), the Boy Scouts were not involved.

Imagine, if you will, a young Rob. He would be, oh, probably 9 years old at this point. Let's see if there's a picture of 9 year old Rob, because I'm feeling self-deprecating right now, and laughs might be had by all.

Okay, maybe it's a bit early. but as you can see, I was always a stylish so and so.

So 9 year old Rob has a bit of a sore throat. It's not too bad- he's had strep throat before by this point, and that was much worse than this. It's just a little achey, but, gosh, it's just super swollen.

A few days pass, and the threshold for a Cameron going to the doctor has been reached. We head on over to an urgent care clinic so we can get things sorted out. We get in, get me weighed and measured, vital signs were taken I'm sure, and all health care providers surely washed their hands.

Dr. Semmelweis is always watching. Always.

Keep in mind, I'm in 4th grade at this point. This will become important as we see how just terrible this doctor is going to be.

So, the doctor comes in and asks some questions. We answer, I'm sure, perfectly dutifully. This part, I don't remember too well. I was in some degree of pain, and, well, how often do you remember all the details of a medical interview from 15 years ago? Probably not often. I do, however, remember what came next.

So, first up, the doctor (a young guy who I now realize was probably a radiology resident or some such moonlighting, because there's no way that any sort of pediatrician or other non-surgeon would have such awful bedside manner) decides that I'm just such a ladies man that I must have mono. You know, the kissing disease that's most prevalent between 15 and 35. I'm 9, and while eager to get started on the wide world of women, lack (and, well, still lack at 24) the requisite social skills to be going around contracting or spreading mono at will. This doctor, though, he clearly saw promise in me, because he wanted that blood test. I mean, I guess that looking at blood under a microscope is probably cheaper than checking for antibodies/antigens and the like (of course, that assumes that they're doing a blood smear rather than the Monospot, but whatever. We'll assume that they're just looking, because otherwise there's an added layer of stunned head cocking), but still. Even with the swollen throat (which was really the chief concern), do you want to be thinking mono in a 9 year old?

Look at those ballerina skirts! Mmm reactive lymphocytes.

But, you know, okay. That makes some degree of sense, age aside, and at 9 years old, I certainly wouldn't have known that I need to be 15 to get mono, and I'm sure that EBV and CMV don't know that I need to be between 15 and 35 for them to get to cause mono in me. That's cool. The test came back negative, so the point was a bit on the moot side.

So, to recap where we are so far. We have a 9 year old white male presenting with a chief complaint of a swollen and sore throat. He's up to date on his vaccinations, and he's had strep throat in the past. It doesn't quite feel like strep throat to the patient, but the throat is still sore. Testing for mononucleosis is negative. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO, JACK?



Shoot the hostage, of course.

Well, if you said "Get an X-ray for cancer," then you're thinking like this guy. You know what? Getting the X-ray itself? Not that bad. I mean, it's worth ruling out, I suppose. Thing is, here's how the conversation pretty much went.

Dad and I are sitting in the office. I've got my feet all dangling over the side of the table. Maybe I had a Game Boy or a book. Probably the Game Boy.

Doctor comes in. "Okay, so the test for mono was negative. We're going to take an X-ray to see if you have cancer. Come on."

... WHAT.

I mean, if memory serves, I took it a little better than my dad did, because he was (rightly) freaked. Cancer? Geeeez. That's rough. Meanwhile, I'm basically thinking, "Okay. Cancer. Huh. Wonder what happens next?"

I mean, seriously? Seriously? You couldn't have taken the parent aside and broken the news a bit more gently? You couldn't have involved the patients a bit more in that before just going with cancer? And, hey, maybe you could have done the quick test that would rule out what it ACTUALLY was before jumping to cancer?

Let me reiterate with a larger GIF.

Yeah. That's right. It was strep throat. Maybe it wasn't the most classical presentation, but geez. Try to eliminate the obvious (and innocuous) things first. If those are wrong, then, sure, maybe it's time to think outside the box a little bit more, but you would think that you would go for the obvious disease (given age and symptoms) rather than going for one that doesn't fit the age or the one that a.) will be hanging around for a bit if it IS there and b.) is going to (possibly needlessly) scare the living daylights out of the family just by testing.

Fast forward to, well, close enough to now. You want to know why I want to do medicine? It really has nothing to do with this story. I want to help people. I want them to go home nice and happy, and I want them to understand what's going on with their bodies to a reasonable degree. I want to have an impact on people's lives. If that's not good enough (which, according to those professors at Davidson who gave me that mock-interview, it really wasn't), I've got a great-grandfather that I never met (but who was apparently straight up AWESOME) who was a doctor. I don't really have the family history of practicing medicine. I do, however, have a story about how a doctor really, REALLY could have done better. I could have done better at 9 (well, with the bedside manner. I was still trying to figure out these weird fraction things, so I don't have illusions about having been a good doctor.). I can do better now. And in however many years it takes for me to get out of med school and get the big M and D next to my name (with a possibly bigger set of a P, h, and D), I'm going to go out there and do that. And if a 9 year old comes into my office with a sore throat, he's getting a cotton swab to the pharynx, because that keeps him from getting an open wound or getting blasted with a bunch of low energy gamma radiation. So, sure. He won't get to be Hulk, or Spiderman, or that newfangled Doctor Doctor that's cleaning up the streets of Charleston in a dashingly roguish manner, but I certainly don't need the competition. I mean, Doctor Doctor doesn't need the competition. I am certainly NOT Doctor Doctor, but I'm sure that he's quite handsome, LADIES.

Artist's rendering.