Category: Platypus people

The introduction of the platypus was such a shock to the British scientific community, in the early 1900’s, that they considered the monotreme an elaborate, well-conceived hoax. They thought they had the animal kingdom all figured out. Those of us who know some platypus people empathize, for when they began to express themselves we thought they were joking. We thought we had human nature all figured out. As we learn more about them, we realize they’re not kidding, and our shock turns to intrigue, as we begin to think they might be able to teach us more about ourselves from their funhouse mirror perspective.

The Thief’s Mentality

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The best thief I ever knew accused me of stealing, lying, and cheating so often that I began to question my integrity. A woman I dated cheated on me so often that I’m still embarrassed that I wasn’t more aware of her infidelities. Her octopus ink involved her accusing me of cheating on her, and she did it so often that I forgot to pay attention to what she was doing to me. If their goals were to prevent me from analyzing them, they did an excellent job because I spent most of my time defending myself around them. Some might call what they did projection, others might call it deflection or obfuscation, but I believe the games these people played fall under a comprehensive, multi-tiered umbrella I call the thief’s mentality.

Kurt Lee introduced me to the confusing mind of a deceptive person. The art of deception was such a key component of his personality that he thought he was able to spot transgressions gestating in the minds of those around us. In the manner a professional saxophone player spots nuances in the play of another, Kurt Lee spotted the intricacies of manipulation around him, and he did so from the same angle of admiration. Yet, he put so much effort and focus into tuning into their frequencies that his instincts often led him astray.

Kurt taught me more about deception than any other person I’ve encountered, movie I’ve watched, or book I’ve read on the subject. He would serve as my prototype for those who would exhibit a wide array of similar traits, traits I would only later deem the characteristics of the thief’s mentality.

The most interesting aspect about him, a characteristic that might defy that which I will describe throughout this piece, was his charm. When it served him, Kurt Lee could be the nicest, most engaging, and infectious person you’ve ever met. He was also a funny guy, and genuinely funny types have a way of disarming us, unless we stick around long enough to learn more about the games they play.

Those who knew Kurt Lee, on a superficial level, envied him for the ways in which he openly defied authority figures without guilt. Those who actually spent as much time around Kurt Lee as I did, however, witnessed that for all the charisma a piece of work (POS) displays, they ultimately end up destroying themselves from the inside out.

One afternoon while on a city bus, Kurt decided to play with the crocheted ball on top of the stocking cap of the elderly woman who sat in front of him. My role in this spectacle may be one of the things I have to answer for on Judgment Day, because I found his appalling act hysterical.

I was young, we both were, but I was so fascinated by this that I now ask myself why? I was learning and learning takes all shapes. We learn Geometry, History, and what to do and what not to do from our peers. We also learn answers to the question of why a young male, in the prime of his life, shouldn’t play with ball atop an old woman’s stocking cap. We learn the difference between a Kurt Lee and ourselves, and the answers are fascinating. Is it all about morality, I asked myself, or does it have more to do with common decency? My mother taught me that when a young, healthy male sees an elderly woman sitting alone, he should smile at her and try to think up something kind to say to brighten her day. My mother taught me to hold the door for her, and she said that I should consider it a privilege to give up my seat to that woman on the city bus, if no other seats were available.

Not only did Kurt Lee ignore those conventions, he chose to pursue the opposite. He chose to violate the sense of security of one of most vulnerable member of our culture by playing with the ball atop her stocking cap. It was wrong on so many levels, of course, but it was also a fascinating exploration of human nature. How would this old woman react? How would a real POS counter her reaction? Why did he do it in the first place? Did he think he would get away with it? Did he even care? I would never know the answer to the latter questions, because I didn’t know Kurt on that level, but my fascination with the answers to the former led me to urge him on with laughter. That was wrong, too, of course, but I now believe my laughter was borne of curiosity. I wanted to learn more about the moral codes by which we all abide. I hoped to learn all that by watching another solidify my rationale, with no regard for the consequences of violating them. My thinking was not that complex, at the time, but I couldn’t wait to see how this episode would end, and I dare say that most of those who are more successful in abiding by the standards our mothers taught us would not have been able to look away either.

The vulnerable, elderly woman eventually turned on Kurt, and she did so with an angry expression. She allowed the first few flicks of the ball atop her stocking cap go, presumably taking a moment to muster up the courage to tell him off, and then she gave him that angry look. Kurt Lee appeared ready to concede to that initial, nonverbal admonition, until he saw me laughing. Egged on by me, he did it three more times before she reached a point of absolute frustration that led her to say something along the lines of, “Stop it, you young punk!”

To that, Kurt began thrusting his hips forward in his seat, while looking at me, whispering, “She just wants unusual carnal relations!” As a teenager trying to elicit more laughter from another teen, Kurt Lee did not use that term. He selected the most vulgar term he could to describe his extrapolation of her desires.

***

Had Kurt Lee decided to stick his middle finger up in the face of a healthier, younger adult, it would have been just as difficult to avoid watching. The fact that he chose such a sacred cow of our culture for his rebellion, however, made his actions over-the-top hilarious. In my young, unformed mind, this was a real life equivalent to David Letterman’s man-on-the-street segments, taken up ten notches on the bold-o-meter. I would later learn that Kurt’s motivations did not involve making profound statements about our societal conventions. He just did things. He was a doer, and doers just do what they do and leave all of the messy interpretations of what they do to others. I would later learn, by watching Kurt Lee, that he selected his victims based on their inability to fight back. In this vein, Kurt Lee was something of a coward, but I couldn’t know the full scope of Kurt Lee at the time. At the time, I found his actions so bold that I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t stop laughing.

I encountered a wide variety of thieves in the decades that followed Kurt Lee, but they paled in comparison to his mentality, his philosophy, and what drove him to be so different from everyone I had ever met. To listen to him speak on the topic, however, there was nothing different about Kurt Lee. He believed he simply had the courage of his convictions. He ascribed to the more conventional line of thought that we were all afraid to be like him, but he added that the rest of us have had this part of our makeup denied to us by our parents and teachers for so long that we now believe we are different. The import of his message was that this was not about me, and it was not about him. It’s about human nature and the thief’s mentality.

“If you could get away with it, you’d do it too,” was his answer to questions we posed. “You mean to tell me you’ve never stolen anything? Ever? All right then, let’s talk about reality.” Kurt Lee was a thief, and like most thieves, he did not defend his position from the position of being a thief. He would substitute an exaggeration of your moral qualms regarding thievery, claiming that any person who has stolen even once is in no position to judge someone who steals on a regular basis.

In short bursts, and on topic, Kurt Lee could lower the most skilled debater to the ground. We called him a master debater, with the innuendo intended, because it was almost impossible to pin him down on specifics. It was a joy to watch. Prolonged exposure, however, opened up all these windows into his soul.

When we asked him how a guy from the sticks could afford the latest, top-of-the-line zipper pants, a pair of sunglasses that would put an employed fella back two weeks’ pay, and an original, signed copy of the Rolling Stones, Some Girls. He would tell us, but even his most ardent defender had a hard time believing Santa Claus would be that generous to even the nicest kids on his list.

Kurt Lee stole so often by the time I came to know him, the act of shoplifting lost much of its thrill. He decided to challenge himself in a manner top athletes, and top news anchors do, by hiring third-party analysts to scrutinize the minutiae of their performance. He asked me to watch him steal baseball cards from a baseball card shop owner that we agreed needed to learn a lesson, because the man refused to buy our cards 99 percent of the time. On those rare occasions when he agreed to buy them, his offers were so low they were almost insulting.

I posed a theory about our transactions with this shop owner. I theorized that the intent behind his frequent refusals to buy our cards was to establish his bona fides as a resident expert of value. That way, when he informed us that any of our cards were of value, we were ready to jump at the chance, no matter what amount he offered. “By doing so,” I concluded, “he actually makes us feel more valuable, because we think we finally have something worthy of one of his offers.”

“You’re right,” Kurt Lee said. “Let’s get him.”

I felt validated for coming up with a theory that Kurt Lee accepted, but in hindsight, I think Kurt Lee would’ve used anything I said to motivate me to conspire against the owner.

“One thing,” Kurt Lee said before we entered. “I don’t know if this needs to be said, but I’m going to say it anyway. Don’t watch me, don’t talk to me, and be careful about how often you look at me. Don’t try to avoid looking at me either.” When I laughed at that, a laugh that expressed some confusion, he added, “Just don’t do anything stupid or too obvious.”

I had reservations, of course, but I considered this an invitation into a world I never knew, and Kurt Lee’s provisos might have been necessary, because I was not only excited by Kurt’s invitation, I was just as nervous and scared. I was what a number of senior citizens called a good kid, and up until the moment I met Kurt Lee, I led a very sheltered existence. Before entering the baseball call shop, I considered the idea that my foreknowledge of this crime could implicate me as an accessory, but I couldn’t shake the asexual intimacy Kurt Lee was sharing with me, with this invitation into his world.

Standing near the door stop, Kurt Lee opened his pockets, in the manner a magician might, and he asked me to confirm that he had no cards in his pockets. I considered that an unusual act of bravado, but I didn’t stop to think about what it implied in the moment.

Throughout the course of our hour spent in the shop, I didn’t witness Kurt Lee steal one thing, and I mocked him for it. “What happened? I thought you were going to steal something,” I said as we stood outside the store. “I’m beginning to think you’re chicken.”

He allowed me to mock him without saying a word. When I finished, he opened his jacket to show me his inner pockets. What I saw knocked me back a couple steps. I actually took a step back when I witnessed the number of baseball cards that lined his inner pockets. I would’ve been impressed if he displayed one card, and three or four would’ve shocked me, but the sheer number of cards he stole without me noticing one act of thievery, led me to believe that Kurt Lee wasted his abilities on the petty act of shoplifting. I considered telling him to try his hand at being a magician for I thought what I just witnessed the skills of a maestro of deception. I was so shocked I couldn’t think of anything to say. If I could’ve managed words, I would’ve said something nerdy about how I thought Kurt should find a way to employ this skill in a marketable way. 

Soon after recovering from that shock, I began to wonder how one acquires such a deft hand. As with any acquired skill, there is some level of trial and error involved, and nestled within that lies the need to find a utility that permits the thief to proceed uninhibited by shame. A skilled performer in the arts or athletics delights in displaying their ability to the world, in other words, but a thief has to operate in the shadows, and they acquire their skill with a modicum of shame attached. Success as a thief, it would seem to those of us on the outside looking in, requires the potential thief to either defeat that sense of shame or find a way to manage it.

Shame, some argue, like other unpleasant emotions, becomes more manageable with greater familiarity. When a father introduces shame to his child, in the brutal assessments he makes regarding the value of his kid, the child becomes intimately familiar with shame before they are old enough to combat it. When such brutal assessments are then echoed by a mother’s concern that their child can’t do anything right, the combined effort can have a profound effect on a child. When those parents then console the child with a suggestion that while the child may be a bad seed, but they’re no worse than anyone else is, something gestates in the child. The moral relativism spawned from these interactions suggests that the search for the definitions of right and wrong is over, and the sooner the child accepts that, the more honest they will become. Seeing their mother scold a teacher for punishing their child for a transgression only clarifies this confusion a little more. In that relativist scolding, the child hears their mother inform the teacher that their child can do no wrong, and they see her unconditional support firsthand. Over time, the child must acknowledge that their parents will not always be there, so they will need to develop internal defense mechanisms in line with what they’re learned. The child also learns to accept these realities for what they are, for the Lee family has never had the courage necessary to commit suicide.

I hated discounting the level of individual ingenuity on Kurt Lee’s part, but he was simply too good at the various forms of deception for it to have been something he arrived at on his own. Attempting to source it might be a fool’s errand, but I wondered if I were able to sort through Kurt’s genealogical tree, if I might find sedimentary layers of grievance, envy, frustration, and desperation that worked their way down to him. To those who consider seeking evidence of foundational layers a bit of a stretch, I ask how much of our lives do we spend rebelling against, and acquiescing to parental influence, and how many of us can say we are entirely free from it?

Poker players tell me that everyone has what they call a tell, which is a twitch, a habit, or a characteristic that we cannot hide when we’re attempting to deceive. “It’s your job to find it during the game,” they say. I don’t doubt what they say. I’m sure we all have tells, and I probably have a ton of them, because I get nervous when I’m being deceitful. When I stole, I felt guilty, ashamed, and I had anxiety issues. What if I kept doing it? What if I had decades of experience? Would I get better at it, and would I find a mechanism to drain the shame of it all? Some in the field of neurology even suggest that research shows that our brains change when we lie more often. Does someone with a thief’s mentality hone the ability to manage emotions most of us normally experience with theft, lying, and cheating so well that it would take a maestro of deception to spot them in the poker game?  

I was so obsessed with this, at one point, that I accidentally stepped over the line between being curious and badgering, something Kurt Lee made apparent in his volatile reaction:

“You think you’re better than me?” Kurt Lee asked, employing the universal get-out-of-judgment free card of moral relativism. This time-honored redirect relies on the lessons taught to us by our mothers, that we are no better than anyone else is, but Kurt’s rant began to spiral out of control when he tried to pivot to what he believed its logical extension.

If no one is better than anyone else is and everyone resides on the cusp of whatever Kurt Lee was, the logical extension required the inclusion of an individual that many perceived to be so harmless it was almost laughable to suggest otherwise. The individual, in this case, was a kid named Pete Pestroni. If Kurt Lee’s arguments were going to hold water, the idea that Pete Pestroni was a wolf in sheep’s clothing would have to become an agreed upon fact. I’m still not sure why Kurt Lee went down the Pete Pestroni road so often, but I suspect it had something to do with the idea that if Pete was immune, in one form or another, everyone else had to be too. In Kurt’s estimation, Pete was just too weak, or too scared, to let his inner-wolf run wild. We would laugh at the implausibility of Pete Pestroni having a Kurt Lee trapped inside, a thief dying to come out, but our intention was to laugh with Kurt Lee. He wouldn’t even smile, however, because some part of him believed that if everyone was a thief, then no one was, at least to the point of separating the thief out for comparative analysis. This was a sacred chapter in Kurt Lee’s personal bible, and an ingredient of the thief’s mentality that took me decades to grasp completely.

The thief’s mentality is a mindset that involves a redirect of exposing an uncomfortable truth, or a hypocrisy, in others, so that the thief might escape a level of scrutiny that could lead to an uncomfortable level of introspection. An individual with a thief’s mentality may steal, but that person is just as apt to lie and cheat. The thief’s mentality begins as a coping mechanism for dealing with the character flaws that drive them to do what they do, but it progresses from those harmless, white lies to a form of deception that requires a generational foundation. 

The thief’s mentality requires deflection, by way of subterfuge, as a means to explain the carrier’s inability to trust beyond the point that they should be trusted, but some thieves’ outward distrust of others reaches a point of exaggeration that says far more about them than those they accuse. Their cynicism is their objectivity, and others’ faith in humanity is a subjective viewpoint, one that we must bear. We live in a dog-eat-dog, screw-or-be-screwed world in which those who trust anyone outside their own homes are naïve to the point of hopelessness. If the listener is to have any hope of surviving in such a world, it is incumbent upon them to see passed the façades and through the veneer, others present to the truth.

The truth, in Kurt Lee’s worldview, held that TV anchors with fourteen-inch parts, and perfect teeth, ended their days by going home to beat their wives. He didn’t believe that a person could attain wealth by honest means. He insisted that because some states convicted some Catholic priests as pedophiles that meant all Catholic priests were, and he had a particular fascination with infidelity in the White House. “You think JFK and Clinton are different? They’re just the ones that got caught is all.” There was also his contention that little old ladies who complained about having someone toy with the balls on the stocking caps just want to have unusual carnal relations. As with most tenets of a person’s worldview, there was some grain of truth in Kurt Lee’s, but he often had to put forth a great deal of effort to support it.

In most such discussions, Kurt Lee’s audience was immune. “I’m not talking about you,” he would say to his audience, so they might view the subject matter from a shared perspective. If we began to view ourselves as an ally, we might join him in convincing our world that he’s not that bad, or the world is as bad as he is. Yet, our agreed upon immunity from his charges begins to fracture in the course of the thief’s logical extensions. When that happens, the thief turns their accusations on us. We might consider ourselves all virtuous and moral, but the thief knows everything there is to know about hidden agendas. They maintain a perpetual state of readiness for that day when we break free of the constraints of morality and loyalty to expose our evil, naked underbelly to the world. The thief has us all figured out, because they know those lies we tell. It’s the thief’s mentality.

Thieves may even believe their exaggerated or false accusations, regardless of all we’ve done to establish ourselves as good, honest people. The validity of their accusation, however, pales in comparison to their need to keep us, the subjects of their accusations, in a perpetual state of trustworthiness. Kurt Lee, and my adventurous ex-girlfriend, made their accusations to keep me in check in a manner they knew I should’ve kept them in check. The import of that line provides us a key to understanding why an individual with a thief’s mentality would make such a charge against us, and the Pete Pestronis of the world who are so honest it’s laughable to suggest otherwise. Some might call such accusations psychological projection, the inclination one has to either deny or defend their qualities by exaggerating comparative examples in everyone else. Others might say that it’s some sort of deflection or obfuscation on the part of the thief, but I believe it all falls under a comprehensive, multi-tiered umbrella that I call the thief’s mentality. Still others might suggest that Kurt Lee’s accusations were born of theories he had about me, the people around him, and humanity in general. If that is the case, his theories were autobiographical.

Whether it was as complex as all that on an unconscious level, or some simple measures Kurt Lee developed over the years to prevent people from calling him a POS, I witnessed some try to turn the table him on the accusations by telling Kurt Lee that other people trust them. “What are you talking about?” they’d ask when Kurt would start in on one of his ‘You’re no better than me’ rants. “My guess is when you come over for family reunions, your aunts and uncles hide their wallets and purses. They don’t do that to me, because I don’t steal, cheat and lie.”

Kurt Lee’s response to this was so clever that I thought it beyond his years. Again, I hate to discount individual ingenuity, but it just seemed too clever for Kurt to deliver as quickly as he did when he said:

“So, if someone trusts you think that means that you’re trustworthy?” Kurt Lee responded. He said the word trustworthy, as if it was an accusation, but that wasn’t the brilliant part of his response. As brilliance often does, his arrived in a section of the argument where the participants will say whatever they can to win, regardless what those words reveal. Kurt Lee suggested, in different words, that those who consider themselves a beacon of trustworthiness are suffering from a psychosis of another stripe. The reason I considered this response so perfect, as it pertained to this specific argument, was that it put the onus of being trustworthy on the person who challenged Kurt Lee’s trustworthiness. It also put further questions regarding Kurt Lee’s character –or what his inability to trust the people in his life said about him– on the back burner, until the questioner could determine whether the level of his own trustworthiness was a delusion that group thought led him to believe.

Crafting the Frame

With all that Kurt Lee taught me about this fascinating mentality, always fresh in mind, I’ve had a number of otherwise trustworthy friends ask me how to deal with the thief in their life. They failed to understand why their loved one couldn’t trust them in even the most benign arenas of life.

It stressed one of my friends out, “I don’t know what I did to damage his trust, but no one’s ever accused me of half of the things he does.” She said that she considered herself a trustworthy person, and she always had, but  she was insecure about it, as we all are. “How do I win him back? How do I regain his trust?” she asked.

“It’s not about you,” I told her. “It’s the thief’s mentality.” I didn’t enjoy saying this to her, because I was basically telling her that she was trapped in a relationship with the afflicted. I explained the mindset of the thief, as I learned it from my personal experiences with Kurt Lee, and she later told me that it helped.

“It helped in a weird way,” she said. “I finally had a name for what he did. Every time he accused me of cheating on him, or wanting to cheat on him, I’d think, it’s the thief’s mentality. It didn’t stop the accusations or the insecurity I felt afterwards, but it helped in a weird way to know that someone else went through all this. It sort of helped me frame him in a way I never considered before.” 

When I told her that she wasn’t trapped in the relationship, she said, “Oh, I know. I could dump him like yesterday’s trash,” but she never did. She ended up marrying the guy. So, whatever short-term relief she experienced with this idea that her loved one was never going to trust her anymore than he trusted himself dispelled it.

The damage thieves, like my friend’s lover and Kurt Lee, incur is irreparable. They likely do not enjoy the lives they’ve created for themselves, and the idea that they can’t even trust the one person in their lives that they could, or should, but their accusations do allow them to spread their misery around a little. It lightens their load to transfer some of their toxins to others. It also gives them a little lift to know that we are a little less trusting than we were before we met them. They must find some relief in the belief that they are not such an aberration, but this relief is temporary, as the toxins that have made them what they are as endemic to the biological chemistry as white and red blood cells. Nevertheless, it must please them to know that after our interactions with them, we now view humanity in the same cynical, all-hope-is-lost manner they do.

If it’s true that a mere two percent are self-aware and reflective, then the lack of self-awareness, at least as it pertains to what we are, and what we are to become, is as endemic to the thief’s mentality as it is in every other walk of life. Like the rest of us, thieves do not believe they live on an exaggerated pole of morality. Rather, they believe they reside in the middle, alongside the rest of us, somewhere just north of the good side of the fuzzy dividing line. They also know that we’re all tempted to do that one thing that could tick us over to the south side. What separates them, to their mind, is their lack of fear, coupled with their refusal to conform to the norms their parents and other mentors taught them. They are also keenly aware that we place most of humanity on their side of the fuzzy line because we all have problems trusting those we don’t know well enough to determine whether they will make moral decisions in life. Some take this natural state of skepticism a step further. Some thieves’ exaggerated, outward distrust for those around them says far more about them than about those they condemn and accuse. It’s the thief’s mentality.

The Balloonophilia Conflict

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“Welcome to the group, our group, of balloonophiles,” a group moderator, who chose the name Olive Branch, said to open the proceedings. “Some people call us loonies and loonatics. I see some fresh faces here today, so I’d like to welcome you all to our group.

“We balloonophiles enjoy blowing up balloons and watching others do so,” she added.

She went around the room and allowed everyone to say their name and a few things about themselves. (“Hi. My name is Jordache, and I like green olives and Octopuses”). After the tedious greetings concluded, Olive opened the floor for the discussion of the day.

In the general discussion that followed, we fresh faces learned of the philosophical divide between the two factions in Balloonophila. A group called the poppers were on one side of the aisle, and the non-poppers were on the other side. 

“Most of us use the common latex balloon,” one of the poppers explained, “but we will use the higher-quality Mylar when we have disposable cash on hand.”

“Segments of the popper faction of the balloonist community enjoy popping with a pin,” another popper explained. “Others enjoy flames, but some loonatics use shoe heels for maximum impact.”

“We non-poppers use Mylar balloons almost exclusively,” another said, “because Mylar holds up better to the oven baking process we use to make them stretchier.”

Except for the few anecdotal examples provided below, most balloonophiles engaged in these activities in conjunction with various sex acts.

“I saw a GIF the other day where a military man, a grunt, forcefully contorted a balloon into shape,” said a man called Andy. “He didn’t want to hurt the balloon, but he enjoyed making it squeal.”

Most of the introductions the loons provided were less personal than Andy, as they preferred the more instructional rhetoric to describe the philosophical conflict that developed in Balloonville between the popper and non-popper factions. Members of each group later informed me that, in a few cases, their past discussions grew heated, but for the most part, any tension that occurred between the two factions involved a subtle undercurrent that can develop between any parties who have philosophical differences. The speakers maintained that their disagreements were peaceful, and they repeated that so often that I began to believe it. Even the most peaceful arguments have sides, however, and there are always going to be some who feel the need to bolster their ranks.

“Poppers prefer to have their carnal explosion occur in conjunction with the balloon’s,” a non-popper named Elliot said to try to explain what he considered the crux of the argument. “Non-poppers, on the other hand, prefer to use the same balloon repeatedly. We consider a popper’s enjoyment of popping a balloon as unnecessarily violent, even a little sadistic.” Elliot’s characterization was the most interesting, of course, but I didn’t give it the attention it required at first. I considered it a natural flow of such discussions, as one person will always try to outdo the others, but when Elliot continued, using other devices to bolster his argument, he convinced me how important this characterization was to him.

I figured Elliot was probably a nice guy, as I watched him carry on and provide far too many details of the plight of the non-popper. I figured he was a man who followed the rules and treated people the way he wanted to be treated, but he had his moments. We all do, and we worry about what they say about us. We might think about them, and some of us might obsess over them, but the mirror can only provide so many answers. I figured that questions of morality plagued Elliot so much that he needed to find a way to soothe his soul. So, he joined a group. I wondered if Elliot had any interest in balloons before he joined this group. The first question, of course, is how would one find such a specific group without very specific needs? Maybe a friend told him about the group, like my friend told me. Maybe he thought it would be hilarious to hear people talk about sex with balloons, like I did, but somewhere in the midst of that search, he found a level of affinity for these people that led him to form some level of solidarity. Maybe he was just a lost soul in need of a group, and he just happened to find these people.

There’s nothing wrong with joining a group, of course, as we can find friends and feel a part of a community, but such groups can lead the individuals involved to develop an us versus them mentality. When we get caught up in the group mentality, we find ourselves using comparative analysis more often than self-reflection. We attempt to persuade our group, and anyone else in between, of our virtues. We hope to persuade them to our point of view to bolster the view we hope to have of ourselves, but we accidentally develop a us vs. them mentality. 

Elliot said that poppers do what they do, because “they are so unnecessarily violent that they might be sadistic”. The first question that comes to mind, when one hears such a thing is, we’re still talking about balloons right? As one who obsesses over word choices I’ve often found that the audience should consider excessive use of modifiers, particularly the adjectives they use to warn us about the other’s intentions. I’ve often found that we use our modifiers to persuade/manipulation the perception of the subject of their scorn. Elliot could’ve simply said poppers enjoy popping balloons and I don’t, but by adding those modifiers he hoped to persuade those of us with no rooting interest that those who pop balloons are bad guys, which he hoped led us to consider him a good guy by comparison.

This Elliot guy was talking about popping balloons, so the reason I didn’t pay enough attention to the guy at first. It was a silly topic on a silly evening as far as I was concerned. When this guy rambled on about how poppers were on the wrong side, I realized there was something about human nature, in general, involved in his characterization. I thought about how many philosophical arguments I’ve been in where the person I was arguing with went beyond saying I was wrong to saying I should reconsider my views before someone, somewhere called me a bad guy.

My reaction to Elliot’s comments were not an epiphany, as I had these thoughts before, but most people don’t go as far as Elliot did to label their philosophical opponents bad guys. It struck me, even as Elliot was speaking, that there is a sliding scale that some try to instill in their audience. If Elliot was able to convince those of us who have no rooting interest that poppers are wrong, he receives short term, situational satisfaction if we consider him right. If he is able to convince us that they’re bad, he might hope that we consider him good by contrast. If he convinces us that their unnecessarily violent and sadistic tendencies could be characterized as evil, then we are almost required to recognize Elliot as the beacon of virtue.

I also gleaned from the testimonials and the many comments made in the meeting that non-poppers tend to believe they attain more from a balloon in what could be termed a monogamous relationship, and this is more often than not the case when that balloon is made of Mylar and filled with air as opposed to helium. They never defined the word more in their descriptions, nor did the non-poppers ever use the word monogamous. Many in the non-popper community approached the ideas in different ways, however, and they left them as a standalone, which I assume to be a self-evident proposition of theirs.

The testimonies were such that I gathered that the non-poppers were the more sanctimonious of the two, but the poppers had their own level of sanctimony. Some of the poppers alluded to the idea that the non-poppers were complete wusses for their aversions to loud noises.

“…And the loud noises are where it’s at,” said a man with the alias of Jim (his preferred moniker if I should ever publish this piece). “There is something exhilarating about rubbing your fingers along a balloon that is inflated to maximum capacity. The sounds it makes does something that those with an aversion to loud noises will never understand, they’re like screams or something.”

✽✽✽

“There are a number of theories regarding the origin of the balloonophile,” Olive Branch said after the intros were complete, and the discussion of the differences between the two factions subsided. “I know we’ve discussed them before, but I thought we might address the issue again for some of our newer members.” Olive didn’t look at me when she said this, but the energy of the room made an obvious shift in my direction.

I wasn’t sure if I was the lone new member, as that was never addressed, even in the introductory period, but I apparently stood out more than the others did, because most of the speakers chose to direct their focus on me.

“Some have suggested that balloonophiles are borne of castration anxiety,” Olive continued, “or a denial of breastfeeding. They also suggest that some go too far in their endeavors that they advance to a stage in their pursuit of therapy when they manage to replace the natural need for human contact and become irretrievable in a psychological manner. How many of us think these theories hold any measure of truth?”

A chorus of “No’s” went around the table. They expounded on their rejection of these ideas a little, but as with most attempts to disprove theories regarding the essence of one’s nature, the ballonophiles didn’t feel a need to bolster their rejections of these notions with what I considered constructive refutation.

Terrance Gill, a non-popper, chuckled at the very idea that castration anxiety was even a theory, and a few others parroted his position with soft chuckles of their own.

“What about the Freudian breastfeeding theory?” Olive asked.

One balloonophile informed the group, “I might have been breastfed too long, according to what my mother told me.” Two others offered anecdotal attempts to refute the breastfeeding theory until it became obvious that most of the attendees were more comfortable with their personal, anecdotal refutations. Various members began branching out from these refutations to personal experiences they had with other theories, and their refutations of them teed up other members to bolster their refutations with quick affirming tidbits. At the end of this particular stretch, the otherwise combative groups appeared satisfied with themselves for offering the new attendees the group’s version of Origin of Species.

I, however, didn’t think any of them offered one piece of solid refutation. They seemed obsessed with distracting and obfuscating the central point of Olive Branch’s question. I was a quiet observer at this point, nothing more and nothing less. My smile was level and polite throughout. I even allowed most of the rejections of theories to pass without comment. It wasn’t in my nature to remain silent for long, however, and this aspect of my personality was even more difficult to maintain as the attempts to defeat what these individuals believed to be anecdotal theories proved so anecdotal.

“Everyone is not a damned anomaly!” I said.

At that, the group was shocked. If shocked is a self-serving description, how about silent. In the wake of a challenge of what I considered their self-serving descriptions, they said nothing. In the space of the silence that followed I realized that they might have thought I argued from some point of certitude that I was right and they were wrong. If I thought of it at the time, I would’ve disavowed them of this notion, for how can one be right or wrong on such matters? I did recognize the general idea that I was a bit ahead of myself, and I probably overstepped my station by questioning them in such an outburst.

“I’m sorry,” I said, too little, too late. “It just gnaws at me when people invest so much energy in telling people what they are not, and they fail to put any thought in what they are, or how they came to be.

“Most people are much more comfortable telling an interested party that other’s theories about them are either wrong or that they happen to be anomalous to those theories,” I continued. “They want people to believe that anyone who tries to figure them out is wasting their time. I have no problem with the idea that you think you’re complicated. Don’t get me wrong. That said, let’s dig through those complications. Let’s try to find a truth that lies somewhere between simple logic and what I consider a lack of objectivity on your part.”

“No one is objective,” Elliot said. “I’m not objective. You’re not objective. Even if the only team you’re rooting for is your own, you still have a rooting interest.”

“Fair enough,” I said, suspecting that Elliot was parsing my words and attempting to divert the subject with my poor choice of words. “But we’ve developed simple rules of logic in our studies regarding human nature, to govern our ways of life. Within those agreed upon understandings lies a belief that I turned out the way I did, because of the conditions in which my parents raised me. The economic conditions in which they raised me played a role, the locale of my upbringing, and various other social conditions affected the person I am now. While there will always be some anomalies to these findings, not everyone can be one. The fact that most people believe they are anomalous to every rule just reiterates to me that self-examination is sorely lacking, but I don’t think it suggests that there is anything wrong with the general rules we’ve established. I’ve asked various people if it’s true that those from their specific locale tend to be, and believe, what others tell me they believe. They say, “Oh, that’s such a generality.” We’ve all fallen in love with that line, as if it refutes the general rules we’ve established. They don’t say anything else, and they expect us all to walk away, as if that’s an acceptable answer. I’m saying stop that. We need to find a way to expound on the reasons why the general rules we lay out are generally incorrect. I don’t care if you and your second-cousin Janet are specific exceptions to the general rule. If you are anomalous to the theories Olive just laid out, we should dig deeper into these theories, to see if there are any commonalities. If there aren’t, we should explore that possibility to locate the countervailing realities we share. Aren’t you interested in what makes you who you are?”

One is never sure how others will receive such a rant. We’d like to think we present such profundity that the silence that follows is just a pendulum, waiting to swing the group in our favor, but I had no such delusions. I was, however, confident in the idea that what I had to say was thoughtful and that my conclusions were, at the very least, worthy of consideration. That belief, like many presumptions and assumptions proved false.

“They just are,” non-popper, Vicki Lerner, explained. She looked around for a brief, pregnant moment. “We just … are.”

That gained Vicky some good vibes from the others. No one offered her words of thanks or congratulations, but the positive energy of the room swung in her direction.

I smiled at her words and the unspoken accolades that followed, but I intended that smile to conceal my fatigue. A second after Vicki said that, I realized I should’ve qualified my statements, “And you cannot just say, ‘We just are.’ You cannot say, ‘And on the eighth day, God created the balloon people.’” 

“There has to be a reason some of you have this predilection.” I said. “I can pretty much trace all the things that led me to being the way I am.”

“Why do you need labels?” Terrance Gill asked me. “Balloonville is not about labels.” 

They all enjoyed that. Captain Federico, an obvious toucher, even reached out to touch Terrance’s leg. He pointed to Terrance’s face, and then pumped his eyebrows at Terrance.

“You spoke of a lack of examination,” Jim said. “Let’s examine you for a moment. Why do you need very specific answers to your specific questions? Is there a part of you that abhors chaos so much that you pledge to fight the random wherever it rears its head? Have you always been this way? Do you think you have life all figured out? On the other hand, maybe you’ve reached the point when matters such as these make so little sense that you have to jam sense into it. Why can’t they just be? Why can’t we just be? Some of the times, things are random. Some of the times people are just different. Sometimes people just become what they are by a random series of events.”

“That is true,” I said, “It’s undeniably true, but I think if we all examine our differences and those events that seem to be random, we might find some correlations that lessen the randomness of it all.”

The idea that the group never welcomed dissent into their origin-of-species discussions was obvious by their initial, silent shock and the follow-up counterpoints. I won’t bore the reader with the remaining counterpoints, as most were redundant and circuitous and they focused on the agreed-upon theme that balloonophiles are just what they say they are. We did arrive at one collective conclusion, albeit an unspoken one, that I was the one with the problem, and the discussion that followed suggested that we all grew a little closer in the aftermath of that conclusion.

“I view the use of balloons in foreplay as an indicator of confidence,” a man named Mel said. “I don’t use balloons as often as some in our group do, but it’s an excellent device to use when trying to switch things up. Most people feel weird involving balloons in foreplay, yet they have no problem with other, more acceptable devices. Most people don’t know what we can do with balloons, and when they find out, they’re weirded out by it. A person who can work their way past that displays an overwhelming amount of confidence I find sexy.”

As the only person to confess that his fascination might be deep rooted and psychological, Mel stated that he saw balloons as “a physiological substitute that, when ingested by a female, can achieve excitation. This is often the case when said female pops the balloon upon total immersion.” As a member of the popping camp, Mel admitted to “having an inflation fetish that occurs in a manner similar to sudden expansion of body parts.”

“The popping can be violently dramatic when it’s timed just right,” a stage performer who engaged in total balloon immersion in her act, said to agree Mel’s assessment. She was excited by Mel’s confession, and she was all but hopping in her seat throughout. She said “Yes!” three times before Mel concluded, and she could begin. “The fascination with balloons and their relationship to some kind of allure is more widespread than even this group realizes. A performer has to know how to do it though. It can be very theatrical in experienced hands, with proper attention paid to detail and timing. To those who watch my act and assume it’s easy, I always say, ‘You try it!’” 

Non-poppers do not all have a general aversion to loud noises, just like not all poppers demand well-timed explosions. Some non-poppers view well-timed, loud noises as arousing, as opposed to the ligyrophobic terror they experience with other, sudden loud noises.

This idea of ligyrophobia, or the fear of loud noises, was introduced by a non-popper named Brett. “Some kids grow out of it, I never did. I hole myself up in my apartment during July 4th, and try to block out all sound as best I can, but for some reason I enjoy popping balloons on occasion. It’s like a controlled, non-threatening way to tweak my fears,” said a man named Brett. “Gil here calls me bacurious.”

“Balloon curious,” Gil added to everyone’s enjoyment.

Captain Federico, a non-popper, was far more open than his counterparts were. He claimed to have selected his nom de plume from a Star Trek character, and none of the group members knew his real name.

“I initiate visual contact with my balloon while on all fours,” he said, detailing non-popper foreplay for us. “I begin barking at the balloon, until I believe I have achieved a level of dominance. I then crawl back to my balloon in a cautious, submissive manner that leads to embraces and comfort. Next, I roll onto my back, during the supplication phase of the tryst, to allow the balloon full exploration of my body.”

There were no immediate reactions to that confession. I can only guess that most of the balloonists found the revelation uncomfortable, as they feared the new observers in the group might attach it to them. After that cloud of awkwardness lifted, Terrance Gill touched Captain Federico’s shoulder and let his touch linger for a second, and the two of them shared a warm smile. That appeared to be a sign of gratitude for the Captain’s courage in coming forth with that confession, but I figured the gesture returned the sentiment Federico displayed earlier, when he touched Terrance’s leg.

Some of the balloonists lived stressful, non-balloon oriented lives, and they considered their acts of balloonophilia relaxing and therapeutic.

“I work sixty to seventy hours a week for a company that doesn’t appreciate me anymore,” said a man named Leo. “I have a wife and two kids who don’t even greet me at the door anymore, and the boy doesn’t even look away from his gawd-damned PlayStation long enough to acknowledge that I’ve arrived home from work. I can’t force them to be appreciative or gracious, and I’m tired of yelling at them. They don’t listen, and, hey, I’m not hurting anyone. Why does anyone care what I do in my free time?”

“My evenings with balloons are not sexual and tend to involve a wide variety of adults blowing up balloons and trying to keep them airborne. It doesn’t always have to be a sexual thing,” said a woman named Ana who claimed no one would hire her, other than the “stressful, unrewarding field of telemarketing.”

✽✽✽

In the immediate aftermath of the group meeting, I became obsessed with refuting their refutations of my questions. I didn’t think I was obsessed, but my friends did. They said I was repeating the exchanges I had with the group members so often that it was obvious to them I was obsessed. I wanted objective feedback from parties that could provide third-part analysis, but I decided to drop the matter and display a little mercy. I took to the internet and found a number of articles that would bolster my presentation in the Balloonophilia meeting next week.

Two days after writing up my presentation, however, Olive Branch emailed me, “Although balloonophile meetings are open to the public, and you can still attend if you want to, the group has decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest if you decided otherwise.” Further reading of the email made the disdain with my attendance clearer: 

“The group decided that balloonophile meetings are intended for balloonophiles and for those interested in becoming a balloonophile. Various comments and physical gestures that you made throughout the meeting made it clear that you are not interested in joining our group.”

It was my first excommunication, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

The import of this email was that I was not only a naysayer. They viewed me as an opponent of Balloonophilia, an anti-balloonophile or an anti-loonite, but that is certainly not the case. The nature of the balloonophile fascinates me still, because of what I think it says about humanity in general.

One particular internet article I found better encapsulated what I was trying to say, and I was excited to present it to the group. Even if they allowed me to introduce his findings, though, I didn’t really expect it to change any minds. If the balloonophiles taught me nothing else, they convinced me that there is nothing to cure. They are not sick. They enjoyed doing what they do, and they preached their philosophy well enough for me to acknowledge that they are not seeking debate on this topic. I did hope my findings might raise some eyebrows, but I would not expect them to change their ways one iota based on a quote from someone that knows nothing about their individual situations. No matter what information I presented, I knew they would declare themselves an exception to that rule.

“So you failed to convince a bunch of loons that you’re correct? So what?” That has been the general reaction to my complaints about the meeting. Another common reaction is “Is your ego so huge that you can’t take it when everyone doesn’t agree with you?”

After some reflection, I think I can now admit that I was obsessed with the issue, albeit not for the reasons one might assume. Do I have an almost overwhelming desire to have my notions proven correct, and does this desire lead me to do things that compromise friendships with those who have a couple of fun ideas that don’t settle well in my system? Yes and yes, but I think the ideas we discussed that evening say a lot about where we’re going as a culture. We are now so attracted to the sympathetic, compassionate, and understanding lexicon that we think the peak of understanding is to avoid any attempts at understanding. We are to default to Vicki Lerner’s assessment that “we just are”, but if we’re proud of who we are, shouldn’t we trumpet it out to those who are simply curious and have no rooting interest?

Few enjoy a challenge to our core beliefs. Most of us want others to take our side. The art of playing devil’s advocate is not only lost, it’s dismissed with an all-encompassing name, or some accusation of being unable to accept differences for what they are. This, I believe, results in us being so pleased with ourselves for not recognizing our differences that we refuse to spend any time truly analyzing them. Differences are what they are, and we believe there is something so beautiful about that that we don’t take the time to try to understand what really makes us tick.

If you enjoyed The Baloonophilia Conflict, you’re going to love these:

Busybody Nation “Don’t do that!” They scream in our parks, our grocery stores, and in any public setting where you don’t think you’re hurting anyone. Well, you’re wrong, and they’re not afraid to tell you how wrong you are, and if you continue to do it, they’ll tell.

The Complaint Cloud “These onion rings are just gross!” they complain. We knew it was coming, because we know her. We’ve dined with her before, and we know twelve seconds after the server places food before them a complaint cloud will darken our table.

The Thief’s Mentality “How do they hurt so many people and get away with it?” we wonder. They’re awful people, and awful people don’t care. They’ve been so awful for so long that we can only guess they came from an awful home, with awful parents, who came from an awful family tree. We know them, and we know they’re not smart, but they’re so clever that we have to think they got it from somewhere.

… And Then There’s Todd

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I knew Todd was different the moment I met him, but I had no idea how unusual he was until his mom let it be known, moments after I met her, that we would be able to have relations if I so desired. She wasn’t shy, or coy, but she avoided giving me extra looks when she knew her son was looking. Those penetrating looks informed me that all she needed was a thumbs-up to start the proceedings. If Todd’s mom had admirable or attractive qualities, my humility wouldn’t permit me to write such a thing, but there were reasons that a 40-something female made it clear that her intentions with her son’s 20-year-old friend were less than honorable, and most of them had more to do with her marketability than mine.

Her frayed, yellow T-shirt said something crude on it. Her hairdo led observers to believe she spent quite a bit of money on oils, and a considerable amount of time curling. I wasn’t able to determine if either of these enhancements were natural or not, but judging by her overall appearance, my educated guess was that the woman hadn’t darkened the door of a beauty salon since Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down as general secretary. She also wore a what-are-you-looking-at? expression that led me to think an apology might be necessary, until it could be determined that this was her natural facial expression.

Todd’s mom was the first parent I met who didn’t have puritanical notions about underage drinking, smoking pot, and premarital sex. She was a proverbial free spirit, open in her disregard for the conventions of our constrained society. In other words, Todd’s mom was the first cool parent I ever met, so cool that she offered to drink and smoke with us as soon as she was off work.

After she extended that invitation, and Todd gauged my reaction to it, Todd’s mom shot me another extra look, over Todd’s shoulder that said, “If we do this, those pants of yours will be coming off!” No full-grown woman had been that attracted to me at that point in my life, so her extra looks were quite a turn-on, even though there were things going on with her that my young mind could not yet process.

She also said snarky, bitter things that slipped beyond the definition of cool to a dreaded arena few can escape of trying too hard. I’m sure that cynical bitterness did not lead her to name her only-begotten son Todd, and I do not believe that his mom’s near palpable hatred of men had anything to do with her sentencing her son to a life of misery with the moniker. I’m sure she just liked the sound of the name.

My already skewed impressions of Todd were altered after I met his mom, as I knew that a parent’s influence over a child is profound. Our outlooks on life are structured by our parents of course, and I knew Todd was no different.

Parents teach us how to interact in the world, our outlook on the world, and for most of our first eighteen years they are our world. Parents can even affect our world by choosing our name. Most people don’t consider it plausible that a name can curse a child. Even a person with an odd, one-syllable sound attached to their identity is not cursed, they might say. A child can go onto achieve great things as an adult, in spite of their name. The illustrious career of Aldous Huxley is but one example. They can gain acceptance among their peers, they can be happy, and they can escape anything put before them. A name is a trivial concern in the grand scheme of things. Even the most vocal contrarians would have to admit that some names might cripple a child, such as those that rhyme with embarrassing body functions, but seldom will a parent intentionally set out to hinder their offspring in such a manner.

And then there’s Todd. Naming a child Todd might not seem cruel, on the surface, as it’s a rather common name in American society today that dates back to medieval England. It means “fox”, as in “clever or cunning”. Chances are everyone knows at least one Todd, and most don’t presume that the name boxes the recipient of such a name into any sort of predestination. They might consider the notion irrational, but most of those who say such things aren’t named Todd.

✽✽✽

Long before I met Todd’s mother, I thought he was an idiot. That assessment was unfair, of course, because I based it on the sound of his name. When I learned that Todd couldn’t tie his own shoes, however, I considered that a bit of a stretch beyond that initial assessment.

This revelation occurred soon after Todd asked his girlfriend, my girlfriend’s best friend Tracy, to tie his shoes. I joked that I considered this an excellent domination technique that I might explore the next time I was around my girlfriend. I intended that joke to be over the top humor, but they didn’t see it that way. If Todd considered it funny, he didn’t show it. He feared Tracy in the manner a lamb fears a border collie, and Tracy wasn’t even smiling politely. I started telling them that I was merely joining in on a joke that Todd started by asking Tracy to tie his shoes, but Tracy had a “don’t-go-there!” glare on. My initial thought was that her glare had more to do with the domination theme of my jest, and I felt some remorse for saying that, considering that my girlfriend was Tracy’s best friend.

That remorse ended for me when I convinced them I was joking, but the cloud continued to loom over us. I soon realized that that glare had less to do with my joke and more to do with a storm that gathered in the silence that followed. I began to feel trapped, as if I’d tripped a tripwire that would reveal domination techniques, or some sort of sexual peccadillo I didn’t care to explore with them. Their pregnant silence, combined with the looks they shared, suggested they were ready to share if I was ready to hear it, but I feared I might have placed them in the uncomfortable position of having to reveal a whole bunch of unusual details about their relationship. The glare and the weighted silence were such that I was considering the idea that they could lead to some sort of physical altercation between Todd and I, until he finally broke down and told me the reason he asked Tracy to tie his shoes. He never learned how to tie them.

“Come on!” I said, “You’re 19!” I was a naïve 20-year-old, and I was not difficult to fool. I didn’t know the extent of it at the time, of course, but I sensed a certain susceptibility that I was always trying to defeat. Even with that acknowledgement, I thought the idea they were trying to sell me that Todd didn’t know how to tie his own shoes was a ridiculous effort on their part.

Todd did not willingly reveal his story. I had to prompt the revelation, after I tired of the confusing, silent tension.

“So, if you don’t know how to tie your shoes,” I said, believing the shoes were symbolic of a Pandora’s Box that I would regret ever opening, “why would you buy tennis shoes that have laces?”

The answer to this question involved a “funny story”. It involved a loving mother purchasing Velcro and slip-on shoes for her son throughout his youth. The funny story occurred when Todd entered his first shoe store all by himself, seeking to break the shackles of a mother’s hold with the first paycheck he earned. The shoe store attendant tied Todd’s shoes for him, in the store, and Todd walked around the store saying, “I’ll take them” with the pride so many young people experience with their first, individual purchase. “I was so proud of myself that I wore those shoes out of the store,” Todd continued. “The clerk said that was just fine, as he would be able to use the UPC symbol on the box to complete the purchase. I wore them for so long that day that when I went home and got ready for bed, I began to take them off as a matter of routine. That’s when I realized that once I untied the shoes, I would never be able to wear them again without assistance. And since I knew I couldn’t get my jeans over my shoes, I wound up sleeping with my jeans and shoes on.”

I was the only one in the room not laughing.

“It was sort of like buying a sweater with a stain on it,” Todd said to expound on the funny story, “but you don’t see the stain until you get home.”

Call it a defense mechanism, or societal conditioning, but I was always on the lookout for juicy tidbits to use when the going got rough. There are some juicy tidbits that you just can’t use. The idea that a grown man cannot tie his own shoes automatically goes into the I-cant-wait-to-use-this, comedic gold file. I write the word automatically, because when you’ve been fighting in the jungles of Teenageboyistan as long as I had to that point, you have an internal macros system that already knows how to file such information. Some juicy tidbits, however, go beyond the typical malleable information one can tease into mockery and ridicule. If it were just about Todd’s inability to tie his own shoes, my automated system already knew how to file such information, but the idea that his mom’s neglect enabled him to continue drove a spike in what I considered comedy gold. 

Even when Todd later participated in a round-of-insults against me, I couldn’t say, “What are you talking about? You can’t even tie your own shoes.” As painful as it was to withhold, it just felt too easy and too insulting. Once I learned the backstory that just sapped it of all the fun. Plus, what would I say when Todd sat silent, staggering on the ropes, with everyone waiting for me to deliver that haymaker? “Yeah, his mom continued to purchase slip-ons and Velcro for her boy, in spite of his teachers’ instructions.” Yeah, no, a joke like that turns those expectant smiles upside down and upends all good-natured attempts to beclown.  

In the moment, though, while Tracy tied his shoes, I found myself trapped between not wanting to pursue the matter and demanding an answer to a question that I did not want to ask.

“How did you get out of the first grade without tying your shoes at least once?” I asked. “Don’t Kindergarten teachers have to check that box on a report card before they advance you to the next grade?”

The number one rule trial lawyers learn is never ask a question when you don’t know the answer. Implied in that rule is the idea that there are certain questions you don’t want answered. While immersed in all the tales of Todd’s mom protecting her son, and thus preventing him from learning was my realization that I should’ve paid far more attention to Tracy’s don’t-go-there glare. Thus, for a time, I flipped the switch of my curiosity into the off position, and I kept that switch off for much of my friendship with Todd. I even defended him against the ridicule from those who train themselves to go after weakest member of the herd, until I later learned of Todd’s lifelong fear of cotton.

“Oh, c’mon!” I said. I was naïve as I stated, and I had some difficulty coming to grips with certain characteristics I learned about the various Todds I’d met in life, but I now had to deal with the idea that one of them was afraid of cotton. Cotton! It was the second such hurdle our friendship would have to traverse, and Todd and I had to work through the fundamentals of his fear. We established the fact that Todd had no fear of towels, for example, and he wasn’t afraid of the 50 percent of my shirt that wasn’t polyester. It was cotton balls that he feared, cotton balls, like the ones aspirin companies use to keep the pills in place that terrified him.

“It’s what they call an inexplicable fears,” Todd explained, as if that was a suitable explanation. “The type of fears that cannot be explained,” he added, as if I needed the definition. 

The fear was also, I would soon learn, a type of fear that called for a strong woman to step in and defend. “Who has inexplicable fears?” Tracy asked rhetorically. “I’ll say it, everyone!” she answered. “That’s what most fears are, an irrational, emotional reaction. Can you explain your irrational fears?”  

“Yes!” I said. “Yes, I believe I can! I have an irrational fear of heights, but I fear falling more than I fear being high up. Whether it’s a learned behavior or primal instinct, I’ve learned that hitting the ground at a high rate of speed hurts and it could damage something that I enjoy using. I’m not just talking about reproductive organs here either. I’m talking about arms, legs, and brain matter, and if you have a problem with that, you’ll have to take it up with my brain, because my brain is the epicenter of self-preservation, and that brain has learned over the years and through the many mistakes I’ve made to use the emotion of fear to prevent me from harming myself. And I think my brain has been doing a damn fine job thus far, so thanks brain.”

The silence that followed that, and the faces of my opponents, suggested that I weakened them with body blows, and all I had to do now was deliver my haymaker.

“I can accept the premise that most fears are irrational, and they provoke emotions that can be inexplicable, or as you say, difficult to explain, but if you are arguing that my fear of falling and Todd’s fear of cotton should be placed on equal ground, someone is going to have to explain to me how a brain I can only assume is equipped with all the same tools as mine, and is as undamaged as mine is, can convince a grown man that a ball of cotton presents a danger equivalent to falling from a great height.”

I wasn’t sure if the silence that followed was because they didn’t know what to say, but I decided I didn’t have to pound the point home with another haymaker I planned to use that described my numerous experiences with paraplegics who ended up that way as a result of falling. I didn’t need to recount the number of fatalities that resulted from falls, and I didn’t need to compare those grim statistics to the statistics that listed the number of people maimed or killed as a result of an incident with a cotton ball. I had no need to go into that, because I made my point. I wasn’t the type to engage in verbal touchdown dances anyway, because I knew that doing so would only make Todd look bad in front of his girlfriend. Thus, I was fully prepared to allow the matter to die at that moment, no harm no foul, until I remembered that I had an aspirin bottle in my bathroom cabinet.

I was old enough to know that I should refrain from making a man look bad in front of his girlfriend, if I wanted to remain friends with that man, but I was still young enough to follow my impulses.

I hoped that I hadn’t fallen prey to my typical routine of throwing the cotton ball out the minute I opened an aspirin bottle, and I was excited when I saw I hadn’t. I smiled anxiously at the billowy white ball when I saw it. I knew it was bound to be an obnoxious moment, and I knew Todd’s feelings would be hurt, but at 20-years-old, those considerations take a back seat to the prospect of having a moment that could prove hilarious to the point of being historic.

I was so anxious to get that cotton ball out of the bottle that I spilled the bottle and scattered aspirin all over my bathroom counter. I didn’t even bother to pick them up. I thought timing was of the essence, and I knew that I could always pick the tablets up later.

I raced toward Todd and Tracy with the cotton ball dangling from my fingertips. “Ooga booga!” I said. Ooga booga were not words I typically used to strike fear into the subjects of my cruelty, but I felt they captured the perfect hybrid of comedy and horror. I would later attach all sorts of brilliant thoughts to my decision to use those words. I would tell people about the decisions I made to accompany this moment with the perfect ooga booga face, and I would walk my listeners through my moment frame by frame to capture my thoughts in the moment. In reality, the choices I made at the time were all impulsive.

“Dude! Dude, don’t! For the love of God don’t!” Todd said leaning back against Tracy, clutching her in a position that approached fetal.

Todd was the first “Dude!” I ever met. Todd spread the word across the spectrum of grammar. He could use it as a noun, verb and transitory verb, adjective, in an introductory declaration, and as ending punctuation in an interrogatory sentence. I would meet many “Dudes!” later, and I would call them “dudes” in a derogatory fashion, but Todd was the first.

In the brief moments preceding “Ooga booga!” I thought about Todd’s vulnerable confession that he had an inexplicable fear of cotton, and in my real-world concepts that was B.S. My reaction to it was equivalent to my first time I heard someone say they feared clowns. Over time, these coulrophobics convinced me that their fear of clowns was a bona fide and documented terror that would not go away. They also, eventually, convinced me that it was not just a means of garnering attention or sympathy. I doubted that this sidonglobophobic, those who fear cotton balls, could win me over as easily.

My first experience with a coulrophobic involved her saying, “I don’t know why I fear clowns. I just do. They’re creepy.” That didn’t do it for me, especially since such confessions seemed to conveniently follow Cosmo Kramer’s hilarious portrayal of coulrophobia in the series Seinfeld.

I remained skeptical, until another coulrophobic added, “They are creepy, but there is something familiar to their creepy vibe, something that reminds me of a time when I was a little girl, and I thought they were a different species who lived in carnivals. I enjoyed their antics onstage when I was a very young girl, but I’m not sure if that laughter was based on the idea that they weren’t near me, or if I was relieved to learn that they were supposed to be funny and not evil, or as evil as I imagined. Whatever the case, I was just as afraid of them the next time they were near me, as a little girl. People who dress as clowns all say they’re all about the fun, but they have to know that part of their allure involves the fear children have of them. I think this subtle distinction between the imagined horror children experience when they encounter a person with a painted face. A painted face doesn’t make sense to a kid. We have expectations of the face. Nose, eyes, mouth. They are all congruent and make sense in size when compared to the rest of the face, but when someone exaggerates the size of all the above, voluntarily, it doesn’t make sense. “Why?” is the question we ask, and our parents tell us that it’s supposed to be funny. “Ok, it’s not funny, so what else do you have?” Then you feel trapped, and further confused when you see all your friends and everyone your age laughing. I realized that I was the only one who didn’t get it, at some point, but I was still so confused and scared by the confusion over why someone would exaggerate the size of their facial features, and their feet, for humor. When I see them now, it brings all that creepy familiarity back, to this day.”

That explanation provided me more insight into the mind of a coulrophobic, but I wasn’t convinced on the spot. Those words familiar creepiness stuck with me, however, and the idea of familiar fears touched a core. I had familiar fears, we all do, but we might not ever know we have them until something effectively taps into them.

The movie The Blair Witch Project, for example, effectively tapped one of my familiar/creepy nerves. The reactions to that movie divided were evenly among the people I knew, and that fact confused me. I didn’t understand how the naysayers missed the horror I experienced. They thought I was being silly, in the same manner I initially thought those who feared clowns were either silly or faking it. The Blair Witch Project recalled moments in my childhood when I camped out in a forest, however, when I would imagine what populated the trees around me. Those dark scenes in the movie were so real to me that I could almost smell the burning wood in the theater. Those moments on the screen carried me back to a time in my life when I considered the unimaginable real.

When I posed that all of these theories to another coulrophobic I met, she said, “Like a cancer sufferer, I think my fear of clowns was in remission for much of my life. I feared them as a kid. As I grew older, I kept those fears at bay with the notion that they were nothing more than irrational childish fears, but as with your experience with The Blair Witch Project, I never experienced a trigger, until I saw the movie for Stephen King’s It. That movie triggered that old fear in a way I have not been able to shake since. I didn’t like clowns in the intervening years, as they’ve always unnerved me a little, but I didn’t go out of my way to avoid them in the manner I do now. The movie It, and more specifically its character Pennywise, caused a recurrence of that fear that I believe was exacerbated by my otherwise rational, adult mind.”

Even with my newfound understanding of coulrophobia, I didn’t draw any correlations between it and Todd’s case of sidonglobophobia. I didn’t bother looking into this with any depth in other words. I didn’t consider the notion that Todd might have had some traumatic experience he associated with cotton balls, and I didn’t consider sidonglobophobia a real thing. I just decided Todd’s fear of cotton balls was a little freaky, and I considered it my comedic obligation to put that freakishness on display for all to enjoy.

My “ooga booga!” moment revealed the exact opposite of what I expected. Todd’s fear of cotton balls was as real, and as freakishly familiar to him as the fears others had of clowns, and as I had a camping out in the dark woods. For him it was a vein-straightening fear and a terror so deep and real that it caused him to clutch his girlfriend as if his life depended on it. If I furthered my joke and moved to put it on his skin, I sensed that he might shriek.

Even after Todd’s humiliating reaction, I maintained that I was just trying to be funny, and that made it all right with me. That immediate reaction did subside somewhat when I considered the idea that I might be assigning my mindset to his actions and reactions. Yet, those who met Todd’s mother knew that his upbringing had to be, at the very least, unusual, and his unusual fears might have resulted from those unusual circumstances that altered what might have otherwise been normal thought patterns. I realized that this moment I so enjoyed might have opened some dark caverns in Todd’s soul, freeing up archived fears that he might spent the next twenty-five years recounting on psychiatrist’s couch.

Regardless the amount of reflection I would put into this moment, or the ultimate effect it had on Todd, I had to deal with the fact that my ooga booga moment brought my party to a crashing halt. Most in attendance were now staring, with sympathy, at Todd, and they were staring at me in scorn with the same intensity. Some of the females said some awful things to me, and then they insisted that their boyfriends take them away. I ruined my own party, but I also ruined Todd in the eyes of those who were there, or so I thought. I had my moment, the moment I sought when I remembered I had a cotton ball in my medicine cabinet, but the partygoers obviously didn’t appreciate the moment in the manner I thought they would.

The partygoers probably thought I was trying to ruin Todd, but Todd and I were good friends. We established a healthy bond with one another, and anytime I developed a strong bond with a fella, I tried to ruin him, and he tried to ruin me right back. It was my definition, based on cultural and societal conditioning, of a healthy male friendship. Todd was my friend, and the worst charge one could make against me was that I used a good friend as a comedic foil.

If my moment did consist of my effort to ruin Todd, I was woefully unsuccessful. For the girls who loved Todd before ooga booga, appeared to love him even more after it. Years later, the only explanation I can come up with is that he displayed a quality young girls find most endearing, vulnerability.

He also had those eyes, the crystal-blue kind that made women swoon. “Could one call them dreamy?” I asked.

“Dreamy?” one woman asked. “I don’t know if I’d use the term dreamy, but they definitely make him more attractive.”

Todd also had that hair, the same oiled and curled hair his mother had, only more natural blonde. It was a little dirty and somewhat unkempt, but he fit the mold of one who could get away with such a look. That look even seemed to work to his advantage with some women, in the sense that it might have added to this endearing element of vulnerability he had.

Todd’s most glaring vulnerability was that he was not very bright, and even though most self-respecting women won’t admit it, they love the not-very-bright.  They might not want to settle down with the not-very-bright, since the ones we choose to marry are such a deep reflection on us. When it comes to befriending or defending someone, though, their compassionate instincts kick in. In our little shared space of the world, something happened to shake all of my little theories up. I don’t know if it was the fallout from “Ooga Booga” or what, but Todd began to experience inexplicable success in the dating world.     

I don’t know if his subsequent girlfriends wanted to convince Todd that everyone was wrong about him, or if they sought the opposite, but they began spending so much time defending and befriending him that they eventually became attracted to him in a way that we found inexplicable.

“That is all so ridiculous!” one of them said when I posed all of my theories about why she, and all her friends, wanted to date him. That reaction was so ubiquitous among our female co-workers, that it requires notation, but the time I spent around Todd informed me that if a guy has all the ingredients listed above, the eyes, the hair, and an air of vulnerability about him, and he has a way of making a woman feel smarter on top of all that, he’s bound to land permanent residence on “hotty” isle. As long as that guy doesn’t say or do anything to tarnish his presentation, and Todd never did anything to diminish his presentation.

One measure of a man is how many women he is able to attract. If that were the lone measure, most men would list Todd as a man among boys. I don’t know many men who would want to follow Todd’s blueprint for landing women, but when such discussions arise among young men looking to become players, I inform them that I’ve witnessed one successful formula firsthand. I’m as in the dark on this topic as they are, I tell them, but I’ve witnessed a real-life asterisk in the equation for them to consider. I tell them about how Todd could work a room of women without effort. I tell them how I saw the man move from one woman to another without leaving any of them upset in the aftermath. He had one-night stands with a woman who was not his girlfriend, and I saw those two girls begin yelling at one another, screaming insults and threats over a breakroom table, without considering the role the Todd –the man who sat between them– played in the situation. When these fights would erupt between the scorned women, Todd would play peacemaker, and he would do everything a man could do to prevent them from harming one another. Then, when the smoke cleared, he would begin hoping, with all sincerity, that they could all be friends again. The most annoying aspect of my Todd testimonial arrives when I attempt to convey the idea that Todd did all this without considering the true import of his actions.

Most people who hear Todd’s tale believe he had a carefully orchestrated plan for achieving success. I’ve tried to explain the anomaly Todd was to these people, and they naturally assume that he was smarter and craftier than I suspect. There was no plan, I tell them, for he did not accentuate certain aspects of his personality to appeal to women, and he did not work on his faults. As far as I know, he did not develop schemes and plot paths to take that would attract more women. At one point in the arguments I’ve had with people on this matter, we reach a bottom line. “Bottom line, you’re jealous,” they all say in numerous ways, “if he had as much success with women as you suggest, he obviously had more success than you, and he must’ve been craftier and smarter than you.”

“He did have as much success as I detailed, it was far greater than mine, and I was jealous,” I tell them, “but he wasn’t craftier or smarter, he was just Todd.”

No research, I know of, concludes that giving a child a relatively normal name like Todd, Gil, or Ned affects them in any way. There is no sociological evidence to suggest that the Todds, Gils, or Neds, of the world, live different from anyone else. If you’ve ever known one of these unfortunate, possibly cursed individuals, however, you know there is a fundamental difference about them that they will spend most of their lives trying to overcome. Something about those odd, one-syllable sound of their name affects their identity so much that it affects their existence. They don’t all become square pegs in a round-hole world of more pleasing sounding names, some of them are exceptions to the rule, some of them are just Todd, but the preconceived notions most of us have of such sounds grease their slide to the outer layer.