Fear of a Beaver Perineal Gland

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“Do you know what you’re eating?” an informed consumer asked as I approached his table with a strawberry shake in hand. “Do you know what’s in that?”

Informed consumers annoy me. They act like they have this whole formula figured out. They pretend to have some authority on this subject after reading some information on some click-bait site, and they can’t wait to share it with the world. Do they pursue primary information from some top notch health advisory board that has decades of research to back up their claims? No, they often rely on one of those “Know what you’re eating,” click-bait articles. The thing of it is, these purveyors of click-bait info then drop contradictory click-bait articles in the next two days, weeks, months, or however long it takes to make it feel fresh. “There might be some medicinal properties to coffee,” “It turns out eggs are good for you, depending on how you prepare them,” and “there is such thing as too much water.” These contradictions don’t make it into informed consumers’ presentations, however, because they don’t stimulate their need to demonize our diet.

If their sole goal in life was to attain and retain information for their diet, or if they shared it exclusively with their close friends and family, I would have no problem with them. The thing that fries my ham is that they’re not afraid to intrude on an associate’s meal. They’re not afraid to make that face when those of us they hardly know sink our teeth and gums into a greasy cheeseburgers. “I just hate to see you put that into your body,” they say to associates who associate with them.

“That’s fine,” we say, “don’t watch.”

If we were preparing to down a plain salmon sandwich with a side of sautéed yellow squash, would they applaud us? “Good, feed, feed!” Are they concerned that if we don’t change our diet, we might not make it to sixty? I don’t think they care. They barely know us. No, their interruption of our meal is a small, insignificant power play. That “How can you eat that?” is not born of concern, it’s disgust, and displaying disgust for another’s dietary choices is one of the last socially acceptable avenues for displaying disgust for our fellow man. It’s a repository for the disgust we have for all of mankind that comes billowing out on us when they see us eating a chili and cheese dog.

What happened to all of our lines? You remember those lines, those imaginary lines we erected to keep associates we hardly know from invading our privacy. Those lines defined our relationships with those around us, and we knew not to cross them to violate the unspoken tenants of those relationships. We might be genuinely concerned about the diet of a family member, and others with whom we’ve developed a substantial bond, but we should have abide by the unspoken rules that suggest we probably shouldn’t say the same things to those who casually and infrequently associate with us. Our fathers and grandfathers went to great lengths to establish those lines and teach them to us. Those lines are gone, and I for one, miss them. 

There may have been a time when we considered what informed consumers said and adjusted accordingly. We thought their lectures came from a good place, because we joined them in their concerns for our good health. We know you-are-what-you-eat, but somewhere along the line it reached a tipping point. Somewhere along the line, it felt like too much information and too much knowledge. Somewhere along the line, it felt like informed consumers stepped over the line with too much knowledge.  

Yet, we know better than to complain about too much knowledge, because we know they’ll hit us with a “What are you talking about? Too much knowledge regarding quality food, good health, and ways for us to live longer? That knowledge? I’ll take too much knowledge over too little.” Game, set, match they win. Yet, every time we leave our home, someone hits us with their knowledge, until we’re drowning in it.  

“Let’s put it this way,” my informed consumer continued. “What would you say if I asked you to tell me the difference between the strawberry flavoring in your shake and a beaver’s anal secretion?”

“I’d say I can tell the difference,” I managed to say without yawning.

“You’d think that wouldn’t you?” asked my informed consumer, “but people confuse the two every day. Those of you who enjoy eating strawberry, raspberry, and vanilla flavorings are, in essence, big fans of beaver anal secretion. It’s true. If they’re willing to pay a little more for products that use ‘natural flavorings,’ they’re probably eating a number of secretions from animals, insects, and a wide array of repulsive animal byproducts. The natural assumption is that the opposite of natural flavorings involves manmade, chemical enhancements, but does the average consumer know the true extent of the ‘natural flavorings’ in the products they purchase? Chances are, anyone who prefers natural flavoring in their strawberry shakes has actually been devouring this yellowish, mucus-colored secretion from the dried perineal glands of the beaver, in a most gratuitous manner, for years.”

The Castoreum Connection

Castoreum is the exudate from the castor sacs of the mature North American Beaver. Consumers state that they prefer this natural flavoring augment to other natural flavorings in blind, taste tests. The internet offers no details regarding whether this market-tested preference is due to the scent of the secretion, or if the flavor has been determined to be more delicious than any of the other alternatives flavorists have tried over the years. Whatever the case, the beaver doesn’t produce this exudate from its castor sacs to tweak our senses. Rather, they release this natural product as a territory marker. The procedure involved in extracting the exudate is such that the beaver doesn’t have to give up his life to provide this flavoring. Rather, enterprising young hands milk it from the castor sacs located in the beaver’s anal glands. One warning to those curious enough to pursue too much knowledge on this subject, entering the search term “milking the beaver” in a search engine may not pull up the information videos they seek.

It’s important to note that research scientists in this field, called flavorists, have developed synthetic substitutes for castoreum and almost all of the natural additives listed herein. Yet, informed consumers tell us that synthetic substitutes fall under the artificial flavorings umbrella, and artificial flavorings fall under the manmade umbrella, and that we should all consider these two terms unacceptable. When informed consumers read the words “synthetic substitute,” “chemical additive,” or “artificial flavorings,” they may make the leap to animal testing or to the unintended consequences of man messing with nature, because some anecdotal bits of information stick in our minds regarding chemical synthetics leading to cancer and other health concerns. As a result, we prefer the natural flavorings such as the beaver’s anal secretion.

Natural and Artificial Flavoring

So, what is the difference between artificial and natural flavorings? Gary Reineccus, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, writes that finding the difference between the two requires one to look at the original source of the chemicals used.

“Natural flavorings just mean that before the source went through many chemical processes, that it came from an organic, natural source as opposed to an artificial one that has no natural origin.”

“I used to be a vegetarian,” a friend of mine told me. “I grew up on a farm, and I saw what they did to the chickens and the ducks to prepare them for our meals. I decided that I would no longer eat them. I felt bad for them. When I was a little girl, I had no idea I was eating the chickens from the pen. I never associated the chickens from the pen with the chicken I enjoyed eating. The question of why they had the same name just never occurred to me. When they explained it all to me, and I saw how they prepared all of my friends for consumption, I couldn’t eat chickens or any other meat for years.”

How much do you enjoy M&M’s and jelly beans? Informed consumers might ask us if we enjoy their shiny appearance. “How do you think they get so shiny?” they might ask with something similar to a smug smile. “Have you ever heard of shellac? Yes, the substance they/we lay on wood furniture to give it that extra, little shimmer. What’s the problem with that, though, if it passes the rigorous standards of our Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”

“Nothing,” writes Daisy Luther, for the Organic Prepper, as long as consumers know the shellac “is a resinous secretion from bugs during their mating cycles, the female lac beetle in particular. Glazed donuts and glossy candy shells owe their shininess to her secretions.”

If we listen to and abide by the informed consumers’ findings, we might not be able to eat shiny candy again, much less the strawberry Frappuccino from Starbucks.

“You’re seeking visual appeal,” informed consumers ask with a snicker. “That’s all right. We all are. What we see and smell adds to our enjoyment of flavor. Even I admit that.”

They inform us that Starbucks once had a difficult time keeping their strawberry Frappuccino a visually appealing vibrant red. The struggle for Starbucks was that most of the red flavorings they tested couldn’t offer us a delightful hue, so they turned to Natural Red #4 dye, otherwise known as carmine. This proved more successful in holding the color, but informed consumers discovered that it is actually a cochineal extract, a color additive derived from the cochina beetle’s shell. The process involves drying the insects and grinding them up to give their strawberry Frappuccino a more sustainable red flavoring. Informed consumer groups forced Starbucks to end the practice and caterwauled them into transitioning to lycopene, a pigment found in tomatoes.

As usual, all this caterwauling is much ado about nothing, as studies performed over the last sixty years by independent researchers and the FDA’s research arm conclude that while most of these additives land high on our yuck list, there are no discernible health concerns or anything life threatening about them. Our culture once laid out a perfectly acceptable joke for such matters, “If you want to enjoy sausage, do not watch how it is made.” No more. We will not abide. We substitute that joke with “Do you know what you’re drinking?” questions that informed consumers end up saying so loudly that corporations hear them and adapt.

Fish Bladders and Bitter Beer Face

“We do it for you,” informed consumer groups might say when they intimidate corporations into changing their practices. We don’t think you do. We don’t know what goes on in hearts and minds, of course, but how many of us act in such a manner to pursue purely altruistic goals. How many of us pursue goals that align with an agenda or a worldview? Some are subtle, some are not, in their calls for greater corporate social responsibility. They suggest that food producers and manufacturers are engaging in deceptive business practices because they do not list “beaver anus juice” in their ingredients, and the FDA should force them to be more transparent.

To this charge, I submit that most of these ingredients have been market tested and FDA approved, and they will bring consumers no harm. They’re gross, some of the ingredients informed consumers dredge up are so gross that they might change our opinions of said products, but that’s our choice as consumers. “Are you informed?” they ask. “Isn’t that the core issue here?”

Informed consumers might seduce us into avoiding beer, because most beer manufacturers dry swim bladders of beluga sturgeon (Isinglass) to filter sediment, but the alternative is yeast-filled beer that no consumer, informed or otherwise, would purchase. We prefer clear beer that has little-to-no sediment.

I also submit that in most areas of the food and beverage industry, profits are far slimmer than infotainment, click-bait purveyors preach. If they’re able to keep their costs down, they’re able to keep our costs down. The food and beverage industry is such a competitive industry that the need to keep costs down, and their ability pass those savings on to the consumers is often the difference between being able to sell said products and folding up shop. If an informed consumer demands more corporate responsibility, along industry lines, they should be prepared to pay more for these alternatives, because those higher costs will be passed on to consumers. Informed consumers are also fickle beings who force corporations into changing from natural flavorings to synthetic and back, nearly undermining their efforts with constant barrages from their outrage-of-the-day vault. Those of us who pay attention to such matters, long for a pushback from corporations and consumers. We long for the day when uninformed consumers will step up, en masse, and say something such as:

“I don’t enjoy hearing that my beer spends some time in a dried fish bladder. I might prefer that they find some other way to clean my favorite beer, but I’ve been drinking it and those fish bladder remnants for decades. I eat fish all the time though, and I see nothing wrong with it, and I think the idea of bullying corporations to do things another way has reached a tipping point.”

To Get Us in the Mood

Various corporations also use the beaver castoreum to cure headaches, fever, and hysteria, as it contains large amounts of salicylic acid, an active ingredient in aspirin. These anal secretions also contain around twenty-four different molecules, many of which act as natural pheromones that help us get in the mood.

Castoreum gives off a musky scent used in perfumes, much like ambergris, the solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color, produced in the gastrointestinal tract of sperm whales. The whale does not have to die for ambergris extraction either. Ambergris is a bile duct secretion produced to ease the passage of hard, sharp objects the whale ingests in the sea. As such, enterprising souls often locate the ambergris floating on the surface of the ocean in whale vomit, which makes it easier to harvest and include in our favorite perfumes and colognes.

Giacomo Casanova, well-known raconteur, often sprinkled a dash of ambergris in his evening hot chocolate, in the hopes that when his lover approached its musky aroma would be permeating from his skin. If Casanova were feeling particularly insecure, while in the company of a promising damsel, he added an extra coat of it on his collar.

The theory is that our sense of smell serves a dual purpose: warning us of danger and attracting us to a prospective mate. Market research has expounded on these findings. They have it that animal materials such as civet, castoreum and musk (from cats, beaver, and deer, all located in the same region) offer a sensual fragrance, because they harbor chemical structures similar to our own sexual odors. Musk has almost identical properties to human testosterone, in other words, an enzyme that powers our sex drive.

Who Discovered It First?

The last questions that arise in discussion involving natural substitutes and additives involve their origin: “Who first discovered this, and how did they arrive at the conclusion that it could be used in the manner we now use it?”

Did someone notice that an inordinate number of women had an inordinate attraction to whalers? Did this first observer set about to try to discover why? Did whalers, after a number of successful conquests of women, realize that there was something to their success rate? Did some notice that the correlation went beyond the rugged individualism women of the era seemed to associate with whaling? Did one whaler rub some whale vomit behind his ears before he went to the tavern one night and encounter so much success that his fellow whalers followed suit? How long did it take before someone officially unlocked the alluring properties of ambergris? On that note, who was the first person to mix beaver anal juice in ice cream and decide it was such a winning proposition that they should pitch it to corporations? What did this enterprising soul say in that pitch to make it persuasive? While we’re on the topic, how did someone discover the psychedelic and psychoactive properties of the toad?

What was the trial-and-error process that led to this discovery? Did someone eat a toad and find themselves feeling a little loopy in the aftermath? Did they discover these toad venom properties after an incident, or did this enterprising individual walk around licking everything in the forest, from the trees to the various orifices of the aardvark, armadillo and the antelope, seeking a natural high that they hoped might eventually lead to fame and fortune?

We can make an educated guess that any individual who persisted in this manner probably didn’t care about money as much as they did achieving a state of mind in which they could no longer care about money.

We know the natural properties in plants and animals can provide homeopathic remedies, and these theories date back to the Native Americans, to Aristotle, and beyond. We also know that there was a great deal of trial-and-error in that research, much of it accomplished in environments that were not sterile, and they produced results were not consistent and would have a difficult time standing up to the kind of peer review such a finding would experience today. With that in mind, another question naturally arises: “How many people became ill during these trials? How many experienced short and long-term paralytic effects? How many died before they found that the 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), is a chemical derivative of bufotenine located in toads? This chemical, after all, is not available in all toads. It appears to be a property exclusive to the bufo alvarius. We can only guess that many people had to lick a wide variety of wild animals before they discovered the one that secretes the perfect venom for those who wish to experience the euphoric results of brain cell death.

The chemical (5-MeO-DMT) is a natural venom these toads produce to defend against attackers, and recent research indicates that the toad-licking phenomenon is dangerous, and that the hallucinogenic properties are an old wives’ tale. That research reports that human beings, whom the toad views as attackers, are susceptible to the same consequences of any attacker that runs up to lick it. The human attacker may become ill and/or paralyzed in an attempt to milk the toad in a squeezing motion or to ingest it in an oral manner. This leads to the next question, which alleged educated researcher watched their fellow researchers or test subjects fall to the ground in paralytic spasms, or to their death, and crossed out the words lick it. The researcher or the one next in line must have tried everything before they found the successful method of drying the toad and smoking it. Word then leaked that someone found the Holy Grail of brain cell-killing euphoria, and the proper use of the secretions of the Bufo alvarius soon became so ubiquitous and eventually so detrimental that Queensland, Australia, deemed toad slime as contraband, an illegal substance, the possession of which is punishable under their Drug Misuse Act?

My 

Advice to Informed Consumers

If the reader is anything like my informed consumer friend who insisted on informing me about the natural byproducts of my strawberry shake, and the reader is interested in trivial information about consumable products, that reader already knows about the number of websites that will feed the need. These websites provide tidbits and warnings about just about every product and service available to mankind, updated on a daily basis. If the informed consumer is so interested in such information that they feel an overwhelming need to share, just know that an ever-increasing segment of the population has already reached that fight-the-yawn tipping point, because most of this information proves to be little more than a conglomeration of trivial concerns, if not contradictory.

My initial fear, in publishing this particular article, was that it might contribute to what I deem a violation of social protocol, yet I offer it here under the banner “There’s no such thing as too much knowledge.” I am aware, however, that there will always be some informed consumers, like my broiled to black on too much information friend, who don’t believe that sharing such information will do any harm. I also know that the moment of sharing will arrive soon after the unsuspecting sits down to enjoy those products the informed consumer is now afraid to consume based on what they know about said product. To these people, I offer my paraphrase of one of Mark Twain’s most famous quotes: “Sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear uninformed than to open it and remove all doubt.”

The next time someone approaches your table with a strawberry shake, a bottle of beer, M&M’s, or a fried Bufo alvarius toad that they plan to consume, just swallow your bullhorn. Don’t even say something you consider relatively benign like, “Well, I wouldn’t eat it.” Just let it go, because you’re not doing it for us. You’re doing it for you. You’re doing it to solve some mysterious mess you have entangled in your innards, and the sooner you admit that the happier we’ll all be. I would also ask them if they really care about my health, “Seriously, you don’t really care, and I don’t care about your prescriptions for my greater health. The difference between the two of us is that I’m not going to pretend I do.”

The Real Back Pain Solution

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Did you wake with the level of excruciating back pain I did the other day? It can ruin an entire day. Sometimes, it ruins a couple days. I’ve been there too. When we’re experiencing that much pain, it doesn’t matter that other people might be in more pain. Pain is pain. It doesn’t matter that others may experience chronic back pain, where ours could be called occasional and temporary. Pain is pain. It makes us irrational, emotional, cranky, and it disrupts our lives.

The first culprit we seek for interrogation is sleep. Did we sleep on too many pillows, or in some other way cause our head, neck, or back to be at an odd angle the night before? Sleep is often a hostile witness, however, never answering questions, or if it does, those answers are often incoherent and incomplete. Our next step, is to retrace our steps leading up to the moment we fell asleep to see if any of our actions were the culprit. We analyze every minute of the day, every time we grabbed something, reached down, up, or around, and we can do this, because we have all day, check that ALL DAY, to lay there completely still, staring up at the ceiling to retrace every single step of the day.

Woman-With-alot-of-Back-Pain-walking-tall-chiropractorTo deal with that pain, we take whatever meds we can find. We heat, cool, cool, and heat, and if it becomes a recurring we may take a trip down to the massage clinic to have them work it out until it’s gone, and to provide us tips to prevent it in the future.

When we’re immersed in that pain, we may vow to develop a routine at the gym that will strengthen those particular muscles as a form of preventative medicine, but that vow often lasts about as long as the pain does. If the reader is serious about solving recurring lower back pain, a therapist informed me of her expert opinion on a cure: The leg press. There are a variety of methods to avoid in the procedure, and a variety of optimal methods to use that are relative to the person and the location of the pain, but as one who has experienced recurring, lower back pain, this machine has proved to be a cure all for me. Another method that never occurred to me (embarrassing? sure) was to pay a little extra for a quality mattress, then when that mattress loses its quality, replace it. These seem like such easy fixes, and they are, even if there is no cure all, there are cures, and it’s your job to find it. If one solution doesn’t work, try another.

The next, and more prominent, question is how often does back pain occur in our lives? The answer to this question gets to the heart of why we should not complain about intermittent, minor, and temporary back pains as often as we do. We all complain when it happens, but some of us complain in a manner that suggests that God and nature are somehow against us. Some of us even act like our body has failed us in some manner for which we are not to responsible, and we go to a doctor to tell them to fix it.

On the situation comedy, Louie, Louis C.K. complains to his doctor, a Dr. Bigelow, about the temporary back pain he is experiencing.  Rather than treat Louie in any manner, Dr. Bigelow informs Louie why he has back pain.

“You’re using it wrong,” Dr. Bigelow says. “The back isn’t done evolving yet. You see, the spine is a row of vertebrae. It was designed to be horizontal. Then people came along and used it vertical. Wasn’t meant for that. So the disks get all floppy, swollen. Pop out left, pop out right. It’ll take another. I’d say 20,000 years to get straightened out. Till then, it’s going to keep hurting.

“It’s an engineering design problem,” he continues. “It’s a misallocation. We were given a clothesline and we’re using it as a flagpole.

“Use your back as it was intended. Walk around on your hands and feet. Or accept the fact that your back is going to hurt sometimes. Be very grateful for the moments that it doesn’t. Every second spent without back pain is a lucky second. String enough of those lucky seconds together, you have a lucky minute.”

The human body may be a marvel in many ways, in other words, but it also has structural flaws. The back, for instance, has structural flaws, and it functions for most of our lives from a flawed premise. So, rather than complain about our temporary back pains, we should take a moment, consider our age, and calculate the number of days when our back was defying nature and providing us with a pain-free existence. We don’t appreciate the back until it fails us, of course, and now that it has, we should take that opportunity to thank it for supporting all of the innumerable actions we’ve asked it to perform for all those years. If Dr. Bigelow’s assessment of the back’s design flaws is to be believed, those days of peak performance shouldn’t occur as often as they do, and that’s the marvel of the back.

When you’re in pain, however, such twisted logic is about the furthest thing from our mind. Pain is pain, and when our back pain is so severe that we can do nothing but crawl on the floor, you’re not going to be comforted by the idea that the sole reason that your down there is a structural flaw that human evolution has yet to iron out. As for the idea of being grateful to your back that you’re not down there more often, as a result of its flawed design, that’s about as irrational as being grateful that at least you’re not being attacked by a big brown bear. As a former ground bound, back pain sufferer that has never been eviscerated by a bear, I can relate, but I still have to imagine that being attacked by a predatory, brown bear would be worse.

At maximum size, a brown bear can weigh 1,500 lbs., and they reach a height of ten feet when standing erect. On all fours, some brown bears have even been measured to be five feet high, near the height of the average human. After imagining the hysteria one might experience with something that large racing at them, the victim should know that bears aren’t known to go for the throat in the manner wild cats will, and the nature of their attack is such that they often don’t employ tactics that would lead to a more instantaneous form of death. If they are protecting their young, or acting in a manner that could later be determined to be defensive, they may let most humans off with a warning. That warning may land you in the hospital for a year, and leave lacerations on your head and face that have you looking like the elephant man for the rest of your life, but it is just a warning.

I would have to guess, however, that in the aftermath of a defensive bear attack, fruit will taste better, and the victim will begin to say ‘I love you’ to their loved ones more often, after park rangers inform them that the bear was not acting in a predatory nature, and all that that implies. If the victim is witnessing a bear acting in a predatory manner, and they don’t believe in guns, they might find it interesting that a brown bear can sprint at speeds of up to thirty miles an hour over short distances, and that they can break a caribou’s back with a single swipe of one of their massive paws.

If a potential victim is unsure as to whether an oncoming bear is acting in a predatory nature or not, they should know that there is no substantial proof to suggest that bears prefer us alive. Cannibals have refuted the notion that the adrenaline that courses through our system, as a result of fear, unnecessary suffering, and pain, makes humans taste any better. So, even though playing opossum may be the only tactic for a victim to explore at one point, it may not do any good if the bear regards us as food. Bears appear to have little regard for the state of consciousness of their victim while feeding.

Due to the fact that bears are forced to store food for their long hibernation periods, most of their dietary needs involve fat content. What this means to you, if you are being attacked as a food source, is that they’re prone to go after intestines, and other internal organs. To get there, of course, they will have to claw away at the skin casing, and the rib cage, while you lay conscious, trying to fight for your life, with one paw holding you down, as they rip these fat-laden morsels from your body.

“That still does not help me!” screams the victim of agonizing back pain. It may not, I’m forced to admit, but it may answer the question why God can’t hear your cries. Some people are screaming louder.

Are You Superior? II

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“Hey, how you doing?” a couple of bandannas, beneath hats turned backwards, and sunglasses asked after pulling their truck over in a neighborhood to talk to me. 

I’d love to tell you that when I braced for the worst, it had nothing to do with their appearance, but that would be a lie. When a couple of young fellas, who were my age at the time, if not slightly older, approached my van with their hats turned backwards, over bandanas, I imagined the encounter a modern-day equivalent of bandits pulling over a stagecoach. I tried to put that over-informed stereotype behind me, and I tried to maintain the belief that they were just customers.

“I’m great,” I said as genuinely as I could. “How can I help you?” I was the ice cream man, the ding ding man, the good humor man, or whatever you call the ice cream van driver in your locale, and they were presumably customers. 

“Do you have a screwball?” one of them asked. I said we did and pointed to the display on the side of the truck for their verification and pricing needs. “I used to love the screwball, with not one but two gum balls at the bottom,” he added

“Not one of my best sellers,” I said to stoke conversation, “but I agree with you. I used to love them too.”

“The Choco Taco,” the other said, as if that’s all he needed to say, and they both swooned with sarcastically romantic smiles.

This brief conversation evolved into other, casual conversations about the business end of selling ice cream products in a van, my compensation, and other such nonsense that lowered my guard. The moment after I felt my initial suspicions subside, I reinforced them, thinking that the only reason they stopped me “just to talk” was to allow their stickup man enough time to sneak around the back of my ice cream truck to complete the heist. I divided my attention between them and my mirrors as a result, watching for any movement behind the van. This hyper-vigilance was the product of the cynical, conspiracy theory guys who lived on the opposite side of street of my sheltered existence. They coached me in the belief that most people are not good until we discover otherwise. “It’s quite the opposite,” my cynical friends informed me, “Quite the opposite.”  

“You guys don’t believe in anything,” I said. “You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

“There might be,” those cynics conceded, “but I will tell you this, two seconds after you lower your defense shield, we gotcha!” They got to me, over time, and in numerous discussions of scenarios and real-life, told-you-so instances, they inched my inches until I saw these two hats turned backwards, over bandanas, as sharks circling, studying my strengths and weaknesses, waiting to see if they could get hurt, seeking points of vulnerability, until they spotted a gotcha moment.    

When I saw no movement around my van, I began to wonder if they were feeling me out, to gauge if I was an easy roll for a future heist. All of this may have been unfair, based almost solely on superficial appearance, but I could find no reason why they would want to stop their truck in the middle of a neighborhood street “just to talk” to someone like me.

I never understood the subtle differences and wide divides between the worlds of cool and nerddom, “And you probably never will,” more than one observer has informed me. In the company of these two bandit looking fellas, it was pretty obvious that I was on the outside looking in. They wore it so well too. They were so calm. Everything they did was so calm. They appeared so comfortable with who they were that I thought of the term radiating self-possession that students who paid far more attention in literature class knew and used. Those two also spoke in an ethereal tone that suggested they were probably potheads, and as one attuned to pop culture references, and pop culture characterizations, I knew that meant that they were way cooler than me. If all of this was true, I thought, and they were thieves, and I was the modern day equivalent to the aproned shopkeeper of the ice cream van, their comparative cool points were through the roof.

We view the world from the inside looking out, of course, but according to my metrics, I should’ve been their superior. I wore better clothes, and I figured I had a better education, but these guys had intangibles that I couldn’t even imagine attaining. They had a look about them, a strong sense of cool, and an aura that suggested that they were just fun loving, party-going types. Such characteristics threw my metrics right out the window. They weren’t stupid, however, and that fact was evident minutes into our conversation.

They asked me questions about how I was compensated. That, in and of itself, is not an informed question of course, but it was the way they asked those questions. It was a feel that cannot be explained that suggested their leading questions were such that they knew more about the business side of life than the average bandanna, beneath hats turned backwards, and sunglasses dude. I gauged their questions appropriately, but I maintained that there was no way their education was as expensive as mine. Plus, I thought, If they were potheads, they probably spent a lot of time equivocating moral issues, and those who equivocate –my Catholic school educators informed me– have fundamental flaws about them that they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to overcome and hide. In my world of proper metrics, I thought I was, check, check, check, superior.

Except for one tiny, little nugget, I conveniently neglected to input into the equation: on this particular day I was also wearing sunglasses and a bandanna beneath my backwards facing hat. The only difference between the three of us was that I didn’t wear this ensemble on a day-to-day basis. I wore it for the sole purpose of concealing my true identity. I was so embarrassed to be a ding ding man that short of wearing a fake beard and a Groucho Marx nose and eyeglasses, I had every inch of my identity concealed from the public.

They didn’t know any of that of course. They probably thought I was a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat brutha, and that may have been the primary reason they decided to stop and chat with me in the first place. It may have been the reason they were so relaxed about their status, and my status, and the superior versus inferior dynamic influencing our approach to one another. Within the internal struggle I experienced in this interaction, was a ray of sunshine. I felt superior, because this was a get up for me. This was not my every day apparel. That moment was fleeting even while I basked in it, for I realized that if I was superior I wasn’t doing anything with it, and that fact led me to be embarrassed that I was now wearing a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat, and sunglasses. I wondered if I input that variable into the equation if it might actually make me inferior to them.

“Who is your primary customer?” the one who spoke most often asked.

“Kids of course,” I said. I then relayed a number of stories about how my trainer taught me to take advantage of the naïveté of children. “I told him that I was not going to conduct business that way, and he said, ‘You have to. That’s how you make money for your business.’ I reiterated that that wouldn’t be how I conducted business.”

They were fascinated by my stories, hanging on every word, and reacting accordingly. Fellas who feel insecure and inferior, generally tend to try to prove their intelligence by speaking so often that we don’t search for their weaknesses. These guys listened, and they listened so well that it was obvious how comfortable they were in their own skin. I watched them react, and I couldn’t believe it. I realized that when we tally points for determining who is superior and inferior, we often fail to account for how comfortable people are with themselves, regardless the relative circumstances. We input data every day and in every way, calculating our strengths and weaknesses, and some of us find ways of achieving happiness within our dynamic. We’ve been led to believe that achieving vast amounts of money, power, and the resultant prestige are an endgame, and the ultimate goal, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Very few would deny wanting such things, of course, but some don’t need them for that sense of spiritual completion in the manner others do. Some of us just want enough disposable income to do something with the family on weekends, and what we do on weekends can be as fulfilling, if not more so, than that which the most successful business man achieves during the week.

These two were probably a little bit older than me, but they were still young, and as such, the opportunities for them in the future were as wide open for them as for me, but they were still much more comfortable in their current situation than I was. They learned to live with their limitations, until they were so comfortable with who they were that they were radiating self-possession. I realized that in my bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat, and sunglasses disguise, I lost so many points in this category that it would be impossible for me to recover in time.

The bandanas, with hats on backwards, and sunglasses did not wear shirts, and they were riding in a beat up, old International truck, that rattled in idle. They were construction workers with deep, dark tans that made their teeth appear whiter then they were when they smiled and laughed. My guess, watching these two twentysomethings speak, was that even though they appeared inferior, they had no trouble landing women. My guess was that among those women who knew them well, there was a whole lot of adulation going on. I didn’t know that to be a fact, of course, but guys like me –who were always on the lookout for what we missed in life– were always looking to guys like these for ideas.

They laughed a genuine laugh at some of the things I said. The matters I discussed had something to do with the business side of being a ding ding man, and how I loathed my current station in life, but I can’t remember specifics. I remember their laughter, however, and I remember wondering if they were laughing with me or at me. At this point in my life, I just escaped a high school that contained a large swath of fellas who were laughing at me. This casual conversation reminded me of those fellas I just escaped, and it revealed the shield that I erected whenever I thought one of them neared.

That takeaway didn’t strike me as a profundity in the moment. It crossed my mind, but I didn’t grasp the totality of what happened between us until they told me they had to leave.

“All right, we have to go grab some lunch,” the one who did most of the talking said, finally ceding to the one who had been attempting to draw the proceedings to a close at the tail end of our conversation.

“Oh, of course,” I said. “We’ll see you later then.” I tried to remain casual, but I actually wanted to keep talking to them. In the beginning, most of my participation was clipped to end the casual conversation as quick as possible to thwart their ability to find an angle on me. By the time they suggested they had to leave, I flirted with trying to come up with a conversation topic that might convince them to stay. I obviously dropped all suspicions at that point, and I actually missed them before they drove away.

As I watched them drive away, it dawned on me that the preconceived notions I had about them were based on my experiences in high school, and I thought about all of the hang-ups and insecurities that plagued me. I realized that these two were just a couple of good guys, and they appeared to think I was a pretty good guy too. I didn’t expect them to want to talk to me, but when they did, I expected them to lose interest quickly. When they didn’t, I realized I liked being the guy they thought I was. Other than appearing to be a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat brutha, I wasn’t sure what it was they thought they saw when they sidled up next to me to chat, but I liked it, and while I watched them drive away, I realized I wanted to do a retake of the whole encounter. The next time I saw them, I decided, I would enjoy our conversation from beginning to end, without any hang-ups or preconceived notions, but I never saw them again.

The idea that most people speak in superlatives was not lost on me, but most people who knew me well, at the time, said that I might have been one of the most uptight, frustrated, and angst-ridden individuals they’ve ever met, and the costume I wore that day supported that characterization more than I cared to admit. Very few of those who knew me well have ever accused me of being too relaxed.

It wasn’t until these two were long gone that I realized that my inability to put high school behind me prevented me from enjoying simple, casual conversations with some decent guys who just want to chat. I wondered how many other casual conversations I ruined on that basis. Thanks to my cynical friends teaching me the ways of the world, I learned how to play a proverbial king of the mountain game, a game I often lost in high school, and I was so locked into that defensive position that it ruined my life for years.

Is it true that we’re all searching for a point of superiority, or inferiority, in even the most casual conversations? I don’t know, and some would say no, and others would say hell no! “I’m just asking you what you think about the latest wheat and grain prices on the commodity markets.” So, why do we loathe speaking to some people? Why do we try to avoid them as often as we can, and when we can’t, our goal is to end those conversations as quick as possible. Do they make us feel incomplete and inferior? Why do we enjoy casual conversations with others we deem inferior so much more? The tricky, sticky element of this argument is that we think that in some way, shape, or form the elements of superiority and inferiority manipulate just about every conversation we have, and when we’re proven wrong in some instances, we wish we never discovered it. Now that our mind’s eye is open to this idea, we wish we could turn it off, and enjoy the fruits of casual conversations again.

If it is true that every single conversation has these elements in some form, where was I in this casual conversation with two guys who wore a bandanna, beneath a backwards facing hat and sunglasses? That was never established in a substantial manner, but my takeaway from this particular encounter was that for a very brief moment in my life, I didn’t care, and that might be why I enjoyed our conversation so much that I missed them as I watched them drive away.