My Life Stories

Embracing the Speedo

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

“I don’t understand you,” my wife said as we were getting ready for the day when I put my last story on my site.

She was referencing the fact that minor embarrassments cause me so much anxiety. Yet, I choose to relive them by writing about them and posting them for everyone to read.  

I must confess, it’s confusing to me as well. 

I enjoy being the butt of a joke, as long as it’s on my own terms. The idea of people laughing at me without my knowing causes me irrational distress. Sharing these stories through my eyes allows me to take control of the situation and laugh at myself with everyone else. 

Think Eminem’s character, B-Rabbit, in the final rap battle in the movie 8 Mile. 

I can insult myself better than anyone can. I promise that what I bring will be a hell of a lot more entertaining than anyone else will come up with. 

I was forced to wear a Speedo at a young age. 

Okay, that doesn’t read well. 

I was forced to wear a Speedo at a young age at the YMCA.

Nope. Not better.

I was a member of the YMCA swim team as a second and third grader; we wore Speedos when we swam. 

There we go.

It doesn’t matter what age we are. We all have blind spots to things we didn’t know we needed to concern ourselves with. 

My brother-in-law brought this idea to my attention years ago when we saw a Hanes commercial with Michael Jordan on an airplane donning an unfortunate mustache. The commercial is for undershirts with a collar that will stay flat and not turn into “bacon neck.”

“Well,” my brother-in-law said, turning to me, “I didn’t know I needed to worry about that.”

One, it never occurred to me that people didn’t always worry about every aspect of their appearance. Two, it made me question how many of my insecurities were manufactured by marketing executives who bought their second house based on preying on our sensitivities. 

Sometimes, though, our insecurities are born through good old-fashioned childhood embarrassment. 

When I wore a Speedo during my first swimming season, it never occurred to me that I had anything to be insecure about. The Speedo was the uniform. Everyone in the pool was wearing the same thing. 

It wasn’t until the team picture from that season was displayed in the YMCA lobby that I was made aware I had something to be embarrassed about.

I walked past a group of kids waiting for their parents to pick them up and were passing the time by looking at the team picture. 

I was sitting in the front row on the pool deck in the picture.

“Tim looks like he’s naked because his rolls cover his Speedo,” said one of the kids. 

Of course, this was met with laughter by the other kids. 

I made myself disappear. There is at least one universe in the infinite number of them, with a version of Tim that speaks up. However, in this universe, Tim would never confront those kids because that might embarrass them, which is too much embarrassment for a single interaction. 

I couldn’t unhear it. I loved to swim. Swimming is one of the few natural talents I’ve known in this life; however, I dreaded putting on my Speedo every practice and swim meet. It gave me a competitive advantage in getting off the starting block faster because I despised being isolated up there in a Speedo, convinced everyone was laughing at my body. I have my insecurities to thank for my 1st place ribbon for the 50-meter freestyle at the state championship swim meet that year.

I gave up swimming for basketball the following year, not because of the Speedo. Not entirely, at least.

I assumed my Speedo days were over. 

And they were until I found out in the fall of 2012 that there would be a “Speedo Day” with many friends during our upcoming trip to Mexico in February. 

I was initially excited. I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a black Speedo the same day. The excitement disappeared when I got home, tried it on, and looked in the mirror. 

I promised myself that I would lose weight before the trip. *SPOILER ALERT* I broke that promise.

I did, however, take action to try to get some color on my pasty, white skin by making an appointment at a tanning salon. Everything went well getting to the booth; no awkward interactions. 

It wasn’t until minute eight of my twelve-minute session that I realized I was wearing boxer briefs. Panicked, I reached down and pulled both legs of the boxer briefs up to match the coverage of a Speedo. Of course, it was too little too late. 

As I looked in the mirror the following day, I had a white V across my thighs. I decided to roll with it. While the tan line was ridiculous, it would draw attention away from the mess above the Speedo. 

When the day came in Mexico, I didn’t have a self-conscious thought most of the day, thanks to tequila. We spent most of the day in the pool, but as the day began to end, a few of us decided to take our Speedos to the ocean. 

The surf was relatively rough that day; that, combined with alcohol, made it hard to keep my balance walking onto the beach. I fell over and was rolled around in the surf like a bloated seal carcass. 

Finally, I got to my feet and noticed a couple of girls pointing and looking in my direction with displeasure. I walked directly to them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said, “and no, I’m not Daniel Craig.”

As years passed and I gained weight, my Speedo fell slowly to the bottom of my swimsuit drawer. At some point, I forgot I even had it anymore. 

Fast forward to July 31, 2022. I was heading to my brother’s house for his birthday party. I had been invited, but he didn’t know I was coming. I scrambled to pack a bag and head out the door to drive to his place, but I couldn’t find my swimsuit. As I rummaged through my swimsuit drawer, cursing my wife’s name because she had no doubt put my swimsuit somewhere it didn’t belong, I stumbled across my old Speedo at the bottom of the drawer. 

I was excited to try it on because I had lost 70 pounds. Surely, I would finally look natural in a Speedo. 

Nope. 

It was a mess. I stood in the mirror, trying to decide if I would do it. It would be a birthday present for my brother, something to make him laugh. I would be the butt of the joke all day, but in the end, it would be my joke.

Fuck it.

I threw some shorts over the Speedo and went to the party. 

I was the first person to arrive. I got out of the car. Took off my shirt and shorts and walked around the side of the house to the pool. 

When you don’t wear Speedos, walking around in them is odd. I looked down multiple times to make sure I wasn’t actually naked.

My brother was finishing organizing the furniture on the pool deck. He looked up, widened his eyes, and started to laugh hysterically. At that moment, I decided that no matter what happened over the course of the day, I would wear nothing but the Speedo. 

When I sat in a chair by the pool later in the day with my legs crossed, I was reminded of my eight-year-old self as I looked down at myself. 

I look naked, I thought with a little laugh. 

A few minutes later, my brother’s future father-in-law, who had stopped by for a beer, turned to me and said, “Man, you’re not embarrassed by nothin’, are ya?”

He is a sweet guy, and I love talking to him, so I didn’t take offense to this. Instead, I took it as a compliment. Because, of course, I was embarrassed. I thought about my appearance constantly that day. 

What do I look like playing bags? I should wear a shirt now; it’s getting weird for everyone else. Are people making fun of me when I’m not around?

I stuck to my guns. I wore nothing but that black Speedo until almost midnight until the day’s heat disappeared, and I started shivering so much that I had to go inside. 

This is the only picture I have from that day. As you can see, there is a lot going on to be embarrassed about.

I didn’t do it to prove a point. I didn’t do it because I thought I looked good. I certainly didn’t do it because it was comfortable, although it wasn’t so uncomfortable when it got hot. 

I did it for the little boy hiding around the corner in the Brainerd YMCA lobby, ashamed. I write all of these embarrassing stories for him too. 

I can’t get back the years I spent worrying incessantly about what others thought of me, but I will spend my upcoming years not caring. I suggest you do the same.

Cheers.

P.S. If you are reading this and have a picture of me from Mexico in that Speedo, please send it to me. 

4th of July Embarrassment

/ Tim Severson / 1 Comment

A decade ago, on the 4th of July, I found myself in an embarrassing situation that still haunts me.

My wife and I were invited to hang out at our friend’s Minneapolis apartment pool. 

You should know that, for this particular friend, rules are made to be followed. As he read his apartment’s rules, he discovered he was allowed only three guests to the pool. No exceptions. This made for a short guest list poolside, but more friends were invited for a barbeque later in the day. 

Next to the pool, they were not invited to. 

My wife and I arrived at the pool party early to accompany the host of the party on a couple of errands to get some food and drink. 

You should know that we went to Winnipeg the weekend prior for our 5th wedding anniversary (another story for another day). 

“Are you sure you want to wear that today?” I asked my wife as she came downstairs before we went to downtown Minneapolis.

“Why, what’s wrong with this?” She asked.

“Nothing,” I said with a smile, “it looks great.”

As we went to Kramarczuk’s Sausage Co. in the St. Anthony neighborhood to buy food to grill later, a guy on a road bike came speeding past. He asked a straightforward question as he flew by:

“Canada?”

My wife decided to wear a red shirt with a white maple leaf and Canada on the front on the 4th of July.

My wife seemed genuinely baffled at the passer-by’s comment.

“What did you think was going to happen?” We asked her through laughter as we made our way back to the apartment. 

The weather was perfect that day. The kind of heat that only a day by the pool can cure. We had a blast drinking beer and swimming (like our forefathers would have wanted). 

When it came time for the barbeque, we realized we were highly ill-prepared. We had no grilling utensils. We didn’t even have paper plates. 

I ate a brat using a small chip bag as a makeshift bun. 

You appreciate the invention of the bun when you eat a hot stick of meat out of a bag made of multiple layers of polymer materials. The bun is critical to the process. It protects your hand while you wait for the inside of the meat stick to cool from its magma-like state. Without the bun, you must decide if you want a burned hand or mouth. 

After eating, we decided to head to Saint Anthony Main to continue the celebration, drink beer, and watch fireworks. 

Our party had grown from four people to ten people. 

We took the elevator to my friend’s 600-square-foot studio apartment to change clothes before heading out. On the journey up, my stomach started to feel a bit funny. 

“Is it cool if I take a quick shower?” I asked as we entered the apartment. 

“I don’t care,” he answered with a tone I didn’t quite care for.

Of course, I didn’t really need a shower. 

If you’d like more detail, I wrote about this strategy here, but I needed to announce that I was taking a shower so no one asked questions when they heard the water running. 

Why? 

Because the sole purpose of the water was to mask any other possible noises that may come from the bathroom, as nine people essentially huddled outside the bathroom door due to the size of the apartment. 

Let me tell you, there is no panic quite like watching the water in a toilet bowl rise due to a clog from your own bowel movement whilst in the only bathroom in a small apartment packed with people. 

There should be support groups for those who have gone through this. 

Please don’t overflow. Please don’t overflow, I thought as sweat poured from my head.

The water mercifully stopped about an inch below the rim of the bowl. 

I got in the shower to buy myself a little time.

The water will go down, and you can flush again. What if it doesn’t? Or what if it does, and the water overflows this time? That won’t happen. You are panicking for no reason. No reason?! Nine people on the other side of this door will know that not only did you poop, but you clogged the toilet like an animal. There is no coming back from this.

Isn’t my inner dialogue neat? 

When I got out of the shower, a much too long shower, I couldn’t help but notice that the water level had not changed. 

I cracked the door to the bathroom and looked out to see my wife just finishing getting dressed in the closet just outside the bathroom door. 

“Are you done?” She asked.

“Not exactly,” I said, “I need a plunger, and there isn’t one in here. I don’t know what to do.” 

“I’m sure he has one. It will all be okay. Just go ask him,” my wife said, attempting to reduce the panic splashed all over my face. 

I dried off, dressed, and walked four steps to talk to my friend, who was making a cocktail in the kitchen. 

“Hey, can I use your plunger?” I asked.

“Oh my God, did you clog the toilet?” He asked in a voice far too loud for the size of the apartment.

“Yeah,” I admitted in a hushed voice, then asked again, “Can I use your plunger?”

“I don’t have a plunger,” he said with little concern for my predicament. 

“Why don’t you have a plunger,” I asked in a quiet rage.

“I don’t make a habit of clogging toilets,” he responded.

I thought, who the fuck makes clogging toilets a habit?

“Is there someone we can call to get one?” I asked, trying to find a solution.

“This isn’t a hotel,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“Well, what the fuck should I do?” I asked in a whisper yell.

“I don’t know,” he yelled. 

With that, the only female aside from my wife in the apartment approached as I glanced toward the windows remembering that they didn’t open. I started doing some quick mental calculations, wondering if I would run as fast as I could if the glass would break so I could end the living nightmare I had found myself in.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Tim clogged the toilet,” my friend informed her.

I don’t know what I could have done to deserve this, I thought.

I didn’t hear the rest of their exchange due to the volume of the blood pumping through my ears. However, the next thing I knew, I was being handed a garbage bag. 

I looked at the garbage bag in my hand with complete confusion. 

“Just put your hand inside, and roll it up your arm. It will be gross, but you can unclog the toilet with your hand,” she said.

“O-okay,” I said, walking back to the bathroom in shame.

“I hate my life,” I said to my wife as I passed her going back to the scene of the crime.

She did her best not to laugh, and I love her for that.

I rolled the bag up my arm like I was Laura fucking Dern preparing to inspect a giant pile of dinosaur shit in Jurassic Park and reached into the cool water of the toilet. I don’t think I cried while unclogging the toilet, but I could have. 

I’d rather eat a thousand consecutive hot brats out of mini chip bags burning my hands and mouth before touching my excrement through the thin protection of a garbage bag again.

When the water starts to rush downward, the relief is the same as when you pop a limb back into a joint. 

That relief was short-lived when I remembered I needed to leave the bathroom to an apartment full of people who knew exactly what I just did. 

I walked out. Everyone was looking at me with smirks on their faces but silent.

“I can’t believe you clogged the toilet,” my friend yelled as the room erupted in laughter. 

I put the inverted garbage bag inside another garbage bag, threw it away, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and drank every drop as fast as I could. 

I genuinely hope you never have to experience a horrific situation like this. However, you now know what to do should you find yourself in such a predicament. 

You might want to know what happened to my relationship with the “friend” who handled that situation with little discretion. You might think I don’t have much of a relationship with him anymore. 

I officiated his wedding in May. How he handled that situation is why I love him so damn much. 

Cheers.

Unexpected Adventure in Chicago

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

It may surprise you to find out it is still possible to get lost in a major city in the United States in 2023.

It’s possible for me, anyway.

I traveled to my friend’s bachelor party in Chicago at the end of March.

Before you conjure up images of a stereotypical bachelor party that lead to us all saying, “What happens in Chicago, stays in Chicago,” this was a relatively relaxed weekend for men in their mid-to-late thirties. 

Mid-to-late thirties is not how I think of myself. Mentally, I am twenty years old. This means when I am presented with a weekend away from my family, I don’t necessarily behave like a thirty-eight-year-old father of two should behave.

I refuse to say things like, “I can’t drink like I used to and function the next day,” or, “I can’t sleep on a couch. Otherwise, my week will be ruined.”

You know, things old people say.

For better or worse, I drink like I’m twenty and will sleep wherever is convenient. Let’s call it “mind over maturity.”

On top of this mindset, my excitement is maxed out when I can socialize with adults. Also, my tolerance for alcohol has seen a significant decrease over the past couple of years.

All of this, put together, occasionally leads to less than sound-decision-making. It also leads to me repeating the same stories multiple times a night, as my brother, sister, and wife discovered in mid-April when my sister visited. I re-told this same tale many times in the same evening.

Our day started around 11:30 AM at Butch McGuires. Chicago dog and cocktails. We all commented to each other around the table about the importance of keeping food in your stomach to drink all day and still feel decent the following morning. The food we ate would be the last for that Saturday. 

From there, we hopped to a different bar to meet with the rest of the party. Then we headed to a golf simulator. 

When we walked out of the golf simulator, night had fallen. I’m confident you could have convinced everyone at the party that it was midnight (the shots of Malört may have helped). In actuality, it was 8:00 PM.

If this were a “choose your own adventure” story, this would be the spot for a choice.

Timmy walks to the street outside the golf simulator after consuming too much alcohol and taking a quick “power nap” on the couch inside. What should Timmy do?

Call an Uber and head back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep like a responsible adult, husband, and father? – END OF STORY

Or,

Head to the next bar and keep the night going? – CONTINUE READING

I have yet to become the mature adult who picks door number one. 

The four of us left standing ventured on to The Lodge Tavern; this would be the last bar of the night. We sat in that classic Chicago bar, drank beer, and talked about… well, I’m not sure what we talked about. I know I got sentimental at some point, which led to tears. It’s just who I am. I can’t help it. 

Four people turned to two. The bachelor and I were the last two standing.

It’s important to note when we called it a night, it was 10:30 PM. It is not as though we were walking out onto the street at four in the morning.

The bachelor lives roughly ten blocks from The Lodge Tavern in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago. The Courtyard hotel that I was staying in was about twenty blocks in the opposite direction in River North.

I have been informed that, when we were saying our goodbyes at the end of the night, my friend did his best to convince me to call an Uber.

Timmy is standing outside a bar in Chicago, and his friend insists he takes an Uber. Still, Timmy knows the hotel is within walking distance and would like to get a few more steps in before the night ends.

What should Timmy do?

Call an Uber and return to the hotel in less than ten minutes? – END OF STORY

Or,

Walk home to get some exercise and see the sites of the big city? – CONTINUE READING

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me,” I said with a smile. 

My friend gave me a refresher on the directions. They were pretty straightforward. Walk half a block, turn right on State St., take a left on Hubbard, and there’s the hotel. Almost literally straightforward. 

Easy peasy.

It had been about twelve hours since I last ate. So, it shouldn’t be a shock that a block and a half down State St. that I was drawn like a moth to a flame by the neon glow from the sign for Velvet Taco. I definitely didn’t go in because the name has made me laugh every time I’ve passed that restaurant. I’m thirty-eight years old, and such sophomoric humor is of little interest. 

I bought and ate tacos. I don’t know what kind of tacos. I don’t know if they were good. I only knew that I needed them. They must’ve been good since I decided to take this picture mid-taco.

I finished up, ready for the rest of my journey back to the hotel. I walked out with the confidence of a lifelong Chicagoan. Little did I know that my drunken hubris was leading me in the wrong direction.

As I write this, I have been putting the pieces together, and everything has fallen into place. Thanks to this picture and a video I recorded.

As you can see, I ended up walking down Rush St. rather than State St. I know this because I took this lovely shot of the Chicago Water Tower. I recognized that I had deviated from the path shortly after as I recorded a video of myself around the corner of Wabash and Ontario.

The green route on the map is the route I should’ve taken, and the red route is the route I actually took.

Around this time, it occurred to me that the phone in my hand could be used as a navigation tool via the Maps application that comes standard on the phone.

My phone died as I spun on a corner for the third or fourth time, trying to get the arrow on the map to point the way I thought it should be pointing. I had no choice but to go the old-fashioned route of asking other human beings for directions. Which led to multiple interactions that went like this:

“Excuse me, do you know where the Courtyard is?” I asked complete strangers passing by.

“No,” the strangers said, not slowing as they walked past.

“Me neither,” I said to the back of their heads as they walked away.

It’s worth noting I was looking up at buildings to help me navigate. I did this because I had spent a significant amount of time that morning looking out my hotel window at the hotel across the street. You never know when you might see something interesting through the open curtains of a stranger’s hotel room. 

I finally spotted the neighboring hotel shortly after midnight.

A few days after returning home from Chicago, I stumbled on a TikTok of a man explaining why he believes an active serial killer exists in Chicago. He had created a map similar to the one above. His map had flags where bodies were found, people had gone missing, and attempted abductions were reported. I matched the age and description of people who appeared to be victims or prospective victims. Many of those flags were in the River North neighborhood.

Some might say that I risked my life to bring you this story. I’m not saying that, but some might say that.

What good is life without a bit of adventure, right?

Cheers.

Unexpected Adventures in Boulder

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

“I bet I can beat you guys back!” I yelled, breaking into a sprint (see: jog). 

“Tim, wait!” my friends yelled as I ran around the corner. 

They were too late. I was off on my own in a neighborhood in Boulder, CO. 

In September 2021, I traveled with some friends to Boulder, CO, to watch the University of Minnesota Gopher football team play against the University of Colorado. 

Few things match the energy of traveling to a college town to watch your team play. It opens up a sense of community in people. People you see wearing your team’s colors from the airport to the stadium are no longer strangers. They are your friends, if only for 72 hours. 

From smiles and head nods to “Go Gophers,” “Row the Boat,” and “Ski-U-Mah,” said in passing, a strange city starts to feel much more inviting. If you choose the right hotel, all the other guests are fans of your team. 

Come game day, the excitement in the air is palpable. You know you are in enemy territory when you leave your hotel. Usually, the opposing fans greet you with good-natured jeers; a “boo” is shouted with a good-natured smile, for example. 

Unless you are in Wisconsin or Iowa, those people are savages that take out their frustration of living in the worst two states in the country on opposing fans. Some of the worst things I’ve heard from opposing fans have come from the mouths of sixty-year-old women wearing Wisconsin red. 

In Colorado, we heard the same thing repeated all weekend leading up to the game from the female Colorado students, “Sko buuuhfs!”

The first time we heard it, my friends and I looked at each other in confusion and simultaneously asked, “What did she say?”

By the third time we heard it, we realized it was a shorthand for “Let’s Go Buffs.” For those of you not up on your college team names, the University of Colorado team name is the Buffaloes.

As it turns out, shouting, “Sko buuuhfs!” at an unsuspecting group of Colorado fans as they pass by is massively entertaining. Watching the excitement melt from their faces as they realized the cheer came from three men in their late thirties from Minnesota made for endless fun. 

What completes a road trip to watch your team is a win. The Gophers delivered on that front blowing Colorado out 30-0. The ten thousand Gopher fans that made the trip were ecstatic. 

When your team wins a road game you traveled to see, it makes money spent on travel, hotel, food, and massive amounts of beverages feel like an excellent investment. 

Before I tell you about the post-game celebration, I must tell you about the day before the game. 

My friends and I set out in the morning to visit the campus sites and find a bar. That bar led to a brewery, which led to a wine bar. By 4:00 PM, we were having a great time. 

We connected with a couple of other friends who made the trip and made plans to meet them for a drink and some appetizers. 

We went to a restaurant on Pearl St. in downtown Boulder to grab cocktails. We sat at a table on the sidewalk, sharing laughs and cheering with every Gopher fan that passed by. After a few beers and fireball shots, my friends needed to return to the hotel around 6:00 PM.

This is the responsible thing to do. However, I have spent twenty years training for marathon day-drinking days. I knew returning to my hotel room could lead to an abrupt end of the day. 

 No, thank you.

As we got up from the table, my friends mentioned getting an Uber. 

“Our hotel is a mile away. Let’s walk,” I said.

My friends saw through my plan. They knew my strategy would lead to me convincing them to stop at another bar. They explained that the night wasn’t ending and needed to “reset.” I probably would have submitted until I heard the word “nap” uttered. 

I have never started a good story with, “So I laid down to take a nap.” 

“Let’s just take an Uber to the hotel and find a bar to go…” 

“I bet I can beat you guys back!” I yelled, breaking into a sprint. 

“Tim, wait!” my friends yelled as I ran around the corner. 

I sprinted for a few blocks until my limited energy ran out. I found myself in a residential neighborhood walking down the street with the sun setting behind the mountains. 

I knew if I walked a couple of blocks south, I’d be back where the action was. However, I understood a walk and a break from cocktails were necessary, so I continued down the quiet street. 

I wasn’t sloppy by any means. I was in the day-drinking sweet spot. I had my wits about me and found humor in almost everything I saw. Like this gnome carved into an old tree. 

After a few blocks, I stumbled upon a park with a basketball court. Eight guys were playing a game of 4-on-4. I stopped to watch because, well, I had nothing better to do. 

One of the guys playing clearly had the lion’s share of talent. I watched silently as his teammates took terrible shots and turned the ball over. Eventually, their ineptitude became too much to handle.

“Kick it to short shorts in the corner,” I yelled through the fence. 

The best player was wearing running shorts. You know, the shorts you see those runners wear when they fly past running faster than you sprint, but they are on the seventh mile of their daily run. Then you think, show off, because you can’t remember the last time you ran more than a mile, let alone with your shirt off.

No? That’s just me? 

The guy with the ball threw a wild layup that gonged off the backboard. 

I shook my head in disgust. 

On their next possession, I figured they didn’t hear me and, with a little more gusto, yelled, “Feed shorts shorts!” 

The team again ignored their new inebriated coach, turning the ball over. “Come on,” I said in frustration, running my hands through my hair.

The sound of movement stopped. I looked at the court, and all the players stared at me.  

“Do we know you?” asked one of the players.

“No,” I said.

“Then shut the hell up,” he said.

“Sounds good,” I said, deciding to move on with my journey back to the hotel. 

I walked a couple of blocks trying to get my bearings, when a familiar aroma hit my nose. 

I’m in Colorado!

I scanned the area for a dispensary. I was slightly confused since I was still in a mostly residential neighborhood, but I was like a bloodhound on the scent. I spotted a blue and red neon sign that read, Open, illuminated in the window of what looked like a small house. 

I entered, learned some new things about marijuana from the lovely woman behind the counter, bought a souvenir, and continued my journey. 

I was confident I knew how to return to my hotel, but I checked my phone for directions. My phone died as the route pulled up on my Google Maps. 

If I can direct your attention to the graphic (below), I have highlighted (in case it needed to be clarified) where I got a little lost. Fortunately, after a few minutes of standing at the intersection of Pearl and 28th St., I remembered the Apple Watch on my wrist could lead me home. 

When I returned to my hotel room, I started texting my friends who took the Uber home. When they didn’t respond, I walked out the sliding glass door to the hotel courtyard and down to their room. 

In the courtyard, I noticed a glass pipe filled with marijuana. I looked up at the hotel and realized someone must’ve dropped it from their balcony. I continued on to the back patio of my friend’s room. They didn’t answer, so I started texting again.

Here’s what that looked like. 

Those are the texts from a man desperate for a good time. 

Eventually, they got up and going and appeased me by going out for a couple more drinks. 

The following morning, game day, we went to a bar near campus with a couple hundred other Gopher fans. 

It is hilarious watching Colorado fans walk away from a campus bar in disappointment when they realize it has been overrun by Gopher fans chanting, “M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A!” Which we did a lot. 

By the time the game ended, we had put in a full day’s worth of drinking. We opted to head back to the hotel to regroup, shower, and decide what the night would bring. 

Fortunately, we had the foresight to stock our hotel room with beer and snacks for just this occasion. 

We watched more college football and listened to music for a while, but I could feel the energy being sucked out of the room. I could feel the mood of the evening reverting to what I had encountered the night before. We needed to make decisions. 

“Where should we head?” I asked, hopping out of my chair. 

I didn’t receive the enthusiasm from my friends I was looking for. Then I got an idea. 

I walked out the sliding glass door to the courtyard. Walked into the grass and found the glass pipe I had seen the night before. I walked back to the patio of my hotel room with the pipe in hand.

“There’s no way you’re going to smoke that,” one of my friends said. 

I can’t remember my exact intentions when I walked out of the room, but that sounded like a challenge to my drunken brain. 

“Do you have a lighter?” I asked.

I had barely finished asking the question before a lighter sailed through the open sliding glass door. 

Without hesitation, I lit the remaining weed in the pipe and inhaled deeply. 

Look, I’m not proud of doing this. It wasn’t my finest decision. It was a calculated risk to get a rise out of my friends. And, yes, it was run-of-the-mill marijuana.

I’ve realized I am addicted to getting attention on my own terms. Hell, it’s why I write these stories. I don’t care if people are laughing at me as long as they are laughing.

Also, it worked. I don’t know if my friends were worried I would find other drugs in the courtyard or if they decided I needed an activity to keep me busy. We went out to a bar and got some pizza. 

We chatted with a guy at the bar who was nice enough, but I grew bored of his stories quickly.

“I smoked yard drugs!” I shouted in a mostly empty pizza restaurant. 

That put a quick ending to our conversation. 

It’s a fine line between being a gainfully employed husband and father of two and a bum smoking things you find on the ground and yelling about it to strangers. I, for one, think that is an important lesson to take away here. 

Although it should go without saying, don’t do what I did. There are much wiser ways to entice your friends to hit the town on a Saturday night.

That said, I regret nothing. 

Cheers.

What Are The Odds?

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Introverted-extrovert.

It sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s what I am. On top of being your standard, run-of-the-mill moron. 

If you’re unfamiliar, it works like this: I gather my social energy like a bear consuming calories before hibernation. When that energy runs out, I need alone time, or as my wife and I call it, Tim Time.

When I have a full tank of social energy and find myself at a social function with cocktails, those cocktails are like adding nitrous oxide to a car engine.

For my wife, ever the extrovert, this is madness. She is eager for socializing and action.

I often find myself in trouble entertaining future plans with people in social settings.

Over the holidays, my wife’s brother told me about his plans to visit the UK in the spring for an extended stay due to a work obligation. We were having a beer, and I was filling him in on some things we did when we traveled to London a few years back.

The nostalgia overcame me. “Want to go to London in April?” I shouted to my wife in the next room. 

“Absolutely!” she shouted back.

I was enjoying the fantasy of being able to make such decisions on a whim. Pretending we have the means and time to say, “Sure, we are traveling to Tennessee in the middle of April and Cabo San Lucas two weeks later. But what the hell?! Let’s book a flight to London in between.” Knowing full well we are not those people. Not yet, at least.

A week later, my wife informed me she had found a relatively cheap flight to London. 

As a woman of action, my wife doesn’t understand why I would pretend to entertain plans to keep the conversation going, whether it be international vacations or getting dinner in a few months. 

I despise small talk. The only topic of conversation I detest more than weather and work is people telling me about a dream they had last night. Nothing could be more boring. Instead, I drive my conversations to more fun topics, leading me to make plans I do not intend to follow through on. Drinks, dinner, concerts, and international travel (to name a few).

Despite her extroverted nature, sometimes I surpass my wife’s enthusiasm in social situations leading her to ask, “What is wrong with you?”

This question means a good conversation is, or has, taken place.

A prime example of one such instance is when we went to her company’s holiday party in December 2021.

Usually, the introvert in me would despise going to an office party with people I do not work with. 

However, some working with my wife are thrilled to see me when I come around. They are happier than my family has ever been to see me.

Why? Couldn’t tell you. Do I love it? Yes.

I love it so much that I went to a Twins game for a company function a year ago without my wife. If my social energy tank is full, and I know people who find my particular brand of nonsense entertaining will be present at an event, I’ll be there. 

I walked into the holiday party excited to have a fun night. 

After a few cocktails, I started a conversation with a couple of guys who work on the sales side of the company. They are fun, dynamic people, and I was eager to win their approval.

They were discussing a game they played at a conference. I listened and laughed but needed clarification about the game when the story ended.

“The game is called ‘What are the odds’?” I asked, “How do you play?”

They explained. The rules are simple. Someone asks another person what the odds are they would do something. Depending on the nature of that “something,” the person will respond with “one out of X.” Once the odds are set, you count backward from three and say a number that is between one and X. If you both say the same number, the person who placed the odds needs to do the “something.”

If you need clarification, hang with me. I am confident that you will understand the game and be entertained when you finish reading.

“I want to play,” I said.

Their faces lit up like long-term prisoners seeing fresh fish entering their cell block. 

“Okay, let’s see,” one said, pondering the options. 

The lightbulb turned on behind his eyes as he said, “What are the odds you will grab the CEO’s ass as hard as you can?”

My wife joined our circle as he asked this. She asked what we were talking about. I informed her that I was learning a new game. Her eye roll indicated she was familiar with the game.

“One out of three,” I said, knowing fully what I was doing. 

“He doesn’t understand the rules!” shouted my wife.

“I understand the rules just fine,” I told my wife. “One out of three,” I repeated.

When they asked the question, I knew immediately my odds would be one out of three, and my number would be one.

“Three, two, one,” one of them counted down.

“One!” We both said simultaneously. Laughter erupted. 

I could have made my odds one in a million and said one-hundred-twenty-seven. Making it almost sure I would not have to sexually harass my wife’s CEO at the office holiday party in front of the entire company.

What fun is that?

Did I mention that my wife is in Human Resources?

“You do not have to do it,” she told me.

“Yes, he does,” the guys said in unison. 

I scanned the office to find the CEO talking to an employee in a cubicle. He was standing in the corner of the cubicle, half sitting on the desk. 

“Does it have to happen, right…”

“Yes,” they said in unison once again.

“Can I wait until his ass is more accessible?” I asked.

They informed me it must happen immediately. 

“What is wrong with you?” my wife asked. 

I walked to the cubicle, forming my plan. 

I stepped into the cubicle and pretended to be looking for something.

“Are you looking for something, Tim?” the CEO asked me. 

“Yeah, I think I left my phone over here,” I said. 

I would like to thank The Academy…

He went back to his conversation. 

I began searching behind him. He didn’t step forward like I needed him to. Instead, he just slid down the desk away from me. 

Time to get aggressive, I thought. 

“Sorry,” I said, placing my hand firmly on his back and moving him away from the desk. I was now positioned directly behind him. 

I turned around. Reached for the CEO of my wife’s company’s right butt cheek with my right hand. I quickly grabbed and squeezed as hard as I could. 

A noise of shock and horror flew from his mouth, “oooh-aaaaah-whaa?”

I let go and began my escape. I looked to the guys who had put me up to it. They were in hysterics.

As was the rest of the company, aside from my wife.

See, while I was putting on my Oscar-worthy performance looking for my “lost phone,” they decided it would be selfish to enjoy the show alone.

Word spread fast, and there were now fifty people watching and laughing. 

“What are the odds?!” the CEO yelled over my head at the two who put me up to the task.

They could only nod and give a thumbs-up as they laughed. 

I knew I was in the clear. 

Most don’t see my introverted side. I enjoy being the person to make others laugh, especially if it is at my expense. 

I have a knack for living right on the line. I enjoy taking calculated risks and keeping my toes on the line of offensive, inappropriate humor in social situations. 

It’s not a place for most, and it could get me into serious trouble someday.

But…

What are the odds?

Cheers.