Family

My Good Old Day

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

If you’re looking for a more conventional April Fools Day story, you can find that here. What follows is a different story that will still give you an opportunity to laugh at me if you are into that kind of thing.

There is a quote from the last episode of The Office delivered by Ed Helms as Andy Bernard that is so touching and relatable.

“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”

We all know that the time we have is finite and yet we are so often unable to appreciate how impactful events will be on us for the rest of our lives. Days with friends before responsibilities. Time holding your sleeping newborn. 

So often, it isn’t until those moments aren’t available to us that we stop and recognize how great they were.

Sometimes, however, there are moments that pang in your chest just so. That pang rings up in our brains and we know that we need to take in all that is happening. We allow ourselves to be truly present as we are struck with clairvoyance that in years to come we will want to remember what is taking place. 

Today is the five-year anniversary of such an event that happened to me. 

I struggle with being present. I am usually wrapped in worry about what just happened or what might happen next.

April 1, 2017, was a perfect spring day. No, I am not romanticizing the weather because it was a special day for me. It was sunny, in the mid-60s, light breeze. It’s what I refer to as “Tim Weather”. 

My wife was away for a bachelorette party, doing God knows what, while I stayed home with my 12-month-old son. 

Leading up to the weekend, people asked, “who is coming to help you while she’s gone?” As though I would not be capable of keeping my son alive on my own for 48 hours. 

I mean, I get it now. At the time I thought, why does everyone keep asking that?!

I was so excited about the weekend. I knew the weather was going to be amazing so I planned an outing for the two of us. 

I settled on going to one of my favorite places, the University of Minnesota. 

We started in the mall. I took him out of his stroller and let him run around. Since it was Saturday, the mall was quiet with just a few students sitting on the grass studying. Reminded me of when I didn’t do that on Saturdays in college. 

We walked up to Northrop Auditorium and there happened to be a sorority taking their annual picture on the steps. I let Jude wander up to them. He would wave, back then, by raising his hand straight into the air and then opening and closing his fingers. He said, “Haaaaaaaiiii!” And the girls lost their collective minds. 

To this day, Jude makes fast friends with everyone he comes across.

We ate some Cheerios and I put him in the stroller for a little tour of campus. 

It’s so much fun to push a baby in a stroller and talk to them as though they understand a damn thing you are saying. 

We circled back to Coffman for another round of Cheerios. Jude greeted every new passerby with a wave. We rolled around in the grass until it was time for a nap. 

Throughout our time on campus, I knew I was living an unforgettable day. I knew it would be a day that would randomly pop into my head for years to come and it has. 

There is a movie, About Time, that I adore. I used to call it a guilty pleasure movie, but somewhere along the way, I have decided that it is an awesome movie.

That night, after I put Jude to bed, I turned the movie on and decided to have a beer. And another. And another. By the end of the movie, well I was a little drunk. 

The very basic premise of the movie is that the lead character discovers he (and all of the men in his family) can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life.

SPOILER ALERT

In one of the final scenes, Tim, played by Domhnall Gleeson, takes his last trip back in time to see his dad before his baby is born. They both know that this is the last time that they will see each other. His dad, played by Bill Nighy, has one last request, it is to go back in time together to a day they spent on the beach together when Gleeson’s character was a boy. 

I realized that if given the opportunity, that day would be the day I would go back to with Jude. 

Still is.

This realization paired with the beer caused me to cry.

Check that sob.

No. It caused me to heave cry audibly for about 15 minutes. Because drinking beer and crying are the things I am best at and I was all out of beer.

April 1, 2017, is one of the best days of my life and I am grateful that I was able to recognize that it was a good old day before I left it.

Cheers.

Hot Timmy Summer

/ Tim Severson / 2 Comments

I’ve hated myself for a long time.

Wait, let me rephrase that.

I’ve hated my body for as long as I can remember.

I can remember hating the start of football as a kid because the pants never fit right. I’ve hated shopping my entire life because trying on clothes would give me anxiety and leave me in a depressed state. 

I’ve had stretch marks on my stomach since high school. 

Then college happened. People talked about “the freshman 15”, but my body misheard that and went after the freshman 50. 

Since college, I have battled with my weight constantly. Losing some, gaining more back. A decade ago I lost 60 pounds and gained it all back (and some). 

I got to a point where I justified it. 

The worst part of my day was getting out of the shower and being forced to see myself. I told myself, “this is just who you are.” The echoes of people calling me “big guy” and other names pointed out the fact that not only was I big, but everyone knew it. 

I even got my Covid vaccine early because I was obese. Talk about bitter-sweet.

I have pretended to be confident in myself and how I look every day.

Fake it ‘til you make it. Right?

Then, on April 12th as I was sitting down to eat a plate full of air-fried popcorn shrimp and mozzarella sticks, I saw an ad for Noom. 

It advertised a psychological approach to weight loss. Something that piqued my interest as a guy with a Psychology degree. 

One of the first questions was, “what is your goal weight?”

A lot less than my weight now, I thought.

They wanted a specific number. I knew that if it was going to work, I needed to be specific in a meaningful way. Something that was special to me. 

The neat thing about my birthday, October 8th. Is that is the day that I nervously asked my wife to go out with me when we were in Junior High. 

Now I can’t be certain about this, but my educated guess was that I have not weighed less than 200 pounds since my freshman year of high school in 1999. And since college, I have essentially been pregnant on and off like an Irish Catholic woman. 

It clicked.

I am going to weigh 199.8 pounds on my birthday.

That meant that the task in front of me was to lose 64 pounds in 179 days. 

What was the first thing I did?

I ate the mozzarella sticks and popcorn shrimp, duh. 

A last meal of sorts. I’ve got to say it was almost a sexual experience. I dream about that “meal” sometimes.

I got obsessed with my weight loss goal. If you saw me walking (yes, I walk 2 miles every day at lunch) or on my stationary bike, it would look like I was talking to myself. 

I repeat two things over and over and over.

“One ninety-nine” and, my mantra, “I can. I will. End of story.”

The weight melted off in the first month and a half.

This gave birth to “Hot Timmy Summer”.

If you saw me this summer, you may have heard me promoting Hot Timmy Summer. 

From the outside, it probably sounded stupid or self-indulgent, but it was about me embracing myself and being confident in myself as a human, not just faking it.

If people asked if they should do something, my answer was, “go for it! It’s Hot Timmy Summer, celebrate your power.”

In the beginning, I held on to anger inside me. I’d hear the people making jokes about my weight over the course of my life. I’d see their faces and hold on to it through a difficult workout or when I really wanted a piece of pizza but didn’t want to mess up my progress.

Hot Timmy Summer changed all that.

It started when I was going to my brother’s house and going swimming in the pool. The pool that was put in when I lived there in 1998. I have had a routine since the first day I swam in it.

I would put a towel close to the stairs. I would pick a time when people weren’t paying close attention to me, quickly take off my shirt, and jump in. Then, when it was time to get out, I’d go straight to the towel and cover up as quickly as possible.

I would do this even if it was just my family around the pool. I just figured they had to be at least as disgusted as I was in how I looked without a shirt on. 

This summer, I realized how ridiculous that is. 

I decided that I was out of fucks to give when it came to what people thought about me. Thus,  Hot Timmy Summer was born.

So, how’d it go?

Well, today is my birthday and the official end of Hot Timmy Summer. 

I stepped on the scale this morning and it showed 198.4 pounds. 

I am down just over 65 pounds in 179 days. 

I am not done yet, I have adjusted the goal and will lose another 14 pounds, just so I can say I am at the normal weight (according to the BMI charts). 

This morning, I took a moment to pat myself on the back and enjoy it.

First and foremost, I did it for my wife and my children. They deserve a husband/dad that loves himself enough to take care of himself. 

I did it for previous versions of myself that would look in the mirror and cry. The guy that would look in the mirror and say terrible things to the reflection. For the teenage Tim who cried in a Hollister dressing room because nothing fit. 

I did it because life is too short not to love yourself. 

It took me 36 years to learn that lesson.

Maybe you’re reading this and have had some of the same thoughts or feelings. 

It’s never too late to work on and improved yourself in whatever way you want. 

Fuck what other people may say or think about you.

You can. You will. End of story. 

Cheers.

Why I Go(pher) 2.0

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Before the 2012 season, I wrote Why I Go(pher). The Gopher football team would finish that season 6-7. And under that coaching staff and administration, it never felt like they would be more than a middle-of-the-road Big Ten team.

Yesterday, 7 years later, we turned the corner I wrote about. And as I predicted, I was there.

At the time that I wrote those words, I had no clue that I would have a 3-year-old son and a 9-month-old daughter sitting next to me. Long gone are the days of drinking as much as I want because I had nothing to do on Sunday.

Our Gopher gamedays are decidedly different. In this special edition of TimTalks, I am going to hand the mic over to my lovely wife to give you a gameday-in-the-life as the wife of a Gopher fan:

 

It’s 5:30 am on a Saturday. Warm in my bed, I’m awakened by my husband’s alarm. I keep my eyes closed for a few minutes, considering trying to catch a little more sleep. I decide against it. Time to move. My husband looks up, surprised, as I walk into the bathroom. “I understand. I know this is the biggest game in decades. I’m up.”

Two hours later the car is packed, the kids are dressed, the baby’s been fed, and we are ready to go.

For the first time in years, I have convinced my husband we don’t need to make it in time for the open of the tailgate lots. Lots open six hours before game time or 7:00 am for an 11:00 game. On our drive in, at 7:45, we hear from my brother who has beaten us there. I can tell instantly my husband is disappointed at our late arrival. We pull up at 8:07 am. Three hours until game time. Our shortest tailgate of the season.

Growing up with three brothers, I spent my fair share of time at football games. However, I was more interested in talking with my friends than staying up to speed on the play by play. My first Gopher football game, in 2001, my future husband and I sat in the Metrodome as he tried to explain the basics of the game. I listened, not realizing as a 16-year-old girl that this would become a staple of my life.

Gopher football as a college student and twenty-something without children was A LOT of fun. I loved the social aspect. The chants, the traditions, and the beers. I cheered loud for the big plays but didn’t lose sleep over a bad game. But it got a lot tougher with one and now two kids. And I’ll admit, some days I get a bit salty.

Making it to a tailgate lot at 8:30 am with a three-year-old and an infant requires a lot of work. Arriving home a solid twelve hours later makes for some tired kids, and parents too. And some days I just wondered, could we maybe go at 9:30, or 10:00? Is it absolutely pivotal to the success of the team that we arrive for six full hours of tailgating? And the answer is, yes.

Yes, it does matter. Because it matters to my favorite human on this earth. It matters to him to show up for his team, week after week, some years loss after loss. And this moment, this day, was to date, the most important day in his lifelong journey as a Gopher fan. My husband has never missed a game in TCF Bank Stadium. His three-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter haven’t missed a home game in their lives. He’s been there for the electrifying wins and the heartbreaking losses. He always shows up.

So I show up. I nurse a baby in the sleet under a Gopher blanket to watch the team beat Nebraska. I stand in the pouring rain in Evanston to see the team suffer a truly unwatchable defeat by Northwestern. I’ve never been to Hawaii or Palm Springs, but I’ve been to Ohio State and Maryland.

But some days, like this beautiful November morning, I sit in the sunshine holding a sleeping baby, my hooligan three-year-old being a perfect angel, and watch the Gophers lead a top-five ranked Penn State team through not one, two, or three, but four full quarters of play to maintain their perfect season.

We lovingly refer to my husband as “Timmy Baby Pants.” It’s a lot of fun. On cue, Baby Pants shed a tear in the stands as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played and fans rushed the field. Honestly, I shed a tear too. I’m so grateful for the husband and father that he is. And seeing the joy on his face while he hugged our three-year-old in the final minutes of the game, I’ll get up at 5:30 on a Saturday for that. I’ll stand in the snow and the rain to see those smiles on my two favorite boys’ faces.

And I know it’s only going to get easier, and better, as my kids grow up. I can already see the excitement and joy on my son’s face when he talks about “Minnesota.”

We are laying the foundation for a lifetime of tradition.

I’m a big Fleck fan. I love his energy and enthusiasm, and he’s easy on the eyes. Some people roll their eyes at the catch phrases and mantras, but I love them.

FAMILY. Forget About Me, I Love You.

It perfectly encompasses my Gopher experience. I love the energy and the party and the celebrations, sure. But I can’t tell you the score or even who we played in the opening game of the 2018 season. What I can tell you is what the face of a father looks like when his 2-year-old son walks into the stadium for a new season, looks out over the field with eyes full of wonderment, and unprovoked exclaims “row the boat.”

I can tell you about the pride on a first-time father’s face as he walks into the stadium with his son strapped to his chest for his son’s first game.

I can tell you about the sparkle in a father’s eye as he watches his wife unwrap his daughter’s first pink Gopher shirt.

I can tell you what a father and son sing on Fridays before gameday. (Les Mis  – “One Day More”)

I can tell you about the grin on a toddler’s face as he signals for another “Golden Gopher First Down!”

I can tell you how a tailgate lot full of strangers become friends (it takes a village.)

At the end of the game, win or lose, I can tell you about my husband and the amazing bond that he will forever share with our children over this team called the Gophers.

It’s why I Go(pher).

The Mountain

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Two decades. 

Twenty years. 

7,300 days. 175,200 hours. 10,512,000 minutes. 

Time is great at playing this terrible trick on us. When you start counting minutes in the tens of millions, time seems to drag. 

When you count it in decades, saying “time flies” seems like a comical understatement. 

After two children, it feels like time is an icy mountain face that I am sliding down making futile attempts to slow myself. 

Looking back up the mountain, shrinking in the distance is me awkwardly asking my wife to “go out” with me and her saying yes, not knowing that she was grabbing my hand and jumping off the side of the mountain with me. 

We have been through it all. Junior high, high school, college, our 20’s, two kids, and half of our thirties. 

What the hell happened? 

Just yesterday we were sneaking kisses in the hallway and talking on the phone until one of us fell asleep. We woke up married in a house with two kids that we are scrambling to get ready for daycare. 

The most brutal truth that I have come to know in this life is that the days are long and the years are short. 

My birthday has become so important to me over these two decades. Today it reached a pinnacle when I heard my 3-year-old run into the bedroom, climb into bed, and burrow into me as though it was impossible for him to get close enough to me.

“Daddy, I had a bad dream…”

My gorgeous wife got up and made me a cinnamon roll and orange juice that I shared with my son at the counter.

I walked into the nursery to find my 8-month-old girl standing and smiling at me. 

I felt a strong pang in my chest.

Long gone are the days of wondering what I will get for my birthday, today I realized that all I need to do is open my eyes.

I’m going to do my best to keep them open because I know the next time I blink another two decades will have passed me by.  

Happy birthday to me but, more importantly, thank you to my wife for jumping off the mountain with me October 8, 1999 at 8:05 AM. 

Cheers. 

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An Open Letter to My Son

/ Tim Severson / 3 Comments

Dear Jude,

I write this letter with a heavy heart. Last night, Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States. You, of course, slept peacefully as the results came in across the country, incapable of understanding what was taking place.

This morning, you woke up smiling as I pulled you from your crib. Blissfully ignorant to the divide in our country. I have never been so jealous.

Despite telling myself that I need to stay off of social media, I could not help myself. Reactions of people all over the world range from shock and fear to elation and pride.

I started  on the shock and fear side.

See, for me, this election was about so much more than Republican versus Democrat. Conservative versus Liberal. Right versus Left.

With you in my life, this is the first election where I felt the pressure of your generation weighing down on me. I had an honest concern for the world that you will grow up in. It is not because of conservative policy or what is best for our country’s economy. It is not about trade agreements and foreign policy.

It is something far more simple and basic.

I don’t want you to grow up thinking that there are human beings that are worth less than others. I don’t want you to think Muslim = Terrorist. Black = Criminal. Woman = Object. Gay = Wrong.

What happened here is that people got sick of “the establishment” and the status quo. They wanted an outsider that wasn’t a politician (although, I would argue that when one runs for political office they then inherently become a politician). These people put their blinders on to the xenophobic, racist, bigoted, and misogynistic ideals that Mr. Trump stands for.

Let me be clear, a vote for Donald Trump does not mean that those people share the same views of other human beings (some of them do). But, they did choose to ignore those views.

Only time will tell if that ends up being worse than sharing those views.

I woke up with fear but that subsided quickly. For one simple reason.

No matter how bad things may seem, there is always love. When people attempt to spew hate, spread more love. Love will always win.

So, I promise you this today.

I will not allow the hate that exists today in.

Together, we will move forward.

I will teach you to love and respect all people regardless of their religion.

I will teach you that love is love, whether it is straight, gay or lesbian.

I will teach you that you respect the women in your life. No exceptions.

I will teach you that what a woman does with her body is her business. No exceptions.

I will teach you that even though people have different ideas on how our country will be run best (even if those ideas cause them to vote for a person such as Mr. Trump) that you respect and love them.

We will move forward. We will fight to ensure our country is not set back. We will create a bright future for you. And, I will rest easy knowing that you understand that hate and fear mongering are no way to get ahead.

I only hope that when you are old enough to read this that irreparable damage has not been done. Because even if Mr. Trump’s policies mean good things for the economy, it will be worthless if there are people who are marginalized, oppressed, or discriminated against.

We will continue to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.

With Love,

Your Father

Cheers.

 

What’s in the box?

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

This is a story by request. So, before I get started I wanted to let you know that if you remember something particularly embarrassing that I may have buried somewhere deep in my subconscious, you can remind me and I will most likely post it for others enjoyment…. maybe.

December 2007. A stressful month for me. I had finals for my second to last semester of college, Christmas was coming and this was the month that I going to propose to my wife. But, something else happened this month that would change my life forever (ooh, now I have your attention). Continue reading →

A Deal is a Deal

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

Hopefully the last few days were enjoyable to read. Hopefully you have been enjoying laughing at my childhood adventures as much as I have enjoyed writing about them. Today I have a specific story from around the same period of the last few stories but I can’t remember exactly when the events occurred. Today is the anniversary of my grandmothers death 14 years ago and this is one of my favorites.

First of all, just a little background on my grandmother to help paint the picture a little bit. She was the mother of 13 children (of which my dad is the eldest)… she would always say, “I was never good at adding and subtracting, but I was always good at multiplying.” (I did not get that joke for a long time). She was the closest to thing to a saint that I have ever met (or will ever meet). She was extremely active in the community and in the church, she was the most kind woman who I have had the privilege of knowing. She would spoil me when I went to visit (with food of course, usually trips to DQ or Dunkin Donuts) and she would sit and watch me perform what ever new impression or singing routine I had picked up since our last visit (I used to love attention, funny how things change, right?). She was the definition of a grandma to me, she was wonderful.

Like I said, I don’t remember exactly when these events took place but I was around 11 or 12 years old and it was summer. I had already been through the accidents that I have described in previous stories but I have failed to mention this little nugget about my childhood self. I had warts. I had a lot of warts (and you thought it couldn’t be any worse).

They were all up my right leg, from my ankle to my knee cap (that is all the higher they went, I swear). If I remember correctly there were 13 all together, capped off with the biggest one right on the top of my knee cap. That was a resilient wart, it would get ripped off every time I skinned my knee and it would just come back stronger and stronger. They were disgusting and just added to my complete lack of allure.

Luckily, my dad is a pediatrician so I had access to all sorts of wart cures. The stuff that you painted on the warts to make them fall off, didn’t work. Pills (that I think my dad told me were new pills that made warts go away, but they might have just been a placebo), didn’t work. I was convinced that I was going to live the rest of my life with a right leg that blind people could read.

Just to recap, in my childhood I was a tall, chubby, buck toothed, freckle faced, accident prone cry baby with warts… jealous?

One summer day, my mom and I were in Shakopee for one reason or another (I can’t remember why ). But, we never went to Shakopee without stopping to see my grandparents and that is exactly what we did. I had finally had it with the warts and needed them gone, I was growing up enough to start becoming self-conscious about my appearance and the warts were public enemy number one.

I explained to my grandma that the drugs that my dad was prescribing were not working and that I was convinced that they would never go away, then she said something that I can remember so vividly that it could have happened yesterday.

She said, “Well, you are lucky, I wish I had warts like that?”

Oh no, grandma has gone off the deep end, I thought but maybe I heard wrong, so I asked, “What?!”

She said, “If you don’t want the warts, I will take them. Can I buy them from you for $10?”

When you are that young $10 is a lot of money. I could buy so much candy, I thought. But, I felt bad because these warts were so irritating to me that I didn’t want to give this burden to my grandma. I was conflicted, should I take the deal or not?

In the end I decided that a sucker is sucker, grandma or no grandma if somebody was offering me a deal this sweet I was taking it.

She said, “Ok, but a deal is a deal and I expect to get these warts soon or you have to pay me back.”

I said, “Ok!” (sucker). As we left I was feeling a little bad but decided it was just a creative reason to give her grandson some money and shortly after forgot about it.

A week went by and the warts were still there. Figures, I thought, but at least I got $10.

I couldn’t tell you what I spent the money on, but one night about two weeks later as I was watching TV I starting scratching a mosquito bite on my right leg… something was different. Normally my fingernails would catch on the mine field of warts, this wasn’t happening today. I rubbed my hand up and down the familiar path of disgusting warts but my leg was smooth. I looked down, they were gone, they were all gone.

The feeling of happiness was chased by a feeling that I can’t really describe… it was like seeing a magic trick for the first time and truly believing in magic. My grandmother was magic. I haven’t had a wart since and I never have stopped believing in my grandmother’s magic to this day. Looking back I probably should have gone back and asked her to buy my extra weight, freckles and buck teeth…

I would ask her frequently like anyone who has seen a magic trick before, “how did you do it?”

With a smile she would respond by simply stating, “A deal is a deal.”

Earitating

/ Tim Severson / 1 Comment

OK, I had to take a break yesterday due to a hangover from trying to keep up with my parents on Saturday night. My dad’s Manhattans, while delicious, can really put a guy out of commission. Hopefully, Saturday’s story wasn’t too much and you have come back to read a little more, don’t give up on me yet! This has to at least be some good ammunition to talk about how self involved I must be to think you all want to read about things that have happened to me or what I think about anything. So, whatever your reason, I do appreciate that you are here reading again.

Today we will go a little farther back in the past and look at one of the many ridiculous things that happened to me as a child… I was a very injury prone and clumsy kid. This was probably due to the fact that I grew like a giant the first 13 years of my life and then just stopped growing, literally. I still have a pair of Doc Marten boots that I wore in 7th grade and they fit. So, I was a chubby, freckle faced, giant, awkward kid. Despite this, I was actually very coordinated so I had that… This is not to say that I had a bad childhood by any means, it was quite the opposite. But I am trying to paint a picture because it will add to the humor of what is to follow today and what I will write in the future. I had a BIG set of buck teeth as well. Oh, one last thing, I was a panzy, a wuss, a mommas boy (take a minute to gather yourself from the shock of learning this).

Summer 1995. I was 10 and on my way into 5th grade. If I remember correctly I was like 5’2″ and 120lbs, I was a big boy… I looked like Robin Williams in that movie “Jack” compared to everyone else that was my age (a little less hair on my arms and knuckles). Anyways, it was a summer day like any other, riding my Huffy candy red 10 speed all over the neighborhood with my friends. I most likely had a kool-aid stained mustache and a chocolate stain somewhere on my shirt.

There was a group of us at a neighbor’s house 2 down from my own, just hanging out in the driveway, probably shooting some hoops and listening to KCLD on a little boom box (most likely listening to TLC’s “Waterfalls”). What happened next is one of those things that I swear only happens to me. I am minding my own business and just being a kid when some sort of fly, flies directly in my ear like that’s where it lives.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have ever had a living fly inside your ear before… but at the time it was the most horrible thing that had ever happened. Because, shortly after this little friend entered my ear it seemed as though he wanted out immediately. It was buzzing and flapping its wings about every 10 seconds. Now, I would be interested to talk to the people today who witnessed what happened next to hear their perspective, but I only have my experience so I will try to interpret what they were seeing…

As soon as the bug hit my ear, my automatic response was to throw a palm strike to the outside of my ear as hard as I could. The looks on all of the kids faces was that of confusion, but they quickly thought I was just messing around. 10 seconds later, bzzzzz! It was like an electric shock to my ear drum quickly followed by, wham! Another sharp palm strike to the side of my head. Now, everyone was laughing at me (uh oh). That all too familiar lump was forming in my throat and my eyes were starting to well up due to the mixture of embarrassment and pain I was experiencing. I was determined not to cry in front of them. Bzzzz! Wham! I sprinted to my bike, hopped on and started peddling as fast as I could as the tears started to stream down my face. Bzzzz!

Since I was riding my bike and couldn’t see clearly due to the tears, I decided that I shouldn’t attempt a palm strike. By the way, I didn’t try to pick it out of my ear because I was convinced that it would burrow deeper into my head and the palm strikes were meant to kill the bug so this could not happen (seemed logical at the time). Since I couldn’t throw a palm strike now that I was on my bike, I started doing the next logical thing… yelling at the bug inside my ear. “Stop! Please, stop!” I screamed. I don’t know if my friends witnessed this part, I was not quiet so I am assuming they at least heard part of it as I rode away. Let’s examine briefly what they saw…

Out of no where, I start hitting myself in the head as hard as I can with no explanation. I run to my bike and start peddling away as fast as I can, again, no explanation. Then, I start screaming at myself through the tears as I ride away. Imagine what they must have been thinking. I have thought about this numerous times and I think the most logical thing they could have come up with was that I was pooping my pants. We were only 10, so it’s not as if they were thinking I was having some sort of mental break or that the for some reason “Waterfalls” sent me into some “Rainman”, hot water baby moment. And, they probably assumed I was yelling at my bowels over which I had lost control of suddenly…

Anyway, luckily I was only a minute from my house. I dismounted my bike on the move and sent it flying out of control into the yard as I went running up the front steps screaming for my mom. Bzzz! Wham! Bzzz! Wham!

At this point I was convinced the vile bug inside my head was determined to get to my brain. Now, only my mom would be able to describe what the scene was as I came in hitting myself in the head repeatedly trying to get out exactly what the problem was. “There’s (gasp, gasp), a (gasp, gasp), bug in my ear!” I said. Bzzz! Wham!

We got into the car quickly and were off to the clinic to see my dad to have the bug removed from my ear. Bzzz! Wham! I’m sure it was quite the sight for other people driving through Brainerd to see this hysterical chubby kid hitting himself in the side of the head while his mother was pleading to him to stop bludgeoning himself in the head.

We finally get to the clinic after what seemed like an eternity. The buzzing was now happening less frequently, which I feared the bug had mad through my ear and was on the verge of entering my brain. I sat down and as my dad looked in my ear he found…. nothing. Huh? Nothing was in my ear. I thought, how is this possible? What happened to the fly? To this day, I have no recollection of feeling the fly exit or when exactly the buzzing stopped. Since then, I have had a couple of close calls with bugs landing on or running into my ear with out actually, uh, entering me. Every time it has happened I have felt the flood of panic and I like to think that I would be more calm and try pull the bug out with my finger, but it would probably end up like, Bzzz! Wham! as I start to cry.