Front
Back (apologies for my handwriting!)
The text of the postcard is
Dear Ellen,
I imagine if you sat outside a middle school gym on the night of the science fair taking video of people walking out it would be a lot like an ad for a men’s golf tournament.
A bunch of 30’s-50’s guys in nice pants and polos doing mildly excited fist pumps. (Excited about honorable mentions or birdies, I guess.)
Sincerely,
DumbFunnery.com
Announcer 1: This next hole is a beautiful one, it’s a par four and so we’ll say, based on the game so far, he has a good chance of getting it in at four over par.
Announcer 2: Yeah through the first eight holes he has not come on strong. His putting game has probably been his weakest point, he’s certainly learned he needs to work on that.
Announcer 1: He’s got his driver out, which he has used at least once on every hole because, as he said when we asked him, “it’s the biggest one so … I feel like I’ve got the best chance with this one of actually hitting the ball.”
Announcer 2: He’s honest. You have to respect that.
Announcer 1: And it’s a solid connection, the ball flies down the fairway straight-on it’s … it’s got to be his best shot of the day.
Announcer 2: Yes, that was a great shot, he’s got to be impressed with that, –
Announcer 1: Wow. Yes. He is. I mean, pretending to be an airplane is usually an indicator of happiness in golf. He’s pretty pleased with himself here.
Announcer 2: I think he just asked, again, if everyone was sure they wanted to do 18 holes because he felt like 9 was “good enough.”
***
Announcer 1: He’s lined up for his second shot, he’s got a 7 iron out, he’s got a decent chance of making it on the green with this shot if he can stay accurate.
Announcer 2: That’s been his main difficulty today.
Announcer 1: He’s just shouted that he’s going to do this with his eyes closed which … might actually work better for him. But no, it’s a joke, he’s got his eyes open, and … oh he definitely didn’t want to hit the ball like that. He gets the top of it and it goes about seven yards.
Announcer 2: He’s running up to the BALL …! Ok, he’s stopped. He’s lining up for the shot and … It’s not a bad shot, he’s off on what looks like the far side of the green … It’s bounced a bit and settled in some thicker grass, but it’s not the sand trap which is an improvement.
Announcer 1: So far this is looking to be his best effort of the day.
***
Announcer 1: We’ll go ahead and show you the highlights of the last three putts that he’s attempted.
Announcer 2: After a good start it appears he will after all be on track for the “double par is his par” rule of thumb.
Announcer 1: Each shot has slightly less effort applied than the last. It’s the closest you’ll see to a real life example of Xeno’s paradox, each time he gets halfway there but never closes the deal.
Announcer 2: … Ohhh! And he’s just missed again. That was close, it came up and then rolled back down. He’s got about a foot and a half and it’s slightly uphill
Announcer 1: The nice thing is, he’s not wasting time. He goes straight to the ball and takes the shot. No warm ups or sizing up the shot to slow him down.
Announcer 2: That is the silver lining of this, to be sure.
Announcer 1: …Ouch.
Announcer 2: Yes. Another miss and now … he’s … laying down, sizing up the shot as though his putter is a pool cue … I’m not sure that’s allowed but …
Announcer 1: And he’s made it! A great round of applause and he’s just exhaling deeply and looking at the time.
Announcer 2: You can almost see his brain calculating ways to get out of playing the back nine.
***
Note: This is how I will now show my displeasure with something I’ve just screwed up
Bottle + Emotions = Manliness
Obviously guys aren’t alone in this trend, but they tend to represent it.
Today I was doing some work when one of my boss’s walked up. He stood in the middle of the cube hallway and looked left and right, between myself and another guy. Then he said, “I’m trying to decide who to tell this story to, who would find it funny.”
I turned to give him my attention, so he started telling it.
Apparently every Thursday he does the same order from a pizza place for his daughters. He’ll call up, tell them the order, pay the same price, and wha-la. Last week he ordered and the delivery was really late, which prompted him to call and complain. The pizza place apologized and took five dollars off his order. No biggie. Wellll, the ‘funny’ part of the story is that he called today and again it was five dollars off. My boss figured they entered the five dollars off in a computer and it wasn’t entered as a one-time thing, but accidentally as a permanent thing. He was laughing at, I guess, people’s dependence on computers (an ironic thing for a computer programmer to laugh at I would think).
Anyhow. He was tickled while telling this story and then joking about it with us. I recommended he call and complain a few times, and eventually the delivery guy will arrive with two pizzas and twenty bucks to give him.
The story didn’t do much for me, but I really liked my boss because he did something I (and probably many people) do. He was very excited about something but didn’t necessarily want to talk about it or share those feelings, so instead he was unnecessarily giddy/happy about something that really didn’t warrant it.
His wife was/is in the Philippines and there was a scare for a while because he hadn’t heard from her (for my/whoever’s future reference – there was a hurricane that hit there). Today he got some great news, she’ll be back home tomorrow. Big sigh of relief.
My boss heard this and just kind of wandered around smiling and cracking jokes, trying to find some way to deal with, I would imagine, how relieved and happy he was feeling. I suppose he could’ve bear-hugged random people walking by, but he’s a pretty strong-looking dude and that may have killed some of our older co-workers.
Anyhow – I really enjoy that. I think it’s a common trait and it’s great to see.
Now, here are two little wrinkles to this story.
One, my boss at one point said to someone, “I’m not excited about the pizza, I’m relieved because my wife is coming home.” This ruins my whole being manly and projecting emotions into another story angle.
The other way it was ruined a bit was this hysterical/lame quote from my boss. After saying how relieved and happy he was to get to see his wife again and know she’s safe and it’s good for their daughters and this and that … “Also I get to play golf Saturday!”
Emotions, huh? So complex and golf-oriented.
DumbFunnery 