This Hoedown will be a short one, because I really just want to read for the listening audience my short story “Studies in Urology, Scenario 761.” It was accepted for publication in a magazine several years ago, but I never saw a copy of the magazine. I’m not sure any copies exist. That didn’t bother me much, but then, I don’t know. I came around to liking the story more than I did when I wrote it. I’d like to share the thing.
I should warn everyone that it’s pretty disgusting, and highly sexual. Beware.
I will read the story after the standard newsletter content, the usual hoedown material. You can only hear it if you listen to the audio. If you are interested in the story, but not in the newsletter, you can skip ahead. When you hear the Pig City News Weekly Register Hoedown Quarterly Review Times a Thousand theme song, you will know I’m about to read it.
I was actually going to send this out in the middle of last week, but I got scared and worried that the story would come across in worse ways than I anticipate. I hope that doesn’t happen. It’s supposed to just be funny. I swear that I am nice, and that all I want is for everyone out there to have a good time. That’s not wrong, is it? But then, all Jesus ever wanted was for people to have a good time, and look what happened to him.
Book Title
I could use some help. I have put together a collection of essays that mostly have to do with fatherhood. No one has ever written a book like that before, so it’s pretty important that I get mine into the world.
I have to give the book of fatherhood essays a title. I am torn between three of them.
The first one is Fathers Die, which I like because when you say it out loud it sounds like you’re saying “Father’s Day” but with some kind of an accent. And what the title tells you is true. Fathers do indeed die.
The second title is Happy Fathers Die, which sounds like “Happy Father’s Day” with the same accent as the first option. It is also, like the first title option, a true statement.
The third option is Father’s Day Present Father Gift What to Get Gift Idea Father Day Best Gift List. This title would attempt to maximize search engine optimization (SEO). I could shorten it, and title the book Father’s Day Present, so that my book comes up immediately when someone searches those words online.
I don’t know what’s best. I’m just looking to move units, here.
Please tell me what you think I should do. Telling me I should quit writing and save myself further embarrassment is an option.
I mean, it’s true that I shouldn’t have put this book together. There are so many collections of essays about fatherhood.
The difference is in the pudding, and the pudding is in me. I ate the pudding.
And this is what it’s all about. This is who I am. Physically I am a champion. Mentally I am a genius. Emotionally I’m available. It doesn’t get any better than the way it already is.
Polo Shirts
I was at the luxury high school the other day, subbing again, and I asked the coordinator of substitute teachers a question. I said that at my substitute orientation I was told to dress business-casual for subbing assignments, but pointed out to her that nearly all of the teachers at the luxury school showed up there wearing jeans and t-shirts. How, I asked, am I really supposed to dress for the job?
She laughed and someone joined our conversation. I don’t know who she was, but she said she was married to the person who was in charge of that sort of thing. I was confused. What did that mean her spouse’s job was? Who, at a public school, polices the attire of substitute teachers? Why have I not met this person?
She said that as far as she was concerned I didn’t have to wear a dress shirt. I could come in wearing jeans and a polo shirt—as long as I looked, you know, presentable.
I nodded, smiled, thanked the pair of them, kept what I was thinking to myself, and ate three slices of cold pizza in the hallway. They had been in a plastic bag in my backpack the whole time.
What the hell is it with polo shirts? I haven’t worn a polo shirt in probably fifteen years. The one I wore fifteen years ago had stripes on it, and I put it on sometimes because I was in good shape, and in that shirt I looked like a man.
People loved to see me in that shirt. They wanted to touch my chest and face. Only one of them got to do it, and today we are married.
But aside from me when I wore that one shirt, which is long gone, do you know what grown men look like when they wear polo shirts? They look like they are all dressed up for picture day. Every man in a polo shirt looks like his mom made him put that shirt on before he left the house to go to school. And she combed his hair! It hurt! He was trying to play Bubble Bobble on Nintendo, and she kept getting in the way. He could barely see the screen!
He would have put on a dress shirt, but it’s not the easiest thing for a little guy, to button all the buttons on a dress shirt. You have to make sure you’re putting the right buttons through the right holes, and it’s hard. If you mess up you have to start all over again.
When you wear a polo shirt, it’s best to put on one that’s a dark color, like navy blue. That way it won’t leave a stain if you spill.
I don’t want to wear a polo shirt. I also don’t want to have to wear to the luxury school my non-iron Regent-fit Brooks Brothers shirts that measure 15-1/2 inches at the collar and 34 inches at the sleeves. I look amazing in those shirts, but they’re hot, and they make me appear more formal than I prefer to look. Everyone else wears t-shirts, for crying out loud.
I’d prefer to wear one of my own incredible t-shirts, which are sourced out of Charleston, West Virginia. I wear the best, because I buy from the best: Kin Ship Goods. Every shirt they make is out of this world. There’s this one I have on right now; every time I wear it, someone compliments me. And it’s always someone who’s cool and good who does that, because they know that I’m a man of discerning tastes who should be given the finest caviar and champagne. A beautiful woman shall pour the champagne, as I raise my arms and cheer.
I’ll lay my cards on the table, here. I’m consistently disappointed in American menswear. If I wear a t-shirt, people think I’m a slob. If I wear a dress shirt, I’m overdressed. The only middle ground is a polo shirt.
Golf sucks. Golfwear sucks.
I will give $100 dollars to anyone who can invent a new kind of shirt for a man, one that makes him look and feel like a man and makes him look and feel good, the way I want to feel, the way I want to be, all the time.
Studies in Urology, Scenario 761
This is the part of the audio newsletter where you’ll hear me read the short story. If you’re not listening to the newsletter, you will read these two sentences instead.
Studies in Urology, Scenario 761 - EXPLICIT