No Good Deed ...
... stops you from being a dumbass
This post is going out to the entire list even though it’s not a history post. Well, I suppose it’s a history of my recent dumbassery.
As most of you know, I have ADHD. Back in 2022 I gave a TEDx talk in Romania about how ADHD could be a creative superpower, but also came with anxiety kryptonite. During that trip to Romania, which was in November so it was rainy and none too warm, I wore the jacket you see in the feature photo from last month’s trip to Mexico. It’s waterproof and has lots of zippered pockets. Five of them.
My anxiety makes me LOVE zippered pockets. Never in my life have I lost a wallet, a set of keys, or a phone. Because I’m so paranoid about losing them I’m always aware of where they are. When I’m skiing I’m terrified of losing my keys and being stranded. I will be going through moguls and pat various places on my body to make sure the wallet/keys/phone are all still in place.
Sometimes, I wore that jacket while skiing:
I had to show off for my daughter that her dad could still do the terrain park.
Anyway, last Thursday I did a good deed, and it was punished.
I was out for a bike ride. I saw a fellow cyclist on the path pushing his bike. He had a flat. I stopped to chat and he’d had a spare tube but had botched the change and got a pinch flat. I couldn’t criticize, as I myself have about a 75% success rate at changing bike tubes. I offered him my spare. He was reluctant to accept it, but I practically insisted, saying it would be my good deed for the day. He was grateful, I wished him luck, and continued my ride.
On the way home I stopped by a cycling store to get a replacement tube, and decided it was finally time to replace my helmet, which was ancient and sun-baked so bad it would probably crack like an egg if it hit the pavement. I tossed the old one in the garbage and rode home with a fancy new helmet.
That evening, I went to a Calgary Stampede party. It was in an outdoor tent and thunderstorms were threatening, so I brought the jacket, just in case. The thunderstorms never appeared, and the jacket disappeared.
James sad.
It was a gift from my wife. It was expensive. I LOVED that jacket, especially recently on the trip to Mexico I remembered how great it was for travel. When you’re paranoid about wallet and phone and passport etc., zippered fucking pockets. Raining? It’s waterproof. Getting hot? Can tie around the waste or easily wrap around your arm.
And some fucker stole it. Thankfully, my wallet and phone were in my jeans. All I lost was the jacket. But like I said, I am sad. Not just sad, but anxious.
That night, home from the bar, I fucking dreamt about how it went missing, and then later I found it, but woke up pissed off because it I knew it was gone for good. I know, it’s just a jacket, but like I said it was a gift from my wife, and my anxious personality has difficulty reconciling that I was a dumbass and let it be stolen by not keeping it close.
I feel like I have to do something to balance the account. So I’m going to ask you to help me pay for a new one by purchasing Volume 2 of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
Volume 1 is published by Bantam Books, and the margins are comparatively slim and go toward my advance. But Volume 2 is self-published, has generous margins, and that money goes straight to me.
If you already have Volume 1, I beseech you to grab a copy of V2—either print or ebook generates the same revenue for me—and I will use it toward getting me a jacket that I hope is just like the old one so I can stop fucking stressing over it. You get a cool book that is a whopping 180,000 words, double the typical book so you’re getting your money’s worth, and I get a new jacket and maybe feel a little bit less a dumbass. Deal?
Here are links to buy Volume 2 of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down:
If you already have it, you can give it as a gift. Or you can also give the free trial a go:
Okay. I said Fuck it and bought your miserable book. Only because I lost a jacket once. In a bar in Montana, when I got drunk. And my girlfriend and my son walked me out of the place and stupidly left my jacket. I was obviously incapacitated, a rare occurrence, hardly ever happens, just this once, but goddamnit, it wasn’t my fault. And when I went back for it the next day, having slept off whatever demon had possessed me, the jacket was gone. Poof. As if it had simply vanished. Which it didn’t, polyester not a substance known to transubstantiate of its own free will. Some fucker took it. And that’s how I will come to own the digital data you created. And probably read. For my own fucking amusement.
Huge drag about the jacket!
I just can’t use Amazon but have found other options without issue.