The Bitterfly Effect

/ bensbitterblog
Don't pay attention. What has he ever done for you?

Don’t pay attention. What has he ever done for you?

If you’ve been paying attention (and why would you pay him? did he babysit for you? Do your taxes?) to my blog at all in the last several days, you know it was my birthday on Saturday. So at work, along with another work citizen, we celebrated our birthdays. It was festive day where I worked really hard answering phones once again, but to make it really special they got me a fuzzy card that looks like one of those annoying Sesame Street characters. They also like to get us plants, which makes me bitter because they know I don’t like plants and I let them die. Any idea what they got me? A cactus. The plant equivalent of me. So you know what I did? I brought it home. And you know what it did to me when I picked it up from my back seat? What every cactus does to anyone that comes near. It stung me.

Card kind of looked like this, except exactly like that.

Card kind of looked like this, except exactly like that.

Do you know what the sting did to me? It made me cranky and bitter. And do you know what that did to my family? Made them cranky and bitter too. So you could say by me having a birthday on Saturday caused my whole family to have a bitter day yesterday. But..that is way too shortsided for the bitterfly effect. The Bitterfly Effect not only finds a way to assign blame on something other than you and your decisions, it also goes way back to some other person or thing way that has no way of defending themselves.

Babe Ruth is responsible for this.

Babe Ruth is responsible for this.

For instance, you might say it was the birthday, but I dig much deeper.  I say there would have been no birthday 43 years ago, if my parents never met. And my parents never would have met if it wasn’t for that softball game and that softball game wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Bobby being a failed baseball player in the minor leagues and the minor leagues wouldn’t have been so appealing to chumps like Bobby if Babe Ruth hadn’t called that shot in the World Series and made being an arrogant dbag such an appealing thing for men of the world. So I blame Babe Ruth for my bitter day yesterday.

Cinderella with play me in the reenactment.

Cinderella with play me in the reenactment. Just ignore the long blonde hair. 

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in quite a predicament. I woke up early in my son’s room and accidentally locked myself in. Because of this, at four in the morning, I had to use my brain and figure a way out. It could have tried to find something to jimmy the door open, or knocked on the wall of my daughter’s room and had her open it up, but I try not to wake people up at four in the morning. So I did the only sensible thing I could think of and I opened the window to the freezing cold, took out the screen door, and jumped three stories to my death…or three feet to the ground. I can’t remember which. The heroic leap didn’t go with out consequence. I landed on a root, which caused a little gash in my foot. It started bleeding, and it got all kinds of splints of root in there. Obviously, none of this was my fault. It was the Bitterfly Effect.

Morgan Freeman will play the stuntman in the reinactment.

Morgan Freeman will play the stuntman in the reenactment.

Who is to blame here? Paul Bunyan obviously. “Paul Bunyan and Babe left their mark on many areas.  Some people say they were responsible for creating Puget Sound in the western state of Washington.  Others say Paul Bunyan and Babe cleared the trees from the states of North Dakota and South Dakota.  They prepared this area for farming.” (Taken straight from the internet.)

Paul Bunyan reenacting how those splints got in my foot.

Paul Bunyan reenacting how those splints got in my foot.

If it weren’t for Paul Bunyan and Babe clearing all the trees in South Dakota and making it so boring, then I might never have had to move away to live in the Puget Sound in Washington. And if I hadn’t moved here, where there was a house near enough to trees just outside my window(which he easily could have chopped down with his might axe) then I never would have landed on a root and hurt my foot. Dang it Paul Bunyan and your ox Babe, who Babe Ruth was named after by the way.

Girl from America's Funniest Home videos will reenact my fall.

Girl from America’s Funniest Home videos will reenact my fall.

If it wasn’t for you two, none of those two problems would have happened. So I think we’ve learned our lesson here, right? One, don’t ever blame yourself for anything. The Bitterfly Effect won’t stand for it. And two, most problems are rooted with Paul Bunyan and his ox, because they didn’t cut down enough trees.  And three, don’t ever feel bad for any mistakes or the absurd lengths you have to go to to blame others for them.

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH

Bitter Fly Effect Ben

45 thoughts on “The Bitterfly Effect”

    • All I know is I am still dealing with the needles. I have one in my middle finger (so appropriate) that won’t go away, and my back seat still has a bunch and until I vacuum I can’t let anyone sit there.

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  4. i can’t believe anyone, espeshulee mice self, is commenting, commented on this.
    (’cause, well, your post, like life itself, is so full of despair, it’s kind of like an art, or anti-art, form, unto and curled-up into itself)
    i can’t remember what, if anything, happened on my birthday, which was not even (or oddly) a month ago. (looks @ calendar) oh yeah, i went to the dentist!
    but you did, indeed, have a bitterly bitter time. especially loct in yore room? (i almost wuzz loct out of my car today)
    good thing you live where you do. we’re in the “high desert” (it’s kind of high, and we refrain from gettin’ “high” very often in it, as it gets depressing. depressing and bitter are sort of related aren’t they? sort of like 3rd cousins?) oh yeah, desert. = cactus. so we sort of watch where we walk, OR wear almost-knee-high-storm-troo(m)per boots.

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    • Yeah, asking me to handle a cactus when I’m from here is kind of absurd. I mean I can barely handle a tree, and now I’m having to try to take care of a tree with needles? Clearly someone wanted me to suffer for this.

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    • It was after my alarm to get up and go to work went on. I get to work at 5:30, so I had to get my shower. And as far as the bizarro door knob, he had locked his room too many times after he left it, so we switched the lock to the outside, so it would lock from the outside. Now I’m thinking we just not put a lock on it at all.

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  10. I agree. It’s all Babe’s fault. If Babe Ruth hadn’t hit all those home runs, I wouldn’t have grown up having to compare myself to him in school intermurals, whenever I tried to hit the ball over the infielders’ heads. He’s the cause of my low self-esteem.

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  13. Just reading about Babe the blue ox makes me bitter, Ben. Why? Why was she blue? Was she dyed that colour, or was she just a minority? Last of a dying breed, like the final dodo bird of giant oxen? And what was Paul doing hanging around with a female ox as his only companion? What kind of creep was he, anyway? If you think about it, there never WAS a Mrs. Bunyon. He was clearing all that land, and for what? No wife. No kids. Just a path of destruction behind him and a blue ox for company.

    Weirdo…

    I’ve missed your blog… 🙂 Not that you’ve been away, but I’ve been in absentia. Forgive me, oh great Bitter One!
    Mother Hen

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  14. You happen to share my son’s birthday, which was equally bitter. In fact, so bitter that my husband and I left him behind for a beach vacation while he remained at home vacillating between a desire to visit the beach and a desire to have a vacation from his parents. I’m glad you survived your fall and hope your splinters don’t bitterly infect your wounds and cause an even greater bitterfly effect. Always a pleasure — albeit bitter — to read your thoughts. Happy belated bitter birthday!

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    • Sorry your son got attached to this birthday. I understand that emotion. I vacillate between wanting to go on an adventure or leaving the house and just staying home being lazy when I’m on vacation. If it were up to me anyways.

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  15. My daughter’s friend once came over and the mom brought us a cactus. It’s the only plant that ever remained alive in this house and it’s living still. We call it Audrey after the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, and yes, it has stung us all many times.

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