When I was 21 years old, I just got home from serving a mission for my church, and I was looking for a summer job, so I could have some money for college. I didn’t want to work at Little Caesar’s for the minimum wage of $2.75 anymore, so I found a job at a construction company that was paying the big bucks. That’s right, $8.00 an hour. All of a sudden, I could afford Slurpee’s any time I wanted.

I was the king of the world, until I figured out that I had to do hard work. Can you believe they made us work 40 hours a week sometimes?

I always tell my favorite story about working construction in order to garner sympathy. Unfortunately, it’s never once gained me a modicum of sympathy whatsoever. As a masochist, I continue to tell the story in hopes of one day garnering one unit of sympathy. The definition of insanity, I’m told.

The story starts like this. Imagine a place called South Dakota. It’s a state in the United States that is known for only two things: Mount Rushmore (we called them the Faces), which is a monument of four US Presidents (Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jefferson) carved into the side of a mountain. The other thing we are famous for is: Isn’t that the place south of North Dakota? Which is the one with Mt. Rushmore?

Actually, the real other thing South Dakota is famous for is the snow and cold in the winter. Now, try to imagine what the weather might be around Christmas time. Now imagine a college student that came home for the Christmas break and wanted to make a little extra money for college. He found out that the construction company he worked for had need of a helper on a few projects. You might now know this about me, but I’m famous for making bad decisions.

Yes, I decided to work, in South Dakota, in the winter, outside. Was I insane? Yes. It was -30F degrees outside most of the days I worked. I also didn’t even have my good coat and gloves, because I left them back at college. Those two weeks might give you a little insight into why I am so bitter.

The worst part was that I wasn’t even good at construction. All I ever did was help set up sites, assist in the framing, and pushed concrete around until the experts leveled it and made it look pretty. I might have put my face in the wet concrete a time or two (or was that Michael Scott, I can’t remember).

This has nothing to do with concrete construction, but there is an actually a much more intriguing kind of construction where people build arches. When you build an arched doorway, you first have to build something called falsework, which is a temporary wooden frame, that allows you to build the archway, without it falling apart. I also did a lot of falsework, which was mainly pretending to do work, while actually doing nothing.

You always start from the bottom and then build up to the top. If you measured correctly, you should have a spot at the top for the most important brick called a keystone. That keystone locks both sides together. I also started at the bottom and I’m currently working my way to the lower middle. It’s not looking like I’ll ever become a keystone.

Keystones are used not only in construction, but in figurative ways, such as in religion, writing or philosophy. For instance, one might tell you a story, but if it doesn’t have the keystone idea, the story won’t make any sense. You witness that a lot when reading my blog posts.

Luckily, I always have a keystone idea that usually holds up my crumbling structure, because I can just use what I always do. It’s something that makes me bitter. My blog’s keystone is bitterness.

Everything has a keystone, but not everyone knows what it is. If you know what it is, you can perform magic over and over again. Take Transformers as an example. The keystone of Transformers is, get this…Transforming. That’s right. They can build all kinds of stories around these cars, planes and cities, but it all comes down to those cars and planes and cities being able to transform from vehicles to a robot. Easy hook, magically transformed my life.

Another example of the keystone? Smart phones. They can be big or small, they can be foldable vertically or horizontally. They can be used to call people or text people. They can be Samsung, or Apple, but the reason why we all have them, their keystone for existing, is that they are computers that fit in our pockets.

Mt. Rushmore has existed for 83 years because it has a keystone, but it isn’t what you think. Mt. Rushmore’s keystone is goats. By goats, I mean GOATS. As in greatest of all time. Basketball players, actors, even construction workers are always saying, “Who is on your Mt. Rushmore?” Meaning, who are the four most famous _____ of all time?

While I hated growing up in South Dakota, because of its lack of fun and bitterly cold weather, it has backwardly, and awkwardly become a keystone in my life (because of the bitterness I feel towards it, and the bitter person it made me) because of the two things it is famous for. Bitter Cold, and Mt. Rushmore. Coming up with the Bitter Mt. Rushmore, well, that is a post for another day. In the meantime, enjoy keystone #2 of my bitter posts, called the Bitter Friday Giftures, which immediately and completely ruined my theory about only having one keystone.

Getting paid the big bucks…

So I could afford as many Slurpees…

Can you believe they made me work…

Hoping to gain sympathy….

But yeah, I worked outside…

The one other thing South Dakota…

I was never really that good…

But I at least tried…

In an archway…

In the case of the Golden Arches…

If you don’t have a keystone…

Which is why I have two keystones…

ARRGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Keystone Ben