Another example: I think I was constantly underestimated on the basketball court. I don't have the appearance of someone who would be outwardly amazing at the game. I usually did not walk around with an air of confidence or cockiness and I'm relatively unassuming, you know, I am 6’3”, which is tall for most sports, except basketball. And basketball, it makes me look like just a pretty normal guy. And I will say, I took joy in being underestimated on the basketball court. I think that usually meant I was constantly surpassing expectations, which feels good in a way, but you know, it's more because the expectations are probably so low to begin with. I know when I went to the University of Michigan basketball camp, I learned after the first year, you know, they would take these hundred plus campers on the first day of the camp and run you all through a bunch of drills. And then the coaches would all go back to their quarters afterward and draft teams for the week based upon all those drills and watching us play. And because I was just so unspectacular, you know, fundamental but inherently, you know, I don't really catch people's eyes. At least I didn't at that point in time. Because of that, when I would come back in and check the teams, the next day, I was always the last name. And it wasn't written alphabetically! I was always the last name on my particular team, which meant that I was among one of the last players drafted, because they were just writing the names down in the order that they were selected. But then inevitably I would play myself right into the starting lineup and then by the end of the week, I lived for this, but by the end of the week, you know, it seemed like coaches would quickly realize like, “Oh my God, like, this guy's a gem.” Not from a superstar point of view, but I was such a -- I loved working hard and doing all the dirty work. You know, clearing the glass, doing whatever I needed to do to win, really. If I had to be the guy to score, I could, but a lot of times there were more talented scorers on my team. So then it was like, all right, I'll take the charges, I will…

Back in the 1900s, when I was but a mere teenager and waitressing midnights at Denny's,  we had a lot of regulars, you know, who would come and sit along the counter and smoke their cigarettes and drink their coffee. And most of those people were honestly my favorite people in the restaurant. I ended up marrying one of them, as a matter of fact.  But so, a gentleman would come in quite often and sat up there and went by the name Spit. S P I T. And this guy looked like he rarely, if ever, washed his hair or got a standard haircut, had like a cut-off jean jacket, lots of tattoos including neck tattoos, face tattoos, and this guy flirted with me a lot. And I ended up going down to the pool hall with him once or twice, but only with groups of other people. But, the one thing about him that was the huge warning sign that I said, “You know, I cannot be with a person like this. This is a mentally unwell person,” is this person would sit at the counter smoking their cigarettes and drink glass, after glass, after glass of whole white milk. That is correct. A human being would go to a restaurant, sit at a counter and drink whole white milk glass, after glass, after glass. Lord, you know there's something wrong with him there.

Your email mentioned someone who took off from work to see a movie. That happened in our office too. One of our new hires -- there was this huge -- I think it was an annual ev- -- an annual sale, or big blowout sale. And this new hire, she loves to shop. I mean, she's, yeah she's one of those people who just loves to shop. So she called in sick, and she went to that huge sale at Ala Moana shopping center, A L A, next word, M O A N A. You might have heard of it. It's the famous shopping center in Honolulu, Hawaii, near -- right off, right off of Waikīkī. Right by Waikīkī. But, the news cameras all went to the sale to interview people and to report on the shopping and show people shopping in the frenzy of this massive sale that was across the entire shopping center. And guess who one of those people was that they were showing on the TV. It was our, our staff member who had called in sick. So we saw her on TV in the midst of that big shopping thing. I mean, she could’ve just said, “I'm gonna take the day off from work so I can go to that big sale.” And we would have let her, except she wouldn't have gotten paid because she had sick leave benefits but she didn't have -- I mean, none of us have the, the personal time benefits. She didn't -- personal time off benefits, so if she had just told us she was going shopping, she wouldn't have been paid for that day. So that's why she called in sick. And there she was on TV with the reporters standing there, showing everybody shopping. She was there. We saw her on camera. And it wasn't just that one TV. We, we flipped the switches. All three of the news stations caught her. Um, she must have been at the really popular part where -- if all three of the news stations were at that particular point at sometime or sometime during the day. But um, you know, she got -- I mean to be caught like that on TV, when you said you were sick -- when you called in sick, so you could get paid for -- on the day that you were going shopping!…

So, when I was in college and I, I got a cat -- a kitten and he was basically my best buddy for you know, 10, 11 years I think is how long he lived. And he did everything with me, he moved all over the place with me, he was just my, my buddy. And I feel like I'll never get another cat like him. He was, he was the best. His name was Venom. Uh, well, Venom and I had a special relationship where I always knew what was going on with him. I could just look at him and I would kinda instinctively and intuitively know how he was feeling. So I could avoid getting swatted, I could avoid being attacked, because he liked to play. Or I could tell he would want to come sit on my lap. There was, you know, we had our routines. It was really cute, whenever I’d get home, I would go, "Hello.” Or what would I say? “Hi Venom! Hi Venom!” and then he would go [meow, meow] like in the exact same notes that I had just done. So we kinda had this like greeting down pretty well.  And the funniest time, I guess it's not really that I was communicating with him, but that he was communicating with me. Um, so back in like, 2003 I would say, I had an answering machine, I didn't have a cell phone, I had a landline with an answering machine. And on my answering machine, the message that would come on, would be, "Hey, you've reached my name. Venom is listening to you right now. So, say hi to Venom and then tell me what you wanted you know, to -- why you were calling me. Thanks. Bye." And so, so I’d get people calling and they'd be like, “Oh, hey Venom." Well, it was so cute, one day I came home and I hadn't checked my messages yet. And Venom was like, [meow], like  “Hey!” And he runs over to the answering machine and h- -- and there's a big button that like just says play. And he tapped it with his, um, with his paw, and immediately my dad's voice comes on and he goes, "Hey Venom, this is [diarist’s name]'s dad. Can you just tell [diarist] to give me a call back? Thanks Venom." And then he like…