Ep53: Nick weaponized the American national anthem; Evelyn weaponized the family swing set.

This week on the RJP, Nick recounts a flawlessly executed middle-school scheme involving the U.S. national anthem, impeccable timing, and one very unfortunate classmate (and teacher). Meanwhile, Evelyn discovers that games with your siblings become significantly more dangerous when swing sets on the farm are involved.

We'd love to thank the sponsors of this episode: Revenge, baseball, gravity, sibling betrayal. 

As always, democracy survives by the narrowest of margins.

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Want to get in touch with Nick & Evelyn? 

Email them at reversejackass@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It is remote anyway. Let's let's jerk the steering wheel to the left and squeal back into this. Squeal back into this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Enough of our failures. Come here. Let's return to our efforts. Yes. Welcome to the Reverse Jackass Podcast. I am Nick. With me as always is Evelyn, the Canadian Blade. Evelyn, say hello to the people. Hello to the people. Hello, everyone. So glad to be here with you. We're so glad you're here. And I just want to say that I am going to tell a story today. And the story today is going to come with the caveat that I, in real time, along with you, am recognizing just how much of my childhood had to do with obnoxious, jingoistic, um, patriotic displays. Like it seemed like a lot at the time, and now as an adult, it seems like even more than it was. And I don't know if that's because Desert Storm was, you know, kind of my elementary years, and then and then 9-11 happened when I was in college. You know, I don't know if that's part of it, or just if growing up in Virginia is just a great way to be surrounded by American flagshit all the time. But here we are. Yeah. And I want to tell you about the time that I was in the seventh grade and I executed a plan as perfectly as any 13-year-old has ever executed a plan in the history of the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Are you ready for this, Evelyn? Oh, I really am. Yeah. Okay, wait. Because stories, anything that happens when you're 13, there's a lot of takeaways. It's always a lot of really good content. So I'm very, I'm very excited to hear yours.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Thank you. So picture this. I'm 13 years old. I'm in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia. I have somewhere between three and four mustache hairs. Um and I'm in seventh grade English class. And I go to a small private Catholic school where there's like, I don't know, 50 kids per grade. And so half the class is in morning classes, is like in English, the humanities and stuff in the morning, and the other half is in science and math in the morning. And then we switch sides of the hallway and we go to the other side. Right. So like it's one of these things where like everybody knows everybody, everybody's taking all the same classes. It's a little environment, right? So our English teacher, uh, as a poetry example, and this was in the fucking textbook, provides us with the lyrics to the US national anthem, which is listed in this literature textbook as being a great poem. Oh, okay. Which I I admit I don't know poetry, neither am I a poetry enthusiast of any kind. I don't know whether it's a great poem. I suspect that it's not, but our our teacher thought that it was. And so we read it aloud, and then we had to sing it. In front of the class? No, we just had to sing it as a class. And we had to sing it as a class because apparently it meant this much to this teacher for some reason. And in retrospect, you know, every adult seems old as shit when you're a kid. And this teacher might have been younger than I am now, but she seemed 125. And so we sang the thing, and at the end of it, you know, like I think you know where this goes because you know the song, right? You know, and the home of the brave, a bunch of 13-year-old kids doing this weekend. And then this kid named Doug says, play ball. Which is what we do in American baseball games. I know you have from time to time had your own American baseball teams up there. Yeah. Um, that is a standard thing. You sing the national anthem, and then the umpire goes, play ball, and then they play a boring game, right? Yep. Okay. Well, it turns out my teacher did not much care for this joke. Oh. And she was very, very, very angry at this young man and read him the fucking riot act. So disrespectful. This is so wrong. You have no right to do this. This is so. I mean, just really like for a 13-year-old doing the most obvious thing in the world. She just tore him apart.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And it was one of those yelling ats that's hard to watch.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

So midday comes and we go to lunch and we are mixed all together, all the seventh graders together. And I'm at the lunch table with this kid that I'll call uh you called him Doug. Different kid.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Oh, a different kid. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Different kid, uh, who I will call Doug. No, I'm just kidding. A different kid who I will call Adam.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

And Adam was a real dick. Um, and I think that's probably a mean thing to say about a 13-year-old, but I was a 13-year-old back in the time, and Adam was a dick, and that's just how he was. He was born a dick. He was a dick through his middle school years, and he's probably a dick now, wherever he is, if somebody hasn't killed him for being a dick, right? And that's just his life in a nutshell. That's my biography of Adam.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Wow, it's a pamphlet.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It's a pamphlet, right? Exactly. With with and yet it's complete. It's complete with all of the relevant details. So we're sitting there, you know, just chatting as kids do about the day. And I have this plan, and it dawns on me, fully formed, without any need for change. It is right there. It comes into my mind, and I decide I'm going to execute it. And I say, Wow, this really funny thing happened in English class today. We had to do the national anthem and we had to sing it. And at the end of it, Doug says, play ball. And Mrs. Wolf thought it was the funniest thing ever. She laughed so hard, she just couldn't stop laughing. And she gave Doug extra credit. Oh, and thank God none of these other 13-year-olds ruined it for me. But I'm just mythologizing this thing, knowing that Adam is gonna salivate over this thing, right? And and I'm like, she was just like, that is the funniest thing, Doug. Oh my god, you're hilarious. I'm giving you extra credit. And Ms. Wolf was kind of wacky, wacky. She's a wacky teacher. So, like, it's not outside the realm of possibility she would do it. In fact, it was stunning that she was so offended by this thing to begin with. And so Adam says, Oh my god, I'm totally gonna do that. And this other kid goes, No, I'm gonna do it. And Adam goes, No, I thought of it first. I'm gonna do it. And they get in a little bit of a fight, but Adam wins out just like I knew he would because he was a dick. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So we all go outside for recess and it's 20 minutes long or whatever, and then we come back in. And again, this is a small highway. And I don't know why they didn't hear Mrs. Wolf yelling in the morning. Maybe, maybe Mrs. Wolf hadn't quite reached the level of aggravation that she would soon reach. But I'm in science class, being bored, and we start to hear the chorus of the other 25, 13 girls singing the national anthem. And I'm just waiting. And the rockets right glare, just waiting, just waiting. I know this is gonna happen. The thing I set up the series of dominoes that I assembled over lunchtime is gonna fall.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, exactly. I'm feeling no pride in my country, but so much pride in what a mastermind puppeteer that I am in this. And the home of the brave. And then I feel like I must be wrong about this, but I feel like I could even hear him inhale to say, like I feel like he gathered so much air into his lungs that I could hear him like, right? Yeah. And I hear Adam go, please. Like he's like, he like delivers it with every bit of gusto that this that a kid can do. Just you know, just and then the nuclear war began. And Ms. Wolf was like, Adam, what are you doing? What's the matter with you? And just screaming, just losing her shit. Like maybe shouldn't have been in charge of a bunch of middle school kids if she couldn't hold this together. But also, this was the second time on the same day that some kid had gravely insulted her country that apparently meant a lot to her. Like the first one was so insulting, the second one must have seemed extra, extra insulting. Now it's personal. Now it's personal. Like it's now it's me versus the the seventh grade. Yeah. And and she yells at him. She must have yelled at him for a solid minute. Like just reading him the fucking riot act. And then I saw out of the corner of my eye as he was sent out of the classroom to sit in the hallway, like he was even like mini-expelled or whatever. Yeah. And I just thought, good, fuck you, Adam. You deserve this. To this day, I mean, what would that have been? In 1992, 93? Okay. That story still feeds me. In your times of loneliness. In my times of loneliness, helplessness, yeah, victimhood. I think of how I really executed that day.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Oh, you really did.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

And against somebody, against two people, frankly, Adam and Ms. Wolf, who really deserved it. And so my question for you, Evelyn, is what's something in your life that you have executed flawlessly?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Oh, that's good. That's real good. Well, I can tell you right now, whatever I come up with, it's not gonna match that. That is that is an untouchable caliber of not only plan but execution. Like the quick thinking on your part. First of all, how did I do it? I was so young. I don't know. But you like so many things at play here too. Also, that was an excellent delivery of the story because I didn't know why it mattered at first that everyone's switching morning and afternoon classes. I was like, who cares? And then during lunch, then I got it. I was like, oh my gosh. And the fact that you came up with that so quickly. Instantaneously, it was a little bit like maybe God wanted me to do it. Okay, well, I understand. And especially, you know, say, let's say currently in your country, God's doing a lot of heavy lifting for maybe things he didn't God's will is highly, highly disputed here. It's really in the world. In my country right now, there's a lot of liberties, a lot of liberties being taken with it. So I'm not gonna touch that statement with a 10-foot pole.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

But what I will say is You don't have to.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

You don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

God did God already did. One of the best stories you've ever told. Oh, like one of my favorites. I don't remember what my other favorite was, but this is maybe now my new favorite. Because the thinking was really good, and you saw an opportunity, and it was masterful. Like that's a masterclass in opportunity nabbing.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Why thank you?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

I'm really impressed. So something that something that I've executed perfectly. There there might have been a few things. There is one that kind of comes to mind, and it also involves manipulation, which I think is key in this story. Okay. So when I was younger, I have a younger sister, as you know, she is two years younger than I am, and I think maybe I wasn't nice to her. I thought I was nice to her, but I'm thinking maybe not. Like we've already talked on this podcast about how I ran it over with my bike, right? So satisfying. I don't even know what episode that's in, but it's somewhere back there. And apparently she had stones in her bum cheeks and she blacked out.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Apparently. Apparently, allegedly. Yeah, exactly. Has been reported by some. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, by Heather has informed me that. I don't know. Like, and to be honest, I really don't recall it being intentional. Like, I think I was just like a bossy older sister. I think that's really how I am. But I also don't want to label her experience for her. So is this where we call her again? No, but I think she would love getting out of work for the afternoon if that's what this meant. So when we were young, I uh grew up on a farm, as we know, and my dad built us a swing set. And it was not a swing set that came in a kit. My dad was not.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

It was what most families would refer to as a barn noose.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

You know, you're you're closer to that than whatever Fisher Price was selling. You're not entirely wrong. So my dad didn't build anything from a kit, even his current lawnmower, he put it together from things. And if he needs an he's like, hey, there's a lot of pine cones on my yard. I don't want to pick these up by hand. So he builds a thing that goes onto the lawnmower that picks up pine cones. Oh, like, right? So that's that's what dad does. So dad built us a swing set, and it was industrial in its materials. Like we're talking pipe that he had laying around the barnyard, wedged into cement in the ground. Like this thing, if it hadn't been taken down already, it's been gone for years, this thing probably would have outlasted three apocalypse in a row. Like this thing was made to last.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

And so it was it was simple in its structure, but it was sturdy. So it was, you know, you got the two triangles on either end with a pipe across the top, and then you know, halfway down kind of each triangle, there was another smaller one so you could, you know, hang from it with your noose or your uh, you know, swing on it. There it is. But then there were two swings, and it was really just chains and a piece of wood. That's what it was. Okay, and Heather and I would get on these things and just give her. Let me paint for you a picture of how tall this thing is. This was not this was 100% not safe. Okay, 100% not safe. Like this was in the 80s, 90s. You know, there's nothing regulated about any part of this. It faced the house, it faced the back of the house. So I could see the house as I'm swinging, but behind me there was an incline into the ditch. Like into this large ditch. There were trees like that covered the ditch. Oh, but like a tree ditch. Oh, good, large, large fir trees, large coniferous trees.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So it's like it's like dangerous, but it's also deep.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah, yeah, it was fine. And that ditch only flooded a few times a year. Yeah, okay. It was fine. But so, so we would we would get swinging and we'd be pumping our legs. Oh, yeah, I was talking about how tall this thing is. I would say, in my in my mind, I remember it being like 12, 15 feet tall. Like this thing was gigantic. Tall. It was what's the what's the word? What's the word is tall? Nope, no, I'm not thinking tall. You're talking, you're talking about a tall structure. I'm talking about a tall structure, but what's the monolithic? It was tall. It was tall. It was tall. So we'd be swinging, and we're just grabbing these rusty chains with our hands.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

This is starting to sound like a sound garden song. I'm just imagining you and Heather walking out to the swing set in slow motion as like as like Kim Thales guitar, like the monolithic swing set quivering in fear as its abusers come to take a toll from it.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Grasping the chains in their young hands, their young, rusty chains and innocent hands. That's an album title right there. That's good, right? So we're swinging. And and anyone who obviously was on questionable playground equipment in the 80s and 90s knows that there's a large potential that you can, if you're committed and trying hard enough, you can loop on the swing set, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

You can urban legend.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Oh no, I've seen it happen. Now I didn't do it on this one, but I have seen people do it. I am always amazed by them. And wow, okay. Frankly, quite jealous because I would have loved this thing in hindsight. No, like it never would have happened. It never would have happened. So Heather and I are on there, and we're seeing who can go higher. Heather and I, when we were younger, had two very different builds. Heather was very tall, uh, lanky, like she was, and and I was like short and stout. So really it was a battle of center of gravity.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

What it was, what it was was a nursery rhyme.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

It was a yes, yes, it was. It really could have been. So we're we're going. And in our minds, we are touching the sky. Okay. We're touching the sky. We're like getting there. We're not even anywhere near parallel to the ground when we're swinging back and forth, but we're giving her. And as we're talking, I was like, okay, I'm gonna count to three and we're gonna jump. Because that was remember the other big thing on a swing set is that you go really high and then you jump, right? It's really fun. We are going higher than any child has ever gone on a swing set, I imagine, at this time. And Heather's like, okay, I had absolutely no intention of jumping at all. Oh, and it was never going to happen. Heather didn't know that. I didn't communicate that openly. That was an inside thought. So we're again pumping our little pre-pubescent legs on this. My dad painted the swing set a nice shade of chocolate brown, so it just just just towered to the. It was just like really warmer than a metal swing set, is a nice brown swing set. It really, really invites playfulness. Sure. Childlike whimsy, you know, with a can of whatever this was called, like wood cabin brown that he painted with. So we're going. And I'm like, one, two, I said three. And I have this slow-mo memory of Heather's Heather's little childlike body. And Heather had very vibrant red hair when she was little. So her childlike body just sailing in an arc, a slow, like a limp rag doll just slowly flying through the air and planting on the lawn, crumb like a little pile on the lawn. And I was like, oh shoot, this is not good. She's immediately bawling. I don't want to call her a weakling. I just want to say I noticed, I remember the the crying happened very soon after the touchdown. I'm still swinging, I'm still going for it, right? I'm like, oh no. I quickly like I stopped pumping, you know, heels in the gr it. It was obviously gravel underneath the swing, too, by the way. So heels, heels in the gravel and sand, like has come to a stop. And she's crying. And I don't know, I don't know what to like. She's obviously really bothered. That's it, right? That was the only choice. Like, so I was like, I gotta cheer her up. I gotta do something to cheer. I gotta stop the no, not cheer her up. I gotta stop the crying because I'm gonna get in trouble. The next part of the story is if Adam would have told on you, like if Adam would have ratted you out, this is kind of the next, and you would have had to make it better somehow. She didn't do better. And I should have known better too. I should have known she would have trusted me to jump off that swing. She probably it was like, I don't know, 10, 12 feet just sailing, sailing in the air, landing on the newly aerated lawn. And so I notice a garden hose nearby. I just want to tell all of our listeners that the amount of time Nick has held his head in his hands in this podcast is more than in any other episode I've ever seen. It's actually record-breaking at this point.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I just there's a lot of ways to for you to hurt Heather in this story. It's like watching, it's like watching a kid wander through broken glass. You're just like, oh, please, just tell it, tell me you took her to the hospital. Like that's what she needs to go to the hospital, not a garden hose. We didn't go to the hospital.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

You go to the hospital when you're on the farm. You just get you just uh put a band in it. He just loads loads some buckshot into the gun, taking the shell out of his teeth, putting it in there. It'll be fine, it'll be fine. And so I took the garden hose and I started swinging it around my head like a lasso. Like I was like, you know what, this is good. This will get her laughing. This is funny. It did. She laughed, it was really funny. But what we didn't expect is that I would hit myself square in the face with the massive nozzle attachment of the card nose. Right in the face. And please let it be known that I've worn glasses since grade four. Yeah. So to little effect. Yeah. Yeah. So that I would say, maybe not. I I don't think the execution of the entire situation was perfect. It was perfect until I felt the weight of regret and guilt kick in. Wow. Yeah. Wow. You never felt those in your story, which I really admire. Even to this day. You never will. I know you won't. I can confirm that. But I felt immediately the regret you never felt, I felt immediately. Because I also knew I was gonna get in trouble. Did you get in trouble? I don't remember. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Your mom was like, There's nothing I was gonna do to you that was gonna be worse than the way you smacked yourself in the face with the hose attachment. She's like, I was just gonna give you a two SWATs and a stern word.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yes. But what or or we Heather and I come inside for dinner and like I'm bleeding from the eyeballs, and Heather's legs are broken.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Like Heather's wheezing as she's as she's breathing with it with like uh with like her broken ribs. Why are your knees bending backwards? What happened there, Heather? Heather, you were taller than Evelyn when you went out to flood this morning, and now you're shaped like an accordion and you're four inches shorter than she is.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, what's going on there? What's going on? So I wouldn't again, not a perfect execution, but it was perfect up until Heather's Heather's trusting body crumbled to the ground. I'll never forget the sight of her flying through the air. It was magical.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, that is a hell of a story, Evelyn. And it's a great story without you hitting yourself in the face of the hose. But it's I think it's the you hitting yourself in the face of the hose that makes it my favorite story that you've got so far. So we're going to higher heights. Yeah, we're really raising the standard here. I like that. No pun intended, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Well, well, that's it from the two executioners here at the at the reverse jackass podcast. Um, I hope you've I hope you've enjoyed it. My name is Nick with me as always. To the great detriment of Heather is Evelyn, the Canadian Blade. You want to say goodbye to the people before we advise that they make amends.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

If you have also got a perfectly executed plan to share with us, we'd love to hear from you at Reverse Jackass at Gmail. But please be known that if that anything we receive can and will be used against you in court. So just be careful.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Just be it be advised. But yes, we would love to receive it. We'd love to share it with others. Um and in the meantime, make amends with the people that you've wronged. Be kind to yourself. Look out for your head, because it turns out those injuries can plague you for the rest of your life. And we'll talk to you next time on the reverse jackass podcast.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Some neighbors are besties.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Others quarrel bitterly.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Stuck together through geography.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

One of us has nukes.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

And the other has tokes. It's American Canadian diplomacy. It's reverse.