TBOC 03: Episodes 67, 71, and 73
- Entry 67: I Left My Hand In San Francisco
- Entry 71: Mom’s Tupperware and the Lids That Don't Fit Any Bowl
- Entry 73: Whispers in the Locker Room: My First Encounter with Brut Cologne and Public Humiliation
Some souvenirs are meant to last. Others are meant to teach you
humility via large bodies of water.
Entry #67 takes us back to marching bands, theme parks,
teenage glory, and one gloriously grotesque rubber hand that didn’t survive the
scenic wonders of Fisherman’s Wharf. If you’ve ever bonded with a novelty item,
mourned its untimely demise, and learned that even sidekicks aren’t above
savage one-liners, this entry is for you. Direct from my own personal journals.
Grab your coffee and your emotional support limb—we’re marching
into the bizarre, the hilarious, and the slightly tragic tale of how I lost a
fake hand and gained a real memory.
This one’s...out of pocket. Literally.
--
I forget the exact year—1977 or 1978—but the
Edgewood High School Trojans Marching Band was on tour in Northern California.
We had stops in Fremont, Marriott’s Great America, and the crown jewel: San
Francisco. Naturally, I stuck close to my best bud Ken, because every hero
needs a sidekick, and every sidekick needs someone to blame.
At Great America, after marching through the
park to our signature theme song (which I’m convinced could summon rain or at
least a funnel cake), Ken and I stumbled into a quirky little shop. That’s
where I saw it: a rubber hand. Not just any hand—this one had presence.
It reminded me of that old horror flick—was it The Thing? The
Crawling Hand? Either way, it was a severed hand with a vendetta, and I was
smitten. I bought it on the spot. Why? Because teenage logic. Also, I couldn’t
wait to show it off to my brother Frank. Nothing says “I love you” like a
disembodied latex limb.
Fast forward to Fisherman’s Wharf. Ken and I,
still high on theme park adrenaline and teenage invincibility, were goofing
around near the pier. I brought the hand with me—because obviously, it needed
to see the sights. And then, in a moment of pure cinematic irony, the hand
slipped from my real hand and plummeted into the bay. Gone. Just like
that. No dramatic music. No slow-motion rescue. Just a splash and a sinking
feeling.
I was devastated. My glorious, grotesque
souvenir was now part of the Pacific ecosystem. Ken, ever the comforter,
quipped, “Well, at least you don’t have two left hands anymore!”
With friends like that, who needs horror
movies?
Footnote about The Crawling Hand: It
was a 1963 sci-fi horror flick about a possessed astronaut’s hand that
strangles people and corrupts a poor med student. So yes, my instincts were
spot on—my rubber hand had cinematic pedigree.
--
Entry 71: Mom's Tupperware and the Lids That Don't Fit Any Bowl
Before you understand faith, you must first survive a Tupperware
avalanche.
In entry #71, we dive headfirst into the sacred chaos
of my childhood kitchen—where lids were elusive, bowls were slippery, and Mom
reigned supreme like a culinary Jedi guarding her mismatched empire. It wasn’t
just storage—it was storytelling. And somewhere between the burp-sealed
containers and the forbidden microwave rituals, a deeper truth emerged: family
doesn’t have to match to matter.
So, if you’ve ever stared into a drawer of plastic maybes and
questioned the mysteries of your lineage—grab a cup, find a lid that mostly
fits, and join me as we embrace the holy mess of love, leftovers, and legacy.
--
Tupperware was my mother’s second language.
She spoke it fluently—with a tight snap, a burp of trapped air, and a threat
not to lose the lid or else. In our household, opening the Tupperware
cabinet was a full-contact sport. Containers of every size and shade would
avalanche like miniature plastic temples collapsing under the weight of
culinary legacy.
But the real mystery—the spiritual question
that has haunted generations—is this: Where are the matching lids?
Not once in my entire life did we have a
complete, matching set. We had circular lids with square bases, oval lids that
belonged to an extinct line of space-age salad bins, and an entire drawer of
what I can only describe as "Tupper-orphans.” And every time we opened
that sacred drawer, Mom would appear—like clockwork—with Jedi-like reflexes and
say, “Don’t touch the good ones!”
To this day, I don’t know what qualified a
piece of Tupperware as “good,” except that you were absolutely not allowed to
use it for anything involving tomatoes, microwaves, or your lunch.
And yet, amid the chaos, it worked. It held
leftovers, potluck dreams, and that one spaghetti dish that permanently dyed
the container orange. It preserved not just food, but memory—like Grandma’s
rice pudding, or that mystery casserole with a top layer of cheese and a bottom
layer of suspicion.
The mismatched lids became a metaphor: for
family, for faith, for the awkward beauty of trying to hold it all together
with pieces that don’t quite align—but you make it work anyway. Because that’s
what love does. It seals up what it can and forgives the rest with a burp and a
lid that almost fits.
--
Entry 73: Whispers in the Locker Room: My First Encounter with Brut Cologne and Public Humiliation
If adolescence had a fragrance, it would be one part misguided
confidence, two parts peer pressure, and a generous splash of regret. Enter
Brut cologne—packaged like manhood, scented like menthol chaos, and capable of
turning a shy middle schooler into a walking citrus crime scene.
Entry #73 is a rite of passage soaked in overconfidence
and bottled bravado. It’s the story of one boy, one hallway, and one potent
aroma that lingered long after dignity had left the building.
So, brace yourself, spritz responsibly, and let’s take the plunge
into the locker room jungle—where whispers roam free and Brut became my
personal baptism into the world of public humiliation.
--
There are certain rites of passage that no young man forgets: your first razor, your first heartbreak, and the moment someone hands you a bottle of Brut cologne like it’s a key to manhood and not, in fact, a tiny bottle of social sabotage.
I was somewhere in the foggy intersection of
middle school and insecurity when I encountered it. Brut—with its bold green
bottle, silver medallion, and scent profile that whispered “barbershop bouncer
with secrets.” It was passed to me by another boy in the locker room, who said,
“You need this.” Which in adolescent code meant, You smell like a panic
attack on a gym mat.
I took the bottle with the reverence usually
reserved for holy oils, then proceeded to baptize myself with what could only
be described as an enthusiastic overspray. Not a spritz—a soaking. Neck,
chest, underarms, backpack straps, gym socks. I was a walking fog machine for
failed masculinity.
Then came the whispers.
“Who fumigated the locker room?” “Smells like
my dad’s car after he eats garlic.” “Did a pine tree get in a fight with
mouthwash?”
It didn’t stop at whispers. A kid loudly
coughed out “BRUTAL,” and suddenly, the nickname stuck. I was “Brutal” for the
rest of the semester. Every waft down the hallway was a reminder of how far I
still had to go before earning my man-card.
But here’s the thing: I learned. I
learned that cologne is less about drowning yourself in identity and more about
subtlety. I learned that manhood isn’t something you apply—it’s something you
become. And I learned that locker rooms are petri dishes for both sweat and
self-discovery.
And now, whenever I pass by a drugstore shelf
and catch a whiff of that unmistakable Brut aroma, I don’t flinch. I grin.
Because somewhere in that bottle lives a younger me—desperate, awkward, and
fragrant beyond belief—doing the best he could with what he had.
--
If you’ve made it through the saga of the rubber hand in San
Francisco, the holy chaos of Mom’s Tupperware drawer, and the Brut
cologne incident that launched a nickname and a humility tour, then
congrats—you’ve survived a trifecta of awkward adolescence, domestic theology,
and eau de public humiliation.
Each episode, while wildly different in content, taps into
something beautifully universal:
- The
absurdity of how small moments become lifelong memories.
- The
strange objects that carry more heart than we expected.
- And
the ways we fumble forward into growth—through laughter, leftovers, and
locker rooms.
Life isn’t always neat. Sometimes the hand falls in the bay, the
lid doesn’t match, or the cologne clears a hallway. But from every misstep, we
gather grace. And if we’re lucky, we do it with a grin, a story to tell, and
maybe a foam cup of church coffee that’s just warm enough to forgive the past.
Until next time, may your hands hold steady, your lids find a
home, and your scent stay subtle.
Peace, plastic, and puberty— Alejandro Armando Armand for Carlos Michael, Carlos Michael Communications Media, The Carlos Michael Studio, and Coffee House Productions.
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