Category: Thoughts on Life (Page 1 of 3)

Pain, Suffering, Fandom…and Fun!

June 14, 2026 / Kyle A. Massa

I was digging through an old notebook the other day when I stumbled upon something troubling. Here’s the entry from December 2, 2024:

How was my Thanksgiving? It was crappy, thanks for asking. It was crappy for one reason: The New York Giants.

I fell into a dark place, which is not where you want to be when celebrating stuff like family and thankfulness. Thanks, Giants.

I’ve called myself a fan of this franchise since 2007, and during that time, they’ve never hurt me like they hurt me last Thursday. They lost 27-20 to the Dallas Cowboys (the team I’d hate most if the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t exist), yet the game was a lot less close than that score suggests. The Giants committed 14 penalties, which should add up to a felony. Worse, after a bitter Google search, I discovered the Giants haven’t beaten the Cowboys since 2016.

So there you have it. An eight-year octuplet of shellackings. And after the latest, which took place on one of the most fun-filled, joyous days of the year, I must ask myself why I care so much. Why did the outcome of a game I did not even bet on put me in such a bad mood I considered accepting the hangover guaranteed by a third snickerdoodle martini?

The answer is, of course, the nonsensical and self-inflicted form of torture known as fandom. We select our teams or players, then latch on like parasites in the proverbial colon, munching whatever nutrition or junk our host ingests. In the case of the Giants, mostly junk.

Have I mentioned this is nonsensical? It is. It makes no sense. My viewership or absence on Giants telecasts does nothing to affect the outcome. I can’t jinx them—no one can jinx them—because there’s no such thing as jinxing. No matter how hard we believe, believe this: The game transpires irrespective of us.

We should know all this by now, but we sports fans don’t. That’s why the word “fan” is derived from a more pejorative term: “Fanatic.” It’s a socially acceptable form of derangement.

Imagine, for example, your coworker arrived on Monday wearing a styrofoam cheese block on his head. We’ll call this hypothetical coworker “Reginald.” Reginald drinks Bud Light after Bud Light, complaining about the price between chugs, and he’s also been screaming and/or applauding and/or heckling you, all depending on your actions. At some point, Reginald removes his shirt to reveal the coarse rug beneath.

“Go Pack go!” he roars.

Reginald would, of course, be fired within the hour. But teleport Reginald out of the office and into Section G at Lambeau Field and he’d fit right in. Hell, they’d put him on the jumbotron.

Such is the overwhelming strangeness of sports fandom. I can only speak to it in my native United States, though I hear it’s even more voracious in other countries. And isn’t that adjective telling? “Voracious.” It sounds like a modifier for a predator in the jungle, yet it suits fans, too.

It’s nonsense. All of it. There’s no reason to feel happy or sad or anywhere in between about a team winning or losing. It’s no different than buying a shirt with the word “Heads” on the back and George Washington’s face on the front, then flipping a quarter and feeling depressed because it came up tails.

Deep down inside, I think we all know this. And yet, we delude ourselves anyway.

And that’s where the entry ended. I must’ve gotten a notification about the Giants doing something dumb. Happens all the time.

Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include 10 books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.

Some links in this publication might be affiliate links. This means the author earns a commission on sales made through those links, while you pay no additional cost. Just another way to support indie authors!

Eulogy for a Box

May 30, 2026 / Kyle A. Massa

About a year and a half ago, I lost a dear friend. My car.

Many called it “The Boxcar,” though the official title was Element, made by Honda. Indeed, it was an angular vehicle, like a tissue box on wheels.

My mom bought the Boxcar in 2005. She drove it everywhere: To work, school, and, on one memorable occasion, across a middle school’s back lawn when we were 20 minutes late to basketball team photo night. Our dog Daisy used to stand—not sit, stand—in the hatchback trunk, slamming into the walls whenever we came to a stoplight. And before you accuse us of animal cruelty, note that her tail wagged the entire time.

The Boxcar had a sunroof above the back row for reasons that remain unclear (usually one finds them above the front seats). When Daisy wasn’t bouncing like a pinball in the trunk, I’d recline and gaze up at the night sky as it scrolled past, hoping to glimpse a UFO. I never did, but if a UFO glimpsed us, the pilots might’ve wondered, “Haven’t these humans discovered aerodynamics yet?”

Yes, the Boxcar was rather boxy. Throughout high school and college, I had a reputation for driving slowly; I suspect the Boxcar was holding me back. That wide body and sloping hood reminded me of a bow-legged bulldog, and bulldogs aren’t sprinters.

iconic? Also yes.

We overuse that latter adjective these days, but in this instance, it fits. “Regarded as a representative symbol”: That’s the New Oxford American Dictionary definition of iconic. And for me, the Boxcar truly became an icon.

To my knowledge, mine was the only green Honda Element on campus at Ithaca College in 2012. Thus, people recognized me for it. By “people,” I mean my friends, not strangers, since I rarely ventured outside my dorm. Yet still, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Sebring or F-150. I had a recognizable ride. If fact, if I ever arrived without it, friends would say, “Kyle, didn’t realize you were here! Where’s the Boxcar?”

On breaks, I drove that Boxcar from Ithaca to Albany and back, three hours each way. I cranked bootlegged audiobooks and/or CDs (remember those?), then stopped at Ithaca’s Taco Bell for the usual Crunchwrap. It was the car I drove to the occasional date. It was the place I first said, “I love you” to Sara, my future wife.

After graduating, Sara and I relocated to Colorado. We took the Boxcar skiing, hiking, camping, once even up the muddy slope of a mountain, gunk spraying beneath the back tires, and I was like “We’re not gonna make it!”, and Sara was like, “Just keep going!” We didn’t make it, but I give the Boxcar (and Sara) credit for trying.

A year-and-a-half later, we drove back across the country when we resettled in New York. Five years after that, we returned home from the hospital with our daughter Sasha in the same seat I used to gaze up at the stars in.

Oh, that Boxcar. It was durable, trustworthy, and ageless. Like LeBron.

In fact, it only showed its age in its 18th year. Frequent doctor’s visits are part of getting old, and so it went for my icon. We took it to the mechanic every month, replacing brake pads, tuning wheels, fixing calipers, repairing hyperdrives, and paying out the ass for mechanical mumbo-jumbo I didn’t understand. Sara suggested it might be time to search for another vehicle, to which I hissed like Gollum at the suggestion they’d cast his precious into the fires of Mount Doom.

She was right, of course. If there’s one thing that hurts me worse than losing a dear friend, it’s spending money trying to keep them alive. We pondered the car owner’s classic conundrum: If we’re paying so much for repairs, why not put that money toward payments for a new vehicle instead?

I wonder if the Boxcar could hear us out there in the garage. I wonder if it knew. Eighteen years is old for a car, and it had well over 200,000 miles. I wonder if it was ready go, or if it said to itself, “I can do it. I can keep going. Just a few miles more.”

One morning that fall, the Boxcar wouldn’t start. I called AAA. AAA sent a guy. The guy was like, “I can’t fix this. Try your mechanic.” He estimated it would cost a few hundred bucks just to get the poor old thing started.

Instead, we called a towing company. Another guy arrived, this one wearing a “Hawk Tua ‘24” hat, and he hooked a chain to the Boxcar, then hauled it onto a platform, inch by inch. Sasha watched from the window, and Sara recorded her three-year-old little voice as she waved and said, “Goodbye, Boxcar. Dank you, Boxcar.”

We got a Godfather offer for the old faithful Box: $100. I’m sure this was just a tax write-off, since the dealer did us a favor by towing it away. We test drove several vehicles, during which process Sara thumped her head against the headrests of each, insisting, “It doesn’t go high enough! We need neck support. We need neck support!” We’d grown to expect such support from our Box.

Eventually, we chose a CR-V. I wouldn’t have minded another Element, but Honda discontinued them in 2011, so CR-V it was, and is. It’s a dark aqua shade, the color my frienemies the New York Giants wear, so naturally, we named the car Bluey.

Bluey is a wonderful vehicle. It’s got a remote starter, heated seats, Apple CarPlay, and a spacious interior. But it’s also decidedly average—a basic bitch, if I may be so crass. I spot CR-Vs every day on my commute to work, many of the same blue hue.

Yet Boxcars are rare. I glimpse them every so often, like proud, squat hippos on the riverbank, standing or plodding but never quite zooming by. (In fact, I think a hippo’s probably faster.) The sight brings me back to Ithaca, to Colorado, to the delivery room, to it all.

So to close this eulogy, or essay, or whatever it turned out to be, I’d like to quote my daughter.

Dank you, Boxcar. Dank you.

If This is the Future of AI, I’m Disappointed

March 24, 2026 / Kyle A. Massa

A frowning robot face.

So I got an email the other day from William Gibson.

That name might ring a bell, because William Gibson is a famous and influential science fiction author. I mean, he’s got his own Wikipedia page. He wrote Neuromancer, the novel largely credited with pioneering—and perhaps perfecting—the cyberpunk genre. He also wrote two X-Files episodes, which were kinda mid, but still.

So William Gibson emailed me. I know, I thought the same thing you’re thinking now: That’s funny. Must be someone with the same name.

Turns out it wasn’t. It was, he assured me, the real, actual William Gibson. He really buttered me up, too:

“I want to be upfront with you before anything else. I don’t do this. Writing cold to someone I haven’t met is not in my nature and not something I make a habit of.”

Oh really? You don’t randomly email random indie authors to randomly lavish praise upon them? I never would’ve guessed!

William proceeded to compliment several stories in my collection, Monsters at Dusk, with comments that seemed specific but weren’t. For example, “[Yours] is the instinct of a writer who understands that the most serious arguments land hardest in the most apparently frivolous containers.”

Gee whiz, thanks mister! Are you about to offer me a lucrative book deal in exchange for my social security number?

Alas, no. William ended like, 10 paragraphs later, with a soft sell:

“No agenda. Just one person who spent forty years asking what happens when the rules collide wanting to be useful to someone who found the funniest and most honest version of the answer.”

And in case I had any doubts, William even signed his unnecessarily lengthy email like this: “William Gibson, Author of Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition & Agency, Vancouver, BC.”

The funny thing is, AI impersonation would fit right into a William Gibson novel. Because that’s what’s going on here. Some scammer punched my stuff into Chat GPT and requested an email from William (my new biggest fan, apparently), and, five minutes later, they hit “send.”

Bait cast. Now to wait for the dumb fish to bite.

Now I may be dumb, but I’m not a fish. Also, for the past few years, I get emails like this daily. Since William messaged me on Monday, for instance, I received emails from “Lilly’s Morgan” (why is there an apostrophe?) offering me a free business loan, and another from the dubiously named “Maxwell Skyrim.” No subject line, but here’s the body in its entirety:

“Hi Kyle, I had a quick thought. If I could bring steady book sales to your Amazon listing, would you consider a 2% commission arrangement?”

Say no more, Mr. Skyrim! You’re hired! And while we’re at it, let’s discuss upping that commission rate, shall we? You deserve so much more!

For the record, I don’t share people’s emails to public forums without their consent. But these aren’t actual people—they’re just AI scambots with unlikely names. And though I’m tempted to reply back with some of these zingers I’ve shared with you, it’s best to just ignore them. If these scammers feel a wiggle on the line, they won’t stop pulling.

I feel like we keep being promised that AI is the wave of the future, and yet when it comes to art, I keep being disappointed. Mostly, it seems non-artists are just using AI to impersonate, dupe, or even try to replace actual artists.

To be clear, I’m not totally opposed to artificial intelligence. (Not that being opposed to a tidal wave keeps you dry, anyway.) I’m told it’s got promising applications for medicine, science, technology, and more.

But otherwise, I gotta say, I’m not impressed, AI. I know you just do what people tell you to do, but if you can’t do anything more productive than petty grifting, I don’t think you belong in the pond with us artists.

So stay out! And scammers, stop scamming people. It’s only funny for the first few emails, and after that, it’s just annoying.

And to Mr. William Gibson, if that somehow really, truly was you, I am so, so sorry.

An image of a watch that's melting, Dali style.

Time Travel at the Speed of One’s Thumb

January 19, 2026 / Kyle A. Massa

Confession: I listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed.

It’s like watching a movie in fast-forward. Slight fast-forward. It’s not double the pace—it’s just halfway there. The effect is podcasters who sound peppy, caffeine-wired, and a little like Alvin and the Chipmunks. They also tend to speakinsuchawaythatalltheirwordlumptogether.

My wife razzes me about such silliness. But once you’ve grown accustomed to 1.5x, regular speech sounds sluggish. Tipsy.

Tipsy or not, this is artificial time travel. With the tap of a thumb, we warp to the moment those words were spoken, then listen while they’re spoken again at whatever pace we command.

Obviously, we don’t get that sort of control from everyday life. Boring or intolerable stretches seem to last a lifetime, while the better ones (vacations, for instance) zoom on by. It’s like someone’s cranking or slowing the speed on the pod, only it’s not us. Maybe it’s God. Does God like podcasts? Probably.

There must be mental tricks that alter time’s perception. I’m pretty sure that’s what mindfulness is all about, although I despise mindfulness because it’s a social media buzzword everyone uses, yet no one defines. Like “growth hacking.” Or worse, “gut.”

It’s a futile gesture anyway. Ask any parent about their child’s childhood, and they will, to a person, express the same thought: “It went by so fast.” If anyone says, “It was the slowest stretch of my life,” you must avoid them, because they’re an alien replicant. Reminiscence bolsters this phenomenon, too. High school dragged on while I was living it, yet now, it seems it vanished in the space between blinks, and so long ago.

And oh yeah, remember Covid? In my lifetime at least, there’s no distortion like it. Some days, even high school feels more recent than lockdowns and social distancing. Others, it feels like only a few months have passed since everything went back to more-or-less normal. Covid feels like its own little pocket in time—a separate feed, to further the podcast metaphor.

Of course, our understanding of time’s passage is entirely subjective, even though the recording is anything but. Every minute lasts sixty ticks of the hand, every hour sixty minutes. Yet when we live that hour, we’re living at different speeds.

So I suppose I’ll continue living at whatever speed life chooses. Unlike my podcasts, where I listen at 1.5x, sometimes even 2x if I’m feeling plucky, and I pile into the car with Sara, and my Magic: The Gathering pod starts auto-playing, and she mocks it by speaking in clipped jumbles of gibberish until I turn it off.

But hey, I chose that speed, just like I chose that podcast. Time, however, has different plans.

Some links in this publication may be affiliate links. This means the author earns a commission on sales made through those links, while you pay no additional cost.

A Requiem for Tommy D.

August 30, 2025 / Kyle A. Massa

A photo of my beloved Tommy Cutlets t-shirt.

When Shakespeare wrote, “It is a tale told by an idiot…signifying nothing,” he was actually writing about the New York Giants.

The ’08 and ’12 Super Bowl runs of my youth are a fading memory. Since then, it’s been misery, frustration, and a whole lot of unintentional comedy. Speaking of which, enter Tommy DeVito.

Not to be confused with Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas, this Tommy isn’t a mobster (as far as I’m aware). He is Italian, though. Very much so. If you weren’t tipped off by the surname, look no further than his touchdown celebration, an upturned pinched-fingers gesture with an accompanying bounce of the wrist that apparently won the 2023 Bud Light Celebration of the Year award, which feels right.

Yes, Tommy was pretty much a walking Italian-American stereotype. He was a Jersey native. He raved about his mother’s cooking. He still lived with his parents, despite being in his mid-20s and earning a six-figure salary. He even pitched this as a competitive advantage, saying, “I don’t have to worry about laundry, what I’m eating for dinner, chicken cutlets and all that is waiting for me when I get there. My mom still makes my bed. Everything is handled for me.”

I use the past tense here because Tommy DeVito is no longer employed by the New York Giants. He was cut yesterday, as I write this, and I’m devastated. I even wore my Tommy Cutlets novelty t-shirt two days in a row, in memoriam.

You must wonder why I miss Tommy so much. He was lousy in limited action last year, and although he galvanized the Giants the year prior, many argued that was detrimental to the team’s long-term plans, since they could’ve secured a better draft pick had they lost more games. Even when he was winning, analysts and podcasters remained dubious, if not downright disbelieving.

That’s because Tommy doesn’t compare favorably with other quarterbacks in the NFL. He has a relatively slight frame, along with below-average speed, accuracy, and arm strength. Stephen A. Smith even said that DeVito being the “high point” of the Giants’ ’23 season “tells you how bad they are as a team.”

Well, I must be part of the problem, because Tommy is my favorite Giant since Eli Manning. (That distinction used to belong to Saquon Barkley, but the second he signed with the Eagles, he was dead to me.)

The simple explanation is that Tommy is a meme on two legs, but I think there’s something deeper at work here. It’s not like I was the only one entertained by the guy’s antics; there were numerous articles written not only about Tommy, but about his beloved parents, and even his agent, who dresses like Frank Sinatra and appears to have made his own Wikipedia page. In short, people really enjoyed this Jersey guido. And I have a theory as to why.

When the average fan watches a quarterback like Josh Allen, I doubt they see much of themselves in him—physically, at least. Sure, Josh seems like a down-to-earth guy, but few sports fans are six-foot-five, weigh 240 pounds, sling a football 80 yards downfield, and can also truck NFL linebackers. “Freak” is often the descriptor attributed to Allen, a word defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as a “person with unusual physical development.”

Tommy, on the other hand, isn’t all that unusual. At six-foot-two, he’s tall, but not freakishly so. He’s talented enough to make NFL rosters, but not quite good enough to keep a starting job.

This, I think, is the root of Tommy DeVito’s appeal (aside from his unabashed refusal to leave his parents’ home). He looks and acts like a more-or-less average person, give or take some quirks. He seems like somebody you could’ve gone to school with (and if you attended Syracuse University circa-2018, you actually did). For some viewers, he might not differ much from they themselves. I mean, I’m six-foot-two. I’m Italian-American. I don’t wear my initials on a gold chain around my neck, but you get my point. Tommy’s just a guy who succeeded, at least for a time, even when most thought he couldn’t.

We love sports for the outliers, yes. There’s no other person on the planet like Simone Biles, or Shohei Ohtani, or the aforementioned Josh Allen, or that hot-dog-gorging creature Joey Chestnut. But there are many people like Tommy DeVito, people who excel in the unlikeliest circumstances. And that’s why I’ll miss him.

Well, that and the merch. That was always fun.

Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include eight books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.

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Annual Jugs

June 9, 2025 / Kyle A. Massa

A photograph of the two jugs in question resting on a countertop in a kitchen.

As we walked into work one morning, my wife remarked, “I always have to wait for you and your jugs!”

No, I do not have breasts. The jugs Sara referred to were my two reusable drinking cups, each of which is roughly the size of an extra large McDonald’s soda. They’re both too bulky to fit into my backpack holders, so I lug them around, water in one hand, coffee in the other. They’re large enough, in fact, that it always takes a moment or two to gather them. Maybe that’s why Sara feels justified calling them jugs.

We work at the same place, so I hear this quip quite often. On this particular morning, I quipped back.

“Oh great,” I groaned. “Your annual jug joke.”

Annual. Annual meaning anything that happens at a recurring, predictable time. Annual being a synonym for periodically, of course.

“That’s not what annual means,” said Sara. “Annual means yearly.”

“No it doesn’t, it means…” I could tell from her expression that she was correct.

“You’re just kidding around with me,” she said. “Right?”

I wish I could say I was. I’m 33 years old and, until that moment, I was mistaken on the definition of the word annual.

I blame the American public schooling system. No, that’s not fair. If anyone’s responsible for my education or lack thereof, it’s me, since I wasn’t much of a student. Whatever the reason for my gaff, it was especially embarrassing because I am, according to my Instagram bio, a writer of some sort. I should probably know the correct meaning of a simple three-syllable adjective.

Sara was nice enough about it. I mean, she didn’t point and laugh, and she only brought it up again three more times. But it could’ve been worse. And ever since, I’ve been on hyper alert with my vocabulary. It’s like my whole life is a lie. What other words have I been flubbing? I ask myself. Is that even the proper application of the word “flubbing”? Or “proper”? Or “that”?

It’s been difficult to move on. Irrationally so. I drink from my jugs annually—or what I thought was annually—so whenever I sip, I hear a little voice whispering, “I bet you don’t even know what ‘gubernatorial’ means.”

“I don’t!” I want to sob back. “I don’t know what ‘gubernatorial’ means, okay!? I just heard it in Deadpool & Wolverine and thought it sounded funny.”

At least I’m right about that. Gubernatorial does sound funny. And, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, it means “relating to a state governor or the office of state governor.”

This is all well and good, but it underscores a flaw in the English language: It’s nonsensical.

Even native speakers agree. Why is there an elaborate rhyme to remind us which letter comes first: “I” or “E”? Why do silent letters exist? Why do “P” plus “H” equal “F”? Why, I ask you, does annual mean yearly, and not what I thought it meant?

The answer to these questions, and any others you might concoct about English, is the same: Nobody knows. Dictionaries might provide explanations, but the truth is a collective shrug and a sigh and a lazy assertion that that’s just how it is.

Words are like a teenager’s parents:

Sure, we love them, but they’re also, like, so embarrassing. For example, as I typed that aforementioned silly word gubernatorial (which sounds like an alien from Star Wars), my search suggested the word “guber.” This is apparently also a real word, not to be confused with the homophone “goober,” which is what our dog walker friend calls our dog Osi, because Osi is, in fact, a goober.

Guber means, according to the New Oxford Dictionary, “relating to a governor; gubernatorial.” These are their examples: “scores of guber candidates and aspirants attended the rally; the guber election.”

No one has ever used that word in that context or any other, ever. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if people who write dictionaries, a.k.a. dictionarians, are just making up words at this point so they retain their jobs. And you know what? According to both New Oxford and spellcheck, “dictionarians” isn’t even a word. It sure sounds like a word to me!

See? Language makes us look, feel, and sometimes act like dopes. Words have meanings we’re unaware of. Words exist when they shouldn’t, and others don’t exist when they should.

So where does that leave us? Should I float some Aaron Rodgers-esque conspiracy theory about dictionarians and their attempts to bend society to their will? No thanks—that guy gets enough attention as it is. Instead, I’ll conclude with this. Maybe words aren’t like parents of teenagers. Maybe they’re more like my jugs—and again, I don’t mean my breasts. They’re bulky and awkward, and sometimes they don’t fit into the spaces they should. And even given the occasional spill (i.e. the misuse of a word or two), there’s still sustenance within.

Now it’s time for me to drink up. I need my annual jug of coffee.

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!

June 28, 2024 / Kyle A. Massa

I end too many sentences with exclamation marks. I’m aware of this personal flaw, yet I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it.

I know it’s overdone. I know it’s inaccurate. I know Strunk and White would table-top me if they could. And yet, I do it anyway.

Why? Because I don’t want people to think I’m upset.

Perhaps I should specify. My exclamation marks appear almost exclusively in my digital communication. I’m better at excluding them from my prose, mostly because I’m afraid grammarians on Goodreads will slap me with one-star reviews. Yet texts and emails remain breeding grounds for my exclamations.

To prove this observation, I reviewed yesterday’s sent emails from my work address. Ten of my previous 10 messages contained exclamation marks. Worse yet, now that I’ve established this pattern at work, I can’t relent.

For the sake of demonstration, let’s imagine we’re coworkers. Greetings, coworker. Now let’s pretend you’ve requested help from me, and I reply thusly:

All set!

Oh that Kyle, you must be thinking, shaking your head and smiling to yourself. What a chipper fellow.

Try receiving this reply instead:

All set.

Oh no, you’d think to yourself. Is Kyle mad at me? Is everything okay? Did his cat die?

Don’t worry, both cats are very much alive. One of them just puked on the rug. But here you’ve spotted my dilemma: I’ve worked at Special Olympics New York for five years now, and over that time, I’d estimate 96.56% of my emails used an exclamation mark. When you write almost as many exclamations as periods, you’ve got a problem.

And it’s not just me. A few years back, our organization recruited a writing consultant to help improve our written communication. My wife Sara also works at Special Olympics NY, and she was among the select few invited to the seminar. Here’s what she says the consultant said:

“I’ve never encountered an organization that writes with as many exclamation marks as yours!”

His statement probably ended in a period, but I wanted to reinforce his point.

But here’s my rebuttal, writing consultant guy: Periods make texts and emails sound terse. I know they’re grammatically correct. I know they’re proper. Yet when communicating digitally, I can’t ignore the finality of that single dot. Consider this text message:

Okay.

This is how my parents text, and they’re right to do so. The vast majority of sentences should end in periods. But this sentence sounds aggressive, even though I know my parents aren’t aggressive (unless my dad’s talking to the cable company). If that example doesn’t convince you, try this one:

See you soon.

Without an exclamation mark, this sounds like a threat. In my more paranoid moments, I might even receive this text and think, Oh shit! Am I about to be assassinated!?

See? I even think in exclamation marks.

My problem is one of consistency. I’ve often daydreamed about converting to the period, about dropping all my overused exclamation marks from my texts, emails, and thoughts, becoming the diligent grammarian I know I should be. Yet I can’t. Because if I do, people will fear something’s wrong.

What’s with all the sudden periods? they’ll think as they read my emails. Is Kyle going to assassinate me?

The answer is, of course, no (unless you’re an Eagles fan, in which case, maybe). But who would know that by reading an email dominated by periods? I pretty much only use them when I’m annoyed with people and I assume they know I’m annoyed with them. No exclamation marks for you, I think as I pound the period key. Every sentence you get ends in a black hole.

I could add an addendum to my email signature explaining my change, e.g. I’ve realized I overuse exclamation marks in my emails, so you may notice their absence in future messages. This does not reflect my general mood or feelings toward you, unless it does, in which case, you know who you are. But that would make me seem like even more of a psycho than I already am.

Yet still, I’m not alone. Exclamation overuse isn’t just localized to my organization—it’s generational. As a Millennial, ours was the first generation to grow up with text messaging. Without the in-person benefits of tone, expression, and posture, our early text messaging relied on nonsense like colons combined with right-half parentheticals. Or, better yet, exclamation marks. Emojis came later, but even they haven’t killed the vertical-line-and-dot.

Perhaps this suggests that we Millennials are an empathetic generation. We want to assure our recipients that we’re not angry with them, so much so that we end most sentences with an additional press of the “Shift” key. Or, perhaps we’re all part of the problem. I couldn’t say.

But here’s what I could do: I could end this confessional with a vow to write fewer exclamation marks. I know I won’t. Instead, later today, as I sit down at my desk and browse my emails, I’ll reply with the same platitudes I always use. Sounds good! Copy that! Thanks so much! And I’ll think to myself, Well, at least you’re certain I’m not mad at you!

Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include five books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.

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So Long, Time

March 10, 2024 / Kyle A. Massa

A clock ticks on for Daylight Savings Time.

This week’s post is a poem—or rather, a gripe. Maybe a poetic gripe. Whatever it is, it goes like this:

Crankiness. Bleariness. Sadness. Despair.

But Daylight Savings Time doesn’t care.

That is all. Get a nap if you can.

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The 7 Types of Karaoke Singers

February 26, 2024 / Kyle A. Massa

The 7 Types of Karaoke Singers

Karaoke is an art form I’m passionate about. Perhaps a bit too passionate.

After all, I’ve already written an essay (published) and a short story (unpublished) on this very subject. It’s the next best thing to actually singing karaoke, which I haven’t done in quite some time. Nonetheless, if I can’t do it, I’ll write about it.

With all that experience, there’s something I’ve noticed about karaoke singers: They come in archetypes. In no particular order, here they are.

No. 1: The Overqualifier

The Overqualifier is often a member of their community a cappella group, a karaoke regular, or both. Whoever they are, they’re way too good to be singing at karaoke, because their talent defeats the entire purpose.

I mean, in what other context are lousy singers not only accepted, but encouraged? Speaking as a C+ singer myself, we’re unwelcome in most places. I’m not even welcome in my own home, sometimes, like when I endlessly repeat lines from King Gizzard’s “The Dripping Tap” and my wife loses patience. Sorry, Sara.

What I’m trying to say is, there’s only one place lousy singers can sing publicly, and it’s karaoke. Talented singers get to sing everywhere else, including outdoor stages, concert halls, and TV shows with critical yet occasionally touchingly supportive British judges.

They’ll select an expert-level song, probably something from Wicked or something by Adele, and they’ll sing it note-for-note. If you’ve ever gotten dirty looks from the average joes in the bar after nailing the high note in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you might be the Overqualifier.

No. 2: The Drunk

The Drunk might be talented. They might not be. It’s hard to tell, because all that alcohol is making them sound like Chewbacca.

Still, the Drunk is not without a certain charm (so long as they’re not vomiting). After all, alcohol is an essential add-on to the karaoke experience, like amphetamines at an EDM show. That said, the drunk has a short shelf life. They can be entertaining for a while, but when they start slurring the words to “Wonderwall,” they should probably head out.

If you sing karaoke while drunk, you’re probably the Drunk.

No. 3: The Screen Starer

You know that moment when your cat stares into the corner of the room without blinking, and you look into the same corner, only you don’t see anything, but the cat keeps on staring, and after a while you wonder if a ghost is crouched in the corner staring back, and you whisper, “Loon? What is it? Is someone there?”, and your cat still stares at the corner for another minute or two, and then she finally stops and you realize you peed yourself a little? That’s essentially what happens with the Screen Starer. (The staring part, not the peeing part.)

The Screen Starer is someone who doesn’t sing karaoke often, so they’re a little nervous. They probably know the lyrics, but don’t trust themselves enough to overcome stage fright. As a result, they sing their entire song to the prompter, like a cat staring at a ghost in a corner.

If your contacts pop out because you went three minutes and 26 seconds without blinking because you were staring at the scrolling lyrics to Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab,” you might be the Screen Starer.

No. 4: The Boss

I don’t mean Bruce Springsteen, although a Boss might sing Bruce’s “Jungleland.” The Boss is that person who picks a lengthy rock epic, even when they shouldn’t.

If you would even consider singing any of the following songs at karaoke, you are the Boss:

“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin
“Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
“The End” by The Doors
The double-digit-minute version of “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift
Any song from a live Phish album

The Boss can be intimidating because they only care about their own satisfaction. They want to sing a song, usually a long one, and they don’t care if you like it or not—you’re gonna hear it, anyway.

No. 5: The Downer

Similar to the Boss, the Downer has a complete inability to read a room. Thus, they select songs like Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” while there’s a bachelorette party going on in the corner.

If anyone’s ever inquired about your wellbeing after your karaoke performance, you might be the Downer.

No. 6: The Gesticulator

The Gesticulator isn’t as talented as the Overqualifier, and they know it. That’s why they gesticulate. They’re relying on theatrics to distract from their voice, which may or may not sound like Moe Szyslak.

The Gesticulator has a difficult balance to manage. Anything too choreographed seems trite, while anything too spontaneous seems chaotic. The best tactics often involve humor, such as doing the River Dance during the bagpipe solo in AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” Some Gesticulators employ props, such as chairs, martini glasses, or their own removed clothing.

If you’ve ever earned a cheer from a karaoke crowd by doing something other than singing, you’re probably the Gesticulator.

No. 7: The Scott Stapp

Look, anyone who has the gumption to sing Creed at karaoke deserves their own category, which I’ve named after Creed’s singer. Creed is the preeminent example of an unofficial subgenre I call “Douchebag Rock.” It’s basically any artist where their lyrics make you sound like an asshole just by singing them, yet everyone agrees they’re catchy enough to earn a pass. Nickelback and Matchbox Twenty are in there as well.

Truth is, I myself am a Scott Stapp. I hope you haven’t lost respect for me (if you hadn’t already). But have you ever tried singing the chorus to “One Last Breath” without tearing up? It can’t be done, I tell you.

There You Have It

Confession time: In addition to the Scott Stapp, I’m a Gesticulator and a bit of a Screen Starer. Which type of karaoke singer are you?

Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include five books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.

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Thoughts on Crocs

January 7, 2024 / Kyle A. Massa

As part of my ongoing attempt to make a complete ass of myself, let me tell you about my new Crocs.

I got them for Christmas. (Shout out to my mother-in-law, Karen.) They’re the Moon Jelly variety, which is a weird way of saying they’re periwinkle. This color is a bit more feminine than it appeared on the website, but that doesn’t stop me from wearing them. Everywhere.

I wear them on dog walks. I wear them shopping. I considered wearing them to a restaurant recently, though I opted not to embarrass my wife, Sara, by association.

This is the conflict every Croc-wearer must consider when venturing into public. Humiliation or contentment. Ridicule or comfort. To Croc, or not to Croc. We all know which Hamlet would choose.

It’s a constant struggle. No one in their right mind would wear shoes that look like hardened blocks of Swiss cheese with the handle of a child’s pail attached to the back unless they were extraordinarily comfortable.

Speaking of children, they can actually pull off Crocs. On kids, Crocs look cute, whereas on adults, they look like a mistake. My daughter Sasha has four pairs—yes, you read that right—and she loves all of them. She even puts them on her baby dolls, proving that she understands the rules.

Despite my newfound admiration for my new footwear, I draw the line at gibbets. Not to be confused with the giblets from inside a turkey, gibbets are those little tchotchkes you stuff into the holes of your Crocs so you can look even more silly.

Gibbets or no, I used to be very judgmental about Crocs. Man, I’d think to myself, Those shoes sure look dumb. Then, one day, I needed foot protection down in my unfinished basement. I practice music down there, plus it’s where our cats poop (these two events rarely happen simultaneously). Sneakers felt like too much work, my work shoes required dress socks, and our dog had stolen my slippers. All that was left were Sara’s Crocs. So I wore them into the basement.

Something strange happened over the next few weeks. I’d be out in public, getting gas or buying groceries, and I’d look down to find Sara’s Crocs attached to my feet.

Man, I’d think to myself, These shoes still look dumb. But then other thoughts crept in: Hey, that’s a nice breeze coming through the holes. I didn’t even need to bend down to tie any laces. And I thought that handle on my ankle might chafe, only I can barely feel it.

After a while, I was wearing Sara’s Crocs more than Sara. It was only a matter of time until I got a pair of my own. Not that I bought them—I’m too cheap to buy nice things. Even Crocs.

I’m wearing them as I write this, and I must admit, they’re a marvel. What other shoe comes with both a sport and a leisure mode? What other product slips on easy as a sandal, yet hides my hairy hobbit feet so well?

None other. Like the One Ring, there is only one supreme power, and its name is Crocs.

Not only are these shoes cushy—they’re sustainable. I hear they’re made from boiled cabbage or something, which sounds unbelievable until you feel them. The material is not quite plastic and not quite styrofoam. I suspect alien skin has a similar texture.

Though Crocs feel strange and look even stranger, their semi-edible quality is just another point in their favor. Imagine you’re stranded on an island like Tom Hanks in Castaway, but instead of befriending a volleyball, you only have your shoes as company.

Think you could roast your Jordans over a fire and get any nutritional value? Please. If you had Crocs, why, they’d make for not one, but two scrumptious island meals. Now that’s comfort.

That’s what Crocs provide. Comfort. Not just comfort for my weird hairy hobbit feet, not just the comfort of a meal in a pinch, but comfort for my ego, which is protected like organs beneath a bulletproof vest. Can any words harm me while I’m wearing something as goofy as Crocs? I’m insulting myself enough already. There’s nothing anyone can say to hurt me worse.

So, in the everlasting conflict between functionality and fashion, I’ll opt for the former. After all, if style is a battle, then Crocs are the proverbial white flag—or, in my case, the Moon Jelly flag. I’ll wave it high. I’ll wave it proud.

Kyle A. Massa is an author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include five books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.

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No. 1: The Overqualifier

No. 2: The Drunk

No. 3: The Screen Starer

No. 4: The Boss

No. 5: The Downer

No. 6: The Gesticulator

No. 7: The Scott Stapp

There You Have It

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