Slipped my mind

Good day, everyone, and welcome to UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for "Unskinned Onions Produce Tears Again," but that's a sad reality of kitchen life that we all must face at some point in our lives. (Thanks to my loving mother-in-law for sending in that UOPTA. Get your own in this top paragraph by writing to ptklein@gmail.com. Pretty please.) Instead, this UOPTA is where I write things that are on my mind, and people just like you willingly read those thoughts and stories. So let's get right to it.

Actually, I have a little story about today's date first. My favorite brother, all of my best friends, and I have a habit of speaking almost entirely in movie quotes. Some movies peak quickly and then fizzle out. For example, we quoted the hell out of "John Carpenter's Vampires" (because it was so awful) for a year or so before it almost completely left our collective vernacular. Same with "Contact," which has some good lines in it. Other movies stick around for the long haul. For example, the first "Austin Powers" movie, "Anchorman," "Face/Off," and "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" are firmly established and aren't going anywhere. Right up there with those four is a little movie from 1998 called "Rush Hour." It's 2009 now, and lines from that movie still come up all the time in our normal speech. I thought of this because I saw today's date and chuckled to myself. You see, the shadowy bad guy of "Rush Hour" is known as Juntao (pronounced so that it rhymes with "moon now"). Almost every year since then, I've called or written my homey Rockabye to say, "JUNE TWELVE!" in my best Jackie Chan voice. I know it doesn't really sound like Juntao, but it always makes me smile. JUNE TWELVE!

Now here's what I intended to write about today. Thank you for your patience. I have found yet another thing in this world that I absolutely detest: Not remembering something that was very clear to me at one point in my life. I'm not just talking about forgetting someone's name here. Allow me to illustrate via the power of two examples.

I was talking to my favorite brother and my friend Greg (The Pigh) last weekend. I'm not sure exactly how it came up, but Greg mentioned something that I used to say quite frequently while playing an ice hockey video game back in the 96-97 academic year. In hockey, there's something called a "one timer." Wikipedia defines it as a shot "that occurs when a player meets a teammate's pass with an immediate slapshot without any attempt to control the puck on his stick." Got it? Good. Anyway, every single time one of us did a one timer, I would say, "One time, one time, just be thankful for my rhyme." It was from some old school rap, and thinking about "one timer" got me singing that line. Greg got in on the action too, even though he didn't know the song. He affixed an accent to his version for some reason, and we're not sure if it was intended to be Irish or Jamaican.

In any case, Greg brought up that line while we were chatting on Saturday. The last few times I'd thought of it, I realized that I couldn't remember which rap song it was from. I turned to my brother, who knew all of the same songs but was 3.5 years older at the time, so hopefully had a better shot of remembering. "Oh, Kev, what song is this from?" I asked before launching into the line. He had no idea. Crap. So I did what anyone in my position would do: I turned to Google. I searched for the entire phrase, parts of the phrase in quotes, and every combination possible. Nothing. In fact, Google doesn't find the exact phrase, "thankful for my rhyme" anywhere in the bajillion websites it searches. So what can I do? Ask everyone I know and try not to get upset when they all look at me like I'm making it up on the spot? I know it came from somewhere. My only thought is that maybe instead of being an actual song, it was from an 80s commercial or something instead (which wouldn't be as likely to have its lyrics online). All I know is that I'm at a dead end, and it pisses me off.

My other example comes from way back in the day, and it occurs to me that I've never told this story to anyone. Growing up, my favorite brother and I spent a lot of time at our grandparents' house doing all sorts of things. We often recorded ourselves either singing songs, having conversations, or just being silly. One afternoon in particular when I was about 8 or 9 years old, Kevin was using the tape recorder. I distinctly remember sitting in the background, singing a camp song to myself. However, when we listened to what was recorded a couple of hours later, I couldn't make out what song it was. I remembered it was a camp song, but on the recording, it sounded like I was singing, "Every the apple you." Those pretty clearly aren't the right words, but as I listened over and over again, that's what it sounded like. I spent the rest of that day going through every camp song I could think of. "Every the apple you" didn't fit into any of them. I think of this every time I see apple juice, and while I know that there's no way in hell I'll ever figure it out at this point, it still makes me frustrated with myself.

I hope my examples have helped shed some light on this particular type of not-remembering. I knew something very clearly at one point, cited it, and then can't for the life of me recall it a little while later. I think this is different than my mom's problem with remembering Phil Collins' name or the time I couldn't remember the word "observant" and kept saying "observsive" and "observatory" over and over again. Instead, I'm left sitting here with Google failing me and "every the apple you" playing on repeat in my head. The "uh oh" in this blog's name feels very appropriate right now.

One quick thing before we move on: As long as I'm not the one doing it, I like when typos really change the meaning of what someone intended to write. I wrote about this probably two years ago, and cited two typos that I caught at the very last second. The first was, "I know you're really busty," instead of "busy" to one of the female Deans at UCSB. The second was a letter certifying that my friend (who was getting her massage license) wouldn't be giving out sexual favors. I wrote, "She's a fine and oral citizen" before catching it and adding the M. In any case, I saw a typo earlier this week, and this marks the third time that I've come across this one. Instead of "definitely," it said, "defiantly." That's a big difference. "I defiantly think we need more training," one of the three said. (Really? The other people are staunchly against that? Duly noted.) Now I realize that many people misspell definite as "definate," but it's another thing to spell it wrong and then transpose two letters.

With that, let's scramble our letters on down to the Car Watch.

My homey Rockabye sent me a plate that I think demands too much of us. "SWIMGR8," it tells us. That's right. "Get in the water - no, all the way in the water! Now start swimming! Better! Better! Mediocre swimming is not acceptable!"

Next up, I'd like to illustrate a poor use of the Car Watch surfaces, in my not-so-humble opinion. The plate itself read, "BSTN LA." That seems pretty clear cut to me, although it could be "Best in LA" instead of "Boston," as I first read it. The driver clearly isn't too confident in his plate's ability to get his point across. In comes the license plate frame to save the day. On the top, it says, "It says." On the bottom: "Boston L.A." Oh thank you so much for clearing that up. I'm surprised that there wasn't a bumper sticker that said, "The frame says that the plate says 'Boston L.A.'" And then an antenna ball to explain the sticker. And Calvin peeing on something that explains the antenna ball. And then mud flaps to clear up any of the Calvin peeing confusion. Or maybe the driver could've just gotten, "BOSTN LA" on the plate and stopped there.

Last but not least, my dad sent me this bumper sticker: "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies." That's one hell of a fringe benefit. I'm there, dude.

And I'm also done with this week's post, dude. I'll be back next Friday for some more of this shyte, ite? In the meantime, let's acknowledge some happiness. Happy 0th birthday yesterday to our friends' Danielle and Jesse's new little girl, Nicole Rheta. Congratulations on being born, and we hope to meet you soon. Happy half-birthday to my loving mother-in-law and whole birthday to our friend Wendy tomorrow. Monday is my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. 40! That's a big number, so please join me in wishing them a very happy one. And happy half-birthday on Tuesday to our good friend Candice. That's it, party people. See you next week, and GO LAKERS! JUNE TWELVE!