Adam Has a Podcast Episode 38; The Burnt Toast Theory

*terrible singing* I had a little bit of a head cold going on. Ugh. It's passing, though. It's a lot better than it was. I don't know, I'm like two weeks. I missed it you a week ago. I went to a concert and it was fun. I think I'm going to start doing this thing called Wednesday Windows where I listen to a song and I'll just hang out with you for like 10 minutes and then I'll post it. But um, you know, I went to this like backyard concert. I had no idea that you could do shit like that. It was fucking awesome. And it it rekindled a little something to me, but I was a little late to the concert. But it was cool because the concert started a little later than they said it would. That's kind of like cook for people like me. You're like, "Oh, man, I'm late, but actually, I'm early. They built in some padding time for people like me. Which is awesome because I have been chronically late my entire life. My entire life. That's what I want to talk about today is I have been like subconsciously operating off of the burnt toast theory my entire life, I feel like. Ever since I was a little kid, Actually, no.. in elementary school, I was pretty good at being on time to school. Middle school, it was a was a little hairy. It was a little spotty. I never had perfect attendance, but whenever they did those awards things at the end of the year, I was never like, oh, yeah, that was me. No. I never had. I guess sick a lot. Clearly. Actually, this is surprising. This is the first time I've been sick in a while about a year. So, yeah. I don't get sick that often. I get sick about like, once a year, maybe. But when I was little, I got sick a lot and I got sick like two or three times a year. So I was out of school a lot. I never got perfect attendance. This one time in middle school, I got a concussion. So I was out for like, six months. And then I got mono from my sister on top of that. That's. I'm gonna clip that right there. Everybody always has the same reaction when I say that, but reality, it was like she was drinking out of a Gatorade bottle and I also was sick at the same time, so I had the blue Gatorade and she had the blue Gatorade because it's the best flavor and I didn't know which bottle was which at one point, so I saw, oh, I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. I woke up. Oh, look, there's my Gatorade. Boom, he's got mono. That was actually like when I went to the doctor's and I got tested, that was when I had to learn the difference between like positive and like negative. And I was like, yeah, so I'm positive, but that's a negative thing, right? Because I was positive for mono, but it's negative that you're positive for mono, right? So that shit always kind of, I was like, but wait, is it a good thing or a bad thing? I'm like, do I have it or not? I had it. Yeah, I have mono.. Which makes sense, you know, because she had mono and she were on it into the house. No matter what, at that point, with a compromised immune system, like mine, it's probably par for the course, no matter if I, you know, drank out of the same Gatorade or maybe even, like, fucking. I don't know how else moderno spreads besides saliva, like use the same fork, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure it was a Gatorade thing.. Yeah, I pretty much, if I wasn't smart, I'd be held back a year, but I pretty much pretty much was out for like my entire seventh grade year, but. I was able to just be like, okay, actually, I had to reteach myself math, which was crazy. And then. my algebra teacher got enough fights with me, dude. Oh, I don't remember your name, lady. I'm not..oh. That's not real anger, but I feel frustrated at you. I don't remember your name. And reality's not Latin me remember your name because of how frustrated I feel at you. Mrs. something or other. I remember all my most of my other teachers. I can't say all, but I remember most of my other teachers. I can't remember my seventh grade math teacher's name because we would butt heads, bro. I should be like, solid for the very variable of x. I'd be like, you didn't give me any of the. because we're learning the part of algebra where you have x plusy equals Z. And she wanted me the move the variables around. And she was asking me to solve her X. And I was like, you didn't tell me what y or Z are. How can I solve her x? how? And she's like, just, just know, that you're not getting it. I'm like, no, you're not getting it. And then we both like, were clashing on this, like, schism that was happening. Like, I couldn't see the world that she was seeing and she couldn't see the world that I was seeing and it was creating a schism. And when she when I did finally get it and she did finally explain it in a way that was like, we're not solving for X. We're moving the variables around. So the equation says x equals, not actually solving for x. I was like, ah, so that means that x equals Z plus y. No, z. minus y. Because if you have x plus y equals z, you have to subtract y from both sides. So then you get minus y on the x side, and then you get minus y on the z sides. So then you get the minus y is cancel each other out, and you get x equals z, because z was your original variable, minus y. Dude, when I went, "Oh, that's what you mean?" And I wrote that out, she had a fucking light bulb moment that went, "Oh, this kid's not stupid. We were just having amalaffer between our we were just having a fucking, you know, we couldn't communicate properly. There was some kind of breach of communication. And from that point forward, I was able to go,Oh, okay. And then I kind of got it. But I had to, for myself, I had to reteach myself, what, like, five meant. Like, I don't know. There was a while where somebody would say like, okay, what's one plus six? And I'd have to be like, well, I have one. And then two, three, four, five, six. Now I can be like seven, or like, what's 2 plus eight, 10, okay, what's 6 plus 4, 10? What's 5 plus 5, 10? I'm naming all the variables of. But that's actually what I had to do for a while. I had to do stuff like that and kind of reteach myself the logic of mathematics because I hit my head in some various places that apparently was my logic centers. Um. But yeah. In middle school, I was late a lot. And that's when they started giving me late attention. And I was like,This is kind of unfair,'cause it's on my parents to get me here, so why are you keeping me later? Because they don't, the same parent that drops me off isn't the same parent that picks me up, and they don't look, they're divorced. So, like,, you're just punishing me at this point. There's actually one point where he was like, we'll let you go early if if you change the sign out front. And there's a bunch of like fucking, like, I think I was in 18h grade at this point, and there's a bunch of little sixth graders, or's seventh graders out there. And they were like, you should put a dirty word up there. And I was like, that's fucking stupid. And then I saw a C, and I just kind of, I was I was supposed to put up like spring festival and I was taking down like winter carnival and I saw like a sea. And then I saw like a U and I was like, I'm just going to leave that C up and I'm just going to leave that u up. I'm just going to leave that end up and I'm just going to leave that t up. And the kids were all giggling, crowded around me then a fucking cop came. He got his hand on this for a fucking little kid. For a little kid fucking around with a sign, who has the key to the sign and shit. You put his hand on, he's like, where are you? And I'm standing in front of the part where it says cunt. So you can't really see where it says cunt. That's what C-U-NT smells, by the way. You can't really see where it says cunt where I'm standing until he goes,. And then I go, and then he goes, I got you, I knew you're do something. We moved over there in a hunch that a bunch of kids were like laughing and having a fun time and I was changing the sign, and then he didn't even know that a dirty word was up there until I moved. And then also at the same time, why you got your hand on your fucking piece for a little kid, bro? You're moving into a crowd of kids. You don't need to have your hand on your piece because a fucking principal who never has a piece deals with these pieces of shit all day long and he fucking brings up there and can make them scatter. Dude, the principal was like a five foot two fucking hairy, greasy Greek Italian man who I still hate to this day. There's a fucking story there. I don't know if I want to get it. I'm going to get into that right now. Dude, I hate him to this day because apparently there was this girl at school who was trying to collect his many dick pics as possible. I don't know what was going on there. Maybe we got to launch an investigation into that school system for something that happened like 10 years ago, but they called the police, so they already launched the investigation. The police came into school and what the what the fucking straw that broke the camel's back was that we were in like eighth grade at this point. And a sixth grader knew about this racket that she was pulling. Apparently, before I knew about it, too, I didn't know she was collecting dick pics. I thought she just liked me, you know what I'm saying? I'm stupid like that where I think people just like me, but really they got some nefarious tactics going on. But, anyways. She was like, nah, you're too little. Even though I was in sixth grade when she asked me, so really, she was just too young in comparison to us. But, anyways, he didn't like that response, so he said, yeah, well, I'm going to tell on you then. And she went, fuck you. That's fucked up. Don't do that. And he went, well, what are you going to do that? Do you want to fuck off? And then he went and he told on her because she didn't expect him because he was doing something inappropriate too. He was fucking trying to get nudity pics from her. So she wasn't expecting him to go tell on himself, but this kid was fucking.. I didn't get what I wanted, so I got to go through with it. And he fucking told on. And then they had to call the police station. station because they didn't know what to do, because they had they couldn't suspend every single boy in the entire class. Could they They had to fucking call an assembly. They couldn't even call us down to the office. They had to call an assembly. And, uh.. then we all individually got called down in the office and then we got called called the parents got called and the police were called, and I had to write a note. My dad gave me write a note to the chief of police. Sorry for sending pictures of my penis to girls. Oh, God. That was such a terrible time. I'm pretty sure I was late to school on that day, too. You know what I'm saying? But they used to give us late detention and I was on a bad bad trip. So when that cop came up and was like changed the sign and shit, he got the principal and I was putting up the new words where I was putting up spring festival. He's like, no. It said Winter Carnival. I knew what the fuck he said. And I was like, yeah, but I got sent down here to change the sign. And he was like, oh. So then he got it. principle and some shit. And something makes me wonder if all those kids were sitting around and laughing and stuff and I didn't put up the word cunt, if that dude would have still come in guns ablazing like that, because that was fucking insane, dude. They overpiced the shit out of the kids in the town that I grew up in because they had the budget and the time. They fucking were overfunded and undercrimed. They didn't. They didn't have like real crime to investigate. And when they did have like real crime, it was usually pretty open and shut, pretty quick cases because like the they would be able to find, you know, surveillance or whatever, you know. It was usually a pretty, like, well- surveilled town anyways. So like they had lots of neighborhood watches and stuff. So like when crime did happen, there was a plethora of people that would be like coming forward and trying to help out the station and shit. You have your fair share of Nancy Drews and fucking Hardy boys coming in. Oh, man. Working as a team. With the fucking Scooby gang and shit. Everybody fucking ganging up on the kids. Trying to gear us straight. One of the kids, though, I didn't know this until like afterwards, but he had like police family, so I didn't know that he was operating under a level of higher scrutiny than we were to be held to a higher caliber and standard. And I was like, why is this kid always like such a punk? And it knows because he was actually rebelling from like the generational police curse or something like that. um And that's one of those days where like the burnt the burnt toast theory actually, like, he fucking cut me off. I was driving down the street. I took a fast turn and then he comes jetting out of his street and I didn't have a horn on my car at the time. I had an air horn. air horn. But I didn't have an actual horn. So if I wanted to honk at him, I would have had to fucking find my air horn and then honk at him, which was good for learning how to control road rage, I guess. Um.. But.. Yeah, I couldn't honk at him, even though I really wanted a h honk at him, but I had to slam on my brakes, and he jetted out right in front of me, and we made eye contact, like in that meme from the from the umbrella Academy or the two cars we driving. We made icon and it was like. And then then he died like a day later. Oh, my God. And that was one of those moments where I could have chosen to take the inconvenience out of my life to save another, but I was like, nah, man, I'm just going to slam the brakes and let this guy continue on his way. What if I let him hit me? What if I if I, you know, that's what I'm saying. Like, ah, I'm seeing it now from the from the from the backwards perspective. But I had that feeling in the moment when I was looking at him like, I don't know, man. Something's Something's tense here. Something's like, and me and this kid always butted heads as well because we were both like the punk kids. And I remember one time I climbed a tree and he started shaking it. and I was like, cutut that the fuck out or I'm going to come down there and beat the shit out of you. And everybody knew that I was serious, and everybody knew that he was one of those kids that was like, all right, let's fucking go. And everybody immediately jumped and was like, okay, let's not have this happen right now. And they fucking, they were fucking blocking him off. They're like, because he doesn't mean it. He's just fucking around. He just talks like that. And they' like, you don't mean it. He's really going to fight you. And I'm like, I mean it, motherfuckers. And he's like, he means it. Let's fucking go. And then we fucking both got chest to chest and we're like, yeah, all right. chase each other around. Dude, I remember one time, oh my God, he was, Punks, dude. Punks are fucking, like, in the moment, we' like, but now they're looking back at it, I'm laughing and I I'm like, oh, that was some of the best memories because he, he defied the narrative. And I remember he was chasing around this other kid that we used to hang around with, and he was giving him birthday punches. And I was like, this kid's such a fucking jerk. He's going so hard with those birthday punches. But then I was like, let me get in there. And I was, I was like, let me get in there so I could like fucking throw in some soft punches. You know what I mean? Because I was like, it's a kid's birthday. Give him some soft punches, you know? Then that makes me wonder, like, oh, what did this kid have to endure? But that's one of those times where I would call that like, you have the choice of the burned toast. You kind of subconsciously have the choice to burn the toast. And your self-preservation will make you hit the brakes. And that's one of those one of those little kernels of knowledge I learned I always being late because I know I was rushing somewhere, but in that point in time, I said, oh, my rushing to wherever I got to G go isn't as important as wherever he's rushing off to Ga go. And it makes me cringe a little bit. It makes me a little sad that I think that maybe sometimes what if he was rushing off to his plug? Because that's how he died. And I was like, I'm really on the front line of this shit. Sometimes. I could have literally stopped it. And that's one of those times where I'm like, fuck, there are times where I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself and people are like, you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself because they haven't lived in the exact same moments of reality that I've lived in where you have the same choices being granted to you, where you could choose, hey, do I let this guy hit my brand new car that I just bought? Like, fuck I just got it with like my COVID money and shit, you know? So did I really earn that car? So I could have kind of sacrificed that car. I had insurance on it. I could have got it something better and I could have saved her life, but I wasn't thinking that deeply. But now I know to a degree, not in the same context, like, you know, but to a degree, I know to kind of encourage others to go slower instead of like, you don't gotta bash cars together and shit, but maybe I could have called them, because I had them on Stash or I could have called that kid that he was beaten on and I could have said, hey, could you call him? Because he looked frazzled. and maybe that could have shown him that, hey, that people are watching out for you. So maybe I didn't even have to put my, you know, I made it real visceral, like, oh, my car and stuff. But maybe I didn't even have to do it like that. I could have just called somebody and said, hey, call him because he looks pretty upset right now. But I was always late. Like, I was late in high school too, every single day. I live right next to the high school. and the principal even brought, the vice principal even brought me into the office and was like, hey man, why the fuck are you late every day? And then he brought, he was like, where do you live? And then pulled up my address on the computer. and he's like, oh shit, okay, so when I was in high, and then he told me when he was in high school that he had the same kind of problem where he lived so close that he thought he could make it in time and was always ended up rushing in the morning. And it did kind of help a little bit, and there was always periods that I was able to like do a little bit better, but I was mainly in charge of getting myself up and getting myself to school and things like that. And it was really hard some mornings to be that self driven every single day since you're like. I'm going to call it as 13. That's when I got the migr the concussion, and that's when I had to reteach myself math. And that's when I had to learn a different way of like pushing myself through every single day. And, yeah, of course, there's going to be some faltering when you're learning that shit from a young age. But in that kind of gray area where I always rushed into school late, but there was that gray area of like, nobody else is in the hallway except for this one kid and I'll call him smiley because every time I think about this memory, it makes me smile. And this one kid, he was in the special education program. So he was the only one wandering around. He was allowed to wander around the hallways at that time. And that was that gray area in which two intelligences were allowed to meet each other an unfettered terms, that we both saw each other, just as people. I was behind the eightf and I knew it, and I was rushing to catch up, and that's probably how he felt all the time, with everybody telling him, like, hey, you got this going on. You got that going on. Like, he's probably got it like, whoa, dude. I just want to chill out and for a minute and figure this out. And I'm I kind of was like the same way for a while. I was like, yo, I got to chill out and figure this out for a while. But one of the most interesting things that I every morning, he had the same phrase for me. And it was, gee, this sucks, doesn't it, Adam? And he had one phrase for everybody. Like, for Charlotte, it was like, I like your feet, Charlotte. And for Timmy, it was like, what's, what's popping, Timmy? And then for Tabitha, it was like, can I smell your feet, Tabitha? He had a thing her feet. I don't know. know what that is. That's actually like a psychological phenomenon where mentally impaired people have a thing for feet. I don't know what that is. It's like a, like a dominance foot kind of thing, but it is a scientific fact that it's like a studied fact that mentally impaired people have a thing for feet. I don't know. Google it. You'll see it. You'll be like, holy crap, Adam was right about that. My phrase was G, Adam, this sucks. And it seems like just a normal phrase off the top of it. but.. that's how I felt rushing into school every morning was, oh, this sucks. And I started to notice that his key phrases for people oftentimes reflected their own or his own emotional feelings, his own empathetical feelings for what that person was making him feel. I don't know if I said that right, because it's such a complicated topic to try and unfurl, but he was reflecting back to me, like, because I was like a safe place to reflect those kinds of feelings. And so for me, he would he would say, like, oh, gee, this sucks. And I had to stop and go back and cool it because I I was like, do I really want to participate in the spreading of misinformation right now? And it's partially pseudoscientific, built upon Freudian framework. So technically, it's not exactly accurate to say, but at the same time, there are frameworks to support that exact statement that I said. So how do you want to look at it through that lens?, right now we're experiencing one of our own burnt toasts, where I'm being kind of delayed by my own self, partially. Like, I feel like I got a cough. I got a little bit of a headache. I don't know the end of this message. So I don't know where I'm going with this one. Instead of stressing myself out and trying to push for a point, I'd rather just slow down to the pace. and I believe that is what the burned toast theory is trying to tell you. Slow down the pace a little bit. Don't be so hard on yourself because, you know, those mornings that you do accidentally burn the toast where you're trying to tie your shoes and rush out the door. So now you got to remake your toast. And that five minute, four minute, you know, even just a 30 second delay where you stop to tire shoes can alter the course of your life dramatically. And that was what happened to me in that sort of gray area interacting with Smiley is it altered the course of my life dramatically because he was just floating around the hallways, doing his thing. and I was rushing in to school, so he kind of had that calm stable presence and I was rushing in and he could kind of read my energy of like, man, I don't want to be late right now, but that's just the way that reality is. and he related to that. That's a very relatable statement, especially for somebody in that kind of position. I don't want it to be this way, but that's just the way that it is. And he got to finally express himself in a way that he felt was similar. and his statement for me was "G Adam, this sucks. When he said that to me me, I felt seen. And I wonder if when I agreed and if I was when I replied, I wonder if he's felt seen too. And right now, I'm realizing that he might have actually been operating off of a higher level of intelligence. because the only way that you can be completely sure of what you said to somebody is if you use the same phrase over and over and over. I'm completely sure of what he had said to me, but I'm not really completely sure of what I had always sent back to him. He was always consistently the same person, but when I was alone in the hallway with him and on mornings where I felt seen and I would want to agree with him, I'd go, yeah, you're right. And then we would have a moment of camaradrie, but in those moments where he would caught me off guard in the middle of the hallway and be like, oh, no, he's having a moment of gee, this sucks. And I'm not feeling, gee, this sucks. Those are the moments that caught me off guard, because he would walk up to me and say, "Gee, this sucks. But then I would say, "Well, no, it's different right now, but I wasn't seeing how. Oh, this is what sucks for him. But you know what was good about that was, well, you know, I'm talking to him. He's talking to me. We both get. We both get that social dopamine from talking to one another in front of other people, that, you know, hierarchal dopamine rush of like, me, this guy have things to talk about. And there was one time in like, seventh grade where this girl had an knee brace on and the same girl that collected all the pictures.. You know, she was trying to go for that golden Pokemon card, bro. And she had a knee brace on and she was sitting there at lunch and he came by and sat next to her. I was like, oh, your knees hurt. Can I can you you can put it up on my leg and rest it. And then the principal is five foot two fucking greasy ass blew his whistle And, uh. everybody got up to move, and Smiley was like, "This is my opportunity to pounce." And he fucking ripped off of her shoe and tried to put her toe in his mouth. And this was like seventh grade, like one of the one of the only days that I showed up in seventh grade and this girl grabs me and she's like, help. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. I don't know. Teacher, teacher. I'm like, I don't, I can't I can't reason with them. I can't hit them. I don't know what to do. I called the principal over and she was like, no, no, no. I keep saying his name by accident, so I keep having a fuck a restart. Restart RE START. Come on, guys. Clean the wax out of your ears. That's actually something I've wondered, is if you could smoke enough wax, like THC wax, that would the ear wax in your ears start to turn into THC wax. Like, could you have such a potency of THC in your body that your ear wax or like your snoth or your you know, your piss has THC potency because that's how they test you. They go, okay, let's let's let's um piss past. That was another thought that I had was if you you have enough THC in your system, could somebody else who doesn't have any TH seniors in their systems or any experience with THC get high off of your pee? These are thoughts that need answering, which are questions that deserve pondering. Could you dab your literal earwax? All right, one more go.