A humorous little anecdote from my childhood no one should get upset about

It is sort of problematic, though.

@MecCoffee/Some image AI bot

Want to hear a funny story? I have been trying to stop telling every funny story on Twitter and instead put them on substack. This post is an example of this. It’s just a funny little anecdote I have told friends at bars.

I lived in Sun Valley, Idaho, from 1st grade on because my parents had divorced, and my mom moved here to be with the surgeon who had taken my tonsils out during a Christmas vacation. That surgeon had then almost immediately become abusive. He was rather violent with me at a Christmas party that first year, and my mom had broken up with him. But by that point, we lived here, and she was building a house and everything, so she was forced into the somewhat unfortunate situation of dating random men in Sun Valley. There are two types of men here: ski bums and wealthy divorcees with second homes.

She cycled between the two types.

Her boyfriends always had gifts for me. She dated some guy who was Magic Johnson’s business partner, and he got Magic to sign a bunch of jerseys to “My pal Ben, a true fan.” One guy gave me some Muhammed Ali-signed gloves. Those were the gifts from the rich tourists. But the other boyfriends also had gifts: one gave me a knife from his time as a member of SWAT. This sort of shit.

So, when I was 11 years old and returned home from 5^th grade to find my mom’s hairdresser boyfriend in the kitchen offering me a present, I wasn’t surprised.

“Hey Ben,” he said when we were alone. “I have something for you.”

He hands me a VHS tape with no label.