Asshole buddies

      I try to learn something new every day, and the other day, I learned what an asshole buddy is. Typically, I’ll make a conscious decision about what I want to learn, as a few examples, last week, I brushed up on my knot tying skills or wrote for a prescribed period of time every day. Sometimes, I cheat a little by watching YouTube How It’s Made channel and chalk that up as what I’ve learned for the day. Go ahead, watch the one about how hot dogs are made and then let me know if you ever have one again. Other days, I’ll read some of the classics - I’m currently enjoying Guy de Maupassant’s complete short stories. I’ve explored how Bhutan measures GNH (Gross National Happiness), I’m also listening to a podcast that describes the personality and legacy of each of the 45 presidents, I’m up to William Henry Harrison now - that one should be pretty short. But a few days ago, completely by chance, I learned about asshole buddies.
     I’m in Santa Barbara, visiting my parents and we were chatting late in the afternoon about anything and everything.

The man, the myth, the legend, my dad

Then my dad said, “Let me tell you how the guys I lawn bowl with became my asshole buddies.” That got my attention. “Wait - what is an asshole buddy?” My dad seemed surprised I didn’t know what an asshole buddy was and then my mom chimed in and asked, incredulously, “You don’t know what an asshole buddy is?” I swear, this conversation actually happened. I said this is the first time in my life I’ve ever heard the term. My mom said my dad used the phrase all the time, he countered by saying he rarely used it, but it was common Philadelphia slang (where they’re both originally from) and it means you’re really good friends. So we quickly FaceTimed brother Ed for validation. I asked him to give me a thumbs up/thumbs down and posed the question - have you ever heard of an ‘asshole buddy’? He John McCain’ed it perfectly with a slow thumbs down in front of the camera and asked what was going on. I explained the context and then we had some follow on questions about just what an asshole buddy is and isn’t. Some of the questions asked were how does one become an asshole buddy? Do both parties know they are asshole buddies? Do you have to ask someone to be your asshole buddy? At that point, Ed leaned into the camera and seductively whispered, “Will you be my asshole buddy? Is that how it works?” As you may imagine, there was uncontrollable laughter during the discussion. My dad said that blood relatives could not be asshole buddies (really, there’s seems to be some codification on who can and can’t be asshole buddies). I asked him if male/female friends could be asshole buddies, he paused for a moment and then gave a terse ‘no’. I said I thought that was a very, very good call. Cue more laughter.
     The uncontrollable mirth down after a while, but still got an occasional chuckle from me just at the thought of the whole exchange. Later that night at dinner, we were talking about my upcoming trip to Thailand/Malaysia and who knows where else to get an annual physical, dermatologist visit and my 60th birthday colonoscopy. I said, “Hey, do you know who’s going to do my colonoscopy at Bumrungrad Hospital?” They said, “No, who?”  I said... “My asshole buddy.” That was an inaccurate use of my newly learned vocabulary, but we all thought it was pretty funny.