The R2D2 Toy Everyone Wanted

I worked at Toys R Us back in the late 90s / early 2000s. The new/old Star Wars trilogy (Episodes 1,2,3) came out at the same time. This is just one of the many tales I collected from those days.

This essay was published in the Winter 2025 issue of Otherwise Engaged: A Literature and Arts Journal, volume 16. The journal is available to purchase through Amazon or the editor’s website.

No, I’m Not Nate Bargatze

This essay was published in the Winter 2025 issue of Otherwise Engaged: A Literature and Arts Journal, volume 16. The journal is available to purchase through Amazon or the editor’s website.

What started as a simple question asked of me on the sidewalk outside the brewery I work at has taken on a life of its own. I now have an Instagram handle (@notbargatze) dedicated to my life as a comedic doppelgänger.

Skipping Church

Desert Rat Residency / Sept. 14, 2024

It was a good plan until it wasn’t. I mean, how were we supposed to know the church would send a statement of total donated money at the end of the month? How were we supposed to know the Catholic Church was a business and a religious entity. That piece of paper arrived in our mailbox and informed our parents that they had donated exactly zero dollars into the coffer. The church could smell our sin as if it was bacon fresh off the griddle. It allowed our transgressions to go on for exactly twenty-three days. And our parents were not happy about this ruse. Not one bit.

Fumble

Black & White literary magazine / May 23, 2024

I have said this phrase one million times throughout my life. Maybe two million. Fumble. When I drop something.

Fumble. When someone else drops something. Fumble.

When someone I don't even know in the store drops something. Fumble. Sometimes I do it in a loud narrator voice, sometimes quiet, but I always say it. I don't know when it started. I'm thinking middle school, when it was cool to point out mistakes. Was it ever cool? Honestly, I don't know if I will ever be able to stop.