Ex-Box

Oh HELL yeah ... I got me an Ex-Box. That’s right. Big spender over here. Dropped some cash like I had a crypto wallet and no common sense. Felt like Bobby Jo at the county fair when he hit the ring toss and thought he was invincible. I figured, hell, treat myself, right?

I thought I was getting old memories like the old memory with the girl named Liz at the Kitty Hawk Park in Dayton, Ohio, boy that made my day.

I thought I was gettin’ a time machine — a digital shrine to the glory days. You know, back when my mane flowed like I was in a Pantene commercial and my joints didn’t sound like a microwave popcorn bag. Youth was just stretchin' out in front of me like a wide-open Kansas prairie, not a pothole-ridden backroad in rural Georgia, or Kentucky.

Although, I have to give props, the roads in the Kentucky, and the good ones not the back ones where banjo playing and a loss of teeth is in the jeans, are actually better than states like New York.

But naw. What I got was a psychotropic fever dream. First game on the list? Witchcraft and Candy Warfare. I’m sittin' there like, what in the Lisa Frank LSD trip is this? Then I scroll down and see a little gem called Ballz 3D: Battle of the Ballz — which I swear to God sounded more like a urology nightmare than a game.

Then there’s Hand Dic. Yeah, not “Hand Duck” or something innocent — no sir. That title sounds like somethin' you accidentally open in front of your preacher, and next thing you know, you’re prayin' away broadband addiction at a men’s retreat.

Dragon Wang was the last straw. And I ain’t even gonna make the joke — you’re already makin' it in your head. Why? Why?.......

Now, I gotta tell ya — I ain’t really a video game player. Don’t have the time, patience, or thumb stamina. But I figured hey, might be good for the ol’ big ideas. Maybe there’s a horse racing game in there. Somethin’ with class. Somethin’ that lets me dress up fancy, sip bourbon with my pinky out, and go to Royal Ascot like I’m hangin' with the Queen’s second cousin’s bookie brother.

Picture this: you create your own character — pick your hat, your monocle, your backstory (you’re a disgraced Earl, Winthorpe III, tryin’ to win his honor back at the tote board). Then you stroll in, place your bets, and rub elbows with some Lord, you rather hire as snacks for your german shepherds, and drop 40K on a gelding named “Sir Neighs-a-Lot,” or "Monty Python".

But noooo. Instead, I’m over here tryin’ to cast spells with a candy cane while dodge-rollin’ past a pair of literal angry testicles.

So yeah. I got an Ex-Box. But what I wanted was Seabiscuit meets Downton Abbey with a musical accompaniment from the Cowboy Junkies . What I got was a blurry hallucination of puberty and poor choices.

I wasn’t lookin’ to throw fireballs at a cartoon possum or teach a virtual farm pig how to tweek. No sir. I was thinkin’ more along the lines of a crystal ball for racin’.

Like, maybe I could mosey that little digital machine right on over to the morning workouts, scan a few breezes, and drop some well-meaning, positive comments. Somethin’ like:

“Look at this fella — sharp mover, ears pricked, not angry at the world for once!”Wait! I pointed it and zapped the workout analyst.......

Or maybe it’d help me out with them $10K claiming races, the ones where all the horses look like they just got discharged from the Race Track MAS*H unit. You know the ones — wrapped up in more tape than a Christmas present and runnin’ on the kind of knees that make you hurt just watchin’ ‘em. Now I know why the Egyptian mummified their corpses.

But nah. Turns out, I didn’t need no Ex-Box for that kind of magic. I found me an elf — yep, a real-life analytics elf named Travissimo, the boy thinks he is italian. Boy’s got a magic wand and a spreadsheet, and more importantly — he can see the vision. I dream it, he builds it. That’s teamwork, baby with an accent. That’s not tech — that’s witchcraft with wi-fi.

And it actually works! Because here’s the deal — in life, like in racin’, it’s all about what you foresee in your mind, and what you’re actually willin’ to see with your two eyes, not just what you hope is true ‘cause it makes your ego feel good, and I cross the fingers then swear to god ain't gonna ruin your day~!

See, there’s two kinds of folks out in this world:

1. People with real foresight — know what they want, know what they need, can see a few steps ahead like they’re playin’ racetrack chess, on multi dimensional levels, counting steps on some app don't mean a hill of beans.n

   
   

2. And then there's the folks who couldn’t find their ass with both hands and a GPS. They keep steppin’ in their own mess like it’s a hobby, you know like pickle ball, or lord forbid bourbon tasting.

   
   

   And, I truly believe both of them are handicappers, yes, the 2nd kind is the one that will tell you who likes in the daily double and then change his mind on his way to the betting windows, because you gonna kill his price. Yup, that guy.

   
   

   "Why you wanna know, you gonna bet my horse, my double, and them tell me how you cashed off my picks, no siree Butch, that ain't gonna to happen on my watch, if I wore one, i'll bet my secret daily double i got stashed for a rainy day". We all know these fellows, they change their mind if they just smell chinese food.

   
   

They’re the same people who’ll try to cut corners makin’ pasta, like, “We outta olive oil so I used corn oil.” Corn oil?!

Buddy, you ain’t makin’ noodles, you're making moonshine.

And when you tell ‘em the truth — even gentle-like — they wilt like a five-year-old who just found out Santa outsourced the toy operation to Amazon, adding insult to injury, Santa shaved all his hair and beard, and its Jeff Bezos.

“Whyyyy? Why you gotta ruin my day? Why?”I dunno, maybe 'cause you needed to hear it and it’s Tuesday, Darryl.

They can’t even order a damn ice cream sundae with a cherry on top, or back wheel a favorite in the exactas, without spiralin’ into an emotional crisis because it doesn’t match the color of their shirt or their flair pen.

“Oh no, red cherry on a green shirt — people might think I support Christmas. I can’t live like this!”

Get a grip, deal with it, because I's gonna ruin your day with my brand new EX -Box.