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Greetings and Welcome to The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg
New episodes tend to air over the local KMMR radio station @ 5 minutes past 4PM each M-F. And have been doing so, nearly every week since Sept 2018.
I'm D.J. Rasmussen, O.K.s friend since junior high, possibly your neighbor & this websites maintainer, whom strives to get each episode's show notes written, the transcript proofed and the audio posted to the internet within a few hours of that days KMMR air time. NOTE: recently been publishing most new releases by 4:30PM.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy the time we can spend together.
I wanna again welcome you to of The 405 Coffee Break. Guys, get you a cup of coffee, glass iced tea, or bottled water. Let's see what's happening out there.
OK Solberg:Spring wheat $5.72 a bushel before dockage. 550lb steer calf, quote them $5 to $5.10. They're not moving. A Butcher hog in Iowa 67ยข a pound, and a 100lb fat lamb in Billings, $3 and a nickel. But guys, there's more, much more.
OK Solberg:I'm happy and I can't help it. I know. I have a problem, but I'm getting better. Now I realize not all these episodes are what you would call top shelf, but I do try to keep them interesting. So today today, I have something special. I found a little story online. I did not write it, but I wish I had.
OK Solberg:I'm not gonna interpret it for you. You just get to hear it. That's your job. Listen closely. Don't waver to the right or left. Listen and think. If you were in my class with Mr. Jensen in English and he said, tell us what the writer was trying to say.
OK Solberg:A bible verse, then the story. Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 4:9 Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. Again, Ecclesiastes chapter four verse nine.
OK Solberg:Now the story I found online. Darren Bloom had a talent, though not one that would win awards or get him invited to speak at conferences. Darren was exceptionally good at being misunderstood. Not occasionally misunderstood, not in a that email came off wrong sort of way.
OK Solberg:No. Darren had achieved a level of misunderstanding that felt almost athletic. People misunderstood his jokes, his silences, his enthusiasm, his lack of enthusiasm, and once somebody even got upset with his sneeze. Was that passive aggressive? His coworker Linda had asked after he sneezed during a meeting.
OK Solberg:I don't think so, Darren replied already apologizing. It wasn't always like this. As a child, Darren had friends, real ones. They built forts, traded snacks, and communicated almost entirely through pointing and yelling. But as Darren grew older, words entered the equation and with words came interpretation.
OK Solberg:And with interpretation came chaos. By his early 30's, Darren had accumulated a small but impressive collection of strained relationships. His friend Mark thought Darren was judging him. His sister believed Darren didn't care about her life. His neighbor was convinced Darren hated his dog which was absurd because Darren was mildly afraid of the dog, not hateful.
OK Solberg:The breaking point came at a birthday party. Darren, trying to be kind, told his friend, you look different. Now he meant a positively new haircut, new shirt, a general glow, but the table went silent. Different how? His friend asked.
OK Solberg:Darren panicked. Here it comes, just different in a way that's noticeable. That's not better, someone whispered. By dessert, two people were offended. One was confused, and Darren had already apologized to the waiter.
OK Solberg:That night, lying in bed, Darren had a revelation. The more people you know, the more chances there are for misunderstanding. It was simple math. 10 people, 10 potential disasters. 50 people, a social minefield.
OK Solberg:One person, well, still risky. Zero people? Oh, that would be peace. The next morning, Darren began what he called the great simplification. He declined invitations.
OK Solberg:He stopped texting first. He replaced let's catch up soon with take care. He even nodded less in public, worried it might be interpreted as agreement, disagreement, or worse yet sarcasm. Now at first people reached out, hey, everything okay? Did I do something?
OK Solberg:Are you mad at me? Darren carefully crafted neutral responses. Nope. All good. Just busy.
OK Solberg:Eventually, the messages slowed, then they stopped. No one was upset with Darren anymore. No more awkward silences, no tense conversations, no accidental insults. Darren moved through his days like a ghost of perfect neutrality.
OK Solberg:At work, he spoke only when necessary using short precise sentences like a man diffusing a bomb. Report done. Email sent. Good point. No one misinterpreted him. No one argued. No one seemed bothered at all. It was by all measurable standards a success.
OK Solberg:One evening, Darren sat in his apartment, eating pasta directly from the pot, which he had learned eliminate the risk of someone misreading his dishwashing habits. He looked around. It was quiet, impressively quiet.
OK Solberg:The kind of quiet that didn't just fill a room, it settled into it like dust in the air. His phone sat on the table. No notifications, no messages, not even a wrong number. Darren frowned. He had solved the problem perfectly.
OK Solberg:No misunderstandings, no conflict, no one mad at him. He twirled a forkful of pasta and paused. There was also no laughing at his jokes, no one texting him something dumb at midnight, no one to misunderstand his compliments or accidentally turn his sneeze into a personality flaw. Darren leaned back in his chair. He said to no one, which he noted was a very safe audience because here was the thing he hadn't accounted for in his brilliant equation.
OK Solberg:Misunderstanding wasn't just a bug in human connection. It was a feature, annoying, unpredictable, occasionally catastrophic, but also proof that there was, in fact, a connection to mess up in the 1st place, Darren sighed. He picked up his phone, stared at it, put it back down, picked it up again. Okay, he muttered. Maybe one person.
OK Solberg:He opened his contacts and hovered over a name. Different? Oh, he whispered, wincing slightly. Then before he could overthink it, he typed. Hey. I realize I might be bad at words, but I don't mean bad things. Wanna get some coffee? He stared at the message. Risky. Highly risky.
OK Solberg:Darren smiled a little smile. And then he hit send. I love that story. End of story. End of episode. You tell me what it's all about. This program was brought to you by sorry. I might not say the right thing, but I really do like you.
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.