You may be surprised to hear this, but I am just a little bit awkward around people.

If that comes as a shock, you should know that it shocked no one more than me. It’s not a stretch to say that my life was forever changed.

The way it started, I’ll never forget: A brisk-yet-surly autumnal day. I can so clearly remember wearing my formal jorts, as you do; when you see the vision of my formal jorts cut in the traditional Fonzarelli style, you will never forget it. Ever. Not even if you want to, and I promise you, that day will come sooner than you’re ready for it. And as my great-great-great-step cousin Alphonse Bronsenson once said, “It’ll salt your melon real good.”

(Fun fact about Alphonse: He was also known to relate to a potted fern, on an emotional level. Before you think it’s some staid state, Alphonse was known to go on for hours about the “great and silent rage of the most noble of potted plants.”)

“Why were you wearing formal jorts?”, you, the dutiful reader, ask. “Those are only reserved for special occasions, like weddings or the grand opening of a new Spatula City.”

I suggest you put on your helmet, because I’m about to blow your mind: You can wear your formalest jorts WHENEVER you want. I know, I wasn’t sure about that at first, but then I saw a TikTalk video that opened my eyes, one minute-long clip at a time. At times, truth comes from the most surprising sources. On that day, truth exploded in my face, thanks to a 13 year old Danish TikTalker named stærk_dårlig69.

I’m roughly 93% certain that, according to that Scandanavian prophet, formal jorts are the seventh highest grossing export in Denmark. If you ask me, had they been around during Hamlet’s day, that would have been one knee slapper of a comedy. Instead, we get an anthropomorphised Hot Topic, some 500 hundred years ahead of his time.

Let me tell you: I strode down Main St with the might of one thousand 1984 Ford Country Squires, and that is 1,984,000 Ford Country Squires.

Ah, but it’s only when we think about how we’re flying that we realize we’ve simply not been falling, as Alphonse would say. Specifically, he would say this after challenging the familial duvet to a fist fight. (Legend has it that the fool chose Brix-Haxton Rules, and everyone knows that puts the odds in the duvet’s favor.)

I strutted my stuff down Main Street, letting the world drink in these Dancer’s legs (less the vocation, more the reindeer, if I’m being honest), my guts a-churning with confidence. I was hopped up on self confidence, clearly my first big mistake that day. Perhaps had I been my traditional anxious self that day, as God intended, I would have seen it coming: Specifically, a 1992 Toyota Tacoma, with windows so heavily tinted that the cab of that truck was like a black hole.

Dear reader, sometimes you cross the event horizon, and sometimes it crosses you.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer virility of it all. It was like if peak 1970s Burt Reynold’s moustache had absolutely hetero relations with peak 1980’s Tom Selleck’s moustache. Just when I noticed one Alpha male proclamation, another would demand my attention. How could I choose what to be most impressed by? Was it the lift kit? The big rig exhaust system? The seventeen high beams?

The decision was made for me: It was the flagpole that rose from the bed of the pickup. It crept along, the flag of the US of A flapping flaccidly. Just beneath it, another flag, which strangely declared the driver was a TRAMP – probably, I don’t know, the US flag was obscuring it. Hold on to your socks, because there was still yet ANOTHER flag, one that spoke to a long and storied tradition of picking a fight and losing. This third flag was obscured by the Russian nesting flag situation, and before I could suss out the specifics, a voice came from the truck’s cab.

“Dontcha know,” he said, the sour smell of beer carrying his words to my nose, “that formal jorts are meant to be worn at your cousins’ weddings?”

The driver revved his engine, a mighty roar for the ages. He then threw an empty beer can at me. Fear not, dear reader, the can skittered harmlessly across the sidewalk. He revved his engine, like a challenge to Fate, and shot off in a squeal of tires, and a great plume of rubbery smog.

Never forget and always remember that when you challenge Fate, Fate just might answer back. In this instance, Fate saw fit to let Mr SuperTRAMP crash into a police car. Hashtag, “blessed”, amirite?

As much as I wanted to bear witness to such a fine specimen of a failed education attempt to talk his way out of Fate’s gift to me, I was suddenly consumed by a singular idea: I was incredibly thirsty.

Perhaps it was my near brush with inconvenience that had left me parched? Or maybe the exhilaration of seeing a fender bender? Mayhap it was as simple as not having had so much as tap water in a medically concerning amount of time?

(Unrelated: “Syrup-like urine” is never something you want on your medical charts. Drink water, dearest reader.)

Ever been suddenly struck severely with a critical craving? In that moment of profound thirst, I could only think of one thing: Fruit punch. You know the kind, made of corn syrup and red dye number 5, and tastes like a grade school cafeteria sounds.

As luck would have it (or perhaps as Fate insisted), I was right outside of General Goode’s General Goods. I don’t need to tell you of the bonanza of bargains that that shop has to share. If I’m not mistaken, and I insist I am not, it holds the North American record for the most forgettable product line up.

If the small business is the heart of the economy, then General Goode’s General Goods was fit to burst. The place was packed, from the windows to the walls. Packed as it was, the place was stifling with body heat and the thrill of commerce. So much so that I was in there for no more than a minute before sweat started to run down my head and neck and–

“Balls!” I heard someone shout. One of the clerks was trying to put some baseballs on their shelves, but the box tipped and they spilled everywhere. “Everyone lookout now!”

“Oh Skeet!” Another clerk shouted. “You did it again, didn’t you?”

A cascade of baseballs ran across the floor, bouncing off of people’s feet, and going absolutely everywhere, from the windows to the walls. A woman cried out as she slipped and fell, though she managed to crawl safely away.

If I am something as much as I am awkward, that something is nimble. With goat-like reflexes, I navigated the crowd and chaos, and took out a fruit punch from the cooler. Victory was at hand, because the fruit punch was in my hand. But then I thought of the line when I had first come in, and felt my hope waver. It would take whole minutes before my thirst could be vanquished, and that gave my heart a sad.

Imagine my surprise when I turned to look and saw a clear path. The chaos had scattered everyone, which meant an opportunist such as myself could seize the carp! I looked at that counter, and couldn’t believe it.

There was no punch line.

But here’s the thing: There’s no punchline.

Paul Wartaug is a Nashua native. His column appears periodically in The Sunday Telegraph.