Not to be confused with “Tripple Overtime Takeover,” in which Indian River High School head soccer coach Steve Kilby often enjoys questioning Tripp’s abilities as an actor while at the same time masterfully clearing up weeks’ worth of discrepancies regarding Patriots’ QB Tom Brady and HC Bill Belichick — in “Reverse Tripple Overtime,” Tripp debates controversial topics from the sports world and world at large with his reverse-self, Ppirt (one of the P’s being silent… not sure which). Why he does this instead of just, like, talking to a real human being about it, or, you know, just not doing it all, like a normal person, we are not sure.
This week, Tripp and Ppirt discuss putting the wellbeing of your smartphone over your own personal well-being, inspired by Dallas Cowboys’ running back Darren McFadden breaking his elbow trying to save his brand new iPhone recently.
Just fair warning: Since Tripp is obviously, like, super-smart, conversely, Ppirt is kind of a rube (according to Tripp). They seem pretty similar to us, though, if we’re being honest. [Editor’s note: The editor didn’t write this intro — Tripp did. Or maybe Ppirt did. Or maybe there’s a third personality we haven’t met yet that wrote this. We are really, actually, not sure about that.]
Tripp: So this whole McFadden thing… Am I right?
Ppirt: Right about what? You just walked in here and said, “So this whole McFadden thing… Am I right?” There was no, like, exposition or anything.
Tripp: You know what I mean. And don’t use air quotes… It’s pretentious.
Ppirt: Lol. And talking to your “reverse-self” who’s “kind of a rube” via public forum is?
Tripp: …
Ppirt: I’m assuming that it was an accident, “The thing.” How many fumbles is that for McFadden now, career-wise?
Tripp: (You’re still using the air quotes, still…) 21.
Ppirt: I don’t even have fingers. I am a figment of your imagination.
Tripp: You have figments in my imagination. I mean… you have fingers in my imagination. In fact, you look pretty much just like I do, in my imagination. Almost like I’m looking into a mirror. Although, if I’m being honest, I’d say that I have a slightly better haircut…
Ppirt: LOL
Tripp: Seriously, though. I mean, c’mon…
Ppirt: ???
Tripp: …to be that terrified for your phone’s own personal safety? To put your own personal elbow’s safety right in the devil’s crosshairs just because you were, like, that horrified by the thought of possibly not having access to your phone for the three quarters of an hour, give or take, that it would take you to go to the AT&T store or Verizon store or whatever, and get a new one?
Ppirt: Sprint store.
Tripp: Huh?
Ppirt: Lol. Darren McFadden. He might use Sprint. As his wireless service provider? I saw this YouTube ad where the guy from Verizon — you know, the old “Can you hear me now?” guy — he came on and said he’s with Sprint now. Says they’re within like, 1 percent of Verizon now. Says it saved him a ton on his wireless…
Tripp: OK. Yeah, then, Sprint — just whatever store. Have you ever seen that movie — that short film — where the guy, like, wakes up, and his phone is in his hand. Like, it’s literally in his hand. He’s not just like, holding it, the phone, but it’s actually fused with his hand… inside the skin, with the screen showing through the palm and the front camera on the back of the index and everything. Do you get what I’m saying about it being in his hand? I know you struggle sometimes, with getting things…
Ppirt: I dunno. What’s it called? Actually, wait. Nevermind…
Tripp: ???
Ppirt: I’ll just Google it.
Tripp: Google it? “Google it,” he says.
Ppirt: Soooo… Yahoo! Answers then… or?
Tripp: No, dude, neither. Or… nor, rather… I think… nor… nor any other online source, dude, no. Just, like, use your own personal brain for something, for once. Try to actually, like, recall something you’ve learned or read or experienced, instead of just automatically defaulting to the, for the most part, platitudinal-opposite of a Magic 8-Ball — the pocket-sized personal oracle that holds all your personal desired answers (assuming WiFi access available, slash, outstanding balance paid in full) — the thing that, if you happened to be a leisurely Sunday north of the late 19th century metro-Boston area, with it, the thing, it’d get you burned at the stake faster than you could say “Wicked Witch of the West.”
Ppirt: You talking Salem Witch Trials or…? I have this, like, undeniable urge to Google that right now — whether you’re talking Salem Witch Trials or no — I want to Google that so bad, TBH. I’m just gonna do it. I mean, I have my phone right here. Why wouldn’t I just do it? There’s no reason not to. Let’s just get Siri to weigh in here for a moment. She’s usually pretty good in these uncertain-type situations. Siri…
Tripp: What if a, like, “Revolution”-type scenario went down. Or the Carrington Event? Have you heard of the Carrington Event? What if you just woke up one day and the world’s collective power grid was just down. Just went all Amelia Earhart/Jimmy Hoffa/Lindbergh Baby on us, on all of us, overnight. Just like it did on the on the justifiably-canceled J.J. Abrams-produced NBC drama “Revolution?” With it — the grid — showing no suggested signs of any kind of Machiavelli-type return any time soon?
What would you do then? What would we all do then? We would all be so dumb. So dumb. No one would know, like, anything. People would get lost on the way to work. All the Ativan® in the Western Hemisphere couldn’t keep someone waiting barstool patient amongst happy-hour strangers without a reassuring I’LL BE THERE IN 15…10…5 min…ORDER ME A CRANBERRY JUICE…IS IT CROWDED…WHERE DID YOU PARK LOL -
Ppirt: I love J.J. Abrams. Hey, what ever happened to Shia LaBeouf? Siri… What ever happened to Shia LaBeouf?
Tripp: — it was like all these really intense solar flares or something. Or a solar storm, is what it was. This powerful geomagnetic storm that was so powerful, geomagnetically, that it reached all the way to earth’s atmosphere — this is in, like, 1850 something, something, or something — I’m not sure of the calendar’s exact date on that one, I’d have to…
Ppirt: Have to what?
Tripp: …
Ppirt: Have to… Google it?
Tripp: …
Ppirt: …
Tripp: It was 1850 something something. Let’s say, like, after the War of 1812, but Manifest Destiny was just…
Ppirt: …manifesting?
Tripp: People were still churning their own butter, I’m pretty sure.
Ppirt: McFadden… He’s the one that dated the Khardashian?
Tripp: ??? Who cares?
Ppirt: Well, I don’t care. It’s just that I saw it somewhere and thought that it was slightly interesting, is all. I saw it and thought it was noteworthy. Something worth mentioning in the conversation that we’re having right now, I guess…
Tripp: Apparently, it’s supposed to happen every century and a half or so, so apparently, we’re overdue for one, a Carrington Event, according to science — which I’m pretty sure just means “according to Neil deGrasse Tyson.” Apparently, it was kind of no big deal in 1850-whatever-whatever because there weren’t, like, cell phone towers back then, and I’m really doubting that Thomas Edison hadn’t been hanging too many keys from kites quite yet… All I’m saying is, have we reached “that point”? The point where we’d rather take a long Texas Cakewalk than take a long drive through a notorious “dead-zone?” Where we’d rather count worms than Wi-Fi bars? It’s hard to tell one’s iPhone from their elbow these days, no?
Ppirt: LOL
Tripp: What? Dude… don’t… don’t “LOL” at me. Or whatever that is.
Ppirt: Dude — I’m not… I’m not LOLZ’ing at you. It’s just like… You have a Facebook, man. You’re not exactly, like… “off the grid” exactly, dude…if you catch my meaning… you’ve entered The Matrix. You’ve chosen the blue pill. In other words, you’re no Keanu — it’s not like you’re living out of a Volkswagen, shooting squirrels for dinner and reading Jack London by way of some sort of jerry-rigged DIY illumination —
Tripp (defensively): I don’t have Facebook. I’m off the grid, dude. Dude, I don’t have Facebook.
Ppirt: — or maybe just, like, a candle, I guess. OK. Well, yeah, OK, then, Kerouac. Then you post weekly stories then… how?
Tripp: I have that, like… ghost account… like, for work. Like, for the paper. It’s my, like, job, to be on Facebook… at least sort of. It’s not like I’m on there like, 24/7, stalking ex-girlfriends and making sure pixelated crops don’t die—
Ppirt: Um… and Instagram? Twitter? etc., etc., etc.???
Tripp: — etc. etc. etc. Plus, it’s not like Chris Clark is much help in that department — the news-sharing department. Someone’s gotta get on the line to share the news. And don’t even get me started on his reverse-self, Sirhc.
Ppirt: Weird name.
Tripp: Surprisingly normal dude, though. Always on time. Rarely vacations. Never wears multi-functioning pants.
Ppirt: fr
Tripp: You know what I’d like to see? I’d like to see a new kind of off-line social media community. Where people can, like, comment and “like” things but, like…face-to-face. Like “Hey, that Chipotle burrito you’re about to eat looks great in person, too… I like that… up close and personal, I like that. Like local cable access network interviewing unsuspecting soccer players’ foreheads up close and personal. Like you can interact with people around you and communicate with them without being online…
Ppirt: So… just like… a regular community then? I don’t see the point.
Tripp: …
Ppirt: But you love it, though, you do. You love social media, man. Like every other human being on the planet, you love social media. And your phone. Your iPhone. Just like Darren McFadden. Just like every other human being on the planet, you love your iPhone. But then there’s that like… dilemma. That interpersonal conflicted dilemma. That, like, iPhones-and-social-media-are-clearly-destorying-all-culture-and/or-the-world-as-we-know-it-R.E.M.-type dilemma. The self-loathing system syndrome — S.L.S.S. — if you will—
Tripp: That’s good.
Ppirt: Maybe we need another Carrington Event.
Tripp: Could be any day now. We’ll all be running around here, trying to figure out how to churn butter, drawing memes in the dirt with a stick, asking anyone resembling a personified butler/the Olympics logo how to make fire—
Ppirt: Say, isn’t this column supposed to be about, like, sports… or?
Tripp: If you’re my reverse-self, shouldn’t you be like, evil… or something? Like an evil version? Pretty sure it’s kind of a grey area… besides, I — we — we mentioned McFadden, like, several times…
Ppirt: Whatever. My blood sugar is getting dangerously close to, like, pushing-daisies territory, probably. Trying to get some Chipotle or?
Tripp: I’ll (airplane emoji) you…
Ppirt: ???
Tripp: ??? There’s no emoji for, like, American currency. I’ll fly if you buy is what I was driving at.
Ppirt: Well, technically, I don’t exist, so I honestly can’t do either, lol
Tripp: Alright, let’s get on with it then… … WAIT!
Ppirt: What?!?
Tripp: …
Ppirt: ???
Tripp: I thought I forgot my phone for a second.
Ppirt: lol