A Buttery Adventure

We’ve got some exciting stuff to talk about today, but before we get to that there is something else I need to say first. This past weekend was a busy one for the tennis teams: the women won their NCAA Automatic Qualifier tournament while the men went on the road to play Wheaton, Elmhurst, and UW Whitewater. I was on the trip with the men this weekend which ended in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Anyone who has read the blog before knows that Wisconsin had previously been on my list of states yet unvisited. Not only did we have a great regular season, but we ended it with me getting to fill in another state on the big board!

Woo

A few weeks ago I talked about Twitter in a blog that heavily featured freshmen Ryan Hickman. Since then I have been inundated with requests from another player for a blog post. This player didn’t ask just to be part of the story as Ryan was but to actually be the entire story. After much meditation, soul searching, and eyes glazed TV watching I’ve decided to grant this wish. Besides, anyone who can find a way to incorporate the word “superfluous” into everyday conversation without trying to be ironic (or whatever those weird hipsters are into these days) is deserving of some love.

So just who is this mystery player? Who has the huevos to request their own spotlight, blog post and the pantaloons to carry around all that confidence? It’s Butters!!!

That's me!

For those of you wondering, that is not a real picture of him and no, Butters is not his real name. Zachary Decker is a freshmen hailing from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. I agreed to this little endeavor since Zack is my very own protégé. Back in January we started working together on his game a few times a week and from then on Zack apparently became my own personal project. As for His nickname that comes from a character on the show South Park. It was during the fall tournaments that Zack had the mantle of “Butters” forever ensconced on his life. This nickname has become so pervasive that the entire campus now knows him at Butters. Zack is even listed in my phone as “Butters Decker” because if we’re going to give someone a name it had better be done properly.

Luckily for me Butters is one of the more intellectual 19 year-old's you will find out there which always means our lunch conversations are a bit more interesting than your average cafeteria banter. While most other tables jabber on about Facebook pictures and American Idol, Butters and I will often find our conversations steered into differing esoteric realms such as the Trolley Problem (an ethical thought experiment) or the various responses (both conscious and subconscious) people have to stressful and life threatening situations.

This does not mean we’re serious all the time. One day while browsing the internet Butters found a website called planefinder.net which tracks all the commercial planes in the air on an interactive map. We spent over two hour clicking on random planes to see their arrival and departure airports. The most coveted finds were those rare flights taking the polar route between destination cities. This shouldn’t have been so exciting, but there was something incredibly intriguing about finding a plane flying over the North Pole to reach its destination.

Look at all those planes! Let's click on all of them!

While Butters introduced me to plane finder I introduced him to the hit show Game of Thrones; yes the Emmy Award winning show that has set the bar for sex and violence in one setting. I’m sure his parents will thank me one day. Every Sunday evening Butters joins me in the racquet center to watch the 10pm re-broadcast of the 8pm airing. Since Butters is a new comer to a show with 257 recorded cast names he spent the first 3 episodes with a cast member chart open on his computer while asking me a new question about the plot approximately every 3 minutes.

As I said earlier on of the best aspects about working with Butters is the quality of conversations we’ve had this year not which besides being very deep are also often quite funny. With this blog post in mind I started recording some of the best quotes I heard over the past few weeks. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

(After tasting Kris’ Dark Chocolate with Ginger)

Butters: That’s terrible. Why would anyone do this to chocolate? I’m never getting this taste out of my mouth!

(On our way to the cafeteria after a hitting session)

Butters: It smells like baked beans. If they have that today I’m going to be very happy. Baked Beans are my favorite.

Me: It’s just a tennis match. Has anything bad every happened to you if you lost? No, of course not.

Butters: My dad took my dog out back and shot him once.

Me: Ray Ban sunglasses don’t really work for me.

Butters: They’re more of a young person thing… Not that you’re old or anything!

Butters: You can’t leave me in this car. I’ll scream! (proceeds to scream)

Butters: Studying is getting really boring. How many times do they need to posit that South Africa sucked in the ‘80s?

Butters: You calling me a liar? You don’t call a man a liar and I’m a man, a man

Me: (looking skeptical)

Butters: No I’m not, I’m not.

Butters: I keep forgetting you're only like 5 years older than us because you talk as if you're 45.

Me: Do I?

Butters: I don't know if you're going to take that as a compliment or not.