Day 353: Top 5 Screams From Last Week

Screams. Everyone does em. I scream, you scream, we scream. It’s a thing we do. Some more than others, but we all do it. They vary in range, size, volume, length, gut-feel, reasoning and other features that make every scream unique. They can be good, bad or open-ended. They are screams. As a loud and emotional dude, I scream all the time. Probably more than I should, as most of the time it happens at night. But neighbors be damned, I have to let out my emotion somehow. Although there’s many that didn’t make the list, here’s 5 of my most important screams of the week:

5) Wednesday, 09/01/2021, 02:55 EST

Location: Couch, half asleep, leaning forward with controller in hand

Characteristics: Silent, trying hard not to make noise, arms flailing, goosebumps popping, squirming in my seat, struggling to resist texting people who don’t give a fuck

Reason: I pulled the All-Star Vladimir Guerrero Jr out of a pack on MLB The Show. Although I had a 1:10 chance of hitting it, the card is ever-elusive, arguably the best bat in the game and has an American Street Currency value of $200+

Aftermath: I immediately dove into my first online game in months and won. I went on to win 5 straight, a feat that has never occurred. I’ve been afraid to play online since.

4) Sunday, 09/05/2021, 01:22 EST

Location: Couch, wide awake, sitting back with phone in hand

Characteristics: Started as a low “whhhaaaaaat”, then developed into a deluge of “what the fucks” and “huhs”, trying to be quiet, but also trying to get Rachel’s attention as I knew she was awake.

Reason: I was about 1 hour into GCW’s Art of War Games PPV, when I decided to idly get on Twitter. Even though the event had already ended, I figured that I still know nothing about the promotion, so no spoilers would truly affect me. I was wrong. The first tweet I saw exclaimed that Jon Moxley was the new GCW champion. A swerve for the ages. This also meant that I could see Moxley defend that title against Nick Gage in Queens at the end of the month. My mind was utterly blown.

Aftermath: I woke up Rachel to tell her. She didn’t care. I then fast forwarded to the end of the event to watch it unfold. Truly a fun moment. But his title defense will be in Atlantic City in October, so I went to bed disappointed.

3) Tuesday, 08/31/2021, 23:58 EST

Location: Couch, sitting Cross-legged, coffee table up, remote in one hand, Taco Bell bag in the other.

Characteristics: Started as a sudden and surprised “ohhh” but then morphed into an even louder “come on”.

Reason: I had just turned on the DVR recording of NXT, which always starts during the end credits of the previous program. Except I was immediately met with Chucky’s maniacal laugh, further embedding the fact that I am just not at all safe from random Chucky ads. What started out as scared quickly turned into annoyed, like a possessed radio that plays the same song.

Aftermath: I got over it quickly but then let out a similar scream when opening the Taco Bell bag. They had gotten our order completely wrong. So after midnight, totally starving and almost out of gas, we had to drive back. There was no way we were gonna eat 9 plain tacos.

2) Sunday, 09/05/2021, 21:26 EST

Location: Couch, sitting back, feet on the coffee table, nothing in my hands, head spinning

Characteristics: Spastic, excited, wasn’t one continuous scream but a few loud yelps, shaking in place, Rachel holding me back to calm me down, a classic “I can’t fucking believe it happened” scream.

Reason: The Lucha Brothers won the AEW tag team titles in the most dramatic fashion, in one of the best matches that I had ever seen, to one of the loudest pops that I had ever heard. This was a long time coming and as wrestling fans, we are all still conditioned by the WWE never giving us what we want. After all, the Young Bucks are the best tag team of all time and they also cheat. Even though I felt that the Lucha Brothers should win, deep down in my bones I knew it was next to impossible. When the bell rang, my skeleton leapt out of my body and I could only make primal utterances.

Aftermath: I calmed down. Penta hugged his children and got blood all over them, which was awkward. I screamed a few more times later in the night, but they were all much more subdued. This will probably be one of my favorite matches of all time.

1) Friday, 09/03/2021, 22:11 EST

Location: Drivers seat of a 2014 Scion XD, at a stop light, foot on the brake, hands gripping the steering wheel.

Characteristics: Loud, ear and earth shattering, from the bottom of my gut through every pore in my throat, physically able to feel sound traveling out of my mouth, but low and high pitched at the same time, your standard classic scream.

Reason: I had let it all sink in. I had just finished working on something for money that had nothing to do with groceries and I actually liked it. Things were changing fast and crashing into us headfirst. I thought about where we were 3 years ago, about how hopeless and frightening everything seemed. If only I could see myself now, maybe the last few years might’ve been a little easier. If only I knew how much strength Rachel had and how much she would succeed. If only I knew that I would someday find my way out. All these thoughts came rushing in at that stoplight and turned into one of the loudest screams I had ever uttered. It was happy, it was sad, it was hopeful, it was frightened, but most of all, it was triumphant. It was a scream to acknowledge the change and embrace it. It was the scream that I had bottled up for years. It was the scream of life.

Aftermath: The light turned green and I continued driving home.

What did you scream about lately?

– TeeCoZee