My 8th Book: Celebrating 25 Years of What, I'm Not Quite Sure

By Brandon L. Boswell

“I love a good window. More specifically, I love looking out a good window. Many of us take the time to thank God for giving us a roof over our heads, but when was the last time we thanked Him for giving us a window to look out of? We really should.”

In My 8th Book: Celebrating 25 Years of What, I'm Not Quite Sure, Brandon L. Boswell returns to share a new round of stories from his life with topics that not only include his love of looking out windows, but also include his love of holding Matchbox cars in his hands, the joys of watching his favorite classic TV shows, and the struggles of attempting to do a leg lift or two. (If Boswell's doing the leg lift, though, that number will be closer to one, if that high.)

Still, Boswell hopes his latest book will encourage readers to take time to reflect on what life has to offer. More importantly, he hopes to encourage his readers to allow God into their lives so they can see what He has to offer.

Boswell's words will, at times, make you laugh, cry, and perhaps even make you a bit sentimental for days gone by and the people who are no longer with us. All his words, though, are from the heart. It's Boswell's hope that the God who blessed him with the ability to write those words lives in your heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 23, 2025
• ISBN: 9781663276490

Brandon L. Boswell

BRANDON L. BOSWELL is a proud, lifelong resident of Eastern North Carolina. Legally blind since birth, Boswell has faced and overcome numerous obstacles and challenges throughout his life. He is a graduate of the University of Mount Olive and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. This is his eighth book.

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Copyright © 2025 Brandon L. Boswell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-7650-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-7649-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025924911

iUniverse rev. date: 11/24/2025

CONTENTS

Study Room With a View

A Matchbox Man in a Hot Wheels World

The Eternal Leg Lift

Slammin’ on the Paragraph Brakes

Acknowledgments

For my family, friends, & readers,

as well as the wonderful God who put them all in my life.

STUDY ROOM

WITH A VIEW

Today, I’m about to do something that, as of now, I’ve done only seven times before over the last twenty-five years. Can you guess what it is? If you said, Go on a date?, then you would be wrong. Thanks for believing the number of dates I’ve had in my life is that high, though.

What I’m actually doing is sitting down to write the introduction to my eighth book! I can’t believe God has given me the opportunity to do this eight times! I also can’t believe how it’s just as frustrating to come up with something clever to write about now as it was a quarter-century ago.

For anyone wondering how I come up with ideas for book intros, or ideas for my books in general, for your reading pleasure, I’ve decided to share how I make it happen.

First, I begin by creating an environment where I can work without unnecessary distractions. Since I often talk out loud to myself as I’m coming up with ideas, I feel it’s best to avoid being around others. I find it difficult to write when people are constantly interrupting my creative process by asking if I’ve ever considered going into therapy.

It also doesn’t help that I live with my family and have an older sister who feels that any sound I make above her preferred decibel level is a personal attack against her and possibly all she stands for. Whenever I’m near her, she usually wants me as quiet as a College Republican’s rally at Berkeley. This means I will soon be retreating upstairs to the safety of my bedroom.

Upon arriving in my bedroom, I close the door and get as comfortable as possible so I can focus on creating the questionably-written material you’re now reading. For years, this meant kicking back in my well-worn but comfortable leather recliner that I inherited from my great aunt. Sadly, the recliner broke last year, and it was no longer safe to use. I knew if I did keep using it, the only ideas for book topics I would come up with would be the ones related to my upcoming visits to the ER. The recliner has since been pushed up against the wall where it now sits broken and butt free for all eternity.

I’m currently using a small swivel rocker that doesn’t even recline. I know I should buy a new recliner, but I hate the thought of spending the money. Every recliner I like costs more than what my grandparents spent on their first home. By not buying one, I can instead use the money to help support charities and causes that are important to me. It’s like, Buy a new recliner or feed all of El Salvador? It’s not a difficult choice.

Regardless of where I’m sitting, I will soon begin to let my mind wander in whatever direction it chooses to go in order to come up with things to write about. Being a single guy in my forties, I have ample time to do this. My married friends don’t seem to have this luxury. If they get caught by their spouses sitting in chairs and letting their minds wander, they’re likely to be put on probation and warned to never let it happen again.

So, after letting my mind wander for awhile, eventually, random thoughts and ideas begin to take shape. Some are pretty out there, too. It doesn’t help that I’ve already used most of my best material in my previous books, either. It’s like the part of my brain that’s designed to help me come up with ideas decided at this point the best thing it could do was get off the main highway and travel to the back roads in the furthest corners of my brain in the hopes of finding something potentially useful that it’s never seen before. It’s like the cerebral equivalent to watching American Pickers.

So, now the time finally comes for me to start writing down all my great thoughts and ideas. Then, once I’m done, I carefully go through the list and mark out all the ones that could possibly be used against me in a sanity hearing. (These are the times when my ink pen gets more exercise in my hand than I get on a treadmill.)

In no particular order, here is the best material I came up with this time around, and I’ll go ahead and apologize now so I don’t forget later. Okay, here we go:

If someone begins a new job at a tire store, and they receive zero training on their first day, would this be considered Baptism by Firestone?

Has anyone ever tried to invent a tiny, hand-held vacuum designed to specifically remove toothpaste off any surface? If so, did they shape it look like a tube of toothpaste? If this does exist, I desperately want to purchase one. That way, the next time I say something to somebody they don’t like and they smugly say back at me, Once you squeeze out the toothpaste, you can’t put it back in the tube!, then I could just pull out the spare tube of toothpaste I happen to have in my pocket and douse their floor with it. Then, I just pull out my trusty toothpaste tube-shaped vacuum and smugly say back to them,Oh, yeah? At this point, I just turn the vacuum on and suck all that toothpaste back in the tube. That should wipe the smile off their face. Even if the vacuum fails and the toothpaste doesn’t come up, they’ll still be so freaked out by everything I just did that they’ll probably threaten to call the cops if I don’t leave right now. Then, they’ll be the ones who are left cleaning up all the toothpaste, so it’s still a win-win.

How have I managed to live in the Southern United States my entire life and never met a man named Bubba? I’ve met multiple Earls and three Jimmy Rays. Combined, do they equal one whole Bubba? I don’t know. This new math is tricky, y’all.

Why do people feel it’s acceptable to spend all their time and effort to prepare a homemade dessert for a community event that looks like banana pudding and is even referred to as banana pudding … but it has zero bananas in it! This is not a dessert, it’s a crime against humanity.

Here in the South, if a restaurant is discovered to be making banana pudding without bananas, they might get reported to the local police. That restaurant’s kitchen needs to be treated like a drug lab and busted immediately so the suffering in the community can end.

The worst time to discover you’ve been exposed to banana(less) pudding is when you’re in the process of swallowing it. You desperately want to spit out the banana-flavored poison onto the ground where it belongs, but you know if anyone sees you doing this, you’ll become the next topic of conversation next weekend at the local Walmart.

If someone dares to bring this yellow abomination to a church potluck, they will soon unleash a Holy War that could rival any monthly church business meeting. Once the guilty culprit has been identified, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they may be dragged outside the fellowship hall, forced up against the wall, and stoned with some of Sister Gladys’s homemade biscuits. If you have a Sister Gladys in your own church, you’ll know that her biscuits also aren’t fit for human consumption, but at least in this scenario, they serve a worthwhile purpose. In the end, this will serve as a reminder to others to never bring any of their homemade witchcraft concoctions onto church grounds ever again.

On a good note, if the person survives the stoning, they’ll likely be able to take home the biscuits that were thrown at them. Someone may even be kind enough to put them in a to go carrier for them.