Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind

After graduating from high school, Bargatze attended a year of community college before transferring to Western Kentucky University with his friend P-P. Bargatze and P-P lived together in the college’s dorms, away from home for the first time in their lives. At the beginning of the year, they went to the local Goodwill to get a coffee table for their dorm. The Goodwill had a sign posted outside with the name of their “Employee of the Month,” Michael Loafmen. The cashier, whom they assumed was Loafmen, was not very competent, and “’Employee of the Month,’ Michael Loafmen” becomes a longstanding joke between the two friends; they even characterize him as a “superhero.”

Loafmen “set a standard for lazy excellence” that Bargatze himself later tried to match in college. He took a bowling course that he expected to be easy. Confronted with the sport’s theory and scoring system—rather than actually bowling—Bargatze failed the class, along with the rest of his first-year classes, before dropping out of school.

Later, Bargatze and P-P saw the name “M. Loafmen” on a plaque dedicated to the campus bowling alley’s all-time highest scores. Bargatze writes that Michael Loafmen played a significant role in his life from that point forward.