Nineteen years after he first got them, Kingston resident Darren McPhee, 33, has reaffirmed publicly that he both owns devil-sticks and regularly uses them.
“Yeah, I stick,” said McPhee, “I can kneel-start, stand-start, helicopter, whatever you want, I’m your dude.”
McPhee stated that he first bought the devil-sticks in 1996, “right around when Sublime put out the music video for ‘What I Got’. Great times, man, great times.”
McPhee’s parents, Richard and Marie McPhee, say they’ve asked him to give the hobby up repeatedly, but he won’t listen.
“I want grandchildren, you know?” said McPhee’s mother, in tears. “That’s all I want. And that just isn’t going to happen as long as he’s out on our lawn every weekend waving those things around like Clinton is still in the White House.”
When asked for comment, several of McPhee’s acquaintances cite his extensive devil-stick collection as a major impediment in his love life.
“We went on a couple dates,” said Laura Cardine, 31. “And he seemed like a nice guy. Maybe a little too into baggy cargo shorts, whatever. But we went back to his place one night and… there they were, these three sticks, just sitting in his living room next to some No Doubt CDs. He asked me if I wanted to see him do an ‘Egyptian Buzzsaw’… I ordered an Uber and walked right out.”
McPhee, however, is unfazed.
“Am I still out here, almost two decades out, working on my tick-tock? Hell yeah. The ‘sticks are coming back, man, mark my words. Some things are just timeless. Like VHS, or pogs.”
