Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Jessica's Attempt to Win Someone's Heart: A Short Story

I used to love this one boy. I mean, really love him. So much that I was willing to push aside my natural tendency to treat all boys like "buddies," especially boys that I Like. (It's a defense mechanism because I'm lame.) I was determined to win this boy's heart, so after establishing a friendship, I began to take measures some might classify as a little desperate to try and get him to date me.

I wrote him a love poem. One of the lines in the poem stated that he had "the cutest derriere." (For those of you who don't know what that is, it's his butt. He didn't know what it meant either, which made what should have been a cute moment really awkward.) The poem won his laughter, but not his heart.

I invited him over to my empty apartment to watch a show we mutually enjoyed. I turned the lights down and wore my best lip gloss and glanced at him flirtatiously all throughout the show. I think he thought I had a fever or something.

I asked him on a date. I did so by writing my invite on a very long, VERY thin piece of paper, then wrapping that paper around the wheel of a dental-floss container that I had dissected. He read my message by pulling it out of the floss slot. He came on the date, and it was fun, but still no sparks.

I enlisted the help of my boy-crazy and bold roommate, Emily, to help me capture his attention. We all went out one night, and Emily succeeded in getting the boy to sit in the front seat of the car with me and she even planted the idea of he and I dating in the conversation in almost a subtle way. Just when I started to feel those wonderful butterflies that often signal MUTUAL attraction exists, my dear roommate asked the boy if lesbians turned him on and why. It killed the mood and the butterflies.

After all this, I probably should have just gotten the hint that He Just Wasn't That Into Me. But I really, really loved him, enough to sacrifice my pride over and over again. I was lamenting to a good friend named Megan one evening about how this boy wasn't coming around, and she convinced me to make one last grand gesture. She reminded me that the way to many boys' hearts is through their stomachs. With her help, I concocted a plan. We would wake up at the crack of dawn to make homemade cinnamon rolls. (Those of you who know my aversion to early mornings will recognize what a sacrifice this took on my part.) We would take the still-hot-from-the-oven pastries to his apartment, wake him from his slumber and then let the mixture of their deliciousness and my awesomeness finally open his eyes to his undeniable love for me and then he and I would live Happily Ever After.

The plan started off ok. I didn't wake up quite in time, so Megan (because she was so wonderful) started the cinnamon rolls without me. She accompanied me to the apartment complex where the boy lived and sent me to his door after bolstering my confidence that this plan was SURE to work! I excitedly marched up to his door, balanced the plate of cinnamon rolls on one arm, and rang his doorbell. Then I waited in giddy anticipation. A (long) minute passed...and nothing. I let out the breath I had been holding and rang the doorbell again, this time accompanied by a knock. ... still nothing. One last try, then I waited with my heart pounding and the steam from the cinnamon rolls wafting around me. Still nothing.

All that planning, and he wasn't even there to answer the door! I sadly tried to decide what to do. Should I come back that afternoon and give him the cold, but still delicious cinnamon rolls? Should I leave them on his doorstep with a note?

I probably should have done either one of those. Instead, I took the cinnamon rolls with me back to Megan's car and we took them to a friend's apartment and I ate most of them myself. (This type of reaction is why I'm chubby AND why I'm still single.)

My quest for the boy's heart ended that day. I drowned all my sorrows in a pan of cinnamon rolls and a tall glass of cold milk and then moved on. I guess an ending in which my grand gesture prompted exactly the reaction I wanted would have been nice, but it sure wouldn't have been as entertaining!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Seriously?!

I've had writer's block or something the last few weeks, but hopefully it will end and I can keep writing these stories. Because while I am hopeful that you readers out there are entertained by them, honestly I think I benefit the most because dang it, my life is kind of hilarious and I love remembering and recording all this stuff!

Anyway, just now I was re-reading my stories and I realized I made a false claim at the end of my "Love is in the Air (Sort Of)" post. I stated that getting accidently hit in the boob was the most action I've ever had and that (sadly) isn't true. Why is that sad? you may ask. Well, here's the tale so you will know the answer...

I have this friend, I'll call him Foster. Because that's his name. We've known each other since 7th grade, and we've been friends since high school. Foster is the loudest and most un-filtered human being I've ever known. He says things that would normally be considered socially innapropriate and he says them very loudly. To be fair, he's actually calmed down a lot since he got married a few years ago, but even now he's crazy and loud.

My friendship with Foster is built on a strange foundation. Instead of becoming close through lots of soul-bearing conversations (as is the case with most of my other dear friends), we became close through a shared love of innapropriate humor and teasing each other. I used to call Foster names and punch him in the arm and laugh at him a lot, and in return he would make fun of me and smack me and shove me to the ground in public a lot. Sounds fun, right? (In a totally twisted way, it really was.)

So, the first summer after freshman year at college, all of us home-town friends were back home in Vancouver. We were so happy to be reunited again and spent almost every night and/or day together when work and other obligations didn't get in the way. Our friends tended to go through silly phases, like mooning phases, or capture the flag phases, or T.P'ing phases, etc. One week, the boys went through a phase called the "molesting each other for fun" phase which involved thwacking each other really hard in the nuts and then laughing hysterically while exclaiming, "Just checking for balls!" It was up there with such awesome pranks like "what's the capitol of Bangladesh" (Bangcok). Us girls would watch them do this to each other and roll our eyes at their immature senses of humor, but we knew boys would be boys and mostly just ignored their behavior.

The Portland area used to have church dances every Friday and our little gang attended every single dance. I always knew I needed to be on guard at these dances because for some reason Foster would get extra hyper and I was twice as likely as usual to end up with a bruise on my arm from a friendly punch or to be shoved to the ground in a make-believe mosh pit. One night, we were at a dance and I had watched the boys get more and more silly, but so far they had just been bugging each other and had left us girls out of it. At one point, my girl friends had all left me to go to the bathroom or something and I was left standing alone in the church gym. I was watching everyone gyrate on the dance floor when someone caught my eye. That someone was Foster. He was standing 20 or 30 feet away from me and when we made eye contact, he got an evil little grin on his face. He suddenly SPRINTED towards me and all I had time to do was brace myself for his impact (I was sure I was about to get thrown to the floor.) At the last second, Foster veered to my right and reached out with his hand and SLAPPED ME ON MY CROTCH.

He circled around me laughing hysterically while I picked my jaw up off the ground. I was shocked for 2 seconds and then I was PISSED. "Foster!!! What the HELL do you think you're doing?????" I screamed. "Oh, you know...Just Checking For Balls!" He yelled and then ran away obviously proud of himself.

I went out to the foyer to calm myself down and met my friend Ryan (yes, the same guy from the infamous Master story) who was out there avoiding girl drama or something. I let him vent for a minute and then thought it was my turn to vent and receive a little pity and TLC in return. When I told him what had happened, I fully expected him to be outraged at Foster and maybe even go defend my honor or something. Instead, Ryan started laughing. He laughed for a really long time. "Seriously?!" I asked him. "If that had happened to any other girl, you would totally go all Valiant Protector on her and be upset on her behalf." "But Jessica, it's FOSTER. And he did it to YOU. So c'mon, that makes it funny!"

Oh brother. Well, relatively soon I did calm down and while I do not excuse Foster's behavior that night even now, I do recognize that something that bizarre would only happen to me and that it makes for a pretty crazy story. It also happens to be the most action I've ever gotten from a boy.

See? I told you it was sad. (and also a little hilarious.)

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Falling Down Cont'd

3. My public speaking class at BYU had let out 10 minutes early, and as I was leaving the building I saw my cousin Jason at the bottom of the stairs. I called his name and walked down to the second-to-last step to meet him and talk. We spoke of life and love and religion all in the span of 10 minutes (ok, maybe the conversation wasn't that deep, but whatever, I was glad to have run into him.) As classes let out, the building was swarmed with hundreds of BYU Co-eds. Jason and I made plans to meet up and hang out another day and then I started to say goodbye. Simultaneously, I stepped down the last two steps and then started to walk towards the doors to leave. However, I had miscalculated and was actually on the FOURTH-to-last step while I was talking to Jason, so when I thought I was on the ground, I actually still had 2 steps to go. I fell down those steps. Really hard. So hard, that I couldn't move for a minute because I couldn't really breathe. I groaned after a few seconds and several cute boys bent down to ask if I was ok and help me to my feet. Jason, being the nice cousin he is, couldn't offer to help me because he was laughing too hard to talk. I glanced around and saw maybe 300 people staring at me with expressions ranging from pity to amusement. I raced out of the building red-faced and with a slight limp. After a self-exam, I found no bruises except to my poor little ego. I've since tried really hard to look in front of me and nowhere else until I reach the bottoms of staircases in tact. So, if you ever see me and want to talk, but I'm walking up or down stairs, could you do me a solid and just wait until I have even ground beneath me? My ego thanks you.

4. My best friend (Mel) is married to a boy (Nick) whose family lives nearby. He has two sisters who are young single adults. They befriended a group of boys I called the "Pest Boys" this last summer. There were 4 of them ranging in age from 18 to 23 and they lived here to sell Pest Control to the not-so-receptive residents of Vancouver and Portland. I met them at a church activity and found them to be friendly, engaging, and just overall cute boys.

Nick's parent's decided to throw a barbeque in July and invited all their children + spouses + boyfriends + regular friends + me and the Pest Boys. There were about 20 people in attendance altogether. We were gathered in the backyard enjoying the sun, games, good food and good company. I had a pleasant time talking to everyone, and especially getting to know those cute (although too young for me) boys better.

Mel and I finished our food and stood to take our plates inside. My plate was overflowing with barbeque waste...the sauce-covered chicken bones, uneaten baked beans, etc. As I followed Mel towards the back door, I glanced to my left and got distracted by Nick's cute baby neice who was sitting on someones lap.

We learned in my last post that I don't do well with "glancing and walking" at the same time, and this was no exception. Before I go on, I've drawn up a crude sketch of the scene so you can really have a good mental picture of this:



The x's roughly represent where everyone was located in the backyard, and the red x in the middle is me.

As I walked forward, I didn't see the small, concrete step in front of me thanks to my distraction. Then suddenly my mind went all slow-motion-y on me. I slammed to my knees and desperately tried to hang on to my dirty plate, but concentrating on that instead of on catching myself turned out to be a mistake. My upper body then flew forward and I face-planted it. Luckily, my face was protected from the concrete by my plate of dirty food that I had hung on so tightly to.

I layed in stunned silence for a few seconds while time sped back up to normal, and then started to pick myself up. I studiously avoided eye contact with all the people there who were asking me if I was alright, instead focusing very hard on gathering all my scattered chicken bones. Mel, bless her little heart, was NOT offering help or acting concerned, but instead running inside to try and hide her loud and uncontrollable fit of laughter. I reassured everyone I was "fine, just fine", and hurried inside after Mel, wiping BBQ sauce and baked beans off of my face the whole way.

Once inside, I started laughing along with Mel about what an idiot I had just made of myself. As we verbally replayed my latest moment of grace and glory, Mel told me that she was so glad I had cried out or she would have completely missed it.

"What?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"

"You know, when you yelled. I had my back turned to you and wouldn't have looked back to see you fall on your face if you hadn't yelled."

I did not know what she was talking about and asked for clarification. Apparently as I was falling to my knees, I yelled out very loudly, "OH NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" This, combined with my prime spot smack-dab in the middle of the patio where EVERYONE in the backyard had an unobstructed view, ensured that not one person, including all 4 of the cute Pest Boys, missed out on my little accident.

Of course.

Of course it was the loud chubby girl who fell and not one of the cute, dainty girls in attendance. Of course she was right in the middle of the yard. Of course she was holding a plate full of messy food that got all over her shirt and face when she fell. Of course her best friend did nothing to help her and instead laughed long and loud at her predicament. And OF COURSE, the girl who fell couldn't do it quietly, but unconsciously yelled out "OH NO" so that her humiliation would be utterly complete.

My fall was so spectacular that Nick's dad still mentions it every single time I go to their house, and it's been 4 months.

When I was younger, I dreamt of being famous one day. I'm learning now that I may have to settle for infamy instead.

(I wanted to show you just how hard I fell, so I'm including a picture of how my knee looked about a week after the barbeque)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

My Middle Name...

...is NOT Graceful. I fall down kind-of a lot. And it's usually kind-of in a public place. And it's often in front of kind-of hot boys. And I should kind-of be ashamed to talk about it, but I'm not. Not even kind-of. Here are the hall-of-famers:

1. I was a junior in high school and I was at my first formal dance with a really good friend (who I may or may not have had a teeny-beeny crush on). I had spent all day primping and priming for my date. My dress was shiny and my hair was elegant. My shoes were high-heeled and they were getting very broken in, since my date and I were dancing machines!

The night was going perfectly and I was feeling footloose and fancy-free, when Ice Ice Baby began to blare through the speakers. Here was the PERFECT opportunity to show off all my awesome "look how Black I can dance even though I'm a nerdy white girl from Vancouver" moves I had learned recently. (Probably at church dances, which just proves how "Black" the moves actually were.) With my friends rooting me on, I got more and more into the dancing when suddenly, I accidently stepped on the side of my right foot and down I went...my butt all the way to the floor. I sat there for a minute assessing the damage, with my skirt billowed out gracefully around me. Then I looked up to see my date staring down at me with a perplexed look on his face. He had wandered away to greet some old friends and missed my little display of grace on the dancefloor.

"What the heck are you doing??" he asked.

"Oh, you know, I just got tired and decided it would be a good idea to sit on the dirty floor surrounded by people who may trample me in my beautiful dress just for fun," I snarkily replied in my head.

But what came out of my mouth was nothing - I just shrugged and held out my hand for him to help me up. I took a quick trip around the dance floor to walk off the pain and felt ok enough to finish out the night.

After the dance, my date was hosting a dessert party for our group of friends so I had to go with him to the store to buy ice-cream. By the time we reached the register, I had a noticeable limp but insisted that I was all right. We went to his house and had dessert, and while I had fun, it was slightly marred by the throbbing pain in my ankle that was growing steadily more pronounced.

I had dreamed of the doorstep scene since I received my invite to the dance. At the very least I expected him to enthusiastically tell me that I was the best date he'd ever been on and that he would be asking me out again for sure. I had NOT pictured him helping me out of his mini-van and then awkwardly supporting my weight while I shuffle-hopped to my door. He quickly thanked me and then practically ran back to his van.

The next day was a Sunday and I went to church on crutches, as my ankle had swollen to twice its size. So my embarrassment was re-lived and multiplied while I explained to members of my congregation (including my date's parents) that no, my date was not in any way at fault for my bum ankle and in fact I had injured myself by dancing too aggressively to a Vanilla Ice song.

My first real dance/date...the stuff dreams are made of. (Nevermind that the dreams are the kind where you go to school naked on accident.)

...................................................................................

2. The entrance hall of my high school was the gathering place for all the cliques before and after school each day. For some reason, the students congregated in their small groups along the edges of the "space" and left the center clear. One day, during my math class, which was the last period of the day, I got into a small water fight with a friend of mine named Matt. He splashed me right before the bell rang and so he left class with an air of triumph as I brushed water out of my eyes, unable to retaliate. When I left the classroom a few minutes later, I saw my friend standing with his usual group of friends (many of whom were... you guessed it! Hot Boys).

"Hooray! Matt THINKS he won, but here's my chance to show him," I thought gleefully. I strolled nonchalantly up to the group of 10 or so boys and shoved Matt from behind and then casually walked away. As I reached the center of "no-man's land," I peeked over my shoulder to see Matt's reaction.

I should make it clear that there were several groups of my peers surrounding the center of the hall. In groups of 5-15, they totalled maybe 100 sets of eyeballs.

While I can walk and chew gum at the same time, I learned on that day that I can NOT walk and look over my shoulder at the same time. Just as I made eye contact with Matt, I lost my footing and BIFFED it. I'm talking all-four-major-limbs-sprawled across-the-tile-floor biffed it. I scrambled to my feet and then started laughing hysterically. Like literally, I was feeling a little hysterical. I was recovering from a cold so my throat was raw and my laugh came out as a loud honking noise that echoed around the great hallway. Which was great, since it drew the attention of the few people who did not see me fall and allowed my shame to be complete.

So before I fell on my face and then ran away honking like a goose, there were a few glorious seconds in which I thought I had won the last battle and therefore the war with Matt. But as is usual, I managed to accidently sabatouge my own efforts by ruining a perfectly respectable attack with my nerdiness. Through no effort on his part, Matt was the winner that day after all.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Love is In the Air (Sort Of)

I’ve noticed this last year that every time a season changes, my thoughts turn to True Love. Summer nights leave me wishing for someone to lie next to in a grassy field, star-gazing and talking the night away together. Spring mornings get me fantasizing about walking hand-in-hand with some fabulous guy, down a path lined with beautiful flowering trees and bushes, just soaking in the perfumed air. Who doesn’t love the idea of snuggling in front of a delightful fire while the weather outside is frightful, and kissing good night and holding someone tight before heading back into the storm? (That’s right, go ahead and Let it Snow -- as long as I’ve got a man to keep me warm!)

Fall is the most recent season to descend, and its arrival was accompanied by heavy rain showers over the weekend. The rain smells so good here and it feels nice too, since the temperature hasn’t plummeted quite yet. I’ve found myself outside this week, tasting the rain and imagining my future Prince Charming spinning me in circles and then planting a big one on my lips while the rain pours down on us.

Naturally, I can’t think of future love without reviewing past loves. Well, “likes” anyway. My experience with relationships is limited, but (of course) bizarre and sometimes hilarious. From pining over someone else only to be rejected, to being the object of someone else’s affections, I have stories galore. And so here’s one of many.

It was my freshman year at BYU, sometime between getting a pen stuck in my hair and wetting my pants in the lobby of my dorm. There was A Boy. He was tall, with brown hair and beautiful gray-blue eyes that reminded me of hematite:


This boy was really goofy, but fun to talk to and I found myself drawn to him. Unfortunately, he found himself drawn to my roommate. And so I sat back and watched as they hung out together night after night, putting on a brave face for my roommate’s sake, but secretly screaming into my pillow in jealous fits after she’d leave.

One night, I went with a large group of friends to a school dance. I noticed as we walked home afterwards that The Boy was holding my roommate’s hand. The whole group discussed going out for ice cream, but after we reached the dorms everyone scattered except for The Boy, The Roommate, and me. I should have gracefully bowed out at this point, but I really did want ice cream and also I think some part of me was a glutton for punishment and refused to leave just because it was an awkward situation. Little did I know how much more awkward it was about to get…

My roommate went up to our room to get her purse, which left The Boy and I alone together for a few minutes. As soon as she was out of sight, he, without preamble, made a request from me. Apparently after I spotted the two of them holding hands, my roommate had yanked her hand away and furiously whispered for him not to make any moves on her, especially in front of me. He liked her a lot and demanded an explanation for why he couldn’t demonstrate his affection.

To my horror, The Boy informed me that my roommate had revealed my burning lust for him and declared that out of loyalty to me, there would be no more hold-handing or anything else in the near future. After explaining her position to me, he proceeded to beg me to “release my hold” and give him permission to kiss her. I was speechless (and mortified). I finally stuttered that I didn’t care what they did and that he should go ahead and have his way with her if he wanted, and to take me out of the equation.

For obvious reasons, I no longer had any desire to go out to ice cream, but when I tried to excuse myself, the boy started to have a conniption fit. If I didn’t go, then my roommate would know he had tattled on her in order to get my permission to make his move on her, and then she would be very angry, and then he would get rejected when he went in for the kill. He begged me to go with them for ice cream and to pretend our conversation had never taken place. I still don’t know why (except for the whole “I’m a glutton for punishment” thing), but I agreed to go along and attempted to act normal and lighthearted for the rest of the evening. It was very awkward.

Well, his plan worked and after that night, The Boy got to hold hands with and kiss my roommate without any interference on my part. For various reasons, my roommate eventually decided she was no longer interested in him and during their dreaded DTR informed him that there was actually no relationship to define and there never would be.

I didn’t know the break-up had happened, and so I was confused when The Boy called our room the next day and asked specifically for me. He had me meet him in the parking lot outside of our dorm buildings, and then we somehow ended up sitting in his truck for over an hour while he lamented his failed relationship with my roommate. He asked for advice, grilled me to try and gain insight into my roommates’ head, and then there was a lot of rambling about how frustrating love and life could be in general. I mostly just listened while he carried on and cried like a baby. (Seriously, there were small sobs and a steady stream of tears falling down his cheeks.) The conversation was beneficial for both of us, as he got to vent to someone who knew the situation, and I got to see what a wiener the kid was so that I could finally end any lingering feelings of attraction to him. Win-win.

After the crying/venting session ended, we both got out of the truck and stood on the sidewalk facing each other. The conversation had been quite an ordeal, and apparently The Boy felt that a normal goodbye would not suffice. He thanked me for my time and attention, and then gave me a hug. He was not the hugging type, and there was an immediate air of awkwardness afterwards. In order to conquer the awkwardness, he reached out with his right hand to smack me on the shoulder, “buddy” style. Well, I thought our farewell was complete and so I had started to turn around so I could walk away when he reached to hit me. Because of this, his open palm smacked me square in the right boob. I quickly decided to ignore the botched move and turned the rest of the way around and began to walk away. I made it about 5 steps and then heard, “Uhh, Oliver?” (That’s what he had called me since the beginning of our friendship.) “Yeah?” I responded. “Um…I was aiming for your shoulder.” “Yeah, I figured. Have a good day.” And then I walked away laughing while he stood there red-faced.

Isn’t that just so typical? The most action I’ve ever gotten is from a crybaby boy who was in love with my roommate and who didn’t enjoy the boob-touching at all.

Someday, my prince will come. (And HE’LL make inappropriate moves on me on purpose, and we'll both enjoy it, dang it!)

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Mel + Me = Awesome

I remember being really surprised when I first went to BYU by the amount of people who declared how much they hated their high school experiences. They all complained about pettiness and immaturity and boredom and torture they suffered through for four long years. I couldn’t believe it, because I absolutely ADORED high school. Oh sure, it wasn’t all great. I went through a lot of the normal “finding yourself” crap that 14-18 year olds do. And sometimes my classes were stressful, and sometimes I had to deal with people drama, but overall 1997-2001 were some of the best years of my life. I was in a perma-stage of ugly-duckliness and I tended to be loud and way nerdy. But I’ve never loved myself more or had more confidence than in my high school years. And I had amazing friends from all walks of life and from every school clique that existed.

I look back at my Senior year with particular fondness. I knew everyone, my friendships were firmly established, and my teachers all loved me so I could relax and really have fun with all my school projects. (Oh, who am I kidding? I always had fun with school projects. Maybe I’ll dedicate a post to that topic another day.) Anyways, my favorite teachers were Tad and Wag. They team-taught our English and CWP (contemporary world problems) block class. One of our major graded projects that year was to put together a music video to any song of our choice. I have no idea what we were supposed to learn from this project, but I threw myself into doing it wholeheartedly anyways.

Mel and I had that class together, and as usual we made sure we were on the same team and took over the entire project. We picked the song and came up with the concepts and then just bossed the rest of our group into doing what we wanted. We chose “What the World Needs Now” as our song, and our idea was to show random acts of love all over the school. We made our group members run up to random kids and give them hugs in the hallways. We secretly videotaped all of the “famous” couples in our grade. We filmed a shot of our two friends, Foster and Trent, awkwardly running towards each other in “slow motion” and finally meeting up in a totally homoerotic embrace. Then after compiling all that golden footage, the best idea of all came to Mel and I. I don’t really remember who came up with the original idea, but no matter because we both took it and ran with it.

Our school had a huge field outside between the parking lot and the middle school next door. The field was often muddy since we live in the good old Northwest, where it rains 8 ½ months per year. It had rained the whole day we were filming our music video, so the field was freshly muddy. We decided it was A GREAT IDEA to put on our gym clothes and film the two of us getting into a mud-wrestling match and then hugging and making up afterwards. The idea sounds good right? Funny and maybe even a little bit hot to watch? Um, yeah-- if you believe that’s how it turned out then you don’t know me at all AND you obviously haven’t read any of my previous posts on this blog.

Let me set up the scene completely for you. Mel and I did not have cute little shorts and cute tight t-shirts for P.E. Instead, we both wore oversized men’s t-shirts and gross baggy sweat pants. Mine were pukish yellow and also a teensy bit MC-Hammerpants’ shaped if I recall correctly. Also Mel and I, although very cute girls, were far from the “cheerleader” type girls in our grade. We were both pasty white and slightly plump. So instead of the fantasy-like scene you may envision when you hear “girls” and “mud wrestling,” we were just two crazy, badly dressed, fattish girls rolling and sliding around looking like idiots throwing mud at each other.

The kicker to all of this is that our school was built on what used to be farm land. A farm with a lot of cows apparently, if the smell that wafted up from the ground with each fresh rain was any indication. After the filming was completed, we had to trudge through the entire school to get back to the locker rooms and change. We tracked poop-mud everywhere, and you should have SEEN the looks and wrinkled noses aimed in our direction as we took our walk of shame. We hosed ourselves down, changed into our normal clothes and then went back to class feeling slightly embarrassed about the smell, but otherwise still confident in the genius of the whole mud wrestling concept.

The real shame didn’t come until later. Another girl in our group did the editing of the music video and we didn’t see the final project until it aired in front of the entire class. It all started off well and good with our peers laughing and oohing and aahing at all the hugging and famous-couple-secret-shots. We eagerly awaited the fun reactions that were sure to be evoked by our prize scene.

But instead of robust laughter and hoots and hollers, the most awkward silence I’ve ever had to endure settled over the classroom while everyone witnessed our poop-mud escapade. I glanced around and saw dropped jaws and looks that clearly said “those girls are retarded!” Mel and I were stooped as low as we could get in our chairs without falling onto the ground by the end of the video. After it was over, we rushed to take it out of the VCR and prayed that no one would ever speak of it again.

Well, as far as I know, no one did except us. Typically, it didn’t take us very long to see the huge amounts of humor in the situation. But despite the tears of laughter we experience each time we relive the tale, we can’t help but to also cringe a little and maybe wish that we had, just that once, let the rest of our group come up with the ideas.

Oh, there’s also a small epilogue to this story. (You’ll appreciate that, Robbie). Mel never took her poop-mud clothes out of her gym locker that day. A week later she was summoned by our nazi gym teacher to the locker room office. The teacher asked if Mel’s locker was the one from which the horrible stench was emanating. Mel confirmed that it was indeed and had to endure a long, long lecture full of yelling and threats of detention while all the girls in the locker room looked on. She walked back to her locker, shoulders hunched and head down, took the horrible clothes out and then made a final walk of shame out to the school dumpster where she unceremoniously dumped them. The clothes are long gone, but our inner scars from the entire incident will remain indefinitely. Poetic, isn’t it?

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Peeing Epic, the Conclusion (for now)

After the incident in the dorms my freshman year, peeing my pants really did start to occur with less frequency. I thought it was a sign I was becoming a real live adult. Oh, there were a few minor incidents here and there, but no full-on, wet pants in a public place. It’s been seven years since then, and compared to my earlier years, I’ve mostly managed to keep my bladder under control. Then this last May, the streak ended (or started up again, depending how you look at it.) I guess I became overconfident.

It was a Thursday, and at about 6:00 p.m., my bladder gently let me know that it needed some relief. The call for a toilet was mild, and I needed to get some stuff done so I ignored the warning. Over the course of the evening, my bladder would intermittently remind me it needed some attention, but I'd get distracted or there wouldn't be a bathroom nearby so I kept putting off the peeing. On Thursday nights, I occasionally drive 30 minutes south of my house to attend institute with a good friend. It lasts an hour and a half. That night after institute, my friend invited me to come to Wendy’s for a late dinner. I accepted the invitation, and after we ate and parted ways, I walked out to my car and remembered my need to pee again for like the fifth time. I was already outside of the restaurant and decided I'd just go at home (because it was way too inconvenient to walk 27 steps back to the Wendy’s bathroom!)

Well, on the way home I decided that I wanted go to my tanning salon really fast before it closed. By this time it was 9:30 and the salon closed at 10. I sped there as fast as I could and ran through the doors at 9:50 -- just in the nick of time. I knew that I should go pee but the owners were obviously ready to close up shop, and I felt bad delaying them anymore than I already was just by getting there so late. I decided to suck it up and hold my bladder for 15 more minutes. (Because what's 15 minutes when you've already been waiting 4 hours?) So I went into the little room with my favorite tanning bed, and one of the owners started the countdown timer which meant I had 3 minutes to undress, slather myself with lotion and get my i-pod ready before the cancer rays turned on.

While I was putting on the special tanning lotion, I realized that the need to pee was now urgent, but that stupid timer had started and I couldn’t waste precious tanning time just to get a little physical relief. Just 10 more minutes... So then I took my jeans off to apply more lotion. Well, the act of pulling my jeans down signaled to my bladder and brain that it was time to Open the Floodgates! They stupidly assumed I was standing next to a toilet.

Well I wasn't.

I was in a little locked room mostly naked, and a timer was ominously ticking down while the two owners wandered around outside making sure the rest of the salon was ready to close. My mind raced desperately for about 30 seconds while I held my knees clenched tightly together hoping to stop what had begun. But there was no stopping it. I quickly scanned the little room to see what my options were. The ones I identified were:

1. Pee all over the floor
2. Pee all over the tanning bed
3. Squat down and pee inside the little miniature garbage can next to the tanning bed
4. Pee into the miniature white towel provided by the tanning salon (obviously NOT provided for that purpose) or
5. Pick my undershirt/tank top up off the floor, shove it between my thighs, pee into it, roll it up, stuff it in my purse, proceed with the tan and then get dressed again sans undershirt and walk out of the room and the salon nonchalantly as though I did not just lose control of my bladder like a 3 or 103 year old.

I chose option 5.

I know, I know…completely gross huh? And while I immediately acknowledged the depravity of what I had just done, it didn’t stop me from laughing hysterically the entire way home. Maybe one day I’ll learn my lesson and either find bathrooms more frequently, whether I feel like I need to pee or not, or go on and buy some of those nice adult diapers I’ve seen calling my name at Wal-Mart.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Peeing Epic Part 2

As I mentioned before, peeing my pants has unfortunately not been an uncommon occurance in my life thus far. Describing each episode would take much too long (and totally ruin the comedic value of all the stories), so I've decided to highlight two of the most spectacular occurances here. Next time in my concluding epic, I will describe in detail the most recent, and possibly the most entertaining, peeing accident yet.

Many times when I have lost bladder control, I was able to cleverly hide it from any possible witnesses (i.e. "falling" into a puddle before my friend could turn around to see the incriminating wet streak running down my jeans) but then there are times when the urge to relieve myself comes on so suddenly and I am in such a public place, that there is no shielding myself from public humiliation.

I was a junior in high school and was standing next to my car waiting for the tank to fill when, without warning, pee started gushing out of my bladder. I immediately hunched over and clamped my legs together and then after taking a deep breath, I hobbled as quickly as possible inside the 7-11. I didn't see any restroom signs and so I frantically asked the cashier where the bathroom was. She was busy helping a customer and distractedly told me there was not a public restroom. And so I reacted how any (in)sane person would...I jumped up and down in frustration, waved my arms around and yelled "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!" My mature way of handling the situation must have really impressed the clerk. She looked at me with eyes bugging and quickly pointed to the back room. I raced back there, but unfortunately by then most of my bladder had already emptied. And so after a pathetic attempt to clean myself up, I took a deep breath and braced myself, like a prisoner walking to their execution, and with a much quieter air about me, I slunk out of the store with downcast eyes.

As a freshman in college, I lived on the 7th floor of the on-campus dorms. The basement of the building was the location of the laundry room and all of the vending machines, so I spent a decent amount of time down there. There was not a bathroom in the basement (very poor planning on the designer's part if you ask me!) and so I had several close calls down there that year. One evening I was browsing the different snack options in the vending machines and without warning I. Needed. To. Pee. VERY BADLY! The physical need was so strong, in fact, that my body involuntarily flung itself against the machine hard enough to knock a candy bar loose. I knew I needed to find a bathroom pronto, but the elevator in the building was way old and way slow, so I decided instead of going up 7 floors, I would instead just go up 1 to the lobby. In my panicked state, my mind forgot one vital piece of information. Our dorms were not co-ed, and boys were not allowed on any of the upper floors and so in the evenings the lobby would flood with young women from my dorm and their friends and suitors of the opposite sex. If I had remembered this, I probably would have just risked the long elevator ride. Instead, I stumbled out of the elevator and stupidly hopped/ran to the bathroom with my thighs clenched and pee escaping with every lurch while about 3,000,000 pairs of eyes gawked at me. After I finished my business, I had to walk past all of the witnesses again to go back to the elevator.

As if that walk of shame wasn't bad enough, when I got up to my floor, I headed towards my room at the end of the hallway trying to be inconspicuous so none of my floor-mates would notice me. My friend Carri spotted me and started calling my name. I ignored her, as my uncomfortably damp spirit (and pants) was priority over whatever she needed from me. This just made her mad so she started really yelling my name. I finally whipped around and yelled back, "I can't talk to you right now, I have to go change because i just PEED MY PANTS!" That shut her up.

I just re-read what I have written today, and after reviewing it and my other stories, as well as all the stories I have yet to tell (not just about peeing, but about everyting ridiculous in my life), I just realized that maybe it is not such a puzzle after all why I am 25 and still not married. Oh well, I may be alone, but at least I'm not boring! Until next time...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Peeing Epic. chapter 1

I fear old age and pregnancy, I really do. Old people are always complaining about how their memory stinks, or how they stink (of oldness), or how they get tired easily, etc. etc. Pregnant women talk about how pregnancy wreaks havoc on their minds and bodies – they crave weird foods at strange times of the day, they lose their girlish figures, their hormones make them crazy and often mean. My problem is that I am not old and I have never been pregnant, yet I already suffer from all of these problems. So how much worse are all my symptoms going to get when I AM old and/or pregnant? It’s a scary thought.

The worst symptom of old age and pregnancy I’ve heard of is loss of bladder control. Maybe I should start stocking up on adult diapers now, because I have the worst bladder ever already. As evidence, I have several examples of me losing control of my bladder under the most inconvenient circumstances. These examples span the decades of my life, and I will begin my Peeing Epic with the earliest time I can remember peeing my pants. (Although I was only 6, this was old enough for peeing on myself to be socially unacceptable.)

I was in my first grade classroom and my classmates and I were gathered at our teacher’s feet listening to her read from some wonderful book. I remember needing to pee, but not wanting to miss any of the story, so I convinced myself I could wait a little longer (note: this will be a recurring theme in all of my peeing stories…I’m not sure what it will take for me to realize that actually I can NOT wait any longer.)

Trying to stem the flow of pee that was slowly making it’s way out of my body, I slowly eased up from sitting Indian style to perching on my knees so I could make a quick getaway when the last page was read. The movement had the opposite effect than I intended and only made the peeing harder to stop. By the time I was sitting back on my knees, my pants were soaked through. Luckily though, because of my sitting position, the front of my pants was not visibly wet.

I sat there in a panic, and desperately tried to figure out a way to not get caught by my unforgiving classmates. Then I noticed Brad sniffing the air. Brad was a little brown-haired hockey player who was usually the leader in pulling girl’s pigtails and leading other boys in playground mantras like “Susan is a Stinkface. Susan is a Stinkface.”

He sniffed again and again and then interrupted my teacher’s reading.

“I smell pee!” He yelled.

I was mortified. Now there was no way to gracefully get out of this. As I took a breath and prepared myself to confess that it was my own pee perfuming the air, Brad rudely pointed at the girl sitting on my left.

“It’s Audrey…She peed her pants!”

Audrey was “that girl” in our class. Her clothes were often second-hand and just slightly ill-fitting. Sometimes she didn’t smell great. She was already socially awkward at the tender age of 6. Everyone’s heads turned towards us and 20-something little noses crinkled at the same time. I was going to defend her, I really was, but before I could, Audrey stood up and ran to the hallway. I paused in surprise and then my teacher scolded Brad and the rest of the class. She left us to go get Audrey. They came back a few minutes later with Audrey sniffling just a little, and everyone could see that her pants were dry and so the incident was forgotten as my teacher finished the story.

While all this happened, I never moved an inch. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but somehow the amount of time it took to resolve the Audrey thing and then finish the book was enough for my pants to dry so that they weren’t noticeably wet. After my teacher closed the book and dismissed us back to our desks, I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to survey the damage and then went through the rest of my day careful to not make any sudden movements that would waft any pee smell into the air. The class believed that Brad was just making a scene for no good reason and no one ever suspected that he had, in reality, smelled pee during story time.

As I said in the beginning, this was only the first of many times I’ve peed my pants over the years. I’m still not completely sure that I’ve learned my lesson and that it won’t happen again. But the bright side to the story is that I felt so guilty about Audrey, I made it a point to be nice to her for the rest of the year. We never became best friends, but we did manage to have some fun times together, and while we were together, Brad never dared to aim his playground taunts in her direction. And I’ve never since let someone who was unable to defend themselves take the blame for something that was my fault. So there’s a silver lining at least, huh?

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Intermission

Sorry, I haven't run out of stories yet. Life has just been super busy for the past few weeks. But due to a sad story (those kind have no place on this blog, so I won't elaborate) my much-anticipated trip to Utah has been postponed and so I am going to have some free time this next week. Hopefully I can write out some good ones and post them soon.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Impressing Hot Guys - Jessica at Age 17

I promise I actually do have a good, sophisticated, witty sense of humor. But sometimes I get carried away, and my humor takes a downward spiral into “potty humor.” The kind where farting, burping and saying naughty words makes me giggle uncontrollably. During my senior year of high school, I went through a phase where I thought snorting super loud like a pig was SO funny. (p.s. I blame my girlfriends, especially Mel, for encouraging this ridiculous behavior every chance they got just because it made me look like an idiot. When I look back, I’m pretty sure that everyone was laughing heartily AT me and not with me.) Anyways, I started doing this thing that I called my Seductive Snort, which is easier to demonstrate than to describe but I’ll do my best.

You know how sometimes when someone is being sexy, they pretend to be a tiger or cougar or something? They raise one shoulder as their chin dips towards it and then pushes back out, and their hand comes up in a human claw and swipes the air as they let out a hearty “RAWWWWR.” And their eyes kind of squint and their lips kind of purse. Go ahead, try it right now so you can picture what I’m talking about…




Ok, now that you have that image in your mind, just picture me doing that, except for instead of growling like a large feline, I snort super long and loud and the dipping and raising of my chin is super dramatic. That was my Seductive Snort, and I did it on a regular basis.

I was in Jazz Choir that year, which meant that we were constantly traveling around the state to perform in various choir festivals and competitions. Our choir had to wear a uniform of sorts – the boys in suits with purple ties, the girls in black slacks and purple button up blouses. Sadly, my weight, which had remained steady throughout high school, started creeping up my senior year and so by the end of the year, that blouse wasn’t the most comfortable item of clothing I owned. I didn’t want to buy a new one so I just sucked in and made it work.

In the spring, our Jazz choir competed in an important festival and we won third place overall. We had worked really hard that year and doing well, combined with our time together on the bus and in our hotel rooms had put us all in really good moods. As we were waiting to get on the bus to take us home after the competition, I saw all the boys in choir and our drummer and bass player (yeah, we were awesome enough to have a back up band, haha) standing in a circle in the parking lot. I was very hyper and immediately saw the perfect opportunity to show off my Really Hilarious Seductive Snort. It would be especially funny because I was doing it for all those boys, instead of for my usual audience of girls. I grabbed my friend Amy by the arm and we waltzed right up to the circle of 8 or so boys. I was really good friends with the guys, and that combined with my adrenaline rush resulted in a Jessica with no reservations, which is almost always a dangerous thing.

“Hey you guys!” I said loudly to grab their attention. “When I do THIS, does it seduce you?”

Then I did my loudest, longest, most dramatic Seductive Snort to date. Right after, I stood there with my chin and chest pushed out and looked around to catch their expressions. I was totally laughing but no one else said anything as several seconds ticked by. This is never a good sign. Suddenly, my friend Amy jumped towards me saying, “Um, Jessica you…” then she just grabbed my shoulders and turned me around.

I glanced down after I was facing the opposite direction and then saw it. My vigorous snort had caused the buttons on my ill-fitting blouse to pop open. I hadn’t discovered undershirts yet, and although I was wearing a bra, it didn’t cover much due to the thrusting forward of my head and chest. I should have been mortified, but I was still on an adrenaline high so I just grabbed Amy’s hand and ran away laughing hysterically.

Later, the embarrassment hit. But I really loved all those guys and did not want to feel awkward around them for the rest of the year. So in choir the next Monday, I mustered up the courage to turn to Mark who had stood next to me the entire year in both Concert Choir and Jazz Choir. I brought up The Incident from the weekend and as we talked I was appalled to find out that the guys had discussed it afterwards and they all thought that I had flashed them on purpose. I asked Mark why on earth they would think that, and he reminded me that beforehand I did not say anything about a snort, but I had clearly asked, “When I do THIS does it seduce you?” The next thing they knew, they were getting an eyeful of my chest which does tend to seduce most guys. I had to go around individually to each of the boys and make sure they knew that flashing them had NOT been my intention that day.

For obvious reasons, I retired the Seductive Snort after that. I should have also retired the story surrounding it but, as this blog obviously shows, a good story always trumps feelings of embarrassment and so it remains one of my favorites to tell to this day.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Impressing a Hot Guy: Jessica at Age 8

So, speaking of trying to be cool… along with never quite being able to follow the latest fads, I’ve also always sucked the big one when it comes to trying to impress boys. Especially cute ones. One of the most traumatic attempts to catch a boy’s attention took place the summer before third grade. (I just now almost wrote “happened to me” instead of “took place,” but sadly, I was the sole cause of the ridiculous moment and cannot claim victimhood in any way.)

My family had a membership at the local neighborhood pool and I spent all day everyday there in the summer. One time, I spent the night at a friend’s house and then we went to the pool together. When we left to go back to her house to eat lunch, we ran into a cute boy named Jason on the sidewalk. He was the most popular boy in our class the year before, with big dark brown eyes, an olive complexion and beautiful silky brown hair. He was mostly talking to my friend and ignoring me. This was typical (and still is to this day). I’ve never been able to capture a boy’s attention with my stunning looks, especially when there are other females around, however I have always been able to use my quick wit to make sure I’m not completely overlooked. My window of opportunity to make an impression on Jason was quickly closing and I racked my brain for an attention-grabber.

“Oh man, this will be SO funny!” I thought to myself.

I interrupted their conversation and said, a little louder than was necessary, “Hey you guys, watch this!” Then I grabbed the bottom of my shirt and lifted it up to my chin to “flash” them, but the FUNNY part was that I had my bathing suit on underneath. Get it? So I wasn’t actually flashing anything but latex or whatever bathing suits are made out of. I was such a clever and witty little girl.

At least that’s what I thought until I saw that instead of Jason’s eyes squinting because of his laughter, they were bulging in astonishment. Then I felt the breeze and looked down to see that somehow when I was changing, I had missed one of the bathing suit arm straps and it was dangling down by my belly. Which meant that my right booblet was exposed for everyone to see.
He never talked to me again throughout elementary school. Actually, after what happened that was a relief for me.

So in my case, at least in the summer before third grade, flashing nipples was NOT an effective way to catch the guy.

I am so awesome.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Being Cool is Harder than You Think

When I was in the second or third grade, the “cool” kids were all getting digital watches. Our playground activities suddenly consisted of anything that could be timed with the little stopwatch feature on the watches. Races, holding our breath, hopping up and down on one leg…you get the idea. I really wanted a digital watch of my own so that I too could start timing an endless amount of awesome things just like all the popular kids were doing.

I went to the store one afternoon with my dad and convinced him to buy me a plastic watch that was awesome because:
- it was pink
- it was water resistant
- IT HAD A TIMER!
I remember thinking I must have been pretty slick to get my dad to buy that amazing watch for me, but looking back I bet the watch cost maybe $6, and the price tag actually did all the talking for me.

So I went home with my new treasure and proceeded down to our basement. I was all alone and sat brainstorming how I could christen the timer feature on my watch. Sadly, one little girl all alone indoors doesn’t actually have a lot of options and coming up with something was harder than I thought it would be. But, I was as awesomely random then as I am now so I finally came up with what I thought was a great idea:

Spinning.

That’s right…going around and around in small circles as fast as I could without falling down. So I excitedly pushed all the necessary buttons, braced myself in the middle of the room and pressed “start.” I spun and spun and spun. I wondered as I spun if there was a world record for this. If so, I was sure to beat it right then in my basement. Thoughts of all the fame that would come my way after I was published in the next edition of “Guinness Book of World Records” kept me motivated to keep on keepin’ on.

After what seemed like at least an hour had passed (I never cheated and looked at the watch…it would ruin the surprise!) I figured I had the record in the bag so I pressed the stop button and collapsed on our couch. I let the anticipation build for a minute, then I slowly brought my wrist up to eye level. 19:37 was displayed on the screen.

I was disappointed for about thirty seconds, and then the nausea hit. I lay curled up in a fetal position for the rest of the night, clutching my aching stomach. When my dad came down to check on me, he just shook his head when I told him why I was so sick. I’m pretty sure he flat out told me I was somewhat retarded. It was a miserable night. Looking back, what I should have timed was how many hours my stomach cramped and rolled AFTER the spinning. I surely would have won that particular world record.

This is one of many tales from my life illustrating my awesome ability as a little girl to observe the latest fad, jump on the bandwagon, and then turn the fad into the lamest and nerdiest thing ever. So nowadays if you see me turning my nose up at the newest, coolest thing, just know that my snootiness is actually self-defense because I know better than anyone how nerdy and incapable of cool I actually am.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Flashing Dimples

I was on Cloud Nine. My best friend, Mel, had been taking the discussions for months, and now she had decided to take the plunge and officially become a Mormon. She was completing her pre-baptism interview while I waited in the church foyer with the two missionaries who had taught her. I was chatting non-stop, unable to contain my nervous and excited energy.

Mel and I were 18 years old and had both developed a friendship with these two young elders over the past few months. They were familiar with the ten or so other kids in our tight-knit group of friends because we were all in the same stake. One of the missionaries was especially good looking and I had teased him several times about being careful around girls and not being a lustful missionary.

As the three of us sat in the foyer, we began discussing who would be attending Mel’s baptism. I ran down our list of friends and then mentioned that I wasn’t sure if one good friend named Pam would make it back from her sister’s wedding in time for the baptism.

A quick note about Pam – she has always been That Girl that boys of all types are drawn to. She has long, thick blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a beautiful smile with two huge dimples in her cheeks. On top of all that, she plays sports, bakes amazing cookies, she can smoke anyone in a game of pool plus she just has that good-natured “Molly Mormon” aura about her. No one can resist her.

Anyways, the cute elder got a look of slight distress on his face when I said Pam might not come to Mel’s baptism. I was quick to tease him about being in love with her. He got defensive, and so to smooth things over I tried to reassure him by saying, “Oh, don’t worry. You’re not alone…ALL boys love Pam. They can’t help it, all she has to do is flash her big dimples and they all come running!”

His face turned red and he had no response so I figured I had embarrassed him enough for one day. I changed the subject and started prattling on about some other silly thing. Mel eventually came out (having successfully qualified for baptism, despite her telling the missionary who was interviewing her that she was a transsexual, but that’s a story for another day.) I quickly forgot about the conversation in the foyer.

Fast forward two months. Pam and I were both attending BYU and we often ate dinner together in the Morris Center cafeteria. One night, I got there before her and was waiting in a booth. I spotted her walking toward me and waved her over with a big smile, but my smile faded when I saw her red face, bulging eyes and gritted teeth. “JESSICA, I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.”

I quickly racked my brain trying to figure out what on earth she could be mad at me about and couldn’t come up with a single reason. She proceeded to (huffily) tell me that she’d just got done talking to Mel on IM and something very interesting had come up in the conversation. She asked if I had been with the missionaries during Mel’s baptism interview. I had no idea what significance that had, but confirmed that yes I had been. The she asked if I had talked about her with the missionaries. At first I said no, but then I remembered the conversation with the cute elder. But that was all so innocent…ok, maybe I shouldn’t have been talking to a missionary about lusting after my friend, but all in all I had been quite complimentary towards Pam. So why was she now breathing so heavily and giving me the Stink Eye? I asked her to tell me exactly what Mel had told her.

After Mel’s baptism, the elders were visiting her one day to check in and say hello. They asked her about her friends and at one point wanted to know how I was doing in Provo. She informed them that I was slowly making new friends and that luckily, I got to see Pam a lot. At the mention of Pam’s name, the missionaries both turned red and gave each other A Look. Mel noticed their strange reaction and asked what was going on. At first, they refused to tell her why the subject of Pam would prompt such weird behavior.

Mel never takes no for an answer in those types of situations, so after some badgering they finally gave in. They told her all about our conversation in the foyer, but with one major discrepancy. At the end of the story, blushing and stuttering, they reported how I had enthusiastically exclaimed that “all boys love Pam. They can’t help it, all she has to do is flash her big NIPPLES and they all come running.” !!! Why Mel decided to tell Pam before checking the facts with me first, I’ll never know, but she told her this incorrect nipple version of the story and Pam was p-i-s-s-e-d!

She only got madder when I fell sideways on the cafeteria bench, laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. I finally managed to gasp out that I had actually said dimples. It took a lot of convincing before she would believe me, and even then it was a sore subject for years to come, even though I hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

So that’s the end of this particular tale, but I must admit that over the years, some questions arising from this story have lingered in my mind:

1. Am I really so crude that missionaries would not stop to question that I had just talked about flashing nipples to them, in a church, during a friend’s baptism interview?

2. Why on earth didn’t those missionaries stop me in that moment for A. clarification or B. at least a scolding?

3. And last, but not least…which IS the more effective method of enticing boys…flashing of dimples or nipples? (Single girls need to know!)

Pen Hair

During my first semester at BYU, I made two critical mistakes. First, I signed up for three-hour-long night classes two nights a week. Second, I chose the Open Door meal plan which only allowed me to eat in the dorm cafeterias instead of the Diner’s Plus plan which let students eat at any food place on campus at any time. These two mistakes combined meant that when I had my night classes, the cafeteria had closed by the time they were over so I always missed dinner and ended up very grouchy due to almost-starvation.

One Wednesday night after class, I plopped myself down on my bed in my dorm room and started in on what was now a regular tirade. My roommate listened patiently and I finally decided to stop whining and just go down to the little Cougar Corner store in the Morris Center to get something to eat. I never had any cash on me, so I grabbed my checkbook and headed down.

I was young and stupid with money, so I needed to get something very cheap to eat because my bank account was down to its last few dollars. The little convenience store had a grill and so I chose to order a chicken burger that cost something like $2.08 after tax. The employee took the order and rang it up on the cash register and then looked at me expectantly for payment. I pulled my checkbook out of my pocket and sheepishly asked for a pen, embarrassed to be writing a check for such a small amount of money. The guy gave me A Look, which I perceived to be annoyance and slowly reached over to his register and grabbed a pen to hand to me. He looked at me strangely the whole time. My sheepishness quickly turned to indignation. What right did this schmuck have to make me feel stupid for writing a check for $2.08?

“Well soooo---rrry that I don’t carry cash with me all the time and that I don’t have one of those fancy-schmancy debit cards and that I was stupid enough to sign up for a dining plan that only works in the cafeteria which is now closed because it is nine o’clock and I am just now getting done with the longest, boringest class ever offered at BYU and now you have the GALL to give me A Look when I am already tired and hungry and embarrassed enough to be writing this measly check AS IT IS, but it’s still money and you’ll take it whether you think I’m stupid or not!”

This is what ran through my head as I angrily wrote my check, ripped it off all sassily and then threw the stupid kid’s pen down on the counter. When I got my chicken sandwich, I stomped out of the store, through the Morris center, and through the S-Hall lobby filled with my peers, swinging my arms and head all dramatically the whole time to express just how annoyed I was.

After I ate my sandwich, my blood sugar must have corrected itself or something because I quickly became reasonable and happy again. My roommate and I were sitting at our respective desks with our backs to one another while we chatted on IM (probably to each other, we were nerdy and did that a lot even though we were in the same room). Something made me laugh out loud and when I threw my head back for a good guffaw, I felt something strange on the side of my head. I reached up to run my fingers though my hair, and pulled out a pen that was stuck there.

When I had laid down on my bed before leaving for the Cougar Corner, my hair must have landed on my desk. A pen with the cap still on had gotten clipped in when I sat up to leave and I didn’t notice it. It was just hanging there, on the side of my head, not even covered by my hair. I just about died when I realized that the Look I had seen downstairs wasn’t because I was writing a check for such a small amount…but because I had asked for a pen to write that check with when I had a big fat one hanging down the side of my face. The kid was just too embarrassed to say anything. What a sight I must have been, swinging my head around during my silent tantrum, while a pen that was obviously not supposed to be there dangled from my hair. My roommate swore she hadn’t known it was there when I got up to leave for the store. We laughed about it the rest of the night. Once again, my temper taught no one a lesson except myself. More often than not, when I get angry and throw fits, I end up looking like the fool. I’ll never write a small check without remembering that lesson again.

Master Ryan

It may be hard to believe now, but I used to be a very naïve girl. I didn’t know the true definition of “boner” until eighth grade (Hello!? That was Mike Seaver’s bff’s name on Growing Pains!). Someone made me look up the word “prick” in the dictionary after telling me it was an impolite word, but refusing to tell me exactly why. In addition to being a little naïve, I was also stubborn and quick to argue a point when I felt someone was doing or saying something really stupid (I guess I haven’t changed much in that regard).

At the end of my eighth grade year, I was sitting in my English class while our teacher left the room to make a phone call or something, and I had Had Enough! The kids in our class were once again calling Ryan “Master” and laughing like it was the best insult ever. I had built up a healthy dislike for this boy, Ryan, throughout the year-- mostly because my best friend at the time hated him and so I just jumped on the bandwagon. We had decided that he was totally lame and ridiculously cocky, and she and I spent many a sleepover coming up with creative ways we would like to see him suffer. (If I remember correctly, one fantasy involved glass shards and lemon juice. We were a little deranged.)

Ryan and I had several mutual friends and I had noticed their habit of calling him Master with increasing annoyance. That wasn’t even an insult! All they were doing was feeding his already huge ego, right? I had ranted against them several times in my head, but never said anything out loud. But this was the last straw…if they were going to tease Ryan, which I had no problem with, they should at least have the decency to come up with REAL insults.

And so I finally let them all have it. “You guys!” I yelled, “STOP calling him Master. You are all so dumb, you act like it’s so hilarious and it’s totally stupid. Why would anyone think that is funny or insulting? You're just feeding his ego!” They all just stared at me after my little tirade, and after a few moments pause, Ryan himself started speaking to me. Very slowly, enunciating each word.

“Jessica, what is my last name?”

Uh, what did that have to do with anything?

“It’s Bates, Ryan. So what?”

He blinked a couple of times, waiting for a realization that was obviously not coming anytime soon.

“Ok Jessica, say Master.”

“Master.”

“Now say Bates.”

“Bates.”

“Now say them both.”

“Master. Bates….so?”

Everyone just gawked at me, still in total silence.

“Jessica, say it again, but faster.”

“Master. Bates. Master. Bates. I still think it’s stupid to call you Master. How is that even an insult?”

Ryan’s eyes bulged a little and, as if speaking to a dense 5 year old, he tried one last time.

“JESSICA, say Master, then say Bates, but say them faster and put them together.”

“Master. Bates. Master Bates. MasterBates. Masterba…OH!”

Yeah, it really did take me that long and that many tries. Not only had I come across as the biggest ditz ever, I had also managed to be the bitchiest ditz in history as well. The whole class got a good laugh at my expense, which was only appropriate since I had been so hell-bent on making all of them feel stupid in the first place.

Ryan and I became friends the following year, and he actually was one of my best friends until he left on his mission. Our friendship never completely lost the element of needing to put each other in our places and we had many debates over the years. But none that ever left me feeling quite so dumb as that first one, surrounded by our peers in eighth grade English.

Introduction

I have a lot of favorite things in this world, but my most favoritest thing is a good story. Only if it is true though. People who have funny stories about their crazy lives and the crazy people they've met can keep my attention for hours. There's a couple of people in particular that I beg for stories from almost everytime I talk to them. It's the best feeling when they have a new experience to share, and even when they don't, I have a list of their best stories in my head that I make them repeat for me over and over again.

I've begun to think of myself as a collector of other people's stories. It wasn't until my friend Robbie (who currently holds the #1 spot for funniest, craziest, best stories on my list) started showing enthusiasm for my stories that I realized how many crazy experiences I have had in my own life. He suggested I start a blog telling those stories.

And so here it is. Most of the stories are funny. Many of them are embarrassing. Some are better than others, but I'm writing them all down for my own benefit. I need a collection of my own for when I'm 80 and can't remember my life very clearly anymore. Hopefully you enjoy them too, but if there are some you don't really like or understand completely, I'm apologizing in advance. Also, if any of my friends happen to stumble across this blog and find themselves mentioned in the stories, sorry for not changing your names. I'm just too lazy for that, plus what if when I'm 80 I can't even remember your correct names?

I'll never claim to be a good writer, but dang-it I know I'm a good storyteller. So, come gather 'round my proverbial recliner while I reminisce about my crazy life. Enjoy!