Underwear and 2 year olds (a guest post story)

So, my dad has many funny stories. Here is one of his from my parents' recent business trip to Canada which they brought my two year old little brother, J, on:

So, we got here to Canada, Vancouver, BC, and we checked into our hotel. It's a little past Midnight - we're pretty tired. I had already gotten undressed when I realized that I forgot my toothbrush, and Suz, being the wonderful wife she is volunteered to go get me one. J was unhappy about his mom leaving, and was crying. 

I went into the restroom and then heard the hotel room door opening. I ran back around the corner, just to see J run out into the hall way. Not thinking about my current state of undress, I ran out into the hallway and caught him about 15 feet from our door, only to hear our door snap shut behind me. 

Yes here I was in the hallway in my undies with a crying 2 year old.

I was OK until some people came by. I smiled and nodded. One guy paused to talk about my predicament. He was very amused. I was out there for like 5 minutes. Then here came Suz. She wondered, "Why can I hear my baby crying?" then as she came around the corner, "Why is my husband standing in the hall in his underwear?" 

Ah. I know what happened.

Romanticisms. The Song: Part 1 (a story)

So, I want to tell a cute story, but I feel that the funny prelude to it needs to be told first.

That's this post.

My dad is rarely the romantic type. For example, when he was dating my mom and they were talking seriously about marriage, he took her ring shopping. Not too bad, right? So they're looking at rings and things and she points out one that she likes.

The ensuing conversation went something like this:

"So this is the ring you like?"

"Yes."

"Ok."

 *my dad buys the ring with cash right there.*

"I'm not going to wear that out of here you know."

"Well you can't. I haven't asked you."

And so they walk out, my mom with perfect knowledge of the ring she is getting and that he has it.

The next step, of course, is for him to propose. He wants her to take her to dinner somewhere nice and ask her there. He wants her to like the place they go to. He asks her, "So where do you want to go to dinner when I propose to you?"

Very subtle.

My favorite piece is how he asks her. She gave him the name of a restaurant. They go there. They're sitting at the table. At some point, my dad reaches into his pocket and brings out the ring box. He slides it across the table to her and asks her to marry him.

She asks, "Aren't you going to get down on one knee?"

So he gets out of his chair and gets down on one knee and asks again. She says yes. Everyone who hears the story says its a miracle that she did.

That's my dad's reputation for being romantic.

So here we are 23 years later. My mom and dad are still very happily married, and my dad has a crazy idea. A crazy romantic idea....

Hawaiian Dream (a story)

So, funny story. OLD funny story.

Something like four years ago:
 

Going to Hawaii was my dream ever since my parents went there for their 10th anniversary. People made such a big deal about them going there that I figured it must be the land of the gods where the streets are paved in gold and ice cream grows on trees. 

We went as a family when I was about fifteen. 

We drove all over the island of Maui in an immaculate rented van. It is a beautiful place and the ocean was nice, but my favorite feature was the dramatic green jagged mountains. It’s everything I imagine when I think of a tropical rainforest paradise. It rains every few minutes, there are rainbows often, the greenery is stunning and it has incredible variety. It was overwhelming and I couldn’t stop gaping at it all. Green is my favorite color. As far as I was concerned it was the land of the gods, coming from Utah where the summers are yellow, the winters are white, and green is the color of pine trees. I didn’t even think it strange when we found that stray cats tend to wander all over the place.

My family has never been athletic or adventurous like me so I was thrilled with the prospect when my mom announced to everyone else’s groans that we were going on a small five minute hike to a waterfall.  We started out alright.  The sun was shining, it was slightly downhill, and things looked wonderful. We crossed a rushing river filled with boulders that made natural stepping stones. Then we came to a place where there seemed to be twenty different paths we could take all fanning out in front of us and none of them looked like the straight and narrow. How could we know which one was right? There were no signs to mark the true path.

We deliberated as a family and chose the most likely one. We called my little sister back over from where she had wandered as we calculated. She came without complaint as we began our trek anew. It seemed to be a peaceful walk through a rainforest of bamboo. Little mini waterfalls ran in several places--probably the runoff of rain from higher on the mountain. It is always raining somewhere in Hawaii. My six year old sister would run to each of them, almost as excited about them as about the real one we were hiking to.

Then the ground began to climb upwards. It became more and more difficult. Mosquitoes ate us mercilessly. The rain that I had guessed was higher on the mountain found us and turned the soft dirt into mud. The minutes stretched into hours and another family council was held. My father and my older brother turned back. I refused. I was filled with determination. We would reach that waterfall. We trudged on.

Then, we crested the mountain. 

Seriously.

We could see for miles out to the ocean and far away, down below, we could hear a waterfall. We dared to hope. We slid down the steep muddy decline feet first as fast and haphazardly as penguins on ice. We were ravenous for the water like we'd been lost for days. I imagined my clothes being ragged in places where tree branches had caught on them. My sister really had split the knee of her jeans. When we stumbled into that oasis of beauty we probably looked good enough for a Hollywood remake of our story.

The water was precious gold to us. We played in it like the Swiss Family Robinson and were immune to the cold. There was no way this was the waterfall we had set out to see, but that made the find even better in a way. We felt so secret and secluded. We didn’t allow ourselves to think of the hike back or the predicament of being lost in the bamboo forest. Then people appeared over one of the ridges of our private sanctuary.

We froze and stared at them like aliens, rather than a sweet old couple, were helping each other clamber over the boulders. There is no way they made the trek that we had. With only a hint of madness in our voices, we asked them how, where they had come from. They happily said it was a rather easy five minute walk. It was the same waterfall. We had just climbed the mountain and come down the other side in one wide sweeping circle. It was barely five hundred feet back to the place where our path had divulged. The boulders had obscured the waterfall, and the sound of the river masked its noise. 

As we walked back we recognized the area that my sister had been playing in during our first family council. She had found the right path and we had called her back from it. The sun was shining and couple of stray cats followed our sodden forms in the five minute hike back to the car where we found my brother and dad waiting for us, locked out and equally sodden because of the rain. We told them the rest of our story and the horrible irony weighed on us in the silence as we scratched our mosquito bites and wiped at the mud, trying to make ourselves clean enough to sit on the beautiful white interior. As the car door closed automatically, I made eye contact with one of the cats. 

Stop mocking me, you.

Drinking Fountain (a happening)

So, funny story. I just barely posted maybe two minutes ago, but I have to record this experience.

After posting, I got up to fill my water bottle from the drinking fountain down the hall. It has one of those water bottle filler tap thingys on the back of it. Convenient. So, I filled my water bottle.

....

It was yellow. Does this particular water bottle refiller give you lemonade??

I had gotten a drink from this same drinking fountain just a few minutes before. It had tasted rather normal, but then again I hadn't seen the color of the water I was drinking... o_O I looked at it, nervously examining it from arm's length. It looked like it was full of air bubbles. Maybe it was just highly oxygenated and the bottle was slightly yellowish.

I flicked  the neck of the bottle a couple of times and little mists of smoke, gas, brew vapors, whatever it was floated off of the surface. 

I was freaking out just slightly as I walked back to my chair in my well lit, solitary little lounge off to the side in the English building. As I walked through the doors, the color changed from yellow to white. What sorcery is this??! I walked through the doors again towards the drinking fountain. It turned yellow once again. I wrenched my gaze from the bottle for the first time in minutes and looked around.

The lighting in that hallway is very yellow.

I figure it really was just highly oxygenated water reflecting the yellow light of the fixtures.

Crisis averted.

Awkward. The Date: Part 3 (a happening)

So, funny story. Two weeks after the events of The Date, I got a text from Frisbee. He had just seen me at the institute and wondered if I had a minute to talk.

We met up at the same place in the student center that we had always met before. There, he proceeded to quote a couple of bits of my blog post to me. o_O

This piece: "like being the editor of a fishing show." and then "I'm going to use that as an expletive."

I guess he thought I had been a little harsh. I was only trying to make it funny. *insert awkwardly embarrassed smile* Maybe he'll blog about me and our awkward encounters. :P

We talked about it for fifteen minutes or so where I felt awkward and embarrassed but also rather comfortable in his company which made for a really odd combination. Eventually we got over the initial awkwardness  of the situation that I had crafted and talked about other things for another two hours.

We seem to do that a lot.

I wasn't really bored. I never get bored. I just thought my readers might think that my situation was funny because they probably would have been bored in my place. They also would have said something though. (As Frisbee in this latest encounter told me I should have done.)

Oh well. I really rather wish I had met Frisbee before my current boyfriend and I started getting serious. It would have been fun to get to know him. He's really quite an interesting person and I enjoy talking to him. Maybe I'll set him up with my cousin. They'd probably have fun together.

Time (a quick story, musing, and another quick story)

So, really quick funny story. I have class early every morning. 8 am. Anyone who knows me has their jaw on the floor right now. Yes, I do actually go to class. Its really quite the miracle.
I am, however, always late.

Again, anyone who knows me knows that late is the nickname most professors, dentists, and boyfriends give me. I once had a boyfriend break up with me because I showed up two hours late to our date. I did give him warning. I even told him to go home and watch a movie or something. Its not my fault that he sat at the skating rink (five minute walk from his house, really.) for the whole two hours being really bored. He really had no other reason to break up with me. Petty. Granted, I am slightly worried that I will someday show up late to my own wedding.

Today, I had a paper due. Last time I had a paper due, despite planning an extra half hour for unforeseen circumstances, unforeseen circumstances caused me to be half an hour late.

I was late today.

I was only maybe seven or eight minutes late. That's really not terrible, right? As we were leaving class however, one of my classmates confided in me that they took bets on when I would show up and that she had won.

They took bets.

So now I would like to muse on this concept for a little while. Some might be confused as to why I would be worried about showing up late to my own wedding. Its really my choice whether I'm going to be late or not, right? Based on the other choices I make? Well, you could always get up three hours early to show up two and a half hours early to be absolutely sure you will not be late.

I understand this.

There is a limit to how much you can do this before it starts interfering with the rest of your life. I figure if I want to show up to my wedding on time, I will simply have to plan everything out far in advance and triple check everything to make sure that on the actual day I have nothing to do but get ready and show up.

I still plan on getting married in the afternoon.

Somehow I think I would still manage to be late to a morning one.

Regardless, there must be a happy balance between planning well in order to be on time and having enough time for all of the other things you have to do in your life. I certainly have not found it. Some people seem to be effortlessly good at it. They are always on time and they're doing things ten minutes, five minutes before they need to be somewhere.

When I plan it, there is nothing in between being  two hours early and five minutes late. If I happen to show up at some time between those two, it is a fluke. Nothing I plan ever works that way. I must have some sort of incompatibility with the space-time continuum. A time weakness. Anything. Maybe the rest of the people in the world are all super heroes laughing and playing a trick on me. Its starting to seem plausible.

Yesterday, my alarm went off to warn me that my class started in fifteen minutes. The walk over there is five. Three times as much time to get there should be enough, right? I was hungry though, and I knew of a vending machine three minutes away that had my favorite cookies. Three minutes there, a couple getting the cookies, three minutes back, and then five to class. I should have been able to do it and still get to class a couple of minutes early.

I didn't want to risk it. Things go wrong for me in situations such as those. Somehow, I would be five minutes late if I tried it. So I went resignedly down the stairs on my way to class. My path happened to go through the school food court. There, I saw one of my classmates from the class that started soon. My eyes followed him as he walked in the opposite direction with intent. I was slightly confused but turned back towards my goal...

...

where I walked into another classmate from that same class. I greeted him with "hi, what's up." and he told me that he was going to the food court to get something to eat. In confusion I asked him if class was cancelled or something. We only had a few minutes to get to class, right? He looked at me weirdly and said, "I've got time." as he began to walk away. I mumbled something about having seen another of our classmates heading the wrong way, that it had made me wonder, and that I'd see him in class.

Then I walked to class.

I was ten minutes early. I dropped my stuff off and decided I had enough time to head to the bathroom really quickly. I couldn't have taken more than a few minutes. When I got back though, there were the two classmates I had run into sitting there eating their food like it was no big deal. How did they do that?? Did they take their enchilada on a plate, hold it down somehow, and sprint back here? Every time I had tried to get food fifteen minutes before class, no matter how simple and easy the food, (once it was a freakin' slice of bread) I was five minutes late.

The only possible conclusion is that they are superheroes, or it takes me a lot longer than I think to use the bathroom.

Maybe that's the answer to all of my time conundrums.

Living in the Ghetto (a top ten list)

Funny story. After much toil, trial, and strife, I have finally managed to buy a cheap little house to serve as my shelter through the rest of my college years. I really have quite the set up here since my parents paid cash for it and so I am paying rent to them and theoretically not losing anything on it as I rent to own.

The problem is, this house is ridiculous.

Here are some of my favorite features in no particular order:

First, the roof. It seems that the roof will need to be replaced simply because much of it is no longer guaranteed to keep out the ice and snow. In fact, if we were to have a random snowstorm in July, I would probably be buried here with little hope of rescue and nothing to eat but canned chili and spaghettios. (The current staples of my college diet. I hope to add peanut butter and banana sandwiches soon.) In any case, just the fact that the roof needs repairing is not really very funny to me. What I love about it is that there are eight different types of roofing on my tiny little house.Yes, eight. Nine if you include the duct tape. Yes, duct tape. On my roof.

Second, the wiring. The wiring itself of this house is a little dated. Not surprising since the house was built in 1916. My favorite example of it though, was found by my older brother after I'd bought the house. He led me to the office area and pointed to a wire sticking out of the wall and then coiled and hung on a little hook. Ok, a little crazy, I know, but not the insanity he was making it out to be.

"Do you know what it is? Did you follow it? All the way to the end?"

It had looked to me like it was just a regular tv cable, added much later to the house so it ran around the outside instead of in the walls. I'd already shown him this on the front of the house so I didn't know what was so insane about finding another area that did that.

Only, it was not a tv cable. The piece that stuck out of the wall was a small black conduit for the extension cord that was permanently wired into the house at that area. An extension cord being used as permanent wiring. Following it outside it had two junctions where you could plug stuff in, all held together with electrical tape. I am not entirely sure it is fire safe.

Third, the plumbing. Ok, its an old house. I knew I would have to be gentle with the plumbing. I forgot to tell that to my friend (does he have no common sense?) who proceeded to clog my toilet. I'd even just finished telling him about how crazy the plumbing was and how my outdoor tap that my hose and sprinkler were hooked to refused to turn off unless I just shut off water to the whole house. (Yes, my lawn is beginning to look quite green again.)

Fourth, the wall. Between the kitchen and the living room is an inch and a half thick wall.
I just measured it. You could probably break it easily, dear reader.

Fifth, the water heater. We had to replace it. It takes up an eighth of the kitchen. It can't be mounted because its next to the inch and a half wall which can't support the holdings.

Sixth, the fridge. There is no room in the kitchen for a fridge, so I stuck it in my bathroom where there is space for a laundry unit.

Seventh, the...something. All the drawers and half the cabinets in the kitchen were covered with wallpaper featuring chickens and roosters on a beige background. I took it off. Lovely wood underneath, but its all sticky.

Eighth, the bugs. You'd be surprised at how agile box elder bugs are while they're mating. They can still sometimes outrun my fly swatter.

Ninth, the window-now-AC-unit-holder. There was a window that was made from slats of glass. It opened and closed like blinds. I don't know how to describe it beyond that. We took the slats out in preparation to put my AC unit there. It didn't quite fit. We took out the whole frame. It fits now. I'm not sure what we're going to do in the winter or about the eight inch gap at the top. Also, until I got a chain today, it was being held up by packing tape and a piece of my bunk bed frame.

Tenth, the random cement pourings. My favorite one is in the back at the base of the Apricot tree. I guess it was in danger of falling over or something and there was no dirt.

So that's how I ended up here--laying on my futon on the floor, typing, and eating popsicles that I'm pretty sure are made from watery Hershey's chocolate syrup.

Cup Physics. The Date: Part 2 (a story)

So, now we move on to the funny date story.

Last Wednesday: Technically, it started out as hanging out since neither of us had ever really asked the other on a date and we were just meeting up to play some frisbee. He seemed to really love frisbee so I named him such in my mind as we tossed it back and forth in strange new ways for over two hours.

I swear, this kid has the patience and endurance of a rock. I'm not usually the one to get bored with something first. In fact, I don't think I have been the first to get bored with something since I was five. I am the emperor of not-getting-bored-ever-even-through-ridiculous-monotony.
Frisbee seriously challenged my title.

A competition between two people to see who is more patient is like being the editor of a fishing show.

Or watching the editor of a fishing show edit a fishing show.

I'm not sure which of us got tired first, but somehow we both ended up sitting on the grass in the shade and talking. He does make very interesting conversation. I was just glad we were done with frisbee. I was hungry and my legs were sore so running around hadn't been my favorite.

Using the frisbee as a coin to flip, we decided where to go get food. The lot fell to an all you can eat pizza place--one of my favorites. :) We walked to my car through a tiny jungle of an empty lot so filled with vegetation that we almost got lost, but eventually made it to the pizza place without any large mishaps.

He paid, so I suppose at that point it became a date. I didn't really have much choice though. I left my credit card at home, so I was glad he never questioned who would pay. I did choose water to make it cheaper, (and because I love water) though he got a lemonade.

I ate way more pizza than Frisbee did. He probably ate 5 slices or so of regular pizza and then a couple of dessert slices, but those slices are tiny and it is an all you can eat place! I refuse to feel guilty about the 7 regular and 3 dessert slices I ate.

The salad I had to make it "healthy" doesn't even count.

As I was eating my dessert slices, I could tell he was done and so I expected us to leave as soon as I finished. He seemed to be in no hurry though, so I took my time and enjoyed the conversation. Even when my plate was empty he still seemed perfectly content to just sit there, playing with his cup.

His cup was almost twice as tall as mine and made of nicer paper since his was a paid drink. Mine was just a cheap little plastic water cup, but I liked my little friend. It was a cute water cup. I followed suit and began playing with my cup too. It escalated into a full scale cup spinning competition. Who could spin longest? Who could spin it sideways and get it to stand on the lip? Could anyone get it to stand on the base from a horizontal start?

We pretty much created a new sport. It only made it better that we had two very different cups to work with. The paper one had a more controlled spin, but was virtually impossible to get from a horizontal start to a vertical finish. It was great at flips and tricks too, but my little plastic cup was the more entertaining of the two. It would spin like a top and the short stature of it gave it the ability to switch between horizontal and vertical positions during one spin. It was fascinating. We called it Cup Physics. I was actually quite amused for a time, but even with all the fun of Cup Physics the time started to grind on me.

Frisbee's endurace!! (I'm going to use that as an expletive.)

I figured we had stayed after we were finished so we could eat just a little more before we left--one more slice of the Oreo dessert pizza is worth that--but we never went back for more food. When the restaurant finally began closing, it was ten. We figured the math and we had spent four hours there. I don't know how much of that was spent eating, but at least two hours had to have been Cup Physics.

.....

We played with cups for two hours.

Blast from the Past. The Date: Part 1 (a story)

So, ridiculously crazy story that I still don't quite believe happened. I wonder if it will be as weird for you to read as it was to me. Probably not, but you've got to hear how strange it was anyway.
Brace yourself, this might be terribly complicated.

 Last Tuesday: The university is welcoming incoming freshman this week, and today's activity was some sort of scavenger hunt. I planned on sitting in the student center on my favorite couch as usual during my break between classes, and one of the scavenger hunt stops was right next my spot. Walking up to it, eyes on the ground, I happened to glance up, and my heart stopped.


Two and a Half Years Ago:  I was wandering around Lagoon, the local amusement park by myself. I felt like everyone else my age was gone. They pretty much were. The last six months had been filled with their farewells for two-year missions. I was thinking in particular about one boy, whom I had secretly liked through much of high school, as I began a quest to ride the Rocket and not scream when it made me feel like I was falling. I was in a pleasant mood, and as I got off the ride again, a now-familiar mechanical voice instructed me to follow the footprints to the exit. I looked at the ground, and noted to a girl walking beside me that there were no footprints to follow. She caught my joking tone and laughed. She joked about me following them when I, too, got in line again and I told her of my quest. She laughed again and introduced herself, her boyfriend, and the third wheel of their group joking to him that she had found him a date for the afternoon.

He was standing behind someone and looking at the ground. I shifted so I could see who she was talking to just as he looked up and our eyes met. There was electricity for a few moments as we held each other's gaze and my heart skipped a beat in shock. Everything but his red hair reminded me of the boy I'd been thinking of earlier in my reverie.

Over the next month, Rocket and I had a sort of whirlwind romance although he never kissed me.

I was twitterpated, head over heels in like. He was incredibly smart, planned on going into computer science (a nerd!), and we had all sorts of other things in common. After a date I had planned went horribly awry, he left and I never saw him again. I was heart broken. I would text or instant message him from time to time at first to try to get him to talk to me again, and then to find out what it was that had made him cut me off so completely, so suddenly. He only answered me a couple times with very vague, short explanations. The last thing I heard from him was that he had just received his mission call to Paris, France.


Last Tuesday: He was looking down and for those two seconds, memories raced through my mind. I stood in horror as every cell in my body retreated from the idea that Rocket, of all people, was here operating the scavenger hunt booth. Then, he looked up.


My wide-eyed stare lasted a moment or two longer as I struggled to understand and regain control over myself. It was not Rocket. I smiled, probably in an extremely awkward fashion, and walked stiffly over to my couch. My two seconds of terror had still shaken me to my core, and the realization that the memory of Rocket still had so much power irritated me. I got my computer out and began work on my writing assignment, but my eyes were drawn to guy-who-looks-so-much-like-Rocket five times in as many minutes.  Though I calmed down and regained my usually unshakable self control, his presence would not let me concentrate on my writing.

I noted the activity his booth hosted--the Towers of Hanoi, a logic puzzle that most of the incoming freshman had a great deal of trouble with. I figured the solution in my head. It wasn't particularly hard. I watched the guy as he watched the freshmen struggle over it, and I formed a desire to discuss it with him.

So I did. I got up my courage, walked over, and asked if I could try it. He agreed and I quickly solved it using the solution I had worked out in my mind as I watched. When I finished, I asked him what his thoughts were as he watched the freshmen struggle with it. A highly interesting conversation was born. One just like the ones I used to have with Rocket.

We talked for over two hours.

Just talking to him, I could tell that he is really smart. He is a computer science major. We had all sorts of other things in common. The clincher? He went on his mission to France. I just couldn't get over the similarities to Rocket and he looked so freakin' much like the dude. I wondered if they might be related, but from what I gleaned from him, they aren't. I still couldn't get over it, and I had to admit, my curiosity had been piqued.

So I agreed to hang out with him the following day.

Final Project: Part 1.5 (a story)

So, funny story. I've been living at home for the last month, and forgot to ever post here much because I haven't been at college, therefore, there haven't been many crazy college conundrums to report on.

.......

But I'm back at college now.

I'm also in a class where I'm supposed to post in a blog three times a week. I might post here, I might post on a couple of my other blogs, but in general, I'll try to provide you with a story at least every week.

Here's one from the last week of last semester.

It is only a small piece of my adventures during the last weeks of school, but it was significant enough that I feel it deserves its own post. Here's the real funny story:

Something like Wednesday, April 25, 2012: 

It was a dark and stormy night.  Dark in the sense that I and my team were working late on our final project for our C++ programming class. (Synonyms might also include sinister, evil, and I-can't-believe-he's-making-us-do-this-crap-with-these-people.) Stormy in the sense that we were all tired, irritable, and one team member, Pessimist, was making no effort to hide it. It was all I could do to keep myself from kicking his whiny little face or saying something that might jeopardize our friendship in the future like, "You really have the endurance of a two year old, don't you. Otherwise you'd just suck it up, get through this as quickly as possible, and then move on like people usually do."

I can't tell you how frustrated I was. There wasn't even much I could do to help speed things along because I suck at programming. It was one infinite loop of ever-increasing irritation.

In an effort to help us regain our sanity, I suggested, with great enthusiasm, a McDonalds ice cream break. The perpetually excited team member, Enthusiast, was excited (he wanted to drive his new car) and the other tried to shoot it down with his outrageously expressed pessimism. I volunteered to go by myself since I have no talent for programming and I wasn't much help anyway, but truly I just desperately wanted to leave.

It didn't work. Enthusiast still wanted to drive and Pessimist continued to complain by making himself the victim saying things to make us feel bad for forcing him to get ice cream with us. Seriously, if you hate it that bad, just go home... But I kept my peace, and we all clambered into the cherry red coupé Enthusiast loved like it was his first born child. His cheesy grin was made all the more ridiculous by his larger than average mouth. I wondered if he was the reason the phrase "grinning ear to ear" came into use.

So we drove to the old-style McDonalds on main street. It's my favorite because it still has the giant yellow arches on either side of the building and the asymmetrical larger-in-front, smaller-in-back style making it look like a book held open by a pencil that was used at its book mark. It was actually built in the seventies, but it still makes me feel like I've stepped back in time to the old diners of the 50s for some reason.

We arrived.

Went to the drive through, joking and laughing as we already began to relax with the expectation of frozen fake dairy goodness.

We ordered our cones.

 "I'm sorry, our ice cream machine is down."

Are they serious?? This is McDonalds. They aren't a human company, but one run by robots that want to take over the world, so they CAN'T have their ice cream machine go down. These are robots after all, can't they just magically fix it themselves??

No matter. After some discussion and surprisingly good humored irony from the Pessimist, we have made a decision. To the other McDonalds!!

 "Sorry, our ice cream machine is overheating right now."

Are you kidding me.

Your... ice cream machine... is overheating?!

*Silence*

How on earth does an ICE CREAM machine OVERHEAT??


DO ALL MCDONALDS ICE CREAM MACHINES STOP WORKING AT 3 AM?!??

Why must they deny us our frozen sanity??

Luckily, Enthusiast displayed his intelligence by driving away in the silence before my tirade.

.....

to WALMART.

Better ice cream anyway.

They're not totally sure I'm serious, but it is obvious that I am more unhinged by these developments than I am letting on, so they don't question it and we drive across the street to Walmart. By this point, they've both lost the defining traits that name them by. The only thing that matters is my ice cream. We get cookies 'n' cream, and chocolate, pay, and we're walking towards the cherry coupé Enthusiast loves, and at the sight of it, a bit of his original goofy smile returns.

As we drive home, I am holding the ice cream like Smeagol holds the one ring, slightly hunched over in a protective stance. Silence pretty much reigns until we get back to Enthusiast's house where bowls are brought out, and I begin to devour the precious. A little more of my sanity returns with every bite.

Stupid McDonalds.

Tea. (a happening)

So, funny story. I wrote this post a few weeks back. I don't remember why I didn't post it.

.......

I guess I just forgot to.

So, here it is.

Something like Thursday, April 19, 2012:

So, I'm pulling another all-nighter. This will be something like the sixth one in a row I've done. Now, when I say all-nighter, I don't mean that I don't sleep, I just mean that I get very little sleep. Sometimes I am too tired to make it, so I take a nap and then wake up early in order to finish whatever it was that I needed to finish. Usually when this happens, I go to sleep after my roommate, and I wake up before her, thus producing the illusion that I do not sleep at all.

She probably thinks that I am not human.

I told her that by this point, my body is quite used to it and that I'll get more sleep when I have time. I'll eventually catch up, but for now, the night hours seem to be my most productive and I can't give that up with the end of school drawing nigh.

I've discovered something in my late night escapades though.

While burning the midnight oil, you LEARN things about yourself.

For example, when working late at night, I crave cheese more often than even chocolate.

I'm eating some right now.

I also tend to enjoy mindlessly eating popcorn by the handful. If I didn't keep it plain I might be in trouble because I've eaten two mixing bowls full just tonight, and butter would make it difficult to switch between typing and stuffing my face.

Also, I am always thirsty. I mostly drink water, but herbal teas are a close second. I even have these huge mugs that are big enough to cover my whole face when I'm trying to get those last drops. I have four of them, and all four have been dirty at the same time before. I really like tea. :P I particularly like Mormon (Ephedra) Tea. I think it is the most useful in helping me get it all done. Also, I think it is what allows me to function in the morning when I go to two hours of gymnastics after as many hours of sleep. I'm telling you, it works miracles.

I am a strong believer in Mormon Tea.

I'll share some with you if you want. We pick it in the desert for free. Its a very healthful and sustainable habit. You might not like it at first though. It is somewhat of an acquired taste. If you don't like it, I'll share another drink I like with you instead. Its called Mugicha. >:D

If not, you can be lame and have a mug of hot chocolate like I did today. :P

Life Decisions (a happening)

So, story. I'm not really sure if its funny. I just need to tell it. 

I was sitting on my bed in my room messing around on the computer when my elbow starts to itch. I turn to look at the offending appendage, and there is a spider on it. Before it had registered in my mind what was actually going on, I felt several moments of irrational fear during which I brushed it off in a lightning fast twitch and nothing occupied my mind but separating myself from the thing. Then I looked at it again as I contemplated how to kill it....and I realized how very cute it was. GAH. I thought a spider was cute!! Alas, I could not kill it. I knew, however, if I was to sleep at all tonight, I must remove it SOMEHOW.

I stared at it as I struggled internally through this thought process: If I can't kill it, I need something to move it outside with, but if I leave to get something to move it with it could (definitely would) get away and then I'll NEVER be able to sleep.I could move it with my hand. Nope, I could not move it with my hand. I could move it with something else. There's nothing here and if I take my eyes off of it, it will disappear. All interspersed with: I could kill it. .... but its so cute! GAH. This cycled through my brain several times as the tiny little (it must have been cute because it was tiny) offense to civilization walked at a leisurely pace across my sheets. (Not creepily in the slightest. If it had gone fast or creeped me out somehow, rational thought would not have been possible and it would have died swiftly.)

My struggles were just as great as a college kid deciding on a major, a philosopher contemplating the meaning of life, or a seven year old deciding on an ice cream flavor. My circumspection was cut short, however, by the spider reaching my blanket which it could then disappear into never to be seen again leading to paranoia all night. I had to make a decision. NOW. So, I grabbed the book next to me and stuck it between the spider and the blanket with millimeters to spare. I spent the next few hours or seconds, I'm not really sure since the philosophical debate in my head between killing it and letting it go continued, trying to get the spider onto the book somehow. I finally got it onto the white end page where it began furiously (but still not creepily) trying to figure out what was going on by running madly everywhere. I carried it to the window and opened it just as it moved to the cover. I almost lost it in the confusion of the words, but I saw him. I reached up and opened the window, then glanced back at the book as I prepared to release him. (I named him Sam.) Sam was gone. I looked all over the book but I could not see him. I looked around the immediate vicinity, and I could not find him. I knew he would disappear if I took my eyes off of him!!!

And that is the end of my story.

Except that my sister then came in, and since it was so fresh and so traumatizing, I had to tell her, and at the end of my tale my sister asked two questions:

"What book was it?"

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

"Where is the book?"

.... Book is outside. o_O

Laundry Day (a guest post story)

So, my roommate has a funny story. This week's post is written by her. :)

Alright, I am one of Allie's many roommates and I have my own crazy college conundrum to share. One quiet Sunday morning/afternoon I decided to wake up early and be productive.

Ha, I'm never productive.

So, I got up around 11:00 (yes, that's early) and I was full of determination.

Determination to do some laundry.

If there is one thing in this world that I absolutely hate, it would have to be laundry. I absolutely HATE laundry. Anyway, I get up to do laundry.

Everything was just fine in the beginning, I started a load of whites and everything was going well. I realize it is a quiet Sunday which is when most people on our floor decide to do their laundry, so I'm sure to be considerate and not leave my stuff in there after it's done. Besides, I didn't want anyone touching my stuff in case I did take too long and they were brave enough to move it.

 Our washers take approximately 40 minutes per load and I had two. One white load and one colored load. When I walked in, the washer was free, so I was in luck and I started my first load. After 40 minutes were up, I walked in to move my whites to the dryer and put my coloreds in the washer. I notice that someone else's stuff was sitting next to the washer. Clearly they wanted the washer next, and I understood that, but I was going to finish mine first. That makes sense, right?

While I was in the process of switching someone else walks in hoping to to use the washer right away. I gave him an apologetic look and said, "I"m sorry, I'm just putting in my second load." He was very kind, understood and said he'd come back after I was done. My load of coloreds was now in the washer.

 Again, I realized I needed to be considerate and not waste anyone's time, so I walked in not even 2 minutes after my load of coloreds should have been done

and...the stupid boy who had put his stuff next to the washer was in there taking out my clothing!! 

This was not ok. 

I give him this look like, "Seriously? You seriously couldn't have waited 2 minutes for me to get in here and move my own wet clothing?!"

I awkwardly go to the dryer and take out the whites that had just finished in there so I can put the wet colored clothing in next. He finished putting his stuff in the washer and left. I sat there a couple of minutes longer thinking about it. The entire encounter was plain... awkward. 

 I had never really seen this boy before (because ALL the boys in this building suck and think they're God's gift to Earth because some of them are able to decently play football, I guess) and I had hoped to never see him again. Not possible since I live in the same building with him, but I had somehow managed to go this far without seeing him. 

There was still hope. 

Hope that I would never have to see his stupid bug eyes and squishy face again. Regardless of whether or not I would see him again, there was still one more possible awkward experience I had to survive: when I would go to take my coloreds out of the dryer.

What do I do?

I come 15 minutes early before my stuff in the dryer is done.

I sit and wait.. just sit and wait. I knew he would come around. I felt so mischievous and evil.

This time I wanted to control the awkward.

As expected, he walks in as soon as his load was done but mine still had 4 minutes left.

Washers take approximately 40 minutes and dryers take approximately 45.  He walks in with this very surprised look, he never expected me to be there. He thought he could walk all over me and get away with it. Not today buddy!! So, he sees me waiting, staring at him, sees mine isn't done and walks out. 

But, before the door shuts, I hear him mutter some pretty foul language under his breath. 

He returns as soon as those 4 mins were up, I take my stuff and leave without giving him another glance. After that I gave him the condescending name of, "Laundry Boy." 

But, there's more. 

Our other roommate, Jasmine, has been crushing on this black guy down the hall, Dreds, and so she's been hanging out with all of the guys down there. I described to her who Laundry Boy is and she figured out who I was talking about. One day, she brought me up and told him that I call him Laundry Boy. Luckily I haven't seen him since he found out I call him that, because I hear he calls me "Laundry B****." 

Every single time he comes up, I get so frustrated and yell, "I hate Laundry Boy!" After hearing me yell that Jasmine always says, "Ya know, hate turns to love." 

NO. 

If hate turned to love, then me and Laundry Boy would be soul mates. There's absolutely no way I'm going to allow myself to end up with that garbage. His face is awful, pretty sure he has minimal brain cells left, and his ego is out of control. 

I hope Laundry Boy hears me screaming my hatred for him one time. I seriously can't stand anything about that stupid boy and every time I think about him I'm near tears because I hate him so much. --

Thanks for your guest post. The social atmosphere of residence halls is rather strange, don't you think? I'm sure I'll think of more funny stories about it, like how the boys down the hall never seem to do their laundry until they have no shirts left, obviously, because they are ALWAYS shirtless when they walk to the laundry room. However, the funny piece I would like to add here is that this all occurred somewhere around the time of the Casino Night events, and we figured out that Laundry boy is Timid, and Dreds is Football Player. I like those names better, so I'll refer to them as Laundry boy and Dreds in the future. I'm sure this isn't the end of our encounters with those two...