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.