Jun 21, 2011

Homemade Failure

A number of years ago, in the prime of my adolescence, I fell for a fireball named Nicole Dawson. For years I drooled over this hot commodity. I watched her go in and out of relationships, always wondering If I'd ever get my chance. Whenever she had a boyfriend I would try to spend as much time at her house as possible, making sure she wouldn't forget that I was around. Ha ha.

Whenever she was single I spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort discovering new ways to impress her. One year in high school I heard she was giving up cheerleading to be the mascot. Then I heard there was gonna be 2 mascots. I decided I would try out also because hey, if we were both mascots what more do you need right? I mean realistically who can resist a guy in a sweaty mountain lion costume that spends his Friday nights entertaining fans and geting screamed at by cheerleaders for "being in the way."

So the day of try-outs came and I was nervous. When they told us we'd be performing one at a time in front of the 2 cheer coaches without any other contestants watching, I was a little LESS nervous. Nicole was one of the first to try out. I knew she would make it. How did I know? She rented a sumo suit and did a dance performance to "She's a Brick House." She locked down the first spot. Only moments later it was my turn. I had no costume but I had a prop. I thought it might help. It was a cardboard cut out in the form of a person. I told the coaches it was a "cheerleader." I hesitate to say I remember much of what happened during my 60 seconds of fame but you really only need to know 4 things.
1) I brought my sisters Mariah Carey CD with me.
2) I threw the cardboard cheerleader around like a rag doll.
3) I ended my routine with a backflip.
4) I GOT THE JOB!

Was beign the mascot everything I ever dreamed it would be? Sure it was. Did being the Mascot get me any closer to dating my dream girl? NOPE! Did it stop me from trying? Not at all.

One day I decided I would impress Nicole with what I thought was her favorite dessert. A cherry pie. Now at the time, I assumed she would also like a guy that cooked for her. So I ruled out the frozen store-bought option, and went for the impossible. I was going to bake her a pie from scratch. You better believe I rode my bike to Safeway and picked up all the necessary ingredients. I spent a couple hours in the kitchen and Wa-la! I had my masterpiece! It smelled AMAZING! I was so pumped! Who could resist this? By that I mean, who could resist me, after doing this? She couldn't possibly pass me up.

The Dawsons lived about a half mile away and I didn't want to walk that far, so I decided I would ride my bike at a slow speed. I would hold the pie in one hand and use the other hand to steer my bike. I think you know where this is going. I made it all the way to her driveway, but just as I went to steer my bike up the sloped curb, my front tire (that was kinda flat) turned sideways. This caused the back end of the bike to elevate, sending both me, and my homemade masterpiece flying onto the driveway. Well, let me take that back. The pie landed on their bright red mustang, then fell to the driveway.

I WAS DEVESTATED! I remember laying flat on my back on the driveway wondering how this could have happened. I mumbled over and over again, "Why me? Why now?" I spent the next few minutes scraping as much of the pie off their car, and off their driveway as I could, placing it back into the pan. Then I thought, "Ok, so do I go home and just pretend like I didn't even try, or do I milk the sympathy cow for all it's worth." I went the sympathyy route and rang the doorbell hoping Nicole would answer and I could melt her heart with my sob story. Well, it didn't work out quite like I planned. Her mom answered the door and I decided to give her my sob story instead. Thankfully, being one of the nicest people on the planet, she was incredibly sympathetic! She let me wash my hands and clean up the road rash on my arms. However, Nicole never got her fresh cherry pie, and I never got my adolescent dream girl.

The moral of this story??? ALWAYS PUMP UP YOUR BIKE TIRES!!!!

Jun 10, 2011

Sometimes You Gotta Look Back and Laugh

**CAUTION** If you are offended or grossed out by farting you probably won't be a big fan of this story. So don't read it.

As I've mentioned in a couple previous entries, my little brother Russ and I shared a room for quite some time growing up. During that time we found various ways to entertain ourselves. Sometimes we connected a few pieces of flimsy race car track, placed one end under the mattress and tucked the other end into the top drawer of our dresser, allowing the middle of the track to sag down a couple feet. Then we'd each grab a small car, place them on opposite ends of the track, and let them go. They would collide in the middle and more often than not one of the cars would fly off the track. The winning car would move on to the next round. It might sound silly, but to a couple of boys that had to share a room it made for some fun times.

However, not everything we did to entertain ourselves was so harmless. One night, Russ and I were up late laughing about anything and everything. It was just one of those nights. I happened to have a bad case of the farts too. Which had us laughing even harder. I don't know how or why all of the events of that night unfolded but at some point I thought it would be funny to take the lid off of a Snapple bottle and try to “bottle my fart.” So I did it. I remember laughing so hard before and after, I was crying. Russ was too. I placed the Snapple bottle on our dresser and we wondered if it would still smell the next day.

Fast forward to the next morning. My mom came in the room and turned on the light to wake us up. I of course immediately thought of the bottle on the dresser. I said something to my mom like, “Mom you see that glass bottle on the dresser? I don't know what the inside of it smells like but it smells funny. I can't pin point it. It's weird, you should smell it!” I saw Russ duck under his covers, I assume so my mom wouldn't see him trying so hard not to laugh. It took a little more convincing, but eventually my mom took the bottle off the dresser, removed the lid, and took a big whiff. I cannot tell you exactly what she said but I can tell you that Russ and I have spent the last 15 years or so laughing about it!!!!

The moral of the story? If you're gonna fart in a jar, at least keep it to yourself. I still feel bad about conning my mom into smelling it, but DANG was it hilarious!!

Jun 3, 2011

I Should Really Pay Attention...

A number of years ago I would occasionally baby sit Andy and Kurt Haws. Far from a monumental tasks, as Andy spent most of his time watching tv and Kurt shared his time between playing with Andy, and playing with Barbies. Never did understand the latter half of that.

On one particular Friday night, Lindy Haws, the mother in the family, was running through the typical pre-babysitting routine while I sat at the kitchen table paying little to no attention to what she was saying. I figured it was the same thing she always said just before she and her husband took off for the night. Something like, "Ok, Scott, here's some phone numbers in case there's an emergency, here's where we're gonna be, we should be home around 11, yada yada yada, make yourself at home and eat anything you can find, yada yada yada. I don't remember hearing anyting out of the ordinary on that night.

So fast forward a couple hours, Kurt and Andy are both asleep, and I'm developing a SERIOUS case of the munchies. So I wandered into the kitchen, rummaged through the pantry, opened and closed the fridge like 15 times, and finally decided I'd indulge myself in the red velvet cake that was resting on the stove top. It was practically beckoning to me to have a taste. So I did just that. Only I had more than a taste. I ate like half the cake. It was DIVINE! Beyond it's magnificent taste however, I didn't think much about what I'd just done.

Fast forward about a month. I'm beginning to wonder why Lindy hasn't asked me to babysit again. It's Sunday and I see Andy in the hallway at church. I asked him if they got a new babysitter and he told me yes, but I don't remember if I knew who it was or not. In fact I don't remember much of our conversation other than being told one vital piece of information. His mom was really upset that I ate the cake. Apparently it was for something special and during her typical routine before leaving, I'd missed the "Don't eat the cake on the stove top" memo.

Whoops... My bad!

Jun 2, 2011

"Look bro... I'm Sorry..."

The following story took place during my church mission to southern Georgia. More specifically it took place just before Christmas in 2004, inside of a Dairy Queen, on the outskirts of a small town called Gray.

Me and my companion, Elder Crookston, were riding our bikes home down highway 20 around 9 pm when we decided to make a pit stop at Dairy Queen. The pit stop wasn't for food though. You see Crookston had to drop the deuce and decided he couldn't wait 5 minutes til we got home. So we locked up our bikes up, took off our nerdy helmets and went inside. Seeing as how I didn't even need to go to the bathroom perhaps I should've avoided the area completely, but I decided I'd just go in and wash my hands.

Now you'll have to do your best to visualize this but the bathroom was set up (from left to right) sink, urinal, stall. Crookston was already in the stall reeking things up by the time I walked in to wash my hands. Well, no sooner had I turned on the sink than the door to the bathroom opens, and in walks, or should I say stumbles, a very large, very drunk, and very scary looking man. I didn't think much of it other than he was twice my size, I could smell the alcohol on him, and he looked like he was ready to kill somebody. So I guess just the obvious. haha.

So the drunk guy starts to take a leak at the urinal just to the right of the sink I'm standing at, and just to the left of the stall my companion is sitting in. Just keep that in mind. When I was done washing my hands I began looking at the paper towel dispensener attempting to figure out how to ACTUALLY get paper towells to come out of it. Then I noticed a sign that said "Wave hand in front of sensor to dispense paper towels." This was the first time I'd seen one of these things. So I did what the sign told me to do and began shaking both my hands in front of what I thought was the sensor. Suddenly, a paper towel roll began to emerge from the bottom of the dispenser about a foot at a time. I'm not gonna lie, I was fascinated.

I continued to shake my hands back and forth until I had about 4 feet of paper towels to work with. Then, just as I tore off the last strip, the drunk guy standing just a couple feet to my right screams out, "Hey, what the hell's your problem man?" This was the remainder of our conversation as I started drying my hands with a rather confused look on my face...

Me: "Uhmmm nothing, just drying my hands."
Drunk Man: "No you're not!"
Me: "I don't understand, yes I am."
Drunk man: "You're F*&#@* % throwing water on me!"
Me: (Pausing for a moment to try and figure out what he's talking about) "When did I throw water on you?)
Drunk Man: (Still taking a leak just a few feet away) "Don't play stupid, m***** f*****, you just threw water all over my face!"

I paused yet again and then suddenly realized that while shaking my hands back and forth in front of the paper towel dispenser I had accidentally flicked water on his face. The conversation continued as follows...

Me: (Sort of chuckling) "Oh wow! Man, I'm sorry, I was just trying to get the paper towels to come out, I didn't even know I was getting water on you. That's my bad."
Drunk man: "It ain't funny B****! Don't laugh!"
Me: (Now getting a little bit nervous and a little bit angry at the same time) "Look Bro, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. Just relax!"
Drunk Man: "Why you still laughing?"
Me: (Now leaning more towards the angry side) "I'm not laughing!"
Drunk man: "You think it's funny?"
Me: "Not at all!"
Drunk Man: "How'd you like it if I just turned around right now and started pissing all over your shoes?! You wouldn't be laughing so hard then would you?!"
Me: "Bro, I'm not laughing anymore, and I already apologized. It was an accident! You need to calm down!"
Drunk Man: "Ya well F*** you!"

At this point I'm thinking, man I'd love to knock this drunk punk out, leave him laying in the bathroom, and tell a Dairy Queen employee he passed out. But considering I was sporting a missionary name tag I concluded that it probably wasn't the best "career move." So instead I walked out into the hallway, stood against the wall, and waited for Elder Crookston to finish taking a dump. Then, almost immediately, I thought to myself, "Wow, Elder Crookston heard that entire conversation but couldn't see a thing because he was inside the stall." hahaha. I started laughing out loud to myself thinking of how awkward all of that must have sounded to him. Well about a minute later Crookston walked out with a confused look on his face, and a few feet behind him was the drunk guy. The drunk guy nudged Elder Crookston out of the way and walked quickly past both of us, staring me down the whole way, before exiting out the front doors.

Crookston promptly asked me, "What in the world was that all about?" I responded, "I don't know man. I accidentally flicked water on the guy and next thing I know he's cussing up a storm and he wants to fight me!" Crookston started laughing and said, "Man, I was sitting there going taking a dump thinking to myself, geez if Sorensen gets in a fight he's on his own, I'm a little pre-occupied." We both started busting up laughing as we walked outside, unlocked our bikes, and started the short ride home.

The moral of this story??? When using a motion activated paper towel dispenser, do your best to make sure the people within "water flicking" distance are sober/and or not ready to fight you!

The End!