Stories and Journals

Transportation and Frustration

2010-06-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Painting by Lance Anderson

When: June 1998
My Age: Eleven

Three Word Teaser: Fight, Break, Wagon

          Sometime within a few days of school getting out for the summer, my buddy Evan and I decided to build a go-cart. Evan had moved to Longview that year, and recently to a house .1 miles away from mine; I know that because that’s how far Mapquest told us it was. We had met and become friends during the school year. We were both in sixth grade.
          Before moving to Longview, Evan had lived in New Mexico. I was told that while living there he had built several go-carts with another neighborhood friend also named Chris. I’d never built a go-cart or anything like it before, but I had always wanted to.
          At some point the idea of building a go-cart together came up. It probably came up when Evan told me about building them with his neighbor. A day or two before we started building, we looked through my garage to see what we could use to make the go cart, and also to see what we needed to buy later. I decided not to ask my parents whether it was okay to use things on the go-cart. Instead, I thought it would be easier to judge for myself. I wasn’t comfortable using parts from my rollerblades, or anything else that was mine. After a bit of rummaging, we came across my old wagon.

          Evan explained that it would work well because the wheels would be easy to take off and reattach to the go-cart. In addition to that, the front wheels swiveled with the handle, so that would be easy to convert for the steering of the go-cart. I decided that, since I didn’t use that wagon anymore, it was cool if we took it apart.
          As Evan explained his ideas for the go-cart, I discovered that what we were actually building was not what I had considered a go-cart, but was more of a sled on wheels type thing. I had pictured something using a motor—something that had a steering wheel. That was not what we were doing.
          On the afternoon of the build Evan’s mom took us to Fred Meyer to gather supplies. We combed the aisles for the right stuff. We decided that our first step should be to get the wood. Evan selected a piece that I felt was too thin.
          “That’s too thin.”
          “No. It’s fine.”
          “You’re saying that this is the piece we’re sitting on, right? It might work for a little while, but I don’t think it’ll support us for very long.”
          “Trust me. I’ve built them before. It’s fine.”
          I’m sure the dialogue was different than that, but those were the main points that I remember. After five to ten minutes of the same stuff, I decided to drop it. He was the one that had built whatever we were building before, and his mom was paying.
          Next we decided to buy some screws. I let the argument of what screws to buy die quicker than the wood one. We’d been there a long time, and Evan was able to use the same reasons for why he should pick the screws as he did for the wood. Frankly, I don’t know why I went. On the drive back to Evan’s house I’m pretty sure that we all wished Evan had went without me. That way I wouldn’t have been able to complain as much, and I’d just have to deal with what he bought.
          Soon after we returned to Evan’s we got to work. Our first step was to cut the big piece of wood that we bought. To be honest though, I’m not sure that was a real step that we took. I remember the wood being shorter than when it was purchased. However, the wood was in the exact same shape as when it was purchased. The only difference is that it may have been shorter. I’m not sure we did anything.
          Our second step was to attach the wheels. That consisted of the less than arduous task of screwing the base of the wheels to the wood. It was about as easy as attaching trucks to a skateboard deck.

          It looked ridiculous. Imagine a long, thin, piece of wood on top of wagon wheels. It seemed a lot higher off the ground than it should have been.
          Next, it was time to ride! Predictably, neither of us wanted to be the captain of this maiden voyage. Evan and I both lived on a rather large hill, and we’d not yet developed a very advanced braking system. At the time, the way in which we’d stop our downhill racer was to put our feet on the ground and wear away the soles of our shoes. It wasn’t very well thought out, and we were both aware.
          After some bickering, it was decided that I’d test it out, but only ride for a little bit. After that, Evan would ride for a little longer, and so forth. I settled onto the wagon-wheeled piece of lumber. The wood creaked, and curved into somewhat of a “U” shape. The fears I had at Fred Meyer were legitimized, and came returned to the front of my head in full force.
          “Whoa! This thing is gonna break. The wood is too thin,” I said.
          “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about the little squeaks and stuff,” Evan said.
          I was already on the thing, so I figured, “Why not?” and began the first ride on what looked like the weirdest skateboard ever.

It looked like this, but with the wheels from the wagon above. Oh, and without the brake stuff. You know what? Maybe it didn't look like this very much.

          The wood wiggled and bounced beneath me. After a distance I’d estimate was no more than ten feet I was done. I put my feet down, scraped up the soles of my shoes, and stood up.
          “Okay, your turn,” I said.
          Evan didn’t put up a fight for this turn. I would have been surprised if he did. It worked well enough to carry me ten feet, and I was heavier than Evan. It seemed like it might work, after all.
          Evan squatted over the thing—whatever it was, and sat down. Crack!
          “Oh! I told you this would happen,” I shouted.
          “God damnit!” said Evan.
          “See? The wood was too thin!”
          “It wasn’t the wood!” said Evan.
          It sure seemed like it was the wood to me. The wood had cracked where we put the screws for the wheels. This particular back and forth went on for another good fifteen minutes, and without much of anything new said. Evan did wind up claiming that it was my wagon wheels which were the problem, but that seemed stupid since we knew we had those before we went to the store.
          I find it a little hard to stomach now that I was so stubborn when I was so young. I still feel like I was right, but I think I should have recognized to let that one go, perhaps...at least let it go once I noticed nothing new was being said.
          “Fuck you! You’re an idiot and an asshole!” I said.
          “You’re a piece of shit. Fuck you!” said Evan.
          I don’t remember it word for word, but that’s pretty much how the fight ended. After that, I walked home. I hadn’t gotten in a fight with a friend before where I’d walked home still upset before. As far as I was concerned we weren’t friends anymore. I was already reminding myself that we hadn’t even been friends for very long, so it wasn’t a big deal.
          We didn’t talk for the rest of the summer. One time my mom asked me why I hadn’t hung out with Evan lately. “He’s an idiot,” was the only thing I told her. It seemed like a succinct and complete answer to the question.

There Goes SPARTA!!!

2010-04-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

This is a photo that was taken of our band at our Burgerville photoshoot.

When: Spring 2004
My Age: Seventeen

Three Word Teaser: Lies, Concert, Tarantula

          About a month before the Sparta show, TJ Suckerpunch, a Longview-based promoter, posted a poll on the Pink Tarantulas’ website forum. Pink Tarantulas was a website that showcased local bands; it was run by a guy who I will refer to as GPT. The poll was part of a thread that TJ posted that asked people who wanted to see open for Sparta. Malinger, my band, was in contention.

This is Sparta. The photo is a link. Click it to learn about them.

          My friends, Matt and Steve, had been playing with me in Malinger for two and three years at that time. Our drummer, who I will refer to as E, had been playing with us for less than a year—he was a freshman in high school. Because E was a freshman in high school, things were more of a struggle. His parents really pushed extracurricular activities outside of the band (extra extracurricular activities, if you will). His other activities included things like lighting and sound for school plays, marching band, working out, and making appearances at more birthday parties than you could shake a stick at. In addition to that, E was only allowed to ride in a car driven by his parents, so to make a practice or show work everyone’s schedules had to align. To help with this situation, we asked for available days and nights that E could play every month, and he, or his mom, would email the dates, so we could try to plan around the schedule.
          Sparta was one of Steve’s favorite bands at the time, so naturally he was elated at the possibility of playing with them. I was less of a fan than Steve, but I was still a fan, and I knew how much this show would mean for our band if we could play. For unknown bands to be able to play at new venues, they have to send out press kits that have CDs, photos, a biography, and a list of places you’ve played, and a list of other bands that you’ve played with. To be able to put Sparta on the list of people we played with would have allowed us to get on bigger and bigger bills, which would get us more and more of a following, and so forth until we became bigger than Jesus. Okay, maybe that’s stretching it a little, but that is what it felt like. It was a huge deal to me, Matt, and Steve.
          We brainstormed the best way to get people to vote for us and help us get on the show. So, we emailed our whole mailing list. We said that we really needed their help because the show was important for our band. We had gathered a few hundred email addresses at that point by having people sign up at our shows if they liked us.
          It worked flawlessly. Our fans were amazing. Within a day after sending the email, Malinger had more than twice the votes of the band in second place. We were going to play with Sparta! The poll was supposed to end a few days or so after that first day when we pulled head and shoulders above everyone. The voting cooled down a lot after that day. I think we made the other bands give up—we broke their spirits. We were destined to play with Sparta, not them.
          We had all but figured out what our set list would be for the Sparta show when it happened. GPT posted on the thread asking for Malinger to be disqualified. It’s important to note that GPT was friends with the lead singer of the band in second place, some noisecore band, who were trying to play their first show ever…come on, after Malinger had been playing for years? Ridiculous. GPT’s reasoning behind his plea for disqualification was that almost all of Malinger’s votes had come from people who had only registered to become members recently, after the thread had been posted. The new members did nothing but vote for Malinger; they never returned to the forum. He claimed that this poll was supposed to be for Pink Tarantula’s members only.
          Wait, what?! Steve and I posted replies asking where it said in TJ’s post that it was only for PT members. Other forum regulars sided with GPT.
          “Yeah, it should only count for people with more than 10 posts.”
          “They should be disqualified!”
          “Some other bullshit statement! Grrr.”
          You know how it goes…other friends of the noisecore fella’, who was actually a pretty nice guy and stayed out of it for the most part. Needless to say, we were furious. Thankfully, TJ came to our rescue. He posted that it would be ridiculous to only use a small selection of people. He only posted there because it got the most traffic. What he was after was a somewhat reliable way of seeing which local band could draw the most people, or perhaps, which local band wanted it the most. He said it was all about who had the most votes by the time the poll ended.
          It felt fucking great. We thought we had won, again. Then GPT started trying to pull some other nonsense about how people were using multiple emails to sign up and vote. He claimed he could tell by the IP numbers. We replied saying that we couldn’t control what our fans did, and that we hadn’t instructed them to sign up multiple times, that it wasn’t us that doing it. GPT was furious and continued to try and sell a disqualification—a dumb move, since we were such nice boys.
          So again TJ came on and stressed that the only thing he cared about was the poll result. At our first band practice since the poll, we started celebrating. E had never heard of Sparta, so we explained how great they were and how rad the show would be—how it would be one of our biggest shows, and could launch us into greatness, or another show, whatever. His eyes got big and he was getting just as pumped up as us. We told him about having to fight against the dirty Pink Tarantulas moderators and so forth. It was a tale that really emphasized the thrill of victory.
          “Great, so what day is the actual show?” said E.
          “It’s the umpteenth.”
          “The umpteenth of this month?”
          “Yeah.”
          “Uh…I can’t play,” said E.
          “What!?! Why not?”
          “There’s a school dance that night. I told you about it in the email. I said I wouldn’t be able to.”
          For the rest of the day Steve, Matt, and I tried to convince E to blow off the dance. We said he was a freshman, and there will be plenty more to go to. They aren’t even that cool. We pointed out how playing with Sparta when you are a freshman is something that’s way rarer than a school dance, and how he should do that instead. He wouldn’t budge.
          That night we re-read his email. He did indeed say that he couldn’t do it that day, we just missed it. Still though, I feel like playing with Sparta is way better than a dance, especially if playing helps four people, including himself, whereas the dance is the selfish option. I recognize it’s selfish that I wanted to play with Sparta, but overall more people wanted Sparta, and more people benefited.
          Steve and I had a long talk about how we should handle the situation on the forum after all the controversy that surrounded it. Naturally, we decided the best course of action was to lie. We posted a long message about how we were going to bow out gracefully because a victory in this fashion would be tainted, how our exit was in no way an admission of guilt because we did not cheat, it was simply not the way we liked to do things.
          TJ replied to our post, confused, saying that he said he wasn’t holding anything that happened on the forum against anyone. He said we were still eligible. We continued to try to play up our nice guy image and repeated our stance. We were bowing out gracefully.

Sweet Sixteen

2010-04-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

When: June 15, 2002
My Age: Sixteen

Three Word Teaser: Illegal, Crash, Skateboard

          My dad woke me up a little after 7am. It was my birthday, and it was a Saturday. We were going to get my license. The DMV opened around 8am. I’d already passed the driving and written exams needed to get my license. I still think that’s a pretty rad thing they let you do in WA. From what I understand not a lot of other places have similar things.
          We had to go early in the morning because my dad was leaving to go on a fishing trip with some friends that day. In fact, his friends picked him up from the DMV. I want to be clear that this was something I was cool with. On top of that, my mom and brother were also away for the weekend. I forget exactly where they were—some baseball thing, probably. To recap: I was going to have the car (my dad’s white dodge caravan) and the house to myself for the whole weekend!
          Given what I’d heard about the DMV, I found the process of getting my license remarkably stress-free. I suspect that going right when they opened helped. They probably hadn’t dealt with enough people to become irritable, yet.

One especially long DMV line
          My dad and I walked outside, he told me happy birthday, and then got into the car with his friends. I was alone. It was my sixteenth birthday. I had a shiny new license, a car, full tank of gas, and birthday money. I had no idea what to do. I decided to go home and figure something out. On the way home, I took a corner too tight and hit the curb. That freaked me out.
          I decided to brainstorm as I watched TV. One way or another that turned into just watching TV. At 10:30 or so, I called my buddy Matt to see if he had any ideas. I told him I just got my license, and so we could go anywhere we wanted. Matt had turned 16 a few months before, but hadn’t bothered to get his license.
          Matt said he was interested, but was hanging out at his buddy’s house. I’ll be referring to his buddy as Mr. Blank. Matt asked if I’d mind hanging out with Mr. Blank too. I said the more the merrier...or something like that. When I arrived at Mr. Blank’s house Matt surprised me with another friend who I’ll refer to as No. 3 because I actually can’t remember who it was exactly. It’s one of two people, but I can’t say for sure. I told Matt and Mr. Blank it was no big deal, and that No. 3 could come along.
          It suppose it might be important to note that when I turned sixteen, Washington had put in a law that prohibited anyone from driving with non-family passengers for six months after receiving their license. I thought that law was stupid, and so I decided that it didn’t need to apply to me.
          After some debate, we decided to get food. The debate wasn’t over getting food—we all wanted to do that. The debate was over where. We decided to go to the Kalama Burger Bar since it was always too far away to convince your parents to go. I’m not even sure that I had been there before, but I’d heard great things about it, so it was on my mind. We went, and as expected, it was delicious.
          On our way back to Mr. Blank’s house we tried to brainstorm other things to do: skateboard, play basketball, etc. It was a little rainy outside, so we ruled out skateboarding. Then either Mr. Blank or Matt suggested that we go skateboard in the gym of Mr. Blank’s church.
          That sounded great, I thought. It was a Saturday though, so I wondered if there was going to be other people there, and, if not, how we were going to get in. Apparently Mr. Blank’s dad was heavily involved with the church, and, because of that, Mr. Blank knew the events schedule. There was nothing planned for that day. Also, because of his dad’s affiliation, Mr. Blank either had keys of his own, or had access to keys.
          We arrived back at Mr. Blank’s house, and loaded up on stuff to do while he went and grabbed the keys. We brought a basketball, skateboards, some baseball stuff, and a few other miscellaneous things that I can’t recall. We got back into the car and headed out. They had to tell me where to go since I’d never been there before. I’m pretty sure that’s where Matt and Mr. Blank met and became friends. Many of Matt’s stories involved him and a rotating cast of other characters (including Mr. Blank) causing mischief at the church. I was interested in finally being able to place the stories, and hopefully create one of my own.
          It turned out to be really close to Mr. Blank’s house. Even better, we were the only people there, I couldn’t believe it. I parked in back, just to be safe. If anything happened, I didn’t want people being able to remember seeing my dad’s van out front. We went in through the side door. After some twists and turns, we arrived at the gym. We put all of the stuff we had on the stage that was to the left.
          We grabbed our skateboards. It was really fun, but kind of difficult at the same time. The gym floor was slicker than what we were used to skating on. At one point, someone grabbed the basketball, and we all tried making shots while skating—it was really hard to making anything other than a layup. After a bit of that, we noticed that the floor was getting a little marked up. We tried not to do much that would cause marks (powerslides, etc.), but we weren’t doing that much to prevent it.

The thing at the end is a powerslide.

          We decided to try other things to stop marking up the floor further. I think it was then that we tried playing some sort of baseball. We brought a bat, and used either a tennis ball or wiffle ball (I can’t remember). I also don’t remember what sort of game we played either. It was probably some sort of home run derby, but it doesn’t really matter.
          Soon after we finished playing baseball, either Matt or Mr. Blank lowered a metal ring attached to a rope that was suspended from the ceiling. It was used for stage things, or something, I guess. It lined up directly with center court. The ring was shaped like a really large Mercedes symbol, but it was more of a dome shape than flat.
          I forget who hopped on first; I think it was either Mr. Blank or No. 3. Whoever it was ran and grabbed onto the metal ring. They were able to get airborne for a brief period of time as they circled around the court. It looked really fun, so eventually everyone tried it. We experimented with the height of the ring to see what would allow us the most time swinging around. I liked it a little higher so I was able to swing until my momentum ran out, but I think that made the other guys dizzy, or they weren’t able to reach that height, or something. When it was at our chests it was fun too because it felt more like you were soaring since you would make big sweeping loops around the gym. Usually we would try to extend our time swinging by skipping along as our feet came to touch the ground. Other times we would push the person swinging mid-swing.
          Swinging on the metal ring proved to be quite a tiring activity, so after a while Mr. Blank and I went to go take a break on the stage. Matt and No. 3 continued swinging. I was chatting with Mr. Blank about something as I noticed Matt and No. 3 jump onto the ring together. They weren’t able to swing for very long since it was awkward to hold with both on there. They had to step back, run, and then jump on to get it going right, they decided.
          Matt and No. 3 ran up and jumped on the ring. They swung for a couple feet. Actually, it looked more like they bounced as the rope adjusted to their weight. After swinging for a couple feet there was a crash. They tumbled to the ground, the ring made a loud clang against the gym floor, and chunks of the ceiling crumbled and fell on top of them. Before Mr. Blank and I could ask if they were all right, they got up and ran away from the center of the gym—just in case any more of the ceiling was going to fall, I guess.
          “Let’s go! Hurry!” someone shouted.
          After quickly gathering my stuff I took a final look at the damage. Two or three ceiling tiles were completely destroyed; the floor was all marked up, and there was ceiling dust everywhere. I followed the others as we ran through the halls and back into my car before we sped away.

It looked sort of like this. I know this is water damage, but you get the idea.

          It took about a month before I finally calmed down enough to think that I wasn’t going to get in trouble, and that the police didn’t just spend all this time tracking me down, finding witnesses, and such. As far as I know, Matt and Mr. Blank never got in trouble either, though I did hear that Mr. Blank eventually told his parents about it several years later.

Blast From the Past

2010-04-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

When: Spring 1999
My Age: Twelve

Three Word Teaser: Rude, Fear, Heels

          Ryan and I went to the skate park after school. For some reason, we liked going there. Every time we went, we psyched ourselves up, and convinced one another that we were finally going to grow some balls and try harder tricks. However, when the time came to put our money where our mouths were, we always bailed out.
          “I know we were talking about jumping off stuff today, but I think I’m actually going to work on some more technical stuff.”
          “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.”
          “Come to think of it, jumping off of stuff doesn’t take that much skill.”
          “I know! Why are people so into that?”
          “Beats me. I think flipping in and out of stuff is way cooler.”
          “Yeah.”

Big jump Video

Technical Video

          As we were wearing our arms out patting one another on the back, a familiar face walked by. It was Ace, and a friend of hers. She was walking on the sidewalk outside of the skatepark. For those of you unfamiliar with Ace, she was my fifth grade girlfriend, but we hadn’t spoken since the last day of fifth grade (we went to different middle schools, and I was afraid to call her). Come to think of it, we never officially broke up; hopefully she has moved on. It was near the end of seventh grade, so it had been almost two years since we’d spoke or seen one another.
          I think I saw her before she saw me. I looked away—I was scared.
          “Chris! Hi!” said Ace.
          She walked inside the skatepark with her friend, who was wearing a neon-blue leopard-print cowboy hat. They were both wearing high heels and had a very let’s say mature look. Ace and her friend were the epitome of what Ryan and I found attractive in seventh grade—sluttiness.
          Ryan cocked his head and looked at me with an expression that said, “How the hell do you know them?” It was a big change since, amazingly, the seventh grade girls weren’t drawn to my nervous energy.
          I looked at Ace, then at her friend.
          “Who the hell are you?” I said to the friend.
          “Uhh…I’m Ace. From fifth grade?” said Ace.
          “No…I uhh knew,” I started to say while Ryan roared with laughter. “I knew who…uh…you were.”
          Somehow in my seventh grade brain, I thought that would be a funny thing to say, and everyone would laugh. They would laugh with me because it’s such a rude thing to say to someone you haven’t met before. I think everyone only thought I was rude, except for Ace, who misunderstood who I was talking to. Looking back, I think that situations like this one might have been a contributing factor in my lack of luck with the ladies in seventh grade.
          We wound up talking for a little while. I introduced Ryan, and learned that Ace’s friend’s name was Alynn. I think I managed to crawl back to respectability in their eyes (by dulling down my razor sharp wit to make it accessible? Who knows? I forget). Ryan, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for them to leave so he could give me shit about it.
          So finally they left. Ryan turned to me, but before he could say anything I skated away. For some reason, I was really focused on skateboarding for the rest of that day, and wasn’t able to have extended talks with Ryan—odd how that happened.

Heat From The Sink

2010-03-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

When: August 2007
My Age: Twenty One

Three Word Teaser: Naked, Stench, Fire

          I received an unusual Valentine’s Day gift in 2005. It was from my now ex-girlfriend, who I’ll be referring to as XG. The gift was a leather booklet held together with a matching leather strap. I opened the booklet. It was a photo album, and there were already photos inside. The first photo was XG naked. The second photo, naked. The third, naked; they were all pictures of XG naked, but taken from different angles, and such.
          Normally, naked pictures would be a really neat gift, but I didn’t like the idea of having something I could hold. I didn’t want something I had to hide. XG told me that she made it for me to help with the distance (she was about two and a half hours away). It took me a moment before I understood what she meant; she gave me naked pictures of herself to look at while I jerked myself off.
          I appreciated the thought, but I was uncomfortable explaining to her why that was a bad idea. I don’t think anyone wants to take care of business thinking about their girlfriend. You want to respect your girlfriend, and she wants you to respect her. While taking care of business, one never finds oneself thinking highly of the lady they’re looking at or imagining. For that reason, it was very weird to have XG basically say, hey I want your respect, but I want you to think of me as an object.
          Obviously, I had to pretend to love the photos.
          “Oh wow!”
          I don’t really remember what I said, but it was something like that. I remember pretending like I was trying to contain my excitement. I thought that if I pretended to be really excited she’d see through me. The pictures were a nice thought, but way off. I looked at them that day, and then buried them deep in my closet so no one would find them. I pretty much forgot about them after that.
          In August of 2007 I was leaving to go to college in New York. A few days before I left, I remembered the pictures. A few months after receiving them, XG and I broke up. I was kicking myself for not remembering earlier. I had to dispose of them.
          This was an urgent matter. Soon I wasn’t going to be home, and I knew that my mom was going to snoop through my room when I was away; that was inevitable. Since I was alone, and was leaving in less than a week, I decided to do it that day. It was around one or two in the afternoon. My mom came home at five.
          I considered my options on how to get rid of them. I could throw them away, but then I’d be worried that my mom or brother would accidently see them while they threw something away. I could shred them and then throw them out, but I couldn’t find the shredder, and I was still a little worried that someone would see a nipple, or something, in one of the shredded pictures, and then try piecing them together. I could burn them...hey, yeah!
          Burning the pictures outside wasn’t an option because of the attention it would draw, so I had to figure out where I could control a fire inside the house. I came to the conclusion that the best way to do it was to burn the pictures with a BBQ lighter over the sink, and wash the ashes down the drain. I reasoned that if things got out of hand, I could easily solve the problem with water.
          I removed the photos from the album and brought them into my bathroom, along with a lighter. There were probably twenty pictures all together. They didn’t burn like I’d expected. They were droopy, and stringy. The first picture took about five minutes to burn, and it stunk like crazy—like I was covering up sins, or something. I doubt the photo would have mustered the same stink if it had only taken a minute. The fan was already on, so there wasn’t much else I could do about the smell.
          I tried burning five pictures at once, but that took even longer than burning them individually would have. Once about half of the pictures had been burned, I realized that my mom would be home before too long. It was crunch time.
          I scanned the bathroom in search of something to assist with the burning. Comb—no. Water—no. Axe body spray—why yes, I believe that will do. I’d played with lighters and hairspray before. This wasn’t hairspray, but I figured I could apply the same principles. I’ll just put the lighter in front and spray the flame; it’s that simple, right?

Note: It's actually not a smart idea to try this. The can could explode.

          I spread the remaining pictures on the bottom of the sink. I lined up the flame with the Axe and let it rip. A ball of flames rained down upon the pictures as though trying to exorcise the evil from them. After I’d washed the pictures with flames, I pulled back to assess the damage I’d done. Nothing. Not a fucking thing.
          I blasted the photos with a second wave of Axe flame. Nothing again! Well, not exactly nothing. In addition to the terrible scent of burning photos, the Axe smell decided to mutate and not only add to the stink, but amplify it as well. I ran downstairs, and just as I’d feared, it was powerful down there too. I brought another fan into the bathroom, and opened all the windows nearby.
          Once I was able to stay in the bathroom without choking on the stench, I got back to work. I decided to just work on one photo at a time. One of the major reasons it took so long was that the pictures wouldn’t keep burning after I set them on fire. I had to hold the flame over each part of the picture.
          After burning another two or three photos, I decided that I would only work on making the photos unrecognizable. That went quite a bit quicker, and so I did that until none were left. The only trouble doing that was that I wouldn’t be able to rinse them down the sink. I had to throw them away, which I realized is probably what I should have done all along. At least I made them unrecognizable, I told myself.
          I put the photos in the bathroom trash, and then emptied that into an empty garbage bag. After emptying the bathroom trash, the bag was about 10-15% full. I took that outside and put it into the garbage can. It was around 4:30 or 4:45 at that point, so I made it just in the nick of time. However, there was still the smell situation that needed to be dealt with.
          My mom got home a little late, so that was nice. I’d managed to make the downstairs not smell by the time she got home. I’d also closed the bathroom door so that the upstairs wouldn’t smell as much. I kept the ceiling fan in the bathroom on, and had a portable fan going as well to help circulate the air hoping that the ceiling fan would get rid of it all.
          “Chris, what’s that smell?”
          It was about 7:00. I was in my room. My mom knocked on my door.
          “Chris!” she said, again.
          “What?” I groaned, as I opened my door.
          My mom had opened the bathroom door, and was sniffing around in each room.
          “What is that smell? Did you burn something?”
          I thought this situation might arise. Luckily, I’d had some time to think about how I wanted to respond.
          “What smell?”
          “In here. Over here! Doesn’t that smell like something’s burning?” she said.
          I walked over to the bathroom and sniffed around.
          “Yeah, it does, kind of.”
          “Well what is it? Were you burning something?”
          “Nope,” I said. I was confident in my work...well, confident enough, anyway. The only thing that concerned me was making her suspicious enough to search through the garbage bag I threw away if she noticed how relatively empty it was. However, even if she did that, the photos were unrecognizable. At least I hoped they were. I mean they were every time I checked them, but I always worry that I missed something like that if I can’t check whenever I want.
          “Well, it wasn’t me, and your brother’s away, so I don’t know who it was if it wasn’t you,” she said.
          “Yeah, that’s weird,” I said.
          “Do I need to call the fire department, or something?”
          “Uhh...I uh...I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s probably not a big deal. It’ll probably be gone in a few hours.”
          My mom gave me a look like I’d actually admitted to creating the smell.
          “So you’re telling me that I shouldn’t be worried about this burning smell, and that shouldn’t call anyone?” she said.
          “Yes, that’s correct.”
          “Anything that you want to tell me?”
          “No.”

Knowing How is Half the Battle

2010-03-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

When: Sometime around 1989
My Age: Three

Three Word Teaser: Daycare, Lying, Backpack

          My mom had just walked into the class to take me home. As I gathered the macaroni and glitter “art” from my cubby, I saw it: Jody’s G.I. Joe backpack—the one that made noises when you pushed the buttons. Jody had been playing with it all day. He’d forgotten to bring it home. I had to grab it—he was just asking for it to be taken.
          “Chris, are you sure that’s yours?” said the daycare lady as I walked out the door pushing the buttons on the backpack.
          “Yep.”
          “Chris, if it’s not yours, you should put it back,” said my mom.
          “It’s mine!” I said. “I remember you bought it for me two times ago at Fred Meyer when I didn’t want to get my haircut, but you made me get my haircut, and then we had ice cream and you got this for me!”
           The two Saturdays before, my mom made me get my haircut when I didn’t want to, we went out for ice cream, and then I convinced her to buy me a teenage mutant ninja turtle, not a G.I. Joe backpack. I knew I had a much better chance of getting away with my lie if I grounded it in a story my mom knew to be mostly true, but had likely forgotten the details.
          “Oh, okay…I think he’s right. I remember now,” my mom said to the daycare lady.

Comedy Blows

2010-03-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

When: Spring 2000
My Age: Thirteen

Three Word Teaser: Audition, Candy, Fellatio

          When I was in eighth grade my school held a talent show. I decided to audition along with my friend Ryan. Auditions were held over the course of a few days. We planned on performing stand-up comedy. By that, I mean that we planned to recite Jerry Seinfeld’s material word for word, as we’d both memorized the CD.

          That’s not to say we were entirely without original material; we did have a joke or two about toast. However, I can’t remember how they went, which is probably a good thing. After all, I can’t feel embarrassed about what I don’t remember, right?
          We’d decided earlier that week to try out. Practicing the routine didn’t interest us; we knew how it went (see above: we had that shit memorized!). Our plan was to wing it, but as we waited backstage, it dawned on us that running through the talking points just to be sure we were on the same page might be a good idea.
          Ryan and I sat on a set of stairs behind the stage, and went over our favorite parts of the CD. We were the only comedy act. There were bands, singers, dancers, and even lip-snycers. I’m not sure what talent the lip-snycers were displaying, but whatever.
          By the time we were called, I’d actually gotten a little nervous. I remembered hearing somewhere that you weren’t supposed to let the audience see you sweat, and that made me more nervous. Luckily, I’d learned from skateboarding that something’s much more likely to go wrong if you don’t commit to what you’re doing, so I decided to commit.
          The audition began in an odd way, I thought. We walked in, and before we could start, we said our names, and said what our talent was (what did the lip-snycers say?). I understand why they want you to say your name and talent first, but it’s more difficult to begin your act that way. Couldn’t we do that after we finished? With the way they did it, everyone’s stuck with that whole thing of, “Uh, can we go? Should we go now? Are you ready? S—so now is fine? Do we just go now, or what?” Once we were told we could begin I backed up, then took a step forward, so it was like I came in again.
          “Know what I like about Chinese people?” I boomed.
          “As long as we’re on the subject…” said Ryan.
          “They have stuck with those chopsticks.”
          “They’ve seen the fork—oh they know we have the fork.”
          “I don’t know how they missed it,” I said.
          “Chinese farmer gets up and works in the field with a shovel all day…”
          “Shovel. Spoon…come on.”
          “You’re not plowing forty acres with a couple of pool cues.”
          The faculty evaluating the auditions laughed. We only made it through one or two more jokes before they stopped us.
          “We’ve heard enough. You guys are funny.”
          The trouble is what they told us afterwards. They said we could be in the show, but they wanted us to be announcers. They said they needed more funny people to be announcers. Excuse me? We didn’t rip off Jerry Seinfeld word for word to be announcers! I guess they might have been worried about what we would say, or something. I really don’t know. Well, we wound up agreeing to do it, because...well frankly, we weren’t in any position to negotiate.
          We moseyed off stage, and sat on the steps again. We were one of the last acts to audition, so the backstage area was pretty empty. We were surprised at how well it had gone considering we hadn’t practiced. A classmate, and fellow talent show auditioner came up to congratulate us; she was in the lip-snyc group. Can you hear me rolling my eyes? I’m going to refer to this person as Candy because she looked like she ate a lot of it. I’m not trying to be cruel—it’s simply meant to put an image in your head. You should be imagining a sizable figure, and a tired looking face.
          Candy told us that she could hear us from backstage, and that we were hilarious. We stuck around and talked to her. At some point Ryan called his mom and said he was ready to be picked up. We were having a pretty good time because Candy was funny, and she talked about dirty stuff which was something that Ryan and I were always interested in hearing.
          As she started cracking more jokes, and saying dirtier things, the pitch of my laughter, as well as Ryan’s, had elevated to the level of school girl. No longer did the hallway echo with booming HAHAHAs, but rather with sharp and quick tee-hee-hees. Then, out of nowhere, Candy brought her voice to a whisper.
          “What if I told you guys that I could take you both in there,” she looked at the music room next to the stairs, “and give you the best head you’ve ever had?”
          I don’t think I can single out what my first thought was, on account of there were so many, but I remember thinking these things: “No.” “Fuck no!” “You mean the only head I’ve ever had, right? “Both at the same time?” “I don’t want you touching me.” “I don’t want to see Ryan’s dick.” “I don’t want Ryan to see my dick.” “What if Ryan says ‘yes’, then do I have to do it?” “I bet it would feel pretty good.” “It would have to be a secret.” “I wish I wasn’t here.” “Is she going to tell everyone we turned down blowjobs?” “I don’t want people knowing either way.” “How can I get out of this?” “Would Ryan and I face each other with like her in the middle?” “I don’t want him cumming on me.” “What if she made our dicks touch?” I’m sure there were more thoughts, but you get the idea.
          To break the silence that seemed to last for a million heartbeats, I laughed...right in her face. A-HAHAHAHA!
          “No!” I said sternly, like she was a piece of shit, or something. I actually found it surprising that she looked upset with the way I responded to her. I mean, I guess it could have been hard to put that out there, but I was under the impression that she was no stranger to the situation.
          “Yeah,” said Ryan. “I don’t want to do that with another person in there.”
          Ryan did most of the talking from there. He did a nice job toning down my harshness, and played up the excuse of not wanting to do it with me there. If it were someone with whom we wanted to do that, I think we probably would have, but that wasn’t the case here. We gave each other a few nervous glances, but mostly kept our eyes locked on the floor until Ryan’s mom came and picked him up.

Alligator Shoes, Booze, and Blues

2010-03-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

When: May 2008
My Age: Twenty One

Three Word Teaser: Alcohol, Murder, Chant

          In 2008, Steve, Amber and I decided to fly to Detroit, MI (AKA Hockeytown) to watch the Red Wings in the Western Conference Finals. Two nights prior to this story we watched the Wings win at the Joe Louis Arena. They were away on the night of the story, and so we decided to watch the game at Hockeytown, which is, of course, the sports bar named after the city’s nickname.
          We arrived in the jerseys we’d purchased at the game earlier in the week. We were early…like an hour and a half or two hours early. At first, the waitress took us upstairs. There were flat screens everywhere, and it seemed really nice. However, all the excitement seemed to be taking place below, so we decided to head down and get in on the action.
          Pitchers of beer were only five dollars; Amber and Steve were elated. I didn’t care. There is a part of me that wonders if everyone on the planet is playing a joke on me by pretending to like beer. I don’t imagine what the punch line would be, or why they would spend so much effort getting me to believe they enjoy it, but maybe that’s part of it. Somehow, that explanation is easier to swallow (pun!) than the idea that they really enjoy it.
          When the game began (maybe an hour later), I was still babying my half glass of beer. Steve and Amber were somewhere into their second or third. We started chanting almost immediately. After watching so many Wings games together, the three of us had developed our own chant. It was basically a way of modifying the original, “Let’s go Red Wings! (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap),” but it was done in a roundabout sort of way.

          I initiated the chant by singing the tune, and everyone clapped with me. Then Steve would do it, and everyone clapped. Next, Amber did the same, but after Amber, everyone did it in unison while shouting at the top of their lungs. Before Steve could finish his part of the chant, the rest of the bar joined in. It was fucking amazing! It seemed almost as loud as it was at the arena a couple nights earlier. Everyone was really going for it, screaming-wise. It was pretty rad to see everyone matching our intensity. We really fell in love. Amber ordered another pitcher.
          Near the end of the game, there was a drawing which we all entered. Amber and I were lucky enough to win T-shirts. Steve, unfortunately, was among the small handful of people who didn’t win anything. By that time, Steve and Amber were into the third pitcher of beer. I think I drank a total of one glass of beer that night—glass and a half, tops. Steve definitely had more than me, but less than Amber; I’m going to say four-fiveish.
          By the middle of the third period, Amber had started feeling quite jolly and confident. Coincidentally, that was right around the time that she started chatting up one of the male servers. The dude looked like Breckin Meyer. This is Breckin Meyer.

          The guy was really nice, but I thought he lingered a bit much, for my taste. I can’t say I’m surprised though; I’m not sure anyone could have escaped the stranglehold Amber had on their chit chat. Finally, Amber allowed his escape, but not before squeezing out his Facebook information. (Note: Amber’s pleading may have been embellished)
          Naturally Amber thought ordering a round of Jägerbombs was a good idea. I’d never had one before. I guess it’s a cocktail mixed by dropping a shot of Jägermeister into a glass of Red Bull. They brought us three already mixed glasses of black liquid. Amber didn’t like that. I didn’t know any better. She told us to drink it like a shot. So we did. I didn’t taste anything but the Red Bull. It was worlds ahead of the beer in terms of taste, but I enjoy energy drinks more than most.
          By the time we left, Amber had reached a point where she couldn’t shut the fuck up. It was dark and scary outside. Detroit is unusual because there seems to be two or three burnt out/abandoned buildings on every block. It doesn’t matter if high end or low end businesses are around it—it’s like that even in the financial district. Then again, I suppose that’s what one might expect from the nation’s murder capital.
          We had about four blocks to walk. To get around we took the people mover; it was actually a really smart idea since it went right to our hotel, and was super easy to use. The closest stop was about four blocks from Hockeytown. I remember ignoring a pair of homeless people who were waiting outside near Hockeytown and asking for change. I forget when I learned that making eye contact or acknowledging potentially dangerous people at night was a bad idea, but it’s something I’d known for a while.
          After walking another block or so, our group was approached by a man who can best be described as a character. I have trouble remembering his appearance exactly, but I’ll attempt to describe him. There are a few things I can tell you for sure. This character was an African-American gentleman. He had a mostly gray mini-afro that was matted down on one side. From what I could see, the gentleman had several missing teeth, though it could have easily been north of ten. The man had two blue alligator skin shoes—one on his foot, and the other in his hand. The rest of the gentleman is what I have difficulty describing. It felt to me like the man had a frantic and piercing energy about him.
The gentleman took a small break from mumbling to himself, put the shoe in his hand in front of us, and asked for change. Steve and I behaved the same way we had with the previous beggars—we ignored him. Once the man figured we wouldn’t help him purchase a third shoe, he hustled in front of us, and started shuffling down the street. That is until Amber decided not to ignore him.
          “Hey, nice shoe!” shouted Amber. She found her comment hilarious, and nearly wet herself laughing about it.
          Steve and I exchanged nervous glances as the man darted behind one of the buildings after hearing Amber’s comment. We thought we were about to be murdered. You don’t fuck with crazies at night! You just don’t!
          Incredibly, we made it to the people mover alive, where Amber continued to make everyone uncomfortable with her yelling. Okay, it wasn’t so much the yelling that made people uncomfortable, but rather that it was a graphic sex discussion about which Red Wings’ players would just “take what they wanted”. We tried explaining to her why her comment to the alligator shoe dude was inappropriate and dangerous. She claimed that she really thought they were nice shoe.

This was taken with my phone. I have no idea why it didn't record the sound.

          Since the event, we’ve all recounted the experience to friends. The most common point of controversy is about the man with the shoe(s). Steve and Amber seem to believe this man was a pimp, on account of “Who else has alligator shoes?” To that I say A) pimps wear both shoes, and B) pimps don’t beg for money. The man was just crazy in my opinion. Also, Amber thinks she didn’t almost get us killed. Steve and I have no discrepancies in each either’s versions of that part of the story.

The Birthday, The Call, and The Shame

2010-03-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of Matt and I from around the same time. I thought our expressions were rather fitting for the story.

When: February 10, 2007
My Age: Twenty

          After playing a few games of basketball with Matt, he told me that he was hanging out with McDaniel that night, and suggested that I come along. I wasn't really into the idea, okay, I hated the idea. Matt took a long time explaining to me that it was McDaniel’s 21st birthday, and that he shouldn't celebrate alone. I told Matt that if he was with McDaniel then he wouldn’t be alone. I guess that wasn’t his point.
          Eventually, Matt wore me down and I decided to go, but I continued whining for a little while longer. I asked what we'd be doing. Matt said we were going to Hart C's to buy McDaniel dinner.
          "Oh come on!"
          "All right, all right, I guess I'll buy you dinner too. I know how you hate Hart C's," said Matt.
          I didn't hate Hart C's. I just didn’t like getting dragged along, and then feeling like I had to buy McDaniel dinner. After I told Matt that I didn’t hate Hart C’s, he gave me the rundown. Apparently, Matt remembered that Q had been telling people I didn’t like Hart C's (Q has since told me that was garbage). Matt’s misinformation wound up costing him nearly $10.
          “I wouldn’t have offered to buy you dinner too if I knew you liked it,” he said.
          “Well it would be extremely rude to take back the offer now,” I explained to Matt.
          Matt and I arrived at Hart C's first. When McDaniel came in he was complaining. It seems that despite his best efforts, he couldn't get carded. He claimed that he would have gotten carded two weeks before at an R rated movie. I didn't have much sympathy for him. Getting carded seemed like a hassle. Lord knows I don’t like a hassle.
          After we finished our food, Matt and McDaniel tried to sell me on their plan to go to Applebee's. I, of course, refused. There was an incident a little over a year before that made me vow to never go to Applebee's again. I told them that a man without his principles is no real man.
          Then they suggested Starbucks. I tried to sell them on the idea to go to the one in Fred Meyer because it was across the street. Mostly, I wanted to go to that one because I didn’t like running into people and feeling obligated to have stop-and-chats (a very common occurrence at the one they wanted to go to). Predictably, we wound up at the other one.
          Again, Matt and I were the first to show up. I ordered a Green Tea thing. Matt ordered something inferior. We requested the chess pieces and began a game. I was off to a nice start. McDaniel arrived around 10 minutes into the game, smiling from ear to ear. It seemed that he had managed to get carded. I still didn’t care. It took me around 5 minutes after McD arrived before I was really putting the screws to Meyer. He slipped up and I had him in checkmate. Matt sat for about a minute in complete disbelief at how my warriors ripped apart his substandard defense with such grace and ease.
          I decided to sit out the next game. Well, sort of. Matt was setting himself up for another fall playing against McDaniel, who by the way, claimed to have beaten a 7-time grandmaster. I decided to give Matt a little help. After a few moves, we were back in business. We were leading by two pawns, and we had some excellent positions on the side opposite of our modified Sarafian Hook, which was cocked, by the way. The Sarafian Hook, for those of you who don’t know, is an opening setup in chess created by our buddy, Steve Saraf.
          We dilly-dallied for a little while, and then things got interesting. Foolishly, McDaniel tried putting the screws to us. Matt and I could only manage to chuckle at his cavalier attitude. He had no idea what was in store. We threw the hook. He chose to save his rook and sacrifice a bishop—the root of his attack. That also left him in check. We basically cleaned up from there. Actually, we got lazy and didn't execute a very intelligent endgame and we wound up with a stalemate.
          After some coaxing, they managed to drag me to the Caddy (our local casino) to play some table games. The three of us sat down at the Blackjack table with $40. McDaniel had two beers before he convinced the other two players at our table to do some shots with him. The two guys ordered the first couple rounds. Eric split fives when the dealer had a King showing, and hit 17s when she showed a 6. More times than likely, it was a resounding success, which naturally threw the other players, including Matt and myself into fits of laughter.
          The laughter continued until the waitress came back to the table and told them that she couldn't serve them any more kamikazes, which was the shot they’d been ordering, and was apparently the hardest shot they serve. This triggered the long haired man at our table, who I will now refer to as Mr. Longhair, to exclaim several times "What?!?! They're cutting us off?!?!? We ain't even dun nuttin' stupid yet!" To make it weirder, I guess he worked there, and knew the waitress he was yelling at.
          The waitress walked off to double check that they were indeed going to be cut off. She wasn't the person that made the call on who was cut off. I knew it, Mr. Longhair knew it, everyone knew it. When she came back to confirm that they were cut-off, Mr. Longhair hadn’t even finished with his original rant. He demanded to speak with the pit-boss. They waitress walked away because she didn't want to put up with him, and she really shouldn't have to.
          After the waitress left, Mr. Longhair’s ranting sparked some words of agreement from the guy in the Bears hat, who I’ll now refer to as Bears hat, and from McDaniel. Mr. Longhair pleaded his case for more shots to the pit-boss.
          "This is ridiculous! We ain't been getting' crazy, fallin' out our chairs or nuttin'. We ain't even got in a fight!"
          I thought it was hilarious, and I wanted to see more. So after Mr. Longhair said they hadn’t gotten in a fight, I reminded him that the night was still young.
          "Well if we don' get some drinks soon, that could all change!” said Mr. Longhair. Yeah, you read it correctly. It doesn’t make sense.
          Even though Matt and I weren't doing so hot on blackjack, we couldn't help but laugh. The more excited Mr. Longhair became the more support he got from Bears hat and McD.
          Finally, the waitress brought another round. Immediately, McDaniel ordered another saying this one was on him. I think it was like $20 something a round because he gave the waitress a $25 chip. He was the only one of our group winning, that is, until he started buying drinks. Meyer went broke, and so I gave him the $20 I borrowed from him initially. I barely managed to stay afloat, but did with a few well timed win or go home bets.
          Amazingly, the three stooges kept getting more rounds. Despite this fact, Mr. Longhair continued to complain, to no one in particular, about being cut off. Throughout the course of the night, each one of the drinkers developed a little mantra of their own. McD's was, "What would James Bond do?" He said that on almost every hand, sometimes to himself, sometimes to other people. And just like clockwork, after he said it, he proceeded to make an ill-advised play.
          Every time Bears hat lost a hand or was dealt a 12-16, he said, "Fuck it man, I jus' wanna git drunk." The whole night Mr. Longhair said, loudly, to what seemed to be only himself, "We ain't even dun nuttin' stupid yet."
          Every time the poor waitress, who was getting yelled at by Mr. Longhair, came around to take drink orders, Mr. Longhair asked her if she was really going to bring it. Through clenched teeth, she’d say, “Yeah.” I’d wanted to see things get rowdy for a while, so I tried to ruffle some feathers.
          "Sure she said yeah, but you could see in her eyes that she really meant fuck you!" I said. It didn’t make anyone rowdy, but it did make the table laugh.
          Around the time I got even, they’d probably had 8 rounds of shots. I cashed out and grabbed all five the old decks they had at the cashier's box. When I returned, McD was holding a shot glass in the air. Apparently, the waitress forgot to grab it and so Bears hat said that if McD held up the glass until the waitress returned, the next round was on him. McD took on the challenge, I suspect it was mostly because he was almost out of money and didn't want to reach back in his wallet. Around 5-8 mins later she returned. McD won the round.
          Matt decided he was done. He lost $23, but was much better off than he was several hands prior. We figured it was time to leave. McDaniel wanted to do one more round of shots with the people from our table. So, we waited, and waited. They took their sweet fucking time finishing up, so Matt and I told McD to leave. He told us that he'd meet us at the car.
          On our way to the car, I remembered about the 5 decks of cards I snagged while cashing out. I asked Meyer if he wanted to go throw them.
          "Absolutely!" he said.
          So we went and threw a bunch of cards into a bush, which is actually a bunch of fun. While throwing cards, Matt got a phone call. We thought it was McDaniel calling because he couldn't find us. He looked at the caller ID and said, "Whitney?" That's his sister. I pretended to be her, and jokingly said, "Matt, I’m totally smashed, I need you to come get me."
          "Oh god, I hope not," said Matt.
          I had a hard time figuring out what was being said. The only thing that I could see was the look of concern on Matt's face. Then, about 45 seconds in to the call, Matt said "In jail?!?!" Then, he said "Yeah, well, we're out throwing cards around." I thought it was pretty funny, that when Matt discovered his sister was in jail, he made a point to let her know how busy he was with his card throwing. We started walking back to the car before we could finish throwing the cards. As we were walking Matt muttered into the phone, "Yeah, well, I'm just worried about how much I have in my bank account."
          I thought we were in for a trip to the police station. It wasn't to be. Apparently, it was a big joke. I didn't find it very funny, since it interrupted the card throwing.
          We decided not to go back and finish throwing the cards. Instead we went back inside to find what was keeping McDaniel. We found him talking to who was, from what we could tell, an unidentified man. He saw us and waved with a big silly grin on his face.
          "Hey, lets go," we said.
          He told us he just wanted to grab a drink with that guy. That guy was J.R. We knew him from high school. He gave me and Matt handshakes. Rather than go hang out with him and McD, Matt and I decided to sit and wait until McD was done.
          After what felt like an hour, McD was done and happy to report back to us that J.R. had bought him two double shots. I didn't care. Finally, we left the Caddy, but not before we ran into Meyer's sister and her friends. McD said something inappropriate as his sister was approaching, then I told his sister what McDaniel had said, and then everyone thought I was a jerk. I guess maybe it was true in that instance.
          McDaniel creeped out Meyer's sister’s friends by trying to give them hugs, or shake their hands, or something. I forget exactly what happened, but something prompted one of the friends to tell McD it was against her religion to be touched.
          Meyer took me back to my car, and that's where the night ended for me. I was a little tired, a little happy, a little angry, and a little ashamed.

Golden Child

2010-02-21T23:07:00.000-08:00

When: Fall 1990
My Age: Four

Three Word Teaser: Pee, Janitor, Attention

          “Whoa—what are you doing‽” I asked.
          Bobby was peeing in the bathroom trashcan. He didn’t stop.
          “It’s funny!” he laughed.
          “But, what if someone sees‽ Won’t you get in trouble‽”
          “Nah—everybody does it.”
          Bobby was a cool kid—well, he was older (by two years), and that made him cool. That also made him the authority on what was funny—and more importantly what would and would not get you in trouble.
          I was new to the section of the school that connected to that bathroom. It was a large gym for kids whose parents worked—where the “big kids” went for daycare.
          In preschool I’d learned that being funny was a great way to make friends, and that the kid with the most friends gets the most attention. If peeing in the small orange trash can was what I had to do to fit in and make friends in the “big kid” gym, well, then I only had one option.
          I checked for feet under the stalls and headed back to the trash can. It was pretty small—I doubt a basketball could have fit inside. It was the color of an old pumpkin with black smudges around the bottom. There was only a thin, clear, plastic bag protecting the inside. The trash can was directly across from the door—if anyone walked in I would be totally exposed. I didn’t want to move it since Bobby had already “used” it.
          I positioned myself with my back to the door, doing my best to avoid being seen in the event that someone walked in—a futile effort since I was still right in front of the door. I unbuttoned my pants and pulled them (and my Spiderman undies) down—all the way to my ankles.
          I was relieved to be done with it, and that I hadn’t been caught. The relief didn’t last for long though as I realized that no one would know about it, or if they did find out, they wouldn’t know it was me.
          “Hey! You’re going to get in trouble,” said my friend Brian.
          I’d followed him into the bathroom to show off how funny I was. Mostly though, I think I was trying to gauge his reaction before I attempted to shower the other kids with my brilliance.
          “You haven’t done it?” I said. “It’s not a big deal—I mean all the big kids do it.”
          “Really?”
          I felt good. Becoming as popular here as I was in preschool now seemed like a reachable goal. I had something to hook potential new friends—an icebreaker. Everybody wants to hang out with the funny kid. They’re always watching—they want to see what he’ll do next.
          The next day, I walked into the bathroom and found Austin (Brian’s best friend) peeing in the trash can. Clearly, I’d gotten to Brian, but now Austin was going to think that it was all Brian’s idea— that he was the one who was funny, the one doing what the older kids were doing.
          “That’s too easy. You’re doing it like Brian,” I said.
          Like a lot of us, Austin was competitive and I knew he didn’t want to do anything the easy way.
          “Well, how do you do it?” asked Austin.
          “Watch this.”
          I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to set myself apart when I started peeing. I began walking backwards.
          “Ohhh,” Austin said, as though the secret to a magic trick had just been revealed.
          I backed up even further—still peeing. I wasn’t the same sharp shooter that I was up close, but Austin was still impressed.
          “You’re supposed to work on your three-point-shot,” I said.
          The “three-point-shot” was already a favorite among my friends—when used in combination with the trash can shot, you experienced a high that, previously, could only be reached after chasing a capture the flag win with graham crackers and apple juice.
          I was so proud. I’d taken an older kid’s idea, made it better, and exposed it to the masses. The bathroom was fun, and I was responsible. I showed everyone. Only one person found the shot unimpressive—my friend Kristen.
          “Ewww…that’s gross,” she said.
          That was my mistake. What did she know? She was just a dumb girl. How could she understand? After that, I decided to keep this fun between the boys.
          Before long, if there was a kindergarten to second grade boy in the bathroom, they were practicing their shot. Sometimes, you would open the door and see nothing but a stream (or multiple streams) headed for the trash can. Other times, you could only see what was left of the practicing—there was pee everywhere—everywhere except the toilets. Some people even tried expanding on the idea—I noticed the walls were covered more than usual one day and realized someone had tried a bank shot.
          My time outside of the bathroom was jam packed. There were birthday parties left and right, red rover games to attend, trees to climb, and even basketball with the big kids—yeah, I’d made friends with the big kids. They couldn’t get enough—it was like I was covered in rainbow chip frosting holding a piñata—like I knew how to get to the ninja turtles secret lair, and I was only going to say it once, so you wanted to be there when I revealed the location. I had all the attention—the control. I loved it. I was the D.C.K.—the Day Care King—the alpha kindergartner.
          This went on for maybe a week before the boys had to go talk to the janitor in a classroom upstairs. I wasn’t sure if someone had told on us or what, but I was nervous. I was the ringleader—the one who showed everyone how cool it was. These kids were weak—they would point the finger at me, for sure. Getting in trouble was the last thing I wanted. Bobby had told me it was okay; maybe I could avoid trouble if I told them that. Sure it felt wrong and I went through with it anyway, but Bobby was older! He should be the one to get in trouble, not me.
          As the march of the baby steps began, I wondered if maybe Kristen or one of the older kids had said something—those jerks, I bet it was them. Maybe the janitor got fed up. Oh man, the janitor! I hadn’t even thought about him. Why hadn’t he said something sooner? What if he calls my parents? At least half of those bags had to have holes in them. His pants must have smelled like pee. Gross.
          We reached the top of the stairs and headed into the room. The janitor had a moustache like the bottom of the long broom he swept the gym with and a face like he’d recently spent a lot of time cleaning up pee. I made eye contact with him briefly as I entered the room.
          “Do you know why you’re all here?” said the janitor.
          Our faces turned red, but nobody moved or spoke. I was terrified. It was a good thing I’d just peed in the trash can, or I may have wet myself.
          “More than one of you has been peeing in the trash can. You know who you are. This is not okay.” His face was a fire truck—bright red. “This is the only warning you’re going to get. If I hear of, or catch, anyone peeing in the trash can in the future, they will be punished.”
          I left the room somewhat confused. I think almost everyone else felt the same way. I thought I would be telling the principal how sorry I was—how I would never do it again, and begging him not to call my parents. How in the world did I get off with just a warning?
          I walked into the bathroom next week and was very surprised to see that someone had pooped in that same orange trash can. Sure, the janitor didn’t directly forbid pooping in the trash can, but I knew better than to try and make this the new game. I’d escaped trouble once, and that trash can had already given me enough friends.

Sounds Like Suckers

2010-02-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

When: January 2008
My Age: Twenty One

Three Word Teaser: Coffee, Fart, Church

          Steve, Matt, and I made plans to take a road trip to California over winter break. We planned to stop in San Francisco. I thought it might be a good idea to look online for cool things to do in the area. One way or another, I wound up on the Audium website.
          The place seemed amazing. I called Steve that day and told him to check it out. They had tons of great pictures of the room on the website. It was advertised as a room where a story is told through sounds using state of the art sound equipment. I read something about how the show took place in complete darkness, so you could only focus on the sounds, and because of that, people often hallucinated. The website said that it was created in the 50’s and had updated regularly, and perhaps most importantly, the website claimed that the show was an experience I would never forget.
          What I had imagined, based on the website, was a number of sound engineers deciding to take on the project of telling a story completely through sound. It seemed like a place that was trying to break the mold of what a show, or event should be.
          We all thought that the place sounded weird, but we also thought it could be pretty fun—which made it worth checking out. We planned one of the nights we were in San Francisco around it. The show began around eight. The website stressed that we needed to show up early for tickets because you couldn’t buy them online, pre-order, or anything like that.
          We arrived about an hour early. When got to the door, we realized how small of a place it was relative to how large it appeared on the website. When I looked at the website, I imagined it would seat a couple hundred people. Though the building was relatively small, the door wasn’t. It was wooden, and maybe twice the size of a normal door. It had two black, steel strips, one about a foot and a half from the bottom of the door, and the other about a foot and a half from the top. It looked like the door had been salvaged from a medieval castle, a dungeon, or one of Shaq’s old houses.
          The door was locked. So we knocked. In addition to the three of us, there were two other people waiting to buy tickets. They were also confused. After a moment, an old man in a wool suit opened the door and told us that tickets go on sale a half an hour before the show. I remember talking with Matt and Steve about how odd it seemed that an old man was working there. I pictured it being run by bald guys wearing sunglasses inside—guys who wore black long sleeve turtlenecks, and frequented coffee shop open mic nights only to complain about the sound.
          To kill time, we decided to wait in the Starbucks a couple blocks down the road. We drank drinks, and told stories until the windows fogged up, at which point we doodled graphic sex pictures on the window because, well we’re immature, I guess. The three of us were having a blast, so our spirits were high as we headed back to Audium.

          The ticket window was open, and a line had formed. We bought our tickets from a grandmotherly woman in a purple lady-suit jacket, and walked inside to the area that people gather before they see the show. Later, we decided that the ticket lady must have been the old guy’s wife. They seemed to run the place by themselves.
          It was small inside. There were only fifteen or twenty people waiting—including us. Paintings and pictures covered the walls. There was a wood carving at the top of the very small upstairs; it was like what you’d see driving down a boring stretch of highway. The room smelled like stale coffee and dust—sort of like a church. Everyone in the waiting room, or whatever it was, wandered around and discussed the art on the walls. It had the air of a ritzy art show, but it didn’t at the same time. The place was nothing but a mystery.
The people waiting spanned a wide spectrum of demographics. There were young and old hippy-types, young and old business types, and a whole bunch with their own individual type. At least half of the people there were over 35.
          We were told to form a line and wait to enter the theatre. After lining up, the old man who answered the door before gave a speech. His wife took our tickets at another window as we entered the theatre. The audience was told specifically not to make any sounds, or leave the theatre unless it was an emergency. The old man spoke with purpose. It was clear that he had spent a great deal of time here, and that he cared deeply about it.
          We walked along a small hallway that led us to the theatre—finally! The hallway was lit by lights similar to that in a movie theatre or an airplane. The theatre was small. I’m guessing it could seat thirty people at the most. The dome-thing (not really a dome, but sort of) was gray. It was a partially rounded ceiling with a lot of square panels hanging from it. I thought it would be a wood-like color, like it appeared on the website. There were bunches of tiny triangles and squares on the walls. I know they were there to optimize sound quality, but they looked ridiculous.
          The lights dimmed shortly after we had taken our seats. The seats were arranged in a somewhat circle-like shape—like someone drew a free-hand circle in a hurry—just a little off. Our seats were in the middle of the room, and were right in front of a big egg-shaped speaker that sat on the floor of the room. All of the seats were old, and bolted to the floor—mine squeaked.

          The show began. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes as I tried to take it in. At first there were random nature noises like the ocean, or birds chirping. Later, it started to sound like someone was practicing the keyboard behind the nature noises. There wasn’t any sort of rhythm, or sense of what is normally considered music. At some point, there was the sound of running—I imagined it was on a dock, because I could hear the waves still. After the running, there was a boy’s voice, but you couldn’t make out any words…probably because they wanted everyone to imagine it for themselves.
          I didn’t like not hearing the boy speak. The keyboard went on and on. Some little jangleys and other whatnot bleeps and bloops were sprinkled in, but it started to feel like nonsense. It started to feel like we’d been had. It was complete surround sound, but that’s all it was—listening to surround sound in the dark without much connection between the sounds. It was probably built before surround sound was commonplace, and so at one point, it may have been a novelty, but it was nothing more than a tourist trap now.
          I heard Matt, who was on my right, lean back in his chair and sigh. I whispered for him to check the time. Steve, who was on my left, shushed me. Matt said we had only been there for ten minutes. Ten minutes?! Fuck.
          Matt and I elbowed each other and giggled like girls. I leaned my seat back and forth so it would squeak. We whispered back and forth to try and make each other laugh.
          “Clown penis.”
          ”Balogna shoehorn.”
          “Bajoina,” (supposed to sound like a little kid saying vagina).
          We tried to suffocate our laughter, but Steve kept elbowing me to stay quiet. Naturally, that only made me laugh more. We could hear people a row or two behind us making out, and so we laughed. Steve laughed too. The rest of the people in the theatre seemed to realize around the same time as us that this was a dumpy show, and it wasn’t worth trying to keep yourself together like everyone had been. Right as everyone seemed to realize the show was ridiculous and boring, the lights came up and intermission began.
          “Dude...that felt like forever.”
          “I know.”
          “I was trying to get into it, but at some point it was hopeless. It was too ridiculous not to laugh.”
          “I tried to get into it too. I don’t know what they were expecting. Everyone was making noise by the end.”
          As we discussed the place, and how it seemed to be a complete tourist trap, the lights dimmed again. People were silent and respectful for about a minute. Behind us, the couple continued making out. The girl was heard pretty easily, so there might have been more than making out. Maybe they liked the idea of doing stuff in public, but where people couldn’t see them. I mentioned to Matt and Steve how you could totally have sex in here, at which point some lady in her late twenties made a fart noise with her mouth. The room roared with laughter. Nobody could suppress that laugh. Then the copy cats began—including Matt and I. We tried to make the funniest sound possible. It felt like church—when you wanted to laugh about something, but felt naughty for wanting to, which only made you laugh more. It was like that.
          I remember Matt and I trying to see who could make the highest pitched fart noise with their mouth—a squeaker, if you will. It was really hard to do while laughing. We tried bird noises after that. The whole room was giggling—the old men and women, the middle aged, and the horny couple behind us.
          People tried to enjoy it by listening early on, but it was clear by that point that the only way to enjoy yourself was to make your own fun. It was a show that no one was mature enough to handle. The noises started getting old after a while too, and it was back to boring. I decided that we should leave. Before we left though, I thought it would be a really good idea to get something so I could remember the experience. So, in the pitch black room, I took a flash photo. Then we left.

Standoff on the Monkey Bars

2010-02-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

I don't have a picture of myself from around this time on my computer, so a picture of other kids is the best I can do.

When: 1993
My Age: Seven

Three Word Teaser: Spit, Banshee, Trouble

          “Move!” she snarled. Her voice was deep, and I could tell that she’d recently spent time gargling gravel. Her face warped. Fingernails turned to claws, teeth sharpened to fangs, and through her eyes I saw the devil. That’s how I remember it, anyhow. I suppose it’s possible that she yelled like a normal six or seven-year old girl. Maybe my memory has become distorted over the years. Perhaps she didn’t grow horns either. It’s probably fifty/fifty.
          “You move!” I said.
It happened in second grade—at recess—on the monkey bars. I was about a third of the way across the monkey bars when Kristen hopped on from the other side, and began making her way across.
          “Move! I’m a girl!”
          I could have let go and fallen to the ground, and sure, I could have climbed backwards and waited for her to cross, but she raised the stakes of the stand-off. This was no longer a simple battle over monkey bar territory; this had escalated into a battle between good and evil (boys vs. girls). I couldn’t afford to be passive. I had to make a stand. Good had to prevail!
          “You better move…I’m warning you,” I said, as I tried to imitate the tone my mom used when I tested the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
          She didn’t move. No blinking, no breathing. Nothing. So, I dipped my head back and threw it forward, trying to achieve the highest possible velocity. As I threw my head forward, I spat—right in her face. She fell like a bird shot from the sky, crumbled on the ground, and started crying, loud…really loud. I let go of the monkey bars.
          I should note that my decision to spit in her face came only after deciding against my initial idea, which was to kick her in the belly until she fell. I knew you weren’t supposed to hurt girls, but I still wanted to be mean to her. Spitting felt like my only choice.
          “Shut up!” I ordered. “Be quiet…I’m sorry. You can do it to me.”
          I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t move. I was there first! I was going to get in trouble, even though she wasn’t playing by the rules.
          The playground supervisor followed the sound of the banshee wailing, and lumbered over to find out what happened. Somehow, between her exaggerated cries, Kristen managed to choke out “He spit in my face!” I tried to tell the supervisor my side of the story, but she’d had already made up her mind and didn’t want to hear what I had to say. She told me to go to the principal’s office.
          As I walked to the principal’s office I grew angrier. I felt like it wasn’t my fault. I felt like Kristen deserved what she got, that I had warned her, and she still didn’t listen to me. After thinking about those points, I decided that I didn’t deserve to get in trouble, and so I didn’t go to the principal’s office. I walked to the door because the playground lady was watching, but I didn’t go inside. I sat in the recess of the doorway where she couldn’t see me.
          I waited for what seemed like a good twenty minutes. As it turned out, my seven year old time estimations weren’t quite up to snuff. I got up and walked back. Recess was still going on. That should have been my first clue (it was only twenty minutes long, and we’d already been out there for ten minutes). I went over to the swings and started swinging.
          The playground lady came up to me and asked if I went to the principal’s office.
          “Yep.”
          “Well, what did he say?”
          I looked her straight in the eyes.
          “I told him what happened, and he told me not to do it again.” I’d been in trouble before, and that was what they said a lot of the time.
          “Well, let’s go ask him,” she said in a “I-know-you’re-lying-you-little-shit” tone.
          Clearly, I was fucked. Not only was I going to get in trouble for spitting in Kristen’s face, but I was going to get into trouble for lying too. There was no getting around the trouble for spitting; that was obvious. But, on the way to the office, I made a desperate attempt to avoid additional punishment for lying. What did I try? More lying, of course.
          “Haha. I totally got you.”
          “What?” said the playground lady.
          “I tricked you. I didn’t go to the office. I was playing a joke. I’ll go now. You don’t need to come with me.”

Caitlin From Wisconsin

2010-02-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

When: Summer 1997
My Age: Eleven

Three Word Teaser: Guilt, Tongue, Voyeur

          I had my first girlfriend in fifth grade. Well, I had as much of a girlfriend as one could have at the tender age of eleven. I’m going to refer to said girlfriend as Ace. That’s because of Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. One of the strongest memories I have of her was when she imitated a scene in the movie by loping about and singing the Slinky song at recess.

          The story takes place in the summer before I went to middle school (between fifth and sixth grade). I hadn’t spoken to Ace since school ended. I wanted to, but calling her proved to be a terrifying experience. Over the summer, I did manage to call her once. I was going to ask her to a movie (Men in Black, I believe), but her mom answered, so naturally, I panicked, and hung up.
          Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew our pre-teen romance didn’t stand much of a chance. We were both going to be at different schools next year—she at Monticello, and myself at Cascade. School was the place where we spent the majority of our time together. The new schools were on opposite sides of town, and her house was three, maybe even four miles away from mine! If the route was flat, I might have been able to ride my bike to her house, but there was a big hill that I really didn’t want to walk my bike up, so I figured the chances of seeing her again were pretty slim.
          That summer my parents dropped me off at the YMCA day camp while they worked. Ace didn’t go to the day camp. Actually, I had no idea what she was doing, or where she was that summer; I just knew that she wasn’t where I was.
          At the day camp, I met a girl named Caitlin Somethingorother. She lived in Wisconsin, but was visiting her dad, so she was in town for the summer. She was a year older than me. We got along well. We enjoyed talking about how rough it was being in relationships that were separated by distance—her boyfriend was a couple thousand miles away in Wisconsin, and my girlfriend was three—maybe even four miles away. I thought it was a cool, mature thing to talk about.
          I thought lying was even cooler—especially to Caitlin. I wanted to impress her with my stories and accomplishments, even if they were completely fictitious.
          “So do you and your girlfriend French?” asked Caitlin.
          “Duh…” I lied.
          “Yeah, my boyfriend and I French kiss all the time,” she said.
          “Uh-huh,” I said in my best “whatever-take-it-or-leave-it-I’m-not-impressed” tone of voice.
          “So…have you ever gone to third base?” she said.
          What happened at third base was a mystery to me. If I’d had a gun to my head, I would have guessed that it was touching boobs, but I remember thinking that probably wasn’t right.
          “Oh yeah,” I told her, “but not that often.”
          I thought that by pretending to admit that it didn’t happen often, I had given my lie credibility. Caitlin paused for a moment.
          “Ever gone all the way?” she asked.
          “No,” I confessed. “But we’re talking about it.”
          Obviously we weren’t talking about it. But, again, I thought if it seemed like I was playing down my accomplishments, I would seem more credible.
          “Have you?” I asked.
          “Just once,” she said.
          “Really? What’s it like?” I asked. My focus intensified. I believed every word.
          “Oh yeah, it’s not even really a big deal. See? Okay, take your finger—“
          “Uh-huh.”
          “And put it in your belly button—that’s what it’s like.”
          Obviously, I tried it. I remember that being the point where it dawned on me that I might not have been the only one lying, because even at eleven, I knew that a finger in the belly button sure as shit didn’t feel close to good enough to warrant all the commotion surrounding sex.
          “Oh…I can see why people like it,” I said, trying to keep up the charade.
          “So do you want to French?” she asked.
          I made some sort of noise, but it didn’t have any of that language quality. It was whatever the sound is when you gasp, but try to fight the gasp, but actually gasp (because seriously, who can fight a gasp?), and your heart jumps up from your chest to your throat as the gasp arrives.
          “Uh…uh, I can’t,” I said, as I tried to fight the lump in my throat. “I’ve got a girlfriend.”
          “So what? I’ve got a boyfriend,” she said.
          I paused and tried to think of a way around her argument; I couldn’t. Her “So what?” logic was bulletproof.
          “Besides,” she said, “it doesn’t count if one of you is away.”
          Somehow, that seemed like another airtight point. She had her bases covered.
          “Oh...uh, alright then,” I said.
          I regretted agreeing immediately. It felt like a terrible idea. I was afraid of getting in too deep—she was going to discover I’d been lying, for sure. Unless…I thought…unless I managed to pull it off. Yeah, that could happen. After all, like everybody, I knew there were only two steps to Frenching:
          1. Find a girl who will let you put your tongue in her mouth.
          2. Put your tongue in that girl’s mouth.
          That isn’t so hard, I convinced myself; I could handle it. As the two of us searched the playground for a good spot, I continued psyching myself up. We decided on the first level of the jungle gym—beneath the slide. Three of the sides were covered, and the camp counselors weren’t facing the side that was exposed. The spot was perfect.
          She made the first move with a quick peck. We did a few more of the quick pecks, and I began to get a little more comfortable, while continuing to remain wildly uncomfortable. I opened my eyes after a few pecks and discovered a small crowd of nine and ten year olds that had gathered to watch us kiss. I don’t know how long they were there, and for some reason, I don’t tell them to leave.
          “Wanna’ French now?” Caitlin asked.
          The whole thing felt like a mess. I was just along for the ride, and had no control over anything.
          “’kay,” I whimpered.
          The only thing I knew about French kissing technique was what had been outlined in the two step guide to Frenching: put your tongue in that girl’s mouth. I went in for the kiss the same way I had with the peck, except my mouth was opened slightly. Once my lips met Caitlin’s, I cast my limp tongue into her mouth like I was unrolling a sleeping bag. I let it sit there, lifeless, until Caitlin’s tongue attacked mine.
          Oh! You’re supposed to move it around! It makes so much sense. How could I not know that? It felt like a minute. However, it probably only lasted five seconds—the first two with my weird, limp tongue, and the final three after I caught on, and started moving my tongue around. My initial assessment was that the first two seconds were fine, or decent, and the last three were wonderful.
          I looked at the voyeurs. I wondered if they noticed that I hadn’t known what to do—they looked impressed, I was in the clear. Then it hit me. Caitlin must have noticed—she’d know I’d been lying!
          Immediately I tried to think of a way where I could play off those first two seconds. I could tell; I was going to be confronted. I knew that the best thing to do when caught in a lie was to lie some more, so I needed to have a lie locked and loaded. “I wasn’t ready.” No. That wouldn’t work—it didn’t even make sense since she asked if I was ready and I said okay. “Yeah, I was a little thrown off—I thought you were talking about the other kind of Frenching.” Turning it around on her was an old and risky move, but I was desperate. I decided that if she didn’t buy it, I could say it was west-coast style. Giving it a name would somehow make it real.
          I felt guilty the moment I left the jungle gym. I wasn’t sure what to do. Caitlin was going to confront me at any minute, and I deserved it—I almost welcomed it…almost. I had kissed another girl. Would Ace kiss another boy, I wondered. I wasn’t sure, but I hoped not. I grew angry with Caitlin—this was her fault! If she hadn’t told me it was okay, then I wouldn’t have kissed her. Then again, if I hadn’t lied in the first place, I probably wouldn’t have either. Incredibly, I made it through the day without being confronted.
          I worried about being a terrible person—for kissing another girl, but not for lying…that was still okay. After a few hours awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, I came to a decision. At day camp the next day, I marched up to Caitlin and told her that I couldn’t talk to her anymore. She glared at me.
          “Well, why not?” she asked, through clenched teeth.
          “Um…well…because I’ve got a girlfriend, and…and I just don’t feel right about yesterday,” I said.
          “Whatever,” she said, “you’re so immature.”
          Caitlin spent the rest of the summer whispering to people and giggling when I was around her. I started to hate her. I still feel guilty about what happened. I never told Ace.

Risky Business

2010-01-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of me and Penner taken in the same year. I couldn't find a more relevant one.

When: July or August 2002
My Age: Sixteen

Three Word Teaser: Doughnuts, Tears, Competition

          It was Swanson’s birthday. A number of friends gathered at his house to celebrate. I don’t remember everyone who was there, but I remember Swanson (naturally), Robert, McDaniel, Gilchrist, Penner, Lindsay, and another guy who I will refer to as Rosco. Why Rosco? It’s funny to me.
          A bunch of nothing happened until most of the guests made it downstairs to play Risk. That’s right, the board game. Swanson, Robert, McDaniel, Gilchrist, and I played Risk pretty often that summer (usually at a coffee shop named Luigi’s), so we were excited to play a game with a lot of people. Everyone that I mentioned before, with the exception of Lindsay (I think), was playing. She might have played, but I don’t want to commit. I think we might have done teams, or something...whatever.
          There was something different about this game. We were playing with Rosco. Rosco was known for being a very competitive person. Risk was no exception. Whenever someone attacked his territories he became upset, and let the whole room know. Unfortunately for Rosco, this happened frequently since he was not a very smart player. He grew even more upset when dice rolls didn’t go in his favor. Since our group played together often, Rosco assumed that we were ganging up on him, and that otherwise, he would have won. His assumption was false.
          I recognize that I’m speaking as though everyone knows the game and how it’s played (which is probably not the case). I haven’t bothered explaining further because it’s not very relevant to the story.
          After the game ended, Rosco went outside to play basketball with Penner and Lindsay. Myself and many of the other players discussed our displeasure with Rosco’s attitude and assumptions. So we developed a plan to get Rosco back/teach him lesson. Our main objective was to make Rosco cry. The plan seemed very doable. Once the plan was clear, and everyone knew their role, we went to alert the rest of the people.
          Penner needed to be clear on what was happening. He and Rosco were still playing basketball outside, so we went to tell him. While Penner was being briefed, one of the regular Risk players thought aloud that a game of basketball might be fun. As most of us lined up to shoot for teams, Rosco decided that he and Penner should play everyone else. That meant two on five. Rosco seemed to be looking for a pick me up after his premature exit playing Risk. Maybe he thought beating a team with three extra players would be satisfying. Naturally, we agreed.
          Soon after the game began, somebody got the idea for everyone to guard Penner (a pentuple-team?), and for no one guard Rosco. When Rosco made a layup (which was the smart play), my team taunted him.
          “Showoff!”
          “There’s no “I” in team.”
          “…and Rosco shoots again. Big surprise.”
          “What a ball hog.”
          When Rosco gave in to our taunts, and passed to the pentuple-teamed Penner (which was the dumb play), it was a turnover, and my team taunted him.
          “Why would you do that?”
          “Learn to play.”
          “That was stupid.”
          “You had a wide open lane!”
          When Rosco played real defense and stole the ball from someone on my team, my team taunted him.
          “Geez Rosco! Settle down.”
          “Take it easy, this is just for fun.”
          “You don’t need to be so aggressive here.”
          My team laughed the whole time, so I don’t think it got to Rosco as much as it could have, but he was not a happy camper. He did the thing that some people do when they are mad—bottled it in. He kept it all inside, clenched his teeth, and didn’t say a word.
          After we played basketball for a little while somebody put the plan into action, and suggested that we play another game of Risk. We pretended to waffle on the idea. However, since Rosco wasn’t too pleased with how basketball was going, he was open to another game, which was just a happy accident. We thought we would have to convince him to play another.
          We headed back downstairs and set up another game. The first phase of our plan was to spread most of our troops away from Rosco’s territories so he had an advantage. We started the game. It seemed normal, but we decided to only attack each other, so Rosco would appear to be winning this game just as he imagined he would. We would attack Rosco, but very infrequently, and only when we were likely to lose the attack—we didn’t want him to become suspicious. The plan worked really well. Rosco’s spirits soared as he felt himself inch closer and closer to the sweet thrill of victory.
          My phase of the plan began once the game was well underway. It was clear who was winning and who was losing—I was losing. I let on that I was becoming frustrated with the situation. Rosco took pleasure in my frustration, much the same as I had done earlier when he was frustrated with basketball. No doubt he thought to himself about how nice it was when the tables were turned.
          As the game went on, my intensity continued to rise. Rosco smiled, but said nothing. After one of my irritated rants about someone attacking me, Rosco decided to attack one of my few remaining territories. If I lost, I’d be crippled to an extent that I would surely lose. Rosco had been running over the game. We rolled the dice. As I rolled the final dice to try and save my troops, I lost.
          “This is fucking bullshit!” I yelled as I flipped over the board.
          Rosco was stunned. The pieces were scattered everywhere. The plan was complete. Everyone’s eyes fixed on Rosco as we waited to see if he would cry. He was steaming. He said a few things to the effect of “Why did you do that?” and “That was really stupid.” Through it all, he did not cry—not a single tear. We had succeeded in making him mad, but not mad enough to cry. Ultimately, our plan was unsuccessful.
We had no more intentions of teasing Rosco that night, until Rosco heard someone bring up the idea of doing donuts in Robert’s car.
          “You guys are going to get doughnuts?” he said.
          It was funnier than it should have been, so we laughed, and he felt silly, until someone thought more about what he said.
          “Hey wait a second; I could go for some doughnuts. We should go get some doughnuts.”
          It turned out great. Half of the group went to do donuts in Robert’s car, and the other half went to buy doughnuts. I wound up with an adrenaline rush and some yummy doughnuts. That’s what I like to call getting the best of both worlds.

Strawberry in the City

2010-01-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

This is me and Matt in the subway. Steve was taking the picture.

When: August 2005
My age: Nineteen

Three Word Teaser: Cash, Orgasm, Häagen-Dazs (hyphenated words count as one word)

     This story takes place in New York City—the big banana. Lame. Okay, whatever, so Matt and I decided to visit Steve after his first year of college, and then go hang around in NYC.
     If I remember correctly (I’d say it’s a 50/50 shot), we were trying to make it to the Empire State Building. The three of us had just gotten off the subway at Penn Station. While exiting the station, a Häagen-Dazs store began to whisper sweet nothings into our ears: “Come on in. I’m sweet, and cool. It’s hot outside. You know I’m delicious. I’ll be kind. Everything will be okay.”
     Inside of the Häagen-Dazs, there were a bunch of tasty looking treats. There were cakes, sundaes, chocolate strawberries, milkshakes, ice cream (of course), etc. It was overwhelming. The smell inside the store was a very refreshing change from the streets of New York.
     I was won over by a poster of one of the milkshakes; it was some sort of raspberry, white chocolate full body orgasm, or something. Matt was eyeballing the chocolate covered strawberries. The store was pushing the chocolate covered strawberries pretty hard, it seemed; there was a poster outside, and other pictures and displays seemed to be everywhere you turned inside the store. They were shish-kabobed—three to a skewer, big, bright red, and juicy, covered mostly in the silkiest looking milk chocolate. Matt decided that’s what he was going with. Steve...well, I forget about Steve.
     I ordered my raspberry orgasm first. It took a while to make, but that’s because it was made with such tenderness, care, and love—the patient selecting of the perfect raspberries, the delicate shaving of the white chocolate, the near-death deep-throating of the milkshake gods…it was all for me. It made all the difference. That was one of the best milkshakes I’ve ever had. Well worth the four dollars it set me back.
     Matt was next. He was understandably excited given how my choice had turned out. He walked up to the counter, and pointed to the three-strawberry shish-kabob on display at the counter.
     “I’ll have the chocolate covered strawberry thing,” he said.
     The lady at the counter slumped over, opened the glass case, and snared a single chocolate covered strawberry. She dumped it in a paper bag, crumpled the top over, and opened the register.
     “Nine dollars,” she said.
     Matt was stunned. We all were. This was not the same care that she showed in making my milkshake. More importantly, this was not what Matt wanted. Maybe the lady was exhausted from the milkshake god deep-throat—maybe she was mad that I didn’t tip her, but come on, I spent over four dollars on a milkshake, I’m wasn’t about to just throw some away all willy-nilly-like.
     Franticly, Matt scoured the store, searching for the right words to clear up this grossly overpriced strawberry situation. He found only his wallet, which he opened, and with much hesitation handed over nine very nervous dollars. Steve and I laughed.
     Matt walked over to me and Steve. We looked on the board that had the prices and found out that the shish-kabob was twelve dollars—only three dollars more!
     “Matt, why didn’t you tell her that wasn’t what you wanted?”
     “Yeah, you can probably still fix it. Just go ask her.”
     “Nah…uh…this is fine. Whatever. Let’s just go, I’ve already spent nine dollars,” Matt said.
     So we left. Steve and I were still laughing as we left the station.
     “Matt, did you really just spend nine dollars on one strawberry?”
     “Shut up. Come on, the milk chocolate, the nice ripe strawberry, you guys are just jealous,” said Matt, who was trying to convince himself.
     We continued on our way to the Empire State Building. After a few blocks, the heat had really begun to take its toll, as did the smell. The smell was a complex mixture of fish, hot garbage, and the urine of an alcoholic homeless man. As we were crossing the street, I turned around to comment on the smell when I noticed Matt had just finished eating the strawberry in two chomps.
     “Matt!?! Did you just eat that strawberry while we were crossing the street?” I asked.
     “Yeah,” he said.
     “Matt! Why didn’t you savor it, or at least sit down and enjoy it? I mean, you did spend nine dollars on it,” said Steve.
     “Eh…whatever,” said Matt, who had just realized he made another bad decision.
     Steve and I laughed again.
     “So, Matt was it worth nine dollars?” I asked after a little while.
     “Nah…maybe two dollars, I’d say.”

The First Time I Don't Count

2010-01-16T00:32:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of me making a face from around the same time...in the same place.

When: March 2003
My Age: Sixteen

Three Word Teaser: Condoms, Soccer, Seinfeld

     It began in my ex-girlfriend’s bed. From this point forward, I’m going to refer to her as XG, which stands for ex-girlfriend. Both of us were sixteen, and had been dating for several months. She had an unusual bed. It was some sort of weird bunk situation. There was a futon on the bottom, a small mattress on top, really cold guard rails, and lots of leopard print (see above photo).
     One night in March of 2003, things between XG and I got a little steamy. We made our way up to her bed, started fooling around, and wound up naked. Complete nakedness was somewhat atypical at that time since we hadn’t had sex with each other. I was still a virgin (XG wasn’t).
      In the bed, we made out and did assorted things to various regions of each other—assorted things that certain individuals might have classified as hanky-panky. Well, I ended up on top of her and started doing a new move—a motion that I hadn’t done before. It was a teasing sort of thing. Let’s just call it a dance—a dance-tease, or tease-dance. I know what you’re thinking, but no, it wasn’t a burlesque-type thing. I wasn’t wearing any pasties. Basically, during my dance I brushed a sensitive region of myself against a sensitive region of her body. XG made a few sounds in rhythm with my dance that let me know she enjoyed it.
      For several weeks, I continued that dance, and actually incorporated a few variations along the way. The dancing usually ended when one of us realized that my dance wasn’t all that safe since a particular region of my body was without a protective layer. To that point, I had never purchased, or really even thought about buying those protective layers before. The dancing probably wasn’t that big of a deal since I was still a virgin, but it certainly wasn’t the safest thing in the world, and neither of us wanted a baby situation to arise, no matter how unlikely. After some more time dancing, XG and I made the decision to purchase the protective layers. It was my understanding that the protective layers were known on the streets as condoms.
      We discussed it one night after a dance. It was made very clear to me that we wouldn’t be dancing anymore without the condoms. It was also made clear to me that just because we had condoms didn’t mean we would have sex. That seemed fine to me, I wasn’t greedy. I offered to go buy the condoms right there, that night.
     “No! People could recognize me,” XG said.
     “Well I can go. You can wait in the car, or you don’t even have to come,” I said.
     “No! You can’t do it in town. They’ll see you and know it’s for me!”
     After some more discussion, “we” decided that I would be buying the condoms in Vancouver the upcoming Friday night while she was playing soccer with her dad. It seemed like a good time since we could be out late, it was out of town, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for me to drive up with her and watch.
      After school on Friday, I met up with XG. Her twelve year old cousin had come over under the assumption that she was spending the night. XG assured me that her cousin wasn’t spending the night, but she would be coming to the soccer thing. XG also told me that she and her cousin would be riding to the soccer thing with XG’s dad. That didn’t seem like a big deal, the plan didn’t change: go to Vancouver, buy condoms.
      Sometime while her cousin was in the bathroom, XG had a break in games and sat with me. We decided that it was a good time for me to go. Even before I got to Vancouver, I knew where I was going to buy the condoms: the 7-11 across from the Safeway. Occasionally, I went there for candy while XG was playing soccer. My heart raced on the way over, and didn’t seem to slow down once I was inside.
     There were somewhere between three to five people in line. I walked slowly down each aisle. I was browsing, hoping to spot them out of the corner of my eye. I tried to appear as though I was trying to decide what to get…maybe a Twix, maybe some condoms, whatever. After a casual trip down the aisles, the condoms were nowhere to be found. I went through again, this time with more purpose. I combed the aisles, back and forth. I knew for sure I’d seen them in a 7-11 before. After five minutes or so I was a little panicked, but I wasn’t leaving without condoms.
      The purchase had played out much differently in my head: the lights were dimmed, and one light in back near the beer flickered and swayed. I wore a trench coat and a hat; it was tilted down so you couldn’t see my eyes. My face was nothing but a shadow. The place was full of shadows and people, like me, doing unspeakable things under the cover of night. I was able to hear the death outside of the store when the insects attracted to the light of the bug zapper flashed and cracked. The rats ran in the shadows. I couldn’t see them anymore than they could see me. I used a special knock on the counter. Someone from the back room slid a brown paper bag with the top rolled over across the counter. In place of the bag, I left a handful of sweaty, ragged bills and went on my way.
     “Not finding what you’re hungry for?” asked the cashier.
     My dazed pacing through the aisles must have given her the impression that I was high. There were two or three other people in the store at that time. I rolled the question over in my head and weighed my options. I could tell her I wanted condoms, not food.
     “Pervert.”
     I could tell her I wanted a food.
     “Dunkaroos.”
     “Pervert.”
     I could flee, I could laugh and say, “Nope…not yet,” then continue searching the aisles. It had begun to look like I might have to tell her what I was looking for already.
     “DA..uhh…DOYOUHAVEANYCONDOMS?!?” I hollered.
     (gasp) “Oh…uh…yeah…they’re up here, behind the counter,” she said in a whisper. It was clear that she was embarrassed for me.
     I edged past some other guy standing by the counter. The cashier asked me which kind I wanted.
     “I…uh…”
     “Regular or ribbed?” she asked.
     “Umm…let’s go ribbed,” I said. I remembered hearing or reading that the ribbed made it better for the women, and so, because I’m not a jerk, I went with that.
     The lady grabbed it for me and I paid—with cash obviously; I didn’t want my mom seeing a charge for condoms on the credit card, which is exactly what I thought would show up on the bill—Jack In The Box, Burgerville, CONDOMS FOR CHRIS, Jack In The Box...and so forth.
     I went outside and threw away the brown paper bag that she put them in along with the receipt. They were evidence, well, the brown paper bag wasn’t evidence, but I thought it was suspicious…suspicious and bulky. I hid the package under my car information in my glove compartment and disorganized the papers in there to give it a more natural look than its natural look.
     I returned to the soccer place and found XG sitting in the same spot she was when I left. I began telling her about my condom buying adventure.
     “Hey where did you go?” said her cousin, who seemed to come from nowhere.
     I lied to her cousin regarding my whereabouts, naturally, and after a bit, she let it slide. Before we all left the soccer place, XG and I devised a plan to meet up. She was going to call me after her cousin had been dropped off and her dad had gone to bed.
     I parked near her house and waited for her call. I was always fascinated with things that I thought I wasn’t supposed to have, so I took out the condom box and read the directions. I double-checked the technique I planned to use putting it on since I didn’t want to mess up. The directions didn’t give me any surprises, but I re-read them another ten or fifteen times, you know, just to be sure.
     XG called. I parked at a different spot a little closer to her house. She met me at the door.
     “Did you bring them?” she said.
     “What? No…I didn’t want to…uh…be presumptuous,” I said.
     “Go grab them.”
     Less than a minute later we were in her room. We hid the condoms and turned on the TV. The TV was perfect because it gave some light, but not too much and it provided some background noise in case someone walked by her room. Things started to heat up pretty quick, she got naked, and we were in her bed.
     “Do you want to try them out?” one of us asked—I don’t remember who. We agreed to give my dance a go with a condom on. I grabbed one from the hiding place and crawled back up into her bed. I got naked and we made out some more before we put the condom on.
     I had the condom wrapper in my hand and decided it was time. It was at that moment that I thought about George from Seinfeld—not for sexual reasons. I was thinking about the episode where he has trouble with the condom wrapper.

     The wrapper was surprisingly easy to open.
     I climbed on top of her and started my dance. It started like usual, but escalated to some more severe brushing against one another. We did that for longer than usual. She was making all sorts of noises including, but not limited to, the heavy breathing while making sure our eyes were locked, and the head back, eyes closed, moan.
     The eyes-locked-with-heavy-breathing deal happened more often as time passed. She kept coming back to it, each time, getting more and more into it. She grabbed my head and kissed me at one point and then nodded—it was a slow, subtle nod, sure, but it was a nod. By that point, my dance had become more aggressive than usual.
     XG’s slow nodding gave me the impression that she wanted me to go farther. That was our unspoken signal—we’d set a precedent with the acts that preceded this. It happened when something was more aggressive than usual, then, when it seemed like we might be ready for a little more, I would pause, look her in the eyes, tilt my head, and give a look that asked “Eh? How about a little of this?” After my look, XG would give a slow nod, and we would move on to the next thing.
     I decided to see if she wanted to go further. I pulled back a little and paused. She locked eyes with me. I gave the (Eh? How about a little of this?) look. She kept her eyes locked with mine and gave the slightest of nods.
     I leaned back in and started doing an even more intense dance than I had been before. Her breathing was really loud. During one of my dance moves, I caught myself in the right spot. I eased myself in. XG let out a really loud noise. I pulled back and gave two more pumps. It felt amazing. So warm. So wonderful.
     After the total of three pumps, after the heavy breathing, after the long buildup, after the ordeal buying the condoms, after the amazing feeling, XG lurched backwards, turned on her side and started crying.
     Fuck.
     I was more than familiar with her crying…she was one of those girls. This time was different. I hadn’t dealt with the crying while I was naked before, especially not while I was naked with such a furious erection. It’s not an experience I would recommend.
     It took me a moment to comprehend what was happening. I ran it through my head: bought condoms, did a dance, had three pumps of sex, then crying. It was clear that we were done with the fun part of the night and were about to deal with the crappy part. I wish the transition wouldn’t have been so quick. I thought perhaps I had misread the slow nod. I crumbled beside her, put my hand on her shoulder, and tried to get to the bottom of it.
     “Hey,” I shook her shoulder, “what’s wrong?”
     “I’m sorry,” she said. I didn’t see that coming. Was this a trick?
     “No, I’m sorry,” I said.
     “Why are you sorry?”
     I didn’t know. It just felt like if I was going to say something that was what I was supposed to say. I was still unclear on whether or not I should have said something.
     “I…uh…I don’t know, I guess. I mean, I’m sorry that you’re crying. What’s wrong?” I said.
     XG said that she didn’t want to do it that soon and that’s why she was crying. I told her that I was sorry, that I thought she nodded, and that I would throw away the condoms. I don’t know why I said that. It just came out. She said not to throw them away, because that would be stupid. Maybe that is why I said it—so she could tell me not to. Maybe I wanted some indication that this wasn’t the end of the world.
      She apologized hundreds of times for ruining my first time. The first few times she said she was sorry, I didn’t say anything. I thought she was right, as bad as that sounds. I thought it was ruined, and that it was her fault. The only thing I was sure I would remember was dealing with her crying. After a few moments, I told her there was no way I was going to count whatever that was as my first time.