Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I love the winter. It always gives me good feelings inside. There are so many good things that go on in the winter: Christmas, New Year, Valentine's Day, sledding, hot chocolate, etc. I love all of them. This is one of my best memories of Winter.

When I was at Kirkwood, I spent a lot of time at Topher's apartment. His roommate, Woody, and I were pretty good friends as well, because we were both in theatre and had just been in "Urinetown" together. Yes, friends, that is the name of an ACTUAL show. A musical, in fact. Anyway, the first winter we knew each other, we were sitting around the apartment, bored, trying to find something to do. So Woody mentioned sledding. Topher and I thought that sounded fun, so we drove to Wal-Mart in search of a sled.

While there, I thought it'd be fun to get a big tupperware storage container and slide down the hill in that. So I spent the $20 and bought it. Woody bought a sled that looked more like a boogie board you would use in a pool than an actual sled. Topher bought a normal, circular sled. After Wal-Mart, we went over to my grandma's house, where I lived, and grabbed my video camera, because what's funnier than a bunch of grown people sledding like 8 year olds?

We went back to Topher and Woody's apartment and got ready to go sledding. Behind Linn Hall at Kirkwood was a really tall hill that we thought looked like a lot of fun. So we drove over there and trekked up to the top of the hill.

We went down the hill on Topher's sled a few times, and it was fun, but nothing spectacular. We tried Woody's sled, and it barely went half way down the hill. Slowly. We tried my storage container... And didn't move at all. The night was turning out to not be as fun as we thought. I started filming Topher and Woody when I got tired of walking back up the hill all the time. It was dark, so the footage kinda sucked, but you could still make out what we were doing.

Then, I got a brilliant idea.

"Hey, we should put the storage box on top of the boogie board."

Woody and Topher didn't think it would work, but nothing else was working that well, so we gave it a shot. We set the boogie board/sled on the snow and set the box on top of it. Topher and I held it steady as Woody got inside the box. Woody started shuffling the box forward a little, the boogie board oddly staying underneath it. He started off slowly at first, so we started thinking it wasn't going to work at all.

WHOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!!

Woody suddenly took off. He yelled in excitement as he went down the hill. As he reached the bottom, he wasn't slowing down. Topher and I watched as Woody tipped the box over and the boogie board kept going... and slammed into a dumpster at the bottom of the hill. He quickly got up, grabbed the box and the boogie board, and ran back up the hill.

"It was awesome! I had to bail at the end, because I was going to hit the dumpster, but it was great! You need to go."

So we set everything back up, a few feet to the right so he wouldn't have to worry about hitting the dumpster, and Topher climbed inside the box.

WHOOOOSSSSHHHH!!!!

Topher went down the hill just as quickly as Woody. He went a few feet into the parking lot before he bailed. He grabbed everything and ran up the hill.

"Dude, that was cool! It's so fast, I probably would have kept going if I wouldn't have bailed to stop."

At that moment, our friend, Carl, called me and asked what we were up to. We told him, and he rushed over. He, too, tried our set up and found himself having fun. I filmed every bit of it, until I ran out of battery. The only problem is that I eventually taped over part of it. Which kinda sucks.

After a few hours of this, we all went back to Topher and Woody's apartment and had hot chocolate to warm up. We all gushed about our fun new activity, and tried to think of a name. As the one who came with the idea itself, I'm proud to say I also came up with the name:

Thus, the Boogie Box was born.

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

My current project is a somewhat expensive one.

There is an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Marshall talks about how he found "the best burger in New York City." He went into great detail about the burger and the place itself, but could not remember how he got there. So the gang spends the whole episode going from burger joint to burger joint in search of this awesome burger. Every time they think they found it, Marshall says "this isn't it" and off they go to find the next place that might have this magical burger. Finally, in the end, they find the burger place and everything is right with the world.

I decided I wanted that experience.

I have taken it upon myself to find what I deem the "best burger in Iowa City." Indeed, I have had many burgers throughout my life, but very few that elicited as great a reaction as Marshall's. So I have taken it upon myself to go to each restaurant/pub in Iowa City and Coralville (because let's face it, they're pretty much the same town at this point) that serves burgers and try them, one by one, in search of the best.

Many of you readers are personal friends of mine. Okay, you're ALL personal friends of mine. I invite you all, anyone who wishes, to come with me on this journey. If you want to join me, please, give me a call. Send me a text. Write on my facebook wall. We WILL work together to find the best burger in Iowa City. Thank you, my friends. And wish me luck. I hope to see some of you enjoying a burger with me.

-Joel W. Collins

Grief

So I was cleaning my room today, and I found a short monologue I wrote for Playwriting class. Oddly enough, it rang very true to recent events in my life, even though I wrote it 2 years ago. Maybe it's fate that I found this, but I wanted to share it with you, dear readers, because I actually felt a little better after reading it. Who knew that 2 years ago I would ACTUALLY be writing the future. Anyway, enjoy the monologue:

(Open: A lone man, around 28 years old, sits on the floor center stage. His head is in his hands. He looks up and slowly drops his hands to his sides.)

Grady: How could this happen? I thought I did everything right. I was always there when no one else was. Wasn't I? I was never late for anything you asked me to be there for. But when were you ever there for me? Never. Not once. Because of you, until today, I haven't left my bed in four days. I did nothing but watch "Scrubs" reruns on several different channels. The one where Dr. Cox kills three patients was on at least three times during that time. And I cried EVERY time! I didn't answer my phone, I didn't answer the door, I laid there. I didn't sleep at all. I barely ate anything that entire time. I'm STARVING!! I'm starving for your attention... But you never give it to me. And I'm tired. Physically and mentally exhausted. (Grady stands up) I just wanted to be your friend; MORE than a friend. And you led me on, making me think that's what you wanted, too. But it's not, is it? What do you want? I've given everything I can. I don't want this to end, but I don't want to go on with all this pain. I should have listened to everyone else who said to leave you alone. Stop hanging out so much, they said. I thought they were just jealous, so I ignored them. And now I see they were right. I should have listened... But I didn't. And here we are. And here come the tears. (Grady begins crying) I don't know anymore... I guess I never did. I can't stop crying. I don't want to. If I did, that would mean I've finally given up on you. And that's just not who I am. Just... tell me what to do to change everything. Tell me what I have to do to make things better. Is there anything I can do? No... I didn't think so. It's what YOU should be doing. I shouldn't have to do SHIT! I didn't do anything wrong. YOU did! Why am I the only one hurting? You should be, too! But no, you don't care. You never cared. If you really cared, you wouldn't have done this in the first place. Fuck you. I'm done. I don't care anymore. I don't. Have fun with your life. I'll have fun with mine... FUCK!!!

(Grady sits down on the floor and covers his face with his hands)

Grady: How could this happen...

Ghostbusters

Many people don't know this about me, but I am obsessed with the occult. I believe in ghosts, demons, magick, cryptozoology, and all that weird jazz. One of my favorite things to do when I was younger was go with a group of friends to a supposedly haunted place (usually a cemetery) and ghost hunt. While not every trip yielded results, some were pretty freaky (even if it was just in our heads). These are the ones I remember.

Before I start, I must give credit where credit is due: My mom is the one who first got me to notice the supernatural things around me. She told me stories about the house we lived in (and she still does), which I was too young to notice myself. One thing she told me about was when she was feeding the dog one day. She looked at the double windows that showed into the kitchen and there was an old lady standing next to me, staring at my mom. Apparently, I hadn't noticed the lady and happily ate whatever food I was eating.

I, however, had different experiences in that house. None of which were violent, by any means, but freaky to a young boy. I slept most of my youth with my closet light on because my closet door had windows that showed into the hallway. When the light was off... I watched shadows walk like people up and down the hallway. This led to a lot of sleepless nights... until I started sleeping at the foot of my bed where I couldn't see into the closet.

My first ghost hunting trip was when I was 14. My buddy Antoine's family were also interested in the supernatural, and they were the ones who officially introduced me to the occult. They let me join in on a Ouija session, told me stories of their own, and even took me ghost hunting for the first time. Antoine's mom was a wiccan, as well, which was interesting. Nothing happened on my first trip out, so it was kinda disappointing... but fun!

It wasn't until I was 16 that I had my first odd encounter. I went with Antoine and his family to a cemetery in Ladora. We stalked around the cemetery (which they said a witch's coven had all been buried there) for about an hour before deciding to call it quits. On the way out, I felt a weird sensation at the nape of my neck, so I turned around. And there it was, a transparent... well, it looked like someone on their stomach... crawling across the ground behind me. I told everyone about it, but when we started looking, whatever it was had disappeared into thin air.

When I was 17, Kent and I started traveling around and visiting different cemeteries around the area. Now, Kent also has his own stories of the supernatural, involving the ghost of a soldier that would come visit him at his mom's house. Well, he'll probably kill me for revealing this (I think I was supposed to keep it a secret), but he is a little psychic. Not foretell the future or read your mind psychic, but he can sense things other people can't. In this particular instance, Kent, my cousin Mark, and I went to 13 stairs outside of Palo... or at least attempted to. See, kids, it's TECHNICALLY illegal to be in a cemetery after dark. Sure, you can get permits (that's what shows like Ghost Hunters and its ilk do), but who has time and money to do things like that? Anyway, we got to 13 stairs and there was a sheriff there reprimanding some other kids, so we turned around and headed back toward Cedar Rapids.

Suddenly, it got VERY cold in the car. For those of you who are unaware, when a ghost is near you, the air gets colder. The weird part about this is that the heat was on in the car. On full blast. Suddenly Kent, in the passenger seat, spoke up:

"There's something in the car."

I looked in the rear view mirror as the windows in the back started fogging up. Matt started fidgeting.

"What's wrong?" I asked
"Something's scratching my back."
"It's not here to hurt us. It's trying protect us..." Kent said.
"From what?"
"From that cemetery..."

After a few miles, Kent announced that the spirit had left the car. So in silence, we drove to Cedar Rapids, then back home to Victor. When we got back to my dad's house, Matt took off his shirt and started to walk away from us, into the brightly lit kitchen.

His back was covered in scratch marks.

We took pictures (I'm not sure what happened to them) and when we got them developed, there was a glowing orb in the picture next to Matt. Kent and I were clean, but Matt had a glowing orb. In every picture. It was... odd... to say the least.

Anyway, I have lots of stories about ghost hunting with friends, but being that ghost stories are more of a Halloween thing, I think I will save some of them for then. And anyone who wants to have their own ghost story to tell, I'm up for it any time. Just give me a call. I know some neat places, and if nothing else, at least it's a story to tell.

Amy

I’ve always been pretty open about the fact that I’ve only had one girlfriend in my life. The relationship only lasted six months, but I still find myself thinking of Amy every once in a while; I end up wondering whether I made the right choice.

I met Amy when I transferred to HLV my sophomore year of high school. I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention to her, because honestly, I thought she was kind of annoying. I was also interested in another girl at the time, Jamie. I had a thing for Jamie almost instantly. She was smart, funny, and didn’t care what anybody else thought of her. I love those qualities in a person.

Anyway, Jamie and I were in almost all the same classes, with the exception of P.E. and a couple other classes. So we became close. I even bought her a necklace that Christmas, I was THAT into her. The class that came to heavily influence my relationships in high school was choir, which Jamie, Amy, Douche, Kitty, and later Mandy were all in with me. The second semester of my sophomore year I signed up for show choir for three reasons: I had just been in the school musical in the fall and felt I could use a few dance lessons, I loved singing THAT much, and Jamie was in it. Amy was ALSO in show choir with us, and that’s how I got to know her a little better (but still felt a little annoyed by her).

In the Spring every year, the Show Choir and Jazz Band took trips to other states to perform. I feel like there was more to these trips, but all I can really remember is staying in hotel rooms and sightseeing. Those were the more interesting parts, anyway. Well, that year we went to St. Louis.

Now, Douche was in Jazz Band (as were Kitty and Jamie… Maybe Amy, I can’t remember), so he was also on this trip. Our nightly regimen consisted of sitting in the hotel room and watching pay-per-view. I remember watching the movie “Say It Isn’t So” with a huge group of people on the bed in my room (four of the six total being girls, mind you). Anyway, Douche and Jamie had just started dating, so I was going through my “get-over-it” ritual of trying to ignore the girl I had feelings for in an effort to move on.

I was already feeling slightly depressed because of this the day we went to the zoo. Now I didn’t have a watch, and this was before every kid in America had a cell phone, so I had to stay close to someone I knew had a watch. Douche had a watch. So I had to trail him and Jamie in order to know what time it was. Amy was with us, as was Kitty and another friend of mine, Drew; though Drew and Kitty wandered off occasionally to join some of their other friends on the trip.

While hanging out at the zoo, apropos of nothing, Amy waited until we were alone and said this:

“Nobody likes you.” Then she walked away.

Boom. Instant depression. From that moment on, while I still followed the group (no watch, remember), I said nothing and hung back as far as I could without losing them. And because Amy and I were alone when she said it, nobody knew why I was suddenly upset. And for those of you who have not had the pleasure of being around me when I’m upset, I do not like to talk. At all. I don’t smile, I don’t speak, I don’t even look at people. I make it pretty obvious when I’m upset about something.

Well, finally, Jamie took me aside and asked me why I was upset. I had feelings for this girl, and she was one of my best friends, so I told her what happened. She tried her best to comfort me (didn’t work) and rejoined Douche and the rest of the group.

I assume she started telling people what I had told her, because a few minutes later, a slew of people started coming up to me, one by one, and telling me “I like you, Joel.” I shrugged it off, because, well, I didn’t want to hear it at that point. I was already gone. At the end of the day, we got on our bus and went back to the hotel. I sat in the hotel room alone while everyone else wandered around the halls and swam.

After about 20 minutes, there’s a small knock at the door. It was Amy.

“I didn’t mean what I said. I really do like you.”

I said nothing. I went and lied on the bed and continued to watch TV. She came and lied down next to me.

“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

Still nothing. Shortly thereafter, people started coming back up from the pool. As more people started coming into the room, my mood began to brighten and I became myself again. When this happened, I took Amy out in the hall and told her myself that what she said upset me. She hugged me and told me she hoped I didn’t hate her. I told her I didn’t and invited her to hang out in the room with us. She accepted and that’s when we rented the movie I mentioned earlier and watched it.

Fast forward: It’s now June. School is out for the year and I’m stuck at home. One day, Amy calls me out of the blue and we sit and talk for about an hour, when her dad comes home and she has to get off the phone. Now is a perfect time to reiterate for you, for those of you who don’t know or just never noticed: I can NOT read signals and hints from girls. Like, at all. If you go back and read the first story I told, you’ll see that it is a curse that I must live with. Well, Amy calls me a few more times that week before her friend Anna calls me from Amy’s house.

The conversation went something like this:

“Blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit, Amy likes you, you know.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Amy has a crush on you. She told me not to tell you.”

Then Amy got on the phone.

“Is that true?” I asked.
“…Yes…”

The game had now changed, ladies and gentlemen. I went from feeling like nobody would ever love me (outside family) to feeling like I owned the world. So from that moment on, I started calling her a little more. And we’d spend HOURS on the phone. Our first “date” came when she asked me to go to the Marengo fireworks with her and her family. Sure, why not, anything to spend time with her. So I borrowed my mom’s car and went and picked her up. That’s when I met her nine (!) brothers and sisters. Yes, that’s right, nine. It was… overwhelming, to say the least.

Anyway, so she and one of her sisters rode with me there. We walked around Marengo, holding hands and watching the fireworks. We ran into some people we knew and chitchatted.

About midnight or so, I took her and her sister home. We held hands the whole ride home and listened to the music on my CD player. When we got there, her sister went inside and Amy and I started saying good night. Now, I only remember one song from the CD we listened to because of this: “Sweet Emotion” by Aerosmith. It was playing as she started to get out of the car, but I grabbed her wrist and she sat back down. I stared deeply into her eyes (I love eyes, by the way. You can know a person in an instant by just gazing into their eyes) and asked her to officially be my girlfriend. She said yes (obviously, or there’d be no story) and we started dating officially on July 5 at about 12:30 A.M. I remember the exact day because I made the stupid joke that I almost lost my dating independence on Independence Day. Very very stupid joke. I was a dumb kid; Still kind of am.

We spent the rest of the summer hanging out (many days in secret while her dad was at work. Her mom loved me and tried to help us have alone time constantly). When school rolled around, we were VERY excited to tell our friends we were dating. Everyone knew about us. And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. I had my chemistry teacher, who I’d never even met before I had class with him, ask me about our relationship. Seriously, it was everywhere within the first week.

We would also meet up between classes and duck into an empty stairwell or hallway and have quick make-out sessions. As of now, I’m VERY wary of using the word LOVE when speaking about how I feel about someone, but she and I were saying “I love you’s” very early on. And yes, she said it first. Well, she didn’t really say it, she wrote it down and her mom showed it to me. Same thing. We started working on the fall musical “Bye Bye Birdie” at that point and would sneak off, again, to make out in stairwells and hallways (even though I was driving her home every night, so we could have just waited until we got to the car).

In October, she told me she and her family were moving to Cedar Rapids. This sucked. We cried. A lot. Our friends cried. A lot. Anyway, we decided Cedar Rapids wasn’t that far away so we would talk on the phone and I’d go visit on the weekends. We did that for a while, until my dad wouldn’t pay for my gas to drive up there and both our parents began bitching about the phone bills. Then I would only go up every other weekend and we would only talk for, like, 20 minutes on the phone at night.

One day, during one of our phone conversations, she told me she hadn’t made any friends since she moved up there. This was after Thanksgiving some time, so it had been quite some time since she had moved. I asked her why and she told me:

“I don’t want to make new friends. I want to go back to HLV and be with you.”

I believe very strongly in friendship. In my opinion, friends are the most important thing to have in your life. My friends are my family, too. If I have a problem, I go to my friends, and MOST of them will be there to help me. If you break up with your significant other, your friends are the ones who will help you get over it. And it’s easier to lose love than friendship. So when she told me she was refusing to make friends, I told her:

“You HAVE to make friends. I can’t let you not have friends.”

Yet, she remained adamant about not making friends. So I dropped the subject for the moment. And we talked about how much we missed each other.

During this time apart, I noticed a few girls trying to get closer to me, including Jamie. And since I had feelings for Jamie longer than I even KNEW Amy, I found myself being attracted to her again. But I was with Amy, and I would NOT be a cheater, ever. Cheating is the most inexcusable act a person can do and I do not support people who do it. I’ve actually ended friendships with people because of it. Seriously, I am that against it.

Well, in January, Amy and I had the friend discussion again. And she was still refusing to make friends, and she said it was because of me. I was keeping her from having friends. Now, I know she didn’t mean it in that way, but that’s how I saw, and continue to see, it. So I did some thinking and finally took a drive up to see her. She was very distant and still adamant about coming to be with me. I didn’t want that. So I went home and thought very hard about what to do next.

I thought about how Amy was when we first met. I was annoyed by her. She was a Christian girl, which I was fine with. She had lots of friends and was happy. Now, though she was still Christian, she wasn’t following it as much and not going to church as much and cursing a LOT more. Anyone who knows me knows I have a filthy mouth, and it was rubbing off. She had no friends and seemed to only be happy when I was around. I had become her crutch and was corrupting her. There were… other things… that contributed to me corrupting her, but I won’t go into that. That stuff is private. But the most important thing: I loved her, and I couldn’t abide her turning into someone she wasn’t. Someone like me.

I decided I needed to break up with her.

Now, I’m not proud of this, but because I couldn’t drive up to do it in person, I called her and broke up with her over the phone. Now, I told her the reason was because I had some family stuff going on and couldn’t deal with everything. While at the time, that was true, that was not the reason. It was all of the things I have just told you, dear readers. Jamie seeming interested, Amy not having friends, me corrupting her… All of it.

Well, we remained friends through all of it, continuing to talk on IMs and occasionally the phone. But shortly after, Drew asked her to prom with us. I was a little uncomfortable at first, but eventually became okay with it. After prom, they officially started dating, which I was happy about. Drew was like Amy: He went to church, didn’t swear, and was just generally a good person. All the things I wasn’t.

After high school, Drew asked Amy to marry him. And they were engaged for 3 years before they finally broke up. Drew is now married to a different girl. Amy, on the other hand, is engaged again to some other guy. I met him once, and he seemed like a good guy, and he makes her happy, so I’m happy.

Occasionally, I wonder if I made the right choice in breaking up with her. I haven’t had a girlfriend since her, every girl I’ve had feelings for has decided I’d make a better friend than a boyfriend (then they stop talking to me), and I’m just generally lonely and unhappy… I sacrificed my own happiness for hers. And because of that… I think I made the right choice.

Drinking

It's been a while since my last post, and I promised everyone a story when I finally posted again. Well, with only a week and a half of school left, I will be able to post a little more frequently. To tide you over until then, when I will give you a big long story to satiate your minds, I will tell you the story of the first time I got drunk, or "The Victory of the 20 oz. Bottle."

It was 2001, I was 15, and living in Victor, IA. Victor is a small town where everyone, and I mean literally everyone, knew who I was. The fun thing to do, at least when you had a license, was to drive up and down the main street of the town, back and forth, for hours on end. Such was my life in high school.

In high school, I was in Show Choir. If you don't quite know what that is, though I assume everyone does, watch the show Glee. Yeah. That's pretty much what we did. Except not as cool, not as much drama, and not as awesome of a soundtrack. We did a lot of medleys. The only song I can actually remember doing is a Grease Medley while dancing on boxes. Pretty lame. But it was kinda fun, I guess.

Anyway, I was going to a show choir... show... at a nearby school on a Saturday, so I stayed in Victor at my aunt's house on Friday night. My cousin, Gary, drove me out to my house (as I lived in the country) to get some clothes for the next day. Thank God we did that, too.

I need to backtrack and state, for the record, that I was a stupid kid. Well, not really stupid so much as... I was a dink. One day, for no reason whatsoever, I took an empty 20 oz. bottle and filled it with a rum, tequila, and vodka mixture. Even thinking about it now makes me cringe. Well, instead of drinking it, I hid it in my room. In the closet.

When Gary took me out to my house, I gave him the bottle to drink with his friends. The house he was going to drink at was up the hill from my aunt's house. Well, I sat at the house for a couple hours, watching a movie. I got bored and decided I'd go up the hill to see what was happening at the house my dad later referred to as "The house of ill repute." And, my friends, he was right.

When I got up there, I was introduced to the few people there I didn't know and we began chitchatting. At one point I asked if anyone had drank the bottle I had given Gary. One of the guys there said "Fuck no! There's no one here who could stomach that shit."

Keep in mind I had never had a drink before.

"You guys are pussies!"
"Then you fucking drink it."

And I did. I chugged it down and didn't even flinch. Everyone in the room cheered when I finished and smiled and winked at everyone in attendance. Someone yelled "That kid's got an iron stomach!" So they decided to feed me as much alcohol as they could find. I drank a small bottle of Mexican Brandy, a couple beers, a few things I can't even remember, and about a quarter bottle of Jeremiah Weed, the most foul alcoholic beverage I've ever had the horror to ingest. Out of everything I drank
that night, that was the only thing that made me flinch. It was disgusting.

Well, after a few hours of drinking very VERY heavily, I decided it was time to go home. So I started walking back to my aunt's house. When I got there, Gary's sister Elle was on the couch. So I sat on the floor at the end of the L-shaped couch. Elle was still awake, so she asked me if I had fun.

My friends, I have no idea what I actually replied. All I remember is talking and in the middle of talking... I threw up. All over myself. Elle sat up and yelled "Joel, get to the bathroom!" So I crawled... Read again, CRAWLED... down the hallway to the bathroom where I continued to throw up all over the toilet and floor. I laid down on the floor and passed out for what seemed like about 10 minutes. I think it was actually about 4 hours, because when I got up, I took off my shirt, puked a little more and crawled back to the end of the couch.

I laid down and tried to sleep. About a half hour into laying there, I heard my aunt and her boyfriend come out of their room to go to work. I heard them talking about how I puked all over the bathroom and my aunt, God bless her, cleaned up the mess AND washed the shirt I had been wearing. In the morning, when I woke up, she gave me some breakfast and told me she wouldn't tell my dad. When my dad picked me up later to take me to the Show Choir thing, he asked me if I had fun. I groaned in pain. He laughed.

"You won't be doing that again for a LONG time, will you?"
"No..."

So he took me to the 4 hour show choir concert and left me, alone. I laid on the bleachers in the gymnasium the entire time. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, and standing up meant fighting the urge to throw up. Finally, my dad came to get me and we went home, where I immediately went to bed and slept for about 5 hours.

I drank only one other time in high school and it was with my dad. We drank a bottle of permafrost together and called my stepdad at 3 A.M. Dad and I thought it was hilarious. My stepdad did not. It wasn't until years later, in college, when I would get drunk again at all, let alone that drunk.

Now, the only time I drink to the point of throwing up is when something is upsetting me, severely. So if I'm with you, and I'm drinking so much that I throw up or am going to throw up, there's something wrong. I've only been that bad four times in my life at this point.

Silent Lucidity

I started this blog for many reasons. The catharsis of telling stories and getting feedback on them is one of them. To prove that I am a good storyteller is another. For the most part, though, it’s an introspective reason: I’m using this to sit down and remember things from my past and reflecting on who I was. To see how much I’ve changed over the years. And to see the things that have changed me, for better or for worse. There are still many more stories to come, but I wanted to take a break from the norm and let you, the readers, get to know me a little better. Because no “about me” section can ever truly explain who a person is. And even this one post, with all its insight into my soul, can’t even begin to show who I am inside. The stories in this blog and these personal posts should help.

Lately, I think a lot about the concept of love. I’ve always had a belief in three different kinds of love: Friendship, Family, and LOVE (as in “I am in love with you”). Sometimes these can blur together (at least, with the exception of LOVE and family, because that’s illegal pretty much everywhere), but most often are left apart. You can LOVE someone and have love for them as a friend, you can have a close friendship with one of your family members, you can view your friends as part of your family, and you can fall in love with one of your friends. I have at least one person that fits each one of those four blurred together categories, and I’m sure all of you do, too.

Many times, though, people are hesitant to let themselves fall in love with one of their friends. This, in my experience, is the rarest form of love. Every married couple I know says “My husband/wife is my best friend,” which may be true, but were they your best friend BEFORE you started dating or even BEFORE you got married? For a lot of people, the answer is no. I am sure someone, somewhere, answers yes to this. I’ve always believed that you SHOULD be friends with someone you love, first. What if you break up? Everyone’s so worried that the friendship would end, but if that’s true, then you probably weren’t that good of friends to begin with. I’m sorry to be the blunt one and say that, but as we all know, I am an asshole and I say what I think.

I have to say, though, if there is someone who loves you, take the chance. Even if you feel you only want to be friends, think about this: How does this person make you feel when you’re around? Do they make you happy? Maybe I’m naïve, but isn’t that what everyone wants: To be happy? If someone makes you truly happy, then go for it. Because take it from me, people come and go from your life and all it takes is a day. Don’t waste your time playing games, because you never know what will happen to you. And really, what do you have to lose?

I have no idea what will happen to me. I have no idea if my friends today will be my friends tomorrow. Maybe I’ll go to class and a girl will trip and I will catch her and we fall madly in love, like in the movies. Maybe I chase after a female friend of mine for a year before she ends up dating someone else and I fall into a deep depression. Maybe I’ll get a new job in a week, maybe I’ll be at the same job I have in a year. I don’t know. My future is hidden to me, and I can only hope for the best and sit back and let it come.

As for the past, I’ve done a lot of things I regret. I’ve not done things I regret not doing. But you can’t change the past, you can only learn from it and apologize for it and hope that people will forgive you. And there are many people I’ve hurt over the years, most of them unintentionally. I do stupid things and I do things that I think are right, even if they end up hurting someone else. For everyone reading this who can think of something I’ve done to you personally to hurt you, I truly am sorry. Whether it is from stupidity or from righteousness, it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I will continue to do what I think is the right thing, and so I am sorry for anyone I may hurt in the future.

What I’m trying to say is: You only live once. Go out, have an adventure or two with someone. Because life is a story and every person you meet is a chapter. Everything you do is a page, and everything on every page, in every chapter: the whole story… It’s all written by you. The pen is in your hands, my friends.

Go write a story.

Let's Get It On

Sex is a big deal, no matter who you are. I am 24 years old and I have never had sex. Every girl who reads this will be thinking "good for you," while every guy who reads this will be thinking "dude, you need to get laid." Let me state, for the record, that I am NOT "saving myself for marriage." I AM, however, waiting until I am in a relationship with someone I care about. And there are girls I have cared/do care about that I would consider getting intimate with even if we weren't dating. I have had offers on a few occasions that I had to turn down, though. This is the story of one of them.

I had someone comment about the last post as to why both girls in my last post were called "whores" without an explanation. It's because both girls have offered to have sex with me, and I've turned down both of them. Now, I am generally not a shallow person. Both Tammi and Shelly are attractive girls, but I had to turn them both down because of my "rule." However, I must give a short and somewhat vague description of Tammi to give some perspective: She is taller than me and weighed the same as me (at the time this story takes place, anyway). So she was big, but pretty. And she would speak in a British accent, which I LOVED. And she gave me massages, which I also loved.

One day, Tammi, Shelly, and I went to an acquaintance's birthday party. The party consisted of the three of us, the birthday boy, and two other people. If we didn't go, he would've been pretty much alone, and I would have felt terrible (even though this guy was an INCREDIBLE ass-hat). So as I said, we went to his party. I didn't drink. The girls did. So after the party, I had to take Shelly back to her aunt's house, where she lived: 20 minutes away from Cedar Rapids. The whole way there, she talked about how drinking made her REALLY horny. So that made me REALLY uncomfortable. Her offer of sex came from that drive home, in which my response was simple:

"Do you want to have a relationship?"
"No, I just want to have sex!"
"Then no."

So I dropped her off at home and proceeded back to Cedar Rapids with Tammi. She didn't want to go home, yet, and she lived in Marion, so I was okay with not driving all the way there at that particular moment. So we stopped at Wal-Mart for snack food. While we were there, we passed the condoms and Tammi stopped.

"I'm buying these."
"Okay..."
"We should have sex tonight."

Now pheromones are a powerful bitch, people. I didn't say no. I didn't say yes, but I didn't say no. I shrugged and let her buy the condoms. And that was all we bought, because then we went back to my place. It was about midnight at this point.

For those of you who are incredible geeks, like me, you know what was on TV at midnight on Adult Swim in 2005. For those of you who aren't familiar, I will tell you: Futurama. If you don't know what Futurama is, google it. It is a fantastic show created by Matt Groening, the guy who created the Simpsons. But I digress.

So we were at my place, in my room (because my uncle was home, and I lived with him), with the door shut and Futurama on TV. I had the box of condoms in my hand and I passed them back and forth in my hands, thinking. And watching Futurama. Mostly watching Futurama. But I considered the consequences of doing this. Now, I knew she didn't want a relationship from this. She just wanted the sex. I was 19, a virgin, and here was a girl offering to change that. So of course, I considered it. Eventually I decided it wasn't worth it. So when Futurama was over, I took her home.

I want to point this out now, because I feel so proud about this: I am the ONLY guy she has ever offered sex to that has turned her down. And she OBSESSED over it for the next 2 years, at least. I'm sure if I still saw her and talked to her, it would bother her again. But yes, I can say this, and for that I'm proud.

Now I have two post-scripts to this story. First, the condoms' fates. They sat in my dresser drawer for about 2 weeks when Kent came over one day and started snooping around in my drawer. He found them, asked why I had them and then listened to this story. He laughed and told me he was taking them. I don't know if he ever used them, but after that there were no condoms in that particular dresser/room.

The second post-script came 2 years ago. New Year's Eve, 2007. I was hanging out with Stan and Jesse as well as our friends Topher and Frank at Topher and Jesse's house. We were planning on drinking at the house then going downtown to drink some more. I have apologized many times for this, because while drinking, I ruined Jesse's night and he ended up not coming out with us because of it. While Stan and I were making fun of each other, I stood up to go slap him. He ran down the hallway and as I came around the corner of the hallway, I stumbled (because I was drunk) and slammed into the wall, putting a two foot hole in the wall. I am a champion like that. Note to self: Do not chase Stan when drunk. Bad things happen.

Anyway, after I said I would pay for it and Jesse decided he wasn't going to go out with us, we started walking toward downtown. Luckily, another friend of ours, Lisa, was driving to the house to hang out. So she took us downtown, instead of us having to walk about a mile and a half.

I don't know about you guys, but when I think New Year downtown and picking up girls for said event, I think "hey, let's go to the gay bar." Now, that's sarcasm, for those of you who can't tell, but that's exactly where we went. Studio 13, where innocence is lost. I have always hated that place (not because I hate gays, but because it's crowded, noisy, and there's a lot of drug use going on... Okay, and it smells a little like astroglide), and yet I get dragged there at LEAST once a year.

When we got there, Tammi was sitting at the bar. Let me reiterate: I was DRUNK. And lonely. So I went right to her. We hadn't seen each other in a few months so we hugged. Then I mentioned that I had no one to kiss at midnight. And she said she didn't either. So we decided we'd kiss each other. I think this is hilarious: After midnight, when we kissed, she told me I was a really good kisser. As I remember it, it was wet and sloppy and there was far too much tongue involved. Maybe I'm just a very conservative kisser, I don't know. However, after that, I began randomly making out with her and feeling her up. Luckily, Stan, Lisa, Adam, and Topher all knew what would happen and dragged me out of the bar.

I lived about a block and a half from Studio, so I didn't have far to walk. I kept talking about how I wanted to go back and have sex with Tammi, but thankfully my friends kept me walking home. When I got home, I proceeded to sit on the couch and watch TV for a while before bed.

Here, my friends, is the post-script to the post-script. About an hour later, Frank calls me. He met this girl at Studio and they couldn't get a cab, so he wanted to know if they could stay at my place. Because that wouldn't be a mistake for me to say yes to. So I said yes. He brought the girl over, who I found out was 30 years old and had a kid. They pushed the couches together (the first time!) and we all went to bed.

I woke up at about 8 AM the next morning to the sounds of her moaning. Yes, people, Frank and this random girl were having sex on my couches. About an hour later, they left my apartment and I went back to sleep. When I woke up, I immediately flipped the cushions and hoped to GOD that there wasn't a used condom stuffed in there somewhere (Spoiler: There wasn't).

Chasing Cars

In the Winter of 2004, I was just finishing up my first semester of college. I had made a few close friends that semester. This story is about them; the story called "A Banana, A Piece of Cinnamon Toast, and Two Whores in the Backseat."

It was a cold, wet, frozen night in early December. The Fall semester had just finished and I was celebrating with my friends Shelly, Adam Jones, and Tammi. We were going to watch another friend of ours, Anson, play a gig in Iowa City. But first, I had band practice back home.

I have to go back a few years to explain. When I was a Senior in high school, I started taking guitar lessons. There were three of us actually learning guitar, and one person to play bass and one to play drums. Eventually, our teacher decided to just have me sing, because I was already fairly proficient in guitar (at least to the degree that he could teach me, as he was a bassist not a guitarist) having been playing for a year. One of the other students stopped showing up all together, so we were left with a singer, a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer. We were officially a band. This lasted two years until it became too much of a hassle to drive home from school every weekend to do this.

Since I was driving to Iowa City later on anyway, my friends decided they would just go watch me sing and then we'd make our trip. So before we left Cedar Rapids, we stopped at the Super Wal-Mart for provisions, because when I think snack food, I think Wal-Mart. Shelly bought these shitty pastries that were covered in cinnamon. That was it, no filling, nothing. Basically, it was just cinnamon toast that tasted like crap. I bought bananas to eat, because I do love me some bananas. We finished the bunch before we were even half way there.

After stocking up on snack food, or "num nums" as Shelly called them, we left for Victor. The trip down was nothing spectacular, except that it started to snow a little bit. I'm from a small town, so driving in snow is not a big deal for me. We got to the school where we held our band practices and they were already set up and ready to go. We ran through our normal set and tried a few new songs. Of the songs worth mentioning, I sang "Drive" by Incubus, which Shelly loved (and I despised) and "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who, which made Shelly and Tammi start crying. They had never heard me sing before, so it was nice to know that my voice could move people to tears.

After our practice, we stopped at my dad's house for a few minutes to pick up a few things, such as CDs, money, and a special item that will be detailed in a later story. By the time we left, it was dark. Shelly informed me that she needed to go to Norway to get a few things, so I headed toward Belle Plaine, as there was a road to the East that was almost a straight shot to Norway.

On the way out of Belle Plaine, I had the radio blaring, and both girls prattling in the backseat. Suddenly, the car started drifting to the other side of the road. I started tapping the breaks, but it wasn't working; We were still drifting. I began turning my wheel to the right, and it still wasn't working. I had come to the conclusion we were going into the ditch. There were two ways of going in: The way we were going, which was sideways, or I could turn into and go down front first, keeping us from getting hurt and keeping my car upright. I turned the radio down.

"Hold on. We're going in the ditch."
"What?" from the backseat.

We drove down into the ditch and stopped in a drift. There was no way we were driving out. The car had turned off upon impact, so I had to turn it back on to keep us warm. My phone got no reception in that area, so it was all but useless. I had to borrow Adam's phone to make phone calls. I tried my dad, first, but he wasn't home and didn't have a cell phone. I tried a few other people, none of whom answered the phone. Finally, I called Kent, who answered. I told him my plight and he called his dad for us. During these phone calls, my friends decided to try flag people down as they drove by using the special item we had taken from my house. It was black, though, so it couldn't be seen clearly in the dark.

While we waited, we decided to throw away the cinnamon toast things. I had to urinate, so I just took them out with me. I threw them on the ground. Now, be warned, ye of faint heart, what I did next I'm not particularly proud of. Okay, I'm a little proud, just understand that it was very immature and I'm aware of it. I started to pee and did what most people do when they're in snow: I wrote my name. Obviously, my name is short, so it didn't take long and I had more urine. I thought it would be funny to pee on the cinnamon things. I got back in the car and announced what I had just done.

"I peed on those things we didn't like."
"You peed on the num nums?"
"Yes."

This got a big laugh from everyone. Shortly thereafter, Kent's dad came and picked us up and took us back to my dad's house. My dad still wasn't home. So we watched a movie that we had brought with us (or rather, I brought with us): "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle." A movie about people who are trying to get somewhere and keep running into obstacles. Sound familiar? About half way through the movie, my dad came home. There was no hello, only questions:

"What are you doing here?"
"Watching a movie."
"Where's your car?"
"Outside Belle Plaine... In the ditch..."

Dad flipped out. I explained what happened, so he decided to go out there. After he, in his truck, slid around on the same road a little bit, we finally got to where my car was. He parked on the side of the road and almost slipped and fell crossing it. He decided there was no way to get the car out that night. He also said he wasn't driving any farther than Belle Plaine that night, so we were all stuck there.

Adam is epileptic and he only had his night pills. So we had to call the pharmacist and make sure that we could go get some medicine for him in the morning so he wouldn't have a seizure. We figured out sleeping arrangements and went to bad shortly after. This was about midnight, so it wasn't that early. Tammi and Shelly slept out in the living room on our pull-out bed, Adam slept in the guest bedroom, and I slept in my own room. The next morning, my dad and I went to get Adam's medicine and on the way home he said what was possibly the most insensitive, yet funniest things I've ever heard someone say:

"So is this medicine for AIDS or something?"

I laughed so hard on the way home that I had tears streaming down my face. This made him laugh, so after I got my laugh out of the way, I explained about his epilepsy. Now, this may not seem as funny to most of you who are unfamiliar with my friend Adam, so let me explain: Adam is gay. Not super flamboyant, but still gay. I later told him about that, and he laughed so hard he almost started crying. My dad also told me that Shelly and Tammi were doing something weird out in the living room the night before, because he was hearing noises from the living room that were making him nervous. He seriously thought one of them was going to come and rape him. This made me laugh even harder; I almost threw up. Seriously.

After dropping off the medicine, my uncle came out and took my friends back to Cedar Rapids while my dad and I pulled my car out of the ditch, a process that took all of about 20 minutes. While he pulled it out, I surveyed the area around it and a dawning realization came over me: The "num nums" were gone! When I told my friends about this, a new phrase was born. "Joel peed on the num nums, and now they're gone." That joke is dependent on someone assuming that my piss makes food disappear. I never found it that funny, but everyone else involved did, thus I had to mention it.

So in effect, this story had a banana, a piece of cinnamon toast (or whatever those stupid things were), and two whores (Tammi and Shelly) in my backseat. Not a fantastic story, I'll admit, but one that is still remembered as the day the four of us became best friends. Especially when considering that these three people will come to play in many of the stories to come.

Death For My Birthday

Before I begin, I must warn you of a few things. This story truly angers me. It’s funny, but infuriating for me at the same time. I now refer to it as "The Pretty Boy Birthday Card Debacle"

As with most good stories, it’s about a girl. Her name was Teri. I met her while at Kirkwood, when I was in choir and while doing stuff in the theatre. We pretty much hung out in the same area with the same group of people. She was cute, so I sacked up and began talking to her one day. Eventually, she asked when my birthday was. March 7. “Oh my God, so is mine!” Awesome, I’m in! Right?

Wrong. We talked more and more and she added me on Facebook. This was before Facebook was the stalker’s handbook. Well, as our shared birthday grew closer, I had a party set up with my friends. My friends Stan and Jesse were going to cook an awesome dinner, then serve some snacks for the party after the dinner. The dinner consisted of about 20 people, all of whom were close friends and their significant others. The party, however, was about 50 people. Not all at once, mind you, people floated in and out, but Stan and Jesse left after their clean up.

This is a small break from the story, but I want to take a moment to talk about Stan and Jesse’s meal. It cost all together about $300. So we had to charge the dinner guests $5 to cover it, most of which ended up getting covered by me, Stan, or Jesse, anyway. People were pissed, but we decided it was the only way to do it. And there was no way to weed out people, otherwise they’d be pissed they didn’t get to have the dinner. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation. It was a glorious and delicious meal that apparently only the three of us enjoyed. Everyone else bitched about the meal for one reason or another, and those who didn’t had a problem with the snacks. I want to go on record as saying that it was a fantastic meal, and because of Stan and Jesse, it was the BEST birthday I’ve ever had. And I thank them for being so cool about all the shit they had to do and the 14 hour day they put in for it. I appreciate it.

Back to the story: So when inviting people to the party, I figured I should invite Teri. She said yes, so I was excited. The day of the party, she called and asked if she could bring a friend with her. Sure, why not, the more the merrier! I told my roommate at the time, Cory. His response was “dude that’s awesome, maybe you’ll get lucky!” Oh, Cory, how I love you.

Now I know I can’t list everyone who was at the party, I honestly can’t REMEMBER most of the party. I do need to make special mention of a few key characters. Jack and April, the married couple, came and brought me a can of Colt 45 for my birthday. I never drank it. Cory’s friend Jim came down, whom I’d only met once. When Teri and her friend Joy finally came, I was kind of nervous to talk to her. It’s good to mention that as charming and awesome as I am, I have never been able to talk well around girls I had crushes on. The few that I could (and can) were special exceptions and if they’re reading this right now, you should feel special.

So for the first hour or so that the girls were there, Cory and Jim talked to them the whole time. Every time I tried to join in, Jim would push me out of the way. Literally. So I would walk away and join Jack and April to bitch to them what was happening. They got pissed about it and dragged Cory out to talk to him. They told him about what was going on, so when he rejoined the group, he began talking me up like I was Jesus himself. He may have in fact ACTUALLY said I was Jesus. With him, you never really know what’s going to come out of his mouth.

Jack and April had their own plan to get me in with Teri, as well. Cory had an iPod hooked up to the stereo system in the basement, so they went over to it and started playing slow songs. They turned my party into an 8th grade school dance, complete with hands on the hips, hands on the shoulders dancing. I had just turned 21 so, of course, I must be in 8th grade. Well, whatever, it worked. Teri danced with me, Cory danced with Joy, and Jim stood in the corner and watched. Revenge is sweet, my friends.

At the end of the night, Teri invited me to a party she was throwing the following week at her apartment to celebrate her and Joy’s birthday. Cory and Joy had apparently hit it off, because he got the same invite. We were psyched, so we began thinking of a brilliant birthday present. One day, Cory calls me while he’s at work.

“I got it!” Before I even said hello.
“The Clap?”
“No! The birthday present!”
“Okay…”
“We’re going to make a card!”
“That’s lame.”
“No, it’s going to be a HUGE card with our pictures inside!”
“I don’t follow…”

He laid out the entire plan for me. We buy a giant piece of construction paper, a glue stick, some glitter, a disposable camera, and a Teen Beat magazine. That’s right, a TEEN BEAT MAGAZINE! Where could this possibly be going? The plan was to cut out pictures of “pretty boys” and paste them on the cover of this card with the words “We wanted a bunch of cute guys to say Happy Birthday to you…” and then on the inside there would be a slew of pictures of Cory and me in different outfits and the words “…But all we could find were these guys.” Okay, I thought it was clever, so I was down with it.

We went to work on the card immediately. Two days before, we decided to do our little photo shoot and get drunk while doing it. It was a lot of fun putting in the work for this card. We got the photos developed the next day, and that night we started pasting the pictures on the card. While cutting out pictures from the Teen Beat, we noticed a lot of Pete Wentz from Fallout Boy was on it. Well, Teri liked Fallout Boy, so we decided to put them ALL on the card. We had so many pictures of “cute boys” on the front of that thing, the magazine was basically just tatters. And, the coup de grace, on the back we had a big picture of Mr. Wentz with the caption “In case you didn’t get enough Pete Wentz.” We thought it was hilarious.

That Saturday, we went to the party, card in hand in a gigantic envelope that Cory made, which… I really can’t remember how he made that. It also had a fake stamp of Abraham Lincoln that said “Great Mistakes in History: “Well I don’t really WANT to go to the theatre, but I have these tickets…” Brilliant joke, in my opinion. Anyway, we get to the party and it consists of Teri, Joy, and three of their friends from High School, one of whom earned the nickname Chad, somehow. There is no story behind it; we just didn’t know her name, so Cory called her Chad. Well, the entire night, Cory and I got snubbed by Teri and Joy. We gave them the card, expecting an “Oh my God, that’s so funny and awesome” but instead got “Look at all the cute boys on the front!” We told them to read it, and they did, but they didn’t as much as GLANCE at our pictures. They finished reading it and went right back to “cute boys on the cover. Why is there no Zac Efron?!” This phrase would come to haunt us. We had pictures of this kid, but didn’t know who he was at the time, so we didn’t think they would either. Oh, boy, were we mistaken.

About an hour into this party, after playing a board game with the ice queens and their friends, Teri had a “brilliant” idea. “Let’s dance!” Okay, then. Cory and I sat back and watched because, well, there’s nothing cuter than a group of girls dancing. Teri went and got what I thought was a CD and put it in her DVD player. Okay, still. She turned on the TV and my jaw dropped. She had put in High School Musical. THE MOVIE!!! Apparently, there is a special “Dance-along” feature, which she then proceeded to dance along with, followed by Joy, Chad, and the other two who I don’t even care to remember their names. They danced along with the movie, and Cory and I did the movie-slow-head-turn to look at each other. He mouthed the word “Bail” and I nodded. As soon as the girls were done dancing, we stood up and said our goodbyes and walked out the door. As soon as it was closed behind us, we RAN to our cars.

“I think tonight’s a good night to get drunk, don’t you?” Cory asked.
“Oh, definitely. “

So we stopped and grabbed a 24 pack of beer and went home where we proceeded to try and drink the night away from our memory. Obviously, that didn’t work or you wouldn’t be reading this story right now. We both deleted the girls’ numbers from our phones and never talked to them again. That didn’t seem to bother Teri, so I’m okay with it. In fact, I saw her at a party a couple years ago and STILL haven’t talked to her.

Cory eventually talked to Joy again, and got this explanation for their behavior: “Well, it was originally going to be a party when we invited you, but then no one showed up but us five girls, so we were turning it into kind of a high school reunion thing, and then you guys showed up. Sorry we snubbed you.” At least SHE had the decency to apologize and explain it. I still saw Teri in the hall at school and never once did she try talking to me again. Hence, my anger toward this situation. To this day, I have never and never plan to see High School Musical or its sequels. I don’t care if the music is “catchy.” Oh, and for those of you who may not know, Zac Efron is the lead actor in High School Musical. I guess that should have been an early clue as to the mindset these girls were in.

Except for Chad. Chad was the shit.

Photograph

These are the photo shoot pictures of me:












And these are the ones of us making the card itself and just goofing off in general that night:





And these are of the birthday dinner:

Counting Blue Cars

This story is about the day I got my license and all the trouble I got into with it. Kids, do NOT do this, even though it makes for one hell of a story to tell. My best friend in high school, Kent Roth, was along for this one (He wanted me to use his name, so I will; If I put a last name, it’s probably a real name).

It was March 9, 2002, two days after my birthday. I had just gone with my dad to get my license after failing the driving test on my birthday. Now before you start to think “Oh, he’s a terrible driver, he failed his driving test the first time” let me assure you, IT WAS NOT MY FAULT! The person driving with me failed me for what is a VERY stupid reason. I was at a four-way stop and an old man was about to cross the street. I was waiting for him to cross, but instead he waved me through. So I went. The instructor failed me because, and I quote “pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way, even if they wave you on.” I had to wait two days to try again. Luckily, the next time I tried I didn’t have to drive, so I got my license.

That night, there was a play at the school I had just transferred from, EV. There was a girl in the play who I had a crush on when I was at EV, Bethany. Embarrassing story with that one, I wrote her a love note when I was 15. She showed her friends, they all got a good laugh out of it. Good thing I wasn’t going to school with them, anymore. Anyway, Bethany invited me up to watch her play, some piece of shit play that had some good actors, but just wasn’t good in general. It may have been written by the director, I’m not entirely sure about that. Bethany was the star, though, and I was mesmerized by her presence. Thank you, hormones. Oh, and I dragged Kent along with me. And my friend, Johnny, met us there to hang out.

Anyway, I sat through two hours of this god awful play, clapped and told everyone afterward “Oh, it was really good, you did great, etc.” Yes, I said et cetera to one of them. Seriously. I thought it was funny, but then again, I’m a dick. I talked to Bethany for a little while after the play, before her boyfriend came over and things got a little uncomfortable. See, HE knew I had a crush on her, too. So Kent, Johnny, and I left to just drive around and hang out for a while.

Somehow, we came upon a brilliant idea: Put Johnny in the trunk of the car and drive around with him back there! All three of us thought it was a great idea, so Johnny crawled in the trunk and we sped off into the night. We drove around the town for, like, 45 minutes, and then I went out on a gravel road and started to purposely swerve. We had the radio cranked up as high as it would go, so I didn’t hear anything except that. Kent, however, heard a noise. So I turned down the radio, and sure enough, there was a loud banging coming from the trunk. I opened the trunk and Johnny jumped out, slammed the trunk shut, and began walking. He walked right past the car, and looked PISSED. Kent and I looked at each other for a moment.

“Dude, we could get in a lot of trouble for doing that,” was Kent’s response.

I started to worry, so I drove up alongside Johnny and started trying to calm him down. It wasn’t working at all. So I did the only thing I could think of; the thing I was about to regret saying and subsequently doing.

“Do you want to drive, and I’ll get in the trunk?” An eye for an eye seemed like a good idea at the time. Kent’s eyes became as wide as saucers and he started shaking his head no. Johnny stopped in his tracks and turned toward the car, a HUGE grin on his face. He nodded excitedly and opened the driver door for me. Reluctantly I got out of the car and opened the trunk. I got inside and rested my head where the tire was. Now would be a good time to mention one very important fact about my car at the time: The shocks were… well, they were pretty much nonexistent. Johnny slammed the trunk door shut and suddenly the car was moving VERY quickly. Another good fact to mention about my car is that it was an old police interceptor. For the vehicle illiterate, this meant there were no restrictor plates. THIS meant that the car went VERY fast. Are you starting to see where this is going?

Johnny sped the car up to at least 90, Kent later told me. The problem with an eye for an eye is that, usually, the second person taking the eye is going to be much nastier about it. He did donuts in parking lots, he swerved, he sped, and he slammed on the brakes. It wasn’t until he dropped off a curb that the car, having no shocks, bounced me up in the air and slammed my head down onto the area that was previously being used as a resting place for my noggin. I screamed in pain and the car stopped. The trunk opened, and Johnny and Kent came back to check on me. I staggered out of the trunk, literally seeing stars in front of my eyes as I did. They asked if I was okay. I nodded and Johnny handed me my keys. I immediately took him home then did the same for Kent and myself.

On the way back, Kent was laughing. “Dude, that was a BAD idea.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I tried to tell you not to do it.”
“I didn’t want to get in trouble…”

That night, Kent stayed the night. He was a bit of a night owl, and I ended up staying up until 5 A.M. before I finally passed out. Kent didn’t sleep at all that night. Now, I’m not sure if this was a previously existing condition or if it was caused by my head getting slammed in the trunk, but that night is the first time I was told that I talk in my sleep. Kent told me the next morning that, while I didn’t speak full sentences, I said one name in my sleep over and over. “Bethany.” I have no recollection of any dream involving her and I had no idea I was saying her name.

I have since said many things in my sleep, most of which I don’t remember. One time, I did wake myself up yelling “knock it the fuck off” in my sleep. I have also been told that I said “What is causing this infraction in my faith” while sleeping. These are just a few examples that I remember. If I say other things, I have yet to know about them. So if you ever find yourself sleeping next to me or even in the next room, prepare to hear something crazy come out of my mouth and remember that I have no idea what I’m saying.