The Shoe Guy

Once upon a time, there was an adorable little freshman girl who had just come to college for her very first semester and thought everything was going to be nice and rosy and fun.

This girl had brown hair and red shoes. Her name was Ali.
Lacking in social skills but still inconceivably optimistic, she figured she would try out a student ward that housed mostly out-of-state students, but also allowed a cute little bunch of ragtag locals to attend.
Ali was one of those little ragtag local yokels.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, Ali was running late to church due to pet sitting.
She slunk in at the last minute, disheveled and out of breath, only to discover that veritably no seats were left for her to sit in.
This was unfortunate, in many regards, the foremost being this:
An older than youngish, baldingish man with emerald green pants smiled and patted one of the only seats remaining; the seat right next to him.
Grateful for a place to rest, Ali gracefully wobbled her way over on those shiny red heels and sat down next to him.
First words out of his mouth:
"Those are some really nice looking heels."
Ali thanked him and mentally prepared herself  for the upcoming ordeal of small talk.
This boy began to ask her an abundance of questions.
She would answer, but he would neither react to her answers nor answer the questions she asked him.

Ali's inability to be a human being compounded with this oddly one sided conversation was creating several levels of social nightmare hell. The immediate area had become a sort of vortex of painfully awkward, and several people were sucked in and were unable to speak or eat for several days.

All of this boy's conversations were punctuated with comments about the shoes.
He continued to focus on them, commenting on their nice shade and how well they looked.
This went on for minutes which turned into millenia.
Finally, he shrugged and pulled out his phone.
"Here," he whispered, "this will probably explain it better than I ever could.
He flipped through his pictures until he found the right one: the screenshot of a quote which read:

"I FIND IT FLATTERING WHEN GIRLS WEAR HIGH HEELS BECAUSE IT SHOWS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO GO THROUGH A LOT OF PAIN TO LOOK TRULY BEAUTIFUL."

What? Just what. I honestly didn't even have anything to say.
If I remember correctly, I think I just nodded understandingly and said "oh."

Thankfully, at this point the meeting started.
This odd boy continued to sing the opening hymn a full octave lower than he was supposed to, all the while looking over at Ali and winking and elbowing her and whatnot.
Halfway through the meeting, the situation really deteriorated. Like, all the way.
He began whispering to himself.
What was he whispering???
Spells?
Incantations?
Secrets? Was it secrets?
The quiet conversation was getting erratic. He was gesturing and shaking his head and whispering and all Ali could do was lean away as subtly as possible.
AND THEN HE STARTED PUNCHING HIMSELF IN THE HEAD.
I must say, I was just sitting there praying that I would turn into a rock or dissolve or die.
Should I try to help him?
Should I run far away?
Should I alert someone?

After a while, he stopped.
At the end of the meeting, he turned to young Ali.
"So, Ali," he asked, smiling slyly, "do you think we could... do something sometime?"
Ali, being the smooth criminal that she was, simply said
"Well I'm really busy this semester but  hey I'll let you know!"
Before awkwardly moonwalking backwards out the door.*
He again tried the next week to flirt, chasing her down and very rudely scuffing Ali's friends shoes in the process, but she once again kinda bailed and
after that, he just kinda gave up.
Ali was a little scarred, but recovered and is still in control of most of her mental faculties, although that hasn't been proven so there's no way to know for sure.



*pretend the moonwalking happened


 

Lush

Once upon a time, my friends and I took a fabulous trip to the beautiful world of the Festival of Colors in Utah.
That was a wonderful, magical adventure filled with wonder and fancy, but I want to focus on something for a moment.
LUSH.
Before we went to the color festives, we made our way over to the City Creek shopping center in Salt Lake.
After visiting the clothing stores, we noticed they had a Lush. (Lush is a store that sells delightful natural beauty products)
We wandered the store, testing this and that, and then noticed a little corner with toothpaste and whatnots.
We made our way over when we noticed a sign that said
"CHEWABLE TOOTHPASTE TABLETS"
Or something that sounded more alluring and less like a rabbit treat.
We studied the flavors with great interest, until we found the most interesting delicious sounding one.
THE BREATH OF GOD
Tanner, Mary and I each grabbed one with greedy fingers,
excited to taste what we were sure would be the most incredible, life changing toothpaste tablet ever.
I was picturing rainbows and cherubs and sparkles. I was sure a unicorn would burst its way through someone's stomach and high five my blissful tongue.
At the very least, there would have had to be a burst of angel light and magic trumpets that serenaded my freshly cleansed teeth.
This made the real experience that much more emotionally scarring.
The taste that erupted in my mouth as I popped that little tablet in my mouth was far less like I had wandered into a forest of delight and wonder and magic, and more like, well,
Vomit. On fire.
The next few moments were filled with horrible battlefield gurgles and death screams.
Mary, seeing Tanner and my horrified faces, quickly threw that thing back where it came from. Or as close to it as we could be.
Unfortunately, we were too close to dying to make the trip to Mount Doom.
Tanner and I were flailing around, trying to figure out what to do with what was a quickly deteriorating situation.
I'm pretty sure several layers of my throat had already burned away.
At this moment, a lovely assistant man came over to compliment Tan on his shoes and ask about their origins.
Tanner survived the added trial with grace, thanking the guy as the slightly minty foam from hell filled his mouth.
After perpetual years of firey sewer tastebud torture,
we decided to do what years of evolution has taught us,
namely read the instructions.
It advised us not to swallow,
and to spit in the nearest sink.
Which we promptly obeyed after locating said sink.
After that, we continued to die for the next two hours.
After exiting the store like bats out of hades.
I had death breath for the next life of my life.
We renamed the little creep
THE PISS OF SATAN
on account of that was the most horrifying and emotionally traumatizing experience of my life.

But hey, Lush products are great.
That one just wasn't so much.

Finding Bigfoot.

Once upon a time, I took a trip to Virginia.
And then embarked upon a lovely three day drive back to Idaho with my lovely aunt.
Things were running less than smooth.
There was illness.
Ice.
And pizza.
It was our last night in a hotel, and we were both delirious from a days worth of travel.
She hopped in the shower, and I turned the television on to my usual hotel channel,
ANIMAL PLANET.
I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
The show currently playing was "Finding Bigfoot."
Something compelled me to stay on the channel.
It was as if a ghost, a ghost with hypnotic eyes and a very suggestive voice was whispering
"Staaaay. Stay and watch. You'll looooove it. Rainbows and kittens. Learning."
I just can't resist hypnotic ghost eyes.
So I stayed.
Oh, misfortune.
Oh, the things I have seen.
There are three main characters. I have drawn them for you in paint to illustrate my point.
*Note. I don't remember what any of them look like. This is my best dramatic reenactment.*

Ranae Holland.

• Likes science.
• Secretly (or not) a lesbian
• Perpetually unhappy
• Argues
• Cool haircut                                                                           

Matt Moneymaker

•       Probably just there to make the show seem real.
• Moneymaker can NOT be his real last name.
• According to Wikipedia, founded some bigfoot search party.
• Old.

James (BOBO) Fay

•  Willingly goes by "Bobo"
• Bobo? Seriously? Are you a clown? Or a dancing bear?
• Says dumb things.
• Unfortunate face.
• Makes "Squatch" calls and hits trees with sticks.
• Swears in front of children.

Okay, I need to see if my drawings were accurate.

*pause for google search*

SPOT ON.

Ahem.

Needless to say, I learned many things.

DID YOU KNOW that there are packs of Sasquatches all over in different areas?

Like, tribes. And there are shamans and stuff.

ALSO, they eat Kangaroos. Which is downright unforgiveable.

   And people call them 'SQUATCHES.' Which must be absolutely demoralizing. For the sasquatches, I mean.

Anyway, the next day was the final day of driving. I had begun to catch the death illness, and so we were both delirious as we took a drive through beautiful woods and mountains.

We proclaimed it official 'squatch' territory, and, amidst half-laugh-half-mucus giggles, stated that we would some day become the squatches of this land.

And that's when the ridiculousness started.

We hatched a plot.

A plot that would forever shame the most likely single and flatulent Bobo.

We would begin by completely un-making every assumption that the crew had ever had about bigfoot. Soon, they would be finding tweed jackets and bowties covered in squatch hair.

Solved rubix cubes covered in the same hair would also litter the forest.

Squatch newspapers and outhouses would be constructed. 

A facebook page, created by sasquatches and titled 'hate Bobo" would appear.

And finally, we would go to the tallest mountain and write his name in skulls of our animal kills. When he heaved his way up to look at it, we would knock him out, put lipstick on him, shave him, and glue squatch hair all over him.

It was brilliant. We would rule the land.

Then, amidst more death-rattle-giggles, my aunt asked...

"What do you think a Mexican sasquatch would look like?"

Which basically just lead to me listing off every racial profile ever.

Mexisquatch

They wear sombreros and live underground.

The shaman's staff is actually just a giant churro.

(I swear I'm not actually racist.)

We continued to profile every race of bigfoot ever.

Asian Squatch

The Asians were wise. Mustached. Black belts. Set up the "hate Bobo" facebook page.

So on and so forth.

Which lead me to my next brilliant idea.

SASQUATCH OLYMPICS.

It's gonna be big.

Basically all 'Finding Bigfoot' did was convince me that my suspicions that anyone who believes in bigfoot is crazy. Especially the teacher who told my sister that bigfoot is actually just Cain.

-Moral of the story, churros are delicious.-

The Sunday Nap: a PSA

Sunday naps are not worth it.
This may surprise you.
The pleasure of the nap is a facade.
A mask to hide a hideous, writhing, scarred nasty face that kidnaps you and eats your hopes and dreams while dancing on the graves of your ancestors.
The nap is stealthy; regardless of how many times you realize that the nap is a bad idea, and however many times you try to befriend it, it will only give you unhappiness and discombobulation, it somehow continues to convince you to try it out.
You think "oh, I'm tired enough this time, it's going to be awesome." or "maybe this time, things will be different. I just need to shut my eyes for a brief fairy-wink of a second..."
And then you end up sleeping for five consecutive hours and have wasted your entire day.

NAP EXPECTATION:
That burning feeling in your eyes is relieved as they gently close, blocking out the harsh rays of the cruel sun. You drift gently, and angel babies, their wings made of the softest down, descend dreamily, singing with gilded voices lost lullabies written by the elves of Middle Earth. They stroke your hair, and you are floating, then resting on a bed made of air. You rock back and forth with a gentle breeze, and drift off into a peaceful sleep, dreaming of attractive men and faraway places. Unicorns whinny in the distance, and perhaps Dumbledore from the first two movies shows up to read you fairytales with his little quiet whisper voice. You then awaken an hour later, completely refreshed and ready to go on with your day. You feel awesome. You feel like you were resting in downy dryer sheets and your whole soul has been purified. Those angel babies bid you farewell, congratulate you on your successful napping, and wish you luck as you decide to finish all of the things that you were too lazy to do before. This is YOUR time.

NAP REALITY:
Your eyes are burning, and sure, closing them sure does soothe that sensation. Unfortunately, that gentle drift into a peaceful, gentle slumber, sure does not come. You try for about ten minutes to sleep, but your brain is like "lol, no." So you open your eyes, sit up, and try to do something. But NO. The nap is a jealous boyfriend who really isn't doing anything for you, but just won't let you go. Although you're too awake to sleep, you're also far too tired to be awake. So you close your eyes again, and the descent into dreamland feels like you're tumbling down the stairs of Cirith Ungol, except there are a lot more boulders and pointy bushes and Shelob runs out and attacks about every five minutes. At some point, Gollum may succeed in biting off your finger. When you finally reach your destination: sleep, you have thoroughly unexciting dreams about shopping or work, and are woken up about 2.5 million times as your siblings do their absolute best to re-enact the Hunger Games. Your slumber is interrupted by intermittent war cries and arguments, and you decide they are trying to learn how to break dance.
Every time you are woken up, you decide you've had enough. You try to struggle out of the cold grasp of the nap, but with hands like that black goo that crawled out of the meteorite in Spider Man 3, it convinces you that you need some more sleep and drags your brain back down.
You wake up five hours later with a burning headache and a stuffy nose. You aren't sure which millennium you've drifted into. Maybe the zombies have eaten your friends. Maybe you live on Mars now. You feel all stiff and painful and sore and STILL TIRED. The nap has betrayed you.

This is the day, brothers and sisters, that I vow to never take the dreaded nap again. Not only did it leave me feeling thoroughly UNrefreshed, it forced me to lie awake until three last night while visions of the slumber that I wasn't having danced through my head. Exhaustion has turned me into a rage beast. Who knows when or who I will strike. Just be prepared.

Awkward College Boys: The Prequel

This happened a few months before I started my first semester,
when summer still graced the land, and entertainment didn't include snowmen and sledding.
When my feet didn't swim in the arctic puddles of the north,
and my nose wasn't replaced with Rudolph's.

I was attending a Young Single Adults ward with one of my gals, (for those of you who don't know what a ward is, it's just a congregation for the Mormon church.)

It was a grand old time, I got to spend time commiserating with those who also were not in a relationship. It was great.

Sacrament meeting rolled around, and we took a seat by one of my friend's friends.
They were flirting, laughing, the usual delights that attractive people get to engage in...

After the meeting, this guy (did I mention he was a guy?) was still talking, and commenting on how my friend looks like Reese Witherspoon.
(Which she really does, by the way. What an attractive gal.)
"She looks like Reese Witherspoon. Doesn't she look like Reese Witherspoon? Can you see it?" After about one billion yes's and nods of affirmation, he turns to me.

he looks me over with a concentrated, disapproving stare... and then simply says...

"And you look like a teacher from Harry Potter."

At this point, several internal explosions happened at once.
Part A of my brain said: "You love Harry Potter! This is awesome! He basically just told you that you look like a wizard! This means that you are magical, mysterious, and majestic, right???"
Part B of my brain, which I fondly refer to as "the sad one," then took over.
"Dude, he totally means like, Snape. Or Professor Trelawney. Even Dumbledore. Actually, all the professors sound pretty ugly. WHAT IF HE MEANT HAGRID. HE TOTALLY MEANT HAGRID. "
And I was like... oh no, Dumbledore and Hagrid have beards....
And then Part A came back and was all, "Firenze was attractive. They specifically said attractive. All of the girls were so excited to go to his class."
And then I was like... "HE HAS HORSE LEGS! ALSO, HE IS A MAN. Oh my gosh, do I have horse legs???"
But...I wasn't wearing robes, or my glasses, my hair was nice, I had a modern wardrobe on... and I did NOT have a beard.
And, let's be honest. I would LOVE to be a teacher at Hogwarts.
And so, the eternal paradox.
Should I have taken that one as a complement?

The Assassin

So, yesterday morning, I was sitting peacefully in my kitchen, stuffing all of my books into my backpack for schooltimes.

Suddenly,
The back of my leg was met with blinding pain!
It felt like the Hulk stole Thor's hammer and attached a giant needle to the end of it, then slammed it into my leg.
And then set my leg on fire.
I limped back to my parents' room and started complaining to my dad when suddenly,
IT FREAKING HAPPENED AGAIN!

At this point, I was panicking. I reached back and touched my leg, and lo and behold, I felt a bug-sized lump.
And that's when I blew a gasket.
I charged like a war horse into my parents bathroom and pulled of my precious pantaloons.

There, nestled comfortably in the folds of fabric...
Was the most terrifying monster I had ever seen.
The second of my two gaskets was blown.
I immediately smooshed the life out of that merciless creature, removing its life essence.
I then flailed about for about five minutes, gibbering senselessly before realizing I should probably check out my wounds.
The back of my leg had two lovely little welts. Red. Swollen. Painful.
I pulled back on my leg coverings and bust open the door,
using my best caveman language and hand signal skills, I directed my dad to the bathroom to observe the devilish insect.
It was curled up in peaceful death, the joy apparent on its little bug face. It had done its so-called duty.
I was panicking.
I'm sure my dad thought I was crazy. But he couldn't identify the species, which freaked me out more.
I was pretty sure my leg was going to shrivel up like Dumbledore's hand, or simply fall off and roll away like sagebrush.
My dad told me to go to school. If it exploded or something, I guess I could come home. Maybe in several buckets, but still.
The research I did in second hour didn't help. All google could show me was the ghastly wounds inflicted by poisonous spiders, a.k.a... nerve damage, gaping wounds, blood, gore, demons, hallucinations, etc.
I was near hysteria when a bright little idea popped in my head.
We have a science teacher in my school who is real good with bug knowledge and the like, so during lunch, I went and picked up the bug, (which I made my dad keep in case I had been infiltrated by poison,) and brought it to said teacher.
After studying it for a moment, he said calmly: "Oh, that's an assassin bug!"
ASSASSIN!?!?! Wha... Ah... AAAAAAH! Assassins kill people!!!
"Yes, he replied calmly, and then with a little excitement, I've never seen one in a... (I think the word he used was nymph) stage before!
And then his teacher friend got all excited. "Ooh! Ooh! Lemme see!"
I was standing there with my jaw dropped, smoke coming out of my ears from all the overloaded circuits.
Finally I busted out. "So... what? Am I gonna die? Shrivel? Is my leg gonna turn black and fall off?"
He laughed and said "No, but it's strange, I've never heard of one taking a bite out of a person before."
Probably because it was trapped in my pants.
I let him keep the bug, you know, as a reward.
I am pleased to tell you, I'm still alive.

BIRDS

Today. Was a long day... after school... and work... I called up my friend Erika and said
"Hey! Let's go to Wal-Mart!"
(I know, party right?)
So anyways after our trip to Walmart (and me laughing so hard, I almost peed my pants like 17 times) We're driving home... I get into the neighborhood...
AND SUDDENLY THERE'S THIS GIANT GREY BIRD TOM-FOOLER-ING ALL OVER MY WINDSHIELD!!! It was so scary! It flapped! Oh, how it flapped. Its wings, they flapped.
(Oh, and P.S., there was another freak-bird running around on the side of the car.
So Erika and I both SCREAM like we haven't in ages, I speed up to get away from killer birds before they murder us,
and I have to slam on the breaks so that I don't pee all over the car.
We sat there in the middle of the road, motionless and squeeing out laughter for like a whole 30 seconds.