The "Share a Random Story From Your Life" Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Funny, sad, interesting, boring. I don’t really care. I just figure we need a good thread that passes the “I’d print it out and take it to the bathroom with me” test. And, since I asked, I’ll start it.

Picture it. Sicily, 1929…wait, wrong flashback.

Somewhere around 1995. I am at my then girlfriend’s (now wife) grandparents house for Easter lunch. The whole family is there. And by whole family, I mean parents, grandparents, cousins, 2nd cousins. A good portion of these are people I only see at large family gatherings that I don’t even remember the names of from year to year. But, there are a good 50 people there and I am technically the only one not related to anyone other than my dating connection. There were also a lot of kids there in the 5-12 year old range. Essentially, the age brackets breaks down into:
40 years+ - 75%
15-39 - Me, future wife, her sister
12 and under - 25%

As so often happens at an event like this, a wiffle ball game breaks out in the rather spacious backyard. As the youngest and most physically able “adults”, the three of us join in with all of the little kids to play and sort of keep things in line.

Quick side note to set the stage. I hate to lose. I don’t handle it well, I don’t want to handle it well. I like to win, I work hard to win, I am used to winning. Be it an organized event, a board game, or backyard wiffle ball with a bunch of pre-pubescent kids I couldn’t even name, I’d run through a wall to win. But, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

A couple innings go by, good fun is had. Kids strike out, runs are scored, fun is had. Most importantly, my team is winning by 1 going into the last inning because the food is ready. Setting the stage with the last batter at the plate. My team is winning by 1, the bases are loaded. 2 outs. We get the out, we win. They get a hit, they likely win so pressure, familial pride, and an extra helping of turkey are on the line here.

The next batter comes up. In hindsight, I can now see that Jose Canseco was not the start of the steroid era for performance enhancing drugs are the only logical explanation for the next chain of events because no 9 year old should have been able to hit the ball that far. It’s not like she was a big girl either, just a wisp of a thing. But, I’m almost positive now that steroids were involved.

The pitch, the swing. And the ball is crushed. It might as well have been shot out of a cannon it was flying so far. As the lone outfielder, I know it’s pretty much up to me to save the day and win the championship of the world. The ball soars over my head and I know the only way I can catch that thing is to hightail it and attempt to turn into Willie Mays chasing down a Vic Wertz shot.

Except, I forgot about the fence.

Sure, it was a split rail fence, but it was still made of wood still made of solid matter.

So there I am chasing the ball. It’s getting closer. Closer. Closer. I reach out at full sprint. As my left foot hits the ground, I grab the ball. As my right foot hits the ground I first make contact with the fence. All of a sudden, it’s existence dawns on me. I also realize it’s impossible to come to a complete stop without moving an inch so I already know either the fence is going down or I am.

Turns out, my body at full speed is just enough to completely destroy a split level fence. I never would have guessed it. After turning it into splinters, I stop running, look back, and realize there are essentially 4 emotions on the faces of my girlfriends extended family.

  1. My girlfriend is on the ground laughing uncontrollably at my doofishness.
  2. The kids are staring in wide-eyed awe at the guy capable of running through a fence.
  3. My future distant relatives I couldn’t name to this day are staring in slack-jawed horror at the big galoot destroying property in an attempt to catch a ball hit by a 9 year old girl.
  4. My future parent and grandparent in-laws are silently weighing the great odds that I will one day marry their daughter against the likelihood that I may somehow break all of their prized possessions in the throes of pointless athletic triumph.

But, most importantly, my team won the wiffle ball game.

2

I came home for Christmas after my first semester at college and was standing around in the kitchen talking to my sister. My mother went downstairs to put a load of laundry in the washing machine and my sister and I decided we were hungry. We found a can of ravioli in the cupboard and cooked it.

My mother came back upstairs and when she saw what we were doing she yelled “You’re eating the poor peoples’ ravioli!!!” Apparently she’d been planning to donate the ravioli to a local food drive.

So she sent my father to the store to get another can of food. He returned with Cream of Celery soup. This led to another bit of yelling as my mother insisted you couldn’t give such a thing to a food drive because “Poor people don’t like Cream of Celery soup. No one likes Cream of Celery soup!”

“I like Cream of Celery soup,” my father said.

But he went back to the store and this time he got Cream of Chicken soup, and as far as I know none of the recipients of the food drive complained.

3

Not exactly something that happened to me, but a memorable event nonetheless…

In my car, I pulled up at the traffic lights behind a tricycle and rider.

This wasn’t a trike for any reasons of disability or even weird eccentric English-ness - it had three wheels but was quite clearly a machine designed for speed - it was one of those dropped-handlebar racing things with knife-thin wheels - it just had three of them instead of two.

A rider on an ordinary bicycle went alongside the cars and joined the trike at the front of the queue. He looked the trike up and down for a few moments, then, leaned over and said something, while grinning and pointing.

I’ll never know what it was that the cyclist actually said to the trike guy - I suppose it was some quip along the lines of him needing three wheels through being childish or inept. Whatever it was, it provoked the tricyclist to dismount and land a terrific punch in the face of the bike guy, knocking him off his feet and to the ground, in a tangled heap with his bike.

Then the lights changed, but I could hardly see to drive - straining through the tears of laughter.

4

I was on the first beach vacation of the summer, Memorial Day weekend. I was in search of fun summery things to do. Sea kayaking? Sign me up.

For those who haven’t tried it, guess which body parts get most fatigued when operating a sea kayak? Arms and shoulders, right? Hell no. You use your knees and toes to stabilize the thing so that you don’t tip over and end up in the drink. And it’s not like you get much of a chance to to stretch your legs when you’re out. One slip and over you go. I was a little bit tense over the whole thing, so my legs got really fatigued. When I was back on dry land, it was my pinky toes and groin that had the greatest workout. In short, I could barely walk.

I went back to my hotel room doing the Tim Conway Old Man Shuffle. It was two blocks, uphill, and it took me about half an hour. I was really sore. And tired. And starving.

A cat nap and a shower later, I was ready for some food. I have this weird medical condition where if I don’t get some excellent shellfish in me every now and then, I want to punch a nun. I was in serious need of a lobster and a Guinness.

So I show up at the Fish Shack. It’s a family place. Kid-friendly. That’s shorthand for Fucking Annoying. The place was loud and rambunctious and chaotic, but I didn’t have the strength to go anywhere else. I was running low on vitamin L and vitamin G. And the place was busy. It would be a 30 minute wait. Naturally, while I was waiting, a party came in and told the Very Cute Hostess “Party of eight, three adults and five kids.” Great. And these were young kids, around four or five. And they were acting like they’d gotten just enough vitamin G to make them extra spunky, sort of in a “you think you’re better than me?” sort of way.

I suddenly developed a massive headache.

At long last, the Very Cute Hostess found something for me. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t seat you in the main dining room. This is all we have.”

She showed me to a quiet, private room with a gigantic picture window overlooking the ocean. Shortly thereafter, a basket of steaming hot dinner rolls arrived.

Buddhists call this state “Nirvana.”

5

Years ago, when I was in my early twenties, before I made much money or knew how to drive, I lived above my married sister and her husband in a two-family house. Because I didn’t drive, I came to rely on them for things like going to the grocery store. And, because my sister can be a bitch sometimes, she liked to hold that over my head.

Now, one evening my sister came upstairs and said to me, we’re going food shopping right now. Don’t keep John (her husband) waiting. I said I’d be right there but I had to go to the bathroom. She told me it was now or never so off I went. Of course she told her husband I had the nerve to want to go to the bathroom but she made me hurry up.

Well, we were driving along to a store in Nassau County because the stores in Queens were all gross when I remembered :smack: I had something in the oven. So I announced, “Oh, no! I’m cooking a sweet potato!”

For some reason my brother in law said, “Oh, no you don’t! Not in my car.”

My sister and I looked at him with mystification (is that a word?) until we realized he thought I meant I was pooping my pants! I mean, really! I hadn’t had my gall bladder removed at this time. Come on!

To this day, twenty years later, we still call taking a shit “cooking a sweet potato”.

6

Caricci, I literally laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

7

In 1999 I was a concessionist at the local dollar theater in a suburb of Dallas. As it was a dollar theater and not a huge mega-plex our equipment tended to be older and not repaired as often as theaters that made a huge bunch of money every day.

I was already having a bad day when I showed up at work before they told me that of our 3 popcorn poppers only one had a working kettle. And it did work, but the bottom cover on the kettle (the thing that hides all the wires and such) was missing, exposing various sharp pointy bits and wires to those of us who had to use the machine. Which was everyone behind the counter. This did not help my mood and I was ready to punch a nun, but since I didn’t see any I just went about my business as best as I could with the malfunctioning equipment.

We hit our normal evening rush and fill the popper as much as possible with popcorn literally falling out onto the ground because it is so full. A batch had just finished and I turned the kettle to pour it into the already over stuffed warmer but I couldn’t flip the kettle to completely empty it. I pushed and pushed until I got all of the popcorn out of the kettle so that it wouldn’t burn and flipped the kettle back up into place. That is when I noticed that the loose wires had caught the already popped popcorn on fire. I grabbed a cup full of ice and threw it on the popcorn, but apparently oil and butter soaked popcorn burns really quickly and it was only a few seconds before the entire machine was engulfed in flames. I called my manager on the walkie talkie to tell him about the fire. He came out with a bucket of water, realized this was not a small fire that could be tackled with a small bucket of water, set it on the ground, turned around and went back into his office. He came back a moment later with the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. By this time the alarms are going off and the fire trucks are on their way, movies have been evacuated and everyone is standing in the lobby like assholes instead of going into the parking lot so that they don’t burn to death. The entire place is filled with smoke and the doors are opened to let the place air out.

Yes, my friends, this is the story of the day I lit my workplace on fire.

8

For about a year, about a year ago, I lived in urban sprawl brooklyn, in a cheap 2-bedroom apartment on the wrong side of the metaphorical tracks with a bicycle-enthusiast absentee roommate. I lost my first job in April of that year, and I found myself with a great deal of both time and depression on my hands. My little room in the little apartment was stifling, but it also wasn’t an incredibly safe area for a young white chickie to go wandering about late at night. During the 10-minute walk from the subway stop to the apartment corner, one would pass a mass of abandoned warehouse buildings, a lot with a broken chain link fence, a few dilapidated brownstones. Therefore, once darkness hunkered down, or I returned home for the evening, I generally stayed put.

This pattern ended, by necessity, when the internet connection I had been pirating became, overnight, password-encrypted. Dammit! I cursed to the heavens the well-meaning nephew of some neighbor who mentioned to his uncle, while installing WoW on his computer, “dude, someone’s stealing your bandwidth, man”. With my internet gone, and no other pirating opportunities in sight, each evening opened up limitless possibilities of boredom.

One night, after watching a marathon of America’s Next Top Model and contemplating the meal options for the few dessicated husks of vegetables remaining in the fridge, a strong, sudden urge to do a jigsaw puzzle descended upon me. I don’t know why, I hadn’t done a jigsaw puzzle in about 10 years. But the idea of a jigsaw puzzle would have seemingly solved my momentary problems: an engaging solitary activity that could be satisfying, in a quiet, mental way, and would last for hours upon hours! It was around 8:30pm, and I was facing another night of insomnia and boredom and distractionless depression. I called my friends- no one had a jigsaw puzzle. I shamelessly pried around my roommate’s things- he obviously did not own a jigsaw puzzle. The long wait for the next morning, when I could go somewhere and BUY a puzzle, seemed unbearable. I anticipated the night folding out into another expanse of tedium. I put on my raincoat and shoes and decided to bear the walk to the nearest 24-hour grocery store for some jarlsberg cheese and dark chocolate. Cheese and chocolate would soothe my mind. I mean, there’s nothing quite like medicating oneself with unaffordable food!

It was misty, and quiet, and my footsteps echoed along the warehouse walls as I walked. I propelled violent thoughts into the darkness. I was so tense, I YEARNED to be attacked simply so I could beat up on someone with a ready-supplied reason. I ruminated upon the inherent suckiness of life. I mentally cursed everything around me with special aplomb. Every six feet, I had to dodge wet, moldy-smelling trash bags dripping with the mist of the evening. Garbage day. The air smelled like a wet dog.

I made it to the grocery store, bought my wedge of cheese and brick of chocolate, and turned around for home. Once I’d gone about halfway I felt something around me click into place. The streetlights blinked on and off. I walked quickly, lost in morose thought, but something, something, made me look twice at one of the piles of wet trash sitting on the street.

On top of one of the wet bags, but themselves as dry as a baby-powdered butt, were two brightly-colored boxes. I stopped. THEY WERE NEW, UNOPENED JIGSAW PUZZLES.

I caught my breath. I whirled around, scanning for some sort of indication of a joke, of the universe playing tricks. I hit the side of my head to dispel hallucination. I blinked. But there the puzzles remained, pristine, beautiful, one an abstract jazz-musician scene, one a panorama of the NYC skyline. I inspected them for mildew or crap and, finding nothing objectionable, tucked them under my arm and ran the rest of the way home.

I spent that evening doing the jazz musician puzzle and eating my cheese and chocolate. It was beautiful.

9

Not so much my story I guess, but on my mind because by brother and I were talking about it recently.

  1. Treasure Island, CA. At the time, a bustling military base. I think it’s been closed now. I don’t know exactly what my father was doing there, but it was his shore leave. I’ll guess teaching. He was Navy and had done 3 tours in Vietman. Mostly he hung out in the water, but did have one exercise on land that resulted in him and 2 other navy guys having to do something with a communications tower. To this day, he doesn’t speak much of what happened and says whatever job he was doing was classified. All we know is that after a location was taken, he and his buddies went in to do their job. They were there 2 nights when someone got in and slit the throats of 2 guys sleeping before he got caught and killed. This happened sometime in mid to late 68 as my mom said he got leave after it happened and came home resulting in my brother popping out in Aug 69.

Back to 1975. We had great housing facing San Fran and Alcatraz. If we stood in my parents’ room, you could see the bridge and a beautiful expanse of water. It was regatta time and the water was filled with all types of boats. My brother and I were trying to see them when my mom suggested we go upstairs and look out the bedroom window. She was even going to set up the telescope. Dad was up there taking a nap.

I swear to a 10yr, this happened in slow motion. My mother walked into the room, I could already see the boats in the window, there was one with a sky blue sail. I could see my father’s feet, crossed over each other as he lay on the bed on his back. As my mother walked by the end of the bed, she put her hand on my dad’s feet, gave them a little wiggle and said, I’m letting the kids come in to watch the regatta. You want …

My father, prone as he was, was suddenly standing up at the end of the bed. My mother wailing arms but no noise, was stumbling away from him, falling into the bathroom. Blood was everywhere. My brother and I stopped in our tracks. I know my mouth was hanging open. Dad’s eyes were open but wild looking. He blinked and about that time my mom starts screaming. He looked at her lying on the bathroom floor, he looked at me and my brother in the hall outside his bedroom, my brother ran to his room and slammed the door, and then Dad moved toward Mom. Time then went back to normal.

My mother, hell my brother and I, never woke him up while in close proximity again. If he was asleep on the couch, I’d stand in the dining room and bang on the table until he woke up. My brother would just yell. When he was napping, my mom wouldn’t go in the room until he woke up. She’d call his name and bang on the door or wall. Mom sported a couple of black eyes and a broken nose. Dad felt like shit for forever. All he said was he was having a dream (my brother asked if it was about green monsters which my mother took offense to). He wouldn’t discuss it. It eventually become a funny story they both loved to tell. Mom milked the broken nose until the day she died, while Dad always threatened to break it again.

Why were my brother and I discussing this? Papa is riding his Harley out to visit. 2 weeks at my place, 2 weeks at his place. We’re conditioning the grandkids now.

10

I don’t know why this story presents itself to me, but it definitely qualifies as random:

At my elementary school, the grades were paired up and spread out among three wings: one wing held classrooms for first and second graders, one held third and fourth graders, one held fifth and sixth graders. One effect of this was that when you moved up to third grade and again to fifth grade, your whole world really changed, because you were suddenly seeing teachers every day who previously you might only have seen in passing.

Moving up to the fifth grade, I got three new teachers: Mr. Ward, Mrs. Nash, and one other I don’t remember now. Mrs. Nash had the school’s foremost reputation as a kid-killer: she was tough and relished being tough. She and I wound up getting along famously as it turns out, but that’s a different story.

Mr. Ward may have been new to the school, I don’t remember now. He was a very kind-hearted guy and was the school’s resident ex-hippie. He liked me even though, or perhaps because, I was not a terribly popular kid. I suspect that’s why it bothered him so much to have to punish me. Another kid came to him and told him about something they had found written on the walls of the boys’ room. It was something about a particular girl, about doing something to a particular girl, and it was a particular girl that everyone in a twelve-mile radius of my elementary school knew I had a crush on. So I wasn’t the prime suspect, I was the only suspect.

My punishment was to clean all the graffiti from all the walls of the boys’ room, and after protesting enough to learn that innocence is an insufficient defense, I began scrubbing. I’ve blocked that out, mostly, but I know I did it.

A year later, when I was in the sixth grade, Mr. Ward told me that after a year getting to know me and a year of getting to know the person who had originally told him about the graffiti, he knew in his heart that I had been framed, and he apologized for not giving me a fairer hearing. I think I felt a little vindicated, but I don’t remember for sure now. I look back on it now as a very early example that being an adult doesn’t make one infallible.

11

At this time, you ought to be thinking about wiping.

At the least, give us a courtesy flush…

12

These stories are great!

I told this story at the last Dopefest, I think.

I currently live with a friend from grad school. One Thursday night, we had plans to go out for some drinks with some other friends of ours. I got home from work around eight and was puzzled to be greeted by an empty apartment, since we’d agreed to head out soon after I got back. Figuring she must’ve stepped out to the cornerstore to get some cigarettes, I sprawled myself on the sofa to wait.

Around 15 minutes later, the door opens. I raise my head to say, “Hey, where were you?” but the words die in my throat as my roommate comes with two hunkering guys I’ve never seen before in my life. Something about their demeanor and clothing tells me they are NOT friends from school. They shuffle around the living room as I forget my manners and simply stare in disbelief.

“Oh, this is Alan and Tom,” my roommate says nonchalantly. “Alan was nice enough to get me some weed, so I invited them over for a smoke.”

“That’s nice,” I say faintly, as if bringing home guys from off some random street corner was the most natural thing in the world.

Tom betakes himself to my bathroom while Alan and Roommate light up in the kitchen. “Hey, you want some?” Alan shouts affably.

“Uh, no thanks,” I reply, reaching for my cellphone. I quickly text to one of our friends that if we don’t show up for drinks in an hour to assume we’ve been murdered in our beds.

Meanwhile, Tom is still sequestered in my bathroom, while Roommate is going on and on about Wittgenstein to Alan, who stares at her agreeably through a pot-induced haze. I close my eyes and tell myself that all will be well. I did not cross the Pacific Ocean and come to this country just to be murdered in my own apartment because my roommate is a pot-craving idiot.

After they left, my roommate smiles at me serenely. “They seem nice. Even if Tom was smoking crack in your bathroom.”

“He was what?” I sputtered.

She goes on, oblivious to my indignation. “I just really wanted a smoke tonight. I had a fight with Jack [boyfriend].”

I bite my lip, trying to restrain myself from biting her head off. “I don’t think it’s quite . . . safe to invite people off the street inside,” I say carefully, as if I am offering up some crazy new theory rather than simple common sense.

“Oh, I know. But I just got a good vibe from them, you know? I’m good at those things.”

Fast-forward to two nights later. (In the meantime, Roommate’s cat eats up all the pot she bought from Alan.) Roommate and I are sitting in the living room, working in comfortable silence, when the doorbell rings. Puzzled, I run downstairs and open the door.

It’s Alan and Tom, this time with a girl in tow.

“Hey, is your roommate here?” they ask casually.

My heart is in my throat. I am about to tell them that no, she isn’t, when she yells down at me from the top of the stairs. “Who is it?”

“Just a moment,” I tell them, resigned.

As she goes out to meet them, I nip back upstairs, grab my cellphone, and stand just out of sight at the top of the staircase to listen.

Alan and Tom apparently need $20 bucks to skip town. They are vague about why, make promises to pay her back immediately. Roommate protests that she has no cash on her, and wants to know how would they pay her back anyway, if they really are skipping town.

“Doesn’t your roommate have cash?” Alan demands.

“I can’t ask my roommate for cash to give you,” she replies in a sensible tone.

Well, at least she isn’t COMPLETELY senseless. I fiddle with my phone, wondering if it’ll take more than firm words to make them leave. I hear my roommate clear her throat.

“It’s very clever of you to bring another girl along with you and try to appeal to my feminine sympathies,” she tells them in a tone that is more suited for a lecture hall than for facing down crackheads at your doorstep. “But I don’t have any cash, and I’m not asking my roommate for any. Good night.”

They dither a bit longer, plead some more, but thankfully she manages to get rid of them and come back upstairs.

“Jesus CHRIST. I was about to call the police.” I flop back on the sofa, the tension leaving my body in a woosh.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t have gone that far,” she said reflectively. “But I’m really disappointed in Alan. He seemed like a nice guy. I never thought he’d abuse our acquaintance that way.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, they’re DRUG ADDICTS. What did you EXPECT?”

“Human nature can be disappointing sometimes,” she sighed. “And I don’t even have any pot left to show for it.”

13

Does a friend’s story count?

My friend Nhi was taking care of a family friends’ dog while the friends were on vacation. Medium size dog, maybe a small border collie. Nhi’s a Vietnamese kid adopted to the states, which is only important because she can’t be more than about four foot eight. So Nhi takes the bus over to the friends’ house, goes up to the door, unlocks it, and walks in.

And the dog is dead on the floor.

So Nhi panics a little- she’s terrified that she’ll be blamed for killing the dog, but she screws up her courage, does the right thing, and calls the “can be reached in emergencies” number she’s been left. And the friend (let’s call him Dave, though I have no idea what his real name is) she reached, being a good egg, assures her, “Oh, that’s alright. It’s not your fault, we knew she was old and could go at any time. But could you do us a favor? Our kids would feel better about it if they got a chance to bury the dog, so they can have some closure, but we’re not going to be home for three weeks at least. So could you take the dog to the vet and freeze it?”

Nhi is slightly weirded out by this but agrees. Dave proceeds to tell her, “OK, so you get on Hamilton, go for eight or ten blocks, turn on Oak-” and Nhi interrupts “Oh, no, I don’t have a car- I took the bus here. I don’t think the bus driver will let me bring a dead dog on the bus.”

Dave ponders this for a moment, then says “OK, so go upstairs, look in my closet, and get the big green suitcase. I don’t like that one very much anyway (that’s why I didn’t take it) and it should fit the dog inside it easily. You can take the dog in the suitcase on the bus, no one will know what you’ve got inside, and it won’t be any problem. Can you do that?”

Nhi is now weirded out but agrees. She hangs up, gets the suitcase, and wrestles the dog into it. She lugs it outside and to the bus stop, waits for twenty or thirty minutes for the right bus, and finally heaves the suitcase onto the bus. She drags it back and sits down across from a man, maybe 25 or 30, who gives her a funny look.

“What’s in the bag?”

Nhi, understandably, doesn’t want to explain this. She lies (which she is excellent at, as my bank account will attest after poker night) “Oh, you know, my computer…” He looks skeptical, as if no computer could be that much trouble. “And some electronics stuff…”

They reach her stop after an awkward conversation or two, and she stands up to try to lug the suitcase off the stop. The man across from her, seeing a small girl trying to lift this heavy suitcase, says “Oh, let me help you with that,” and he reaches down, takes hold of the handle of the suitcase with his left hand and lifts…
And he punches Nhi in the stomach* with his free hand, barrels over her, and sprints away with the suitcase!

*She was fine, just the wind knocked out of her. The story isn’t funny otherwise. I mean, maybe it would still be funny, but it would sure be a lot darker.

14

I love this thread!

I can just imagine the random guy’s face when he opened up that suitcase! Heck, what was “Dave’s” reaction, when he was told that not only could his kids not say goodbye to their dead dog, but that the dead dog was stolen before it could be frozen? How do you explain that to the kids?!?

I’m trying to think of a random story, but the only thing I can think of is a little awkward to set up. Whatever, I’ll try, and hopefully I’ll remember something else worth writing about some other time!

The set up: I have a bad habit of not sitting normally in chairs or on couches. I tend to like having one leg under me, or sitting cross-legged (“Indian” style), as I’m just more comfortable like this. The problem is, fairly often, one or both of my legs will fall asleep on me, which I of course never discover until I try and stand up and realise that I can’t walk and my feet hurt like hell! Over the past 8 years, my dear husband’s reaction to this has gone from “oh, that sucks, here let me rub your leg until the pins and needles go away” to simply telling me “then stop fucking sitting on them!”

The other thing I do is grind my teeth when I concentrate/study. My husband is constantly threatening to buy me a mouth guard. This past week, I had a fairly extensive AutoCAD project to do and submit, and I spent an inordinate amount of time working on it on Wednesday, which led to my teeth hurting me later in the evening.

Ok, here’s the story. We go to bed that night, and my husband is half asleep, while I’m wide awake (as usual… I’m an insomniac), and I say “My teeth hurt”.

He replies, “Stop fucking sitting on them” in that half-asleep voice that tells me he didn’t even hear what I said.

“I’m not sitting on them,” I say.

“The stop chewing them!”

Me: ::confused::

“I AM NOT CHEWING MY TEETH, OR SITTING ON THEM!” I say, adamantly!

At this point he’s woken up enough to at least hear me clearly, though not quite enough to understand why the hell I would say such a thing. He spent the next 10 minutes laughing hysterically.

A few other “automatic” responses my husband has developed over the years:

Me (when he’s obviously tinkering with Linux on his computer): “I love you!”
Him: “I love Linux”

(That exchanged actually happened once… it’s now a joke, but at least I know for sure that I DO come second to his computer!)

Me: “I can’t sleep”
Him: “Stop Moving. Close Your Eyes. And SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

It actually works, sometimes. We call them the Rules of Sleep.

And one of mine;

Me: [asking a question, or whatever]
Him: Um… yeah…no… what? (as he clues in to the fact that I’ve said something)
Me: “when I start talking, start listening!”

Don’t we just sound like a happy couple? :slight_smile:

15

When I was about 13, and my younger sister was 6, we were going to the zoo with our parents for a mini-vacation of sorts. Halfway to Columbus, little sis and I start complaining that we are hungry. Dad mutters something about waiting until we get there, it’s still a long drive to go, yadda yadda. By the time we get to Columbus city limits, little sis is crying and I’m bitching and omaning in that way that only a teenager can. “Fine, we’ll stop at the next place,” growls dad, and true to his word, he exits the interstate and pulls up to a Wendy’s drive thru. As everyone knows, kids under the age of ten will ONLY ever eat chicken at a fast food place, so there was no question as to what kind of kids’ meal my sister wanted. By this point my dad is really frustrated - two hours in the car with kids plus an hour of that spent hearing about how they staaaaarrrrrved us and we wee sooooo hunnnnngrrrry does not my father a happy man make - and he pulls up to the order speaker in a huff. The voice crackles through, “Welcome to Wend’s, may I take your order?” Dad orders the grownup food (burgers or somesuch) and my food (also a burger) without a hitch, but upon giving little sister’s order, well let’s just say that something went very VERY wrong. Being used to McDonald’s, as we were, he started to order a Chicken Nugget Happy Meal, then realized his mistake and tried to switch it to Chicken Nibbles. His actual words?..“A Kids’ Meal with Chicken NIGGERS.” Cue long period of silence from the speaker. Then, a quiet voice comes through, telling dad the order total, and to please pull around. My dad is looking around at the shitty, run-down neighborhood we ended up in (because his beloved little darlings were famished) and he’s totally mortified that he said the ULTIMATE word-that-should-never-be-used. When we finally inch up to the pay window, dad reaches out a trembling hand with the money. To the absolute LARGEST black man I have ever seen. Not big as in fat, either; this guy is big like a UFC fighter! Dad doesn’t make any eye contact, or even acknowledge his slip, just grabs his change and pulls forward to get the food. Miraculously, nobody spit in it, or shot at our car as we pulled away. All was well, and it gave us all a good laugh after the fact.

16

Awesome stories.

I used to work in an office complex atop a mall. In the middle of the mall was an escalator, and surrounding that was a shallow pond, maybe a foot deep. It was full of coins, as people sometimes used it to make wishes. The pond was surrounded by a little stone riser thing, maybe a foot tall and a foot wide. It was mostly decorative, but it was also there to keep the water in and people out. Next to the pond was a movie theatre.

I was leaving work with a coworker one afternoon, and every other business let out at the same time. A really popular movie drew a large crowd, and another one was just letting out. This added up to a buttload of people. There must have been over a hundred people in that little area, and no one was going anywhere. It was a mass of immovable humanity.

This was unacceptable to one particular businessman. Mr. Important, with his expensive suit and expensive shoes and expensive briefcase, could not be bothered to be shuffled around with the common masses. He had things to do and places to be.

He decided to cut through the crowds by walking atop the little riser thing. His first step was sure, proud and strong. It had the grace of a dancer. His second step, not so much. It was a little tentative, like he wasn’t quite sure where to put it. In order to keep from falling, he put his foot the only place it universe wanted it to go. Splash. His third step was an attempt to recover from the second, but was even more ill-placed. Every step thereafter was an even worse attempt at recovery. In short, he ended traversing the entire width of the pool, from one side to the other, as if he were merely taking a shortcut.

My coworker and I, apparently being the only witnesses to this act of grace, cracked up. The guy looked back at us and cracked up too, with a look on his face that said, “I know, that was embarassing, but fucking hilarious.”

17

End of February/beginning of March 2003

My boyfriend had killed himself a couple of months before. I was in absolute mental breakdown, literally drawing on the walls, not talking to anyone, trying to quit school and crying to myself every 15 minutes. I get a phone call from my then best friend, a girl who was a sister to me. Even though she knew what had happened and had had to deal with losing a friend as well (we were all in a close knit group) the first words before I had even said hello were “Why the fuck haven’t you called me?”

I don’t know if it was hearing her voice or just the outburst she gave but I laughed my arse off for about 5 minutes all the while she yelling at me “Why the fuck are you laughing at me? You think this is funny?” Everything she said just made me laugh more. I know it might sound callous laughing at a time like that but she knew just what she was doing. Once I’d calmed down she asked me to come to lunch. We talked about what had happened, and how I, in particular, was going to cope and she told me this, which I only remembered seeing this thread.

“Everyone’s got a right to cry on someone’s shoulder, but you’ve two shoulders of your own.”

It probably doesn’t mean much to anyone else but it just clicked with me. I knew I needed to stay strong. I sorted myself out, stayed in school and found this place not long afterwards. I can say without a doubt I wouldn’t have the life I have now without her.

Thanks for opening this thread Mullinator. It’s good to remember these times.

18

Back when I lived in the village, on a brilliant October morning as I dropped the kids off at school I decided that instead of returning directly home I would take a cruise on the 4-wheeler and enjoy one of the few remaining such days before the storms of winter arrived.

I headed toward the upper road, and pulled into the wide spot where the road branches off into the upper and lower roads. As I turned the bike I saw that the old sow, along with her four cubs, were wandering up the road toward me. There was plenty of room for her and her brood to pass, though I did keep the motor running. Mama bear was leading the way, and her cubs followed in a loose group behind her. These were two year old cubs, and after the coming winter they would break up as a family. I always felt a bit of melancholy about that, especially in the autumn, with the family so fat and glossy and content with each others presence. One last sleep together, dears, and then life as you know it will change forever.

This morning in particular was spectacular; a sky of deep true blue made the perfect backdrop for the golden birch and bronzed cottonwood trees, which were tossing their heads in the light breeze. A haze of dust in the air seemed to capture and reflect the sun, and I felt as if I were in the midst of a tawny fog. As the bears drew closer the two males rambled off the side of the road. Mama and the two girls kept heading my way, but I could hear the two males crashing around in the brush off to my left a ways. That sow kept glancing off to the bush where her boys were tearing it up, and shooting me sideways looks, flattening her ears and curling a lip.

I was ready for it, but when those two cubs came bounding up the road bank a few scant yards from me my heart leaped to my throat and I hit the throttle, made a tight turn and headed in the opposite direction. While turning, I caught a glimpse of that ol’ bitch sprinting after me, while the brothers and sisters gamboled about in the road.

After she felt satisfied that I was no longer a danger to her darlings she headed back in their direction. Once I was certain that I was no longer being pursued I stopped and waited for the bears to make some headway before returning to the upper road. I parked back in that wide spot, and stopped to watch where the bears were going. That old sow sung her head back to check on me, then headed her family up a bear trail on the other side of the gravel pit. I sat there, on that crisp October morning, watching those majestic royals of the island as they disappeared into the brush, and the sun dazzled through the dusty air in a golden aura about them, as the wind sang through the trees in tribute to their majesty.

19

I found an old story I had told in college during my time there, and figured I’d share it here. T’was written March 3, 2005, and I’m sorry about the writing style, but it’s just how I was then (And probably am a bit now)-kooky and annoying.

Ab Ovum Ad Malum
So I woke up today, right? It was around 9am when I decided to go and get ready and grab some food from the UC (cafeteria), mostly because I never eat breakfast since I’m never up this early and because I’ve really been craving omelets these last few days. So i break on through to the other side, and grab my food, omelettes, bagels, juice, bacon, you know- the works. Oh, and i grab an egg. Not scrambled, not fried, but this little hardboiled egg in its shell.
Those things always amuse me, I see them as toys instead of food. I never eat the yellow parts of them, but I love to hold them in my palm and just squeeze them, and trying to get that perfect -crack!- that shows the perfect break all around ze blanche orb.
So I’m there enjoying the foodage, and saving the egg for last (well, next to last. I love cinnamon-raisin bagels a bit more than playing with the eggs). But anyways I have this egg now, and I’ve just eaten an omelet and- to tell you the truth, I’m not much of an egg person. An omelet and this lil’ guy- that’d be plenty, I couldn’t just sit there and eat these things like flies or some other item that would actually make that simile work. So I put the egg in the palm, and then squeeze… It doesn’t break. I squeeze harder. Nothing! This was like… Gullenkambi’s egg from Valhalla or something! And don’t bother to point out Gullenkambi’s a rooster, i know my Norse Mythos, damnit!. Anyways, so I’m now strangling the hell outta this lil’ dude in my palm, and i look around. And lo’ and behold what do i see in front of me? A couple.

This couple didn’t look all that happy. Well, at least the girl didn’t; she seemed downright upset, while the male member [minds out of the gutter, people!] was simply questioning and talking to her in what i presumed to be an attempt to cheer her up. Thusly, I began to watch the drama unfold, all the while still taking on the Shell from Hell. The Guy was saying something over and over to the girl, and trying to cheer her up, but she refused to talk to him. She was silent the whole time, while the guy ate his breakfast within her company.
And then-- his eyes widened and he smiled- Did he have a plan? I was curious now- He pulls out a hard boiled egg- That Bastard! He smiles and makes a joke and gives the girl the egg. She flings it at him and the egg bounces off the table and into his lap- I knew it! These eggs were no mere mortal eggs! But anyways, he’s surprised but gives her the egg again, and again she flings it at the table, and this time it doesn’t bounce as far- even these eggs have their limits… Yet once more, he hands her the egg and again she throws it back at him, yelling this time. She obviously did NOT like the EggGame… But this time the egg’s mighty shell broke, and fell apart. And the egg was consumed by the dude.

Well, with that morality play of a side story finished, I turned back to my egg, still in my right hand, red from the stress I had placed upon trying to squeeze the egg… Still not a crack. Perhaps it was time for more dire methods… I placed the egg between two hands, and gave a strangulous death grip upon the egg, and with a thunderous ~CRICK!~ the egg broke in two. And then some more as well. Turns out, I squeezed it waaay too much, and now i had a blob of eggs, yellow yolk, and shell in my two hands. Goddammit- the yolk was on me!
Disgusted, I turned back to the couple, and watched now as the guy was sitting next to the girl, with her crying into his chest. He looked at me, and I quickly looked away. Poor Guy. Poor Girl.
I wonder what was wrong, but then again, it’s not really my business to ask. I can only just watch.

As i got up, after finishing the bagel and disposing of the EggMcWraith’s remains, I gathered my tray and started to leave. As i got up from my table, I turned around, and I saw that the person behind me had also gone and gotten some eggs. He had 6 peeled Eggs in a bowl just waiting to be consumed and a pile of shells next to him. He looked up at me with my crumbs of eggshells and yolk on my shirt, and grinned smugly. THAT BASTARD! He had been watching me the whole time just as I had watched the couple.

Some people are just sick.
Six Eggs?!!?
Honestly…

20

My story is not quite so literal, but close enough.

Friday afternoon at NSGA* Winter Harbor, in the Mat (maintenance) shop. All scheduled work has been done and nobody feels like starting anything new before we can officially go. One of us day beggars glances into the tool drawer of the on-duty watch stander and sees a bag of marshmallows. “I put 'em in my cocoa on the midwatches.” is the answer to a query.

“Can I have one?”

“Be my guest.”

Contemplation of the naked 'mallow. “It would be so much better toasted.”

Rumination. It is I who comes up with the answer. “The heat gun ought to do the trick.” A heat gun is a hair dryer on steroids. It blows hot air but gets hotter (a lot hotter); we used it for things like heat shrink tubing, to hasten the curing of epoxy and the like. The marshmallow is skewered on a length of wire and nicely toasted to a turn in the stream of hot air. The browned confection is pulled off and consumed – just as the fire alarm goes off.

When the fire alarm sounds, our orders were to Get Out!! Don’t even secure anything classified that might be lying around, just head for the door, so we did. After about fifteen minutes, a false alarm was declared and we trooped back in. Suspicious at the timing, a couple of us asked where the alarm was. “Area 2,” was the answer. A glance at the alarm board showed Area 2 was way over on the other side of the building – not us.

This was announced back in the shop. Another marshmallow was requested and toasted, and another alarm sounded. This time we were told almost instantly to stay put – it was in the same area. Back to the alarm board and a more careful look. Oh, look – there’s this hallway that goes 'round and 'round and it comes out here, here being our shop. A climb onto a workbench and a careful raising of the suspended ceiling tile confirmed it; there was the triggered sensor blinking in the space between the tile and the true ceiling.

We had to 'fess up, of course. The first evacuation caused a cessation of our Mission and, while not a life or death situation, it was serious enough that paperwork had to be filed. I’m told the skipper said, “They were what?!” when told of the incident, thinking we had built a fire or something. Matmen have a reputation for doing weird things. Luckily he had a sense of humor. A couple days later, down the chain of command came a note, “Next time your guys get a craving for toasted marshmallows, give them this.” Pinned to it was a plastic bag of marshmallows that had been rolled in toasted coconut.

*Navy Security Group Activity