I know I haven't blogged in a while. It's not like I have nothing to say or report, there are tons of events that I have pictures of, but it's Bloggers fault for making it such a pain. I'm waiting for the right motivation to post about those things, as it is not always enjoyable to write those posts. Instead, I'm going to post about sports, which seems less like work and more like fun.
Today, I was watching the top 10 comebacks of all time on the NFL network. The first one they show, Number 10, was Joe Montana versus the Eagles in 1989. I was prepared to see some awesome game where they were down 20 with 5 minutes left in a crucial season-changing game. After all, it's number 10 of the top 10 comebacks of ALL TIME.
They first showed Montana getting sacked, again and again, and it looked like the Eagles were probably up 93-0 at half time. But they refused to show or even tell me the score! They said, "Seifert should've taken Joe out of the game, but Joe said, 'We're going to win this game' at halftime." Then they proceeded to show Joe throwing touchdown after touchdown to win the game 96-93. Well, that's what it seemed like. They didn't even mention the score, they just went to commercial. So I googled the game and this is what I found:
1. It was the 3rd game of the season. The third. Games in September are next to meaningless in the context of the greatest comebacks of ALL TIME. If you're going to show some borderline meaningless game, it had better be an AWESOME comeback. You don't see Cornell versus Mediocre St highlights on SportsCenter unless Mediocre St scored 28 points in 30 seconds to win the game. Anything less than 28 points in 30 seconds and the general population can't be bothered.
2. The score at halftime was 12-10, Eagles. TWELVE to FREAKING TEN! "Hey, Joe, how do you think your team can overcome this massive 2 point deficit?" "I'm not sure, Jimbob, it seems pretty insurmountable. I'm already thinking about my steak dinner tonight." What gumption did this Joe Montana have! When the odds were against him, when the world was crashing down on him, when the nay-sayers were nay-saying, Joe looked into Coach Seifert's eyes and said, "We're going to win this game, George." Incredible.
3. The Eagles scored a TD to go up by 11 with 8 minutes left in the game. 8 short minutes! Down by 11! Head for the exits, this game's over! This wasn't a comeback, this was a hard-fought game where they got more than 1 possession behind. There needs to be a comeback rule, where you can't say it's a comeback unless you're more than 2 possessions behind with less than 5 minutes left. Or maybe a possession every 3 minutes. So if you're down by 2 possessions with 4 minutes left, it's not a comeback. If you're down by 1 possession with 2 minutes left, it's not a comeback. But if you're down by 3 possessions with 5 minutes left, it's a comeback. And anything greater than 20 points is a comeback. Or, if you're Pete, you give up. (Zing!)
4. The 49ers, down 28-17, scored 3 TD's in the final 8 minutes to win the game 38-28. How anticlimatic. Leave it to the NFL network to take a run of the mill game with lots of 4th quarter scoring to make it into something great.
I watched the rest of the top 10. There were a couple of suspect games, but none as bad as this one. Number 1 was the classic Bills comeback against the Oilers, deservedly so.
So how did this make the top 10? The guy that picked these top 10 was either:
a. drunk
b. in love with Joe Montana
c. a die-hard 49ers fan
d. unwilling to do much research
e. all of the above.
Maybe I'm just biased because they didn't show my personal favorite comeback: Peyton bringing the Colts back from 21-3 against the Pats in the AFC Championship. This was great on a number of levels, but my favorite was going to work the next day with all these Pats fans that know I love the Colts. Nobody mentioned the game. I loved it.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Odd thoughts
I've been working on this post for like 3 months, thinking that I would have more odd thoughts than I did. Also, some people would call this "Random thoughts", but I have serious issues with the word "random" and its misuse. Anyway, the following are thoughts/experiences I have that don't warrant an entire post, but are too important to be left unsaid:
I don't know why Target brand string cheese is so much better than all the other kinds of string cheese, but it is. It's so stringy!
I was alone in an elevator the other day when 3 old men got in. I'm not talking Gary old, I'm talking Francis old, like in their 80's. Since I was at Tuft's medical center, it wasn't surprising, except they all were dressed like high school kids! Baggy jeans, hip t-shirts, backwards caps. I thought for sure they were going to jump me and leave me for the Good Samaritan. I expected the geri-hooligans to start using new-fangled slang or maybe bust out a PSP. I didn't trust them one bit, those old rascals. I thought I was either on "Punked" or in some bizarro world. I've never been so scared in my life.
Yoplait is the best yogurt in America. That said, the Yoplait cup design has got to go. The skinny-at-the-top cup design makes it impossible to get every drop of yogurt out of the cup. There's always a bunch of yogurt stuck beneath the brim, which I have to use my finger to get out. I guess it's just another chapter in the war of Aesthetics vs Function, right after Decorative Towels and before The Living Room Ye Shall Not Enter. I hope Function wins.
I wonder if Pandora gets frustrated with me when I say I don't like more than 5 songs in a row.
Why do point guards in basketball think they're saving time by letting the ball roll to half-court while they risk a turnover? They will probably save 2 seconds, tops. This may matter if there are 5 seconds left, but not when there is 5 minutes left. I'm looking at you, Rajon Rondo.
How insulted should I be that a Jonas Brothers song just showed up on one of my Pandora stations? How can that be!?!?! The Jonas Brothers represent all that is wrong with music.
I've realized today that I've had some pretty good success becoming friends with my friends-in-law. You know, the husbands and wives of my friends. Most of you regularly comment on my blog, so I consider that as a good sign that we're oh-so-tight.
There should be an exclamation point tax. So blog posts like this are fewer: "Our family went to the park today! It was so fun! Nelvin said the funniest thing! Then Melvin got a poopy diaper! It was so cute how the poo squirted out and ran down his leg! Our family is so perfect! I can't wait until we all die and go to the Celestial Kingdom together! Today I said a curse! Well not really! LOL! But trials are just a part of life!" You get the drift. I'm not saying that people can't be excited about the excruciating minutia of everyday life, but just that they will have to pay dearly for it. The previous paragraph would then read like this: "Our family went to the park, it was nice to get out. That is, until Nelvin dropped the F-bomb and Melvin crapped all over the place. Then I swore at my kids and made a huge scene. Worst day ever." Let's just be a little more realistic about our pathetic lives.
Until next time.
I don't know why Target brand string cheese is so much better than all the other kinds of string cheese, but it is. It's so stringy!
I was alone in an elevator the other day when 3 old men got in. I'm not talking Gary old, I'm talking Francis old, like in their 80's. Since I was at Tuft's medical center, it wasn't surprising, except they all were dressed like high school kids! Baggy jeans, hip t-shirts, backwards caps. I thought for sure they were going to jump me and leave me for the Good Samaritan. I expected the geri-hooligans to start using new-fangled slang or maybe bust out a PSP. I didn't trust them one bit, those old rascals. I thought I was either on "Punked" or in some bizarro world. I've never been so scared in my life.
Yoplait is the best yogurt in America. That said, the Yoplait cup design has got to go. The skinny-at-the-top cup design makes it impossible to get every drop of yogurt out of the cup. There's always a bunch of yogurt stuck beneath the brim, which I have to use my finger to get out. I guess it's just another chapter in the war of Aesthetics vs Function, right after Decorative Towels and before The Living Room Ye Shall Not Enter. I hope Function wins.
I wonder if Pandora gets frustrated with me when I say I don't like more than 5 songs in a row.
Why do point guards in basketball think they're saving time by letting the ball roll to half-court while they risk a turnover? They will probably save 2 seconds, tops. This may matter if there are 5 seconds left, but not when there is 5 minutes left. I'm looking at you, Rajon Rondo.
How insulted should I be that a Jonas Brothers song just showed up on one of my Pandora stations? How can that be!?!?! The Jonas Brothers represent all that is wrong with music.
I've realized today that I've had some pretty good success becoming friends with my friends-in-law. You know, the husbands and wives of my friends. Most of you regularly comment on my blog, so I consider that as a good sign that we're oh-so-tight.
There should be an exclamation point tax. So blog posts like this are fewer: "Our family went to the park today! It was so fun! Nelvin said the funniest thing! Then Melvin got a poopy diaper! It was so cute how the poo squirted out and ran down his leg! Our family is so perfect! I can't wait until we all die and go to the Celestial Kingdom together! Today I said a curse! Well not really! LOL! But trials are just a part of life!" You get the drift. I'm not saying that people can't be excited about the excruciating minutia of everyday life, but just that they will have to pay dearly for it. The previous paragraph would then read like this: "Our family went to the park, it was nice to get out. That is, until Nelvin dropped the F-bomb and Melvin crapped all over the place. Then I swore at my kids and made a huge scene. Worst day ever." Let's just be a little more realistic about our pathetic lives.
Until next time.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Terrence, Chapter 8
As always, thanks for all the comments. I'm trying to make this a book club.
You've probably noticed that I've taken away the "Choose Your Own Terrence" privileges. The problem with writing that way, is that I found myself manipulating the story to try and get the votes I needed for the way I wanted the story to go (if that made sense). Obviously, Chris and Annie are the main characters that "need" to get together, but everybody would just vote for them to get together and then it would be all over. In order to make it entertaining and realistic (in my opinion), the characters have to make a few dumb decisions (frustrating my wife to no end), and you readers would always have them make smart ones.
So the questions remain: Will Terrence learn how to date? Will I even have Chris and Annie get together? Will Anita keep dating Chris? Maybe Chris has a "Melanie" waiting for him in Boston after he graduates! So don't get angry at me for being (somewhat) realistic with the Provo dating scene. I apologize for turning this into a fascist regime, but I still welcome suggestions and commentary. I implemented one of those suggestions in this chapter (Special thanks to Lorana for the idea).
I totally dropped the ball on the potential of Conference Weekend, but it just escaped me. Let's just say they all read the November edition of the Ensign from cover to cover.
Christina nailed what I was going for with the Anita character. Maybe you females out there never encountered her in your wards, but she existed, and us males found them. They were frequently Jekyll and Hyde types, nice in private, beasty in public. But they were always so good-looking, us weaker-willed types were powerless over their beguiling powers, so we kept coming back for more emotional abuse.
Steve Wood is indeed P Steve, Brian. Coolest guy ever. You'll see a lot of him in this chapter.
Vanessa-I'm not living out my fantasies here. This was real life, baby! I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. Okay, maybe a bit exaggerated.
That's enough "Author Response". Here's the previous chapter, if you need to catch up.
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Steve here. Chris is out with Anita tonight, so I'd thought I'd let you all know what's been going on at the ol' apartment. I think Chris told you about our date with the lovely ladies we met at the library? Oh, he didn't? Well, then.
Terrence pulled himself out of his break-up coma just in time to clean himself up and hose down the Cheeto stank for this date I set up for him. I, for one, was extremely pleased with my effort in the "Save The Terrence" campaign. This isn't the first time I've been extremely pleased with myself: In the summer of '99, at the MTC, I ate 15 corn dogs in one sitting. Best day of my life.
I dressed myself in my best plaid cowboy-style retro shirt and designer jeans, not that the library dorks would know the difference, and T had on a sparkling clean forest green polo with knee-length khaki shorts. Chris beamed like a proud mother as he gave T a few extra bucks and a supportive pat on the back. I wished Chris good luck on his lonely Saturday night, asking him one more time if he'd take my place. He politely declined, and we were off.
We made our way down to that magical table in Periodicals, and there were not 2, not 3, but all 4 girls sitting at the table. A very large lump formed in my throat, as I was not prepared to deal with extra nerdlings. They spotted me and all 4 turned to us, braces and pearly whites beaming.
"Hi, Steve!" exclaimed one of the mousier girls, causing a major stir in the previously silent library. She had obviously been looking forward to this date a little too much.
"Hello, ladies," said I, "you all look lovely tonight."
"Why, thank you, Steve," they replied in choir-like unison: one each of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.
"This is my friend, Terrence," I said, pointing at T.
Terrence was all of the sudden Way Too Cool for this scene. "'Sup," he said, with emphatic indifference, tilting his head back like a supreme jock.
I tried to make up for his coldness. "He's, um, a little shy, especially around such wonderful women as you." They smiled back, which is pretty much like saying "they breathed" at this point. "So, why are all four of you here? We only came prepared to entertain 2 of you."
The alpha-dork stepped up, still brandishing her red butterfly barrette that she'd probably donned on her baptism day and never taken off. "We couldn't decide who was going to be the lucky lady to go with you, so we decided we'd all go."
"Awesome," I replied, trying to sound sincere. "It kind of puts me in an awkward position now, having to choose where to spend my time."
"It can't be as bad as the ravenous fights we had last night in our apartment," said Alpha. "First, I decided that I would go. But Janette here stabbed me in the back with her 6-colored pen and declared that she would be the lucky one, but then Lucy bit her on the ankle, causing her to yelp, after which I grabbed a pie tin, full of pumpkin pie, and flung it back at Janette, but I missed badly and hit Maude, you can see the nasty welt above her right eye."
I waved at Maude, who winked back. Maude was the least desirable of the Zuberdorks, and a little bit on the hefty side. And when I say "a little bit", I really mean "as compared to an oil tanker."
That wasn't it, I found, as Alpha continued. "After Maude took a few good bites of the pie, she grabbed all 3 of us and piled us into the corner, sitting on us all, until we promised good behavior. Which was about 3 hours later. We're pretty stubborn."
"There's no need to fight over me, ladies. After tonight, I'm pretty sure you'll be fighting over Terrence here."
"We doubt it," they replied in unision.
I won't give you every meaningless detail, but I ended up with Janette and Alpha, and Terrence took Maude and Lucy. We decided to keep it low-key and cheap, which meant we were going to the JSB for a free movie my TMA friends told me was showing. We stopped first at the Cougar Eat, to get some 89 cent burritos at the Bell to feed our flock of admirers. Terrence was still playing it cool, not really giving Maude and Lucy much conversation besides one or two word answers. I was a little worried that T was going to ditch me and leave me with all four. Given their aggressive and violent past, I was pretty sure that such a situation would leave me dead or at best in a comatose state.
We walked over to the JSB in the fading dusk, the brisk, cool air filling our nostrils and the colorful leaves crackling beneath our shoes. This was the most romantic 2-on-4 date I'd ever been on. T continued acting too cool for school, walking a step behind while all four still kept their Steve goggles on. I even started being rude, but it didn't work. I was just too charming for my own good.
We bought some microwave popcorn and a caffeine-free Diet Coke in the vending machines, and then found our seats near the back. The film playing was from Japan or China or one of those Asian countries. It was probably about 20 or 30 years old, and it had subtitles. Most of the audience was sitting alone with a notebook, probably staying just long enough to get enough notes for an adequate report in their "Intro to Film" class. I made the mistake of taking that when I was a freshman, thinking that we'd just be watching cool movies in class and taking tests on who played "Midnight" in the movie "Sneakers". Not so. I had to endure a weekly movie that was either old, boring, foreign, unbearably long, or all of the above.
We sat down and the lights dimmed. About 20 minutes in, I felt the touch of a human hand on my left wrist, which wasn't part of the agreement. It turned out to be Alpha, and I got goosebumps, but not the good kind. The kind where you're so scared, you tense up and become like a deer in headlights. I just let her take advantage of my fear, and the next thing I knew, her clammy hand was carressing mine. I was too nice to pull it away, plus, I wasn't exactly used to this bizarro world where the women make the moves. I'd never rejected any girls, cause none had really been interested in me. I was usually the rejectee, not the rejector.
After about 10 minutes of sitting there like a wax figure, I summoned the strength to pull my hand away and fake like my neck itched. Then I folded my arms, tucking my hands in my pits. No possible hand holding now.
It didn't matter, however. Before long, I felt long fingernails lighting scratching my upper right arm. I looked over, and Janette was giving me a sly smile, as if asking me if I wanted more of this intense light scratching. I gave her a "I think that's enough" look, but she didn't get the hint. Meanwhile, Alpha was back at it, starting to rub my neck. It felt good, but I couldn't focus on relaxing while being accosted from both sides. What was most guys' dream was now my nightmare. Janette moved her hand up to my neck, where she was surprised with another hand already at work.
She looked past me at Alpha: "What do you think YOU'RE doing?"
"Back off, sister. I was here first."
"We were here at the SAME TIME," she said, inching closer to Alpha via my lap. I saw her reach into her purse pocket.
"Please not the multi-colored pen!" I gasped.
Too late! A full war was waging over my seat, on top of me, as these 2 Steve-molesters were going at it full-bore. Hair was being pulled, claws were clawing, insults were being thrown, and there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
"Man-stealer!"
"Skank!"
"No-good no-gooder!"
"Dirty nerdling!"
These girls certainly needed to work on their insults. They did not, however, need to work on their fighting. They would take me down in a New York minute. That happened, actually, as the weight of 2 angry females and one innocent bystander on one chair caused it to collapse. This created quite a commotion, and the BYU police were there in no time to sort out the details. Alpha and Janette were cuffed and taken away. I was attended to by a cute nursing student who couldn't help but laugh as I told her the story of two angry lovers fighting over me. Let's just end this segment by saying I got her number.
When I finally was let go after I had officially dropped all assault charges, I went back to the JSB to try and find T. The movie was long over, and the auditorium was locked. I walked home, aching all over, but excited that I got the nurse's number. Let's call her Ashley, cause that's her name.
Back at the ranch, I was alone until Chris showed up 30 minutes after midnight.
"Where's Terrence?" he asked. Then he got a better look at me and asked, "What happened to YOU?"
"Alpha and Janette happened."
"Ouch."
"Yeah." Pause. "I have no idea what happened to Terrence. I was taken in by BYU Police. You can probably read about it in 'Police Beat'."
It turned out that T didn't get in until after we went to bed, which was 3:30 AM. I caught up with him after church and asked him what his favorite part of the movie was.
"I dunno. Probably the making out."
I didn't recall any making out in the movie. But, then again, it's hard to pay attention in the middle of an all-out geek war.
T continued, "I'm not sure who was better, Lucy or Maude."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!? "Are you saying that you kissed both of your dates last night?"
"Not at the same time, no."
"But you kissed them. Both of them. At one time or another."
"Yes."
"When did this happen?"
"Last night."
"I KNOW it was last night. What time? Where? Was the other geek, er, girl there?"
"Yeah, they both were. After the movie, we went over to their place and played 'Spin the Bottle'. At first I thought it was a board game or something. But then it turned out that-"
"I know what Spin the Bottle is. That's just gross, Terrence. You can't be participating in those kissing games, it's just wrong. And weird."
"Hey, I had fun. By the way, are you okay? You look all beat up."
I didn't realize it then, but that was the turning point of Terrence's dating career. Supposedly, he's been out with different girls every night since then, including tonight. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I feel like this is somehow my fault. This is going to end badly. Speaking of ending badly...
Thursday, October 9, 2003
My date with Anita went so perfectly, I was on cloud 9. We went back to IHOP and then over to Johnny B's for some good, clean fun. She laughed at all my jokes, she was fun to talk to, and she was reeling me in. I felt powerless around her, even if she'd do something slightly rude, she'd just smile and I'd let it go. I knew I was under her spell, and I loved it. This was the first time a girl this hot had given me a second date.
Deep in my heart, I was worried that Anita would shrug me off for a newer and sleeker ride as soon as she found one. It was only a matter of time, I kept telling myself, but why not enjoy the view while I'm up so high?
The date ended with a 12-second hug, not that I was counting, but no serious fireworks. She said, "Let's do this again soon," so that was a good sign. I floated back to the apartment and lay in my bed until 5 AM, planning our future life together. First, we'd have a long and painful relationship, dating off and on for a couple of years while she works out her commitment issues. Then, I'd finally convince her to marry me, and we'd move to California where I got a job, and we'd have 3 kids, and we'd hang out with her family and my family and we'd all be super duper great friends and we'd live in a castle in the sky...
ANYWAY.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to ground myself by over analyzing this. So I headed over to Annie's to get her take on it.
"Oh, it's you again," Annie said, reluctantly letting me in.
"Nice to see you, too."
"I'm assuming you're over here to discuss your date with Anita?"
"Anita who? I'm here to see you, baby."
She gave me a "Yeah, right" look and walked into the kitchen. "In that case, would you mind helping me with these cookies I'm making?"
Rats! I hate it when the relationship is no longer just about me! She called my bluff and now I'm stuck rolling balls of dough. "Why are we making cookies? For a cute boy you met?"
"No, they're for a Relief Society activity on Saturday. But, I did meet a cute boy the other day."
"Wow! Was it love at first sight?"
"Not really. I was late for a class and walking as fast as I could in my flip-flops when I tripped on a paver in the Quad, sending me and my bag flying." She pointed to her knees, all scabby from road rash.
"That's what you get for not being modest."
"Funny. I was wearing knee-length shorts, but they don't always cover your knees when you're flying through the air."
"You should've thought of that when you decided to show off your legs to the world."
"Anyway. So I'm seriously embarrassed, trying to pick up my stuff while 10 guys with tucked-in t-shirts asked if I needed assistance. I just ignored them and walked away, going at a safer, more reasonable pace. As I'm walking into the HFAC, some guy comes up from behind me and opens the door for me. I look at him and say thanks. He was quite cute. He then says, 'I don't want you tripping and slamming through the glass doors. We just replaced them last week.'"
"Haha. Nice. I like this guy."
"Well, the way he said it, it was so serious, I thought he was serious, so I was offended. Who is this guy? The HFAC Building Maintenance Supervisor? Just because I tripped once, doesn't mean I'm a complete clutz! So I huffed my way out of there, but he caught up to me and said he was joking."
"Obviously."
"It wasn't obvious at the time! Plus, I was in a vulnerable place, not exactly in a mental state for laughter, still trying to flee the scene of total embarrassment. Anyway, his name is Bud, and we got to talking. He is a nice, funny, and cute guy. I gave him my number."
"Bud? Is he from the 50's? Who names their kid 'Bud' anymore? Why didn't his parents just name him 'Guy' or 'Dude'? Nobody named Bud is going to call you. I'm pretty sure his rotary phone from the 50's doesn't work anymore. Is he going to call the operator and say, 'Give me Annie!'"
"Have you been working on your material? You watch, I will be Mrs. Bud before the year is up."
I could tell then that my interest in Annie had waned, because the thought of her getting married didn't bring any pain to my heart. Maybe a small twinge in my pinky toe, but nothing in the general abdominal area. I was all into Anita now, and it was a high-risk, high-reward venture I was more than willing to take.
IS CHRIS REALLY OVER ANNIE? OR IS HE JUST BLINDED BY ANITA? IS TERRENCE JUST TURNING INTO A PLAYER? AND WILL STEVE HAVE ANY LUCK WITH ASHLEY? DISCUSS AMONGST YOURSELVES!
You've probably noticed that I've taken away the "Choose Your Own Terrence" privileges. The problem with writing that way, is that I found myself manipulating the story to try and get the votes I needed for the way I wanted the story to go (if that made sense). Obviously, Chris and Annie are the main characters that "need" to get together, but everybody would just vote for them to get together and then it would be all over. In order to make it entertaining and realistic (in my opinion), the characters have to make a few dumb decisions (frustrating my wife to no end), and you readers would always have them make smart ones.
So the questions remain: Will Terrence learn how to date? Will I even have Chris and Annie get together? Will Anita keep dating Chris? Maybe Chris has a "Melanie" waiting for him in Boston after he graduates! So don't get angry at me for being (somewhat) realistic with the Provo dating scene. I apologize for turning this into a fascist regime, but I still welcome suggestions and commentary. I implemented one of those suggestions in this chapter (Special thanks to Lorana for the idea).
I totally dropped the ball on the potential of Conference Weekend, but it just escaped me. Let's just say they all read the November edition of the Ensign from cover to cover.
Christina nailed what I was going for with the Anita character. Maybe you females out there never encountered her in your wards, but she existed, and us males found them. They were frequently Jekyll and Hyde types, nice in private, beasty in public. But they were always so good-looking, us weaker-willed types were powerless over their beguiling powers, so we kept coming back for more emotional abuse.
Steve Wood is indeed P Steve, Brian. Coolest guy ever. You'll see a lot of him in this chapter.
Vanessa-I'm not living out my fantasies here. This was real life, baby! I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. Okay, maybe a bit exaggerated.
That's enough "Author Response". Here's the previous chapter, if you need to catch up.
Chapter 8
The Dismemberment of P Steve
The Dismemberment of P Steve
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Steve here. Chris is out with Anita tonight, so I'd thought I'd let you all know what's been going on at the ol' apartment. I think Chris told you about our date with the lovely ladies we met at the library? Oh, he didn't? Well, then.
Terrence pulled himself out of his break-up coma just in time to clean himself up and hose down the Cheeto stank for this date I set up for him. I, for one, was extremely pleased with my effort in the "Save The Terrence" campaign. This isn't the first time I've been extremely pleased with myself: In the summer of '99, at the MTC, I ate 15 corn dogs in one sitting. Best day of my life.
I dressed myself in my best plaid cowboy-style retro shirt and designer jeans, not that the library dorks would know the difference, and T had on a sparkling clean forest green polo with knee-length khaki shorts. Chris beamed like a proud mother as he gave T a few extra bucks and a supportive pat on the back. I wished Chris good luck on his lonely Saturday night, asking him one more time if he'd take my place. He politely declined, and we were off.
We made our way down to that magical table in Periodicals, and there were not 2, not 3, but all 4 girls sitting at the table. A very large lump formed in my throat, as I was not prepared to deal with extra nerdlings. They spotted me and all 4 turned to us, braces and pearly whites beaming.
"Hi, Steve!" exclaimed one of the mousier girls, causing a major stir in the previously silent library. She had obviously been looking forward to this date a little too much.
"Hello, ladies," said I, "you all look lovely tonight."
"Why, thank you, Steve," they replied in choir-like unison: one each of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.
"This is my friend, Terrence," I said, pointing at T.
Terrence was all of the sudden Way Too Cool for this scene. "'Sup," he said, with emphatic indifference, tilting his head back like a supreme jock.
I tried to make up for his coldness. "He's, um, a little shy, especially around such wonderful women as you." They smiled back, which is pretty much like saying "they breathed" at this point. "So, why are all four of you here? We only came prepared to entertain 2 of you."
The alpha-dork stepped up, still brandishing her red butterfly barrette that she'd probably donned on her baptism day and never taken off. "We couldn't decide who was going to be the lucky lady to go with you, so we decided we'd all go."
"Awesome," I replied, trying to sound sincere. "It kind of puts me in an awkward position now, having to choose where to spend my time."
"It can't be as bad as the ravenous fights we had last night in our apartment," said Alpha. "First, I decided that I would go. But Janette here stabbed me in the back with her 6-colored pen and declared that she would be the lucky one, but then Lucy bit her on the ankle, causing her to yelp, after which I grabbed a pie tin, full of pumpkin pie, and flung it back at Janette, but I missed badly and hit Maude, you can see the nasty welt above her right eye."
I waved at Maude, who winked back. Maude was the least desirable of the Zuberdorks, and a little bit on the hefty side. And when I say "a little bit", I really mean "as compared to an oil tanker."
That wasn't it, I found, as Alpha continued. "After Maude took a few good bites of the pie, she grabbed all 3 of us and piled us into the corner, sitting on us all, until we promised good behavior. Which was about 3 hours later. We're pretty stubborn."
"There's no need to fight over me, ladies. After tonight, I'm pretty sure you'll be fighting over Terrence here."
"We doubt it," they replied in unision.
I won't give you every meaningless detail, but I ended up with Janette and Alpha, and Terrence took Maude and Lucy. We decided to keep it low-key and cheap, which meant we were going to the JSB for a free movie my TMA friends told me was showing. We stopped first at the Cougar Eat, to get some 89 cent burritos at the Bell to feed our flock of admirers. Terrence was still playing it cool, not really giving Maude and Lucy much conversation besides one or two word answers. I was a little worried that T was going to ditch me and leave me with all four. Given their aggressive and violent past, I was pretty sure that such a situation would leave me dead or at best in a comatose state.
We walked over to the JSB in the fading dusk, the brisk, cool air filling our nostrils and the colorful leaves crackling beneath our shoes. This was the most romantic 2-on-4 date I'd ever been on. T continued acting too cool for school, walking a step behind while all four still kept their Steve goggles on. I even started being rude, but it didn't work. I was just too charming for my own good.
We bought some microwave popcorn and a caffeine-free Diet Coke in the vending machines, and then found our seats near the back. The film playing was from Japan or China or one of those Asian countries. It was probably about 20 or 30 years old, and it had subtitles. Most of the audience was sitting alone with a notebook, probably staying just long enough to get enough notes for an adequate report in their "Intro to Film" class. I made the mistake of taking that when I was a freshman, thinking that we'd just be watching cool movies in class and taking tests on who played "Midnight" in the movie "Sneakers". Not so. I had to endure a weekly movie that was either old, boring, foreign, unbearably long, or all of the above.
We sat down and the lights dimmed. About 20 minutes in, I felt the touch of a human hand on my left wrist, which wasn't part of the agreement. It turned out to be Alpha, and I got goosebumps, but not the good kind. The kind where you're so scared, you tense up and become like a deer in headlights. I just let her take advantage of my fear, and the next thing I knew, her clammy hand was carressing mine. I was too nice to pull it away, plus, I wasn't exactly used to this bizarro world where the women make the moves. I'd never rejected any girls, cause none had really been interested in me. I was usually the rejectee, not the rejector.
After about 10 minutes of sitting there like a wax figure, I summoned the strength to pull my hand away and fake like my neck itched. Then I folded my arms, tucking my hands in my pits. No possible hand holding now.
It didn't matter, however. Before long, I felt long fingernails lighting scratching my upper right arm. I looked over, and Janette was giving me a sly smile, as if asking me if I wanted more of this intense light scratching. I gave her a "I think that's enough" look, but she didn't get the hint. Meanwhile, Alpha was back at it, starting to rub my neck. It felt good, but I couldn't focus on relaxing while being accosted from both sides. What was most guys' dream was now my nightmare. Janette moved her hand up to my neck, where she was surprised with another hand already at work.
She looked past me at Alpha: "What do you think YOU'RE doing?"
"Back off, sister. I was here first."
"We were here at the SAME TIME," she said, inching closer to Alpha via my lap. I saw her reach into her purse pocket.
"Please not the multi-colored pen!" I gasped.
Too late! A full war was waging over my seat, on top of me, as these 2 Steve-molesters were going at it full-bore. Hair was being pulled, claws were clawing, insults were being thrown, and there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
"Man-stealer!"
"Skank!"
"No-good no-gooder!"
"Dirty nerdling!"
These girls certainly needed to work on their insults. They did not, however, need to work on their fighting. They would take me down in a New York minute. That happened, actually, as the weight of 2 angry females and one innocent bystander on one chair caused it to collapse. This created quite a commotion, and the BYU police were there in no time to sort out the details. Alpha and Janette were cuffed and taken away. I was attended to by a cute nursing student who couldn't help but laugh as I told her the story of two angry lovers fighting over me. Let's just end this segment by saying I got her number.
When I finally was let go after I had officially dropped all assault charges, I went back to the JSB to try and find T. The movie was long over, and the auditorium was locked. I walked home, aching all over, but excited that I got the nurse's number. Let's call her Ashley, cause that's her name.
Back at the ranch, I was alone until Chris showed up 30 minutes after midnight.
"Where's Terrence?" he asked. Then he got a better look at me and asked, "What happened to YOU?"
"Alpha and Janette happened."
"Ouch."
"Yeah." Pause. "I have no idea what happened to Terrence. I was taken in by BYU Police. You can probably read about it in 'Police Beat'."
It turned out that T didn't get in until after we went to bed, which was 3:30 AM. I caught up with him after church and asked him what his favorite part of the movie was.
"I dunno. Probably the making out."
I didn't recall any making out in the movie. But, then again, it's hard to pay attention in the middle of an all-out geek war.
T continued, "I'm not sure who was better, Lucy or Maude."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!? "Are you saying that you kissed both of your dates last night?"
"Not at the same time, no."
"But you kissed them. Both of them. At one time or another."
"Yes."
"When did this happen?"
"Last night."
"I KNOW it was last night. What time? Where? Was the other geek, er, girl there?"
"Yeah, they both were. After the movie, we went over to their place and played 'Spin the Bottle'. At first I thought it was a board game or something. But then it turned out that-"
"I know what Spin the Bottle is. That's just gross, Terrence. You can't be participating in those kissing games, it's just wrong. And weird."
"Hey, I had fun. By the way, are you okay? You look all beat up."
I didn't realize it then, but that was the turning point of Terrence's dating career. Supposedly, he's been out with different girls every night since then, including tonight. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I feel like this is somehow my fault. This is going to end badly. Speaking of ending badly...
Thursday, October 9, 2003
My date with Anita went so perfectly, I was on cloud 9. We went back to IHOP and then over to Johnny B's for some good, clean fun. She laughed at all my jokes, she was fun to talk to, and she was reeling me in. I felt powerless around her, even if she'd do something slightly rude, she'd just smile and I'd let it go. I knew I was under her spell, and I loved it. This was the first time a girl this hot had given me a second date.
Deep in my heart, I was worried that Anita would shrug me off for a newer and sleeker ride as soon as she found one. It was only a matter of time, I kept telling myself, but why not enjoy the view while I'm up so high?
The date ended with a 12-second hug, not that I was counting, but no serious fireworks. She said, "Let's do this again soon," so that was a good sign. I floated back to the apartment and lay in my bed until 5 AM, planning our future life together. First, we'd have a long and painful relationship, dating off and on for a couple of years while she works out her commitment issues. Then, I'd finally convince her to marry me, and we'd move to California where I got a job, and we'd have 3 kids, and we'd hang out with her family and my family and we'd all be super duper great friends and we'd live in a castle in the sky...
ANYWAY.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to ground myself by over analyzing this. So I headed over to Annie's to get her take on it.
"Oh, it's you again," Annie said, reluctantly letting me in.
"Nice to see you, too."
"I'm assuming you're over here to discuss your date with Anita?"
"Anita who? I'm here to see you, baby."
She gave me a "Yeah, right" look and walked into the kitchen. "In that case, would you mind helping me with these cookies I'm making?"
Rats! I hate it when the relationship is no longer just about me! She called my bluff and now I'm stuck rolling balls of dough. "Why are we making cookies? For a cute boy you met?"
"No, they're for a Relief Society activity on Saturday. But, I did meet a cute boy the other day."
"Wow! Was it love at first sight?"
"Not really. I was late for a class and walking as fast as I could in my flip-flops when I tripped on a paver in the Quad, sending me and my bag flying." She pointed to her knees, all scabby from road rash.
"That's what you get for not being modest."
"Funny. I was wearing knee-length shorts, but they don't always cover your knees when you're flying through the air."
"You should've thought of that when you decided to show off your legs to the world."
"Anyway. So I'm seriously embarrassed, trying to pick up my stuff while 10 guys with tucked-in t-shirts asked if I needed assistance. I just ignored them and walked away, going at a safer, more reasonable pace. As I'm walking into the HFAC, some guy comes up from behind me and opens the door for me. I look at him and say thanks. He was quite cute. He then says, 'I don't want you tripping and slamming through the glass doors. We just replaced them last week.'"
"Haha. Nice. I like this guy."
"Well, the way he said it, it was so serious, I thought he was serious, so I was offended. Who is this guy? The HFAC Building Maintenance Supervisor? Just because I tripped once, doesn't mean I'm a complete clutz! So I huffed my way out of there, but he caught up to me and said he was joking."
"Obviously."
"It wasn't obvious at the time! Plus, I was in a vulnerable place, not exactly in a mental state for laughter, still trying to flee the scene of total embarrassment. Anyway, his name is Bud, and we got to talking. He is a nice, funny, and cute guy. I gave him my number."
"Bud? Is he from the 50's? Who names their kid 'Bud' anymore? Why didn't his parents just name him 'Guy' or 'Dude'? Nobody named Bud is going to call you. I'm pretty sure his rotary phone from the 50's doesn't work anymore. Is he going to call the operator and say, 'Give me Annie!'"
"Have you been working on your material? You watch, I will be Mrs. Bud before the year is up."
I could tell then that my interest in Annie had waned, because the thought of her getting married didn't bring any pain to my heart. Maybe a small twinge in my pinky toe, but nothing in the general abdominal area. I was all into Anita now, and it was a high-risk, high-reward venture I was more than willing to take.
IS CHRIS REALLY OVER ANNIE? OR IS HE JUST BLINDED BY ANITA? IS TERRENCE JUST TURNING INTO A PLAYER? AND WILL STEVE HAVE ANY LUCK WITH ASHLEY? DISCUSS AMONGST YOURSELVES!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Mulch time!
The grass near the street, the house, and the big tree was struggling to thicken up, so we decided to cut it out and transplant it in the back. Of course, you can't just have dirt there, so we turned it into a future garden. I had a few bricks left over, so I used that as the border.
Below we see the section by the house, which didn't get any bricks as a border:
Marked for sod removal
After removal (and a big rain storm)
Finished result
The corner section between the big tree and the street:
This corner had some stumps that had to be removed and that was a tremendous pain
This is my proudest part here, no more evidence of the stump!
The bishop had some mulch that we used here to supplement the black mulch.
We'll plant bushes and flowers in the fall, probably.
Notice the steam
4 cubic yards of mulch. Pretty stinky, too!
Yes, I'm just stalling because I don't have a new Terrence ready.
Below we see the section by the house, which didn't get any bricks as a border:
Marked for sod removal
After removal (and a big rain storm)
Finished resultThe corner section between the big tree and the street:
This corner had some stumps that had to be removed and that was a tremendous pain
This is my proudest part here, no more evidence of the stump!
The section next to the road:
The bishop had some mulch that we used here to supplement the black mulch.
We'll plant bushes and flowers in the fall, probably.Just for fun, let's watch the dump truck!
Notice the steam
4 cubic yards of mulch. Pretty stinky, too!Yes, I'm just stalling because I don't have a new Terrence ready.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Terrence, Chapter 7
Thanks to all who read, and a double-thanks to the 6 people who commented. It takes a long freaking time to write these episodes, so it's more motivating to write when people show their appreciation for it.
A lot of you have asked which character is me, which my wife has pointed out as "Chris." I will agree that Chris has my personality, but not entirely. He's also a mixture of my Enclave roommates (you know who you are), except Radiohead, who deserves his own blog post. But, yes, Chris is mostly me in this fictional blast from the past.
Terrence is the "Michael Scott" of the story, not a very realistic character, although he has traits of a lot of the more socially inept Zoobies I met at BYU.
GL Steve is a mixture of Tyler "Five-head" and Spencer. I won't list last names as they probably Google themselves, but if you know them, you already know that.
P Steve is like Steve from the BYU 73rd ward, whose last name escapes me. Anyway, everybody loved Steve, but all the girls saw him as "just a friend". I also see him as Landry from Friday Night Lights.
The Franks are too vague to be anybody.
The King is extremely fictional. But he's like that guy in the ward who's probably way too old to be there, but still, he knows everything about dating even though he's not married.
Anita is a mixture of a couple of girls named Amy from the Enclave.
Annie is a mixture of a bunch of girls I knew at BYU.
Also, Heidi, Anita is NOTHING like Cardboard Lindsey, who also deserves her own blog post. Cardboard has yet to make an appearance in any form, but what we'd be looking for is a completely boring but somewhat pretty girl, intent on staying in Provo until betrothal, who also refuses to be dumped. Although there's a little bit of that in Anita in this episode, not to give anything away.
Chapter 6 (has the links to Chapters 1-5)
Okay, let's get to the story. I hope you have the next 30 minutes free...
7:49 PM
It'd been a few days since Annie dumped Terrence, and he was still moping around the apartment, eating so many Cheetos there wasn't a doorknob in the place that didn't taste like cheese flavoring. My clothes even had an orange glow to them. It was pathetic, disgusting, and, worst of all, gaseous. We'd all tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen to anybody not named "Annie". We even knocked on the King's door, but all we heard was the rustling of papers and the shuffling of feet.
Me and Personality Steve had had enough. We decided to find T a dream girl so we could all resume BAU (Business As Usual), so we headed down to the library to see what Periodicals had to offer. It was a Thursday night, usually the busiest time at Periodicals, and every table was full of people pretending to study.
Now, I will say this, the Periodicals is not the Meat Market everybody claims it is. It's more like the Meat Show. Nobody ever buys anything, they just like to see what's available. Sure, you'll see the occasional pick-up or exchange of numbers, but for the most part, nothing's going on. I mean, who wants to pick up on somebody in a silent room when everybody within 20 feet can hear your dumb lines? It's a high-risk, low-reward venture.
However, we were desperate, and we didn't know where else to look. We walked straight in, split up, did a lap, and reconvened to discuss what we saw.
"I saw a portly one over by the window. Seemed desperate enough."
"Hmmm, I did notice her, but did you see the flock of dorks in the middle there? They seem right up T's alley. I like our chances at that table."
We agreed, and walked right on over. It's so much easier to have confidence when you're hitting on a girl for somebody else. It also helps if you have a much higher rating than the girl. These girls were 3's, 4's, and 5's, and we figured T was right in that range. There were 4 of them, and they looked like sisters. All of them had their hair pulled up, baggy sweaters, and tapered jeans. They looked like Terrence in girl form.
"Hey," said Steve in a whisper, as all heads within 10 yards lifted from their books to see what all the ado was about. The girls looked at him, curious as to what this red-headed dude with a t-shirt that read "I can't, I'm Mormon" wanted.
"What are you lovely ladies studying tonight?" They welcomed his attention, as I stood behind Steve, practically hiding. I didn't want them to be intimidated by my breathtakingly good looks.
"Oh, just some O-Chem," the alpha dork responded. She was also the tallest, with red-rimmed glasses with a red butterfly barrette to match. The butterfly seemed to scream "Terrence."
"Organizational Chemistry, eh? That happens to be my major," smiled Steve.
"Sure it is," Alpha responded, "since you don't even know what O-Chem stands for."
Steve responded, undaunted, "Of course I do. It stands for Science." They all giggled. "But seriously, ladies, why aren't you on dates tonight? Maybe a group date over in the lab with some handsome RM's?" They giggled again.
The mousy one in the corner replied with a bashful smile, "All the guys around here can't match wits with us."
"That may be true, ladies, but you may have to give some of us a chance to learn from you." They giggled again. If Steve kept up this kind of charm, he would have 4 marriage proposals before the hour was up. And it was 7:58. "But seriously, ladies, I am here on a mission. My roommate sent me. He needs a date for this weekend, and I told him I would set him up. Are any of you opposed to a blind date?"
None of them responded. "Anyone?" Still nothing. "Okay, let me tell you about my roommate. His name is Terrence, he's an RM, from somewhere in the great state of Idaho. He just got dumped by a girl, and he needs a nice girl to show him a good time. What do you say?"
Steve continued to be met with silence. They all just kind of looked at each other, completely surprised at the situation. "Okay, I'll sweeten the deal," negotiated Steve. "It will be a double-date, and one of you lucky ladies can come with me."
Indeed, this sparked their interest. They whispered among themselves and came to a decision. Alpha spoke for the team. "Which one would you like to go with, Steve?" she asked, batting her eyes and showing off her screaming butterfly barrette.
"Oh, you can't make me decide. You're all equally...sweet." Steve paused. "How about this? We'll just meet here at this table on Saturday at 7, and we'll be lucky to go with whoever shows up. That way, if you're not interested in a pity date for my friend and me, you just don't show up. How's that?"
Alpha seemed disappointed that Steve didn't pick her, but pleased enough that she would still probably end up with him anyway, being the ring leader and all. "Okay, that sounds good. We'll surprise you."
We walked away briskly. Steve had a grin on his face. "I can't BELIEVE that worked!"
"You sure are smooth, Steve. So smooth I can't tell where you end and where you begin."
Saturday, October 4
6:38 PM
The hard part wasn't getting a girl to go on a blind date with Terrence, it was getting Terrence to leave the apartment. He hadn't even taken a shower this week, how were we going to get him to go on a date? We knew that our powers were not enough to get him back on track. We needed The King. Every 15 minutes, we'd go and knock on his door, hoping he would come out. We knew The King worked on his own terms, and would emerge when he saw fit. Unfortunately, we got nowhere and had no more options but to ask Terrence to get it together. As his roommate, I was the first choice, so I went into our room. I hadn't even been in there since Wednesday, the stench of BO and Cheeto's were an almost toxic mix. I'd been sleeping on the couch and borrowing the Frank's clothes.
I opened the door and an orange dust cloud escaped immediately. The orange fog was so thick, I felt like I was Indiana Jones wading through a dense, smoky jungle of socks, Cheeto bags, and tissues. Terrence lay on his bed, face down with his nose in the crack between the wall and the bed.
"Terrence? What are you doing?" I had a shirt over my mouth and nose to protect me from the fumes.
"Leave me alone," came the muffled voice from the bed.
"Listen, Terrence, you have to get out of bed and take a shower or something. You can't feel sorry for yourself forever."
No response.
"Hey, we even got a date for you tonight with a beautiful sister in Zion."
Another muffled response: "I know, 7 pm. Meeting at the library."
This baffled me. How did he know? Only P Steve and I knew about it, and I know Steve didn't say anything to him yet. "So, are you going?"
"Yeah."
I paused while I tried to process this. Terrence, who hadn't left the apartment or showered in a week, somehow knew that we set him up with a girl at 7pm tonight. Not only that, he was willing to go! "How do you know about this?"
"The King had a talk with me."
The King? We were trying to get him to talk to T about this all week, but we never even saw him! Evidently, The King moves in mysterious ways. The whole situation baffled me, but it got results. Terrence ended up showering, putting on fresh clothes, and dressing the part. He looked danged spiffy, if you ask me. In fact, he made P Steve look like a total chump. Steve was fine with that.
They took off together shortly before 7, leaving me alone. Now, I must confess that I was feeling pretty irked about the Anita situation. Before we went out, I had no expectations, but then the date went so well, I thought we had a "connection" and we had some sort of a future. Maybe not a full-on relationship future, but at least a couple more dates. So I got my hopes up. However, she had ignored me at Ward Prayer, and I was back to ground zero. Unfortunately, I now had some emotional investment in her, and it wasn't as easy to put her out of my mind. I also made the cardinal mistake of not expanding my teaching pool, so I had no prospects for a Saturday Night date, plus P Steve was already taken, and he was my go-to double dater. So there I was, alone on a Saturday night, and that is about the lowest status symbol in college.
About an hour or two of feeling sorry for myself passed while I was watching some worthless college football game when the doorbell rang. It was Anita, of all people.
"Yes?"
"Hey, I just came by to say hello."
"Steve's not here."
"I wanted to talk to you, doofus."
"Okay, I guess." I opened the door and watched her walk in and plop herself down on my seat. "That's my seat," I said dryly.
"No wonder it's so comfortable! I'm sure this one right next to it is equally comf," she said with a smile, patting the middle cushion.
I sat down opposite her on the love seat, ignoring her instructions.
"Listen, Chris," she began with a serious tone, "I just want to say I'm sorry for ignoring you the other day. I was in a conversation with a guy who knew my best friend from back home, so I was completely engrossed in the conversation."
"It's not a big deal, I barely even remember that night," I lied.
"Well, I just wanted to remind you that I think you're a great guy and I'm wondering when we're going to go out again."
This was unexpected and almost unwelcome--I was enjoying hating her! What am I supposed to do with this? First, she's a jerk. Then she's nice. Then she's a jerk again. Now she's back to being nice! I didn't know if I wanted to play that game. You know what? I'm going to reject her!
"Sorry, that ship has sailed." I couldn't believe the words came out of my mouth, and now I just waited for it to sink in and become real to her. It was only a matter of time before she plopped dead and heart-broken on the floor.
"But seriously, when are we going out?" she said, stone-faced.
Was she not listening? Did I not make it clear enough for her? I'll try again: "I don't know if I want to go out with you if you're just going to ignore me the next day again."
This was obviously new to her. Someone had the gall to not cave to her! But that didn't deter her: "Well, how about if I pay? Would that make you feel better about it? I don't want to let one silly misunderstanding get you down."
Actually, that WOULD make me feel better about it, cause now I don't think she's over here campaigning for more free dinner. It only took her one line to suck me back in again! "Only if we go to IHOP again," I replied, caving.
So that was that. I was going out with Anita, again, and I knew my feelings for her were only going to get stronger and there wasn't anything I felt I could do about it. She stayed at my place for a couple more hours and we had a great conversation. I knew the whole time that she was probably just bored and her date must have fallen through, because there was no way she was not booked on a Saturday night. But I was happy and starting to be smitten. Again.
She left at 11 pm. Terrence and P Steve were still at-large, and I had nobody to discuss this recent development with. So I went on a walk and found myself at Annie's door, hoping to get answers from Anita's visiting teacher.
She answered the door in pink unicorn-patterned pajamas. "Yes? Over here for a booty call?"
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt your unicorn-fantasy-themed slumber party? Have you given each other make overs yet?" She smiled and let me in.
"Are you taking notes? This is called, 'Inviting Someone In'."
"You're a natural. Please show me your ways."
"Okay, that's enough nonsense. Why are you here? I know you need something."
"I need a friend, Annie. Did you ever think of that?"
"I thought you were plenty popular, beating down the ladies with an aluminum bat."
"I'm not as popular as one might think. In fact, I need your advice with some lady issues that you could help me with."
She smiled. "I KNEW you needed something. Speak on."
"Okay, so you're Anita's visiting teacher, right?" Annie winced, and I could tell she did NOT want to discuss Anita for probably the umpteenth time. "Nevermind."
"No, I'm interested. It's just that every boy in this ward somehow thinks I'm the Anita Expert."
This reminded me that Anita was the HGW, and I had no business pursuing her. But I couldn't help myself, I needed to dissect and over analyze the situation. "Well, I took her out last week, as you know." Annie nodded. "And then at Ward Prayer she totally shunned me whilst she was talking to this other dude. So then I thought it was over, and told myself to let it go, which I did. GL Steve took her out last night-"
"GL Steve?"
"Yeah, I have 2 roommates named Steve. One is impossibly good-looking, so we call him Good-Looking Steve. GL Steve for short."
"Oh, well I know a GL Steve, but he's just a really good accountant," she joked. I didn't get it until later, when P Steve explained that GL is "General Ledger" in bean counter speak.
"Really? What a coincidence! Anyway, GL Steve took her out last night, but I didn't hear how that went, as he's been MIA most of today. Well, I was just chilling at home tonight-"
"No dates? You? Were you sick or something?"
"You know, it may seem like I get all sorts of ladies because I'm charming, handsome, and funny, but most girls are intimidated by that, so they keep their distance."
"Or because you stink."
"Well, YOU STINK!" We both smiled and almost had a moment. I remembered why I liked Annie before Terrence messed up that whole thing. "Anyway, Anita came over around 9ish, and she wanted to give it another try. I was like, 'No way, sister, not if you were the last woman on earth!'"
Annie wasn't buying that. "What'd you really say?"
"Sure, what time?"
"You men all just cave in when a pretty face bats her eyes. 'Whatever you say, dear!' Get a spine, man!"
"Hey, now." That's all I had for a comeback. Also, I just wanted to say "Hey, now."
"So what do you need to analyze? It seems fairly evident that she wants a little taste of the myth they call 'Chris'."
"Yes, it does seem fairly evident. That's the problem! Why's she so hot and cold? She even offered to pay for this date, so I don't think she just wants free dinner."
"Maybe her date with GL Steve went so poorly, it made her appreciate you that much more."
"That is a very real possibility. GL Steve is not for everybody. He's more for just looking."
"That he is. That man is the tastiest of eye candy."
I rolled my eyes. "That's enough of THAT. You've got some drool on your chin. What about you? Any new prospects? Or are you going back to Terrence?" I half-jokingly suggested.
"Not funny. Terrence is a great guy. Not for me, though. I don't really get men like you get women. I just have to sit here and look pretty and hope somebody takes pity on poor, old me."
"It's true, you are getting pretty old. 21? Maybe 22? That's like 50 in Provo years. Foot in the grave!" She wasn't amused. "Look, most of the guys in the ward discuss you, so it's only a matter of time before you're back in the game. The real mistake you made was holding T's hand in church."
"I couldn't help it! He had a death-grip. No getting out of that bear-trap."
I stayed at Annie's house until midnight with relationship banter, when one of her more righteous roommates reminded me of the time, and I hoofed it back home, but not before taking a detour past Anita's apartment, hoping she would be looking longingly out the window, dreaming of me. No such luck. Didn't matter, though, I had at least one more chance with Anita!
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR A SECOND DATE, AND WHAT HAPPENED WITH T AND P STEVE? LOTS OF CLIFFHANGERS HERE...
A lot of you have asked which character is me, which my wife has pointed out as "Chris." I will agree that Chris has my personality, but not entirely. He's also a mixture of my Enclave roommates (you know who you are), except Radiohead, who deserves his own blog post. But, yes, Chris is mostly me in this fictional blast from the past.
Terrence is the "Michael Scott" of the story, not a very realistic character, although he has traits of a lot of the more socially inept Zoobies I met at BYU.
GL Steve is a mixture of Tyler "Five-head" and Spencer. I won't list last names as they probably Google themselves, but if you know them, you already know that.
P Steve is like Steve from the BYU 73rd ward, whose last name escapes me. Anyway, everybody loved Steve, but all the girls saw him as "just a friend". I also see him as Landry from Friday Night Lights.
The Franks are too vague to be anybody.
The King is extremely fictional. But he's like that guy in the ward who's probably way too old to be there, but still, he knows everything about dating even though he's not married.
Anita is a mixture of a couple of girls named Amy from the Enclave.
Annie is a mixture of a bunch of girls I knew at BYU.
Also, Heidi, Anita is NOTHING like Cardboard Lindsey, who also deserves her own blog post. Cardboard has yet to make an appearance in any form, but what we'd be looking for is a completely boring but somewhat pretty girl, intent on staying in Provo until betrothal, who also refuses to be dumped. Although there's a little bit of that in Anita in this episode, not to give anything away.
Chapter 6 (has the links to Chapters 1-5)
Okay, let's get to the story. I hope you have the next 30 minutes free...
Chapter 7
The Set-up
Tuesday, September 30, 2003The Set-up
7:49 PM
It'd been a few days since Annie dumped Terrence, and he was still moping around the apartment, eating so many Cheetos there wasn't a doorknob in the place that didn't taste like cheese flavoring. My clothes even had an orange glow to them. It was pathetic, disgusting, and, worst of all, gaseous. We'd all tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen to anybody not named "Annie". We even knocked on the King's door, but all we heard was the rustling of papers and the shuffling of feet.
Me and Personality Steve had had enough. We decided to find T a dream girl so we could all resume BAU (Business As Usual), so we headed down to the library to see what Periodicals had to offer. It was a Thursday night, usually the busiest time at Periodicals, and every table was full of people pretending to study.
Now, I will say this, the Periodicals is not the Meat Market everybody claims it is. It's more like the Meat Show. Nobody ever buys anything, they just like to see what's available. Sure, you'll see the occasional pick-up or exchange of numbers, but for the most part, nothing's going on. I mean, who wants to pick up on somebody in a silent room when everybody within 20 feet can hear your dumb lines? It's a high-risk, low-reward venture.
However, we were desperate, and we didn't know where else to look. We walked straight in, split up, did a lap, and reconvened to discuss what we saw.
"I saw a portly one over by the window. Seemed desperate enough."
"Hmmm, I did notice her, but did you see the flock of dorks in the middle there? They seem right up T's alley. I like our chances at that table."
We agreed, and walked right on over. It's so much easier to have confidence when you're hitting on a girl for somebody else. It also helps if you have a much higher rating than the girl. These girls were 3's, 4's, and 5's, and we figured T was right in that range. There were 4 of them, and they looked like sisters. All of them had their hair pulled up, baggy sweaters, and tapered jeans. They looked like Terrence in girl form.
"Hey," said Steve in a whisper, as all heads within 10 yards lifted from their books to see what all the ado was about. The girls looked at him, curious as to what this red-headed dude with a t-shirt that read "I can't, I'm Mormon" wanted.
"What are you lovely ladies studying tonight?" They welcomed his attention, as I stood behind Steve, practically hiding. I didn't want them to be intimidated by my breathtakingly good looks.
"Oh, just some O-Chem," the alpha dork responded. She was also the tallest, with red-rimmed glasses with a red butterfly barrette to match. The butterfly seemed to scream "Terrence."
"Organizational Chemistry, eh? That happens to be my major," smiled Steve.
"Sure it is," Alpha responded, "since you don't even know what O-Chem stands for."
Steve responded, undaunted, "Of course I do. It stands for Science." They all giggled. "But seriously, ladies, why aren't you on dates tonight? Maybe a group date over in the lab with some handsome RM's?" They giggled again.
The mousy one in the corner replied with a bashful smile, "All the guys around here can't match wits with us."
"That may be true, ladies, but you may have to give some of us a chance to learn from you." They giggled again. If Steve kept up this kind of charm, he would have 4 marriage proposals before the hour was up. And it was 7:58. "But seriously, ladies, I am here on a mission. My roommate sent me. He needs a date for this weekend, and I told him I would set him up. Are any of you opposed to a blind date?"
None of them responded. "Anyone?" Still nothing. "Okay, let me tell you about my roommate. His name is Terrence, he's an RM, from somewhere in the great state of Idaho. He just got dumped by a girl, and he needs a nice girl to show him a good time. What do you say?"
Steve continued to be met with silence. They all just kind of looked at each other, completely surprised at the situation. "Okay, I'll sweeten the deal," negotiated Steve. "It will be a double-date, and one of you lucky ladies can come with me."
Indeed, this sparked their interest. They whispered among themselves and came to a decision. Alpha spoke for the team. "Which one would you like to go with, Steve?" she asked, batting her eyes and showing off her screaming butterfly barrette.
"Oh, you can't make me decide. You're all equally...sweet." Steve paused. "How about this? We'll just meet here at this table on Saturday at 7, and we'll be lucky to go with whoever shows up. That way, if you're not interested in a pity date for my friend and me, you just don't show up. How's that?"
Alpha seemed disappointed that Steve didn't pick her, but pleased enough that she would still probably end up with him anyway, being the ring leader and all. "Okay, that sounds good. We'll surprise you."
We walked away briskly. Steve had a grin on his face. "I can't BELIEVE that worked!"
"You sure are smooth, Steve. So smooth I can't tell where you end and where you begin."
Saturday, October 4
6:38 PM
The hard part wasn't getting a girl to go on a blind date with Terrence, it was getting Terrence to leave the apartment. He hadn't even taken a shower this week, how were we going to get him to go on a date? We knew that our powers were not enough to get him back on track. We needed The King. Every 15 minutes, we'd go and knock on his door, hoping he would come out. We knew The King worked on his own terms, and would emerge when he saw fit. Unfortunately, we got nowhere and had no more options but to ask Terrence to get it together. As his roommate, I was the first choice, so I went into our room. I hadn't even been in there since Wednesday, the stench of BO and Cheeto's were an almost toxic mix. I'd been sleeping on the couch and borrowing the Frank's clothes.
I opened the door and an orange dust cloud escaped immediately. The orange fog was so thick, I felt like I was Indiana Jones wading through a dense, smoky jungle of socks, Cheeto bags, and tissues. Terrence lay on his bed, face down with his nose in the crack between the wall and the bed.
"Terrence? What are you doing?" I had a shirt over my mouth and nose to protect me from the fumes.
"Leave me alone," came the muffled voice from the bed.
"Listen, Terrence, you have to get out of bed and take a shower or something. You can't feel sorry for yourself forever."
No response.
"Hey, we even got a date for you tonight with a beautiful sister in Zion."
Another muffled response: "I know, 7 pm. Meeting at the library."
This baffled me. How did he know? Only P Steve and I knew about it, and I know Steve didn't say anything to him yet. "So, are you going?"
"Yeah."
I paused while I tried to process this. Terrence, who hadn't left the apartment or showered in a week, somehow knew that we set him up with a girl at 7pm tonight. Not only that, he was willing to go! "How do you know about this?"
"The King had a talk with me."
The King? We were trying to get him to talk to T about this all week, but we never even saw him! Evidently, The King moves in mysterious ways. The whole situation baffled me, but it got results. Terrence ended up showering, putting on fresh clothes, and dressing the part. He looked danged spiffy, if you ask me. In fact, he made P Steve look like a total chump. Steve was fine with that.
They took off together shortly before 7, leaving me alone. Now, I must confess that I was feeling pretty irked about the Anita situation. Before we went out, I had no expectations, but then the date went so well, I thought we had a "connection" and we had some sort of a future. Maybe not a full-on relationship future, but at least a couple more dates. So I got my hopes up. However, she had ignored me at Ward Prayer, and I was back to ground zero. Unfortunately, I now had some emotional investment in her, and it wasn't as easy to put her out of my mind. I also made the cardinal mistake of not expanding my teaching pool, so I had no prospects for a Saturday Night date, plus P Steve was already taken, and he was my go-to double dater. So there I was, alone on a Saturday night, and that is about the lowest status symbol in college.
About an hour or two of feeling sorry for myself passed while I was watching some worthless college football game when the doorbell rang. It was Anita, of all people.
"Yes?"
"Hey, I just came by to say hello."
"Steve's not here."
"I wanted to talk to you, doofus."
"Okay, I guess." I opened the door and watched her walk in and plop herself down on my seat. "That's my seat," I said dryly.
"No wonder it's so comfortable! I'm sure this one right next to it is equally comf," she said with a smile, patting the middle cushion.
I sat down opposite her on the love seat, ignoring her instructions.
"Listen, Chris," she began with a serious tone, "I just want to say I'm sorry for ignoring you the other day. I was in a conversation with a guy who knew my best friend from back home, so I was completely engrossed in the conversation."
"It's not a big deal, I barely even remember that night," I lied.
"Well, I just wanted to remind you that I think you're a great guy and I'm wondering when we're going to go out again."
This was unexpected and almost unwelcome--I was enjoying hating her! What am I supposed to do with this? First, she's a jerk. Then she's nice. Then she's a jerk again. Now she's back to being nice! I didn't know if I wanted to play that game. You know what? I'm going to reject her!
"Sorry, that ship has sailed." I couldn't believe the words came out of my mouth, and now I just waited for it to sink in and become real to her. It was only a matter of time before she plopped dead and heart-broken on the floor.
"But seriously, when are we going out?" she said, stone-faced.
Was she not listening? Did I not make it clear enough for her? I'll try again: "I don't know if I want to go out with you if you're just going to ignore me the next day again."
This was obviously new to her. Someone had the gall to not cave to her! But that didn't deter her: "Well, how about if I pay? Would that make you feel better about it? I don't want to let one silly misunderstanding get you down."
Actually, that WOULD make me feel better about it, cause now I don't think she's over here campaigning for more free dinner. It only took her one line to suck me back in again! "Only if we go to IHOP again," I replied, caving.
So that was that. I was going out with Anita, again, and I knew my feelings for her were only going to get stronger and there wasn't anything I felt I could do about it. She stayed at my place for a couple more hours and we had a great conversation. I knew the whole time that she was probably just bored and her date must have fallen through, because there was no way she was not booked on a Saturday night. But I was happy and starting to be smitten. Again.
She left at 11 pm. Terrence and P Steve were still at-large, and I had nobody to discuss this recent development with. So I went on a walk and found myself at Annie's door, hoping to get answers from Anita's visiting teacher.
She answered the door in pink unicorn-patterned pajamas. "Yes? Over here for a booty call?"
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt your unicorn-fantasy-themed slumber party? Have you given each other make overs yet?" She smiled and let me in.
"Are you taking notes? This is called, 'Inviting Someone In'."
"You're a natural. Please show me your ways."
"Okay, that's enough nonsense. Why are you here? I know you need something."
"I need a friend, Annie. Did you ever think of that?"
"I thought you were plenty popular, beating down the ladies with an aluminum bat."
"I'm not as popular as one might think. In fact, I need your advice with some lady issues that you could help me with."
She smiled. "I KNEW you needed something. Speak on."
"Okay, so you're Anita's visiting teacher, right?" Annie winced, and I could tell she did NOT want to discuss Anita for probably the umpteenth time. "Nevermind."
"No, I'm interested. It's just that every boy in this ward somehow thinks I'm the Anita Expert."
This reminded me that Anita was the HGW, and I had no business pursuing her. But I couldn't help myself, I needed to dissect and over analyze the situation. "Well, I took her out last week, as you know." Annie nodded. "And then at Ward Prayer she totally shunned me whilst she was talking to this other dude. So then I thought it was over, and told myself to let it go, which I did. GL Steve took her out last night-"
"GL Steve?"
"Yeah, I have 2 roommates named Steve. One is impossibly good-looking, so we call him Good-Looking Steve. GL Steve for short."
"Oh, well I know a GL Steve, but he's just a really good accountant," she joked. I didn't get it until later, when P Steve explained that GL is "General Ledger" in bean counter speak.
"Really? What a coincidence! Anyway, GL Steve took her out last night, but I didn't hear how that went, as he's been MIA most of today. Well, I was just chilling at home tonight-"
"No dates? You? Were you sick or something?"
"You know, it may seem like I get all sorts of ladies because I'm charming, handsome, and funny, but most girls are intimidated by that, so they keep their distance."
"Or because you stink."
"Well, YOU STINK!" We both smiled and almost had a moment. I remembered why I liked Annie before Terrence messed up that whole thing. "Anyway, Anita came over around 9ish, and she wanted to give it another try. I was like, 'No way, sister, not if you were the last woman on earth!'"
Annie wasn't buying that. "What'd you really say?"
"Sure, what time?"
"You men all just cave in when a pretty face bats her eyes. 'Whatever you say, dear!' Get a spine, man!"
"Hey, now." That's all I had for a comeback. Also, I just wanted to say "Hey, now."
"So what do you need to analyze? It seems fairly evident that she wants a little taste of the myth they call 'Chris'."
"Yes, it does seem fairly evident. That's the problem! Why's she so hot and cold? She even offered to pay for this date, so I don't think she just wants free dinner."
"Maybe her date with GL Steve went so poorly, it made her appreciate you that much more."
"That is a very real possibility. GL Steve is not for everybody. He's more for just looking."
"That he is. That man is the tastiest of eye candy."
I rolled my eyes. "That's enough of THAT. You've got some drool on your chin. What about you? Any new prospects? Or are you going back to Terrence?" I half-jokingly suggested.
"Not funny. Terrence is a great guy. Not for me, though. I don't really get men like you get women. I just have to sit here and look pretty and hope somebody takes pity on poor, old me."
"It's true, you are getting pretty old. 21? Maybe 22? That's like 50 in Provo years. Foot in the grave!" She wasn't amused. "Look, most of the guys in the ward discuss you, so it's only a matter of time before you're back in the game. The real mistake you made was holding T's hand in church."
"I couldn't help it! He had a death-grip. No getting out of that bear-trap."
I stayed at Annie's house until midnight with relationship banter, when one of her more righteous roommates reminded me of the time, and I hoofed it back home, but not before taking a detour past Anita's apartment, hoping she would be looking longingly out the window, dreaming of me. No such luck. Didn't matter, though, I had at least one more chance with Anita!
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR A SECOND DATE, AND WHAT HAPPENED WITH T AND P STEVE? LOTS OF CLIFFHANGERS HERE...
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Return of Terrence!
Okay, it's obviously been a while since Terrence last made an appearance, so I want to refresh everybody's minds as to who is who and what's going on. If you really want to, you can start over, but I won't blame you if you don't:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
For those of you, okay, all of you, who didn't reread those chapters:
Dudes
Terrence - Title character, kind of a socially clumsy goon, who is dating the otherwise-sensible Annie, whom he locked down with the FCP approach. She never knew what hit her. Roommate of Chris.
Chris - Narrator, interested in HGW (Hottest Girl in the Ward), also known as Anita. Also, slightly interested in Annie, although she's off-limits with the whole Terrence thing.
One of the Steves - Best looking roommate of Terrence's apartment, kind of a womanizer. Also, the only one with a car.
Others in the apartment: Another Steve (ugly, good personality), 2 guys named Frank, and The King, who is this mysterious fellow who only appears at crucial points to dispense sage advice.
Chicks
Annie - Terrence's current "GF", who had pretty succumbed to Terrence's in-your-face approach.
Anita - HGW, see above. Kind of a raunch in public, secretly nice in private.
Annette - In love with Terrence, and constantly brings him food. Terrence isn't interested.
Melba - Annette's generously-portioned friend, who is obsessed with Chris, no matter how much of a jerk he is to her.
If this was a teen drama on the CW, this part would be prefaced by "Previously on Terrence" and then show scenes involving all the relevant characters to this week's episode. In fact, let's just do that...
Previously on Terrence:
Chris went on a date with Anita...
Chris:
Things moved forward with Terrence and Annie...
(Scene showing Terrence smooching Annie with Chris watching in the bushes)
But now Annie's not so sure...
Annie:
2:37 AM
It was another late night of watching dumb movies and Seinfeld reruns on the tube. All 5 of us (me, the Steves, and the Franks) were piled in the living room, bags of chips and microwave popcorn laying next to us, half-eaten and getting staler by the second. We had done our usual Friday night routine: Go to the pretentious Belmont party at 11 pm, stand in the corner and pretend like we're cool, nod our head at people we barely know, and try to make eye contact with the hair-school chicks that are already buried in a room of dudes. We never, ever, had success at those parties. And every week we left saying "I hate those parties". Of course, we were back the next Friday.
The post-party conversation at our apartment was equally pointless. We all made fun of good-lookin' Steve for ignoring us while he tried to make a move on some blonde whose hair was so straight you could use it for a level. Then we ripped on Personality Steve for getting rejected by 5 or so girls. Then we ripped on me for not even trying, but I made my usual excuses: "I wasn't feeling it" or "Nobody there was my type". The Franks just laughed.
That's when Terrence walked in. He kept his head down and walked straight back to his room. He moved so quickly, we barely noticed that his eyes were red and swollen. The door slammed behind him, and we all gave each other the excited "Oh yeah, there's gonna be drama" look, and Steve nodded for me to go back to our room and get The Scoop. Return and report.
I tapped on the door and cracked it open, like a dad coming to console his full-of-teen-angst daughter. "Terrence? Can I come in?" Of course, if I didn't care about getting The Scoop, I would've just barged in, as per usual.
"Of course, it's your room, too," he responded with a quiver in his voice.
I put on my best compassionate face and concerned voice. "Terrence, is everything okay? You don't sound like yourself." I haven't sounded this concerned since my mission when I used and abused the Commitment Pattern to some serious avail.
"Yeah, I'm okay."
I sat down on his bed, next to him. He still had his head down, staring at his shoes. I patted his knee three times, then closed it with a gentle, loving squeeze, moving my hand from his knee to his shoulder. "Terrence, when you hurt, I hurt. Let's just get this out in the open." I paused and waited for him to feel my brotherly love. The room was chock full of Trust.
Terrence looked up at me with his big blue eyes, all bloodshot and wet. Tears started streaming down his cheeks and he began quiverring uncontrollably, like an elephant chuckling at a good rhino joke. His huge bear mitts grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into his bosom, burying my face in his left pectoral. His huge arms wrapped around me and squeezed me tight. I was now Terrence's personal Teddy Bear.
He started bawling. He just cried and cried. For like 10 minutes. That's a long time for a man-hug, let me tell you. No words, just sobbing and gasping for air.
He finally released his vice-grip, and I got my own fresh breath of air. My hair was soaked with his tears and my face red with suffocation. I still had no idea what happened, but I was willing to risk another 10-minute hug for The Scoop: "Now it's time to talk, T. Just get it out. You can only cry for so long, now it's my turn to cry for you. But I can't cry if I don't know why." My manipulation tactics were solid gold. Gold, Jerry!
Terrence wiped his eyes with a dirty sock off the floor and then blew a stringy gob of mucus into it. Now he was ready to share. "She dumped me."
"She? Who, Annie?"
"Yeah, Annie."
"You didn't see it coming?" That came out wrong.
Terrence was too upset to shoot me a look. "Nope. I thought things were rosy. We had a magical kiss just a few days ago, and then, tonight, when I brought up marriage, she got all hesitant."
"Women!"
"I know! First she leads me on, says that I'm a great guy, very nice, a stand-up fellow, innocent, cute, all those things women look for, you know. But then the next thing she says, 'It's not you, it's me.'"
"'It's not you, it's me'. That's what she said?" I couldn't believe Annie used the oldest line in the breakup book.
"Yeah."
"Are you sure it wasn't you?" Now I was just provoking him.
Terrence got a little mad at that. "Of course it wasn't me! I did everything the book said!" He pulled out a skinny, worn-down paperback from his back pocket and handed it to me.
"Fast Engagements for Idiots by George Q. Bytheway," I read under my breath.
"I asked her what she was dealing with, why it was her and not me. She said she didn't feel like she was worthy enough to date me." That Annie! Was she going to pull out all of the Provo cliches in one sitting? "So I told her that those feelings are normal when you're dating a spirit-chal guy like me, and that eventually, I would bring her up to my level."
I almost laughed. "What'd she say to that?"
"She just laughed at me."
"What a jerk!"
"I know, I was really upset. But she said it wasn't what I said, she was just reminded of a funny joke." Annie was really taking advantage of poor, trusting Terrence.
"So it is completely over?"
"I'm not sure. I suggested taking a break for a while, but she said we should just be friends and date other people."
"Sounds like it's over." Should I give him the ol' "other fish in the sea" motivational speech now or later? Nah, I'll save it. "Try to get some sleep."
Sunday, September 28, 2003
We were all at Ward Prayer, lacking a certain Terrence. I spied Anita from across the room and tried to make eye contact with her. No such luck. I stared at her for like 5 minutes and got nothin'. This was not good news, especially since I didn't see her at church.
After the prayer, I zoomed over to her to see if she still remembered me. I approached her as she was talking with some Zoob. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked to see who it was. It was me.
"Oh, hey. It's you." She returned to her conversation, giving me no chance to speak. So I waited. And waited. I continued standing there like an idiot, waiting for her to turn around to give me an audience. The room cleared out, and it was just us 2 and this Zoob, with me on the outside looking in.
Finally, I cleared my throat and interjected, "Anita, I'd THANK you to give me 10 seconds of your precious time!"
She turned to face me with a scornful mien. "You have 10 seconds."
"Oh, well-"
"9."
"Actually, if-"
"8...7...6..."
"Are you just going to countdown to 0?" I asked in frustration as she maintained her count.
"...3...2...1..." And she turned back to the Zoob. I walked away, angry as ever. What a raunch-beast!
10:43 PM
I was busy moping while finishing up my Biology 100 homework when the Steves walked in, cheerful as always. Nothing like a smile to make my bad mood worse.
"Steve just asked out Anita!" exclaimed Personality Steve.
"What? I had her rights! I was about to sign her to a long-term deal!"
Good-Looking (GL) Steve looked incredulous. "I don't think so, buddy. You had your chance to lock her down, now she's a free agent, and she's signing with me for more money and a guaranteed contract," he said, mockingly.
I couldn't be mad at GL Steve, though. He had his clever retort all ready for my initial rebuttal, and I had to give him props for that. Plus, Anita had clearly blown me off earlier, and that did mean she was a free agent. "You got me, Steve. Good luck with THAT." Then came a knock at the door.
"There she is now," said GL Steve, "couldn't wait for Friday, I bet." He swung open the door and his face dropped. "Oh, it's you." And he slammed the door and walked away.
"Who was it?" I asked.
"Nobody important." I refused to believe him and ran to the door. Ever since junior high, when the phone or doorbell rang, my heart always jumped, hoping it was some beautiful girl that I had a crush on finally coming to her senses and arriving at my door to declare her love. Usually it was the UPS guy or the landlord. At best it was a beautiful girl coming over for one of my roommates. But I still had that hope and ran to open the door. It was Annie.
"Oh, it's you."
"Don't slam it!"
"Why not?"
"I need to talk to Terrence."
"You want him back?"
"No, I-"
"Then you can't talk to Terrence."
"I'm just worried about him! He wasn't at Ward Prayer, he didn't even talk to me at church today."
"The world doesn't revolve around you, Annie. Terrence is already dating someone else, he's fine," I lied.
"He is? Who?"
"Some buxom blonde."
"Very funny."
"Seriously." I kept a straight-face like no one's business.
"Come on, Chris, just let me talk to him. If he says he doesn't want anything to do with me, I'll go away."
"Fine." I went back to the room and Terrence was asleep. Since he got about zero sleep Friday and Saturday night, I didn't wake him. So I lied. "He doesn't want anything to do with you. Sorry, Annie. Looks like your business is done here. Unless you're here for a booty call."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, let me see if Steve's available first."
"Very funny. See you later, jerk."
WILL ANNIE GET BACK TOGETHER WITH TERRENCE? OR WILL SHE START GOING AFTER CHRIS? AND WILL CHRIS JUST FORGET ABOUT ANITA THAT EASILY? AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN ON THE DATE BETWIXT ANITA AND GL STEVE? DISCUSS OR DEATH!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
For those of you, okay, all of you, who didn't reread those chapters:
Dudes
Terrence - Title character, kind of a socially clumsy goon, who is dating the otherwise-sensible Annie, whom he locked down with the FCP approach. She never knew what hit her. Roommate of Chris.
Chris - Narrator, interested in HGW (Hottest Girl in the Ward), also known as Anita. Also, slightly interested in Annie, although she's off-limits with the whole Terrence thing.
One of the Steves - Best looking roommate of Terrence's apartment, kind of a womanizer. Also, the only one with a car.
Others in the apartment: Another Steve (ugly, good personality), 2 guys named Frank, and The King, who is this mysterious fellow who only appears at crucial points to dispense sage advice.
Chicks
Annie - Terrence's current "GF", who had pretty succumbed to Terrence's in-your-face approach.
Anita - HGW, see above. Kind of a raunch in public, secretly nice in private.
Annette - In love with Terrence, and constantly brings him food. Terrence isn't interested.
Melba - Annette's generously-portioned friend, who is obsessed with Chris, no matter how much of a jerk he is to her.
If this was a teen drama on the CW, this part would be prefaced by "Previously on Terrence" and then show scenes involving all the relevant characters to this week's episode. In fact, let's just do that...
Previously on Terrence:
Chris went on a date with Anita...
Chris:
Things moved forward with Terrence and Annie...
(Scene showing Terrence smooching Annie with Chris watching in the bushes)
But now Annie's not so sure...
Annie:
Chapter 6
The Breakup
The Breakup
2:37 AM
It was another late night of watching dumb movies and Seinfeld reruns on the tube. All 5 of us (me, the Steves, and the Franks) were piled in the living room, bags of chips and microwave popcorn laying next to us, half-eaten and getting staler by the second. We had done our usual Friday night routine: Go to the pretentious Belmont party at 11 pm, stand in the corner and pretend like we're cool, nod our head at people we barely know, and try to make eye contact with the hair-school chicks that are already buried in a room of dudes. We never, ever, had success at those parties. And every week we left saying "I hate those parties". Of course, we were back the next Friday.
The post-party conversation at our apartment was equally pointless. We all made fun of good-lookin' Steve for ignoring us while he tried to make a move on some blonde whose hair was so straight you could use it for a level. Then we ripped on Personality Steve for getting rejected by 5 or so girls. Then we ripped on me for not even trying, but I made my usual excuses: "I wasn't feeling it" or "Nobody there was my type". The Franks just laughed.
That's when Terrence walked in. He kept his head down and walked straight back to his room. He moved so quickly, we barely noticed that his eyes were red and swollen. The door slammed behind him, and we all gave each other the excited "Oh yeah, there's gonna be drama" look, and Steve nodded for me to go back to our room and get The Scoop. Return and report.
I tapped on the door and cracked it open, like a dad coming to console his full-of-teen-angst daughter. "Terrence? Can I come in?" Of course, if I didn't care about getting The Scoop, I would've just barged in, as per usual.
"Of course, it's your room, too," he responded with a quiver in his voice.
I put on my best compassionate face and concerned voice. "Terrence, is everything okay? You don't sound like yourself." I haven't sounded this concerned since my mission when I used and abused the Commitment Pattern to some serious avail.
"Yeah, I'm okay."
I sat down on his bed, next to him. He still had his head down, staring at his shoes. I patted his knee three times, then closed it with a gentle, loving squeeze, moving my hand from his knee to his shoulder. "Terrence, when you hurt, I hurt. Let's just get this out in the open." I paused and waited for him to feel my brotherly love. The room was chock full of Trust.
Terrence looked up at me with his big blue eyes, all bloodshot and wet. Tears started streaming down his cheeks and he began quiverring uncontrollably, like an elephant chuckling at a good rhino joke. His huge bear mitts grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into his bosom, burying my face in his left pectoral. His huge arms wrapped around me and squeezed me tight. I was now Terrence's personal Teddy Bear.
He started bawling. He just cried and cried. For like 10 minutes. That's a long time for a man-hug, let me tell you. No words, just sobbing and gasping for air.
He finally released his vice-grip, and I got my own fresh breath of air. My hair was soaked with his tears and my face red with suffocation. I still had no idea what happened, but I was willing to risk another 10-minute hug for The Scoop: "Now it's time to talk, T. Just get it out. You can only cry for so long, now it's my turn to cry for you. But I can't cry if I don't know why." My manipulation tactics were solid gold. Gold, Jerry!
Terrence wiped his eyes with a dirty sock off the floor and then blew a stringy gob of mucus into it. Now he was ready to share. "She dumped me."
"She? Who, Annie?"
"Yeah, Annie."
"You didn't see it coming?" That came out wrong.
Terrence was too upset to shoot me a look. "Nope. I thought things were rosy. We had a magical kiss just a few days ago, and then, tonight, when I brought up marriage, she got all hesitant."
"Women!"
"I know! First she leads me on, says that I'm a great guy, very nice, a stand-up fellow, innocent, cute, all those things women look for, you know. But then the next thing she says, 'It's not you, it's me.'"
"'It's not you, it's me'. That's what she said?" I couldn't believe Annie used the oldest line in the breakup book.
"Yeah."
"Are you sure it wasn't you?" Now I was just provoking him.
Terrence got a little mad at that. "Of course it wasn't me! I did everything the book said!" He pulled out a skinny, worn-down paperback from his back pocket and handed it to me.
"Fast Engagements for Idiots by George Q. Bytheway," I read under my breath.
"I asked her what she was dealing with, why it was her and not me. She said she didn't feel like she was worthy enough to date me." That Annie! Was she going to pull out all of the Provo cliches in one sitting? "So I told her that those feelings are normal when you're dating a spirit-chal guy like me, and that eventually, I would bring her up to my level."
I almost laughed. "What'd she say to that?"
"She just laughed at me."
"What a jerk!"
"I know, I was really upset. But she said it wasn't what I said, she was just reminded of a funny joke." Annie was really taking advantage of poor, trusting Terrence.
"So it is completely over?"
"I'm not sure. I suggested taking a break for a while, but she said we should just be friends and date other people."
"Sounds like it's over." Should I give him the ol' "other fish in the sea" motivational speech now or later? Nah, I'll save it. "Try to get some sleep."
Sunday, September 28, 2003
We were all at Ward Prayer, lacking a certain Terrence. I spied Anita from across the room and tried to make eye contact with her. No such luck. I stared at her for like 5 minutes and got nothin'. This was not good news, especially since I didn't see her at church.
After the prayer, I zoomed over to her to see if she still remembered me. I approached her as she was talking with some Zoob. I tapped her on the shoulder, and she looked to see who it was. It was me.
"Oh, hey. It's you." She returned to her conversation, giving me no chance to speak. So I waited. And waited. I continued standing there like an idiot, waiting for her to turn around to give me an audience. The room cleared out, and it was just us 2 and this Zoob, with me on the outside looking in.
Finally, I cleared my throat and interjected, "Anita, I'd THANK you to give me 10 seconds of your precious time!"
She turned to face me with a scornful mien. "You have 10 seconds."
"Oh, well-"
"9."
"Actually, if-"
"8...7...6..."
"Are you just going to countdown to 0?" I asked in frustration as she maintained her count.
"...3...2...1..." And she turned back to the Zoob. I walked away, angry as ever. What a raunch-beast!
10:43 PM
I was busy moping while finishing up my Biology 100 homework when the Steves walked in, cheerful as always. Nothing like a smile to make my bad mood worse.
"Steve just asked out Anita!" exclaimed Personality Steve.
"What? I had her rights! I was about to sign her to a long-term deal!"
Good-Looking (GL) Steve looked incredulous. "I don't think so, buddy. You had your chance to lock her down, now she's a free agent, and she's signing with me for more money and a guaranteed contract," he said, mockingly.
I couldn't be mad at GL Steve, though. He had his clever retort all ready for my initial rebuttal, and I had to give him props for that. Plus, Anita had clearly blown me off earlier, and that did mean she was a free agent. "You got me, Steve. Good luck with THAT." Then came a knock at the door.
"There she is now," said GL Steve, "couldn't wait for Friday, I bet." He swung open the door and his face dropped. "Oh, it's you." And he slammed the door and walked away.
"Who was it?" I asked.
"Nobody important." I refused to believe him and ran to the door. Ever since junior high, when the phone or doorbell rang, my heart always jumped, hoping it was some beautiful girl that I had a crush on finally coming to her senses and arriving at my door to declare her love. Usually it was the UPS guy or the landlord. At best it was a beautiful girl coming over for one of my roommates. But I still had that hope and ran to open the door. It was Annie.
"Oh, it's you."
"Don't slam it!"
"Why not?"
"I need to talk to Terrence."
"You want him back?"
"No, I-"
"Then you can't talk to Terrence."
"I'm just worried about him! He wasn't at Ward Prayer, he didn't even talk to me at church today."
"The world doesn't revolve around you, Annie. Terrence is already dating someone else, he's fine," I lied.
"He is? Who?"
"Some buxom blonde."
"Very funny."
"Seriously." I kept a straight-face like no one's business.
"Come on, Chris, just let me talk to him. If he says he doesn't want anything to do with me, I'll go away."
"Fine." I went back to the room and Terrence was asleep. Since he got about zero sleep Friday and Saturday night, I didn't wake him. So I lied. "He doesn't want anything to do with you. Sorry, Annie. Looks like your business is done here. Unless you're here for a booty call."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, let me see if Steve's available first."
"Very funny. See you later, jerk."
WILL ANNIE GET BACK TOGETHER WITH TERRENCE? OR WILL SHE START GOING AFTER CHRIS? AND WILL CHRIS JUST FORGET ABOUT ANITA THAT EASILY? AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN ON THE DATE BETWIXT ANITA AND GL STEVE? DISCUSS OR DEATH!
Monday, May 11, 2009
The War Against 6th Grade Oppression
For most of the Orchard Elementary Eagles, the playground behind the school was a prison camp, ruled by the 3rd Reich of 6th graders. If you were unlucky enough to have recess at the same time than Kurt Manwaring and his gang of brutes, then you were forced to play on the short football field, you couldn't use the backstop, and you had to use the old 4-square courts, because once the 6th graders emerged from the cafeteria, you were pushed out.
Kurt Manwaring as a baby
The "good" football field was in the northwest corner of the vast expanse of grass shared with Canyon View Junior High (Gosh help you if a 7th grader trampled you down during a Fun Run). It was a soccer field, marked with boundaries and even had first down markers on the fence posts. Sometimes, during P.E., we'd have the whole field to ourselves, just us 5th graders playing peacefully in a field of long, swaying grass, not unlike a Watchtower picture depicting the Jehovah's Witness version of paradise. All that was missing was a lamb and a lion.
Recess with the 6th graders was not so paradisaical. We wouldn't even bother fighting for the good field, we'd just find our spot on this overran patch of ground that would be a stretch to call "grassy". Games here would end in bloody knees instead of green knees. There were no boundaries, so the fat kid who finally got the ball ran 100 yards out of his way to score a TD because nobody wanted to chase him. It was Football Purgatory.
One day, we decided that we were sick of Football Purgatory, so we just started playing on the good field before the 6th graders escaped the cafeteria. We played apprehensively, like a kid watching forbidden TV while their parents were unawares in the next room, knowing that it was only a matter of time before we got our hand slapped.
Somebody spied the first group of 6th graders making their way across the playground. "Act normal!" we told ourselves, "We have just as much right to be here as they!" We ran a couple more plays when the 6th graders arrived with their medium-sized football. Too big for the mini footballs, were they?
"Alright, get off the field. This is where WE play."
We looked at each other. Nobody said anything, but nobody left, either. We just resumed our game. This infuriated the antagonists. They made their way into our game, tripping the smaller kids and going after the QB. Finally, a 5th grader spoke up.
"We'll play you for it."
The 6th graders liked this idea. Of COURSE they did. They clobbered us, it wasn't even close. The 6th graders like playing us so much that they began to ask us if we wanted to play them every week. Every few weeks, the pain of complete annihilation would sink to the back of our brains and we would agree to another beating. These tri-weekly beatings became a ritual.
However, we got better and better, and one game we even scored a touchdown to only lose by like 20 or so. This encouraged us, and brought back some of the better 5th grade athletes who got so demoralized in the first game that they decided to try their hands at 4 square. Then, one cold day on the playground, we found ourselves in a defensive struggle. These games were getting more and more defensive as more and more students played. We probably had 30 kids against 30 kids out there, it was so packed. Plus, we played 2-below, so "tackling" was pretty easy.
Like this, except with 50 billion more kids
After a couple of possessions, neither team had moved the ball any and each team "punted" (hucked the ball as far as they could - an actual punt would barely pass the line of scrimmage). We pinned the 6th graders down on their goal line, and they weren't moving the ball much. On 3rd down, they decided to throw a slant across the field to future BYU benchwarmer Jason Kukahiko but Adam Keller stepped in front of it, picked it off, and waltzed into the end zone. Touchdown! Seconds later, the bell rang. End of recess--end of game! Victory! We all raised our hands in celebration, screaming like we were giving birth, running towards the school in jubilation. The 6th graders protested and complained that it "didn't count" and there HAD to have been a penalty on the play. But they knew it was too late.
Jason, the only kid from the neighborhood to make a name for himself. Except maybe Timmy G
All over the school, word got around. The 6th graders LOST to the 5th graders! We took over the good football field and the 6th graders never challenged us again. Not because they didn't want to play, but because WE didn't want to. Quit while you're on top, that's what I say!
Kurt Manwaring as a babyThe "good" football field was in the northwest corner of the vast expanse of grass shared with Canyon View Junior High (Gosh help you if a 7th grader trampled you down during a Fun Run). It was a soccer field, marked with boundaries and even had first down markers on the fence posts. Sometimes, during P.E., we'd have the whole field to ourselves, just us 5th graders playing peacefully in a field of long, swaying grass, not unlike a Watchtower picture depicting the Jehovah's Witness version of paradise. All that was missing was a lamb and a lion.
Recess with the 6th graders was not so paradisaical. We wouldn't even bother fighting for the good field, we'd just find our spot on this overran patch of ground that would be a stretch to call "grassy". Games here would end in bloody knees instead of green knees. There were no boundaries, so the fat kid who finally got the ball ran 100 yards out of his way to score a TD because nobody wanted to chase him. It was Football Purgatory.
One day, we decided that we were sick of Football Purgatory, so we just started playing on the good field before the 6th graders escaped the cafeteria. We played apprehensively, like a kid watching forbidden TV while their parents were unawares in the next room, knowing that it was only a matter of time before we got our hand slapped.
Somebody spied the first group of 6th graders making their way across the playground. "Act normal!" we told ourselves, "We have just as much right to be here as they!" We ran a couple more plays when the 6th graders arrived with their medium-sized football. Too big for the mini footballs, were they?
"Alright, get off the field. This is where WE play."
We looked at each other. Nobody said anything, but nobody left, either. We just resumed our game. This infuriated the antagonists. They made their way into our game, tripping the smaller kids and going after the QB. Finally, a 5th grader spoke up.
"We'll play you for it."
The 6th graders liked this idea. Of COURSE they did. They clobbered us, it wasn't even close. The 6th graders like playing us so much that they began to ask us if we wanted to play them every week. Every few weeks, the pain of complete annihilation would sink to the back of our brains and we would agree to another beating. These tri-weekly beatings became a ritual.
However, we got better and better, and one game we even scored a touchdown to only lose by like 20 or so. This encouraged us, and brought back some of the better 5th grade athletes who got so demoralized in the first game that they decided to try their hands at 4 square. Then, one cold day on the playground, we found ourselves in a defensive struggle. These games were getting more and more defensive as more and more students played. We probably had 30 kids against 30 kids out there, it was so packed. Plus, we played 2-below, so "tackling" was pretty easy.
Like this, except with 50 billion more kidsJason, the only kid from the neighborhood to make a name for himself. Except maybe Timmy GAll over the school, word got around. The 6th graders LOST to the 5th graders! We took over the good football field and the 6th graders never challenged us again. Not because they didn't want to play, but because WE didn't want to. Quit while you're on top, that's what I say!
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