30 April 2008

#8 -- Get hemorrhoids

Avoid these, every kind, at all cost. 'Nuff said.

23 April 2008

#7 -- Let a girl pay

I remember the first time that I saw her. She was short and fit with dirty blonde hair, bent over the disaster of her bike and the load of school books that had scattered across the black top of the parking lot. The bike looked like it must have been twenty years old; it even had one of those old book clamps that sat just above the back tire. She didn't look like she was having such a great day.

I had just gotten finished with the application process for entrance into a local community college near where I lived in Phoenix. (For some reason, still totally unbeknownst to me, I had decided to stay home for a semester instead of returning back to real college life at BYU.) So, I did the only thing any single male of comparable age would do when presented with a beautiful girl in a distressing situation: played the knight in shining armor.

The bike fit easily into the space behind the rear seat of my parent's faded red Ford Aerostar minivan. Real beater of a car by that time, but hey it was transportation. She only lived a few miles away from the school and gave good directions.

Her name was Shauna. We talked for a bit about random things--I can't remember any of the details now; just small talk though. After about ten minutes, I pulled up in front of her house and helped get her bike out of the back of the van. She carried her stack of books, and I left thinking that I would never see or think of her again.

Ahem.

As things would have it, the plans that I had made that night to take my little sister out to dinner fell through and I was left with nothing to do. So, I decided to do what any completely insane nobody would do and drove my red minivan back to her house, knocked on the door, and asked her if she had plans for that night. As it happened, she did. But she gladly changed them so that we could get together instead.

We hung out a few more times, and during one of these "dates" I decided to drag her to the grocery store and buy some ice cream and the makings for hot fudge. Sounded like a good idea at the time. The closest store was an Albertson's so we jumped in the go-mobile and jetted over. Once there, we grabbed the things that we needed, and as I made a guess as to how much everything would cost, I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that I might not have enough money to cover it. It was only like seven bucks. I fretted over the issue though over until we were nearly next in line, and then quickly asked Shauna if she had any money on her. She did--three dollars--which she casually handed to me.

As it ended up, I had enough money to cover it. Made it under the total by something like seventeen cents (my worries hadn't been unwarranted after all). Anyhow, as I picked up the sack of groceries and we were walking away from the register, she said, "You're not like other boys." "How's that," I asked. "You let girls pay for stuff."

At that point my chest nearly caved in completely. I felt like the biggest heel. Something about being practical (I had just gotten home from an LDS mission, had--prior to visiting the store--seven dollars to my name, and hadn't yet found a job) tumbled out of my mouth, and I felt even worse at having made up some stupid excuse to cover my inability to provide. At that point, giving her the three dollars back just seemed like it'd be a travesty of some sort or other, and so I kept them. I never did ask her what she meant when she said what she did. I mean, was she saying that I was some sort of goober for making her pay for anything, or was she glad that she had been able to contribute to the date? Mabye she had been forced into keeping her wallet in her pocket by an overbearing boyfriend in the past. Who knows? I certainly don't.

When I got home, I put the three dollars in my wallet and tried to foget about them. But I couldn't. The next day, I pullled the three bills out, folded them in half once and then again, and slid them into one of the inner pockets of my wallet (ie, not in the billfold section).

There have been many times since then that I have pulled out those three dollars and thought about them and what they represent. Yeah, I still have 'em. And every time that I come across them, whether I'm cleaning out the massive tornado that I call a wallet or I'm just looking for something I think I stuck in there sometime before, I remember Shauna and the decision that I made to let her pay for something on that date so long ago.

But did she really pay for anything? You know, I think that she did; because those three dollars have made a larger impact on my life, than any carton of ice cream or pile of hot fudge ever could have. They bought a part of me.

22 April 2008

#6 -- Love my toilet seat

Yes, yes. I love my toilet seat. Like I've said before, this will be a blog about anything and everything that I never thought I do. And this is definitely one thing that I never thought would come to pass. Here's the story:

A while ago, I decided that my toilet could use a new seat. The old one's rubber bumpers on the bottom had broken off, and it would slide around underneath me when I'd sit down on it, and was pretty much falling apart in general. So, I visited my friendly neighborhood all-in-on-super-mega store (you should all know which store I'm referring to...) and bought myself a new toilet seat. Of course, it was one of the cheap ones; I am still a college student after all and about as rich as one of those instant mock-cheesecake pies you can buy at said mega-store. Anyhow, got the thing and brought it home and installed it. Like a charm. And everything was grand.

That is, until the following day.

I noticed as I sat down on my new toilet seat that evening, that the little twist nuts that had been supplied with the seat to hold it to the porcelain base had come loose. As I was only slightly annoyed at this, I bent down under the toilet rim and tightened the screws once more.

The next day, they were loose again.

This pattern didn't have to repeat itself very many times before I became supremely frustrated with the setup and decided that I'd fix it. Stupid toilet seat wants to get the best of me does it. Well, I'll just show it what kind of engineer it had chosen as an opponent. At my earliest convenience, (read: the following Saturday, as I never have any free time available to me that is not contained within the hours of a Saturday) I ran down to the local hardware store and bought a pair of wonderful little things called lock-nuts. Ha-ha!

They went on wonderfully (a quarter turn at a time with a hex-wrench. (If you've never attempted to tighten lock-nuts on the underside of a toilet seat before I would suggest avoiding it) after just shy of an hour had passed. With my frustration now gone (no more nuts coming loose!) and lots of reason to gloat over my victory, I stepped away from the toilet with the understanding that I wouldn't have problems with that seat any time soon.

Any time soon ended up being about two weeks.

Don't get me wrong, the lock-nuts worked like a charm. Unfortunately, they worked too well. For I was cleaning the bathroom one day, standing on the closed toilet seat, wiping the walls down with bleach-water to avoid any unwanted growths (I really need to install that bathroom fan...) when the seat shifted and let out a mighty crack. Upon inspection, it became quite apparent that the seat (the donut-shaped portion, which is the necessary portion of the seat, of course) had broken.

I hung my head in defeat...and ignored the problem.

Not the smart thing to do.

It wasn't more than a few days later that, while "resting" upon said broken toilet seat, I got my first chance at understanding just what it feels like to have a cow take a great big bite out of my backside. Oh! Luckily, the jaws of the mighty beast opened just wide enough for me after a scant few seconds and allowed me to extricate my throbbing posterior from its grasp.

Alas, I was not the only one to succumb to the bite of this rabid beast, and to say the least we all learned very quickly to lay a small section of layered toilet paper over the hungry fissure before resting any portion of our anatomy upon it.

I am ashamed to say that the replacement of this toilet seat took much longer than it should have. My parents bought us a new toilet seat for Christmas (ha, ha, thank you very much), but it was a wooden one. So, we had to exchange it, again at the local hardware store. My wife finally broke down and did that, and even installed it for me this past week. (Love you babes!) How nice was that?

So, now we have a brand new toilet seat once more.

One that doesn't bite.

And I LOVE IT!

17 April 2008

#5 -- Take the scenic route

This past weekend I drove myself and my family down to Phoenix for the weekend to spend a little time at my parents house. All my brothers and sisters came. Anyhow, normally this trip consists of traveling from Provo to Nephi on I-15, from there to Salina across the back roads, and then down 89 all the way to Flagstaff. From there on I-17 down to the loop 101 and then west to my parents home. A few weeks ago, however, a good friend of mine suggested that we take the scenic route of 89 (called 89A of all things) that stretches from Kanab, UT down to just south of Page, AZ. My wife and I had talked about taking that path before, but had never done it because it would just add more time to an already long day/trip, not to mention the application of my base engineering instincts that tell me to make everything as simple as humanly possible. My friend though, said that the view off the rim was absolutely amazing and that we should really just take it so that we could see the view. And it'd only add about twenty minutes to the drive. Not bad, I said to myself. And if the view was as good as he said it was, the slight detour might just be worth it.

Little did my friend know who he was talking to. My wife's family grew up taking the scenic route. They would go on trip after trip after trip, driving across long distances like water flows under a bridge (continually). And my father-in-law LIVED for the scenic route; the monument, the lookout point, or any other excuse he could find to stop the car and enjoy nature, our nation's history, or just life in general. He just loved it up. But from the way that my wife and her siblings talk about it, it's surprising that they ever made it anywhere after setting out for a particular destination. Always another sight to see along the path of life (read, roadway--no detour is too long for the experience). A favorite memory that is frequently brought up while they sit around the dining room table, or a low-buring campfire, is my sister-in-laws comment in a moment of frustration, "I don't see what the big deal is! If you've seen one tree, you've seen them all!" Lovin' it.

So, we hit Kanab, and instead of turning to stay on 89, I rolled on forward and took 89A by the horns. We hit Fredonia fairly quickly without much to see. More of the same as far as scenery goes. Then the road started winding upwards, back and forth, left and right, higher and higher towards the upper echelons of the atmosphere, towards Jacob Lake. About this time the kids movie got over. Well, the movie my son was watching got over, and the one my oldest girl was watching suddenly became very unappealing to her. Who knows why, but it did. So, my wife had the pleasant job of trading out their movies. And, of course, there were complications. The dvd players didn't want to work right: finicky, annoying, frustrating. And then the remote stopped working. Low batteries or some such, we figured. Anyhow, this made for lots more joy in her involvement with the movies. By the time she was done, lunch (or just possibly...age?) had done her in with car sickness and she was about ready to puke as we made our way down out past the tree line.

The vista spread before us was truly amazing. Jaw-dropping, in fact. But, unfortunately, I was the only one to be able to enjoy it in the slightest. The kids were zoned-out on Cinderella and Diego, the baby was asleep (really debatable as to whether or not she could really enjoy the view), and my wife was getting ready to redecorate the inside of the car with the contents of her stomach. And so it was, amidst trying to keep the car on the twisty, curvy, tilted roadway that wound down the side of the rock rim, I saw the view. But the view was great.

And it only took an additional twenty minutes.

05 April 2008

#4 -- Appreciate my brakes...

as much as I did one day this last week. Man. Okay, so background. The master cyllinder on my car has been leaking for a while now. I know that's a bad thing to have go on your car if you're still prone to drive it around every once in a while. Anyhow, it leaks really fast if I fill the brake fluid reservoir up to the top until a certain point (at which point the brakes really do still work, they're just not very tight) when the leak ratchets down to something very small. About a month ago, my brake fluid was so low that I had to press the brake pedal all the way to the ground to slow my car at all. So, one day this past week, I got into my car and on the way out of our condo complex, I tested my brakes to see that they were still in working order. Only for some reason, I was having difficulty thinking, or maybe it was because my car was having trouble going so slow without my right foot continuously on the gas pedal. To make a long story even longer, I decided to test the brake pedal with my left foot. (My driver's ed teacher would have killed me if he saw me doing this. Brake pedals pushed with the left foot are truly a big "no no", and none of you should learn to try this. Don't learn to drive with a leaky master cylinder either for that matter) So, my left foot found the pedal by touch and pressed it all the way to the floor without so much as even a hint that it was going to stop my car. My heart immediately plummeted into a bottomless pit, leaving my chest feel as if it was housing the world's largest hot air ballon -- completely empty. Now, even though I've never been barrelling down the side of a steep mountain in said car before--complete with Grand Canyon sized drop-off rapidly approaching--I think that I can say with some authority (some now, only some) that the feeling would have scarcely been different than that which was running rampantly through my being at the time. Yes, I know, the blacktop I was driving over was perfectly horizontal, but try to tell that to my rapidly-beating heart (I could hear its echoes from deep within the bottomless pit in which it sat). My mind immediately began whirling, trying to grasp onto possible ways to stop my car that wouldn't result in it gaining a nice "Totalled" stamp across its deed. (The car is nearly 24 years old after all..) Cars were parked on both sides, no one coming from in front of or behind me, but there was this rather nice hill that was coming up... All this and more; through my head all at once. Then, after what seemed an eternity, but in all reality was probably only a scant few seconds, realization came to me that my left foot was not on the brake pedal, but had in fact pressed down upon the clutch pedal. Ha. Silly me. The clutch won't stop the car. Well, not without totally runing the transmission. (Throw it into reverse and ta-da! Stopped car. Complete with fewer running parts.) Naturally, I picked my foot up off of the clutch pedal and placed it down upon the correct one, and I felt a level of deceleration sufficient enough to calm my beating heart. Ludicrous, you say. Why not just fix the car? Well, there are 200 good reasons right now why I shouldn't fix it. And besides, why would I want to fix the car and miss out on all of the excitement?