Despite Evidence to the Contrary

Urination Station

2008-01-02T02:53:00.000-06:00

On Halloween of 2006 a bunch of friends and I were all out late at some buffalo wings place. You know the type - sort of a sports bar but with a wider variety of food. TVs and projectors everywhere showing more live sporting events simultaneously than you thought happened throughout the course of the entire year. Drunk middle aged fat men arguing about things of no real consequence. A jukebox that you can only pray no one has put any money into because of its irritatingly loud volume level, not to mention the type of music that would most likely be chosen to be played at an establishment such as this. Definitely not my type of place, but they have some pretty decent food and they stay open late so we end up frequenting there. After our consumption of foodstuffs was complete some of us headed back to a friend's place to play some Smash Bros. This house is directly on one of the two major roads of the city, so passing traffic is always consistent. This is an important point to remember. It should also be remembered that none of us had drank any amount of alcohol that night.

After a few hours of Jigglypuffing and Falcon Punching we decided to call it a night. Leaving the house was my brother Stephen (who was to ride in the car with me home), my friend Freddy and I. Immediately after walking out of the house Stephen decides that his bladder is full to bursting and needs instant relief. I walk over to my car and get in it, brotherly public urination not being a thing I had necessarily wanted to see at around two a.m. that Halloween. Freddy also gets in his car and starts it, but upon doing so Stephen began releasing his withheld urine on Freddy's car tire. In an act of tomfoolery Freddy began slowly easing his car toward my micturating sibling, forcing Stephen to step backwards whilst peeing. At this point I was backing out of my friend's driveway, only to see the blinding red and blue flashing lights of a police car.

It had turned out he was close the entire time. I watched from my car while Stephen struggled to finish his business and put his junk away as the cop approached. The policeman requested Freddy out of his vehicle. Stephen and Freddy were then brought over to the police car where they put their hands on the hood of it and were frisked (what he was expecting to find I don't know). I decided instead of driving away at this point, which was a tempting option, or simply remaining a voyeur to the situation, I should get out of the car. I did this, then was sternly asked to also put my hands on the hood and I received the first official police frisking of my life. He felt my wallet and demanded to know what it was, to which I replied "just my wallet" and reached back to get it out to show him. He grabbed my hand and slammed it back on the hood of his car, assuming maybe that I was about to pull out a wallet shaped weapon from my back pocket. At this point, for my, I was infinitely amused. I was holding back a hard laugh and it was impossible to hide the smile that covered my face. Looking at my colleagues their dispositions were quite different. Freddy was terrified. He would later tell me that it was because the cop saw him ease his car at Stephen, and he was scared he would be stuck with a ridiculous charge like "assault with a deadly weapon." Stephen was deeply apologetic, shaking his head back and forth in a "no" manner and mouthing the words "I'm so sorry" repeatedly. The cop asked us what we were thinking and Steve explained that he was just being stupid and it was late at night and figured no one would see.

As if things couldn't get any more wacky a second police car drove up and a new cop stormed out of his car. The first policeman explained the situation which seemed to piss off the new policeman to no end. He began lecturing us on the lewdness of the act and saying things like "how would you like it if I climbed up on your car and took a dump on it," or something of the sort. The amount that I was amused at this point can not be described in words. I was enjoying myself greatly and part of me was hoping that I would be arrested that night, if only so I could tell people later that I was arrested for being in the presence of my brother while he peed on the tire of my friend's car next to a major road. Before very long a third policemobile arrived on the "scene." Of course he had to be brought up to speed, so all of us, standing there, had to hear the story of Stephen's urination adventure told from two cops to a third. The second (the angry one) cop continued to get more and more perturbed, but the first cop began talking him down and telling him things like "he was just joking with is friend and thought no one would see," essentially repeating what Stephen had told him previous. One by one the first cop took us off to the side and questioned us, asking us what we were doing, if we had anything to drink, etc etc. I went last and told the policeman that my brother was terrified and would of course never do anything of this sort again. More than anything I think he was just trying to figure out if any of us were drunk, and on deciding that we all seemed sober enough, told us to essentially go the Hell home.

Freddy drove home with his adrenaline still pumping, and I headed home still unable to wipe the huge smile off my face. It was an amazing experience and one of the best Halloweens ever.

The Swallowing pt. 2

2007-11-07T01:17:00.000-06:00

About seven years ago my younger brother and I were sitting around in a movie theater, waiting for our movie to start. Seven years ago puts me at the age of 15, although thinking about this story makes me wish that I was younger so it wouldn't be as embarrassing.

Anyhow, I had a small spring in my mouth, the type that you would find inside of a clicky pen for instance, and was springing it up and down between my teeth. I had obviously not learned that putting things in my mouth was not a good idea. I continued to spring it up and down, enjoying the strange feeling when SPROING! It launches down my throat, getting stuck somewhere in my esophagus. I begin to cough a disgusting horrible cough, my body desperate to dislodge and rid itself of the accursed coiled metal. I ran out of the theater, my brother following me (the nice fellow), to the closest water fountain hoping some water would help for some reason.

Now keep in mind, this was not a small town theater. This happened in one of the largest theaters in the Houston area. So here I was, standing in the hall, people all around, and me, this fifteen year old kid, coughing like there was some kind of large rodent (possibly on fire) trapped inside my throat, slopping up water, my body constantly on the verge of vomiting due to the effect this spring was having on my gag reflex. At the time I didn't care which way it went - out, or in, I just wanted it to move itself away from my throat area. After an uncomfortably long amount of time the spring unstuck from my esophagus and slid down the rest of the way, amusement park water ride style.

My brother and I walked back to the movie theater, sat down in our seats, and continued waiting for the movie to begin.

D-Adventures

2007-09-22T01:06:00.000-05:00

A decently large group of friends and I, there were about eight or nine of us total, all went to see Dragon Wars recently. We did so expecting it to be terrible of course. In this respect the movie did not disappoint and as a group we did admittedly get fairly loud from laughter. About halfway through the "film," the theater manager approached our row and gave us a very non-friendly warning to the effect of "shut the hell up or we're kicking you out." The manager left and while we did try and laugh quieter, our chuckles could not be fully contained. The theater was nearly empty, despite the fact that this was opening night, probably because the movie we were watching is called D-War for short.

After the movie ended my friends and I all exited the theater from a side door which spit us out on a less inhabited part of the parking lot. We all stood around reminiscing about the parts that made us laugh, the parts that made us cringe, and the part when one of the dragons cried (that's not a joke). After a little bit of us doing this a fancy looking BMW sped up to us, coming uncomfortably close to hitting a few of us, and the unknown driver slammed on it's breaks and stepped out of the car. It was an older man, probably mid-fifties or so, and not light on the fat. He had two young kids sitting in the back seat when he forced his way out of his car and approached us. He said something to the effect of "I don't appreciate you mother (random expletive) going on about your loud bull (expletive) while good people are trying to watch a god (expletive) movie!" He angrily walked up to the semi-large group while saying this, which made one of my friends chuckle a bit. Because, you know. He's pissed off because he may have missed some dialogue in Dragon Wars. I hate movie talkers just as much as the next guy, probably more, but the fact that he cared so much about this movie is pretty amusing.

The kindly old man did not think this was funny, however, and he stomped his way up to my friend. At this point everyone there assumed he was going to yell a little, blow off some steam, then go home with his kids and bitch to his wife about those "annoying jerks that ruined a perfectly good movie" or something. Instead, the man raised his voice even more and said something to the effect of "do you think this is funny?" To which my friend replied "What are you going to do?" This was a bad choice because at this time the old man, in front of what I can only assume were his kids, slapped my friend in the face, followed by a punch to his jaw.

We were all shocked (especially my friend who was punched), but he did manage to land a few blows himself before one of my other friends, who just so happened to be an ex-member of the U.S. Army, grabbed the kindly old man and restrained him. The man wiggled like an angry worm and demanded to be let go. Eventually my friend agreed to let go if angry dude left. My friend let go, and the old man who just got in a fist fight with some college kids in front of his kids, obviously embarrassed at his short comings in his ability to break free of another man's grip, stormed off and drove away in his car.

It was the greatest movie going experience of my life.

A Grandmother's Finely Tuned Sense of Hearing

2007-07-30T14:18:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago me and a few friends got stuck bringing another friend's little brother home. This friend, we'll call him Ramien, happens to be gay. I don't know him all that well, only having hung out with him a few times. I had never been to his house before, and I had never met any of his family previously to this event.

Ramien works at a sit-in pizza place. The deal was Ramien's little brother needed a ride home to change and then possibly a ride somewhere else afterwards, and Ramien couldn't do it because he was at work at said pizza place. So a the friends who I was tagging along with ended up being the ones who were in charge of bringing the kid home. So my two friends, Ramien's little brother and I all got in my friend's car and headed to Ramien's house. We arrived to a seemingly empty house and Ramien's little brother told us we could chill out in Ramien's room until he got a hold of his grandma to figure out if he needed a ride to this other place. So we go in there and of course in about two seconds I get bored, so I start getting obnoxious. I'm making gay jokes about Ramien that would make even the dirtiest of gay porn star's blush. Not only this, but I'm making them loudly. Very loudly.

After quite a while of this I look up and through Ramien's doorway I see a just awakened Grandma. Unknown to all of us, she had been in the room next to us the entire time, hearing disgusting gay jokes about her grandson for god knows how long.

I ran out of the house without making eye contact with her.

The Virginia Tech Blunder

2007-06-21T18:41:00.000-05:00

A few months ago right after the Virginia Tech massacre I was at work and noticed a co-worker (I work at a Best Buy) who seemed stressed out. I asked her if she was feeling alright, to which she responded "Man, it's just that school shooting thing. It's so crazy... It's really bothering me." For the rest of the day she went about herself obviously disturbed and saddened. I genuinely felt sorry for her.

Now don't get me wrong, events like these are terrible things. It's always sad when someone dies, no matter what. Hell, I don't even condone the death penalty. However, I guess since I realize that horrible events happen like that every single day all over the world and we just don't hear about it unless it happens in America, I wasn't all that worked up because of it. I just sort of went about my day.

At the end of my work day a friend and I were standing at customer service and the store was closing up. At that point I noticed some customers attempting to come in to the store after we had locked up, to which I commented to my friend, "Those crazy bastards are probably trying to break in here to shoot us all. Or return something. Either way I really don't feel like dealing with them." Now, believe it or not, I honestly wasn't making the "shooting us all" joke in reference to the Virginia Tech shootings that happened early that day. The joke just kind of came out. I didn't even make the connection until a few seconds later when I looked over and saw someone staring at me shocked and appalled at what I had just said. The worst part about it? It was the same co-worker who had spent the entire day depressed and bothered because of the shootings.

There was nothing I could say to convince her that I was not making fun of the Virginia Tech massacre.

The Swallowing pt. 1

2007-06-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

I have a bad habit of putting things in my mouth. I guess I never got over my toddler teething phase. This habit has caused me more problems than it should, including swallowing multiple objects that could be life threatening. This is but one of those stories.

On a normal day in the first grade I was chilling out at school, working on some kind of art project. Something in this project had to be stapled, so each table had a stapler on it. In an attempt to be a first grade super pimp, I decided to show off for this girl who was sitting at my table.

"You dare me to swallow this staple?" I asked. She egged me on. "You wont do it. You're probably afraid."

Without saying another word I put a staple in my mouth and swallowed it. "You're just hiding it under you're tongue," she said. To prove her wrong I opened my mouth wide and raised my tongue so she could see underneath. When she realized that I had indeed swallowed said staple her eyes widened and she ran to the teacher and told her.

I spent the rest of the day in the hospital with my mom trying to explain to her, and a doctor, why I swallowed a staple. They took X-Rays (which was awesome) and considered some kind of surgery, but decided to, ahem, let it "pass."

I wish I could say this was the only time I have ever visited a hospital for swallowing a sharp metal object. The next one was worse.

Tourette's Girl

2007-06-21T10:19:00.000-05:00

All through junior high school, me and this guy were really close friends. We played video games together, wrote comics together, made fun of the same people together, and got made fun of together. In early high school he got himself a new girlfriend and, like so many men before him, he began to disregard his old friends. Me and him were still cool and all, but I rarely saw him for more than a few minutes at a time before his lady would butt in and remind him of all the things they had to be doing and they'd be on their way.

Now I didn't know this girl at all, but of course I disliked her for taking up all of my friend's time. One day while I was standing around by myself in front of the auditorium she approached me. "Have you seen my boyfriend CJ?*" After asking this she leaned her head sideways slightly and her body twitched sharply. It wasn't a small twitch either, it even caused her to lift one of her hands in the air when she did it. I thought she just got a random chill and she exaggerated the movement, so to be a jerk I mimicked her twitch only even more exaggerated, then looked at her with a crooked smile and said "no."

I forgot about the incident until about a few months later when I was reading through the school newspaper. There was an article about some school play coming up in which the aforementioned girl had a large role. In the article the girl was quoted saying something to the effect of "I thought my Tourette's Syndrome would keep me from getting a big role in the play... I was so thrilled when they offered me this part!"

I had no idea she had Tourette's. I never talked to her again.

*named changed to help to avoid embarrassment for everyone but me