I've Been Shot!

Day 345

Twenty more days!

For some reason Autumn always reminds me of mischief. Perhaps it is because of Halloween and all the trouble I used to make that night.

I used to fill up squirt guns with gasoline and shoot at neighbor's Jack O' Lanterns. I would hide in the bushes and jump out and scaring the crap out of unsuspecting kids. We would throw eggs and rotten tomatoes at cars on the highway. I remember one particular night I was with Damond and we were looking for some trouble and one of our friend's, Justin wanted to create some trouble for another kid that lived in our town whom we all called Chunk. We drove to his house and suddenly Justin sprung out this large hunting knife and he ran towards Chunk's house. Right in front of Chunk's home were about four-five large bags of leaves. We had all heard Chunk complaining about all the leaves he raked earlier. Justin stabbed each bag and ran all over the lawn dumping out all the leaves! Damond and I about died with laughter!

We also used to toilet paper homes. We did this more during the summer than we did in the fall but if the weather was nice enough we would do it anytime.

This is an epic example of toilet papering done right!

The first time I went toilet papering I thought I was going to die. Back in Canada, we never did this. Toilet papering was a completely foreign concept to me. But one late evening I was invited to go do it to one of the old crotchety guys in our neighborhood. Everything was going good, I was having a good time wrapping that poor man's house in toilet paper when suddenly I heard this:

I turned my head and saw someone coming right at us. Then my one of my friend's yelled out "RUN!"

And I ran. Then suddenly I heard a loud BOOM and my friend hit the ground. I thought he was shot dead. I didn't look back, I ran even more faster than I thought was possible. I could hear my friend call out "I've been shot!"

Is this what they do here in the States? Is this what they do to kids when you live in a rural area? Did that guy really shoot my friend with a shotgun?

The answer to the last question is yes. He was shot with a shotgun but I learned the next day that he was shot with rock salt and not with a normal shell filled with buckshot. Shotgun pellets penetrate as a direct result of the "mass" of the individual pellets. Rock salt is much much lighter and therefore will not penetrate. But it will burn like nothing else. And that is what happened to my friend. He was shot in the back with rock salt, enough to make him grab his back in pain but not enough to do any damage. Maybe a few scrapes and scratches but that is it. I learned that a lot of farmers in the area would make and use rock salt shells to shoot at stray dogs or cats or other animals. It is enough to scare them but not enough to harm them.

But I didn't know that at the time. All I heard was a shotgun go off and then heard my friend yell out he has been hit. I was scared out of my wits.

We never toilet papered that old man again.

Matt at Work: Chrisisms

Day 261

Last night Kristy and I were unwinding and watching some episodes of the Office. I really like that show it often times reminds me of the time when I worked in an office. The DVD's of the show are fantastic and the deleted scenes are so good and we wonder why they have been cut from the episode in the first place.

Last night we watched the episode from Season 5 where Michael and Dwight go on a mission undercover to find a local competitor and scope them out. Micheal gets more then what he bargains for when he gets his competitor's top client list. One of the funniest moments comes from the deleted scenes. Michael comments that it is a dog-eat-dog world and that he is a shark. And then he says he is a shark that eats dog-e-dog. Obviously he thinks dog-eat-dog is said dog-e-dog.

I think I would have had an easier time working for Michael Scott than I did with my other bosses.

And that moment instantly took me back to my last employment. We had a boss that did this sort of thing all the time. Our department would get together in our meetings and just laugh at what we called "Chrisisms".  He had two that were particularly memorable.

"You can't kick a gift horse in the mouse." I don't know what he thought that really means. All I know is that it almost made my boss lose it in an important meeting.

"But that is just a mute point." I wish I was there to hear that one. Actually I am glad that I wasn't there for that. He would have fired me right then and there for laughing. So he thinks that is a silent point? Maybe he is just telling us to shut up in a nice way. But really if he wanted all of us to shut up he would have plainly said it.

And that is what made these even better. He had a certain mentality that made him superior to the rest of us. I heard him say that there was a difference between managers and everyone else. But in his eyes we were all lesser than he.

That makes the Office such a great show. It does imitate real behavior. But I think I would actually like Michael and his quirks.

The Shake Date

Day 207

This ranks as one of my favorite things to do on a date. And the first time I did this was the most memorable and only for the ingredients chosen.

My friends and I would get some dates and we would visit the local supermarket and have each of our dates pick out one item that they would be willing to eat or at least try. All the guys would be in on it and we would have the final say in what items our dates chose. We would set up some rules like nothing raw, no condiments and nothing really expensive either.

We sent out the girls and it was fun watching them and seeing what they would pick out. One of the girl's picked out Sugar Cookie Dough. While that is raw, we heartily accepted it. My friend Lared's date chose spaghetti sauce and my date choose sardines.I don't know what was running through these girl's minds but they all said that they would be willing to eat all three. They must have thought that we were going to cook them all up together or something. Boy, were they wrong!

We took them to Charlie's (a local ice cream shop) and gave the girl's that worked there our ingredients and had them make a shake out of each item. Lared and I knew the girls that worked there pretty well so they had no problems in making them into shakes. Our dates were quite surprised that they were made into shakes and that they were going to eat them. Now they all promised that they would try them and to give our dates credit they did eat the shakes. We tried each shake so one couple was not stuck with one particular flavor.

Obviously the cookie dough shake was the best but surprisingly the spaghetti sauce one was the worst. It totally took the taste of the spaghetti sauce and it was like eating real cold spaghetti sauce plain. And the chunks in the sauce (which became frozen) were horrible to consume. The sardine shake was not fantastic but it was not that bad. You just had to be smart while eating it. All you had to do was to avoid the chunks of sardine and eat the ice cream. But the chunks were pretty horrible.

Lared announced that we should "man up" and finish all the shakes. The cookie dough one was the first to be taken and I didn't want to be stuck with the spaghetti one so I grabbed the sardine one. Lared and I looked at each other and took a deep breath and downed the shakes. Mine was really not all that bad until I got to the bottom. I looked down the cup while shoveling the ice cream down and saw yellow sardine oil and I about lost it. But I finished it anyway much to the laughter of everyone else. Lared couldn't even finish his shake.

And it shouldn't come to any surprise that I didn't kiss my date at the end. I am sure I had some major sardine breath. But these were the types of dates that Lared and I planned. We would always try to do something a little different and memorable. We did this date at least twice more after this one but sardines and spaghetti sauce will never be chosen again.

**BLOG UPDATE**

I am on Day 2 of my Chocolate Milk Diet. Yesterday I drank a cup before I went to work and then when I came home I drank another one and headed out for my run around the temple. Surprisingly, I did feel like I had more energy than usual. And I ran a little longer than normal and felt pretty good too. And I was surprised that downing my third 8 ounce glass of chocolate milk right after my workout was not that bad.

Today was another story. I did the same thing only I ran a couple of blocks longer than usual. Instead of walking home, I ran most of the way home which is quite the difference and I still have some energy. And the chocolate milk went down nice and easy. I am looking forward to seeing how much I improve in the next 2 weeks.

Damond and the BB Gun

Day 163

I am very thankful that I had such a good friend when I moved to the United States. Moving was not an easy thing for me, I was in a strange country and I had cows as neighbors. Actual cows! This was something that a city boy like me had to get used to.

I was picked on quite a bit in the 8th grade which made that grade absolutely hell but I did have some very good friends that helped me through it.

One of those friends was my neighbor Damond. We hung out through all of high school and he was partly responsible for making me who I am today. He and his family were a good influence on me. But that is not to say that we didn't get into mischief because that would be a bold-faced lie. And it is not like we really got into a lot of trouble because for the most part we were good.

I remember one time we were out in the Honda trails (these bike trails up above our houses in the mountains) shooting our BB guns and we got bored and came home. As we were biking home we noticed these pigeons in the middle of the road in front of Damond's house. We got off our bikes and we pumped up our BB guns to shoot the birds. We shot and missed and the birds flew away and our neighbor from across the street came out livid.

"Those better not be BB guns!" She screamed at us. Apparently these were pet birds that were being raised by these neighbors. Who the heck raises pigeons? When I heard her yell that out I thought she said "Those better be BB guns!" Why? I assumed it was because if they were real guns we would have killed those dumb birds.

So I yelled back to her "Don't worry! They ARE BB guns!"

Damond turned and looked at me like I was the biggest moron on the planet. She started to yell at us even more so we took off back up towards my house. Surprisingly she didn't know it was us so we lucked out. Maybe she thought we were too good of boys to do such a horrible thing. The joke is on her! Hey, I was only telling her the truth!

I mean really, pigeons? Rats with wings? Look how mean they are!