I know, I know everyone voted for a post on what I want for Christmas. But there are still so many days till Christmas so I'll get to that later. (thus, further diminishing any trust you had in the poll) Instead, just for irony's sake, I'm going to tell you a story. A story that has no point in being told since a certain story competition passed it up weeks ago. Dare I say, this story rivals any before it and I would challenge the current winner to seriously consider delivering the prize to me... Colin, the ball is in your court. This story is an instant classic mostly because its incredibly embarrassing for me. I know Box has about 100 of these, but luckily for you, this will be my story's world premier. So, with out further to do, I give you...My First Fill-Up
It was the first weekend of October and the weekend of the Junior High retreat. Something about faith; don't know, don't care. My parents were off for a getaway weekend and had left me and my newly acquired drivers licence to run the household; what fun. Jonathan needed a ride that Friday afternoon and I saw it as the best time to fill up the Mercury. The needle was suspended at the 1/8th mark and, to say the least, I was not going to live out Box's little gas gauge escapade. But that's another story, isn't it Jake? As I assisted Jonny with his things, which included the largest sleeping bag in existence, Jonny suddenly insisted that his things go in the trunk. I informed him that there was more than enough space in the back seat, but he didn't care and I didn't either. I was more than ready to get rid of him for the weekend. So his possessions were placed in the trunk and even with the abnormally large sleeping bag, his stuff filled up maybe a sixth of my awe-inspiring trunk.
As we swung into the parking lot, me and Box met eyes and we greeted each other with a nonchalant nod. "Yes," I said to myself, "I am the definition of cool." Jonny sprang out of the car and made his way to the back, where he waited attentively for the trunk door to magically open while I searched the interior of the vehicle for said magical lever. As I pulled what I thought was the correct switch, Jonny quickly informed that the magic wasn't happening. "It's an old car" I thought, "I told him he should have put it in the backseat." No matter, I swiftly opened the trunk and struck up a quick conversation with Gordan as Jonny ran his things into the church in true Junior High fashion.
But I was ready to split and soon cruised out of the parking lot to complete my last objective. The traffic on westbound 290 was worse than usual so I quickly compensated and rolled into the Citgo across the highway and thus sealed my fate. Now you ladies might not no this, but us guys have a certain code of conduct when we are alone and that's to act "cool." You may say that not every guy acts this way, but, believe me, all the cool ones do. This behavior includes keeping conversation with strangers at a minimum, a relaxed and laid back composer and most likely, a heightened sense of infallibility. Up to this point in my life, I had only witnessed the payment method at stations and the vast majority was with those lovely little credit cards. To bad all I had was cash and although the idea of paying before pumping was not completely foreign to me, I had never made the connection that it was pretty much universal.So as I coolly removed the nozzle, pressed pay with cash, and began to wait I had no idea that I was messing with the system. As the little screen continued to flash "processing," I began to sense that something was wrong, but hey, above all else, keep your "cool." However, as the fellow customers finished their business and left be standing there awkwardly with nozzle in hand, I got that little voice in my head telling me to ask for help. Now again ladies, this voice is much more prominent in your minds than in us men and for the sake of keeping "cool," we continue to try to suppress it for as long as possible. And that's just what I did, God knows being clueless is far better than drawing any kind of attention.
Unfortunately for me, both occurred that day as one of the "Apu's" from inside the station ran outside, arms flailing and screaming at me in a very heavy Pakistani accent that "You need to pay inside sir!" (I hate to use stereotypes, but why is that one so true?) Needless to say, I was soon at the desk handing the cashier some green and mumbling "20 on #5 please." It didn't help that the cashier then told me "Now you can pump you gas." Now my only objective was to fill up and get out ASAP while still somehow keeping my "cool." Of course, at that time I finally noticed that my hood was gawkily detached and at a 15 degree angle no less. (So that's what I opened back in the church parking lot) Yes, the loud thud produced from my closing of of the hood, ended any hope of my slipping away unnoticed.This time the process was smoother up until I attempted to loosen the gas cap. I must have stood there for 2 minutes trying to finagle that thing open, when I once again got that inkling to look for directions. This time however, I just wanted to leave and all I needed to do was, God forbid, actually look at the gas cap for those little arrows. I was indeed turning the right direction and all it needed was a swift twist. But I slipped back into my car thoroughly defeated and pondering on how idiotic I had looked for the duration of what I'd call a train wreck. Yes, what was supposed to be a 2 min. pit stop mutated its way into 20 min. shame fest.
It was at this time that the state of cool shows it's better side as I shrugged it off, cranked up the radio and cruised on down the road never to return. (I hate Citgo)
A Few Things I Think I Think-
>I don't think I understand salads. I was at Texas Land and Cattle last week and passed, as I always have, on the salad and pondered to myself why people eat them. I honestly can't stand them and its not that I hate vegetables. I love me some tomatoes, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, green peas, black olives, black eyed peas, and buttered carrots, but I hate salads. Mostly because its almost all lettuce, which is really just glorified green paper, and although most others like to choke them down with a bottle full of ranch dressing, I'd rather do without. (Would you like some salad to go with that ranch?) And its worse because most every restaurant caters only salads and when I pass, I get that snobby look like "Ohh, you don't eat salads, your such a pig." Nope, sorry. You can go on thinking that stuff is the highest beacon of health foods while I eat something good and has a texture that doesn't resemble flimsy plastic. Pass that steak please.
>I think Box hates my comments on his blog. I wrote an elongated comment on his latest post and as of now, it has yet to make it onto the site. This isn't the first time. I don't believe he ever posted my retort to his criticism of my sports picks. Hmmm...
Sports Center-
I've defended and given the benefit of the doubt to the Texas defence for this entire season and I'm done with it. Coming into this year, I assumed their secondary would be their strong point as they would be returning 3 seasoned veterans including probably one of the best CB's in the country in Aaron Ross along with 2 of the most highly touted CB recruits. But no, they suck and although our offence was less than efficient without Colt McCoy, they are solely to blame for the loss to a team that was killed by Baylor. (BTW, I don't like to make excuses for my picks, but when your starting QB is knocked out in the first quarter and your backup actually acts like a Freshman, all bets are off) The streak had to end sometime, too bad it had to happen last week. Looking forward to your visit A&M. Ohh and stop messing with our campus and get a job.My pickoff record (14-12)
Dallas 24 Indy 42-Peyton rips the Boys to shreds.
Houston 22 Buffalo 20-Gritty to the end, Carr leads the comeback.
Maryland 31 Boston College 27-Basically I like Maryland's unies better.
V Tech 26 Wake Forrest 20-Say goodbye to this Cinderella story.
Rutgers 13 Cincinnati 17-Aren't I a stinker.
Cal 35 USC 34-No BCS for you USC!
Ohio State 34 Michigan 19-I really hate Michigan, that's why I always want Loyd Carr there.
Cincinnati 24 New Orleans 27-N.O. staying alive.
Seattle 31 San Francisco 13-Sean, these are boring games to pick, better start commenting or I'm dumping your team.
San Diego 30 Denver 32-Since when are the Chargers 7-2?
Video of the Week-Asian Trix, probably my favorite Family Guy clip I didn't repeat to my GA team. This is for you Jonny, you whining brat.
