Tongue-in-Cheek

The Cheese Curd Smile

Sunday, November 30th, 2008 | Life Update, Truthiness | 7 Comments

This past Saturday I ventured to Logan with one of my roommates for a double date. I went out with a girl who calls herself “Gudger” (different, I know), while my anonymous roommate had a blind date with one of Gudger’s friends. We had fun bowling, making lunch together, and touring around Logan by way of tandem bicycles (this was only made possible the fact that Logan’s 9-month-long winter had been delayed, likely due to the current rate of world piracy). Good times were had by all, but despite my joking beforehand to my roommate when I asked him, “Are you ready to meet the love of your life?”, I don’t think it was the love connection he might have been hoping for. Great girl, there was just no spark.

After dropping off the girls, us guys headed to Gossner’s dairy to buy some legendary Cache Valley cheese. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the expression of pure glee I saw on my roommate’s face as he walked out with four bags of cheese curds; he was like a little kid on Christmas morning.

I think we all deserve to end up with someone who brings the “cheese curd smile” to our faces. Granted not all relationships start out with that euphoria, and each relationship has its ups and downs, but if it doesn’t bring a smile to your face when you spend time with that special someone, or if you don’t feel even a bit of happy anticipation upon receiving an e-mail or text from him or her, it’s probably a sign that “someone” isn’t so special.

Enjoy your cheese curds, roomie. May we soon find that smile once more upon your face due to reasons completely unrelated to having eaten fine dairy products.

Thanks-taking

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 | Crazy Ideas, Life Update | 4 Comments

As the citizens of the U.S. gather this upcoming Thursday to gorge themselves on turkey and football, they’ll also unite to give thanks for all that they are grateful for. That is a lot of thanks-giving and begs the question, “what is the square root of 35?”… no, really, “who is taking all this thanks?” I mean, when someone gives something, isn’t there supposed to be someone on the receiving end too? We wouldn’t want all that thanks to go to waste. In light of this long overlooked oversight (you can’t expect the pilgrims to have thought of everything… they were wearing buckles on their heads… BUCKLES, people!), I have elected myself to this humble role.

I’m sure this will go over well when I crash my friend’s family’s Thanksgiving gathering. Her family loves me. They love me so much, in fact, that when she and I stopped at her grandparents’ house on the way back from a trip this summer, they wanted me to be a part of the family so bad that they just assumed we were seriously dating and started announcing this to all of the extended family. Yeah, she had some cleaning up to do after that. Anyway, I’m hoping granny and gramps show up to offer me their thanks. I’d love to spread a few more rumors.

Why am I not spending Thanksgiving with family, you ask? Simple… it’s the “off year”. All of my local siblings will be spending Thanksgiving with their inlaws. How they all managed to get on the same schedule where they can spend the odd-numbered years with my family, and the even-numbered with the in-laws family is beyond me. I feel like if I were to accidentally marry a girl (it could happen) whose family had the opposite schedule, the world would implode upon itself.  I’ll have to add that to my list of questions to ask the girl before I get married, right in between “How do you feel about immunizing your children?” and ” What does square root mean, anyway?”

After I learned I was without local family to spend the holiday with I was planning on celebrating Thanksgiving alone (don’t feel bad for me. I was going to order pizza… AND crazy bread), but fearing my mother might hunt me down if she found out I chose to spend Thanksgiving alone I decided to accept my friend’s invite.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Enjoy that turkey. Treat yourself to a nice afternoon nap. And don’t forget, in taking your thanks, I accept Visa, Mastercard,

…and crazybread.

Win? Who Wants to Win?

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | Life Update | 5 Comments

Yesterday my Frisbee team, the Corybantics, played in the championship game of upper division BYU Intramurals. We played wild, we played hard, yet at the end of the match we ended up losing, like the French in any war where they weren’t led by a woman. In this moment of defeat I am given cause to reflect… who wants to win, anyway? Who wants to be number one? After all, one IS the loneliest number. What satisfaction can come from knowing you are better than everyone else that you have met on the field of battle? Who wants a lousy t-shirt, prize money, spoils of war, or bragging rights?

*sigh*

I do. I like spoils. I want bragging rights… :(  but under the circumstances I’ll take pity. Spoils got nothin’ on pity.

Good season, ‘Bantics. We’ll get ‘em next year. Relish the pity.

All Grown Up

Monday, November 17th, 2008 | Crazy Ideas | 8 Comments

I’m an adult. I’ve just decided. Granted some would say this phenomenon occurred years ago when, say, I turned 18 or even 21, but those people would be wrong. Here, now, at age 25 it’s official. Why this sudden coming of age, you ask? It all started with…

The Cotsco card. No, I don’t mean Costco card. “Cotsco” is one of a few select words it is more entertaining to mispronounce or jumble up. Say it… once you’ve started you won’t be able to stop. Others of these words include “the internets”, an alternative “the interweb”, and “m e m’s” (in place of m&m’s). How does a Cotsco card make you an adult? I see it as a sign you are financially responsible. Just today I spent $1.90 for gas. $1.90! I can’t even remember the last time I remember seeing gas under $2.00. All the other gas stations had prices of at least $1.99… suckers. Besides, where else can you buy Ling Ling Potstickers or the world famous Cotsco muffins?

Then there are the stocks. Granted I have technically owned stocks since I was 17, but it hasn’t been until recently that I started investing regularly. It’s my new hobby. Granted I haven’t made a dime off the stock market yet, I still feel it is a better place for my money than that savings account which last I checked was gaining 2.75% interest, even if I have an unsettling curse in that whenever I buy stocks they start their way on a continuous downward spiral. It also gives me an excuse to bail when the guys at work invite me to come play poker. All I have to say is “No thanks, I lose all my money in the stock market.”

Finally, there is the third leg upon which my adultdom stands: the paper shredder.

I rest my case.

The Magic Words of Dating

Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Crazy Ideas | 7 Comments

Every so often there comes a word, a magic word of such power it can get you whatever you want. For Ali Baba it was “sesame”. Back in the 60’s in the Midwest it was “jazzed”. If you said the word “jazzed” in Cleveland in the late 60’s you owned that town. Fortunately for our generation a new magic word has been discovered: “hypothetically”.

No, I don’t mean that a new word has hypothetically been discovered. The new word is hypothetically. Why is this such a powerful word, you ask? One word: dating loophole. A dating loophole is a way to remove all chance of rejection when asking a girl out (even if that means she doesn’t KNOW she’s being asked out). Before the discovery of “hypothetically”, there were only two known dating loopholes: “hanging out” (Elder Oaks would be ashamed) and the “purposely lost bet”. Hanging out needs no explaining but the purposely lost bet comes from an episode of Seinfeld where a man, Todd Gak, makes a bet with Elaine he knows he is going to lose with the precondition that the loser buys the winner dinner. This way he gets a date without having to ask her out, thus negating any possibility of rejection.

Where does “hypothetically” fit into all this, you ask? Like the purposely lost bet, it’s a genius way to remove all possibilities of rejection. You first hypothetically ask a girl out, and if that goes well, then you can really ask her out. Say the girl you’d like to ask out (Suzie) lived in a different town (Springdell). Your conversation might go as follows:

<you> “So, Suzie, hypothetically if I were to find myself in Springdell this weekend, would you be interested in doing something?”

<Suzie> “That would be fun!” (she’d definitely use an exclamation point here because women speak EXCLUSIVELY using exclamation points; it’s their punctuation of choice)

<you> (now undettered as you got such a postive response to your hypothetical) “Not so hypothetically, I’ll be in Springdell this weekend, wanna go out?”

I think you’ll be impressed with the results. As long as your name isn’t Michael Scott, you’re destined for success. This even applies to the world outside of dating (I’ve heard legend of such a world but have yet to experience it myself). Say you want to propose to your significant other but aren’t sure if she’ll say yes. Simple: hypothetically ask her first. Unsure how your boss would respond if you asked him for a raise? You know what to do.

In short this word can be used anytime you’d like to ask a question that might have a negative result. Be free. Ask what you want. You won’t get in trouble…

Hypothetically, that is.