Embarrassing Story (Vomit Van)

The other night, my friends and I were at a birthday party and we they asked the birthday boy to tell an experience from every year of his life. For various reasons, we all began to take turns telling all kinds of stories. They also seemed to get progressively more disgusting and one involved vomit. That reminded me of the story I usually share when asked what was my most embarrassing experience I’ve ever had is. This particular event happened on a sunny summer morning…

I was accustomed to play basketball every Monday morning with the missionaries in my town from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other members of my church. For whatever reason, basketball was canceled that day so I decided to drive into Hershey to go for a run at Shank Park. After my run, I started feeling kind of sick. I thought nothing of it and started driving on the back roads home. That’s when it hit me!

I felt the sudden urge to purge and realized I didn’t have much time to act. There was nowhere to pull over my mini-van. I started lowering my automatic windows and slowing down, hoping no one was behind me. The window seemed to take an eternity to roll down! Once it was low enough to stick my head out, I let loose what so desperately wanted out of my stomach. I got lucky, in a way. Only a little vomit got on my shoulder because of the wind. I was unlucky in that the rest successfully created a Jackson Pollock-like masterpiece on the side of my van. I felt horrible, but well enough to drive home. I decided I’d just have to wash it when I got back to my place.

Once I got inside, I saw there was a message on our answering machine and checked it. It was the missionaries or Elder’s as we call them by their title. Apparently, whatever impeded basketball from happening no longer did so. They wanted to see if I could get a hold of everyone to get a game on in Hershey. I was super excited! So excited in fact that I somehow managed to forget how sick I had felt and that there was vomit all over the side of my van… my vomit van. I made the calls and the game was on!

I realized about halfway into Hershey that I forgot to wash my car and that it probably looked awful, but I thought, who cares? I’ll just head home afterwards and take care of it. I was wrong.

As soon as I got to the gym, a member of my church came up to me and asked if he could get a ride to a car shop to pick up his vehicle which had just been serviced. I couldn’t say no. I just pointed out my van to him and explained the incident and apologized for the retched smell that would no doubt accompany us on the trip. It was a long trip or at least felt like it took forever.

We returned and played ball. I got sick again, go figure. I was so ready to go home afterwards. When the game ended, however, it was clear that my embarrassment was far from over. One of my friends, a missionary, came up and asked, “Hey Dan, you remember how some Elders were going to move into Palmyra today and you said you could help out and let us use your van?” I did remember. So, I went about explaining my car situation to the missionaries and began the trip to Palmyra.

It was awful. I felt awful in multiple ways. There were also an older couple of missionaries there that was helping us that were there to supervise everything. They were fairly important people and assisted the Mission President with a lot of things. They were very appreciative of my help and walked us out to our rides. Then they asked, “Which car is yours?” Already exhausted of explaining I replied, with a smile on my face, something to the effect of, “Oh, the puke covered one over there!” It was certainly a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day if I’ve ever had one.

The Cougareat Adventures (TASG)

If you want to see some very unique characters, the Cougareat at BYU is a good place to find them. This will be the first of a series of posts about strange characters or things that have happened while in the Cougareat. I was inspired to start this series today because of a couple people I saw today while lunching. First, there was a kid wearing jeans that still had the sticker showing the size on the back of the one leg who was walking around. Then, I overheard some super nerds behind me talking about their World of Warcraft characters and commenting how their Warlocks were master jewel crafters. After that there was an assortment of people my friend Jesse and I saw and immediately nicknamed such as skipping girl, poncho, and (of course referring to the old beer commercials) Twins! But none of these unique people had anything on one particular girl I met one fateful day a couple years ago…

It was a long day for me. I spent most of it in the library, most likely studying accounting. So, I decided to take a break and grab dinner in the Cougareat on campus. The place was empty and I sat at a table by myself and began to enjoy a peaceful meal. That’s when she swooped in! It was obvious she was looking for company since every other table was empty in the place. When she asked if she could join me, I couldn’t refuse. It would be rude. So she sat right next to me at my open table. I knew that she was going to be trouble. If I would have found her attractive it would be every guy’s dream come true. But this was not the case! If you haven’t noticed, I have avoided using her name thus far and I will continue to do so until the very end of this story.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence (what would be a common occurrence in the conversation that would follow) until I decided I should be polite and introduce myself. Her eyes widened and she seemed to have gotten what she wanted, recognition. She then introduced herself and began to divulge an obviously rehearsed spiel about how she came to be at BYU. She also made it very obvious that she was at the university for one thing and one thing only: to find herself a man and get married! I would say that that is when I knew I was in trouble, but I had already come to that realization.

Somehow, the conversation continued on the topic of dating and began to take a turn for the extremely awkward side as she began to discuss dating habits of BYU. She cautioned about how couples needed to be careful when they were all alone……. at night……… (and I’m adding the ellipses in an attempt to imitate the real life pause between words or ideas she used and imply awkward silence)………..and things happen…………………….and then they’d have to go and talk to their bishop…

What followed was the most awkward silence of my life where I vividly remember looking around to see if anyone else was seeing what was going on, but alas, I was alone.

…………… “I’m Talkin’ About SEX!”

Well, there it was. If there had been any doubt in mind with respect to the subject matter of her discourse or to her craziness, it was resolved with those four words. I don’t remember much of the rest of the conversation. I just remember thinking if I was on candid camera, trying to finish my food asap, and hearing something about how she felt sorry for Brittany Spears and her sister.

It was possibly the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had an has become a favorite funny memory of mine. Her name you ask? Isn’t it obvious by the title of the post or by her most memorable quote? Talkin’ About Sex Girl! Some friends doubted my story, but there have been many sightings of TASG since this incident by myself and others. Beware, she is still out there and, if you ever find yourself dining alone on a still night in the Cougareat, watch your back. You may just become the next victim of TASG!

Try Something New (Tandem Bikes)

Last night, I was playing that game with my friends where you have 10 fingers up and each person takes a turn saying something they have never done in their life. If you have done what someone says, than you have to put a finger down. The last person with a finger or more up wins. I guess it’s a game that rewards the biggest loser for leading an uneventful life. One of the things I said that I had never done was a ride a bike by myself. It needed some explaining because I have been on a 30 mile bike ride, but I don’t know how to ride a bike. So how was it that I went on a 30 mile bike ride without knowing how to ride a bike? Well I’ll tell you…

This summer I lived with my dad in Salt Lake City, but I would come visit my friends in Provo almost every weekend to have some fun. On a particular Saturday afternoon, my friend Matt told me about a church activity his congregation would have in which they would all bike about 15 miles up into a canyon and would have dinner there. He then explained that he was thinking about driving up to the park they would eat in and just meeting everyone there. I was cool with that.

Later on, two girls in the apartment complex expressed their desire to rent two tandem bikes and bike with us up the canyon. I was still unsure I wanted to do this, but it seemed like Matt really wanted to do it. I thought it couldn’t hurt to try something new, so I reluctantly agreed.

The next challenge was renting the bikes. There happened to be a house across the street that rented out tandem bikes. We tried knocking on the door at different times of the time, calling their number, and talking to their neighbors to see where the owners were and if we could rent the bikes that were so very lonely in the front ward. To make a long story short, we never got a hold of the owners, stole the bikes, and left our contact information on their door.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it then became apparent that the two girls wanted to bike together and not go boy-girl-boy-girl. So we had just stolen two tandem bikes on which my friend Matt and I would have to ride together on one of them. Luckily, Matt was an excellent biker and I could sit in the back and just help peddle. It was then that we also realized that the bike had no gears or brakes… potentially vital to biking through the mountains of Utah.

We all gathered outside the apartment complex and many members of his congregation thought our situation rather humorous. When we started on the streets, things were easy enough. We just got a few funny looks and honks from passing cars. Everything was fine. That’s when we encountered our first 30 degree incline and struggled up it and it hit us just how hard the mountains would be.

To shorten the story, the trip was filled with many steep hills in which we could barely make it up. The trip took about an hour or more. We received many puzzled glances from those we passed, ringing our 50’s style bike bell as we passed. I thought I would die by the time we got to the top. I’m happy to say, however, that we were the third bike to make it to the park, even without gears! At the park, we pigged out. Then we knew we had to start our return journey because it looked like it was going to start raining.

The way home was pure chaos. We were just two guys flying down a steep mountain with no brakes on a tandem bike almost hitting a million people on the path and ringing the little bell as a warning to everyone. We almost hit a family on a narrow part of the path. Yelling at them the whole way down the hill, we saw their faces of distress slowly turn to smiles as they realized what was going on. A group of bikers gave us a hard time for a bit too. Then, in order to avoid someone on the path, Matt steered to the side and I hit my foot on the rock wall that lined the path. It took about a half an hour to get back!

When we got home, we returned the bike and all was well even though we stole them. All in all it was a very unique experience and I’m glad I did it. It’s always fun to try new things and you never know what can happen or what stories you’ll be able to tell.