Idiots and Scooters make for a Hilarious Combination

This is the story about one of the two times I broke a bone in my body.

Both of the stories are funny in their own ways, but one of them is more sad than funny, and I don't want to tell that one. Yet. Maybe if I get low on material.

Anyway, my Aunt and Uncle used to live in a pretty awesome house. My Aunt is an amazing decorator. She can have a house be spotlessly clean, and yet completely comfortable at the same time. I have never, ever seen somebody else able to pull this off. Either a house is filthy and cozy like a hibernating bear or clean and sterile like a needle.

My apartment is filthy and cozy, if you don't mind the smell. Personally, I blame the fugue on roommate, but he's been showering more often of late, so I'll have to come up with a different plausible excuse, instead of admitting the truth.

So, my Aunt and Uncle lived in a cool house. Right. They had a crawlspace that had a small stream running through it, where I used to catch crawdads. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't good for the foundation to be right over a small creek, but I wasn't a safety inspector, so whatever. They had a computer room that smelled of lemons and was always cold. They lived on a 45 degree slope.

In case you were wondering, that last part was the important bit. 45 degrees. If it were a professor, it would be a television one, with a truly stupid, impossible amount of graduations under his belt. Or a celebrity that solicits honorary degrees like most celebrities solicit sex and unspecified drugs. If it were a thermometer, it would either be extraordinarily hot or "pretty chilly," depending on where in the world the thermometer was from.

But it is neither of those things. It is a hill. A tall, steep hill.

And my Aunt and Uncle have a scooter.

Scooters are ridiculous things. Tiny wheels that can't even get the stupid thing over a bump in the driveway properly without scraping, a metal board, and a handle that comes up to your crotch if you happen to be really short. They are not designed to be fun, safe, or for any discernible purpose at all, in fact. They are, in fact, pointless kill machines that I personally believe Darwin himself invented in order to improve the human race.

As you may have guessed, I have felt the fury of an underestimated scooter.

I wore a helmet, which was a smart thing to do, stood at the top of this ridiculously tall hill, and let myself go with an abandon that emo teenagers and their razor blades would have envied.

I made it to the bottom going at approximately warp 7, smashed the brake with my back foot, and skidded for maybe twelve miles before coming to a full and complete stop. Completely unharmed.

It was awesome. So I did it again. Still made it to the bottom safely.

The third time, my brother saw me. He wanted to try.

A little more history is required here. The last time we had visited my Aunt and Uncle, my brother had broken his arm by falling off a bed.

I may or may not have pushed him.

The time before that, my sister broke her leg by falling down some stairs.

She may or may not have jumped after I dared her to.

Basically, when my Aunt and Uncle were around, I was an accidental psychopath.

So, not wanting anything bad to happen to my brother on this trip, the correct thing to do would have been to tell him no and to put the scooter away some place out of reach so he couldn't hurt himself.

Instead, I told him he totally could, but I had to come with him.

On a two foot long, three inches wide piece of metal. It was a tight squeeze.

I pushed off, and we began travelling fairly quickly. Wanting more control than I had, I reached with my back foot for the brake...

There was a person in the way. And then I realized how phenomenally screwed we were.

There was only one way to stop, and that was the ground, which was now whizzing beneath us faster than a commercial airliner equipped with Nitrous Oxide.

So there we were, travelling at a significant portion of the speed of light, with no brakes, down a hill so steep I was pretty sure we were going to leave the ground in moments. I only had one choice.

I bailed.

I hit hard and rolled, my helmet absorbing most of the impact my head would have suffered.

My brother wasn't wearing a helmet, but it was okay, because his head landed RIGHT ON MY FREAKING WRIST SNAPPING IT IN TEN BILLION PIECES.

And then he went and told mom, and I got in trouble.

Also, the doctor who set my wrist was a dirty filthy liar. Count of three my ass, you quack.

Hawaii Freaking HATES Lips. Straight Up LOATHES Them.

I have been to Hawaii twice in my life. If I ever go again, the entire time I'm there I'm going to wear a hockey mask and carry a machete. Being mistaken for a serial killer is a price I will gladly pay to protect my face from their foliage, which, innocent though most foliage be, poses more of a threat to our national security than Bin Laden, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, and your mother combined. Let me explain why.

I was no more than knee high to a midget when I had my first run in with the deadly spike flail tree of ultimate horror (probably not the scientific name, but accurate all the same.) There I was, young, idealistic, and, like most children of my age, completely unaware of the malevolent nature of trees.

Picture, if you will, a small blonde haired idiot dancing merrily through some tall grass, kicking butterflies and trying to tag his sister. Suddenly, he disappears, and when he stands up, he is spurting blood from his upper lip like some sort of macabre fountain.

From my point of view it went something like this: "La de dah *kick* la dah de dah *almost tag* la la de *trip on evil bit of long grass that intentionally wrapped itself around my ankle* *FREAKING THORN COVERED LOG HEADED TOWARD MY FACE* AAAAAAH *impact*."

A thorn went all the way through my lip. I had to wear a massive patch of gauze that made me look like the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

On the plus side, I got my lip pierced when I was five. There's not many people that can say that.

I still have the scar. I'll show you sometime, if you'd like.

Now, a single, isolated incident does not necessarily mean that Hawaii has a vendetta against every lip on every person in the whole world, including the babies. But I'm not done with my story.

I went back to Hawaii years later. One morning, at around five oclock, my father and I had this conversation.

"Hey, Luke, want to go bike down a volcano?"

"Not right now, Dad, I'm having a nightmare."

"You're awake. How can you be having a nightmare?"

"It's a horrible nightmare, Dad. Somebody is trying to wake me up to go and bike down a volcano at five oclock in the morning, while I'm on vacation."

"Very funny. Get up. We're going to go on a bike ride, down a volcano."

"See? It's one of the worst nightmares I've ever had."

"You have until the count of three, and then I'm getting a large amount of very cold water, and you won't like what happens next."

"If I didn't have a choice in the matter, why did you even bother asking?"

"Because I'm nice, and like you to have the illusion of free will sometimes."

Anyway, we rent some bikes and drive to the top of this volcano. I'm in a sort of nether realm where I keep fading in and out of consciousness. Sometimes it's just a normal volcano, and sometimes it's mount doom, or a massive dragon spewing smoke into the atmosphere. My dad is happily chatting the whole way up, and his banal conversation forms a sort of discordant soundtrack to my delirium.

When we reach the top, we climb on the bikes and begin down.

Immediately I realize that we've made a terrible mistake. We're biking over volcanic rock that's sharp enough to make falling extremely uncomfortable, but not quite sharp enough to puncture the tires, which means I can't call off our ride down due to an equipment malfunction. That's a shame, but at least it wasn't that steep.

Yet.

At first we're above the point where plants can grow, but as we make our way down, more and more foliage starts to appear. Soon, we're biking through a veritable forest, at an angle spider-man himself would have difficulty with.

Then, up ahead of me, I see my father disappear.

As it turns out, he braked a little too hard on his forward brake, rather than his rear, and ended up face planting into a tree.

Guess what kind of tree?

I had to pull the thorn out of his lip, which would have been a switch, had he pulled the thorn out of mine all of those years ago. He hadn't, but wouldn't that have been awesome? I did my "I told you so" dance when we got to the bottom.

I like to think that the tree trunk I had taken a spill on all those years ago had stood up and slowly climbed a volcano, waiting for my return. Fortunately, it missed me. This time.

And that's why, the next time I go to Hawaii, I'm taking a machete with me.

Let Me Tell You About My Mother

I had a yo yo once. It was green. It was the best yo yo in the whole world. I could walk the dog, do around the world, and even (once) a rock the baby. I had paid for it with my own money, gained from doing more chores than Hercules himself, and I never wanted it to leave my sight.
Unfortunately, I did. I left it on the coffee table once. Just once. That was all she needed.
I was out of the room for perhaps three minutes. Tops. But mothers have this sense about things, and she needed some chores done.
My yo-yo got yo-knapped.
“Mother? Have you seen my yo-yo?”
“Yes dear, but you’ll never see it again unless you clean your room.”
I was angry. I was very angry. I pulled the “But it’s MINE!” card. She countered with “it’s mine, now, until your room is done.” I tried a “But my room IS clean. Except for the clothes. And the toys. And the dirt. And I guess the bed isn’t made. But it’s not THAT BAD!” This one was kind of weak, but if “Mine!” didn’t work, nothing would, and I was basically just investing against further incursions upon my property by making things difficult this time around.
So we went back and forth for a few minutes, and then I went and cleaned my room. It didn’t take long, but by the time I had finished, she had time to draw up a whole LIST of horrible things, including vacuuming.
I can’t stand vacuuming. I can’t even stay in the house while somebody ELSE is vacuuming. The sound, the smell, and the banality of it repulse me.
But it was a green yo yo, and I wanted to try another rock the cradle. So I vacuumed. And did the dishes. And wiped down the table. And picked up the dog poop. And cleaned the bathroom. And did every single chore on that list. It took me HOURS. Do you know how long hours are in kid minutes? It’s like YEARS! DECADES! MILLENIA!
But I finally finished them all, and to my mother’s satisfaction. Finally she’d have to relinquish the yo yo, and it would never leave my sight again. I would figure out a way to fit it underneath my eyelids so I could sleep without fear of getting it snatched away in the night.
But my mother had another trick up her sleeve. “Go and make me a coffee.”
“That wasn’t on the list.”
“I don’t care. Go and make me a coffee.”
“But… I did… you said I could have the yo-yo back when I finished.”
“Are you talking? Because it’s hard to talk to me when you’re in the kitchen making coffee, and I know that’s what you’re doing because if you aren’t then the yo-yo’s going into the blender.”
“But-“
“GO!”
She was the most evil person on the planet right then. Sauron couldn’t lift a ring bearing finger to her. Stalin himself would have shaved off his beard if she had asked him to at that moment. But I was mad. She had never asked me to make coffee before, and I was determined not to if I didn’t have to, and if I did have to it would be absolutely horrible coffee. I would make the opposite of good coffee. I would make coffee so bad that Columbian bean growers would stand up in the middle of the field and go “Somebody is making extraordinarily bad coffee right now.”
It would be so bad, that they would say it in English, even if they didn’t know English. 
Or I could just use some of the cold, stale coffee still in the pot from that morning. That would work too, and get me my yo-yo faster.
I brought my mother her coffee. I hadn’t even bothered to heat it up. When I handed her the mug, the look on her face was nothing short of astonishment. “You actually made me coffee?” she asked.
“It’s what you asked for, mother.” I replied sweetly. “Can I have my yo-yo now?”
“Hold it.” she said, and dipped her finger in what was supposed to be scalding hot bean water.
“Nope.” she said. “Go. Make. Me. Coffee. I didn’t say bring me coffee. MAKE IT.”
I protested more. I threw a fit. I started to cry. I cried harder. I howled. I was inconsolable. Finally, my mother had to roll her eyes and say “I hid your yo-yo in the pot where we keep the coffee beans.”
It was such a sweet reunion. I tossed it twice, managed to sleep it once, and then accidentally gave it too much slack and it shattered against the tile floor.
I guess that’s what you get with a yo-yo from the dollar store.

The Day I Met a Bear

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up, take a seat, grab a blanket and a bowl of popcorn, because I’m about to tell you about the day I met a real live bear.
And I’m not going to cheap out on you and tell you about the time I went to the zoo. No sir, no ma’am, there was nothing in between this bear and I but air. And a lake. But it wasn’t a big lake, and science has proven that bears swim better than Micheal Phelps. Freestyle, at least. They have a bit of trouble with the butterfly, and don’t even talk about the breast stroke.
Bears are terrible at the breast stroke.
Anyway! I was at Diabetes Camp, somewhere in the wilderness of…
I don’t actually remember where. All I know is we got in a car, drove for a long time, and ended up in a place where there were trees and we had to sleep outside.
Let me tell you about Diabetes Camp. I don’t have diabetes. Honestly, I don’t. It’s not one of my many faults. And yes, it is a fault. I’m not going to sugar coat it for people who do have diabetes. People with diabetes suck. Wandering around, all “my pancreas doesn’t work due to a genetic defect!” and expecting us to feel sorry for them. WELL I DON’T! Your reign ends today, diabetics! From now on, you must take a SHOT OF INSULIN EVERY TIME YOUR BLOOD SUGAR IS OUTSIDE OF THE NORM! HOW DOES THAT FEEL, HUH?
I’m kidding. Diabetics are cool. Except when you get them all together at a camp in the middle of nowhere. Then they turn into monsters. “Luke, take this saline shot so you know how it feels to be a diabetic.” “But I’m not a diabetic.” “Shut up and stick this needle in your arm for no reason!”
Or “Luke, we’re doing a talent show and you’re in it!” “What? No I’m not. When is it?” “It’s right now you’re on stage haha look they’re all laughing at you for being NORMAL!”
Actually, talent show night was kind of fun. I recited poetry badly and people clapped politely because I was a little kid who thought he was a hot shot and they didn’t have the heart to boo me off the stage.
The person who performed before me left two quarters on the ground, and the entire time I was reciting my poetry I was wondering if it would be rude to collect those. I didn’t, but the guy who came right after me did, and everybody was okay with it. Ah, missed chances. I could have had two more gumballs. Oh well.
I mentioned the sleeping outside, didn’t I? A tarp was required, because if you didn’t use a tarp, you got soaked with dew.
I think something is wrong with your camp when a tarp is required just to sleep. And yeah, some people claim that you’re not doing it RIGHT until a tarp is required to sleep, but they’re crazier than most diabetics. Besides, I was, like, eight.
I think I promised you guys something… what was it?
OH! BEAR! RIGHT!
There was a fishing spot a little way outside the campsite. It looked like somebody had cut out a description from Huckleberry Finn and stuck it in the wilderness for me to find. The second day at camp I went to the nearest store and bought a bamboo fishing pole. The only thing I needed to make the cliche complete was a straw hat, but, unfortunately, they were sold out of those and to this day I do not own a straw hat.
My birthday is coming up, by the way. *cough cough*
So, I spent a few hours out of every day dangling this line in the water, not catching anything but that was okay because at least there weren’t any diabetics nearby, trying to stick unnecessary needles in me.
One of these days I heard something crashing around in the bushes across from my fishing spot. Expecting that they had finally found me, I put my jacket on (because it’s harder to stick a person when they’re struggling AND they have a thick jacket on) and shouted an inquiry as to the nature of the person across the pond.
What peeked out of the bushes at me was almost as bad as what I had expected.
It was a ceeeute little bear cub.
I hightailed it out of there so fast I left my bamboo rod behind, and my nonexistent straw hat spinning in the air as though it were in a Warner Brother’s cartoon.
I found the nearest adult, let him put a few saline needles in me to calm him down, and told him about the baby bear. He took off running, too.
Eventually, somebody brave was found, and they found a pickup truck, and the cub was chased away with several tons of screaming steel rolling merrily behind him, probably creating a serial camper killer in the process but successfully saving a camp full of diabetics who probably deserved devouring.
And I never went fishing again.
Except for that one time when we almost caught a Marlin the size of the Leviathan.
And that other time we almost caught a catfish that was also pretty big.
And that other time.
Okay, yeah, I’ve been fishing a few times since. But I always check the bear forecast first!

My Fourth Grade Teacher was More Insane than Your Fourth Grade Teacher

I remember several things about fourth grade. I did exactly zero homework, no matter how much was assigned (because I really, really hated the things he assigned. They were called XLs and their gimmick was they were 11 by 24 inches of demonic runes, twisted with curses and beaten into the rough shape of numbers which barely formed themselves into equations, which we had to solve in order to save our souls. I said “screw it, if you want my soul that badly, you can have it,” the second week in and didn’t do another XL [or “excel.” This is what happens when mathematicians think they’re clever! This is what happens when they try to make puns like REAL PEOPLE!] for the rest of the grade. I still don’t know why I didn’t fail. Oh wait! I remember now! We’ll get to that in this story!), he loved ghost stories, and I messed up somebody’s joke once.

The joke story has to go first, because it was pretty great.

Here is how it was supposed to go:

A fellow would walk up to you and ask “Hey, what were you eating under there?”

and you would reply with “Under where?” which sounds a bit like “Underwear,” so they would then go “EEWWW GROSS YOU EAT UNDERWEAR?” and everybody would point at you and laugh as you discovered that society as a whole was worthless and irredeemable, and decided to become a super villain when you grew up.

The only reason that I am not a super villain right now (and maybe I am, you don’t know, do you?) is because the day somebody tried to pull it on me, I had sneaked (snuck?) corn nuts into class and had spent most of the class methodically dropping my pencil, reaching down to pick it up, and sneaking a few of the salty, honestly pretty disgusting snacks into my mouth underneath my desk.

So it went like this. “Hey Luke, what were you eating under there?”

“Corn nuts.”

“No… what were you eating under there?”

“I was eating corn nuts under there.”

“Under where? Wait! DANGIT!”

It was pretty funny.

Anyway. Fourth grade teacher. Loved ghosts. Our field trips weren’t to museums or water parks. He’d take us to places where ghosts had been spotted and try to get us to see them. He’d point behind us and yell “Did you guys see that?” He took us to preserved Indian villages (run by old white people). He showed us carvings and then told us that the previous time he was here the carvings were different. He took us to a magic spring that would grant immortality to our souls and then forbade us to drink the water because it might have bacteria in it. He even took us on a hike up a mountain on the hottest day of the year. When we were three quarters of the way up he set up a checkpoint to make sure that none of us were dehydrated. About half the class failed and had to wait and drink and pass out for a bit before they could go to the top. I wasn’t one of them.

He wrote a book about ghosts.

He insisted that there was a haunted elevator in the middle school nearby.

And he passed me when I did almost no work at all even a little bit in his class.

All is forgiven.

My Fifth Grade Teacher was Almost as Crazy as my Fourth Grade Teacher

That title doesn’t make a lot of sense, so let me qualify it.

My fourth grade teacher spent most of his time attempting to convince his class of ten and eleven year olds that the middle school most of them were going to (including me) was infested by the ghosts of Indians buried beneath it. Specifically the elevator.

You’ll hear more about him some other time.

Meanwhile, I’d like to talk about my fifth grade teacher, who was also crazy, but not so much and in a better way. His first name was Kerry, and I won’t tell you his last name because that’s just not a nice thing to do online. Still, a dude with the first name Kerry… Ryan is worse, obviously, but Kerry? I expect he was teased relentlessly. As in, his teachers themselves were getting in on the action. His substitute teachers would be all “Kerry? Is Kerry here today?” and he would raise his hand and they’d be all “Yes, little boy? Do you know where she is?” and he’d be all “I am Kerry.” and they’d say “Very funny. Is she here? Anybody know?”

After a while of him insisting that he was Kerry, they’d send him to the school psychiatrist, and by that point, he’d probably need it.

He was in the Air Force reserves while he was our teacher. Nobody teased him anymore.

I had so much fun in his class. I had a special seat in the middle of the classroom, perfectly situated so the transparency projector thing was directly in between his face and mine, so he couldn’t tell where I was looking or whether I was paying attention or not. I think he approved of this, honestly, because I was aweird kid. He once asked me why I was sucking on my arm. I told him it was because if I had a hickey, the vampires couldn’t get me. I remember getting a solemn nod for that one, because it made perfect sense.

Because of the thing that obscured his line of sight to my eyes, I would basically read books every single day for hours. Occasionally he’d ask me a question and I’d get it right (or, sometimes, wrong, but whenever that happened I tended to come up with elaborate explanations for why I was right. He eventually stopped correcting me.) but I never really paid much attention. Once or twice he caught me reading and made a big show about it by taking my book away, but I always had three or four spare ones tucked away in my desk or backpack. Besides, the books he caught me reading were so far beyond the reading level of the rest of the class I’m sure he felt slightly guilty denying an eleven year old the pleasures of Wodehouse when teachers find difficulty getting high schoolers to read it, much less fourth graders.

Hm. Looking back on it, he WASN’T all that crazy. In fact, now, it seems like he was a pretty cool guy. Why did I think he was crazy?

Oh! Right! The Stink Bomb Incident!

Somebody set off a stink bomb during class. Kerry stopped class immediately, declared that he would find the culprit and they would pay dearly for their transgression.

The culprit, by the way, was not me. I had never found stink bombs very funny, but that was probably because I could never get my hands on one.

Anyway, Kerry demands complete silence, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a matchbook. The entire class naturally assumed that he was going to start lighting children on fire until one of them confessed, or perhaps do the more sensible thing, find the culprit, and then light just him on fire. Instead, he lit the match, held it up, and started walking around the perimeter of the room, staring at the flame.

It felt like a wiccan ritual, which I had just been reading about. I started to chant a curse shield under my breath, just in case.

The match burned down and Kerry shook it out, probably cursing inside his head. He turned to us and said “That should have… When a flame comes into contact with the gas… let me try again.”

He didn’t elaborate. He simply lit another match.

Now the entire class was assuming that once he got close to where the stink bomb was set off, the flame would blossom into a glorious pheonix and claw the perpetrator’s eyes from his evil head.

At least that’s what I was assuming. Everybody else was probably just hoping for an explosion. Or maybe for the flame to change color.

None of that happened. The second match burned out, and then a third, and then the smell was basically gone and whoever did it was safe. Class resumed with a minimum of grumbling, and that was from Kerry himself.

To this day I have no idea who it was. Maybe it was just the overweight fellow in the front row who had eaten a little too much Taco Bell at lunch.

One day, I’m going to go out and get a stink bomb, just so I can see what happens to a flame when it goes off. It’s been something that has bothered me for years.

Ryan the Teeny Tiny Terror

My middle name is Ryan, and I always resented my parents for that. I kind of want to change it to Rook, but there wouldn’t really be much point. I thought it sounded like the sort of name you give a crazy person, and I was totally justified in thinking that. Ryans are crazy.

Seriously, if your name is Ryan, stay away from me, you’re totally insane. Guaranteed. If I ran a mental hospital, I would have a troupe of security guards secretly kidnap people named Ryan and put them all in a nice room with bouncy walls and see how long it took them to break out using their combination of devious genius and terrible insanity.

There were two Ryans in my elementary school. The first was a math savant who just happened to have a host of psychological problems. We used to make fun of him by singing the ABCs under our breath as we walked by him and watching him freak out.

Now that I think about it, if everybody around me spontaneously started whispering a children’s song, I would freak out, too.

Actually, somebody get me the number for Hollywood. If we start now, we can have this horror movie out by Halloween! Instead of another host of sequels, we can have a completely original script (c) the Ryan Corporation that itself can spawn hundreds of sequels! In the first, a man hears the ABCs whispered every moment of every day and it slowly drives him insane! In the next, it’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! And then Baa Baa Black Sheep! Oh man, those movies would be FREAKY!

Where was I? Oh yeah! Ryan the Insane but Brilliant Math Wizard. Naturally his tormentors (me included, because, as previously covered, I was a bit of a jerk. Okay, a huge jerk. Okay, a quantum jerk that somehow managed to not get shot repeatedly in the face for 20 years, and I still don’t know how.) didn’t know about his brilliance. We just assumed he was a special ed student that somehow slipped past the tests, and we put him through enough psychological torture that Geneva itself would have been perfectly fine if somebody accidentally water-boarded us in return, with a small side of car battery nipple clamps. Then I caught a glimpse of his math time trials in passing. We had one every week, and it took most kids two months to pass a single one. Ryan had never failed. Not even once.

I thought I was hot stuff because I had made it to multiplication before the rest of the class was out of subtraction, and Ryan was somewhere in the realm of calculus. In first grade.

I didn’t make fun of him after that. I didn’t DEFEND him, but I didn’t make fun of him. Like I said, I was a quantum jerk.

Enough about Ryan. Let’s talk about Ryan. This kid was incredible. I’m not sure how enough venom to make a cobra stop, look around, and say “whoah.” got into a person that small. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that his parents were getting a divorce, since one was a dwarf great white shark and the other was a midget bear and, try as they might, they just couldn’t work out the differences. He was giving sixth graders wedgies when he was still in diapers (which isn’t saying all that much. He wasn’t fully potty trained until 4th grade. Neither was I, but that’s a story for another time.) and abusing his needy girlfriends before he had even heard of puberty (again, not saying much. He failed sex ed twice.). He was short, he was mean, and I sprayed mustard all over his favorite sweatshirt.

It was an accident. I was messing around during lunch one day, and a friend of mine had a packet of mustard that neither he nor the four people nearest him could open. Thinking the packet invincible, I snatched it from the nearest fellow, laid it on the table, lifted my fist as high as it would go, and brought it down hard.

Apparently, this packet’s Achille’s heal was being punched by an idiot. It let out the most glorious spurt of mustard-blood I have ever seen.

You see, Ryan was sitting across the lunchroom/auditorium. Hitting him with mustard should not have been possible without some sort of bug in the physics engine that runs the universe, but every drop of that mustard ended up somewhere on him, without a single person between the two of us even getting a splatter. I felt one single moment of elation that I had just sprayed foodstuff on a person I didn’t like, (which is an extraordinarily cathartic act. Try it on your coworkers tomorrow!) but then I experienced the fastest turn around from elation to horror ever, before instant sober pills will be invented.

Because we locked eyes, Ryan and I, and I knew I was dead.

He cornered me later that same lunch period, pushed me up the wall, and asked my belly button why I had ruined his favorite sweatshirt. It was a rhetorical question.

I began blubbering like an overweight whale, and they have a LOT of blubber. I was sobbing so hard I could barely stutter out that it was an accident and that I didn’t mean to and something about my hand slipping, which I’m not sure why I said because my hand most certainly did not slip.

Ryan was completely speechless. I don’t think he had ever made a person cry before just by asking them a question, and he was kind of at a loss. Instead of beating me down like a dirty rug, he gave me a hug and told me it would be alright, it was fine, it wasn’t actually his favorite sweatshirt and he had a few just like it and his midget bear mother could probably get the stain out anyway.

And that’s how I got out of getting beaten down by the shortest, meanest person I have ever known. I used humiliation again.

I am like a humiliation squid. Whenever danger threatens, I just squirt it everywhere and pick up the gift cards and hugs just lying around in the aftermath.