Anecdotes.

[Bear]

First... came confessions where you could admit things and embaress yourself. Now comes the new forum sensations...

Anecdotes. Share those funny little tales of your life that have helped shaped your world or are just plain out ammusing. Embaress your friends and enemies, just plain show up people who've annoed you, give out a moral lesson, or just tell those heart warming tales that make everyone go awww...


To start with... Back in highschool there was a lad in my year... complete ass, everyone hated him and he fancied himself as one of the 'hard men' of the school, though the bullies thought he was a complete wuss. He was one of those idiots who wanted to be 'IT' but failed misserably thanks to having no charisma.

Onto the anecdote... during third year, he thought he could show off in sports by being the first back on a cross country run. Foolishly though, he thought taking a short cut through some waste ground and over a pointy fence was a good idea...

.... some time later, after everyone had gotten back, even the slow lazy one who walked the entire way, there was no sign of him. So... we got sent out looking for him... We found him straddling a fence, with his shorts torn and a pained look on his face... to cut a long story short... He'd slipped trying to leap over the fence and had manage to impale a very delicate area.... Surfice to say, for the rest of highschool, he was know as Womble... Womble = One Ball...

[harbino]

...yeah thanks for sharing that... ermm... haven't reallly got a reply for that...

But whilst we are rolling (no pun intended)

Very recently a mate of mine got bangcocked in our Sixth Form common room and apparently his balls went into his stomach and had to pull them down and was on the floor in pain. Funny thing is, he managed to walk up to IT pretty fine and had no watering eyes. FYI our IT lesson was up six flights of stairs.

[Bear]

I thought we needed a sufficiently scarey anecdote to start with. . And Bangcocked? I get get the effects but thats the firs ttime I've ever heard the expression for something that could cause that.

[NobodySpecial]

I think I'll just post a transcript of my diary from my trek to the first YearlyKos convention, featuring the 38 hour bus ride from northern IL to Las Vegas. Warning: Jack Kerouac I ain't.

EPISODE I

Ready to leave 6/6? Watch your original ride to the Metra station have to back out on 6/5. Spend about 8 hours finally getting someone willing to drive you 40-50 miles. Compound that with working a 10 hour shift, leaving you just enough time to send off an email to your roomie, finish packing, and away we go. It might be a bad sign when the boss offers to pay your tolls and gas, no?

EPISODE II

Good trip for short planning, only lose the Interstate twice. Wave at the Elgin Metra station as you pass by. Do the 180 to go back. Wait one hour for the train.

EPISODE III

The Metra train is nice. Then some young man in a knee brace ends it all by borrowing a pen and calling me 'sir'. Depressing to be reminded you're old before you get going on vacation.

EPISODE IV

Greyhound terminal looks nice. Could feed three kids in Rwanda a day on the cost of a bottle of fruit juice. Resolve to drink ditchwater. Realize that there's no water in Kansas ATM, wallet cries.

Place luggage in luggage line. Another passenger harangues me that I shouldn't 'place my luggage in front of his', accuses me of 'cutting the line'. Appeals to logic (You know, the luggage won't care how it's loaded) fall short, of course. Place luggage at back of the line to avoid whining. Watch said passenger let half a dozen people load in front of him at boarding call. Sigh.

(Side note: Be glad YK diaries aren't in original penmanship - I've moved south of 'Doctor' into 'Bail Bondsman' territory.)

Episode V

Pass out outside Bloomington. Wake up at St. Louis. Approximately 40 people disembark for layover. Approximately 135 attempt to reboard. Takes 5 miles to attain unconciousness again.

Episode VI

Kansas is still dry and flat. Still has a bumper crop of antiabortion signs. KU Biomedical College sign decorated with Satan horns - is that a bad sign?

Episode VII

Second dispute with a passenger. This one seems to think seats have reservations on them, even though ticket expressly states they don't. Suggest she informs the guy in my old seat that he should move instead. Logic again fails. However, good comes from evil - spend most of the remaining ride with a wonderful Japanese American Vietnam era vet named Fred.

Episode VIII

Has been more than 26 hours since Episode II. My kingdom for a shower. Kansas then picks this moment to go from 4 lanes to 2. Can we disown them?

Episode IX

Ah, Colorado, such a contrast from Kansas, mostly because it's green. Talks continue with a pair of future pit dealers from Kansas and a hippie from a small Minnesota town who lives in his RV. None of them like Bush, either.

Episode X

So, here we are in lovely NoMansLand (located between Denver and Vail), stuck on the side of the road. The driver says venting antifreeze is bad. Anyways, I hope the new bus has a seat level not cleverly designed to approximate a knife in my kidney.

Oh, and should I be worried that my bus driver's name is Donner?

Episode XI

Finally! Las Vegas! 9AM! Wait...you mean there is no courtesy shuttle from the terminal? Take taxi as close as you can get on the $9 in your pocket, walk rest of way.

Go to check in, not allowed! Can't check in until 12. Having been on the road for 41 hours sans shower, look for ways to avoid people. Needless to say, camera wielding person attempts to corner me.

Episode XII

What do you mean, I can't check in? Oh, wait, they have to wait for my roomie to get here, because my name's not on the reservation, just 'Guest'. Pleas just to use shower not working. Finally get to check email, roomie sent his final travel plans a half an hour after Episode II. Hide until 3.

Episode XIII

5 until 3. My roomie (although he doesn't realize it - the wonderful [redacted]) approaches line. Blinks at crazy, filthy person who says, 'I hope you're [redacted]'. But at last, I'm here, clean a few minutes later, and able to join society again! Yay!

So, folks, if you want to avoid this fate - well, just don't do this. I'm serious. I think the trip fried my brain, which is why I acted mucho bizarro during the convention - just ask anyone!

[Dirty n Evil]

I was once friends with a young lady named Leslie. She was going to be a single mother when we became friends, and because of my nature to be very big-brotherly towards vulnerable young ladies, I sort of became her surrogate partner. Not sexual, more of a special friendship to keep her sane as she went through this very difficult pregnancy. I'm sure she did develop some closer-than-friends feelings towards me, but I was happy just being a good guy. It gave me purpose at a time I didn't feel like I had much.

One night, I came over and she'd been having problems with her mother that she lived with. Well, I told her to wait a second, I talked to her mother, and smoothed things over so both of them were happy. She was so gleeful, she bounded up and kissed me (very unexpected) - and then pulled back with a shocked look in her eyes. In the process of kissing me, her water broke!

I knocked on her mother's door while Leslie cleaned up a bit, and told her what had happened. I also knew the route to the hospital very well, so I drove Leslie down to the hospital in my pick-up truck. She wasn't good with pain, so when the contractions started she was nearly rivalling me in evil. She asked me to do something to calm her down - so I sang. I sang the one song I'll never forget every word to. "American Pie" by John McLean. The first time I ever heard the song, my father told me afterwards that he always thought of me whenever he'd heard the song, because it became popular around the time I was born. So naturally, I learned the song by heart. And considering Leslie was about to give birth, somehow appropriate.

It's a realllll long song. I'm driving along a bit faster than the speed limit, using one hand to drive because she'd gripping the other one when the contractions hit. But when I'm singing, she's not squeezing me as hard. By the time I'm done the song, we're only a mile away from the hospital and I realize she's staring at me in wonder. I ask her what is it, and she tells me that she hasn't heard that song since she was a little girl - and it was one of her favorite songs as a child. She'd even forgotten how much she loved it, and was amazed to hear me sing it just then.

We get her into the hospital, her mother arrives. Nine hours later, she has a baby boy. Nolan Christopher-Alexander Powell. I'm his godfather. Unfortunately, Leslie was never really cut out to be a mother - four months after she gives birth, she gets scared of being a horrible mother and runs off to leave her mother to raise little Nolan. It's not like I have a special friendship with Leslie's mother, and I'm not the kid's real father, so I drift out of the picture quickly.

This was 16 years ago. Nolan's a teenager now, but the last time I saw him he was only about a year old. And while he'll never know who I am, I can be happy in the little part I played in helping him come into the world... even if I wasn't able to be the godfather figure I wanted to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNdEu9s5qUU - the song on YouTube, with lyrics

[Don Alexander]

Wow, DnE, that is one awesome story.

You're a hero!!

Sure you don't want that white paladin armor?? You are seriously deconstructing your evil image here. ;)

I wish I had such cool and meaningful anecdotes to tell. My life has been pretty empty...

Edit: Oh, I do have a question... I'm (despite my nic) not much into all this godfather/-mother business, but I always thought the godfather was the guy who took the responsibility on himself to care for a child in case something happened to the real parents. Right? Well, in your case, something actually did happen, and yet, you have not seen him since forever. I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just wondering if I got the basics right.

[Dirty n Evil]

Wow, DnE, that is one awesome story.

You're a hero!!

Sure you don't want that white paladin armor?? You are seriously deconstructing your evil image here. ;)

Perhaps when I was younger, I might have gladly donned it and worn it with pride. But as the years have gone by, I've since lived by the Oscar Wilde truism of "No good dead goes unpunished". I did good thing after good thing without worrying about good things happening to me in return. I always thought that eventually, things would have to turn for the better, don't they? They didn't. They kept getting worse. So, I turned to the dark side. I figured if I was good being good, I could be good being Evil.

[Don Alexander]

Perhaps when I was younger, I might have gladly donned it and worn it with pride. But as the years have gone by, I've since lived by the Oscar Wilde truism of "No good dead goes unpunished". I did good thing after good thing without worrying about good things happening to me in return. I always thought that eventually, things would have to turn for the better, don't they? They didn't. They kept getting worse. So, I turned to the dark side. I figured if I was good being good, I could be good being Evil.

So, it's a kind of "sins of my youth" thing??

I've mostly tried to do good. Fat lot that helped me. On the other hand, I have a glowing example in my life why one should not do evil. So I continue to do good and be a closet optimist. Well, at least I did one good deed in my life...

[Asaryu]

Awww...that's sweet.

My stories aren't nearly that impressive. But I can definitely empathise with the good things you do going unrewarded. I've sort of come to understand that the good things aren't going to get rewarded, but hopefully they will inspire others to do good things. I've had a couple of set-backs, where I was so very sick of feeling used by the world that I did some very selfish stuff, but that hurt so much more. I know I can't give everything I have to the world, but I can give some of it, and if I don't give what I can, then I can't live with myself.

...

This will need to be continued later. I have just found the boy on the couch where he fell asleep so as not to bother me while I compute. I need to put him to bed.

[Bear]

And a friend of mines just remind me of a little heroism of my own... not that he can really call me a hero when he's in the army and was one of the first into Iraq at the start of the war...

Anyway...

Some years back while I was still in college, on a cold and dark winter night when it was starting to snow... Me and my friend had been out for the night at a cheap student bar and it had gotten to past 1am in the morning with my friend having accidently spent the Taxi fair home... again... So anyway, we started walking home in the cold and the snow... nothing we'd not been used to before. And he gets a phonecall from his then girlfriend... Its nearly 2am in the morning, its cold and we're drunk... And she's just phoned to say that she's dumping him because she's been seeing another guy behind his back...

My friend is of course upset and demands to know who it is... unfortuantely, we know who the guy was... So he calls him up to confront him and tells him to meet him so they can have it out. So we walk off to go confront this guy and my friend gets me to cross the road so he thinks my friends alone... which was a good thing...

Walking down the road in the cold and the snow and in a drunk haze we get to where we're meant to meet this guy so they can have it out. Few minutes later he comes around the corner and approaches my friend... Then pulls out a 12inch long meat skewer and tries to stab my friend... fortuantely he's fast despite being drunk and easily avoids it, then the dumbass tries to start slashing at him with it.

Luckily me being accross the road and seeing this I run straight accross and manage to quickly grab the guys arm, twist it up his back and get him in a chocker headlock which drops him to his knees before he can manage to land a clean hit on my friend.. At this point he calmly takes the skewer from the guy, and jams it to the hilt in a nearby tree.

Surfice to say the guy pissed himself at this point as he thought we were gonna kill him for comming armed to a fight... Instead we just push him to the ground into the puddle of his own urine, tell him what we think of him and walk away... then laugh as we see him trying to go for his weapon again and its totally unable to pull it out from the tree.

[Dirty n Evil]

Wow. That was some experience, Bear. Lucky for your friend you were with him.

Now, I remembered a little story that's bound to make everyone question if I have even a scrap of sanity.

I used to work in a convenience store, I ran the night crew. I was outside at around 4 AM, sweeping up the filthy cigarette butts that people flicked to the sidewalk because they're lazy, when a guy in a huge white Chevy pickup pulls in. My other co-worker is inside, so I keep at my job with the silly little broom that's only three feet tall. I'm at the far end of the parking lot, when the guy gets in his truck, and starts to pull out of the parking lot backwards in a hurry.

My co-worker Greta comes waddling out (she was only 4'8" and perhaps 300 lbs, but really nice) and yelling at me that he grabbed a 12-pack of beer off a display and was running off with it. Still holding the stub of a broom in my hand, I chase after him trying to get his lisence plate number - but he's driving backwards so I can't do that very thing. Even still, I come out into the road because he's just spotted the same thing I do. There are cars coming up behind him, and he has maybe a minute to get out of their way. There's a big brick wall on one side of the road, and an oversized median on the other that will shred the underside of his truck if he goes over it. Behind him, the cars are coming closer, and in front of him in the middle of the street... is me. I smirk at him, widen my stance, and gesture with the stubby broom for him to drive on forwards.

Rather than face me, he actually drives over the median. I hear metal scraping and grinding, damaging his still fairly new pickup truck for far more damage than this stupid 12-pack of beer could ever be worth. Greta finally huffs and meets me at the edge of the parking lot, near hysterical. "Chris! I don't know what's worse... that you just played 'chicken' with a pickup truck... or that you won!"

[midgetshrimp]

My family forgot me in Illinois on our way to a family reunion in Wisconsin when I was six or seven. I don't remember the event. One parent says I was bawling my eyes out, the other says I was just sitting on the curb waiting to get picked up. The realized I wasn't one of the 7 people jammed into the '65 Chevy Impala that we took the trip in about half an hour after they left the rest stop (where they forgot me). All I actually remember from that trip was riding my first roller coaster at six flags, stopping at a 24 our burger joint at 1 am somewhere in Ohio (they had an arcade, my brothers and I played for a while after we ate), and catching fireflies at the reunion.

[Bear]

Okay.. that was Epic DnE... we need to rename you the Black Paladin

[Don Alexander]

Okay.. that was Epic DnE... we need to rename you the Black Paladin

Heh. He might appreciate that more than my negative color suggestion.

@bear: I hope your friend's ex felt like shit after that, for kooking up with such a guy... On the other hand, it does seem it was your friend who was seeking the conflict...

Well, I've never been in a fight nor have I played chicken with a pickup truck, so I'm still looking for an anecdote... My life is boring, it seems...

[Bear]

I point out we were both drunk and young when that happened, so its only fair back then is someone steals your girl you want to give him a good kicking. Still no excuse for the ass to bring a deadly weapon with him. Being humiliated by pissing himself was a bigger punishment then whatever we could beat out of him though.