Best Friend Story 1/18: Laughter

     On April 18th of this year, I went to Disneyland with Hannah Gunson, Burke McComb, and Forrest Nerdin.

     While waiting in line for the new and improved Star Tours, we were messing around with our 3-D glasses and suddenly in the middle of our conversation, Hannah pointed out, "I wonder how long we could look at each other and not laugh."

     Seeing that we had not in fact tried this out in any way, shape, or form, I took this as a challenge and promptly suggested that we see how long we could hold eye contact without laughing.

     There was about thirty seconds of preparation (which consisted mostly of face-slapping and intense moments of frowning to ensure the maintaining of a straight face), and then the stare-off commenced.

     It was a very tense three seconds.

     MORAL OF THE STORY: Never challenge your best friend to a staring contest. You're just gonna end up giggling like a couple of schoolgirls.

Trees are the Spawn of the Devil

     Story Time 3

     Trees

     Today, upon finishing my first class of the morning, I was taking my normal route from the Ricks Building to the Taylor Building for my religion class. This is a walk I take every Tuesday and Thursday, so obviously it is something I am quite accustomed to. I'm walking along, listening to my music, and I even take the time to Snapchat a good friend of mine.

     So I reach about the halfway point (for those of you who have attended BYU-Idaho, I was walking by the Benson) where there was a wall of trees to my right and a parking lot to my left. Over the beat of "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence and the Machine, I heard what I thought was some sort of laugh. This stuck me as strange, provided that there is no such laugh in this music that I was listening to, but it was getting louder.

     I turned to see what was going on just as a person in a camouflage suit (you know, like the ones that the military uses) looming out of the trees at me.

     Now, when someone tries to scare me, I usually display one of two reactions. One of which is to not even flinch. The other is to hit something.

     And I wouldn't be writing this entry if I had chosen the first of those two.

     No, I did not hit the guy, though I did come dangerously close.

     Moral of the story: Don't try to scare me, there's no telling what I'm going to do.

On the Subject of Dads and Professors

     Yesterday I had one of those moments where I just thought to myself, I need to write a blog entry about that or I'll never be able to live with myself.
     That thing, or person, really, is my dad.
     Everyone loves their dad. At least I haven't met anybody who has a reason not to like their father. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my dad and what makes him so fantastic.
     He essentially grew up with three moms. His real mom (the one who physically gave birth to him), and two older sisters who were twelve and fourteen years his senior while his father was in the Air Force. His masculinity is probably safer than any other man I know.
     In his youth, my dad and his friend Tommy set a creek bed on fire. Also in his youth he nearly lit an entire forest on fire. And people wonder where my fascination with fire comes from.
     He knows how to fly a plane. Or at least he knew how to fly a plane. I'm sure we could stick him in a cockpit and he would be just fine. It's just like riding a bike, right?
     He married my mom, and if that never happened, then I would cease to exist. You can thank him for that one on your way out.
     When he was a seminary teacher, he took guns to his class.
     He kept my sister, Hannah, safe in a room full of 6-7 boys also when he was a seminary teacher.
     He taught his children how to build explosives using Sobe bottles (before they went plastic), gasoline, and fire.
     He takes his family dirtbike riding, skiing, and he encouraged me and my brother when we chose to play two of the most violent sports ever.
     He's probably the funniest person I'll ever meet.
     He gets just as excited as I do over superhero movies (minus the extra fangirling over... certain people).
     He can quote movies all day long. The most popular one seems to be in the movies when the villain starts talking excessively and one of us will lean over to the other and mutter "He starts monologuing!"
   
     Yesterday in my Light and Sound class, as a demonstration of mass distribution and pressure, our professor did the classic example of lying down on a bed of nails. And us, being the classic college students that we are, whipped out our phones to take pictures (this was also strangely encouraged by our professor). But before that happened, he asked his helpers to place another board of nails on top of him.

    I can feel the skepticism. Pics or it didn't happen, right?

    Well.

Exhibit A:

     And then he asked us to place a slab of concrete on top.

Exhibit B:

     So now, thinking that we had gone as far as we had planned on, I prepared a message when said professor announced: "Send one of the girls up here to stand on me!"
     Phones were pulled back out, cameras opened, and we waited to see who would step up to the place. Finally, we had a volunteer, and this is what ensued.

Exhibit C:

     Finally satisfied with what I had, I sent that picture to a group of friends on top of my own family with the following caption: "Today in class we sandwiched our professor between two beds of nails and stuck a girl on top. What did you do?"
     I should have known that my dad would reply with something ridiculous, but I was not prepared for what I got.
     He replied with, "Killed a badger with my bare hands, taught a crocodile how to roll over and play dead, and then helped an old lady cross the street."
     Apparently his mission was to get me to laugh so hard I would snort, drawing unwanted attention to myself, and he succeeded.
     My dad, ladies and gentlemen.