Friday, November 19, 2010

The Non Chewer

I dated a lot of crazy girls in my time before I found my wife. Some men consider themselves “blond guys”, or “a leg man”, or even “into Asians”. Lots of different preferences but most of them have to do with appearances. Somehow along the way I became a man that fancied a girl with a little touch of crazy. And when I say a little touch of crazy, I mean my dating history reads like a list of Batman’s enemies.

One particular girl that I went on a few dates with is now known as, “The Non Chewer”. Everyone has one or two “crushes” in high school that are rather major. High schoolers tend to like one girl/guy one week and move onto another girl/guy the next, but these same kids also have one or two crushes that last for years. The Non Chewer was one of  the ones that stuck around for awhile. I barely knew the girl, but I had watched her from afar for quite some time when I finally found the courage to ask her on a date. By my own estimate I was somewhat of a loser in high school. I had great friends and always had stuff going on and I even sat at the cool table at lunch some semesters, but after school my friends and I spent our time having bottle rocket wars or playing video games instead of at the cool kid’s parties. I wasn’t Glee club material, but I also wasn’t baseball team material. So, when this girl said that she would go out with me I was pretty ecstatic.

I was sixteen, so a fancy Chinese restaurant was about the best I could afford. I figured Chinese food was my second favorite food (JAPANESE!!) and this girl was my second favorite crush so it was perfect. I picked the girl up and we headed out to dinner. I remember nothing of this date other than two things. I ate sesame chicken and it was amazing, and the girl showed a touch of crazy on our first date. Typically girls hide their crazy until it is too late to escape. You’ve met the family, you’ve introduced her to yours, you’ve signed up for classes together at school, all is well and then……..BAM, she thinks someone is stalking her twice a week and needs you to help.

The Non Chewer at least did me to courtesy of showing off her crazy before she had her fingers dug in deep. First of all after I ordered my sesame seed chicken, she ordered ONE egg roll. This is dinner and she ordered ONE egg roll. I am sure I should have been thankful to her for being a cheap date, but ONE egg roll is odd. No, ordering a kids meal would be odd. Ordering ONE egg roll for dinner was just down right creepy and worrisome. Whatever, at the time I thought she was hot. If she was only able to eat one egg roll for dinner to stay attractive then it could be overlooked. I had slept with a headgear just two years prior, so hey, whatever.

Once my sesame seed chicken and her ONE egg roll came I quickly dug in to my dinner. After a few moments she asked me to look away. I thought, “Oooo, maybe she is going to kiss my cheek when I look away! Maybe she is going to cut up some of that ONE egg roll and put it on my plate!” Neither of those things happened. Instead when I was instructed I could look at her again I noticed nothing had changed, except that she had one small bite missing from her ONE egg roll. Okay, crazy MIGHT be showing itself again but again she was attractive so I tried to overlook it.

A little more awkward conversation and a few more minutes of heaven between myself and my sesame seed chicken and she again asked me to turn my head. After I did so and then turned back to her nothing had changed except there were now two bites missing from her ONE egg roll. Yep, this girl did not want me to see her take a bite of food or chew her food. Girls often try and convince guys that they do not have bowel movements but never have before or since heard of a girl trying to convince someone that they were a Non Chewer.

And just like that I had a moment similar to in Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent turns from an attractive queen into a wretched smelling, fire breathing dragon. I would be fooled by many girls later in life, but this one had no skill with her craziness. She was too bold. I still see the girl occasionally around town, and I am sure she is just as pretty today as she was then but all I can see when I am around her is ONE egg roll sitting on a plate slowly disappearing one bite at a time.

Normal eating patterns become something that I looked out for in women when dating. Not all passed this test, but my wife did. On our first date I took her up to Warm Springs and we went to the Bullock House and she ate a normal, healthy amount of food. She didn’t eat more food than me and then vomit it up later (dated one of those too!), but she also didn’t eat ONE fried green tomato. That day was one of the first signs of many that she was the one for me.

You might like red heads, you might like tan skin, heck you might even be into pig nosed girls…but my word of advice is before you look into any of that make sure the girl will chew in public!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Razor Scooters Race

When I was in high school both of my brothers got a Razor scooter for Christmas. I am not quite sure why they thought this was a good idea. The Jones family is not known for balance, coordination, or athleticism in any way. Oh, we love sports, we just aren’t typically first picked….or second picked. Razor scooters were obviously created by a man that either hated children or has no understanding of children. Children as a whole tend to not be overly coordinated or be the best decision makers.

Sure a Razor scooter is perfectly safe on a flat, smooth surface while wearing a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, mouthpiece, a cup, and bubblewrap. Perfectly safe! But, when you take a razor scooter and use it on a bumpy, hilly road with no protection at all except the extra fat that most kids carry around….well, trouble will soon follow.

Note the “fat protection” did little to help.

So anyways, my brothers got these things for Christmas and the pain began. Mostly little falls where the freakin’ tiny tire would hit a rock or divet in the road and send one of us flying of the handle bars. Soon we started attempting to jump our bike ramp with it. All I will say is that that was neither safe nor wise. The true problem was the fact that I was about 16 years old and had friends who spent LOTS of time at my house. We would quickly grow bored with video games and frisbees and look for good ol’ fashioned trouble (See my post of Jackass). The Razor scooter provided ample room for trouble.

A certain tall, lanky friend and I decided to climb the hill in front of my house and race down. The hill was probably about a 35 degree angle. Nothing too exciting on a bike, but on two pieces of metal welded together and two inline skate wheels stuck on the bottom it was frightening. As soon as we got to the top of the hill I think we both knew we were being idiots, but being boys neither of us were willing to back down. We started down the hill rather timidly, but with each second that we didn’t fall we gathered confidence. Suddenly our worries weren’t about our lives, but about winning this race. The wheels shook as they speed down the hill, the wind made our eyes water, our hearts pounded in our chest, and suddenly three frisbees flew by our heads. Wait, what?

Yes, our other friend while watching us trek up the hill with razor scooters flung over our shoulders came up with a devious plan. He quickly grabbed a handful of frisbees and found a prime hiding spot at the bottom of the hill behind a bush. As we got about 3/4 of the way down the hill he jumped out from behind the bush and let loose all three frisbees. My friend racing behind my had nerves of steel that day and held his line, I meanwhile had my concentration on the bottom of the hill shattered, saw the discs flying at my face, and tried to veer slightly to the left. Only, there are no “slight” turns on a Razor scooter. You have one little wheel doing your turning, so my slight veer became me flying over the front of the scooter which itself made a quick stop. This was a very cool looking display of science and momentum, but it was also a very cool looking display of pain and anguish. I hit the pavement hard, but not hard enough to come to an immediate stop. In my mind I slid across the ground for a good 20 feet before coming to a slow stop.

The adrenaline flushed through my body and I had a moment like a mother who sees her child trapped under a car. Only my adrenaline was not focused on lifting a car it was focused on my friend. Luckily I love him and did not want to hurt him, and he took Jiu Jitsu lessons as a child and I don’t like being beaten up. So my adrenaline was not focused on lifting a car, or fighting my friend, but instead was focused on saying every curse word I had ever heard and making some new ones up all while screaming in my friends face. After my anger was calmed, and my friends stopped laughing we headed inside and let my mom bandage me up. Yes, my mom bandaged me up when I was sixteen. I was a momma’s boy and proud of it. I’ll blog on that later.

Weeks later after all my scrapes and bruises were healed up I would contemplate these event in my life. I definitely learned a few things. I learned that Razor scooters are the true killer, not cancer. I learned that I am only one skinned knee away from cursing out one of my dearest friends in the whole world. But most importantly I learned to never, ever, under any circumstance trust “one of your dearest friends in the whole world”.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Donkeybutt 3D

Recently eighteen of my friends of the male persuasion and I took a trip to the bank and withdrew our entire life savings. After pooling all of our money together we had enough money for seven of the nineteen to go see a 3D movie. After a particularly brutal fist fight the seven were chosen. Off to the movies we went. We went to go see a movie you may know by another name but which I will call Donkeybutt 3D. (My mom and wife read this blog so, I gotta keep it clean!)

If you have not seen this movie then most of what you know about it probably centers around pain, poo, and weiners. I must admit that this movie has a main course of pain, a side salad of poo, and a heaping bowl of weiner in it. Pain, poo, and weiner are not actually something that I typically enjoy being in my movies, or even on my dinner table but I love this movie regardless. Why do I love this movie? Because the main course of pain, the side salad of poo, and the heaping bowl of weiner are all wrapped in a delicious slice of joy.

Somehow the guys that filmed this movie were able to add laughter to a buffalo stampede, happiness to poop volcano, and joy to a woodpecker pecking at male genitalia. If you follow the Donkeybutt crew at all you know their lives are full of issues. Most of the crew is drunk or high during filming. Bam once had the least requested sex tape ever filmed of him and released. Steve-O recently won his battle with drug addiction. Don Vito couldn’t even be a part of filming thanks to a sexual assault charge. Bam couldn’t take part in most of the skits because of a beating he took to his head from some lady.

Not exactly lifestyles that are associated with joy. But, movies aren’t about what happens behind the scenes. Most of the time we are able to forget about who the actor is in real life and focus on the character they are playing. This is why Tom Cruise is still acting in Mission Impossible movies,Woody Allen and Roman Polanski still direct movies, and Mel Gibson is still making tons of great movies. Wait, forget that last one.

I know that these guys are completely crazy and have more problems than I could dream of. But it doesn’t matter because the characters they play in this movie are deliriously happy even during the grossest stunt. They rarely mention alcohol, they never mention drugs, they don’t chase girls, they rarely even make perverted jokes. It is as if 24/7 they spend their time spreading their poop on each other while skydiving naked into a shark tank. They aren’t, but they make you feel that way.

The joy that they portray makes me believe that this what life would look like if God had never created Eve, and Adam had never eaten that apple. I can picture my friends growing up and never hitting puberty and girls never becoming the center of our focus. Without the goal of attaining a female companion we could have quickly lead to a lifestyle similar to the one portrayed in this movie. I know this might sound far fetched but it really isn’t. When I was eight my friend had to get stitches after a fall from the monkey bars, when I was 10 I learned to build bike ramps, when I was 11 I started using the bike ramps for roller blades, when I 15 all my guy friends fell in love with mooning each other, when I was 18 my friend had a doctors visit after falling off a rope swing, when I was 19 my friend started a habit of pooping with the door open,when I was 21 two of my friends went swimming with alligators, when I was 22 I got married. Note how before I got married things were getting crazier and crazier? Now imagine we had not been chasing girls from the age of 13-21 and that I hadn’t got married at 22. Without women life would be one big Donkeybutt episode.

It wouldn’t been mean spirited or gross. It would be filled with joy. But, while I was laughing my head off with pleasure and dancing in circles from sheer delight a guy would rub poop on my upper lip and that is simply a lifestyle I do not want. No matter how happy I may be I don’t want poop on me and I don’t want to see all of my friends manhood every time I turn around.

So, Donkeybutt 3d was a very entertaining movie and made me envision a life that could have been, but more than anything else it gave me just one more reason to be thankful for the ever enticing act of coitous. Add it to the thousands of reasons I already listed sex under the awesome category.