The Knife Part 1: The Unveiling

At the time, the story I am about to divulge was far more serious and there was little humor in it. However, looking back on it over a decade later I find it kind of funny. Also, I have changed the names of all participants in the events. I am quite certain non of these people will be reading this, but creating aliases in a true story has been something that I have always wanted to do.

Third grade. This is where our epic saga begins. We were on the home stretch of the school year. Summer was quickly approaching. However, this day was unlike other days. Things were different. Well, things weren’t that different. Not until lunch, anyway.

During lunch on this specific day, most of the fellas in my class sat at the same table; excluding Andrew, Marcus and Gregory. These guys sat at a different table due to lack of space. Back to my table. As I ate, I overheard a conversation involving a recent dare between two students, Peter and Corey. Apparently, at a previous date Peter dared Corey to bring a pocketknife into school. A discussion was emerging about whether or not Corey had followed through. It was decided that he would unveil the object on the playground, during recess. I remember thinking to myself that this was probably not a great thing to be around, but for some reason when recess time came I decided to go to the unveiling.

During recess, I joined the group that went to this large rock behind the garage that was on the playground. They chose the rock because of the large amounts of tree and leaf coverage. All in all there were six of us that went: Myself, Corey, Peter, Jeff, Jack and Jerry. As we all gathered around, Corey presented the pocketknife and began to pull out various attachments to the device (it was basically a mini multi tool). It was at this point that I began to regret my decision to be there. I repeatedly asked Corey to never bring this thing back again. Shortly before he pulled out the actual knife part, I decided to leave. You see, I tried to convince myself that if I didn’t see it, it didn’t exit. And that satisfied me, for then.

As I left to go play football, Jerry came with me. A little back story about Jerry, I considered him to be my arch nemesis. He wanted to best friends with my friend Andrew, but he didn’t want to be friends with me. So, on our way to play football we got into some sort of argument, which resulted in a pushing match. (When never got into actual fights, just pushing matches.) This particular pushing match resuled in Jerry getting a slight nosebleed. After all of this commotion, I started to forget about the earlier events of lunch and became more worried about Jerry telling on me (which I don’t think he did). At the end of the day, I thought I could put the earlier events of lunch behind me. Much to my chagrin, I would soon find out that this was not possible.

On a side note, the next day Jerry came to school and told me that he lost a gallon of blood the previous night because of what transpired during lunch. Liar, liar. Pants on Fire.

The Wise Man Incident

And here we go.

Every year when I was in good old Catholic grade school, we would put on two Christmas plays, one for the parents and one for the younger students and teachers. When I was in the seventh grade I was one of the Three Wise Men. This basically entailed that I walk around the the cafeteria/auditorium (it was the same place) and then present my gift to the baby Jesus. Well, my teacher asked if I would like to have a short speaking part as well. Of course, I couldn't turn that down. All I had to do was memorize a short, little paragraph on something about Jesus' birth, I can't really remember.

Anyway, skip forward to the day that we are performing for the students and teachers. I still don't know the lines completely. I tried to memorize them at the last second and I felt like I could pull it off. I even brought my littler paragraph to school, just incase the worst would happen and I forgot my lines. Well, the worst happened. (I no longer remember what happened to the actual 'cheat sheet'. I think I forgot it in my desk at school, but I could have also dropped it or just been to nervous to look at it. Just use your imagination.) Anywho, at this point I am panicing and shaking, like I tend to do when I get really nervous or hungary. So, I attempted to make stuff up. I talked about how excited I was for christmas, something about my family, and I may have even said something about Christmas presents. It wasn't very convincing BS.

All I could see in front of me then, was my teacher staring back at me with this look of anger and disappointment. I was so frightened I almost completely forgot that I had to go be a Wise Man. So I am on stage shuffling through some students, still shaking. When I got to the side of the stage, I saw the other two Wise Men just jump off, rather than use the noisy and rickety stairs. At the time I thought that this was a great idea because if I got off that way I wouldn't make as much noise and I hoped that everyone would forget about me messing up. Well, I turned around to hop off the stage  and I completely underestimated the distance from the floor to the stage (I was still shaking and in retrospect there was no reason for me to turn around). The next thing I knew, I was laying flat on my back looking at a bunch of kids and a few teachers staring back at me from that side of the room, kind of amazed that I had just done that. On a fun side note, I vaguely remember this one heavier teacher get out of her seat really quickly to see what happened and it look pretty funny.

In the end, I got up and finished Wise Manly duties for the day, got reprimanded by my teacher and I had a flawless performance on parent's night. I guess today's moral of the story, kids, is that you should always memorize your lines and eventually, one day, stop procrastinating.

The Bully in Hills

 This is story is somewhat short, but that's okay.

When I was younger, about 5 or so, my Grandma Mary Lou and Aunt Flo used to venture out near my house on the weekends and spend the afternoons with my mother, my sister and myself. On this particular day, we went out to the shopping center near Kennywood.

We were in a local department store named Hills. Unfortunately, this store no longer exists (in case you were curious). At some point during my trip to Hills, I acquired a quarter/nickel (we'll just say quarter). Before we left, we stopped at the concession stand near the entrance of the store. While I was in line, I noticed this nice little girl standing in line beside her mommy. So, I walked up to the girl, got in her face and proceeded to sing 'I've got a quarter and youuou donnn't'. There was no reason for me to do this, the poor girl wasn't even looking at me. After this, all I can remember is Aunt Flo flipping out for me.

The worst part was, she told my mother about it when I got home. And I am pretty sure I didn't eat my hush puppies (we drove through Long John Silvers), because of how sad I was that my mom knew what I did. So remember kids, the next time you decide to be a straight up jerk, there is always a chance that your parental guardian my find out. So be nice.

The Shelter Cove Catastrophe

I must apologize for the delay but due to the recent passing of my 13 inch Macbook Pro I had to use a school computer, in varying amounts of free time, to get my all important story across the Atlantic to my most loyal fan base. For this tale, we have to relocate to Hilton Head, and I believe the year was 1997 but I could be mistaken.

While in Hilton Head, my family visited this shopping area known as Shelter Cove. On every Tuesday night during the summer there would be a fireworks show, featuring a kid oriented singer, Shannon Tanner. He sang a bunch of folks songs and was kind of goofy.  I still remember the hand motions to 'Miss American Pie' (but that is unrelated). To promote his goofiness he wore a very interesting hat. Specifically, it was red, yellow, green and blue (I think, but maybe I'm just making this up), it had no bill and a propeller on top. I thought it was AWESOME. Much to my chagrin, my parents thought it was less awesome, mainly because of the price. Instead they elected to by me a glow in the dark necklace and maybe ice cream (I just assume ice cream, because you can usually win me over with it).

Eventually, the evening began to wind down and we decided to head back towards the hotel. When my dad was driving out of the parking lot and on to the main road, he began to go the wrong way and instantly had to make u-turn. My mother, sister, and I thought that this was very funny and we continued to laugh about this for quite a while. It was at this time that I began to fiddle with my glow in the dark necklace. At one point I heard a crack, similar to the one you would hear when creating the initial glowiness in the necklace. However, this time the necklace broke and the glow in the dark stuff shot all over my face. Instantly, my sister started crying, because her brother was now screaming and glowing in the dark. My mother, who is rarely ever without a water bottle, only had a can of Coke/Pepsi and was affraid that if she dumped it on me there would be some sort of weird reaction. So my parents pulled over to the nearest place for help, a hut-like house right off of the main road. Out of the house came a generous Mexican man that gave my parents a jug of water, which he recently purchased, because there was no running water in the huthouse. (Now, I know what you are thinking. How do I know that it was a huthouse, if I couldn't see. My parents actually pointed it out to me the next time I was in Hilton Head)


Eventually, we made it to the emergency room and waited forever. After never seeing an actual doctor we went home, called poison control and flushed out my eyes in the shower. The End. Glow in the dark necklaces are bad.

The Big Red Jeep

So I've been slacking, I'm sorry. Time to get to it.

In fall of 1993 my little sister was born. I was pretty darn excited, except for the fact that on the day we brought her home, I asked my parents about when we were going to take her back to the hospital. Just to drive my point home about how flustered and frustrated I was with this new family member, I proceeded to wet the bed that following night.

Lets fast forward a wee bit to the day of my sister's baptism. Lots of my family members came over my house to celebrate the joyous occasion. All of the young kids were playing in the backyard, while the parents sat inside of the house talking about grown-up stuff. Some of the youngsters thought it would be a good idea to drive my battery-powered jeep around my backyard and chase the other kids. Well, it slowly turned into one of those crazy improvised games that children are so good at making.  My cousin would drive the jeep in a circle and when he came around we would have to jump out of the way in the nick of time. I'm not going to lie, just like I am today, I was a pretty big fraidy cat. From what I can remember, I was afraid to barely step into the yard. When I finally did, I ended up flat on my back with the big red hunk of plastic stuck on top of me.

Immediately after this event, the by-standing children ran inside to get help. They did so by yelling, "Brett got run over by a car!". Quickly, the adults panicked and then realized that I had not been struck by an actual vehicle. However, my father still sprung into action at a moments notice.  He went outside to find that my cousin was still in the jeep, foot on the gas peddle, trying to get it off of me. My father's solution was to just flip the jeep off of me and it is possible that my cousin may still have been inside (but honestly, how would I know). After that debacle was over, my mom took me to my room, where she gave me a po-go (my term for a Dum-Dum sucker) and let me cry it out until I had one of those nice, big, long yawns that really calmed me down.

I never looked at my jeep the same after that day.

P.S. The day we brought my sister home from the hospital was the only time I ever wet the bed. Just in case you are keeping score at home.

My Birth

This one never gets old.

On December 1, 1990, my parents made an early trip to the hospital to delivery yours truly into this beautiful world. Originally, I was supposed to be born on Christmas Eve and then the 14th (in case you're keeping score at home), but I ultimately decided against it and felt that it would be best if I was out and about for my first Christmas season. 

On the day of my arrival, I decided to hold things off until the late-evening/early-morning. Thats right, Midnight. So, my parents were able to choose my birthday. December 1st or December 2nd.  Ultimately, they chose the 2nd, mainly because my cousin was born on the 1st and my aunt was born on the 3rd (and they obviously didn't want me stealing my cousin's thunder). However, I can't help but wonder if everything would have been different if I was born on the 1st, but that's mainly because I wish I could meet another me from an alternate universe.

Looking back on it though, I thank my lucky stars every night that I share my birthday with someone like the incredibly respected and non-controversial musical phenom Britney Spears.

The Beginning

Basically, if you are friend of mine you may be aware that I am not great when it comes to telling stories.  I tend to stutter and mumble, but most importantly I never seem to get anywhere.  The first question anyone hearing one of my stories generally asks is "Is that it?', the second is "What are you talking about?" and the third is "Was that supposed to be funny?'

Ever since I was in about the third grade or so, I began to tell the same, rather non-extraordinary stories to my friends and classmates.  Sadly, as I have grown older I have come to realize that these stories are really not as exciting as they once seemed, but I still enjoy them anyway.

I hope somebody finds this amusing.  These are my stories...dun dun.