Keep Your Receipt

        This is another story of something stupid I did while living alone. The first one is below, if you haven't yet read it, but would like to (I highly recommend reading it. I give it 9 out of 3 golden celestial bodies, which is my second highest recommendation.)

         In January of 2006 I went back to living alone after having stayed with my parents for a month on what the university affectionately refers to as "Winter Recess." I settled myself and crawled in bed, awaiting the first day of class. I began hearing noises... spooky noises. There was a loud banging sound coming from downstairs. As I listened closer it sounded something like, "CLANK CLANK CLANK, I'M A SPOOKY CLANK AND I'M ALSO POTENTIALLY AN ARMED ROBBER/MONSTER!!!1" See Figure 2-1. As I listened closer still, it seemed more likely that the heater was making the noises- except that I hadn't recalled the heater making these noises before. I put my pants on and went downstairs to investigate. It was indeed the heater. I was happy that it was not a robber/monster, but annoyed that it made me put pants on.

Fig. 2-1, The most probable source of the noise.

        I spoke with my father in the morning and he spoke with his friend, who is a HVAC guy. Unfortunately, Mr. HVAC was super busy and my problem had to wait an entire week. In the meantime, I had to turn the heater off. Living without heat was an adventure, as winters in Utah are very cold. For example, after my first shower in an almost literally freezing home, I stepped out to dry myself, and my body started steaming. I had never experienced this, and thought I would probably soon spontaneously combust. Luckily, I did not combust. I believe my thermostat settled between 40 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

         I had to be creative to stay warm. The first night I put on extra clothes... many extra clothes. I probably gained 387,345.123 pounds with the extra clothes I had on. See figure 2-2.

Fig. 2-2 Self-explanatory comparison.

     The second night, in addition to wearing many clothes, I stole a huge pile of The U of U's school newspaper- The Daily Utah Chronicle, see figure 2-3. I had a small fireplace, so I sat in front of it for about an hour just crumbling up paper after paper and throwing them in to keep a fire going.

Fig. 2-3, The school's newspaper. That is me, on the right.

        On the third day I spoke on the phone with my mother and she informed me that the insurance company had said it would be okay to buy a space heater, and if we sent them the receipt, that they would reimburse us up to $35. I had always know what space heaters were, but I had honestly never heard the term "space heater," so when I was told to go buy one, I was pretty confused. I was thinking that this was some sort of new, super heater- something that worked magically, like space blankets. I soon realized that "space" referred to "area," not "outer space." But I had pretended to know exactly what they were, see figure 2-4.

Fig. 2-4, I am great at sounding like I know what space heaters are.

        Anywhom, so I went to the local KMart and began looking for these magic astronaut heaters. I found a nice looking one for about $30, so I bought it and went home. After talking to my parents again, I found out that we did not need to mail the actual receipt to Mr. Insurance; we could just scan it and email it to them. This was great news! Being as sneaky as I was, I figured we could send a receipt copy in, then I could just return the astronaut heater after the normal people heater was fixed, and I'd have $30 from the insurance in my pocket! I put the receipt on the kitchen counter, where I would not lose it.

        That night I put considerable effort into staying warm. I even managed to raise the thermostat up to the high 50's! I had my several layers of clothing on, put a Duraflame brand fire log in the fireplace, and turned the astronaut heater on. I also turned on the stove and had it cracked open. It was an electric stove, so I'm pretty sure it was safe. It was also pretty fun, thanks to Mr. Physics, a lot of hot air was blowing out. Feeling this hot breeze was pretty nice, but I thought I would be cool to also have a visual, seeing as how air currents are invisible, like germs, or even most ghosts. I grabbed the receipt by the end and held it over the open oven, see figure 2-5 (and I am tired of drawing, bear with me.) It was flapping pretty "legitimately" (that word is cool to use, lately) in the hot breeze. In fact, it was being blown upwards so strongly and legitimately that I thought it would be cool to let it go and watch it float there, and so that is what I did. I did not float. It fell.. Quickly.. Into the oven.. Onto the heating element in the oven.. And immediately combusted into flames... I wanted to grab it out, but there was absolutely no time. I could only watch the horror through the little window, see figure 2-6. Well, sh-t.

Fig. 2-5, A good idea.

Fig. 2-6, Uh.. Oops.

    
          The phone conversation with my parents was awkward. I pretended to be a lesser idiot who just misplaced the receipt, opposed to one who accidentally cremated it. But I came up with a partial solution. I went and bought another astronaut heater, scanned the receipt, then returned it. Live and learn... and then get luvs.

Hmm...

Well, I had wanted my blog to be primarily based on old letters that I had written to a certain girl years ago, but having read them again, I'm not a big fan of my older writing style. And my stories aren't as funny as I thought they were when I was 18. I think I'll just write new material, with some of it based her old letters. So perhaps the blog name isn't the most accurate. Oh well, let's get involved in some antics, not semantics.

Coming soon: Keep Your Receipt, a tale of keeping a receipt, but not keeping a receipt safe. This will be a good one as fire is involved in this story.  

Locked Inside My Own Room

        When I turned 18 years old in August of 2005, I started going to college at the University of Utah. I lived alone in North Salt Lake City until May of the next year. During my time I did some pretty stupid things (without drugs/alcohol, mind you) that make for some entertaining stories. This is one of them.


        On an otherwise quiet morning, one of the many stupid things I did was manage to lock myself in my own bedroom. It is not so difficult to lock yourself out of a room, but to be trapped on the inside was a new experience. It is pretty embarrassing to event admit, but I blame the lock on the door handle- that bastard.

        You see, this lock was no ordinary lock... Okay, I lied- it was an ordinary lock. It was the type where there is the door handle, and then in the middle there is the little thing that you can grip and twist to lock. Given that I lived alone, I had never used it before, but for some reason on this particular morning I noticed that it was broke. It kept on twisting freely without locking. I messed around with it for a minute and it finally made a clicking noise. I wanted to see if it actually locked, so I closed the door. It turns out, it did indeed lock. See figure 1-1. As it also turns out, it was still broke and would not unlock. See figures 1-2.

Fig. 1-1

Fig. 1-2

        So my situations is this- I am locked in my room, going to be late for class, and all I have to work with is:

1) A hardback book
2) A plastic "credit card type" card
3) A coat hanger
4) A pair of scissors
5) My own sexy body, and
6) A night stand

         For the sake of saving time, I will just say right now that the plastic card didn't do crap, and that the coat hanger only succeeded in making a really unappealing, God-forsaken sound. However, it came to my attention that I had, a year earlier, attempted a handstand in the narrow hallway at my parents house. It also came to my attention that after this handstand my parents became rather pissed off with me, for I had fallen out of this handstand. My leg had smacked the door handle of our bathroom door and taken the handle clean off. Aha! I had realized the door handle's weakness. With this in mind I started beating the crap out of the handle with the hardback book, in hopes of breaking the door handle off, for I knew it was possible. Much to my dismay the book- which tells the story of the rise and fall of "Napster" (the music thing)- failed horrendously and did not take the door handle off. In fact, the handle was fine and the book was heavily damaged. Really not surprising, the cheap piece of crap, I had bought it for only 99 cents plus tax at Media Play a while back, when they were going out of business, just for kicks and giggle. I mean, hey, 99 cents plus tax, can't beat that for a hardback book, right? Right....

        I needed to think of something quickly because I was going to be late to class. I decided to pull up my night stand next to the door and kick the door handle, in hopes of taking that son-of-a-gun clean off. Nope. This method proved to only be good at inducing unholy amounts of pain in my foot. This was also responsible for me- for the first time ever- shouting out a stream of curse words at a damn door handle; I was like a sailor. See figure 1-3.

Fig. 1-3

        So about 30 minutes have passed and I am definitely going to be late for class. I begin to grow weak, as I have no food, water, nor other provisions in my room. But I also begin to grow angrier. My heart rate is quickening, and my adrenaline is building up. Like a commercial for the U.S. Marines, I triumphantly climbed on the night stand again. (You know, those Marines are always climbing up shit in their commercials.) First, I place the book on top of the handle, so I could have a little cushion, and I start the kicking again. Damn this door handle. With the book, less pain was induced in me, which allowed me to kick longer. Was I finally going to get this silly door open? Nope, foiled again. However, and this is a big "however," as well as the climax of our story- our crescendo, if you will- however, it was beginning to loosen.

        As the handle began to loosen, I started pushing really hard on it. I put all my weight on it (all 125 pounds of it [hey, I'm at 145 now, so that's good, right?]) I managed to open up a little crack on the top portion. I sprinted (a whole 4 feet,) grabbed the scissors and shoved them in. I wasn't sure what I was doing, but at least I was trying to do it, right? Right.

        Long story, oh, about 3 sentences shorter, I finally was able to push on something with the scissors, which allowed me to pull the door open. Freedom. Sweet freedom. Oh, and I'm proud. To be. An American...  

        The aftermath: The door actually remained locked. The little twisty still turned freely and would not unlock. I was just able to hold something correctly with the scissors that allowed me to quickly pull the door open. So had I ever closed the door again, I would have been locked all over again. I bet whoever moved in after me had a pleasant surprise the first time they closed the door.

        The thing that really sucked is that I had been habitually late to class for two or three weeks leading up to this incident. That morning I had intentionally woken up about 20 minutes early in hopes of making it to class on time. Turns out that it was the latest I had ever been. I had no idea why I decided to mess with it right before leaving to go to school. But I guess there is a valuable lesson to be learned... At least, that is what I'm guessing.

Her Old Letters

        Most of what I will post are her old letters that I had written to entertain her with. Hopefully now they can entertain you too. Although, I'll probably rewrite them to flow smoother (and take out grammar mistakes and typos.) Maybe when I run out of stuff to copy and/or paste (which might be fairly soon) I'll have to write something brand new. So maybe I should have picked a different name for the blog... Maybe. Maybe not... But probably. Maybe I will draw you a peecture.