The Realm of the Pachyderm

I forget whether or not I mentioned it, but Grandma and I have made plans to audition for Humor U this upcoming September. We've scoped out the various comedy scenes across campus and come to the conclusion that Humor U is by far the most enjoyable. That, and we're fairly confident that we're hilarious.

That being said, I've started to stockpile funny things that happen to me in the hopes that I'll strike stand-up gold. Here are a couple of instances...and yes, you may tell me if I'm a loser and/or completely dumb rather than funny.

1. The Dog Incident: Anyone who's ever lived in Utah can attest that the weather is unpredictable. A whole week of spring weather being decimated by a freak snowstorm is of less mention than, say, the fact that human beings inhale and exhale while breathing. That being said, it surprised me very little when the weather turned nasty the day that my aunt, Animal Advocate, helped me move out of Wyview. As we drove through American Fork and glanced at the ominous thunderheads in the distance, a conversation began...

Animal Advocate: "So, what do you want to do tonight?"
Gwennifer: "No way, I have no idea what's in American Fork. You decide."
Animal Advocate: "Well, you want to drive the Nebo loop? It goes up into the mountains and..."

She trailed off as we both stared at what was quickly shaping up to be "Return to Night on Bald Mountain".

Animal Advocate: "Well, maybe not...how about Thanksgiving Point? The tulip festival is going on--"

The car suddenly jolts to a stop. I could tell from the trembling in my bone marrow that something catastrophic was about to happen.

Animal Advocate: "I recognize that dog!"

One five-point turn in a very narrow street later, I still hadn't seen this dog. That is, until she began gang busting down the street after what appeared to be an orange and black rabbit. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that what we were pursuing was a miniature Doberman of sorts. Heck, I was amazed she'd even seen the darn thing in the first place.

What followed was a very shady chase around the neighborhood after what was clearly a terrified pocket puppy. She tried backing into yards with her car, whistling for it out the window, and having me jump out of the car to scoop it up mafia-style [alright, I volunteered to do the last one, but just so I could actually take part in the story]. Surprisingly, Fido wasn't digging this idea, so he continued to run from us--into traffic. He almost got nailed three times before finally tore through some hooligan's front yard.

Now, I know you've been enthralled up to this point, but I believe it's the following dialogue that makes this whole story worth telling...

Animal Advocate: "Hey, did you see that dog run through your yard?" [How could he have missed it?]
Hooligan: "Yeah, he's ours."

Animal Advocate then paused for a moment, perhaps recovering from the shock of discovering that she in fact wasn't familiar with the quarry after all. Oh, if only it had ended there...

Animal Advocate: "...well, he almost got hit three times!" [Because we were chasing him!!!]
Hooligan: "Yeah, he's stupid like that. He's a dog."
Animal Advocate: "Yeah, well, who's stupid!?"

Fast forward to ten seconds later. We've sped away as fast as we can in the car and I'm staring straight ahead in terror of the prospect of being gunned down by a hooligan. Why should I have to die over such an ambiguous insult?! Animal Advocate has begun a bitter diatribe against irresponsible dog owners without adequate fencing in their yards. It has begun to rain.

Then, just moments later...

Animal Advocate: "So, you want to go to Thanksgiving Point?"

2. The Preposterously Sticky Gum: There are some things in life that I like to call "stage business in real life". You've seen those movies where people get into ridiculous fixes and perform all kinds of acrobatics to get out of them, like a man house sitting for his boss bends down to tie his shoe, which knocks over a vase which lights a match and sends it flying into a highly flammable curtain which catches fire. The man is then left to deal with saving the house and his job. Things like this shouldn't happen in real life, right?

I went to a YSA fireside last night. The people who volunteered to host it have this positively gorgeous house, and I decided that I was going to tell them once the meeting was over. It was in this same moment that my gum got stuck to my lip after unsuccessfully trying to blow a bubble.

So post-meeting, after effusively complimenting the house people's decor, I decided that the gum I was chewing simply wasn't cutting the mustard any longer. I went over to the trash can to throw it away, forgetting COMPLETELY that it was the ultra sticky gum that never comes off of anything. I popped it into my hand, began rolling it furiously around in my fingers so as to avoid sticking, and stick it in the trash.

If the giant gum rope still attached to my palm wasn't enough to tip me off, the subsequent rope that flew out and attached itself to the nearby cabinet face was. I frantically scraped it off, hoping and praying that God would be merciful and allow the hosts not to see me, even if everyone else in the room was blatantly staring at my idiocy. Thankfully, I cleaned it off the cabinet, but my hands were still covered in this tropically flavored nightmare.

Hoping to extricate the gum from the my hands for good, I sidled over to the man of the house. We'll call him The Jolly Boatman...

Gweniffer: "Excuse me, could you tell me where your bathroom is?"
The Jolly Boatman: "Sorry, what?"

In his defense, my mortification was causing me to mumble quite a bit. I don't remember whether or not I was trying to be discreet and/or stealthy, but either way he couldn't hear me. We tried this about three more times until I exasperatedly half-yelled "BATHROOM!"

The Jolly Boatman: "Oh, sure! Up the stairs, to the left!"

I quickly shuffled my way upstairs full of renewed hope that my hands would soon be free. However, upon entering the bathroom, my flustered self bumbled right into a cabinet...table thing. The collision caused a bottle of lotion and the lid of a latern full of cotton balls to go flying, of course causing a clatter. It's only fitting that they'd think I'd destroyed the bathroom on top of wrecking their kitchen.

After hastily replacing the flying objects, I began furiously scrubbing my hands in the sink. Thinking that I'd at last gotten rid of all the gum, I began to dry my hands--only to discover that I was getting gum all over the towels.

Cursing my stupidity for ever even thinking about the word "Gum", I hustled downstairs and blushingly told my mother that we really needed to leave. She consenting and allowed me to rush her out while I antisocially refused to shake hands with anyone. The cherry on the cake of the whole night was the brick that I almost kicked out of their walkway in my haste to flew the wake of my destruction.

Apparently, I wreck homes that I find attractive.

Well, that's all I have for now. In the event of more lunacy coming my way, I'll be sure to post about it.

P.S. I'm probably working at Chipotle for the third summer in a row :/

I'm awesome.