it's nothing special....it's just kriss

Okay today's humorous mission story comes from Allentown. Wendy and I were walking down a very narrow ally one dark night on our way home. I turned my head to the right to say something to Wendy and CRACK!!! The next thing I knew I was on my knees in the fetal position, clutching my left temple - just WAITING for my brains to start oozing out onto the concrete. Wendy was kind of borderline freaking out and kept asking if I was bleeding. She was sure half of my head was missing. I finally stood up and realized what I had done. I had turned to face Wendy at the exact moment that I approached a window air conditioning unit hanging out of a bedroom window. The corner had caught me square in the left temple. That's gonna leave a mark. Don't worry, I still have the left side of my face - and it sustained no permanent damage. How do I know? It is still able to get chubby.

I decided that since my life currently lacks a great measure of humor - I will stimulate it by recounting humor from my mission. Today's episode: How I became flea-bitten. I was serving in Pottsville, Pennsylvania with Ciara Dresser. There are a couple of important things to know about Pottsville in order to fully appreciate this account: 1) More than 50% of the population HAS spent time in the psych ward. 2) The other 50% of the population IS currently spending time in the psych ward. We had been teaching Teresa...but we quickly learned she fell into the 100% of the population I described above, so we stopped meeting with her. She called us one day in a panic because she couldn't find her cat. We took pity on her and went to help her find the dang cat. We found it alright - and just in time. It had been severely eaten by fleas and still had literally hundreds on it. I will spare you the gory details -but the cat had to be rushed to the animal hospital. The doctor at the animal...

Okay, so I basically just tried to hold the door open for the guy walking behind me - the door to the girls bathroom. Yeah, cuz that's not embarrassing at all! Fortunately he didn't say something like 'Thanks, but I think I'll use the MENS room'. That reminds me of a time on my mission when we knocked on the door of an older gentleman and asked if we could come in and talk to him for a minute. He said no, he was getting dressed. I remember having a sort of out of body experience at that moment with my conscience screaming 'NO, DON'T SAY THAT!' at the same time that my mouth was asking, 'Well, can we help you with anything?' The gentleman looked at me oddly and then said, 'Uh, no, I can do it myself thanks.' If only I would learn to keep my mouth shut!

There is a family in Lindon that happens to be very good friends with my family. They asked if I could come live at their house for a week while they went on vacation. So I made sure to pack all the essentials (chocolate, ensign, chocolate) in my little orange suitcase and moved in Sunday night. Things had been going great - inspite of the extremely hyper chocolate lab and the severely co-dependent cat that both live there. 'Had been' was definitely the key part of that sentence. I came home late Tuesday night and went to turn in for the night only to find small pieces of foil littering the bedroom floor. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were from. Then I saw my orange suitcase...the foil was DEFINITELY coming from there. Uh, so basically the dog had found and EATEN MY CHOCOLATE BAR! And not only that, he had also chewed through most of my Conference Edition of the Ensign! I kept thinking 'I hope you get sick! You just ate the two MOST important things...

So this is the story of how I became a cookie monster. I found four dollars outside of our building one afternoon. I decided to be honest and turned it in to HR. On Friday, HR decided that since no one had claimed the money, I could have it. I was stoked! I put my precious four dollars in my pocket and immediately started finding great things to spend that money on. All weekend I was so excited because I had four dollars and I didn't have to work for it, pay taxes on it, or even pay bills with it...that four dollars was ALL MINE! Well, the weekend ended and I STILL had four dollars. Yesterday, Monday, I was sitting at my desk as the day drug on and on and on when suddenly I remembered my four dollars. I could get a cookie! I could get a caffeine fix! I could get Mac & Cheese! I ran down to the vending machine...selected the delightful fudge chocolate chip cookie that I was salivating to consume...I pulled out my wallet to get one of my precious four dollars and there were NO do...

So I think that someone crept into my room a few nights ago while I peacefully slept in my not so comfy bed and performed minor surgery on me because it seems my funny-bone is missing. I am not feeling freaking hilarious anymore. Maybe it's just a passing phase and soon everyone will be subjected to my not-so-funny-self-entertainment again. I wonder if funny-bone surgery takes six or eight weeks for recovery. Should I be on light duty until I recover? Hmm...maybe I'll consult a physician.