A Brief Life History
I was born on August 27,
1983, in
When I was born, I weighed
over nine pounds. Had I stayed in that
age-weight percentile until today, I would weigh about 370 pounds.
I was taken home a couple
days later because the hospital wouldn’t keep me, and there I lived in my
parents’ house for eighteen years. Fortunately, the house still stands today,
despite my having lived there.
When I was five, I had my
first run-in with the law. I went to
Chuck-E-Cheese for a friend’s birthday party, and dove straight in the plastic
balls, forgetting to take off my shoes. As I climbed the slide at the end, I
noticed a tall, stern-looking man at the bottom, whose tallness and sternness
definitely revealed that he was a cop.
So I pled for mercy as I slid to the end of the slide, at which point, I
ran for my life. For weeks, I was
looking over my shoulder, dreading the day when they would catch me and throw
me in jail. Somehow, they never did.
When I was six, I really
loved playing the memory game, you know—where there are several cards turned
upside down that you try to match. But
then they told us in school that we shouldn’t play with matches. So I followed this guidance and put away my
memory game. Now I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast.
When I was seven, I was
really excited about turning eight. So that year was pretty much wasted in
anticipation, sort of like the month before Christmas.
When I was twelve, I entered
middle school, which was basically the Middle Ages of
my life. In those dark years, there was not much recorded history; as I recall,
it was during that period that fire was discovered, and fire-works.
When I was fourteen, I went
to my first stake dance. When the big night came, I headed to the refreshments
table and asked a girl to dance, knowing that she was less likely to bite my
head off on a full stomach. I don’t
remember much of what we talked about, but she did try to seem interested in
what I was saying, even raising her eyebrows once to complete the effect. But
that was many long years ago. The passing seasons of love and heartache have
blurred my memory of her, but she drifts sweetly through my mind every time I
look in the mirror and see my uneaten head.
When I was fifteen, a fish
jumped on me in my sleep, which would’ve been more surprising had I not been
sleeping on a boat at the time. I slept
through it, though, so I’m just taking my captain’s word for it, who woke up in
time to save the fish and me; that, and the evidence smeared all over my
sheets.
When I was sixteen, I got my
driver’s license, courtesy of Ali’s Five-Star Driving School (Motto: “Each star
represents a curse from Allah that will befall you if you dent my car”).
Fortunately, I maneuvered around the unnatural curses,
and some traffic cones, at least well enough to pass.
When I was eighteen, I went
to BYU for the first time in this life, and roomed with my cousin Mark. I guess
I wasn’t too bad of a roommate, since he’s still my cousin. Whenever we weren’t
studying and/or sleeping, we were usually devising a hot dog or pirate themed
prank to pull on some unsuspecting girls who, for the most part, were not
pirates and didn’t like hot dogs. These two facts alone put them way out of our
league, so that’s why we settled for pranking them.
At one point that year, a friend invited me to go to
Later that year, I received
my mission call to
Now I’m back at BYU, looking
for a nice pirate woman who enjoys hot dogs. If you ever meet one, send her my
way.
The End?