Antics

My senior year in high school I took a class called "Athletic Training".  It would be wrong to call it a "class", though; it was more of a one-hour workout in the middle of the school day.  I liked Athletic Training quite a bit.  There wasn't any homework, and it turns out that picking up and vigorously moving heavily weighted objects is a good way for an 18 year-old testosterone slave to blow off some steam.

Somewhere around the end of the semester we had a substitute teacher come in to supervise our workout.  But, this wasn't just any substitute.  It was Mr. Gove.  Mr. Gove was the previous Headmaster of the high school who had retired a few years earlier.  By all accounts, Mr. Gove was an upstanding and well-respected dude; and, as I would find out a little later on, he had a set of real brass ones.  Anyway, I guess I was feeling quite senior-y that day, because I decided I would not be participating in the workout.  Instead, I went into the locker-room to get dressed and I never came back out.  I just sat there in that locker-room and did nothing.

Looking back, it was kind of wonderful just sitting there in that smartphone-less world... doing nothing...

About 20 minutes later, though, my tranquility was disturbed by a commotion outside of the locker-room door.  Someone was coming in.  I bolted for the nearest bathroom stall and quickly stood on top of the toilet.  The best hiding spot of all time.  I would be safe there.

I braced myself as the door creaked open.  It was Mr. Gove.  He began walking through the locker-room in a slow, deliberate manner peering between the rows of lockers.  He was methodical.  I didn't make a sound.  Mr. Gove then ever-so-slowly made his way toward the bank of toilet stalls where I had taken up shelter.  I didn't even breathe.  Surely, he would recognize that there were no feet under the stall doors and that would be enough to satisfy him.  Surely, he would be gone soon and I would be able to return to my peaceful solitude.

No.

Impossibly, Mr. Gove sauntered up to the bathroom stall where I was hidden and looked through the cracks.  He ACTUALLY looked through the cracks.  The AUDACITY.  I was shocked; offended, even.  But, I would be remiss if I did not admit that I was also a little bit impressed.  He was a worthy adversary.

For a moment there was silence.  We stared at eachother through the crack of the bathroom stall.  Finally, Mr. Gove bellowed out, "Doug..."

Nothing.

"What are you doing?"

With my dignity still fully intact, I looked Mr. Gove straight in the eye through the crack in the stall door and I responded, "This is how I poop."

How to Ride in a Car in 2004

In 2004, my younger brother got the iPod.  The iPod.  The original.  You know.  The one with the four buttons above the circular scroller?  That one.

We were pretty excited to have a new place to put our treasure trove of illegally pirated music.  We quickly emptied our Limewire music library onto the MP3 player, and the device was suddenly packed with great songs like "Unknown Artist - Track 1" and "Unknown Artist - Track 5".  

After transferring all of our music, the next step was to make sure that the iPod could be enjoyed while riding in my newly acquired (used) car.  We hopped into my 1999 Galant and made our way to the nearest Wal-Mart to pick up a tape deck adapter.  

Ahhhh the tape deck adapter.  A cassette tape with an auxiliary cord hanging out of it.  What an invention.  How the hell did those things even work?  No matter.

On the way home, my younger brother plugged the iPod into the tape deck adapter and pressed play.  

A nicer drive through the Missouri countryside has never been had...