Mind in the gutter, part II

Why hello there, friends. Glad to see you on this Tuesday, replete with the requisite Tuesdaica. When I left you yesterday, I was in the middle of telling you about my bowling league and the events of last Thursday night. If it's ok with you, I'd like to continue with that subject matter. Thank you, I appreciate your support.

As I clearly illustrated with the team names in my last post, the league isn't exactly what you would call "run of the mill." Personally, I don't really call anything that, but hey, you're entitled to your own phrases. What we didn't realize until week one of the league was that people didn't even have to have their real names in the system. That very first week, we bowled against "Dr. Jones," "Daddy," and "Gusuavo" (a great nickname for anyone named Gustavo, I must say) for example. You can imagine that I felt a little plain having "Peter Klein" show up for me when I could literally choose anything instead.

Some folks in the league have the type of nickname I'd expect. One team (Pulled Out Early) has Chief and T-Bone, for example. There's a Big Jon, a Tiny, and G-Money as well. All within the realm of what I consider to be normal nicknames. Then we branch out a little. One team has both Tatas and VaGina together. Another has Rambone and Ass-Ass-N bowling back to back. See what I mean?

Then they just get bizarre. There's someone "named" Phe Phe Pheassco, a young woman named Oshikotikimas, and her teammate, Ohnarhasta. Oh yeah, and someone who goes by Scott Baio as well.

There are two teams whose named I approve of for different reasons. First there's the West Canaan Coyotes, named after the high school football team in the movie, "Varsity Blues." While that's cool to begin with, they followed through and each member is named after one of the characters. Even though we didn't have the most pleasant time bowling against them a few weeks ago, I still admire their work there. The other team is the curiously-named Team Pain. The bowlers there are named She Poured, Us Drinks, To Drunk, and We Drunk'em. I think a lot - too much - about names and things like that, yet the thought never crossed my mind to use four bowlers' names together to form a grammatically incorrect sentence. Nicely done.

It makes me wonder what I would've chosen for my name if I had known that we could do that. When I use to bowl recreationally with friends back in the day, I'd sometimes put my name in as Malcolm. That way, when I got a strike, it said "MALCOLM X" on the machine. I ended up being "MALCOM /" sometimes too, but that didn't work as well. I don't think I'd want that for an entire league though. Well, it's something to consider for next time. For now, our four real (and really Jewish) names all stand out like sore thumbs, but we're used to it now.

Back to last Thursday: We were bowling against Team Pain (the sentence guys), and even though I was bowling like shit, we still had a chance that first game. The tenth frame came down to my homey Rockabye versus We Drunk'em, and they took turns going. We Drunk'em got a strike, a six, and then left one. Rockabye picked up his spare, and looking at the screen, we saw that he needed a strike on this last ball for us to tie. The team on the lane next to us started watching, my parents leaned in with anticipation, and I walked up behind Rockabye ready to congratulate him. He took his steps, had a nice follow through (shaking hands with the head pin, of course), and all ten fell down. It was glorious, and even the other team was high-fiving him for his clutch performance. Greg, Rob, and I were all below our averages for the game and yet we tied due to the heroics of Rockabye.

The next game...eh, not so much. Three of us bowled pretty well, but the other team was on fire. We lost by almost one hundred, meaning we needed to win by that much (plus one) in order to take two and a half of the four games. My parents acknowledged that they were bad luck and were about to leave. "Hold on," I said, "Wait for my strike in the first frame before you go." I walked up, let 'er rip, and the ball did what I asked it to for almost the first time all night. The pins exploded, and I walked back making the face that one makes when he says something cocky and then follows through on it. "Maybe we're not bad luck after all," they said. Then Greg bowled a 6, and they bolted. Greg's next three frames were all strikes, and I texted my dad after each one to illustrate how completely the hex was lifted. As the frames went on though, despite two of us having above-average games, we lost by twenty something and therefore only won half a game for the week. That's gonna hurt in the standings.

Did my parents jinx us? I don't think so. My lovely wife doesn't think things work this way, but I take the blame for not wearing my special bowling boxers. We've lost all four before while I've worn them, but the fates seemed to be especially against us this time. I already washed them for this week, so we should be cool.

I keep trying to think of cool team names for upcoming years in which we can have personal names that match, a la the West Canaan Coyotes. We could be Kiss and fight over who gets to be Gene Simmons. We could be the Durham Bulls and have Crash Davis, Nuke LaLoosh, and two other guys. Hmmm, I have to think more about that. Any suggestions, gentle readers? Here's a suggestion: have a great day. I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Night moves

Happy Tuesday, my peeps. Not the marshmallow kind, but the human, living and breathing kind. I don't like the spelling of marshmallow, by the way. It really should end with "mellow," don't you think? Yes, you do.

Yesterday morning, we took our sweet pup Hallie to the vet before work so she could have a thorough teeth cleaning that had been recommended by different vets over the past year plus. We felt really bad doing this to her, especially since she had to be put under for the procedure. The only time she's been put under anesthesia before was when she was fixed, and it made her nauseous and super lethargic, so there was some basis to my concern. I kept picturing her lying there asleep, and wondering if she'd be twitching like she does during natural sleep. I know it's a common dog thing, but I swear Hallie's little twitches are the cutest. Only she knows what those dreams are about, but I have a feeling she's chasing flies in a good amount of them. You should see her hunt them; it's really quite impressive.

The thought of her in-sleep twitches made me think of similar things that have happened with me and my human companion, my lovely wife. Right as she's falling asleep, Amber twitches a lot. Much more than the average human, I believe. Sometimes they wake her up, which always results in the same thing: she'll look up at me and proclaim, "I fell asleep." "I know," I'll say with a chuckle, since I had been expecting that exact phrase.

It's not always so sweet and nice though. Like the time she punched me in the face, for example. We were sleeping, facing toward each other, and suddenly I felt a hand hitting me square in the face. I opened my eyes just as Amber was doing the same. She realized what happened and apologized. I asked if her subconscious was mad at me, but she didn't know. That's why it's the subconscious, I argued, and she told me to go back to sleep. To be fair to her, it wasn't a hard punch at all, but it was her hand moving toward me and hitting my face, so I think I'm allowed to still call it a punch.

I'm not immune to the twitch monster myself. My movements alway have to do with the same topic though: sports. More precisely, me playing sports in a dream and my body wanting to play along. My most common nocturnal move is to be passing a basketball to someone (since I'm a team player), then wake up when my arms get in on the action and try passing in real life. If it wakes Amber up, she knows what I mean when I say, "I was passing again."

A couple of weeks ago, it was another sport that tricked my half-asleep body into trying to play. I was on my back with my arm around my lovely wife when we were both awakened by my hand hitting the top of her head. "Sorry," I immediately said. "I was bowling." Yes, gentle readers, in my efforts to have a nice follow through and shake hands with the head pin, I unintentionally shook hands with my wife's head. Big difference, I know. I'm beginning to think it's a good thing I don't dream about professional wrestling; I wouldn't want to accidentally suplex my wife.

Ok, here's a story for you. It's related to sleep and half-awakedness, so I find that's close enough to put in this post. That coo wit you? Sweet.

During a break from college, I was sleeping over at my parents' place. I still have a bedroom there, while my brother's room became an office within two seconds of him moving out. What can I say, they like me more. In any case, it was just a little after daybreak that I awoke. I was on my stomach, and my right arm was tucked under the pillow. Suddenly, I felt something with my hand also under the pillow. I was confused, so I investigated it a little further. As I touched this object more, a very scary thought dawned on me: it felt like the head of a snake. I opened my eyes a little wider. "There's no way it's a snake," I thought to myself. "Be rational." With that in mind, I touched it again. This time it felt EXACTLY like the head of a snake. I moved my thumb around the front of it and felt its smooth mouth area parted at the lips. Then I touched around the top of the head and felt the bony points on each side of the skull. "Holy shit," I thought, "There's a fucking snake under my pillow! Ok, ok, here's what I'm going to do. On the count of three, I'm just going to jump up quickly and get away from the bed to let it escape." I took a deep breath and then slowly counted to three. Quickly, I leapt from the bed and started to back away. As I did that, a dead weight hit me in the stomach. I realized what it was almost immediately: my very asleep left arm.

I replayed the scenario in my head and figured it all out. Apparently, I had both arms under my pillow. My left arm was so asleep that it couldn't feel anything whatsoever. My right hand came in contact with "a snake," but it was really just my sleeping thumb. I kept touching it but never felt the sensation of being touched. My mind went a little crazy, and that was that. I'm telling you though, it really felt exactly like a snake.

Every once in a while when we're holding hands, Amber will stroke my thumb with hers and say, "Ooh, it's a snaaaake!" I guess I deserve that, because it would sound pretty ridiculous to just say, "Peter once thought his thumb was a snake" without any explanation. I know I'd mock me, at least. It's kinda like the time I thought my leg was a dolphin. Not really, just seeing if you're paying attention. Have a great Tuesday, my friends, and you'll be glad to know that Hallie's doing just fine. See you all tomorrow.

Got any sleep-related or non-sleep-related items to share with me? ptklein@gmail.com is there for the clicking.

Some real goat-getters

Greetings and salutations on this Thursday, my friends and friends-of-friends. I spewed forth a great deal of anger in my posts over the last few days, and even though I don't enjoy being angry, I guess that'll be my unofficial theme for this week. Much like the passing of bad gas, anger seems to linger a little longer when it's unwanted. Man, I'm so deep. You can quote me on that one.

Ok, so I've got three things to write about that piss me off. None of them are related to each other, so fasten your seatbelts as we traverse the rocky trail of Peter's transitionless prose. I'll get the one that might bore some of you out of the way first.

As I've mentioned before in this space, I joined a bowling league that started last week. The goal in any bowling league is to continually do better and better, thereby raising your average every week. The more pins over your average in a given game, the more likely your team is to win that matchup. Make sense? Good. Well, there's always the temptation for some to purposely do poorly in the first week of a league to ensure that they don't establish averages that are too high to maintain. I don't subscribe to that method, and I think it's pretty cheap to do so. What pisses me off about this? Two things, actually. First, there were people bowling against us who spent the entire third game doing trick shots. Granted, their trick shots were amazing, but they were pretty blatantly tanking. Their averages ended up being significantly lower for the week because of these methods, and I don't approve of that.

Second, I bowled the best three-game series of my life. That really, really angers me. It felt good to be setting personal bests, but I knew that every strike or spare was increasing the likelihood that my team would lose many of our next games. I couldn't bring myself to purposely miss spares, and my team will end up paying for it starting tonight. Going into the league, I expected to average anywhere between 155 and 170. Instead, I ended the first week with a 198.67 average. I'm not a 190+ average type of bowler, and I'm mad at myself for setting the bar so high. That means that if I average a very good (for me) 170 tonight, I'm still almost 30 pins below my average per game. We're going to lose every game unless I get back up near 200 or my teammates pick up my major slack. I'd ask you to wish me luck tonight, but I can't decide if that would mean hoping for high or low scores. Grrrr, this is supposed to be fun.

Ready for item number two of what really gets my goat? Last week, I was walking around at lunchtime to find something to bring back to the office. I passed a couple of places and then knew that my feet were probably leading me to the Subway nearby. My feet knew what they were doing too, because a six-inch Roasted Chicken Breast sandwich was totally going to hit the spot. As I got closer though, I saw that the line for Subway was literally out the door. I quickly surveyed my options: wait in a long line or see what else is nearby. Directly next door was a place called "Fast Taco." I can eat Mexican food daily, so I went for it. No one else was in line before me, but I could tell that a few people were waiting for their numbers to be called. I asked what came on the tacos, and the lady told me that it was just meat and lettuce. I ordered two steak ones, paid for them, and then filled up a container of salsa at the little bar. I ask you, gentle readers, for a place called "Fast Taco" in which there's nothing much to said tacos, how long should I have waited before they were ready? How much time needs to elapse before I can rightfully call them liars? Well, it took 8 minutes. 8 minutes! I know that's not a lifetime by any means, but it's "Fast Taco" we're talking about. 8 minutes to put meat and lettuce on tortillas seems way too long for me. The tacos ended up being quite tasty and I'll probably go back again in the near future, but the false advertising really grinded my gears. They should change their name to "Not Especially Fast But Tasty Nonetheless Taco."

The third Angry Peter story of the day takes us back a few years. At UCSB, there was the department of Chicano Studies. Similar to Asian American Studies, Black Studies, and Women's Studies, the department offered many interesting classes about the experience of that particular group through the media of literature, film, and occasionally music. At some point, their flyers started referring to the department as "Chicano/Chicana Studies." I understood what they were trying to do, but understanding how the Spanish language works, I found it unnecessary. It's not very gender-equal, but if there are ten girls and one boy in a group, they are called "muchachos." All girls, and they're "muchachas," but just the one male and the masculine form takes over. Therefore, I thought "Chicano Studies" covered both "Chicanos" and "Chicanas" just fine. It didn't piss me off though. That came later, when I saw the department listed as "Chican@ Studies." "What the hell is that?" I asked my co-worker Alicia. She said that it's the "a" inside an "o" and therefore combined the two letters. At that point, my ire was sufficiently induced. "How do you even pronounce that?" I asked, clearly agitated. "Do you still say 'Chicano and Chicana Studies?' Is it 'Chicanoa?' Do you say 'Chican-at' instead? Are they just trying to be as confusing as possible?" She didn't have any answers for me, but we spent the rest of the year saying "Chican-at" and shaking our heads at least once a day.

Ok, I'm calming down now. I'll return to Jovial Peter for tomorrow's FUF piece. Please remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything. Thoughts, Car Watch items, jokes, things that piss you off - whatever strikes your fancy. Personally, I'm fancy-free, but I won't judge you. I'll stop now.

FUF #13

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes. FUF is all around me, and so my blogging grows. Hello once again, gentle readers, and welcome to the lucky 13th Follow Up Friday. Ooh, almost spoooooky. As always, I'm going to ramble a bit about things I wrote about earlier, things I just feel like telling you, and the newest installment of Mega Live Car Watch 7000 HD.

"Whistle" has a silent T, by the way. I know I already had two words for that letter in my quest for silence, but I feel like I should've thought of that one at the time.

Exciting news - I'm joining a bowling league. I'm as thrilled as thrilled can be, and please don't read any sarcasm into that. I enjoy bowling, did a lot of it growing up and then again in college, and I'm looking forward to regularly getting together with good friends and making some pins fly. We're still working on a team name, and I just suggested "Hip Hop Anonymous" to the group. So far, only one of the other three has replied.

Today I may be getting a new ball. I've had the same one since I was about 14, and it's time for something heavier and something that actually fits my hand. My name is on my current one, and while that's pretty nerdy, I think I want to do that again. Finding a league was tough. I called one place and asked about their leagues, and he directed me to a website. While still on the phone, I typed it in and was immediately struck by the heading at the top of the page: "One of America's Largest Gay Bowling Leagues." I was a little surprised that he directed me there, and had to ask the uncomfortable question: "Uh, do you have any leagues that are...not geared toward the gay population?" "Oh sure," he said, and told me about the other days and times available. What was I putting out there that made him jump to that conclusion? I don't mind people making incorrect assumptions about me, but I would like to know what causes them. In any case, none of the dates and times worked so I had to try another alley.

The next place had one that worked with our schedules, but I was concerned because it was called "Party Animals." Here's why I was concerned: 1. I'm not really a party animal so I don't want this to be a league in which you do body shots off the scorecard girl after every strike. 2. I take bowling seriously, so if others don't, I don't want to be distracted. The gentleman replied that it's just typically a little louder than the other leagues. So we're gonna do it, and I'm excited. I'll let you know more about my new ball when I get it, because I know you're dying to hear about it.

I wrote about my brother and little things he'd do to torment me in yesterday's post. I remembered one other funny thing to share. When "Come Together" by the Beatles came on, Kevin proceeded to sing it as "Dorky Brother...is what...Peter is." One time it was on, and he held a tape recorder to my mouth and grabbed me by the neck. He wanted me to sing it and he wanted it recorded. So I sang but slightly modified it. On the tape, you would now hear: "Dorky Brother...is what...Peter has. Ow, ow! Is, I meant is! Ow, stop it!" He couldn't help but admire my ingenuity under duress, and I could see him trying not to smile as he punished me for my insubordination.

(In all honesty, Kevin and I had way more fun together than turmoil as youths, and we have a great friendship as adults now. The poor guy still apologizes for his behavior almost every time we talk, even though I've told him repeatedly that it's ok. Kevin, it's ok, you can't hurt me anymore. Ok, well you probably can, but that's not the point.)

SUPER HAPPY CAR WATCH ULTRA 9 BILLION!

I was behind a car that had some frame about having triplets. The plate itself read "3AT1NCE." I like it.

I've seen plate frames in the past that say, "I'm not spoiled, just well taken care of." I think those are stupid, and that's what I thought the one in front of me was going to say earlier this week. Instead, it read, "I'm not spoiled, my family just loved me." I have two things to say about this. First, the past tense is a little strange and potentially sad. Second, the subtext I get from the frame is, "If your family doesn't shower you with gifts including a car, they obviously never loved you." I have a tendency to read too much into things, but I don't think I am here.

On the 405 in traffic, I spied a nice little BMW with the plate "SLF M8D." I'm guessing he wanted that to be like "Self Made," but I thought it was suspiciously close to "Self Mated." Sounds like someone took "Go fuck yourself" too literally.

Rockabye wrote in and said that he saw a plate that read "IM BALD." I asked the all-important question, and yes, the driver was bald. Uh, yay? I don't even know what to say here.

Also this week, I saw a bumper sticker that had the name of a winery on it, then below read, "Wine Fit for My Dogs." Help me out here. Unless it's a winery that makes canine wine (which is catchy but probably not the case), it sounds like an insult to me. If so, who advertises their dislike for winery in that fashion? I'm hoping someone else has a thought about this one.

Lastly, Kevin was behind a car that took things a little past a line I'm comfortable with. First, it had a sticker that read, "Missing your cat? Look under my tires!" Then, as if that weren't enough, it had, "Be Kind to Animals. Chew Slowly." Come on now. I can understand vegetarians having stickers about not killing animals because they've made a big choice in their daily lives and feel strongly about it. But who hates all animals and animal lovers enough to put not one but two things like that on his car? The answer: this guy I guess. Maybe he just wants to get a rise out of people, and animal lovers are easy targets.

Ok, that's it for now. Have a wonderful weekend, gentle readers. If you're a mother, enjoy your special day on Sunday. My mom's on the other side of the planet right now, but she'll have a lovely card awaiting her when she gets back. And by "lovely" I mean "Happy Birthday, dude, let's drink some beer." Nothing says Mothers' Day like that. Remember folks, write to ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts, ideas, and observations.

Follow-up Friday

Oh readers of a gentle nature, I'm extremely pleased to announce that it's Friday. I don't have a topic today per se, so I'm going to address a couple of things from previous posts and draw inspiration from emails I've received. This will be disjointed and possibly fairly short (which should be ok after yesterday's opus), so consider yourselves warned.

In my "Red-Faced Moments Part 1" post, I wrote about an unfortunate bowling experience. Longtime Friend of the Family Klein and UOPTA reader Sue asked if this was the same bowling ball that was lost on Nordhoff. That prompted me to tell that story to the rest of you: One bowling afternoon, everything was going along according to plan (that is, no mystery powder mishaps to possibly destroy my reputation). When it was my turn, I grabbed my ball, went through my beautiful lefty approach, shook hands with the head pin, etc. I got 8 or 9 down and walked back to the ball return. After the normal amount of time, my ball wasn't back yet. I waited for the neighboring lane to bowl to see if that would spit mine back out with it, but to no avail. As is customary when this happens, I pushed the intercom and told them my ball didn't return. They did their thing, but it still didn't come back. Time passed, and someone from the alley went to the back to see where it was. More time passed, and I kept thinking, "Come on, how hard can it be to find the ball back there?"

Pretty hard, it turns out. After a long wait, a bowling alley employee came toward me with a weird look on her face. She handed me my ball, which was all scuffed up and scratched. "I don't know exactly how it happened," she said, "but the ball was in the parking lot." "Excuse me?" I asked, rightfully confused. She explained that it must have somehow gotten thrown off the track, bounced around back there, and slipped through some small hole that led to the parking lot behind the alley. No one had ever seen anything like that happen before, and they offered to buy me a new ball. And it was that new ball, Sue, that flew through the air and dented the center divider. Needless to say, that was an excellent question.

Next, I wrote in my "Days and Daze" post on 12/22/06 about Cherry from the place I worked in Sacramento. She's the one who welcomed everyone with a day-of-the-week-specific greeting each morning. "How are you doing on this Tuesday now that we survived Monday," etc. Well, my friend Kevin who was my boss up there IMd me yesterday. He said, "Cherry just came in my room and said, 'Happy day after Hump Day and day before Payday Friday.' I had to share this." I said, "Oh come on, where's the TGIT day? That's bullshit." He said that maybe she's branching out, and I disagreed, saying that borrowing twice from yourself doesn't constitute branching out. She was a model of consistency, and now she has this glaring infraction on her record. Shame on you, Cherry, and thanks for letting me know, Kevin.

Thirdly, I unfortunately had "What if God was One of Us" in my head. Longtime readers will recall that I hate that song, especially the extremely forced "'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome" line at the end. Then I realized something: The Pope doesn't even live in frickin' Rome! He's in Vatican City, so the line is even more ridiculous than I initially realized. Joan Osborne, when you sit at home and wonder why you never had another hit, look to that line and nod knowingly.

Reader Stacy, who for years I've called BKS for Bratty Kid Sister, sent me an email with a whole list of thoughts and questions. The one I'll address right now is this: "Should we be saying 'Sudan' or 'the Sudan' because I've heard both?" Excellent question, and I'll give you a researchless answer. I'm going with 'the Sudan,' because I like using "the" whenever possible. I've jokingly said that my middle initial of T stands for "the" because I like the way "Peter The Klein" sounds. Dusty's girlfriend's last name is Mills, so we call her "the Mills." If we're discussing something like a movie, one of us might easily say, "Oh I'm a big fan of the Swingers," even though that word isn't in the title. So stick with "the Sudan," BKS, whether it's right or not. It's right by me.

Thanks for your contributions everyone, and keep emailing ptklein@gmail.com with thoughts and questions for future follow-up Fridays (and other alliterations). Have a great weekend.

Red-faced moments

Hey, would you look at that? Valentines' Day is on Hump Day. Go figure.

In yesterday's post, I talked about the Hooters incident at my bachelor party being one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. That got me thinking (again) about what else I would put in that category. I came up with three memories that probably hold the top spots. Being both bold and a little stupid, I've decided to share them with you, extremely gentle readers. Two today, one tomorrow. Deal? Great.

First, let's travel back in time to 8th grade. You remember 8th grade, right? It was a time in which people cared so much more about what other people thought. It was also a time fraught with the fear that you might do something stupid, and news of that act would spread through the social networks so that you'd be ruined in high school before ever stepping foot on the campus. Ah, good times.

So it was in 8th grade that I found myself in a bowling league with my lifelong friend Jason and two of his friends from his previous school. Now I fully acknowledge that I'm a nerd, but I swear to you that I was frickin' Don Juan compared to those two guys. I was doing everything in my power to remain "the cool one on the team": chatting with our opponents in between frames, rolling my eyes at my teammates' jokes to make it clear that I didn't approve, etc. They were nice enough guys, but I didn't want them hurting the rep I was trying so hard to create.

One afternoon, it was my turn to bowl, and walked up to the ball return. One of my teammates asked, "Do you wanna use this?" as he threw a little bag to me. I caught it as some powder went flying. "No thanks, I already have some," I said, and I tossed it back to him. My ball was a little tight on my thumb, so I often used baby powder to make it looser, which is pretty standard in the bowling world. That's what I thought was in the bag he tossed me, but in actuality, I had just put sticky stuff on my hand without realizing it. So I started my five-step approach, and at the part where I would normally let go of the ball, I didn't. Instead, it stuck to my thumb all the way until my arm was about even with my chin. My momentum carried me stumbling about three feet out onto the lane. The buzzing sound of me crossing the line (indicating a fault) and a huge POP sound from my thumb's release echoed throughout the alley. Time slowed as the ball soared through the air like a lazy fly ball to right-centerfield. I say right-center instead of center because it eventually landed not on my lane, not on the one next to mine, but on the divider between that one and the one next to it. Now the echoing sound throughout the alley was the loud crash of a bowling ball hitting and denting the center divider.

I stood there for a second, out a few feet in my lane, looking at my ball two lanes over next to the damaged divider. I knew I had to turn around, so I did so as casually as one can in that situation. You know the scene in Back to the Future where Marty rocked out with his electric guitar at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, kicking over the amps, etc. and then he opened his eyes to find a frozen crowd that didn't know how to react to what they had just witnessed? Well, let's just say that my fellow kids in the league perfected that same look right then. Blank, attempting-to-comprehend stares on every last one of them. I mumbled a half-hearted "Whoops" before I walked back to the seating area, trying desperately to look nonchalant. It didn't help that I needed one of the alley's employees to walk out onto the lane to retrieve my ball, and I spent the next couple of hours praying that the other kids would find my goof cool somehow.

Crazy as it sounds, that incident didn't follow me to high school. Maybe it's because in order to tell the story, someone first had to admit that he or she was in a bowling league. Whatever the case, I didn't care as long as it was gone. I can still very clearly remember the looks on the people's faces, and I can still remember hearing nothing but my footsteps and my heartbeat as I walked back to sit among my shocked peers. Therefore, that takes spot #3 on my most embarrassing moments.

Now let's travel farther back in time to around fifth grade. I attended a sleepaway camp a few weeks a summer for a few years, and it was great: a bunch of my closest friends, cool activities, fake Native American names for the counselors, secret ceremonies, and a chance to reinvent yourself with a group of people who didn't just see you every day in school. One of the earlier years that I attended, we were in the middle of the traditional welcome campfire on the first night. I was sitting on the right side of the U-shaped bench arrangement around the fire pit with my friends, trying to be cool enough to get recognized by the older cabins. I hoped to overhear something like, "Hey, even though he's younger, that Peter kid's pretty cool, so maybe we should ask him if he'd hang out with us." I never heard that though, so I must have been sitting too far away.

Anyway, the ceremony started and they were solemnly explaining the rites and sacred history of the camp. Out of nowhere (I mean nowhere!), the largest bolt of lightning I've ever seen in my life lit up the sky directly in my line of sight behind the left side of the benches. It startled me so much that I jumped to my feet and started to yell, "Holy shit!" In that brief moment of time, I knew I wasn't supposed to say that, so I quickly managed to change "Holy" into "Oh my." That wasn't enough though, and I heard myself starting to make a "sh" sound. Thinking on my feet, I changed the word to "shorts" at the very last second.

Allow me to take the perspective of a someone sitting in the left or middle section for a minute: "There I was, listening to how Broken Arrow got his name, and for no reason, a boy on the other side stood up and yelled 'Oh my shorts!' at the top of his lungs. I looked down at his shorts, but I didn't see anything wrong with them. Maybe there was a bug in there or something. Or maybe he's retarded." (I, of course, would never use that term in such a manner, but this imaginary kid in the left or middle section totally would. He needs a little sensitivity training if you ask me.)

Yeah, that was pretty awkward. I sat back down, immediately questioned by my friends as to the cause of my outburst. They saw the lightning also, but needless to say, they didn't have the same reaction. Running Bear glanced over to me as if to see if I was ok, and I nodded. My shorts were ok too, by the way. To this day, I don't know what would've been worse, "Holy shit," "Oh my shit," or "Oh my shorts." Maybe the second one. All I know is that I disrupted an important ceremony by yelling something incomprehensible and it seemed completely unwarranted to two-thirds of the people there. Embarrassing? You bet your sweet ass it was embarrassing.

So those are two of the three. Ah, loud noises and stunned crowds staring at me; such a perfect combination for embarrassment. Have a good day, everyone, and if you're doing anything for Valentines' Day tonight, I sincerely hope you avoid that level of embarrassment.