Once Upon a time five years ago when I was a baby and thought I knew it all, I started college at MPC.  In my first semester, I spent a lot of my classes and free time with my good friend Nathan and our other friend Tee.  This was both good and bad.  Occasionally they wanted to kill me.  Ok, more than occasionally.  I was brilliant at being irritating and they both experienced the full effect of that.  One day in particular stands out to me though.  Nathan, Tee, and I had gone out to lunch, and we took Tee’s Bronco.  After we had ordered our food, we were parked in the parking lot eating and just talking before having to head back to school.  I don’t know what I was doing exactly, or why I was doing it, but for some reason I reached up from my perch in the middle seat to adjust Tee’s review mirror.  In the seconds following, there was a disturbing nails on a chalk board, gritty, gross, noise, and Tee’s whole entire review mirror was in my hand.  The ENTIRE mirror along with a chunk of glass attached to the back.  Somehow I had ripped it out of the windshield leaving a dent in the glass.  Tee stared at me in shock.  I stared at myself in shock.  I racked my brain and tried hard to remember if I’d been bitten by a radioactive spider in Chemistry class the day before, but I was coming up blank.  I had absolutely no explanation for what had just happened, and to this day I still don’t.  Here’s something I do know: Nathan died that day.  I have never seen anyone laugh so hard and silently at the same time.

Once upon a time three nights ago, my little sister hid a fake head in my bed.  I had been grumpy and tired because on Friday nights I’m an old lady and like to go to sleep early…and that wasn’t happening.  Finally at 1:00 AM I was mind numb and dizzy, and my eyes were puffy, and drool was leaking out the side of my mouth as I stumbled to my bed.  As I innocently pulled back my covers, there it was…a head.  A fake head with crazy horrible hair.  I gasped loudly and jumped about 10 feet in to the air.  I might have also said a four letter word beginning with S, but the jury is still out on that one.  As soon as I recovered, I yanked the head off my covers and marched toward Rebecca’s room.  I had plans to chuck it at her face, but I was laughing too hard to do it.  So instead I tried to stammer out that it wasn’t funny and that she really shouldn’t do it again.  I still don’t know if she’s taking me seriously about this or not, cause how stern can someone sound exactly while they’re laugh-talking with tears sprouting out of their eyes?

Once Upon a time fifteen years ago I was a middle child and I liked to keep up with the boys…wait, I’m still a middle child.  Once upon a time fifteen years ago I liked to keep up with the boys, and my Grandma had a backyard bigger than Narnia…with a pool in it.  Every year, the guys did something called a polar bear swim.  They’d get in their undies and dive in to the pool, swimming the length of it in the middle of winter.  I wanted to do the polar bear swim.  I wanted to dive in and swim the length of the wintery, unheated, icy, shark infested, chummed to the core, pool.  So I did.  I stood on a platform with my Dad, my Uncle Mike and Cousin Justin, and My Uncle John and two other cousins Colter and Daniel, and dove in.  I swam the whole length in the rude water that was relentlessly stabbing needles in to my skin.  I climbed the steps at the shallow end, found my mom, and then cried.  I was tougher back then.  Now I find my mom and cry just thinking about getting in cold water.

Hope you had a great Monday!