Category: odd

tomorrow i’m going to be speaking in the pbs middle school chapel and as part of it i’m going to be asking the students what the most dangerous thing was that they did this summer. since, i’m asking them this question i might as well tell y’all what mine would be.

this summer i rode a wild cow.

i went to nicaragua two weeks ago and as i’m sure all of you will know nicaragua is a country of random cows. every where you look there are cows. you go to the market and you’ll find cows there. driving down the road and there’ll be cows in the road. they’re just about everywhere. technically these cows aren’t wild. they have owners, brands on their hides, and apparently a place to stay when it rains or there is a hurricane or something. now that’s technically the truth – the problem is that practically speaking they are wild. they wander all over the place and their owners very rarely see them. i’m not really sure why people even own these cows in the first place. the cows hate humans and thus milking one would be a death-defying act. i guess every now and then the nicaraguan owners sneak up behind the cows, knocks it dead, and butcher it for lunch. that’s the only use i can think of for these wild, human hating bovine.

well, for some reason during my week in nicaragua i decided that it would be fun to ride one of these large soon to be leather purses. i really didn’t want to actually ride any of the cows, i just figured i would pretend like i wanted to ride the cow, it would run away, and then i could say “well i would have ridden it if we could have caught it.” that way i’m the hero and i never actually risk anything. that was my plan and i was sticking to it. the first day i had the idea i saw some cows and ran after them. the cows put up with the chase for a little while. eventually, one of them reach the point of annoyance and decided to do something about me rather than just running away from my wild but ultimately doomed to failure attempts to capture it. while, i chased this cow it tried to kick me in the head. it was a subtle message but one i understood quickly. the cow was saying “i will smash your head in so leave me alone.” i agreed with the message and stopped chasing it.

of course, the next day things changed. i was resolved even more than before that i would pretend to want to ride the cows. i heard there were cows in front of the compound entrance i ran after them immediately. of course, i had no intention of actually riding any of the cows or even getting close enough to be kicked. yet i was still going to pretend. i chased the cows and they ran away from me. that was the end of that. at least until, my nicaraguan friends got into the fun and decided to rope the cow for me. this was not part of my plan and i tried desperately to convince them that this was not a good idea. of course, the ones i was trying to convince not to rope the cow weren’t the ones that had the ropes, so by the time i turned around moses and jc had already roped the cow and were trying to get it’s head around a tree.

i was now at the point of no return. i had to ride the cow. i couldn’t pretend any more even though i really wanted to continue my charade. it was much more fun to just say “i want to ride one of those cows.” i really knew i was in trouble when i realized the nicaraguans were scared. they are around these cows all the time. they should be comfortable with them. yet they weren’t. they were frightened and they weren’t getting anywhere near it. they may have been scared of the cow but they still really wanted to see me get on it. me and my big mouth. i was stuck. i had to ride the stupid, violent, huffed, chewer of the cud. so i went around and finally got up the nerve to jump on the cow. i landed on it with my stomach, hoping to climb on it. of course, the cow didn’t like this and simply shook me off. victory! i figured i had done what i wanted, at least sort of, and the front of my shirt was now filthy so i had proof that i had been on the cow. i had succeeded.

yet, it wasn’t enough for moses and jc. they wanted me to actually sit on the stupid bovine. they kept on calling for me to come around on the other side where there was a root that would help me to jump up on the beast. i couldn’t believe they weren’t satisfied. after all, they were still screaming like girls. they hadn’t jumped on the cow. no! they wanted me to put my fanny on the cow. they wanted me to actually sit on this very ticked off animal.

so of course, being a wimp i agreed. my ride really wasn’t very long. i definitely wouldn’t had won a bull riding competition. i’m not even sure that i lasted on the thing more than two seconds. still, i am able to say that my butt sat on that cow and i rode the beast for a moment. then i fell off and we all made a hasty retreat from one very mad and confused cow.

i love the olympics for one very important reason. the olympics turns obscure sports that i don’t normally care about into daily events that i schedule others things around. i didn’t even know that synchronized diving was a real sport and yet now i find myself mesmerized by it. personally, i have never felt like fencing ever receives its fair share of attention. yet, now at the olympics it will be watched by millions of people who didn’t know what a “foil” was a week ago.

of course, the winter olympics are the best because they have curling within them. curling is the sport of kings – mainly danish and other frozen country kings, but kings non the less.

btw, in case you’ve been worried about this howard bach & kevin qi han (america’s badminton hopefuls) did win today and will make it into the second round. i know i’ll rest easier.

pam found my keys yesterday (i posted about losing my keys april 26th). in losing those keys i was not quite as big of an idiot as i thought i was. you see pam found them in her lingere door (which is the top drawer of our common chest of drawer in our bedroom). when i come into the house i usually try to place my keys beside my wallet holder on the chest of drawers. what apperently happened was that i placed my keys on top of the chest of drawers and then accidently knocked them down into the top drawer. apparently they fell on a side of the drawer that pam doesn’t use much because she didn’t see them for a month.

anyhow, i now have my keys back, in addition to having a spare set from the set i had made a month ago when i lost those stupid things. i’m ready for the next time now.

i mentioned in my last entry that i would eventually tell the story of my dad’s t-shirt. now is the time for me to do that.

when i was an elementary & middle school student in dothan, alabama baseball was a large part of my life. since, it was also a large part of my brother’s life it just naturally became a large part of my whole family’s life. we spent our nights at westgate park eating corn dogs and nachos while shouting for our friends and family who were playing ball. it was allot of fun. in fact, it was so much fun that my dad decided to get into the act by coaching. now my dad is smart enough to know that if he coached me or my brother he would either be too hard or too soft on us. so instead of coaching my or kenny he coached the league right under my younger brother’s league.

my dad is a great salesman. he could sell ice to an eskimo and sand to a desert nomad. he’s good and he knows a good advertising opportunity when it comes before him. coaching baseball was just such an opportunity. he realized that he would be coaching the kids of people who might have connections for increasing his company’s sales. of course, dad would have to be subtle about it. he knew enough to realize that it wouldn’t work to just walk up to a kid’s parents and say “hey, little johnny is playing great but you know you’re business sure could use some help.” so my dad decided to use subliminal messaging to convey his message. subliminal messaging is where you sneak a message into the field of vision of the people you want to attract. you advertise your product without them ever realizing that they have been exposed to advertising. my dad’s subtlety came through a t-shirt.

at that time my dad managed a company called unijax. unijax was a paper and janitorial supply company. this means that they sold printing paper, cleaning supplies, various chemicals, and the grand-daddy of all products … toilet paper. this was the product that my dad wanted his team parents to buy. after all, the economy might go south and people might neglect buying other products but no matter how bad it got everyone was still going to buy toilet paper. it’s a recession-proof product. floyd, my dad, went to a local sporting goods store and had them make his t-shirt. this way he could wear it to baseball practices and the games and the parents would have this message embedded in their minds. what message was it that he wanted them to remember? what would be the single point that all those parents and in fact the whole ball park would remember? the t-shirt said …

“unijax: the toilet paper people”

my dad wore brown socks, bermuda shorts, and the “toilet paper” shirt to all his ball games. of course, all my friends picked up on this. people would come up to me and say “hey, you’re dad’s the toilet paper guy, right?” it was a hard image to live down. so if you wonder why i am the way i am it’s because of the “toilet paper” shirt. it has haunted me for years.

i’m sure most of you don’t believe this story but it is true and if i can find a picture of the t-shirt i’ll post it so you too can enjoy the horror.

btw, that shirt supported me for a large part of my life so i really don’t bear it any grudge – sort of.

i think i wrote awhile back about the explosion of my 1993 protege. it was a horrific scene that stirs up far too many emotions for me to go into right now. the story i want to tell at this moment is concering the grand theft auto that has occurred in my life. you see after the engine blew up i parked the mazda at my mechanic’s lot and started calling charities to donate the non-moving hunk of metal to. i finally found one and had gone through the appropriate paper work to give them the vehicle but one obsticle remained…i needed to meet the two truck at the protege and point it out to them (for me this was going to be a very judas-like moment – i would point to the protege and says “there’s the car sir” only to have my loyal red friend say back “you betray me with a kiss?”).

i couldn’t do this for a week because i was going to be on a mission trip to fort worth, texas – a great trip by the way. when i got back i drove past the parking lot where the protege was supposed to be. i looked over fondly at the lot and suddenly realized that the car wasn’t there. it was late so i waited to call my mechanic until the next day. when i called him i was told that a tow truck had come and picked it up. he just figured it was the charty that had come to pick it up because surely no idiot would ever try to steal it. lessons number 1, never underestimate the stupidity of people – they will steal anything even if it is worthless.

so i called the charity to see if maybe they had picked it up before i got back. nope they hadn’t pick it up yet – they were waiting on me to get back. i called the sheriff and police offices to see if maybe they had towed it. nope, they hadn’t but they did give me four wrecking services to call just in case. i called these services and none of them had move my motionless buddy. so i called the sheriff’s department back and asked what to do. this is when i was told to file a stolen vehicle report.

it took me about an hour and a half to file the report. it wouldn’t have been that long if i hadn’t of made one simple statement. i told the sheriff’s deputy that there was really no need for them to search for the vehicle because i didn’t want it back. i had smiled and laughed the entire time he was taking the report and apparently this statement set off his law enforcement radar. you see people who have had their vehicles stolen are supposed to be sad. i wasn’t and thus this didn’t register right. the sheriff’s deputy apparently thought i was trying to pull insurance fruad or some other scam. i had to explain the story three times of the car breaking down and me trying to donate it to a charity before he was okay with it. lesson number 2, it’s always best to look sad when reporting a stolen vehicle.

it’s hard to believe but someone apparently has stolen my non-working car. this makes no sense to me. why commit “grand theft auto” on my peace of junk. in fact, since i know the value of the car is less than $500 i’m not even sure it is “grand theft auto” – it’s probably “small misdemeanor auto” or something like that. if the theif had simply asked for the car i would have given it to him/her.

to end the whole thing i had to call and cancel the insurance on the protege because there is no need to insure a car that i no longer have. i called my company. the second i told them it had been stolen they told me i had to file a claim. i told them i didn’t have comprehensive on the car, or collison for that matter, because the car was basically worthless. they said that didn’t matter i would have to still file a claim for “information purposes only” before i could cancel my insurance on it. so i talked to the insurance adjuster and explained the story. it would appear to me that insurance adjusters don’t have a sense of humor because she definately didn’t like the fact that i said i was glad that the car had been stolen because it made a great story. i had to explain the story three more times of the motor blowing up and trying to donate the car before she was satisified that no insurance fruad had taken place. lesson number three, talk to insurance adjusters the same way you do law enforcement officers.

anyways, i sure do hope that my broken down friend has a good home – albeit a good criminal home – because it was a very good vehecile for pam and me.

today was a little scary. as the two people who actually read this blog know (hey mom and dad) i give a different name to the cashier every time i eat at rasin cane’s. i’ve been doing this since january 3, 2001 the first day i ate at a cane’s restaurant. that’s over three years of false names and never once has anybody ever noticed that i had given them a fictitious name. that is until today.

today i went to cane’s and gave them the name “humphrey.” unfortunately, the cashier that was taken my order was not a real good speller. she asked me how to spell “humphrey” and then said “i’ll just look at your card.” of course, when she looked at the card she became confused as to why my card would say “robert a. terrell” instead of �humphrey.� she then began to question me about the whole thing. i have never realized how hard it is to prove that you are yourself, after you’ve lied about what your name is.

it was a very disturbing day.

today i was “one eyed” by an old man. I was walking into the locker room at foxy’s gym & racquet club to take a shower after playing racquetball when I was greeted with a scary image. the doors that enter into the men’s locker room are double doors that swing inward. i pushed these doors open and was forcefully walking into the locker room when i was greeted by an old man standing about 4 feet in front of me. actually he didn’t know he was greeting me. you see this very wrinkled man was standing with his back to the door with absolutely no clothes on what so ever. this would have been bad enough as it were but one fact made it worse. you see the very wrinkled, very naked, very old man wasn’t really standing in front of me. no, he was bending over from the waste to pick something up from the floor. this means that i was greeted by the rear of an incredibly old, extremely wrinkled, frighteningly naked man.

i don’t really dislike old people or even very wrinkled people. some of my friends are old and wrinkled. it’s just that i don’t usually see these friends naked. the nudity changes everything. then you add the bending over and things just get worse. the whole event has scarred me for life and will probably give me nightmares for the next week.

friday, i was at a class retreat for a local private school. as a part of the retreat there was a worship service and a within that there was a sermon. while the sermon was going on i went to sit in the group of kids. i figured that my mere presence (as intimidating as it is) would calm everyone down. the message had just started when suddenly i head “brrrrriipppp” about two people away from me. it was a loud, long, and vicious rip of personality that appeared to have come from the lower orifice of a person not three feet away from me. of course, his position was easily determined because of the fact that everyone in a nice little circle around him turned around and looked straight at him. everyone smirked and laughed but he kept on looking straight ahead. after all, what could he do?

i didn’t say anything to him because i figured there was no need to tell him not to fart during the message. after about 5 minutes of the message once again the sound came from the same guy. everyone started laughing again. it was an embarrassed sort of laughter. everyone was hurting for this kid. i still didn’t say anything to him because i simply wasn’t sure what to say. surely, he wasn’t doing this on purpose, so why tell him to keep it quiet. i simply assumed that he was trying to release a silent but deadly and it slipped out louder than he had expected. while pondering this another fart was released.

we were all really embarrassed for the kid but he just kept looking forward. i figured now i had to say something to him, but what would i say? how do you tell someone to keep the farting quiet? how do you tell someone not to have stomach problems?

while contemplating this i saw the kid’s foot movie and heard the fart sound again. turns out he had been making the noise with his foot the whole time. suddenlt it all made sense. it had seemed kind of wierd the whole time that i never smelled anything.