I Did It Again

Yeah...I locked my keys in the car again. For the third time since January. They say the average person does this twice in his or her lifetime. That means I have not only done this enough for myself, but that someone will never lock their keys in the car because I have already done it twice for them as well.

I have saved someone the stress of standing out in the rain waiting for a tow truck.

I accept cash and checks with the thank you notes.

Operation Garden Lion

When I was a sophomore I had a really close knit group of friends. We would all hang out together constantly and on any given night there were no less than 9 people in one dorm room. It was the the first time in any of our lives that we were on our own and making our own decisions. Good or bad...they were our decisions.

My roommate was a pizza deliver boy on the weekends and it eventually got to the point that he knew the Sinking Spring/Shillington area better than the twins who had lived there their entire lives. He saw a lot of houses and outside one he found a replica of the Nittany Lion Shrine on someone's front lawn. It was love at first sight. He took advantage of every opportunity to deliver to that house and scope out this lion.

One Sunday night, he came back from work and decided that was the night. He and two others were going to steal the garden lion. They dressed in all black and planned to strike and 3 a.m. (I still have the picture of them and if we were still friends I would post it because it really is pretty funny).

As mapped out as the plan sounded it was doomed from the beginning. They had the stealing of the garden lion down but they had no idea what they were going to do with a 3 foot long garden statue. I guess they were just going to stick it in someone's dorm room. They came back shortly after leaving without a lion. Apparently no one took into consideration how heavy the thing would be. I heard phrases like "It was too much", "Who the hell carried that thing there in the first place?", and "It was at least 350lbs."

After that the lion was never mentioned again. He fell out of love as quickly as he had fallen in. I never had the chance to see the lion so I can neither confirm nor deny these alligations of the size and weight but I still laugh whenever I see the real lion shrine on campus.

Polizia!

Here we go with the college stories. The only problem is that since I've been reflecting on my college memories, I realize that they aren't as funny retrospect. Just a series of "you had to be there" stories that make you want to stab yourself in the ear.

Sorry to all my home friends who have heard these stories over and over again.

Here's one anyway...

I met my roommates on a school trip to Venice my sophomore year (the twins...not the evil roommate. I knew him before that but that's another entry entirely). Anywho...apparently the week we spent in Venice was right after they passed a smoking ban and you could no longer smoke indoors. No big deal, the law had already been in place in Jersey for about a year so I was used to it.

What they neglected to tell us about the smoking rule was that it applied to public property as well. While we were waiting for the train to Verona a few of us were outside catching a smoke break. The police caught us. Someone neglected to mention that you cannot smoke on the front steps of the train station either.

The polizia ambushed us demanding out passports. Thank God the roommate was carrying mine because I knew I didn't have it. I almost crapped my pants at the thought of being hauled off to an Italian jail. I hear Americans don't do so well overseas.

Later on the trip I had an opportunity to pay the roommate back for his good deed but didn't take advantage. The day before we left I was cleaning out my bag and throwing things away I didn't need. I found receits from our flights and I didn't think they were that important. I threw his away immediately. I was going to throw mine away but got nervous and decided to keep it just in case...

...those were our boarding passes for the flight home. No wonder we hate each other.

Yes, Officer! This Is My Car!

I remember reading somewhere the the average driver locks the keys in the car twice during his/her lifetime. Well, I would like to announce that I have so far done this three times in the four years that I have been driving. I always knew I was more than average, but this is proof!

The first time I did it was my freshman year in college. Rome was going to school in Philly at the time and I drove down in my Buick Lesabre from Reading to see him for the weekend. One of the security guards on his campus was going to help, but started giving me a hard time because I didn't have proof of ownership. I told him it was in the car, but apparently lots of eighteen year old girls try to steal 1994 Buick Lesabres at that campus. He just kept nodding as if he had heard the story before.

The other two times were both this year, both during the school day, and both when I had taken Nyquil the night before. Coincidence? Perhaps. I'm not really sure. All I know is that I'm going to have to think of a clever way to make that $56 back. Damn Locksmith.

In all fairness though, it could be worse. When I was 4 months old my mother locked me in the car while it was running. I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

We Did Ignite It, But We Tried To Fight It

The twins and I have become absolutely obsessed with "Dexter". If you haven't seen it, it's a show about a serial killer and it is sick, twisted, and brilliant! Anyway...we've become so infatuated with this show that we'll sit down and watch seasons of it for hours at a time. I really admire his organization and cleanliness. Something I lack.

So we're sitting watching Dexter and the Ice Truck Killer when Twin #2 says that she smells something burning and immediately accuses Twin #1 of leaving the oven on. She checks....oven's off.

Then Twin #1 wonders if the fourth roommate is burning upstairs. Since the fourth roommate has so many electronic devices plugged into a single outlet, it was a possibility. There have been sparks before and there could be sparks again.

Even at this point I still didn't smell anything and I was beginning to think that they were losing it.

Finally after 20 minutes, Twin #1 tells me to come sit next to her so that I can smell it. I move and I do. It smelled like plastic, but not as strong. It was the smell of cigarette filters burning. It was at that moment that I remembered my downfall...messiness. I opened the balcony door to find our ashtray that hasn't been emptied out in at least 2 months was on fire. We immediately dosed the sparks and got back to Dexter.

We could learn a thing or two from a serial killer...I bet serial killers empty out their ashtrays.