In college, I created a problem for myself when I chose a friendly dinner date over Guys’ Night Out. I heightened the problem because I was one of the original instigators for this particular evening, and now I was backing out. We’d originally decided to recreate an evening that our upper-classmen friends had performed a couple years earlier in which they constructed a fake body, drove it around town, and videotaped themselves dropping it out of a car, driving over it, and throwing it off parking garages. Sounds horrible, but it was really quite harmless. Nevertheless, I got heckled for going out with a friend of mine for Mongolian Barbecue, instead of joining them. Between you and me, we know that they’d all have made the same choice and gone with the girl.
In addition to the whole fake body thing, I also found out that the boys were going to ‘TP’ Bob’s house at 12am, after the fake body festivities. Bob was the director of the student Christian organization the guys and I were a part of. This was our way of delivering a physical term of endearment to our dear friend Bob—‘TP’ the house and leave fake bodies on the lawn. This was about the most mischief we could come up with.
I met up with my friend Lori at about 7pm. We had a nice dinner. Sometime during the course of our meal I said, “What do you think about filling up some water balloons and ambushing the guys? They told me they’d be ‘TP-ing’ Bob’s house at 12am.” This is my idea of a date, apparently. Water-balloon 15 adult males while they are up to no good, and drag some innocent girl along in the process.
For the sake of some fun and a good story, Lori was down for it. We picked up the balloons at Walgreens, loaded them up in a bucket, and then headed for Bob’s at 12am. It was the perfect plan. No one knew a single thing about us coming, sort of like one of those movies when everyone thinks the main character is dead and he figures out a plan to defeat the bad guys, like James Bond. At least that’s what I’d like to think.
Bob’s house was located in the center of a block along a street that looped around in a somewhat closed square, with only two exits, I believe. The corner (adjacent to his house) had tall, 6 foot bushes—a perfect entry point and hiding place for launching our attack. The guys were there and we drove by once to get a good look. We went unnoticed and pulled around the block to hide behind the bushes for our first attack.
Lori drove by and I launched the first wave of balloons from the window. Hit a few men I think. They were dumbfounded. We pulled around for a second wave, hiding behind the bushes again. This time, I got a little more daring and told Lori to pull ahead of the house about 25 feet or so. I’d get out of the car, pull out the bucket, and really get some nice throws off grenade-style. She pulled around, I got out, threw the balloons, and inflicted a few wounds in the process. It was all guts and glory until two football players (seriously, they were UofA football players) started chasing after me. Lori stepped on the gas a little and I found myself left behind. Nothing like running away from a UofA center and tight end at twelve-in-the-morning. Somehow, I got back into the car (thanks Lori) and we drove off.
We pulled around to the bushes once again in order to collect our thoughts. We’re sitting there behind the bushes talking in the car when all of the sudden a human-sized, fake body falls on top of the hood. A couple guys had thrown it over those 6-foot bushes! Lori stepped on the gas and we took off out of there. I think the moment the fake-body unexpectedly landed on top of the car would be a good picture-dictionary-definition for the word 'incongruity'.
The story isn’t finished, however. After we left, the guys left two fake bodies on Bob’s lawn. The neighbors across the street thought that maybe some sort of cult or Satanist group left dead bodies on Bob’s lawn because he was the director for a student Christian organization. The police woke him and his wife up at 2 or 3 in the morning. He must have told them something like, “These are the Christian students I serve as director for. They ‘TP-ed’ my house and dropped off fake bodies on my lawn. No need to investigate further, officers.”
Like I say, it was a loving action of endearment.
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Memory might fail me in a few places, but overall the story is accurate.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
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