Flying into the Stratosphere

February 4, 2011

There is something wrong with me. And as far as I can tell, it must be on a genetic level.  Somewhere encoded in the DNA of most of the world’s population, there is an instruction that tells your brain, “Hey, don’t jump off stuff.” I don’t have that genetic material. So my reaction to finding out they actually let you jump off the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas was, “How come it took me so long to go to Vegas?”

After plunking down my credit card and signing my life away (seems like I do that a lot), I am told to put on a jumpsuit that is so bright it could be seen from the moon, let alone the top of the hotel.  Next up is hopping on a scale while someone takes a permanent marker and writes my weight on my wrist. (Probably a good move they tell you about the weight on your wrist thing after paying the nonrefundable deposit, or no girl would ever jump.)

As with most of these adventures, I am in that relaxed, yet pensive, state where my brain knows what’s coming should be scary, but my adrenaline gland hasn’t figured it out yet. But not the other jumper dude riding up in the elevator with me – nope, he looks like he is about to puke at any moment. Once we get to the top, they let him jump first while some German tourists start chatting me up.  About the only things I pick up from their broken English are “Vat is vrong vit you?” and “That guy pee pants.”

[A little background about how the Stratopshere operation works, because it is not actually a bungee jump from 117 stories.  There is one long cable inside the glass “jump cube” that is connected on your back to a harness.  This main cable unwinds as you fall, and it is connected to two supporting cables on either side which allow you to free fall for about 80 stories. It then grabs hold and gently sets you on a bullseye at ground level. The reason for the weight on your wrist is they need to know exactly what tension to put on the cables so they don’t slam you into the ground (not so good) or leave you dangling five stories up (not so bad).]

Besides myself, I saw two other people attempt the jump.  First was the dude who rode the elevator up with me.  I will give him credit that he did not hesitate when it was time to jump, but he did not look happy about it.  And according to the little lady, who was watching from the landing zone, he did not look any happier after the jump.

The second guy was when we went back up to the top to look around after I jumped.  Getting off the elevator, we noticed a crowd gathered around the jump cube.  Inside, a guy was standing on the outdoor platform clearly freaking out – with both feet firmly frozen in place. The jumpmaster was standing out there with him trying to convince him to jump.  I didn’t think there was any way this guy would actually jump, having witnessed on many occasions that point where your brain is freaked out so bad you just can’t convince your feet to move even a millimeter. 

But I will give this guy credit. After about 10 minutes of crying and panicking, he finally let the jumpmaster turn him around backwards on the platform…and the jumpmaster immediately proceeded to push him off! (I would have loved to hear the conversation between the two of them before the push, but I guarantee that guy looks back and is glad he jumped.)

Which is all just background to prove my point even more that there is something missing from my DNA.  After hopping on a second scale at the top to confirm my weight, and after having the harness contraption checked over by employees #3 and #4, it was finally time to hook up and plunge to my death. Once they have you all checked out, they open the glass door that leads to a little concrete platform where they connect the cable and give you the final instructions. As the door opened and I put one foot up on the platform, my adrenaline gland finally decided to read the memo about what was happening.  Thankfully, my bladder must have been on vacation and decided to keep sleeping.

After the cable is hooked up, the jumpmaster instructs me to step to the edge, he will count to three, and then I am free to jump.  Of course my response is to look him in the eye and ask, “Do you have to count, can’t I just jump?”  He just laughs and says he is required to count.  As I step to the edge, I hear: one…tw… and I am gone.

Most people fear that moment as you go from solid ground to nothing beneath your feet, but for me that moment is pure bliss.  In that split second, you have completely given up control of what is going to happen next and you are just a passenger along for the ride.  If we can fly when we get to heaven, you’re going to have a hard time getting me to stop jumping off stuff.

Yep, there is something wrong with me.

The Ninja

Spring/Summer, 2001

There is nothing I love more than unintentional comedy that lends itself to a deadpan response, and The Ninja provided me with an example during the summer of 2001 that will probably never be topped.  Before I get to the story, a little background on The Ninja.

I first met The Ninja in high school through a series of events that need not be mentioned (mainly because I don’t have his permission), and we ended up running track together in college.  Two rules to know about college track:  1) It lends itself to a lot of downtime before practice while everyone warms up and stretches together, inevitably leading to the most asinine conservations imaginable.  As an example, we had a debate that lasted the entire few years I was on the team consisting of whether or not a car driving down the highway would be able to drive onto the ramp of a tractor trailer and park the car on the trailer while the two were racing down the highway.  2) Modesty does not exist.  Enough said.)

The Ninja and I became friends during college, where I spent a lot of time at his apartment.  After I graduated a semester early, I lived in the apartment for 8 months before moving on to law school.  At the apartment, the same two rules as above applied.  For example, it was not uncommon for The Ninja to be standing naked in the living room while we debated whether such American cinematic masterpieces as “American Ninja 2” or “Rad” were awesome, super awesome, or stroke-inducing awesome.

The other thing to know about The Ninja was that despite the fact he is a lunatic, he is a very thoughtful person who has a deep-seated faith that I envy.  He’s the type of guy who prays for everything to be healed, included a snotty nose.  In contrast to me, who just hands him a tissue and says, “Blow and be healed, my child.”

During the time I was living in the apartment, The Ninja was deciding whether or not to get married.  In fact, The Ninja and Mrs. Ninja decided to take some time apart at the recommendation of their pastor and figure out if marriage was the path for their lives.  It was near the end of this time apart that we pick up the scene:

From The Ninja’s perspective:  It was late at night and he had made up his mind that he was going to pop the question to Mrs. Ninja at the end of the time apart.  Standing in the bathroom taking care of business before hitting the hay, he was pondering how hard it must be for Mrs. Ninja to not know that he had made up his mind.  While thinking about the upcoming announcement, he softly said to himself, “Poor Mrs. Ninja.”

From my perspective:  I walk down the hallway to my bedroom, look into the open door of the bathroom and see The Ninja with his head down holding The Ninja Package, while muttering the words “Poor Mrs. Ninja” with a sad look on his face. 

My response? 

“Don’t worry dude, I'm sure it's not that small.”

Slinging Ink

August, 2010

Starting some time in high school, I’d always wanted a tattoo.  I believe tattoo artists are just that, artists.  The creations they can lay down on skin is mind-blowing.  I didn’t want something too big or fancy, just something cool. 

When I was in college, there were a lot of Canadians that crossed the border to play sports at UMich (because Canada didn’t offer college sports scholarships – I know, dumb, right?), and almost all of the Canadian runners on the cross country/track team had a sweet tattoo of a maize and blue block “M” inside of a red Canadian maple leaf.  To this day, I am disappointed that I wasn’t born in Canada, so I could have gotten the sweetest tattoo ever.

On a related note, at some point early on during my freshman year in college, I realized that not only did the cross-country runners say “Very Nice!” a lot, but the two words were stitched on a lot of their warm-up gear.  So I went up to the cross-country coach (who was in his mid-50s at the time) and asked him why everyone said “Very Nice!” all of the time.  In response, he turned around, dropped his pants, and there was a “Very Nice!” tattoo staring back at me.

That was exactly what I wanted:  Something that would either stand the test of time for having a special meaning, or would become a legendary rallying cry for future generations of runners.   What I didn’t want was to get a random Japanese character on my shoulder, or a tribal arm band, just for the sake of getting a tattoo (no offense to anyone reading this who has one of those.  I’m sure it’s awesome!)

By the time I reached 30 and still hadn’t figured out what to get, I just assumed my window was closing pretty fast and it wasn’t my destiny to have a tattoo.  But the universe has a way sometimes...on January 13, 2010, my first-born daughter decided Heaven was way better than this place and thought she would go do some advance scouting for us.  We found out she wasn’t going to make it September and it was only a matter of weeks before I first had the thought that I would get a tattoo in her memory.  After she passed away, I decided I wanted a cross with wings coming out of it on my shoulder. 

But who should do it?  When you’re 31 and work in a professional field, this isn’t a decision that should be taken lightly.  If the artist screws up or does a crappy job, you can’t exactly blame it on too much alcohol while in college.

We were planning a trip to California in August, and I figured why not just go to Kat Van D’s shop in LA that is featured on the TLC show LA Ink.  I would be assured a good artist from a cool shop, and that would give me plenty of time to make sure it was something I really wanted.  But like any good show, television reality and reality are not the same thing.  High Voltage Tattoo (the real name of the shop) does not have their telephone number available anywhere, their tattoo artists do not reply to e-mails, and they have horrible customer service reviews.  Not exactly the vibe I wanted for my first (and only?) tattoo.

After poking around on-line, Body Electric in Hollywood had glowing reviews, their Website was pretty cool, and most importantly, they have a phone number where someone picks up the phone and actually answers all of your questions in a friendly manner! (Shocking, I know.)

The day finally arrived and as we were making the couple of hour drive from my sister-in-law’s house in Irvine to Hollywood, I wasn’t nervous about the pain.  I figured I knew some real wussy people who had tattoos in more painful spots than the shoulder, so how bad could it be? (In hindsight, all of those people must have been drunk out of their mind.)  My biggest fear was two-fold:  1) the design wouldn’t come out right, and 2) there would be an earthquake while the needle was in my arm.

We arrived at the shop right after it opened on a Monday, so it wasn’t hopping, but the vibe was outstanding.  The place was spotless and the people there were very friendly and encouraging to this tattoo virgin.  In fact, the place was so chill and inviting that while we were waiting for the artist to finish up my tattoo design, the little lady actually uttered the words “Maybe I’ll get one.”  A minute later she heard the high-vibration needle for the first time.  Just as quickly as the thought had entered her head, it was gone.

To me, the most nerve-racking thing in life is the first time a judge asks you a question in front of your client that you don’t know the answer to.  But the first time a needle full of ink gets plunged into your body is a close second.  Thankfully, our artist was a quiet, unassuming dude who went about his work professionally and efficiently.

It took about three hours to finish the artwork and five hours at the shop in total.  After the first few minutes, I just got into a zone while he worked, and the pain was present but very tolerable.  It’s a sharp pain while the needle runs along your skin, but they only do a few seconds at a time.  The worst part is sitting still for that long, and it gets a little tedious knowing you are so close to the end but can’t move yet.  For about 24 hours afterwards, it felt about the same as a rug burn, and then there was zero pain after that (My favorite part about the whole experience was that for about a month afterwards, every time I would get a chill or shiver down my spine, the frayed nerve endings at the tattoo location would light up like a Christmas tree and give me a jolt.  I know, I’m weird.)

But here’s the thing people without a tattoo don’t realize – a new tattoo is nothing more than a giant, open flesh wound.  You can see what the finished product looks like right after he finished, but then it turns into a scabby, flaky, itchy mess for two weeks while it heals.  During which time the tattoo is barely unrecognizable and you wonder what you have done to your body.

Once my skin healed, I loved how the design came out and I don’t regret it for a second (although to be honest, it’s not exactly small).  Everyone always asks me if I’m going to get another one?  My standard reply right after I got it was, “I hope not, because it took quite a tragedy for me to get this one.”  But now that I’ve had it for six months, well…

You look familiar, do I know you?

Various

Keeping in line with my running hypothesis that I am the one directly responsible for the randomness that is my life, I have stumbled upon my fair share of “celebrities” in odd places.  I put celebrities in quotes, because the idea for this blog got me thinking that it is a fairly personal topic when it comes to who we get excited about meeting.  A quick story as an illustration:

I was a hurdler of some minor reknown in high school, and continued on at U-M.  During that time period, Allen Johnson was the top hurdler on the planet, winning multiple gold medals at the World Championships and Olympics.  While in law school, I was an assistant track coach for the university, and would travel with the team to out-of-town meets on the weekends.  It was early Saturday morning at the hotel before one of the meets (I think it was Clemson, SC, but it might have been Chapel Hill, NC), and someone started knocking on my hotel room door.  Hauling my tired, lazy butt out of bed (because coaches get to drink on Friday nights while the athletes are sleeping), I opened the door ready to berate one of our athletes for waking me up.  Instead, standing there was Allen Johnson, my favorite athlete.  He quickly apologized for knocking on the wrong door (ends up his coach was in the next room), and I believe my exact response was: “Tee hee.  That’s ok.  Tee hee.”

The idea of celebrity simply relates to what we are individually interested in, and I rarely tell the Allen Johnson story because I understand that most people could care less.  My point is that to me, that was a big flippin’ deal, to a very small slice of the track community that would have been a big deal, a slightly larger group of people yet may have realized who he was, and to 99.9999% of the population, they would have just been annoyed that some strange dude woke them up.

Which gets to my second point about celebrity:  People always tell me they are amazed with my ability to remember useless facts and information; but personally, I believe everyone can be trained to remember the same stuff, it’s just not a priority to most people.  I do acknowledge that I am a visual learner with an above average recall for faces and voices – and I watch a lot of movies and TV.  Which is definitely a contributing factor in the “random” sightings I have had.  Another story as an illustration:

The movie 8 Mile starring Eminem came out in November, 2002, and by the next summer, I owned the DVD and had watched the movie a few times.  I was living at home during the summer of 2003 while interning at a law firm, and my Dad and I decided to go sit in the woods in Northern Michigan for a weekend.  After hiking for a few miles later at night to get to our campsite, we finally arrived to the location as it was getting dark, only to find a giant black dude and a little Asian lady sitting there.  It’s stereotyping, but I’m guessing it’s not a common occurrence to find a black man and Asian woman sitting deep in the woods in Northern Michigan.  We struck up a conversation with them and he was complaining about how hard it was hauling all of the stuff into the woods.  (Of course it was hard, you’re not supposed to carry a 2-ton cooler, king size mattress, full wardrobe and kitchen sink 5 miles deep into the woods!)  But as he’s talking, I’m thinking to myself:  “Man, this guy looks familiar.”  Finally working up the courage to just blurt out “Dude, how do I know you?”, it ends up that he was the club bouncer in 8 Mile and had a few lines in the movie arguing with Eminem.

My point is that while it’s an amusing story finding a black guy and an Asian lady deep in the woods with 18,000 times too much stuff, it adds a little kicker at the end because of my uncanny ability to remember names and voices.  Lesson For The Day:  Watch more TV and movies, because you never know who you might run into deep in the woods late at night.

Ok, one final celebrity sighting story for the road:

I mentioned in my very first post that I worked as a summer camp counselor at the University of Michigan.  Each week during the summer, the U-M coaches for different sports would hold camps for the little rug-rats.  It’s a pretty cool thing, as the younger kids get to come spend a week at world-class facilities and meet the coaches and players who are still around.  My job (along with about 30 other counselors) was to stay in a dorm room on a hall with them at night and make sure they didn’t burn the place down.  [There will definitely be a post or two in the future dedicated solely to that summer.]  It was one Sunday afternoon as the kids were checking into the dorms that I went to the lobby to get my mail out of the box.  I was looking down and flipping through the mail as I got on the elevator after a guy and his kids.  Next thing I remember, I was thinking: “Why is Harry from the movie Dumb and Dumber asking me what floor I want?”  I looked up, and staring back at me was none other than movie star Jeff Daniels, bringing his tikes to hockey camp.  Thankfully, I had enough sense to reply “7, please,”  rather than, “Kick his ass, Sea Bass!” or “You can’t triple stamp a double stamp!” or “Would you like an atomic pepper, Mr. Mentalino?”  (Obviously, I’m a fan of that particular cinematic masterpiece.)

Travels with a Grand Prix in Search of America, part 1

August, 2000

One of my favorite books is “Travels with Charley in Search of America” by John Steinbeck.  American writers have penned some fantastic books devoted to hitting the open road, but there is something about Steinbeck’s travels that struck a chord.  Most of the great road trip stories have an ulterior motive of hedonism – let’s see how much drugs I can ingest and how many chicks I can nail in as many states as possible.  But Steinbeck was at the point in his life where he just wanted to see what normal, everyday Americans were all about.  So he hopped in an RV with his poodle Charley riding shotgun, and just drove.

In between my junior and senior years in college, I decided that sounded like a fantastic idea.  Just hop in the car, drive from Michigan to Montana and back, and see what would transpire.  (It was probably about this time in my life that my Mom stopped splitting her time between praying for me and trying to reason with me, and just decided to devote her full time to praying for me.)

Before I begin, a word about my travelling accommodations:  You can take your Japanese auto quality and reliability of the 1990s and shove it, because I’m taking a Detroit engine every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Continuing in Detroit’s fine tradition of comfortable beasts with big engines, my ride of choice was a 1997 black V-6 Pontiac Grand Prix, complete with gold rims and an upgraded stereo system.  And to top it off, this hog actually got a legit 30 mpg on the highway.  Perfection for a college student on a budget. 

The basic itinerary was to head north from West Michigan into the Upper Peninsula and then take a northern route to Glacier National Park in Western Montana (i.e., the lyrics to a Bob Seeger song).  The goal was to never stop at any Generica establishments (McDonalds, WalMart, etc.) the entire trip, with the only exception being nights in a Super 8 if I wasn’t near a hostel or camping.

Day 1 – Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Last week, I was in Chicago at the downtown Orvis store and picked up a book titled: “1,000 places to see before you die.”  I immediately started flipping through it to find the Michigan entries.  There was only one: Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel.  I quickly put the book down and continued shopping, because the editor was clearly an idiot.  Situated on the southern shores of Lake Superior in between Munising and Grand Marais, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is a natural gem that 100% belongs in that book.  [Don’t believe me?  Click here.  See, I told you.]

The itinerary for day one was to hike a few miles to the shoreline at Chapel Rock and set up camp for the night.  Somewhere in the woods between the trail head and the camp site, I was ambushed by a flock of drunk old ladies.  This is not an exaggeration.  I was minding my own business enjoying the scenery, when out of the woods appeared 3 blue-haired grandmas.  One was holding a box of Franzia, with all 3 sporting full wine glasses.  The oldest of the bunch was sidled up next to me before I could blink and was getting a little too “handsy” with me and my water bottle.  Drunk Grandma:  “What ya got in there, sonny?  Vodka.”  Me:  “Uh, what?”  Drunk Grandma:  “Vodka.  It’s vodka, isn’t it?”  Me:  “Ma’am, I assure you that is water and not vodka.”  Drunk Grandma:  “That’s a shame.”  After dismissing me as no use to them, we chatted for awhile and parted ways.  Little did I know at the time, that odd encounter in the woods was just an appetizer for the randomness that would follow throughout my journey. 

After setting up camp on a cliff above the shoreline, I was treated to one of the top 5 sunsets I have ever seen in my life.  It had been overcast with light sprinkles throughout the day, but just as the sun was setting the horizon cleared and threw off the most amazing oranges and purples and reds onto the clouds.  (I still have a picture of this sunset hanging on the wall in my house.)  As the sun sank below the still, cold waters of Lake Superior, I knew this was going to be a good trip.

I don’t care who you are, when you are sleeping by yourself in the middle of woods, every noise takes on a different intensity.  While you may be asleep, part of your brain is still on high alert in fight or flight mode.  So when I was startled awake the next morning by something raising holy hell outside my tent, I was convinced either: 1) the old ladies were back and about to abduct me, or 2) a moose was about to give birth on top of my tent.  After my adrenal gland made sure I was way too awake for only being first light, I mustered the courage to unzip my tent – figuring I might as well see what was about to kill me.  No joke, not 50 feet away from my tent were 2 squirrels clinging to the side of a tree getting it on.  With my life safe for the moment, day 2 was off to a good, random start.

to be continued…

How "The Big House" got even bigger.

November 22, 1997

Have you ever wondered how it is that the attendance numbers at a major college football game can be thousands of people over the stated capacity of the stadium?  For example, the stated capacity of Michigan Stadium was 102,501 in 1997, yet the reported attendance for the Michigan v. Ohio State game that year was 106,982.  Well, here’s a story of how that happens…

First, a little background:  Tom Goss was the embattled UMich Athletic Director from 1997-2000, and was heavily criticized for a number of decisions during his short tenure.  To me, the dumbest move he made was allowing to stand the decision that incoming freshman in 1997 would receive a split-season ticket package, meaning half of the freshman class would not be allowed to buy tickets to the Michigan v. Ohio State game.  Because apparently, when you have a limited capacity of 102,501 seats to fill, rewarding old alumni who don’t know how to cheer is more important than pissing off a couple of thousand tuition-paying students.  [Historical Note:  Split-season student tickets had never happened before, and there was such a backlash against the decision that it will never happen again.]

Of course, guess who was lucky enough to receive the half-season ticket package that did not include the Ohio State game.  And to throw salt on an open wound, Michigan had to go out and win every game leading up to the Ohio State that season and be ranked #1 in the nation.  Thankfully, someone in the athletic department realized the week of the game that there were a lot of freshman student-athletes who did not have tickets to what would be the biggest game of their entire college career.  Word was quickly spread around the athletic teams that any freshman who did not have tickets to the game could show up early on Saturday and receive a free pass to the game in exchange of putting pom-poms on all of the seats in the student section (I’m not sure who authorized that deal, but there is special place in heaven reserved for that person.)

Fortunately, my roommate was in the same boat as me, so we could make sure we actually got out of bed on Saturday.  I remember that it had snowed overnight and it was butt cold when we got up at the crack of dawn to trudge down to the stadium.  When we got to the stadium, there was a lady standing at the gate and she told us to come back when we done to pick up our game pass.  After our fingers and nose had turned a sufficient amount of black from the frostbite, we were finally done.  When we got back to the entrance gate, there was a stack of what must have been over a hundred passes – but nobody in sight.  After waiting a few minutes, we came to the conclusion that the person must have also gotten frostbite and said “Screw it, I’m outta here.”  Naturally, we did what any poor, starving college student would do when faced with the situation – took a handful and started selling them to people on the street for $50 a pop.  (Why $50, when real tickets were selling for $100s?  Because we decided the passes didn’t look very official and $50 was all people would be willing to pay for a chance we were scam artists.  It’s called real life supply and demand in a free market economy, and part of the reason I could pass Econ 101 a few years later without ever going to class.)

And the rest, as they say, is history.  The passes were general admission, so I squeezed my way in about 20 rows up at the 50-yard line, watched Charles Woodson and David Boston start punching each other right in front of me, watched Charles Woodson run a punt back and 106,000 people turn into pure electricity, watched the guy who lived across the hall get maced by a cop when he ran onto the field after a 21-14 Michigan win, watched a dude fall 20-feet out of a tree and crack his skull open during the impromptu rally on the university president’s front yard after the game.  You know, a typical Saturday for a college student.

Substitute Teaching, Part 1

December, 1999 - June, 2000

I had a semester off inbetween undergrad and law school, and decided to use that time in the most productive way I knew how - substitute high school teaching (by productive, I really mean a job with the most money, least amount of stress and the highest degreee of schedule flexibility.  Because if it's a Tuesday and I don't feel like working, why should I?).

The great thing about substitute teaching in high school is that the real teachers don't actually expect you to do anything.  I substitute taught over 100 days in over 10 different high schools, and I only remember 1 time that I actually had to teach a lesson.  The rest of the days involve either popping in a movie or staring at the kids as they avoid doing some menial sheet of nothingness the teacher left for them.

Obviously, this set-up could lead to some of the most extreme boredom imaginable.  So I had to take it into my own hands to make sure I wasn't bored sitting there all day (who cares about the kids emotional state).  Following are a few of the highlights from my time substitute teaching:

1.  I look outside the window of the classroom and there is a flock of at least a dozen wild turkeys strolling through the parking lot.  I happened to have an extremely obnoxious kid that hour who wouldn't shut up the entire class.  Instantly seeing an opportunity to solve my problem, I told him to go outside and chase the turkeys away.  After a period of back and forth, he realized I was serious and happily took off out of the classroom.  By this time, the entire class is at the window watching what would happen next.  We see the door of the school open and the kid go running into the parking lot.  So far, so good.  But all of a sudden, the entire flock of turkeys simultaneously turns and stares at the kid.  Bam.  He stops dead in his tracks and looks like he is about to pee his pants.  After it became obvious the turkeys weren't going to budge and he didn't dare move a muscle, I proceeded to open the window and yell, "Nice work, ya nancy boy.  Now get back in here before they peck your eyes out."  Needless to say, he didn't say a word the rest of the class.

2.  Kid comes up to the desk and asks, "Can my buddy and I go downtown to the bakery and get some donuts?"  (I imagine this was a test to see how far they could push me, but I didn't care, I also happened to want a donut.)  My reply, "Sure, but you're buying me one as well."  15 minutes later, the kid comes sauntering back into the classroom with a single donut in his hand.  Oh, hell no, I thought. Me: "Where's my donut, dude?"  Dude: "I didn't think you were serious." Me:  "You honestly thought I would let you leave school grounds to buy baked goods, but not be serious about buying me one. Dude, really?"  Dude: "Sorry."  Me: "Why are you still standing there, go get me a donut!"  15 minutes later, I had my donut and all was right with the world.

3.  There was one particular high school where I was the only substitute teacher they had willing to sub for the shop teacher, and happened to also be the HS where I was the head varsity girl's track coach (many stories for another day).  This was not a particularly troublesome high school, but bad enough that they had a policewomen roaming the halls during the day.  These kids were always trying to sneak out on me.  On multiple occasions, the cop would throw one of them back into the classroom, with a simple "Another one got loose on you."  One time, the kids and I were just sitting there staring at each other, when one of them gets up and just sprints out the door at top speed.  He was probably having an acid flashback, but I did the only thing I could thing of - ran after him.  I eventually caught him in the parking lot and grabbed ahold of his shirt.  My response to the startled look on his face?  "Next time you bolt, don't do it when the track coach is the sub.  He can out run you."

4.  Same shop class as the previous story.  The shop teacher was smart and would purposefully not leave me the key to his office where the master switch was located to turn on the equipment. (Not sure if it was the kids or me he didn't trust.)  One day, I'm sitting there in the classroom side of the shop space, and I hear the equipment turn on from the shop space.  Puzzled, I saunter over there and see a kid on top of a ladder with his head poking through the space of a removed ceiling tile.  (As far as I can remember, he had a screw driver and pliers in his hands.)  Me:  "Hey buddy, what you doing?"  Buddy: "Nothing."  Me: "Wait, did you just hot wire the classroom?"  Buddy:  "Maybe." Me:  "Turn it off and get your butt in your seat.  But don't worry, I won't tell anybody, because that is the awesomest thing I have ever seen."

5.  Last week's entry provides some context of my general attitude toward my own high school experience.  During junior year physics class, I used to sit in the back of the room and throw bouncy balls when the teacher had the lights off and was trying to explain things like kinetic energy on an overhead projector (don't even get me started on why physics and overhead projectors should never go together).  Of course, the teacher could never figure out who the culprit was and never even thought to blame the quiet, straight A student in the back.  Five years later, I am substitute teaching in the same classroom, and open the middle drawer of her desk.  And guess what I found?  Yep, a box full of my bouncy balls.  And guess what I did with them?  If you guessed: smiled to myself and shut the drawer, you haven't been paying attention.  If you guessed: threw them at the kids and then took the kids out in the hallway for a bouncy ball fight, you're feeling me.

Plenty more substitute teaching stories to come...