The Brother's Mite

I love hanging out with my little brothers!

Besides making him dictate my previous blog entry, I took Joe with me to the grocery store. As he climbed into the mini van he had a quarter, two dimes, and two nickles held tightly in his right fist. He had saved up to buy a candy bar. I drove to the store and parked, and we both got out to make our quick purchases. A volunteer was ringing a bell as we walked past the Salvation Army donation can and into Frys.

"Oh, that's the can where you can give money for people who don't have any for Christmas, right Sam?"

"Yup, that's what it's for," I muttered in reply, half ignoring him. I was in a rush to get home for the BYU Utah game and hurried toward the aisle with chocolate chips. We needed them to make muddy buddies. I grabbed a bag and checked out.

On the way back to the van, Joe fell behind. I was probably just walking too quickly for him, so I turned around to wait. I saw Joe standing next to the red donation can, wiping his sweaty right hand on his shorts while he waited to cross the street. Only then did I realize he had been gripping his coins the entire time but had not bought a candy bar. As he caught up, I reached out my arm and he gave me a low-5 with his now empty hand.

That was the #1 highlight of my day (which is saying something, because we also made muddy buddies and BYU beat Utah).

juglezbimbomazzbimbooblesgimgobles

I just said all of this. OH yeah, I have a question. Are you going to repeat every single thing and put it on your blog? ... yes ... haha. giigle. chuckle. hehehe. :) haha. hahahahhaha hehehehe you're kidding. ha . :( hehe. huhuhuhehehehhihihehhehe. SAM! SAMMMMuh! hahaha. hahahhahaha. he. hickup. :-/? hehe. *cough cough*.

Well, are you going to dictate anything Joe? Or just make weird laughing noises?

BLa bla bla bla bla bla.

Blah has an 'h' in it, Sam.

No it doesn't. Not the way joe said it.

Look, the screen's off of it. Stop! WHY????

no reason.

ok.

fine, I quit. Go write your own blog.

THE END!

Of Age

It seems like the cool thing to do these days is to get married. Why not, right? A guy and a girl get twitterpated, and before you know it he’s buying the rock and they’re tying the knot.

Over the summer my roommate Rich and I took a couple girls in our ward on a double date. I’m not exactly sure what my date is up to all these months later, but his was sealed to him in the temple today.

When Nikki came home with my current roommate Mitch after they got engaged last Saturday, she was radiating exactly 60 gazillion watts of pure joy. It must be such an exciting and wonderful time.

The most recent close friend of mine to pop the question is my MTC companion and former roommate Mark. He got engaged last night to an awesome girl.

I never believed I would reach this period of my life. People my age aren’t supposed to be getting married. I never thought my friends and roommates would be the ones on the wedding announcements pinned behind our LDSSingles.com freezer magnet*.

I remember the good old days when girls had cooties, and only the most athletic of tom boys were respected on the soccer field at recess. Somehow something changed sometime between then and my college days. But even serious relationships freshmen year weren’t really serious.

Apparently that has changed now, too.

Now before you get any ideas, I’m not hinting at anything. I have no plans to jump on the bandwagon of love and get engaged any time soon. Since I’ve been home from my mission, I’ve actually been pretty scared by the idea. Because of this I’ve probably even scared myself away from potential relationships.

But due to the recent events noted above, I’m finally being forced to make the following conclusion:

People my age really do get married, and in all the time I've know them, they have never been happier.

.

*Before you go look me up... no, I don’t have a profile. We also have LDSSingles.com stickey notes and a pencil. It was an advertisement in a baggie on our door knob one day, and it's one of our only magnets.

Cimex Lectularius

There are monsters under my bed.

They've been hanging out down there for over a month now, and apparently have no interest in leaving. Until now I guess I've coped. Before tonight I haven't lost too much sleep worrying about them. But tonight is different. My roommate is gone for the weekend and I have no one to check for them. And no one to tuck me in.

Oh man...they'll know I'm alone. And what's worse? My bedroom light just burned out when I walked in and flipped the switch.

Alone in the dark, with monsters under my bed.

I hear they can sense fear.

Luckily the widescreen on my HP laptop is pretty bright, and I have the internet to distract me from my worries and keep me awake. I know they are just waiting until I fall asleep and render myself completely defenseless. That's when they'll strike.

So I figured while I lie here awake, I might as well do a little research on my foe, learn their weaknesses, and prepare for battle. Bad idea. I once heard that the more you really get to know something, the less you are scared by it. Well that may or may not be true about mimes and circus clowns, but it's definitely false about the creepers lurking below me this very moment. After learning a little more about what I'm up against, now I definitely wont be able to sleep.

They reach their host by crawling, or sometimes by climbing the walls to the ceiling and dropping down on the unsuspecting victim. They are attracted by the warmth of humans, especially in the middle of a cold dark night like tonight. They feast on blood. The harvest is done by piercing the skin of their host with two hollow tubes protruding from their slimy mouths - one to withdraw the blood while the other so thoughtfully replaces the lost fluid with poisonous saliva. After a five-minute feeding period, they sneak back to their secret places of hiding.

And these buggers are virtually unstoppable! They've got no achilles heel: my wooden stakes and silver bullets wont do the trick, and I bet Kryptonite only makes them stronger.

The monsters are under my bed as I type, just waiting for the right moment to attack.

Look them up yourself; maybe you can help me figure out how to defeat the pests.

Until then, I think I'll go sleep on the couch.

Exam 2 continued

It was after these thoughts that I began to feel sorry for whoever felt the need to steal the exam. I realized what a bold act of desperation it must be, especially among a student body of Christians with a strict code of honor. Who would do such a thing? I felt insulted on behalf of BYU that someone could so shamelessly taint the school's integrity.

Well the exam went fine. It only took three hours. But the entire time I still felt ashamed that someone had not only come up with such a cheating scandal but also resorted to theft in order to pull it off. I tried to think of some way to get it off my mind. Only as I opened the smaller pouch of my backpack to put away my calculator did I see my stashed Halloween candy and remember Shayne's suggestion from last week: "Go out this weekend and buy somebody a coke."

The principle is simple: buy a little something for someone you've never met - a complete stranger. Pay for someone's dinner, buy someone a drink, or do anything as a random gift to a random person. There should be no incentive, except maybe to make people happy and make the world a better place, and save the whales and stop global warming. It's these types of selfless acts that BYU students should be known for. It's the exact thing I needed to do to get the lingering dissapointment off my mind. I never thought the day would come when I'd be excited to give away my own candy. I pulled out all I had left: four fun-size packets of M&M's (1 peanut, 2 regular, and 1 mini).

We all know how great it feels to be handed free things, but I think I'd forgotten that it can feel even better to be the one giving. I never knew I'd learn so many great life lessons from such a dreaded accounting class. I'm sure the four students behind me were surprised when M&M packets landed on their bubble sheets as I walked down the row. I hope it made their day a little better, but I didn't stop or look back to see their reactions. I didn't feel the need.

I was filled with satisfaction as I turned in my test. I studied long and hard for it, put in an honest effort, and felt great about my result. After giving candy to those deserving strangers, I felt even better and realized that the vast majority of BYU students would "buy a coke" for anyone on campus before dreaming of selfishly staining the school's integrity.

So that was Accounting Exam #2.

Exam 2

I shall now bore you all to sleep with another blog about accounting.

The deadline just passed to take our second midterm. Here are the highlights from exam #2:

Desperate theives and cheating scandals, grown women brought to tears, and three varieties of M&M's.

On Monday morning the exam period began in the infamous BYU testing center. 11:00 AM, and still no one had taken on the beast. Perhaps some students believed the 75-minute in-class optional review would provide the necessary finishing touches on their thorough preparations for the exam. More likely, most students then filing into 151 TNRB came in hopes of using this class period as the necessary jump start to their unbegun cramming. With hopeless amounts of material to cover, Professor Hobson flew through example problems: "You should all understand this by now," and "We'll quickly skip through this one - that principle should be easy enough for you."

I imagined a proud elementary-school graduate rapid firing the ABC's; his toddler sibling gasped for breath before H, hopelessly trying to keep up.

By the time the wall clock read 12:15, anxiety hung thick in the room. Thoroughly prepared students sulked away with shaken confidence. Those hoping to jump-start their cramming began to realize that it was everlastingly too late. Many in that emptying BYU classroom would no-doubt clinging to their final lingering hope - a miracle. But would their faith be sufficient? One person didn't think so.

In the commotion of snapping binders, zipping backpacks, and students filling the aisles, the culprit struck. Whether the theft was premeditated or an unrepressed act of desperation I do not know. But the deed was done - the first step in a genius plan of cheatery. The distrought victim inquired for her missing backpack at the lost-and-found, but in vain. Her wallet was inside. It may have crossed her mind to cancel her credit card, but no one would have guessed it was the BYU ID the crook was really after.

On Monday night it was time for the testing center to close. The ominous hall was vacant, and all tests were accounted for ... except one. An accounting 210 exam was outstanding. The girl it was checked out to was probably still searching for her lost backpack.

It was Tuesday afternoon when I learned of all this. I had been studying on the ground floor of the testing center and was about to take the exam. My confidence was checked more than once as I witnessed teary-eyed students burst through the exit in frustration. One girl sobbed audibly. I swollowed and went over my notes one more time before running into Kylie on my way to start the test.

"There's some scandalous stuff going on with that accounting test." She whispered. "The professor canceled the version of the exam that was stolen and re-keyed a new one. Someone must have used a stolen ID and they have no way of tracking who it was."

The news added an unexpected twist to the unfolding drama of exam 2. "Who done it?" I wondered. My mind was suddenly relieved of accounting rules and time value of money calculations as I played detective in my mind. Maybe they were caught on a security tape. Or maybe we can bring in a k-9 unit to sniff out the stinking cheater.

...to be continued.