Heather Dixon Wallwork's Blog, page 3

A Practically Perfect Proposal

At the end of January, Brent and I went to Disneyland

WITH some family.

(We Disneybounded as Mary and Bert :) :)

Brent hadn’t been in 18 years!!  Not making this up!

We went on the newly-remodeled Matterhorn

He yodeled all during the ride :D

(YES he can yodel!!) (!!!!!!)  (I love that.)

We went on the teacups

And the Mark Twain boat

(My sister totally took this picture, she’s amazing.)

Anyway around that afternoon, Brent took me back by the Matterhorn, handed me his phone and some earbuds, pressed play, and took off.

He had cut together a video for me!

I did.

The video started out by playing some of my favorite songs and pictures of my favorite things :)

In the video, he talked about all the things he loved about me :) :)  (Aaaaw!!)

Every minute or so, the video would come up with a new screen telling me to go to another part of the park.

So I did.

It turns out a few more people were in on this!

My friends were in Disneyland at the same time–and they gave me yellow tulips at the carousel :)

(Before he’d met me, Brent had seen my animatic Gele Tulpen and had started to fall for me then :)  So we both are big fans of yellow tulips.)

Another stop was by Snow White’s wishing well.

It turns out a LOT more people were in on this!

Brent had asked my family to each record a video of them wishing me well.  (So I could have well wishes at the wishing well.  Haha.)

This is when I started to cry :)

My aunt and her family sang the wishing well song and told me how excited they were for me.

They recorded this early in the morning, poor kids haha

My little brother and his wife wished me well

And so did my other brothers and their families :)

My other brothers’s family just screamed in excitement.  Haha.

My sisters also had the most wonderful things to say :)

..And offered advice over their cocoa mug.

My sister Sarah dressed up like Thor and told me my love would be powerful enough to lift Thor’s hammer.  Haha.

My sister Mary and her family told me how excited they were for me.

Their five year old, Mimi, recorded it.  She ain’t bad!

Katie’s kids also recorded a video for me telling me how happy they were for me :) :)

My mom and dad wished me well, too.   It was so sweet.

My mom was really nervous about being on camera so she wrote everything down on a card.  (She wanted to re-record but my dad thought it was fine.)  I still loved it :)  (NOTE how my mom is wearing pearl earrings!  Haha she’s never without them pearls.)

Then the screen did this

So I did :)

And here’s how it happened

Yeah :)

That was our first kiss :) :)

It was pretty great.

(LONGER than I expected!  Hahaah!  Poor guy he had waited long enough haha)

A big crowd had gathered because they saw someone was going to propose, so a lot of people witnessed it!

My sis caught this great picture.

I love it so much :) :)

If you’re wondering what he said before he got on his knee…I was in such a daze, I only remember some of it.  But I do remember him saying that he loved me so much and wanted to spend the rest of his life and forever with me.

And I said

“OH YES”

So there you have it :) :)  I’m going to be Heather Wallwork very soon.

VERY soon!  We are totally not messing around.  We’re getting married March 24th (In just 2 weeks!!) in the Salt Lake Temple.

Hahaha yay for short engagements and dreamy boys ^_^

Thankfully my sister had taken enough pictures of us in Disneyland that we were able to use them for the announcements/invites.

I love how they turned out.  (BTW, if you’re looking to get invites printed up, go to uprinting.com, they offer foil options for a really good price, I’m in love.)

You should totally come to the reception!  Waffle Love is catering (!!!!!)

Saturday, March 24th, 6:00-8:30 PM (dancing at 8:00)

At the white church on 3488 W. 300 N. in West Point, UT.

I would love to see you!  (I’ve ordered a ton of waffles and fingers crossed they don’t run out haha.)

This was a happy post :)  Thanks for sharing it with me :) :)

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Brent Wallwork

So anyway.

When we last spoke.

I came home from that first date all sort of twitterpated.  This doesn’t really happen to me.  Even my aunt remarked that was weird, I must REALLY like this boy.  (I lived with this aunt and uncle during college, and they’d seen me come home tired and cranky from a lot of dates lol.)

Brent and I kept texting.

He found a blackmail picture of me.

I found a blackmail picture of him.

The internet is a wonderful treasure.

(He sewed that costume himself) (!!!!!)

We were starting to bond upon mutual weirdness.  I hoped he would ask me out on another date…and he did :)

BRENT:  Would you like to go ice skating this Saturday?

ME:  YES if you don’t mind me falling all the time.

BRENT:  Oh don’t worry I’m not great either!

ME:  Oh well ok!

At the ice rink:

He kept me from falling by holding my hand :)

We skated and skated and talked for hours, until the sun set and the Christmas lights started glowing and you could smell the pine and hot cocoa and it was, you know, magical :)

I learned a lot more about Brent on this date.

I learned that he was born May 1st, 1974 in Burien, Washington.

Aaaaaw what a cute baby!

He grew up in the Washington area, and liked sports and math and was a redhead

He had an older sister and a younger sister (redheads too!)

When he turned 19, he served an LDS mission in New York North, NY.

This is a picture of him being all righteous and stuff.

Also this.

When he came back he went to BYU, and got a master’s in Structural Engineering.

Here’s a picture of his master’s thesis.

“Influence of Pre-cast Corrosion on Bond Strength of Reinforcing Steel in Concrete”

(I think it’s hilarious his last name is “Wallwork” and he majored in structural engineering.  Haha.)

In the meantime, he dated some famous people.

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(You know who this is, right?  Right??  That’s right, folks–that is Stephanie Meyer…the lady who wrote the “Twilight” series!)  (!!!!)  (Apparently she asked HIM out…but then he left on his mission and she ended up marrying someone else.  Too bad, he could have been RICH RICH RICH!!)

(Instead he went after me, a penniless artist/writer.  Sorry, buddy.)

Now, he works for UDOT helping with grading ramps and paperwork regulations, and things like that.

He’s good at what he does but loves doing creative things even more.  He’s an amazing singer

And photographer

And sculptor and animator.

He wants to have a stop motion studio in the basement.

THIS HAS BEEN MY VERY SAME DREAM!

Cray.

Anyway getting to know him was a surreal experience.  It was almost like we already knew each other.

After a week and a half of dating, we were talking marriage.

I know.  It happened FAST.

You’d think I’d be worried about that (especially after having an abusive ex-fiance.)  But unlike all my other dates and relationships, this one felt right.  From the very beginning, I just had this really strong feeling of peace, no uncertainty at all.  I’d never felt that before with any other guy.  And I’d dated a lot.

This is great because it means that Elsa was WRONG

And Cinderella was totally, totally right.

I love that.

(Not to get all mooshy or anything :)

Anyway where was I?  OH YEAH TALKING MARRIAGE.

In the past, I had a knack for attracting mashers.  “Masher” is an old-fashioned word for a guy who’s only after a girl for physical reasons.  Thankfully they haven’t gotten anywhere with me, but it did make me wonder if anyone would ever like me for, you know, me.  Anyway.

A while ago I drew a line:  I decided that I wouldn’t kiss a guy unless we were engaged.  That way I’d know he wasn’t just out for the kissy stuff–he actually loved me.

I was nervous about telling Brent this.  Would he backpedal furiously and get out the relationship?  Would he try to talk me out of it?

I told him anyway.  And do you know what he said?

Do you know what he said?

He squeezed my hand and he said, “Then it shall be done.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaaaw!!!!

And I was like

And he was like

And we were like

And by golly, he was good on it!

(He did, however, kiss me on the hand, on the head, on the cheek, on the ear…  And spend lots of time dunking his head in cold water.)

As you can imagine, things moved pretty quickly after that.

I met his family.

He met mine.

We went ring shopping

And the more I got to know him, the more I loved him.

(To be continued…very soon :)

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Old Maidery

I’m an old maid.

And this is ok.

I’ve been very happy as an old maid.

I love watching movies all by myself.  It’s great!

I’ve gotten used to eating alone in restaurants and it’s the best.

I was totally one with myself and completely content.

But my little sister didn’t think so, and so she signed me up for a phone dating app (!!!??!?)

(She really did, too.  She got my facebook login information and found pictures of me and wrote my profile up and began swiping on guys for me any everything, talk about moxie.)

This caused a problem…not because she used my password and stuff

but because my sister has TOTALLY different taste in men than I do.

I mean, how dare she.

She said FINE and handed the account over to me and I should have deleted it

BUT I DIDN’T

Ok.  Online dating is like, so weird.  So, so weird.  In fact I have this theory that internet dating is a lot like Pinterest…you spend hours collecting all those delightful pictures…hours and hours…but you just know that you have zero intention of actually making that recipe.

Anyway, with this particular app, it presents you with a picture of the fella.

You decide in a few seconds if he’s the man you want to spend the rest of your life with

Before you drop him like an old shoe.

IF it turns out he IS the one you are going to spend the rest of your life with,

Then you swipe up

And if he has swiped up on YOU

Then it’s a MATCH!!!!

Now you can

Die of old age waiting for him to message you.

Tough one.

I ended up swiping through so many guys, I ran out of people.

This is the actual screencap.

I guess it was telling me I was too picky??

Anyway, on the second time through, there was a fella that gave me pause.

His name was Brent Wallwork.

He seemed like a legit nice guy.

This was one of his profile photos.

I thought that was pretty funny, plus I loved that he did such a good job with photography and stuff, so I swiped up.

Ok.

This boy was a little different because he started messaging me right away.

HIM:  It’s a jolly holiday with Heather…Heather makes your heart so light…

ME:  Hahaha BEST MOVIE EVER

HIM:  So tell me a little about yourself.

ME:

Somewhere, in a dimly-lit Man Cave:

When you delete the app from your phone, it makes you and all your conversations disappear.

He found my facebook profile by googling “Heather storyboard artist”.

(There aren’t a lot of us.)

He sent me a very thoughtful FB message

It took me a week or something to respond (poor guy)

He asked me how my Thanksgiving was.

I didn’t respond.

Several days later:

HIM: Hey, can I get you some food–

ME: YES

So he took me out.

I had him pick me up at my aunt’s house, because he was in the area.  My uncle, who answered the door, had no idea he was coming.

Awko taco.

Anyway we went to a swanky place nearby called Pizza 712.

We couldn’t find a spot on the street so we turned into a very dark parking garage.

And I immediately turned on the Heather Charm

He was not like the other boys.

The next two hours were the best two hours of my life.

(And not just because I ordered the most expensive menu item called “The Three Little Pigs” pizza which had bacon, ham, and sausage.)

(Though that did help.)

(Oh come on, how can you not love that??  It’s brilliant!)

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Datemate Disaster

About three years ago, my love life wasn’t going so well.

I’d just been in a serious relationship where the guy used to yell at me (what a walnut) and because of this

I thought, I am REALLY bad at picking boys.

So I did what any sensible, reasonable person would do.

I decided to have someone else pick them for me.

This is a legit thing…there are actual matchmaker companies out there.  They have a database of people and they make their money when people pay to arrange dates for them.

Girls get to sign up for free.  (Red flag?  I hear they get in free to strip clubs, too…)

Anyway, in my infinite wisdom, I signed up for one of these local sites.  (This is embarrassing.)

The happy couples on their webpage looked super happy.

That was a good sign.

This particular company offered something different–they did a bachelor and bachelorette party!

Every month, they would introduce a single guy (or girl) and then hand select matches for them.  They’d all gather at a fancy party where the bachelor would have 5-minute interviews with each girl, and then at the end of the night, pick 3 of them to go on a date with.  (Separately, I assume.)

Anyway, the bachelor for July, his name was Garrett.

Garrett seemed like a really nice guy!  He was a doctor!  From California!!  He was probably very very rich AND HE WAS SINGLE!

WAS I HIS MATCH???

I was pretty sure I was his match.  Doctors love artists!

I must’ve passed the smell test, because a couple days later, I got an interview with one of the consultants!!!

The interview was a little weird, she didn’t talk much about Garrett.  It felt more like a sales pitch.

I think she could tell I wasn’t really buying it, so the interview was short.

She’d let me know if I would be chosen for the party on July 31st.

I didn’t hear back.

Until 7:00 PM on July 30th.   I got this email:

Well, darn!

Ok.

I moved on.

…For 19 hours.

The next day at work, around 5:30, I got a call:

The event was close to work, but I lived about an hour away, so I couldn’t go home and change…

So I was like:

*click*

I SKEEDADDLED

I had to do ALL THE DRESS SHOPPING!!!

I had to look amazing for Garrett!  I had to try on a million dresses!  I had to find one that didn’t make blood come out of my ears!

I found THE most beautiful dress ON SALE!!

Of course, I then had to buy shoes that matches, a brush to comb my hair, lipstick to touch up my makeup, a jean jacket, a belt, nylons…

By the end of the shopping spree, I’d spent (this is embarrassing) nearly a hundred dollars.

I found a church on the way that had its doors open, and I dressed up in the bathroom.

By the time I was done, I was

a

BABE.

…And an hour late.

I made my way to the address they gave me.

I was stopped on the way by a gated community.  No–not gated, stonewalled.  I passed under a massive archway and had to give the guy in the window with sunglasses my name, which he neatly crossed off my list.

I was beginning to wonder if I was out of my league here.

When I arrived at the house, I didn’t need to wonder any longer.

I was definitely out of my league.

The house was a freaking castle.

It was massive and on a hill.

It had its own waterfall.

They even rented their own unicorns and rainbows.

I felt so much like the girl in those Hallmark movies, where she arrives at the address she’s promised to cut grass for, and the camera pans up to reveal that the house she thought was a modest suburban home was actually a mansion was a handsome (but very lonely) single doctor inside, and they would immediately find a connection over landscape horticulture

Something good was going to happen to me tonight.

 Leslie was happy to see me (even though I was an hour late) and she introduced me to all the folk who were here for the bachelor and bachelorette interviews.

They were all so super nice!

And there was FOOD!

AND IT WAS FREE!!

I had a great chat with all the nice fellas and even a lot of the girls, who were all classy, fun people!

This surprised me.  I mean, we were competing for the same guy, after all.  I expected them to be catty or something.

But there wasn’t a catty girl there.  Not one.

It was awesome.

Before I knew it, it was time for my 5-minute interview.

There he was.

Garrett.

Leslie left us

together

alone

and…

We TOTALLY hit it off!!

There was so much ENERGY man!

We talked nonstop.  He told me about his family.  He asked about mine.  He told me about his work, and what he liked to do, and he laughed at my jokes and there was a FIZZ in the air a FIZZ

I NEVER have that happen to me!!

When the 5 minutes was up, Leslie practically had to drag us apart

It was crazy magical

Garrett had to finish doing the 5 minute interviews, but I knew–I knew–he would be thinking about me the whole time.

And when he decided on his dates

I knew I would be one of them

It really was like a Hallmark movie.

The end of the party arrived like a dream.  Leslie corralled us all together for the big announcement.

Also:

I was just moments away from my forever love

I couldn’t wait!

Inside was…

What?

A card that said:

And that was it.  That was all.  Just a form rejection letter.  Nothing more.

No, wait, there was something else.

A coupon from the matchmaker company.

Wha–what??

WHAT THE

My immediate thought was–and I really did think this–

“WHAAAAT???  I am WAY  prettier than she is!!!!”

So, obviously, there *was* a catty girl there that night.

I was done.

Set coupon on fire

Drop sparkler

Walk offstage.

I can’t believe I spent $100 on that.

I never heard from Garrett or anyone again.

Funnily enough…not that I’m a creepy facebook stalker or anything (although I am)

I looked Garrett up a few months ago.

He was still single.

And I still have this incredible, amazing dress.

So I think we all know who really won that night.

 

Big news coming soon :)  I can’t wait to tell you guys :) :)

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The Year I Ruined Christmas

So my mom has been looking into backyard beehiving

which is funny because my parents live in the middle of suburbia but I guess it’s not against city code (??)

I think she figured it was a pie in a sky kind of thing though because we’re not really animal people, but my dad surprised me when he asked me if I could Amazon the beehive for Mom, as a Christmas present from him.  WOW its kinda a big deal!

(He couldn’t even search it on Amazon because the google ads will pop up everywhere and Mom would get wise.)  Thankfully, I was happy to help.

We were all really excited.  Mom had no clue.

The beehive came in two colors: white and orange.  I chose orange because that’s more Bee-ish.

Anyway (thankfully) the bees don’t come with, you have to order them separately and they come through the mail (really!) and you have to order the queen separately, too.  She comes in a marshmallow or something and eats her way out (weird)

So I was able to keep it in my house and I’d like to have a moment of silence to tell you HOW HEAVY THAT BEEHIVE WAS

I basically dragged it in and then cried because I couldn’t close the door because it was in the way, and had to kick it further into the house, it was the worst.

I promised Dad I would wrap it for him too (I’m the nicest!) so about 2 days before Christmas I called…

I

am

the

WORST

And that is the story about how I ruined Christmas for everyone.

My mom is the sweetest and still acted surprised on Christmas morning haha.

She is actually REALLY looking forward to being a beekeeper, she’s been looking at the marshmallows and everything, I’ll let you know how it goes (could be some pretty funny blog posts in the future)

Happy New Years, everyone!  I hope your holidays were the best :)

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Red Light Wedding

My little brother Adam got married last month.

We’re super happy for him.  We love his new wife, Jessica.  We legit did not think he would find someone so awesome haha.

They seem to be a really good match.  For example:  On a road trip a few weeks ago, my little sister Emily was squashed in the back seat of the car with them.

Out of the blue, Adam was like:  “Jessica, which version of Superman do you like the best?”

And Emily was like, “Are you serious.  There are different versions of Superman?”

And Jessica was like, “Yeah, totally!  There’s like so many different comic books and DC spinoffs that there’s a ton of Supermans!”

ADAM:  In fact, there’s a lot of different Lois Lanes, too.

JESSICA:  Yeah, like there’s a comic book where Superman and Lois Lane get married and then become arch enemies and kill each other.

ADAM:  I would never do that to YOU, Jessica

JESSICA:  I would never do that to YOU, Adam

ADAM AND JESSICA: 

EMILY:

Anyway, here’s some pictures of the happy occasion

Ogden temple.  That’s where they got married.

Some of the cute nieces and nephews.

 

 

I love these guys.

These kids, they love photobombing.

Afterwards, we had the wedding luncheon at a place called “The Timbermine.”

The Timbermine is a really cool, kitschy place in Ogden Canyon.  Think Bucca De Beppo but Western instead of Catholic.  The entrance looks like a mine shaft and there’s mine carts and wagon wheels and deer heads all over the walls, it’s cool.

There was even a room that was FULL of old DOLLS.

I took a picture.

Anyway Mom chose the place because online they had such lovely pictures of their banquet rooms.  See?

She thought the Christmas lights in this one was a really elegant touch.

She didn’t notice what was behind those Christmas lights.

MANNEQUINS O___O

Mannequins of the red light district.

Hahahaha guess which banquet room they put us in!  Hahahahaha

Some of the mannequins just stared down at us.

But some were gambling.

Some looked pretty inebriated.

One even looked like she was taking off her clothes.

  Mother was

horrified.

(She still looked great for the pictures, of course.)

During the wedding luncheon, Jessica’s youngest brother found out I had a blog with comics.  He got way excited.

People should never ask this because they get exactly what they ask for.

I was like:

And he was like:

So I left, confident that before the end of the day, I would have an AMAZING blog post for you guys!

Sadly, at the reception that night:

We went to the unused part of the cultural hall, and I watched him battle it out.

UNFORTUNATELY, they turned out to be Styrofoam swords.  Why would anyone do that??

Total Tablespoons of Blood: 0

Total Lost Limbs: 0

Total Broken Necks: 0

Why am I blogging about this

One last pic.  (I like this one.)

The End.

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GrownUpping + GIVEAWAY

Grown-Upping is great.  I’m definitely going to try it again sometime.

HEY.  Did you guys do Inktober?  Did you love it?

Here are a few pieces I did.  It was a lot of fun.

Would you like to win one of these?  WELL YOU CAN!!

All you need to do is leave a comment below– say “Want!” and you’re in!  And then I’ll draw a name on Thanksgiving day and the person who wins gets to pick one!  Wooooo I’m already excited for you and hope that you win ^_^

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Legit Creepiest Halloween Story

In keeping with the season, I’m gonna tell you guys a ghost story.

A TRUE ghost story.  I’m kind of skeptical about ghost stories, a lot of them seem to happen while the person is in a drunken stupor.  This actually happened to my friend at BYU, though, so absolutely no alcohol was involved.  And it’s legit creepy.

So around Halloween, one of our buddies hosted a party for a bunch of us animation people, and my friend Ben was there.

(Ben is totally normal–well, he did make a Davy Jones costume out of paint and cereal boxes, but that’s as weird as he gets, I promise.)  (And actually that’s not *really* weird, it was kinda clever.)

Anyway, we were telling ghost stories, and none of us really had any ghost stories to tell because we are boring people…except for Ben.

He had a ghost story.

So a few years before, Ben lived in some super old dorms on the south end of BYU campus.  They’d been a lot of things–classrooms, a chapel, etc, but now was men’s housing.

Ben roomed in a tiny old dorm which was fine, with pictures that could never stay on the walls, which is weird but still fine, and a draft that came from nowhere which was chilly but still fine.  None of these were dealbreakers of course, it was an old place.

No, the creepy thing about this place was that every few nights, Ben would have the same dream.

He’d dream he was in some open area

and a pinprick of a man would appear in the sky, and fall towards him

Screaming and flailing his arms

Closer

and closer

louder and louder

And when the guy was nearly on top of him–

Ben would wake up.

He could still feel the guy’s hot breath on his ear.  That’s how close the guy came to him, and how real it was.  Scared the crumbs out of him.

Anyway.

This happened  again and again, and finally Ben had enough.  He moved out of the place.

And he didn’t have the dream again.

He told a couple people about it, and everyone thought it was a load of hoo-hah so he ended up keeping it all to himself.

Ok here is the weird part of the story.

A few months later, Ben was attending his new ward (church) and there was a mingle activity afterwards, with root beer and cookies.  He got to chatting up one of the guys there, who found out that Ben had moved from the old men’s dorms.

And the guy was like:

Apparently, the guy had lived in that place, too!  Not only that–he’d roomed in the same dorm Ben had been in!

He admitted that he also hadn’t stayed long in that place.

And then, word-for-word, he told Ben that EXACT SAME DREAM.

He even told the detail about waking up and feeling the guy’s hot breath on his ear.

AAAAAAAAAAH!!!

 

Creepy, right?  You’re welcome…and Happy Halloween ^_^

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The Lies We Tell

As a child, I was the world’s most gullible kid.  My favorite word was “why?”…and I believed everything.

My siblings loved it.

(If you have any older siblings worth their salt, you’ll know exactly what they said next.)

(I haven’t eaten a watermelon seed in 33 years.)

One time I asked my mom what would happen if you ate grass.  She told me I’d turn into a cow.

I exploded into tears.

(Had I eaten grass that day?)

We may never know.

(Side note:  That thing my mom is holding, kids, that’s called a “newspaper”.  That’s what we had before smartphones, and our parents used them to line the cages of our pet dinosaurs.)

When she was babysitting us, my sister would regularly pretend to die.

It was horrible every time.

We weren’t allowed to stick our hands out the window because our great-uncle/cousin once removed had done that same thing and a truck had come by and taken his arm off and he lived the rest of his life without his arm.

This one might actually be true…(or not.)

One thing that got me every time was the “I’m Hungry!!!” response.  Sometimes at night, I’d tell my parents I couldn’t go to sleep because I was too hungry.  My dad had a zinger to this one.

DANG.  He is smart!

So it turns out parents have been doing this sort of thing to kids for years.

In the middle of the 1800s, a book of morality tales for children was released.

It was called “Der Struwwelpeter,” which basically means “Unkempt Peter.”  It was a collection of stories about children who do careless or bad things, and their untimely demises.

For example, Strewwelpeter–who lets his hair and nails grow too long–gets them sawed off.

I’ll let you guess what this story is about.

I’m not sure I want to know what this story is about.

The most famous of the stories was Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutsche.  Or, “The Story of the Thumbsucker.”

This kid kept sucking his thumb even though his parents told him not to.  One day he was walking along, minding his own business and sucking his thumb, when a tailor comes out of his shop and accidentally cuts the kid’s thumbs off.

Look at the expression on that guy.

That is not “accidental.”

I feel kinda bad for this kid, I totally relate to him.  I was a thumbsucker as a child.

I’d suck my thumb everywhere.

At night

Outside

In the grocery store

My parents were really worried.  I was 4 and nearing the golden age of 5, when I’d go to kindergarten.  So they did everything they could to get me to stop sucking my thumb.

They tried reasoning with me.

They tried warning me.

They tried bribing me.

None of this worked (I liked my thumb too much) and so they tried other methods.

For example, you can’t suck your thumb if your arm is in a pringles can.  My mom would pin the can to my sleeves.

Somehow I’d work my arm out of the can, and I’d be sucking my thumb again with the pringles can sticking out from my shoulder.

There’s this stuff that looks a lot like nailpolish, except its for kids who suck their thumbs.  You put it on and it tastes so horrible, the kid breaks the habit.

Except me.  I realized that if I sucked my thumb long enough, that awful taste would go away and my thumb would be delicious again.

One morning, my dad (who legit knows everything) knew I’d fallen asleep sucking my thumb, again.

I guess he decided it was time for a Come To Jesus meeting.

And it would scar me for life.

Ok so by this time I was old enough to sort of realize that some things people said weren’t true.  So I called his bluff.

But I wasn’t 100% sure.

I did keep sucking my thumb.  But every time…I worried.  Still, the black spot didn’t show up, so I figured I was all right.

UNTIL ONE MORNING

\

THE BLACK SPOT!!  IT HAD APPEARED!!!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

I was going to die.

I remember sobbing in my mother’s arms.  It was a horrible day.

I remember my dad being there too, looking…kinda guilty.

Well folks, there is a happy ending to the story.  My parents had literally scared the thumb outta me…and I stopped sucking my thumb.

They gave me a doll and I was ready for school.

(I recall graduating on to ravenous nailbiting, at this point.)

Years later, when I was in high school–yes, high school–I found out the truth.

That night, my dad had snuck into my room with a sharpie, and marked a black dot on my thumb.

Can you believe parents would do something like that??!?!?!??

Oh now.  Let’s not be too hard on my parents.  I mean, they did get me to stop sucking my thumb.

And also I’ve sued them for millions of dollars to pay for all my therapy bills.

To be fair…they weren’t the first-grader who tried to convince her classmates that she played Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”

No no–not the play.  Like, the actual 1939 movie.

I can’t believe they didn’t believe me!!

(Side note:  The mental gymnastics I made to rationalize this were amazing.  I remember thinking, “I don’t remember not playing her…so it could have been me!” I was such a good liar, even *I* believed myself!)

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Mugged!

This is the story of a mug.

A mug that had dried up oatmeal in it and sat on an empty desk at work for, like, ever.  At least three weeks.

Gross.

My coworker, Travis, would pass this desk every time he went to the breakroom.

And every time he saw that mug, he would be like, “Whose mug is that?  Why haven’t they bothered to clean it out yet?  Why did they just leave it on some old desk?  Have they no decency??”

Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer.

He threw it away.

If someone had actually wanted that mug, he thought, they would have taken care of it by now…not abandoned it with dried-up oatmeal inside.  For weeks.

The end!

(HE THOUGHT)

THE VERY NEXT DAY

MISSING MUG SIGNS WERE POSTED ALL OVER THE OFFICE.

(Seriously, I am not making this up.  I was there.  They were everywhere.)

“Have you seen this mug?” it asked.

It had a picture of the Colorado University mug.  The exact one Travis had thrown away the day before.

The poster claimed that the mug went missing yesterday, and this coworker was really worried because that mug super important and sentimental to him.

Travis was like

“Someone is pulling my chain,” he thought.  “They’re totally playing up this joke because they know I threw it away.  Right?  It has to be a joke.  Right?  RIGHT??”

Travis was sure they were joking with him.

But he worried.

So he went to ebay.

It took two weeks, but he found it.  That same Colorado University mug.

THEN he bought some instant oatmeal, microwaved it in that mug, stirred it around, spooned it out so there was still a little left, and let it dry.

Then he sneakily made sure the coworker would find it.

The coworker found it!

And was happy for about 3 seconds…

How did he know??  How??  Did he have it engraved or something??  Was he the mug whisperer??

Travis came clean.  He told the coworker that he’d thrown the mug away.

You’d think the coworker would’ve laughed and thought it was a great joke (because it’s pretty funny.)

But he didn’t.  He was ticked!  He was super mad at poor Travis!

Travis learned a very important lesson that day:  If you end up throwing away an abandoned mug with dried oatmeal inside….don’t spend $28 getting a new one.

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