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When my cousin Patrick was born I was still a fairly young child but old enough to sort of remember him as a baby so I'd say about four or six years old. If he still lived in the state I'd probably know how old he was and then I could do some simple subtraction but my aunt was smart enough to escape Utah so I have to estimate.
Patrick was spoiled from a young age. Having no father figure at any point my grandparents helped my aunt give him everything he wanted.
... most spoiled brat children at least learn how to behave so they can control people but I suppose he wasn't that clever.
He's basically like a twelve year old kid on AOL excep that he acts like that in real life. The !11!1! at the end of every sentence translates into whining about anything he ever doesn't want to do and then pouting and trying his best not to do it anyway once someone makes him do it. His endurance against people who obviously can and will make him do something is somewhat impressive but it quickly adds to the stagnant feeling you get when riding long distances in a cramped car.
After a long spell of isolation I was invited to Texas. I was interested in seeing him as a somewhat more mature young boy but the only thing that grew was his ego. Well, his muscles were developed enough that he had begun to get a taste of the concept that children who are older than other children by a year or two are generally stronger.
Most kids don't understand that this trend goes on and only slows down in your twenties unless they've had alot of demonstration. They usually catch on but he was always sure he could equal me.
Exposition: My grandfather had been a fairly decent way to gage the differnce between strong people and little kids for me.
He taught karate classes (Shotokan I think,) since my dad was little. There was a trophy wall in the basement and everything.
Like many grandfathers he spent alot of time telling me stories. One of these was about a time that he was younger and would go to bars and armwrestle. As the well disciplined martial artist that he was he could detach himself and just let anyone else strain as hard as they could without budging his arm; once they were tired out he'd just slam them down without much effort.
My cousin was trying to prove he was stronger than me again and so I would basically manuver him around until I could lock my arms or legs and leave him unable to do anything but move his neck a bit. I kept trying to make him give up be he would valiantly cry "NEVAR!" and attempt to thrash about. Eventually he said he gave up but as soon as I let him go he climbed to his feet and said that he had fooled me (???, I didn't really expect him to be done with it but I didn't think he was going to play the invincable game.) So he lunged at me again and in a fraction of the time I had been messing with him before I had him in the same position.
`Ok, be warned- he thinks people aren't smarter than he is-
He tried to `fake` give-up again.
I guess because I like to prove to anyone who tries to establish themselves as a rival that I'm well beyond them I made the 'I give up' sequence very long and involve alot of statements that he wasn't lieing and that he also wasn't lieing about not lieing (damn it took him a long time to get the point of what I was doing,) until I noticed the mild look of fear that came over his face when he began to realize that I was bigger and alot more patient than he was.
He probably only gave up on the idea of squirming around in contact with me until I was 'defeated' because his mother made him stop but I could still see that he wanted to prove himself (he was flat out stating that he would have won if it went on and trying to boast his way past me. That I could tell was an understatement,) so I suggested armwrestling. He seemed reluctant so I would have to convince him of limits on my own strength. Because he was such a DragonBallZ fan (this was last year by the way,) I said I'd only use half my power and he perked right up.
...
Now, I'm far from conditioned in any way (except maybe with some of the skills involving in video games,) but I knew I could do this the way my grandfather did it so without much effort I let him wear himself out hoping to cement a fragment of the concept of humility into his head and let his arm almost fall backwards by it's own weight.
...
He got upset and called me a cheater. I was only supposed to "use half my strength," but had I done that I probably would have just slammed his prepubecent arm right from the start so I let him know that what I did was closer to a quarter. It was then that I saw a glimmer of understanding in his face. The surprized look was well worth putting up with him for the entire last week but he quickly forgot the lesson. Whether it was once I left or before I am unsure.
Note: noone reads my journal anyway so I'll fill in the actual first half some other time.
 Reika Hyou · Tue Oct 05, 2004 @ 02:35am · 1 Comments |
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Ago's ago mankind posed to question, "Why are women so crazy?" Womankind retorted with, "It's the men who are crazy!"
For ages the question of which gender is actually the crazy one has gone unanswerred but I have unfalterring evidence that the girls, are indeed, crazy.
As you read this you may say, "It's not fair to base everything off of one person!" but rest assured, she is crazy enough to throw the scales.
"Who is this crazy crazy person?"
The lunatic that today's entry is based on is none other than my own sister. I place before you just a handful of examples from a sea of her irrational thought.
Back when I turned sixteen and therefore her chauffer, my car didn't have a cd player. My sister took it upon herself to choose the radio station and throw a complete tantrum if I so much as touched my own radio. Like the parent who is worn down by their small child's constant mindnumbing actions I mostly gave in. Seeing that my defences were weak she exploited the living hell out of me to drive her to anyplace she desired.
I quickly grew to hate driving.
Rather than confront her directly a friend and I found five ways to basically set the volume of the speakers to zero. After much fiddling with it my sister was able to fix four of the problems but never quite figure out the last small problem and get her god-awful music back.
Driving became much more bareable.
One day the floodgates in her mind all openned and she decided she was going to absolutely get her ear-garbage back into my car.
She went out into the garage. With various tools she managed to remove my car stereo and unattach most of the wires. Shortly after this I heard her yelling my name from a distant room so I got up to see what the hell she wanted. I soon saw what she had done and before I could say anything she said, "ok, put a new one in."
Where was I supposed to get one? "There's gotta be one in the garage somewhere."
Rather than search through the garage for this mysterious car stereo we must have had I made her put my stereo back into it's proper location.
She did it wrong and ACTUALLY broke my stereo.
When she wasn't able to make me fix her fun sound maker she eventually realized that she could manipulate my mother into fixing the problem.
There is no doubt that she told mother of the state of my stereo as soon as she had what she was going to say planned out. Mother asked me why I didn't come to her about this problem and I told her about how I got my sister to think it was broken.
Those two never understand when I'm telling them something that I intend for them to keep private...
So my sister was told about it a little later and silently plotted revenge while trying to look like it had little meaning to her.
On the bright side I got a brand new car stereo with mp3 compatability and new speakers put into my car.
Ultimately my sister's attempts to regain that 'racket she things is enjoyable sound' failed because now the passengers of my car either listen to blaring japanese techno or nothing at all.
The next MDDS will probably go into detail about her personality and what goes on inside her head as best as I can understand it.
Reika Hyou · Tue Sep 28, 2004 @ 01:10am · 0 Comments |
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One of the things you experience growing up in Utah is various people always trying to convert you. I'm sure it happens alot in the rest of the bible belt but to be considdered a good Mormon you HAVE to try to convert everyone you can get eye contact with.
When you blend in to the crowd they'll usually asume you're already in their clutches but if you're with someone like my friend from California it's like they are drawn to you.
This is the story of the last encounter we had before she moved back to California,
We were all really bored one saturday so my sister convinced my friend to go to Classic rollerskating. I, of course, had to drive. We got about halfway there and my friend realized she had left her purse so we turned around and got it. Then after we got a little further my sister's friend started freaking out because she thought she was gonna die. She thought that because that night was the first time she took two kinds of painkillers for that time of the month. A little further and my friend realized that her money wasn't in her purse so we went back again.
I got the other girl some water and my friend spent a long time searching for her money before she found out that she had the money in her pocket the WHOLE TIME.
So we finally got going again with nothing left behind and my friend kep telling me how sorry she was about this (that summer my sister had gotten me to hate driving and it was well known among everyone who was in my car alot.)
When we got there the parking lot was full and there were cars parked along the road as well. Then my sister said, "Oh, it's the battle of the bands tonight!" I think she knew all along because she tries to manipulate me like that alot.
Eventually my friend persuaded me to come in with them even though I have no interest in that type of music. I went in for awhile and waited for the bands to actually start playing so I could reassure myself that I absolutely don't like the music and maybe go home. Instead my friend got my to hang out by the doors like usual.
This is where we encountered the Mormons.
My friend was a real magnet for them; she started asking them if anyone wasn't religious. Two girls out of the large crowd weren't and they weren't very talkative either (I see this as an environmental adaptation.)
So the most charismatic guy in the group takes it upon himself to make sure my friend is following the right religion. She told him she's agnostic but they confused it with aetheist (for anyone who doesn't know agnostic is basically neutral, aethist is no-god.)
So he knew he had to convert her right there and began his little speech (all of the people who try to convert you have a preplanned speech that I'm fairly sure they practice in the mirror.)
What he said was something along the lines of "Well, science is wrong. The first law of physics says that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but the big bang theory says that there was nothing and then BANG! there's this universe." Now, besides the fact that the second one is just a theory his idea of what science "says" was a little off. I had been leaning against the wall like the Marlboro man and decided I needed to interupt him to clarify a little bit. I said, "The big bang theory says that all matter was condensed into a single point the size of a period you idiot. If you're going to try to disprove science don't just go off of your vague memories, make sure you're right about what you think."
I blew his argument about 'science is wrong so there's only god' out of the water but after a brief pause he continued it only leaving out what I had ruined. Seems like he couldn't deviate from his plan because he had nothing else to use.
After a little bit of wanderring around we ended up back outside again. My friend was getting a little bit upset about how everyone was giving her dirty looks (she was in a black and pink plaid skirt and had something equally punk for a shirt,) so she asked them to stop being assholes and giving her dirty looks. One drunk guy stepped up to her and started asking how she could judge him to be an a*****e by the look of his face. My friend had a moment of shock so I deemed it a good time to speak a few words of windom unto the ignorant masses again and started to say, "You can tell alot by facial expressions." He cut me off before I finished the second word by quickly turning on me and screaming in my face that he "WASN'T ******** TALKING TO [me])" He surprised me so I was shocked for a few seconds but then he threatened to kick my a**. (Note: I am male. My avatar may have led you to believe otherwise. I used to have a male one and a female one but I liked how the female one was starting to look so I abandonned the other.)
I'd never been in a fight but was really interested in it. This guy was much larger than I and I doubt I could have come out of a fight with him consious but that seemed kind of apealing as well. So coming out of shock a big smile quickly apeared on my face. Every time he said something about kicking my a** (which was almost every sentence) my smile got wider until my facial muscles were starting to ache. After nearly a full minute of him screaming at me he started to realize that 'this kid shouldn't be so happy about this, he must be dangerous' and tried to dismiss me and go over to the other doors.
Everyone gatherred around me as soon as he had left and were trying to make his actions nothing because "he's an a*****e when he's drunk." I moved my forearms out with my palms facing up and said, "You know, he heard me say about two words and then judged me entirely by my facial expressions."
With two zealots dispatched I went inside and got some water. Then I dislocated my knee while I was leaning on a table and collapsed on the ground. That used to happen to me alot because my muscles were under developed or maybe one of the ligaments had snapped. Anyway, I ended up limping out to my car a sleeping for awhile before my friend came over and drug me back to the party we were enjoying so much. With my keen eyes I spotted the otherwise invisible ambulance parked on the curb and inquired about the situation. Some guy got hit in the head with a ball so I made a joke about it involving the lyrics to the ball song (earlier some guy was drawing attention and saying he was out of 'the band' if they weren't going to do the ball song.) and got my friend to laugh.
After that it was over and I drove everyone home. My friend kept trying to apologize about draggin me through the crappy music, Mormons, and my knee popping out of it's joint but at least I got this story out of it.
Note: This all happened two years ago but it's still the story I tell the most often in regards to mormons. We had various encounters with zealous youths trying to convert my friend and I but the rest have faded from memory.)
Reika Hyou · Mon Sep 27, 2004 @ 04:46am · 1 Comments |
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