Laughter in Public

I was walking around in the zoo when I noticed this family was off to the side eating some food. I thought to myself, "Well, this might be the video for my final project." As I was walking closer, they began laughing. I quickly pulled out my phone and started recording, or so I thought. I ended up leaving the zoo thinking I had a video, but instead ended up with this candid photo of the family laughing. What had happened was that the child on the right was trying to say "backpack." Instead he was saying "packpack". The rest of the family erupted at laughter while the kid was unsure of what was so funny in the way he was saying "backpack". The little girl on the left ended up laughing after this photo was taken. Laughter is in fact contagious. The laughter of the male in the center and the two females on both sides of him caused the little girl to begin laughing even though the little girl did not know what was going on. The lady on the far left sort of chuckled at the situation. I guess children do laugh more easily than adults.

One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor

The Thanksgiving had finally arrived. Man, college is a doozy. I was so relieved that it was Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving break was going to be my “catch-up on sleep” days. To make things even better, it was the weekend of the Baylor game. I was so ready to skin some bears at Amon G. Carter. On top of that, both Robbie and I had friends coming over for the weekend. This was going to be one epic weekend. Now one of Robbie’s friends that was coming over this weekend I had met during the fall break. I was pretty excited to see him again and for him to meet my friends.

            I went home first for the Thanksgiving and headed back to TCU with my friends after that so that we could make it to the game. During the car ride, my friends and I used this time to catch up on our lives. We all went to different universities, so it was good to catch up. As the time passed, we arrived at TCU. We were running a little bit late due to the traffic. We quickly went to Academy to get them some purple clothing in order to fit in at the game with all the other students. As soon as we got what we wanted, we went back to my room to meet up with everyone and so that I could also introduce them to everyone else in the room. As we arrived to my room, numerous people are in there “pre-gaming” the football game. I saw Robbie’s friend that I knew and talked with him for a while.

At that time, he was training at an Air Force base nearby. Coming to TCU was a sort of break from the Air Force for him. On top of that, he hit the famous 21 a couple weeks ago. Now the guy waited till he was twenty-one to drink, and he really wanted to try tequila because all of his squadron told him it was their favorite liquor to drink. Robbie and I looked at each other and agreed that we needed to get him some tequila shots. Soon after that, a close friend of mine here at TCU texted me that she wanted to come to my room with her mother to “pre-game” the football game as well. Now Robbie’s friend at this point was starting to really feel the effects of the tequila and one that I did not expect to ever see in my lifetime. My close friend here at TCU arrived with her mother. As soon as her mother walked in, Robbie’s friend was somehow weirdly attracted to her. Out of a huge group of girls in the room, he looked at this girl’s mother and asked her to take a shot. He did whatever he could to talk to this girl’s mother. Robbie and I both knew at this point we needed to cut him off. The guy was literally hitting on this mother the whole time and completely ignoring every other girl that was trying to get his attention. My friend’s mother was completely unaware at the moment until her daughter pulled her to the side and told her. Her mother was so shocked that this guy was hitting on her, but she was also somewhat amused. She felt somewhat young again.

Robbie’s friend obviously struck out and ended up dead asleep on the floor later that day. He woke up later that night completely unaware of had happened earlier that day. For him it was literally "one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor." That day will forever be remembered for Robbie’s friend’s valiant effort at hitting on a mother before a football game as well as the day that TCU defeated a Baylor team that was looking at possibly winning the Big 12. I’m looking forward to Robbie’s friend coming over again. I wonder what this guy has planned next for us.

Giselle

            Recess was my absolute favorite time of the day when I was in second grade. It was the time out of the day that I could get away from that nasty Mrs. Sutter. She always had something to scold me with. “No, Donny, do not cut that girl’s hair!” “Did you just call her a dirt devil? What does that even mean? That’s it you’re going to the principal’s office!” “No throwing rocks at the building, Donny!” What did she expect? I was a kid. Alright maybe I wasn’t the most well-behaved kid out there, but I honestly tried to behave myself.

            Anyways, there was this girl named Giselle. For some odd reason she had a crush on me at the time. Me being the boy I was at that time would claim that she had “cooties”. At one point of time there was actually a game called “The Cooties Game,’’ very original name. Now before you go off and think that I was the devil as a child, this game was actually played by the whole class. The girls actually wanted to play this game to. The game was essentially a never-ending game of freeze tag except with “cooties.” Now back to this Giselle girl (no not Tom Brady’s wife). She was the only girl that was not a huge fan of it, especially whenever I said that she had “cooties.” Now I had a legitimate reason for saying this. The girl would follow me everywhere. One time she even followed me to the bathroom! I just wanted to pee in peace! That’s when I told her that she couldn’t come into the bathroom with me because she has “cooties.” For some odd reason, this statement somehow caused her to stop following me into the bathroom and sometimes around school. I had tried the traditional “can you please stop following me” or even told the teacher about it, but none of that worked.

            On this particular day during recess, Giselle was following me again. That day I was quite impatient since I forgot to do my homework that was due that day and knew I wasn’t going to hear the end of it from my mother later that night. We were playing kickball since it was kickball Thursdays. I really had to use the bathroom so I had to leave the game for a couple of minutes. As I was walking to the bathroom, I noticed that Giselle was following me yet again. I was so annoyed that this time I yelled at her. “Giselle, leave me alone! You have cooties! Get away from me!” The poor soul just looked down and started crying. I knew I messed up at that time. Yes, it was excessive that this girl was obsessively following me; however that did not justify my reaction. I was later told to go to principal’s office. Let’s just say that part wasn’t fun at all. On top of forgetting to do my homework, I also had this waiting for me when I got home. I learned that day to be more considerate of people’s feelings despite the situation. The sight of this poor girl being absolutely crushed by a couple of sentences that I had yelled still haunts me today.