When in Doubt, Mumble

That's what yesterday's fortune cookie said. There's nothing quite like walking to a Chinese buffet in the freezing rain and eating by yourself, thank goodness.

"KOLKATA, India - A woman receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in eastern India lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said on Tuesday.

"The patient recovering from a post-surgery infection shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection.

"On Monday, the patient’s family saw a gaping hole with swarming ants in it when they lifted the bandage on her left eye."

Mom and Mack have decided to buy a fire truck. Fluorescent green. "We put Santa up there and drive around in the Thanksgiving Parade!" I am afraid I'm doomed to be like this my whole life. I guess it shouldn't shock me any more. Not since my youngest brother decided to get rid of his bed and start sleeping in a dentist's chair.

"Did your tooth fall out!?" the freshman girl said to my friend Squirrell, just as the elevator doors were shutting. Squirrell looked down at the folds of his pirate costume to see if there was indeed a tooth on his person. We were halfway done with trick-or-treating, and we'd been given a LOT of the same generic Costco-brand hard candy, so it was possible.

Either she noticed how confused he seemed, or she thought he was gesturing toward his pirate costume with his chin, because she followed it right up with an enthusiatic "Oh! Did you black it out?"

Awkward. Because Moose, the Neverbird, and I (the four of us had all come to the freshman dorms together to hit them up for their extra candy or ewhatever else they might have there) knew what the girl didn't know. What Squirrell told her then, with his best wounded-looking face: "No. I have a gap in my teeth." Like I said, awkward. I loved it.

My roommate told me a joke:

The devil is taking someone on a tour of Hell and showing him the various rooms, as he is wont to do in so many jokes. So the guy keeps asking what's in each room. Here are the devil's responses:

"Here is where we keep the Hindus who ate beef.... This room is for the Mormons who drank coffee and tea.... This one is for the Jews and Moslems who ate pork.... And this one? It's for the Episcopalians who ate their salad with the dinner fork."

Went to the planetarium on a date with the Neverbird. The woman who gave the presentation was the most hideous basement-dwelling nerd you can imagine. You know the girls you see around campus who never take care of themselves, and then they mope to their roommates about how no boys even look at them? The type that all the boys go out of their way to avoid looking at? The kind for whom kindly visiting teachers anonymously leave bottles of conditioner on the doorstep? The kind who show up at the Good Will on the day the new used clothes arrive so they can pick the rack clean of frumpy, over-sized Eeyore sweatshirts? This lady was that type. Only now grown up, teaching at BYU, still unmarried, and with even worse posture than you'd expect. Like those moles on Super Mario World. Anyway, now that I've painted the picture, I can splain what happened.

So the lights were out, and she started talking about how difficult it is to prove the existence of extrasolar planets when we aren't even sure how many planets there are orbiting our sun. I shuddered, then whispered to the Neverbird that there are few things more terrifying than hearing that woman utter the words, "our sun." We got into all kinds of trouble that night for not being able to stop laughing. Actually, that happens pretty much everywhere we go. I contemplated dressing up as slim goodbody when we went to an organ concert in SLC. "OH!" I would gasp. "I think there has been a terrible misunderstanding."

Ah, life. I'm excited for Harry Potter. We're dressing up for that one. The Neverbird has robes and wands and everything.

Next Sunday I am speaking at a ward fireside. You all should come, if you can. I'll be telling a pretty interesting story. It'll be one I've never told on my blog. Anyway, that's all for now. It seems the more fodder I have for blogging, the less time I have in which to do it. Such a conundrum.