My Sunday afternoon

Disclaimer for Maggie and Katie: There are a few funny things in this post. Yay!

Story #1: My friends Evan and Brooke asked me if I would help them pick up a crib that was being given to them by Brooke's cousin who lives in Bountiful, UT. Of course I said yes. I'm always willing to help out friends, even though I have a sticker on my truck that says, "Yes this is my truck. No I will not help you move." For those of you with trucks, just an FYI. These stickers do nothing. If anything, I've helped more people move since getting the sticker. But I digress... We got to Brooke's cousin's house and picked up the crib. He's a pretty funny guy. For starters, his name is Loren. A name like that pretty much ensures that the guy will either have a good sense of humor or be a complete social outcast. Luckily for him, it's the former. He gave us a tour of their newly acquired house. It's a really nice place. The kind of place that would go for ~1 million dollars in California. My friends and I always think in these terms, since we're from California. We do this because it reminds us how long it will be before any of us will ever be able to afford buying a house in California, so we don't get over-anxious and decide to move back before we're financially prepared to do so. Just as the tour was finishing, his phone rang and it was his sister (Brooke's other cousin, obviously). I can't remember her name, but it started with an M. He mentioned to her that Brooke and Evan were there. Then he finished his conversation and ended the call. After he ended the call, he pointed out to Brooke that even though he mentioned that Brooke was there, his sister didn't bother to ask him to say hi to Brooke. She just blew it off and that was that. Brooke didn't believe him and laughed as though he was joking. To this, he proceeded to call his sister back to confirm. He started by dialing and trying to hand the phone to Brooke, but she wouldn't take it. Then he just put it on speaker phone. When his sister answered he said, "This is Loren again. When you called a minute ago, I mentioned that Brooke was here, right?" She answered, "Yes." Then he said, "I just wanted to confirm that you didn't bother to say Hi to her, correct?" Keep in mind, that the whole time he's doing this, Evan and I are busting up laughing. His sister laughs at his question, but confirms that she didn't say Hi. Then he says, "Brooke thought that I was the one being the jerk, when in fact it was you for not saying Hi." Brooke's face is completely red at this point. Then he puts Brooke on the spot and tells his sister that she's on speakerphone and Brooke is right there. They both give an awkward "Hello" and he says that's all he wanted and says goodbye. I was dying. It was so something that I'd try to do to someone. Brooke was so embarrassed.

Story #2: We bring the crib back to Evan and Brooke's house. Evan and I assemble the crib. After that we're all sitting on the couch talking about my upcoming wedding. Evan makes one of his trademark jabs at marriage. I think he was talking about how he had the perfect idea for my bachelor party, but it was ruined. Tom Petty had a concert scheduled in Phoenix the night before my wedding, but it was cancelled. Brooke said, "Matt doesn't want to go to a concert the night before his wedding." I replied, "Have you met me, Brooke? I'd do almost anything to go to a good concert." Then Evan says something like, "Come on, it's his last night of fun before the old ball and chain." Then Brooke says, in the stereotypical nagging wife tone, "You tell Matt how great marriage is!" Oh man, me and Evan both lost it. She was ordering him to tell me that marriage is great. And the best part was, she was being serious. After a moment, she saw the irony in what she was saying and she started laughing too. It was a good joke that we revisited several times after that.

Story #3: Not funny, but I have to mention it, nevertheless. I'm driving home from Evan and Brooke's house. I'm on the 15 going southbound. Anyone in this area knows that Utah freeways are under constant construction, and today was no exception. They have at least 20 miles of the freeway lined with the huge orange pylons. Not the skinny ones or the cones, but the ginormous ones. So I'm driving along and up ahead of me one of the construction workers pulls out of the dirt median and into the fast lane, which I happen to be in. There's one car in between he and I. He speeds up quickly enough that he doesn't interrupt the flow of traffic and we continue to drive along for about 5 minutes or so. The whole time, he has his orange lights flashing on the top of his truck. Finally he decides that he's where he wants to be and proceeds to pull back out of the fast lane and into the median. He doesn't slow down to do this, so we were probably going about 60 mph, he simply makes a quick dash to the left trying to cut in between two of those giant orange pylons. As he's doing this, he clips one of the pylons and sends it spinning into the middle of my lane. The car right behind him was close enough that the pylon came flying out after he'd already passed the truck. This means that I'm headed straight for this orange monstrosity. I had enough time to react, but my options were limited. I put on my breaks, but I didn't slam onto them because I'm aware that there's someone following me pretty close. My next instinct is to swerve to the right to avoid hitting said pylon. Just as I begin to do this, I glance over my shoulder and there's a car right beside me in my blind spot. The pylon is still moving to the right at this point, so my only other option is to swerve to the left. Unfortunately, the freeway is lined with these stupid things, so I don't have much room to my left either. I swerved as far as I could to the left but the front passenger side of my truck hits the pylon and sends it spinning into the lane next to me. The car that I almost ran over slams into the pylon and sends it flying back to the left and into the median. This all happened within a few seconds and then it was over. Luckily, I don't think anyone had any serious accident because of it. I was a bit shaken up for a few minutes. Then it turned into anger. I'm seriously thinking about filing some sort of complaint. That would've been quite the lawsuit if there was a multi-car pile-up because some jackass that works construction on the freeway isn't smart enough to know that it's not a good idea to dart in between pylons onto the median while driving at 60 mph. /rant