Sunday, November 30, 2014

Halloween, 1995

I should be 100% way too embarrassed to share this photo with you. But I just can't help it. It is too horrifically glorious to keep it all to myself. It should be against the law for me not to share it with you.

This weekend, my childhood best friend, Sam, came into town to be with his family. (He may kill me for posting this--I'll have to deal with the consequences later).

I met Sam when I was about eight years old. He and I were the same age, our birthdays only twenty days apart. Almost instantly we became inseparable and remained that way for many years to come. To this day, he is the one person on God's green Earth who knows me best. In fact, I think he may be the only person in my life who knows every one of my secrets.

He is the wisest and most loyal friend anyone could ever have. Besides Bob and Cathie, he's also probably the most responsible person I know. He's never been anything but a wonderful friend to me, and I love him as much as I think I could love anyone.


Whenever I have a problem, no matter how big or small, I get Sam on the phone, explain my situation, and then listen to him tell me exactly what to do for the next hour. Then I call him back a week later to tell him that I didn't follow his advice and to explain to him how my situation has now become much worse. And he starts over, ever patient, and walks me through my life choices again.

I won the lottery to find him as a child, mostly because it was an absolute miracle that I located a kid who was as strange as me.

You guys. I was a freaking weird child. You've heard some of my journal entries from The Lost Journal Series. You've heard some of my stories. TIP OF THE ICEBERG.

I cannot really begin to describe for you how odd of a child I was. But I think the picture I'm about to show you will help give you a better idea.

Sam texted me on Saturday morning to tell me that he was digging through some old family photo albums when he stumbled across a Halloween picture from 1995 when he and I were only eleven years old.

For some reason during that time, Sam and I thought that The Sound of Music was the most ridiculous film ever created. We thought it was cheesy and long and boring and we associated it with our grandmas, because at that time, we couldn't imagine that anyone other than our grandmas could like this film.

We ironically sang the songs from the movie, mostly the one about "how do you solve a problem like Maria?" We sang that song at the top of our lungs in Sam's basement, in "nun" voices, and in excessive vibrato.

Then one day we had a great idea: why not dress up as the nuns from The Sound of Music for Halloween?

We begged our mothers to create costumes. They reluctantly agreed. They consulted with one another. They had no idea where to even begin. They had no patterns to follow. Keep in mind that this was before the Internets.

Against all odds, they found a way. And our costumes came hot off the sewing machines just in time for October 31, the day that Sam and I wandered the streets of South Jordan Utah in our habits, singing in beautiful geriatric harmony, "how do you catch a moon beam in your hand?"

He probably should have known better, but Sam went ahead anyway and texted me a picture of the photo he found on Saturday:

Sam on the left, Eli on the right.
 If any of you out there have a more embarrassing photo from your childhoods, I don't want to see it.

~It Just Gets Stranger

31 comments:

  1. My best friend in college and I ironically dressed up as nuns one year...it may have even been in 1995! (thus, here revealing my age!) I only wish I had a picture!

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  3. Too stinking cute!!!!! HAHA!

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  4. I have so many questions, but I don't think I want any of them answered.

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  5. Underneath that whimper, and behind that Fuller from Home Alone look, I'll bet there's still a garrr-geous head of hair.

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  6. I am speechless but I love this picture! I'm not sure how Sam feels about you posting this, but I think he'll survive. You could start singing "I Will Survive" and dress up like Gloria Gaynor :) new idea for Halloween

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  7. I am happier about this than anything else I've been happy about all year. Thank you. Just thank you.

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  8. Love this! Of course, I never dressed up as anything "normal" ever (still don't).

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  9. Actually, the internet was invented before in the 1980's, and was being used by regular people around the beginning of the 90's. So technically, it wasn't before the Internets. As a matter of fact, Microsoft had a Windows Operating System created in 1995 called Windows 95 that could surf the Internet quite well (although prior to this they did have Windows 3 versions which could also surf the net).

    Although computers back then were quite expensive and therefore weren't readily available to the average person as they are now, so, although the Internet was there, you just didn't have access to it.

    ...The More You Know...(dun dun dun duuuuuuuun music from the 80's during Saturday morning cartoons)

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    1. My mom's best friend is married to a guy that makes comments and "clarifications" like this one ^ We can't stand him! Because it's absolutely unnecessary and we all know what Eli meant. Okay, thanks.

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    2. ^ No need to be rude. You're comment was unnecessary. Okay, thanks.

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    3. (For the record, I love every one of Lee's comments. Even when he nitpicks at things I say. ESPECIALLY when he nitpicks.)

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    4. Not mean or even mean-spirited! Simply informative. Thank you, Lee.

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    5. 2nd Anonymous, YOUR comment, not YOU'RE comment. But I wasn't trying to be rude, I promise. I actually enjoy most of Lee's comments and I get the sense of humor. He just reminded me of that other guy, ha! I also "love" when people respond to rudeness with... more rudeness. Hmmm...

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    6. LOL...mission accomplished.

      *wrings hands in an evil way* Now on to the second part of my plan!!!

      muah...muahahahaha...MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...*trips on a rock*...AAAAAHHHHHH *SMASH*...

      ...ahem....

      Soon I will have my revenge on Eli and....oh...sorry, that wasn't meant to be typed here...IGNORE THIS COMMENT!

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  10. Oh, Eli. I just ...there's just...I can't quite...oh. my. goodness. Thanks. This will teach me to NOT read Stranger while invigilating my student's writing an exam.

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  11. When I die, and assuming that I'm right about the whole getting to see video of any moment in the history of the world once you get to heaven, I'm going to immediately ask to see footage of you trick or treating in 1995.

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  12. I love this story so hard. October 1995...where was I? I was a junior in college. I can't believe I was sitting around in some boring old college seminar while you and your friend were trilling showtunes in nun outfits. Please tell me there's audio of this somewhere. PLEASE.

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  13. Cathie is seriously the coolest for making that costume.

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  14. I think that's awesome and hilarious. I only have pictures of me in a football costume and as an angry angel, and some sort of early 1900s picnic goer I think.l..

    Our funniest in the family, though, was when my brother-in-law and two of his football-team friends dressed up for Halloween of their senior year in high school (like 1987) as three large, (hairy) ugly(!) women. Oh. my. actual. gosh. I'd give anything to find a picture of THAT. We laughed so hard my head still hurts!

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  15. Cathie McCann: Mother of the Year.

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  16. My school is blocking the image for inappropriate content. My imagination is running wild.

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  17. I miss that little boy! XoXoXoXo

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  18. How did THAT pipsqueak of a kid grow into you, a man with gorgeous hair and outrageously good dogsitting skills?

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    1. I think he drank some of that ooze that turned regular turtles into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

      ...although I could be wrong.

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  20. I thought nothing could top this picture when I saw it on Instagram, but the story behind it has me in tears!

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