Humor of Dave Barry

I was recently at my Stake Priesthood Meeting and they read this story. I thought it was funny and that you all needed to hear it!

The following story is written by Dave Barry and is titled "Clean Laugh 707":

Let's say a guy named Fred is attracted to a woman named Martha. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Martha, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then, there is silence in the car.

To Martha, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Fred is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Martha is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily towards, I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Fred is thinking: ...so that means it was...let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means...lemme check the odometer...Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Martha is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed - even before I sensed it - that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Fred is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Martha is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Fred is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty...scumballs.

And Martha is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Fred is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Fred," Martha says aloud.

"What?" says Fred, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have...oh dear, I feel so..."(She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Fred.

"I'm such a fool," Martha sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Fred.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Martha says.

"No!" says Fred, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that...it's that I...I need some time," Martha says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Fred, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says. (Martha, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Fred, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Fred.

"That way about time," says Martha.

"Oh," says Fred. "Yes." (Martha turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Fred," she says.

"Thank you," says Fred.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Fred gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a college basketball game between two South Dakota junior colleges that he has never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.

The next day Martha will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification.

They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.

Meanwhile, Fred, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Martha's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Martha ever own a horse?"

And that's the difference between men and women.
~Dave Barry

Today was exciting!!

Today, well, more like early this morning, Alex and I became True Aggies!!! Last night was the homecoming dance, and at Midnight people line up so they can get their chance to stand on the "A" and kiss. At Snow College it works out so you stand under the bell tower and kiss while it is dinging 12 dongs at midnight. Everyone is done in less than a minute. Here, there are about a million people who want to kiss on a little 3'x3' platform. The lines were super long and I think we ended up becoming True Aggies at about 12:45 this morning. Pretty entertaining. Specially with the people standing next to us in line. He kept making funny comments, so it made it worth it!

After getting some sleep, Alex and I went up to Aunt Cena's to help her with her yard. Mostly we pulled a million and a half weeds. I am SORE already. My right arm and my poor fingers from gripping and pulling so much. Her yard looks SO much better, though, and she was really happy with it, too. (And she paid us for it, so it was nice to add something to our income line on the tracking paper Alex is doing for Family Finance). Anyways, when we got back from her house we had another surprise.

Some of you knew before, but I didn't post it.....I had decided back in June that I needed something to nurture and take care of. Alex won't let me get anything furry and cuddly (and it's too expensive to pay the pet deposit every month), so I decided to try gold fish. Not quite as appealing as a kitten, but still fun to watch and it gave me something to take care of to keep the nurturing side of me sane. Well, gold fish didn't work out very well. They all kept dying. The worst was when one died the day after I bought it, so I took it back and he gave me a new one. As soon as I got the new one out of the bag it died. Good grief. So, after my 7th goldfish died I decided to pay 1 cent more and try guppies. This was the middle of July sometime. They aren't as pretty, but I thought maybe they'd last longer. This was a Thursday and I bought 2 grown guppies for 30 cents. On Saturday there were 5 more. There were little baby guppies swimming around. Best 30 cents I've spent in a long time. Well, since then, one of the adults has died, and one of the babies died the other day. (I really didn't expect any of them to live). We separated the adults from the babies just to make sure none would get eaten, and we've enjoyed telling all our friends about how my 30 cents multiplied like crazy.

Anyways.......when we got home from Cena's house, we checked in on our guppies (who desparately needed new water) and to our surprise, there were 5 little guppies in with the remaining adult. It is so cool. We now have 5 babies, 4 teenagers, and 1 adult. It's pretty exciting. (Someone else can explain to me how one lone guppy can have 5 babies by itself......either they can fertilize themselves, or they are pregnant for a really long time......)!!

Yeah, then I went to the Relief Society Broadcast which was a really good way to end my Saturday. Now I think Alex and I are going to watch a movie and relax our aching bones.

My Schedule (Alex)

I had to make it I guess since I have a job interview tomorrow... so here is my school schedule.

Sweet Internet!

So we have a long story but I'll make it short. We have been sick of this "Truly Wireless" internet service that we were with that is provided by our apts. They were charging us $15/mo for a 512KB/sec connection... way too slow if you know what that means. We've always wanted to share a connection with our neighbors because they seem to never have any problems with it. The Truly Wireless was always having problems with it not connecting and resetting more than 50 times a day. It was really annoying to try and download something especially without the assistance of a downloader for a download. Our hometeacher is related to our neighbors somehow and they suggested that we share with our neighbors. We told them that's what we've wanted to do since we learned they got a good connection. Within minutes of our hometeachers leaving the neighbor came over and gave us the password and it will only be $10/mo and they get a whopping 8MB/sec connection! Yeah... we love it. It's great. Truly Wireless was trying to blame our problems with their internet on our computers... Ha ha yeah right! Anyways we love our neighbors and our connection is slightly faster than on campus!