Never Mind

In my last post, I said "At least my car isn't sitting at the bottom of a lake."

I take that back. I wish my car WAS sitting at the bottom of a lake. Last week I paid $600 to get a problem fixed. Up until last night, the problem seemed to be fixed, but now the engine light is back on and I have to deal with that today after school. Ugh.

Anyone want to trade cars?

A Really Bad Day

Today started off pretty rough, but thanks to a friend at school (thanks Court) and some students who made me laugh, my day ended up much, much better. On my way home this afternoon, I was listening to my favorite radio station (Alice 105.9). They were talking about "Your worst day ever." People were calling in to win Nuggets tickets. One guy in particular called to tell about his worst day/week ever.

I was talking on the phone when he began his story, so I missed the very first part. I was hanging up just in time to hear him say that as his truck was sinking to the bottom of a 40 foot lake (I missed him say HOW his truck drove into the lake), he was struggling to swim back to shore. Once back on shore, he tried to find someone who could get his truck out of the lake. However, the lake was too deep and too cold for anyone to get it out, so he said he had no choice but to leave his truck at the bottom of this lake.

Several weeks later, he decided to go on a fishing trip in this same lake. He got his boat in the water and noticed that the lake was much lower than it had been. They were lowering the lake (they do this at least once a year). He didn't think anything of it, and he took off toward the middle of the lake. As he was speeding along in his boat, his boat scraped across something under the water. He realized that it was his truck he had hit. His boat began to sink, so once again, he found himself swimming to shore.

Needless to say, he lost a truck and a boat at the exact same spot in the exact same lake.

He won the Nuggets tickets for his story.

I was in my car laughing so hard I had tears coming out of my eyes. I must say that my bad day today doesn't even come close to this man's bad week. At least my car isn't sitting at the bottom of a lake.

MS Walk Kearney-2009

We walk for my dad!

We had a great weekend in NE, despite the nasty weather. Apparantly, it was close to 90 degrees a day or two before we got there, but then it turned cold and windy, just in time for the MS Walk. We didn't let that get us down, and we all bundled up for the two mile walk (we only walked one mile b/c of the cold).

Our team consisted of...

Zach, Aydan and April

Jan (Jeff's mom), Shan, Jeff and Case

Me

Mom and Dad

Here are some more pictures from the walk...

Riddle

Well, I'm off to NE for the weekend, so my post will be quiet for a few days. I'll try and create a few stories while I'm away so I have something to blog about.

For now, here's a riddle for you. Place your answer in the comment section.

Question: You are a bus driver. At the first stop of the day, eight people get on board. At the second stop, four get off, and eleven get on. At the third stop, two get off, and six get on. At the fourth stop, thirteen get off, and one gets on. At the fifth stop, five get off, and three get on. At the sixth stop, three get off, and two get on. What color are the bus driver’s eyes?

Seriously???

Ok, so out of 365 days in a year, two different counsins in my family each had a baby TODAY. Brody Preston was born to my cousin, Becca. My cousin, Matt, (whom I share a birthday with) also had a little girl today, and they named her Macie Genee (not sure how to say it). Welcome to the family little baby boy and girl! It's a great family.

I was having car problems, so after a quick little trip to Goodyear, and $600 later, my car is back to perfect (or near perfect) health. Ouch! Why does the poor one always get stuck with the large bills?

I have an interview at Chatfield Senior High next Thursday. It's a .8 position, which means I teach 8 classes instead of 10 (for the entire year), and I only get 8/10 of the salary. BUT, it does have benefits, and it sure does beat being a sub next year. I am going against three other people, but I honestly think I have the best chance at the getting the job. I wrote one heck of a cover letter tonight. I'm quite proud. I would hire me.

As of this morning, I had 90 essays to grade. As of right now, I have about 25 left. I had to go to school today but my students did not, so I spent the entire day grading papers. It was a long day, and I'm tired, but I got a lot done. Chick-Fil-A brought us lunch, and the cow even came along (if you 've seen the the commercials, you know what I mean).

I'm going to NE with Shan and Jeff this weekend. I haven't been home since Christmas, so I'm ready to see some of my peeps (and my parents).

I made the most delish banana bread this past weekend. It's a peanut butter banana bread, and oh my goodness, it's so good! If you want the recipe, let me know.

Why I Love CO

Only in CO can you...

Wear shorts the day after a major snow storm and be perfectly warm.

Wear Fuggs (Fake Uggs) with said shorts because there's a lot of snow on the ground.

Wear this wacky combination (yes, I looked a little silly) to church. Hey, it's a casual church.

At said church, appear actually quite normal because everyone else there is just a little bit wackier than I am.

After church, watch all the snow (over a foot) melt in one day.

4/20

I don't know who reads my blog. I wish I could track every single person that perused my writings, but I guess that's the glorious thing about the blogging world. It's out there for whomever runs across it. Of course, I write for entertain. I write to get things off my chest. I write to make a difference in someone. I write to make people laugh. I hope you enjoy what you read, and I try to mix it up often.


I'm a little sad today, and I guess I wanted to get it off my chest. Today is the 10th Anniversary of the Columbine shootings, and it just feels really weird here in Littleton. I, of course, didn't attend Columbine High. I was a senior at Kearney High School 10 years ago, but I remember watching the scene unfold on TV that day. I moved to Littleton five years ago, and I remember going on a bike ride around the school when I first moved here to scope out the scene.


And then just a few months ago, I was actually teaching inside Columbine. It was strange to me to be inside the school, but even harder was meeting teachers and other staff members who were there that day 10 years ago. I've met many people who were students during that time, and I've heard story after story of how awful and life-changing that day was.

I didn't go to any of the memorials that were planned yesterday and today. I was going to go tonight, but when I drove by the school on my way home, the park was already packed and I didn't want to go through the hassle. However, even though I wasn't at the memorial, I have been there in thought and prayer all day.

I've done a fair share of research on those two boys who committed this horrible tragedy. It's a sad tale of two loners who just wanted to fit in. I think that is why I have such a passion for high schoolers. I remember what it's like to be in high school. If I can just make a difference in the life of one child, then I have done my job. I pray that nothing like Columbine ever happens again.

As a teacher, I have a responsibility to put myself in front of my students if a crime like this were to happen at my school. Am I willing to risk my life for the lives of my students? That's a tough question to answer until I'm actually there, but it's the responsibility I accepted when I became a teacher. It's a grim thought to think about, but it was in my head today as I went through my day.

I know my thoughts are random today. My prayers are with the Littleton community as they grieve, not only today as they remember but for the rest of their lives as they learn to live a new normal.

Miracle in Denver

As promised, here is the second story regarding my father, who always says, "I've never been in an accident." This story, I'm positive, involves unseen angels and a God who took the steering wheel for about ten seconds.

It was a snowy day in Denver several years ago. My parents had come from NE for the weekend, as well as my aunt and uncle from WY, and we were going to spend a weekend up in the mountains skiing. My brother was already married, and his wife was eight months pregnant with my first nephew. Everyone gathered at my brother's house on that Friday night deciding where to eat dinner. We decided on the Olive Garden, and in order to help the environment, we decided all seven of us could squeeze into my dad's truck.

Dad was the driver. Kevin and Ginger sat in the front seat with dad. Collin, Katie, mom and me were crammed into back seat (and remember, Katie was eight months pregnant), so it was tight. None of us could put on a seat belt.

We drove about two miles down the road to the restaurant, ate and headed back to the apartment. By this time, the snow had increased, and since it was getting later, the temperature had dropped and the roads were slick. But what can go wrong in just a few short miles? I mean, really, we were so close to the apartment, we figured it would be an easy drive back to the place.

WRONG! Little did we know that we were about to begin an adventure. We turned south on the road that took us into the complex. The road was about 100 m long, and it ended as a T intersection. At the stop sign, you had to turn left or right, depending on which building you lived in. If you didn't stop at the stop sign, eventually you would crash into an apartment building. However, before hitting the building, there was a deep ditch full of gravel and rocks. There were also multiple trees and a fire hydrant in this said ditch. AND, before even hitting the apartment complex or going through the ditch full of rocks and "stuff," that was ONLY if the cars parked on the road didn't get in the way first. See illustration, drawn by yours truly.

Oh, and did I mention that the road to the stop sign is downhill? So we has a pretty bad combination here. It was snowing. It was icy. There were seven of us crammed in the truck. It was downhill. There was an obstacle course straight ahead. AND DAD WAS DRIVING.

As we turned south on the road heading toward the stop sign, we all begin to notice that rather than stopping, we're actually picking up speed. We went from 15 m.p.h. to 25 m.p.h. within a matter of seconds, and we were getting closer and closer to the intersection. Mom was yelling at dad, "Doug, hit the brakes!" Dad was yelling back, "I did hit the brakes. We're sliding. I can't stop." My uncle was telling my dad to turn off the truck. Perhaps if the truck was turned off, we'd magically stop. None of us had our seat belts on, and we could see that we were headed toward a MAJOR car accident.

Our biggest concern at that moment was Katie, who as I mentioned was eight months prego. We were frantically trying to get a seat belt across her tummy, while everyone else was screaming and in panic mode. We all knew that there was no way we're going to stop in time, and we foresaw ourselves hitting at least one parked car that was straight ahead of us. There were two cars that were parallel parked straight ahead. The car to the right of us was an old junker. The car on the left was much nicer, so dad decided to try to hit the lesser of the two cars. We could see tire tracks in the middle of the two cars, indicating that a car had been parked in the middle but must have recently left, leaving a space between the two parked cars.

God had his hand on that steering wheel that day, and angels moved a parked car, we are all sure of it. As dad tried to veer us more toward the right to hit the junker, we somehow miraculously missed both cars and slid right through the middle of them. We rammed through the ditch into the pile of rocks, narrowly missing a tree. We were still going a good 20 m.p.h., and we were now headed right toward the apartment building. Dad turned the wheel sharply to the left and we missed the building by inches. We were still driving through the ditch full of rocks. He made a full circle, again narrowly missing another parked car as we came back onto the road. We were now heading in the direction we needed to go anyway, so dad casually drove us to the our apartment building and parked the truck.

We were all speechless. Not only were we all alive, but we had missed a total of four parked cars, a tree, a building and driven through a ditch full of rocks. And the truck had not a single scratch on it. We carefull climbed out of the truck. We stared at each other. We had to go back to see what had just happened.

We walked back to the scene of the miracle. We could see our tire tracks, and we were in such shock that we couldn't even speak. Between the two cars that we had driven through, there wasn't even enough space for a mini cooper to have gotten through, that's how small the space was. But our giant truck had made it through the space. As we looked in the ditch, we noticed that they were not rocks down there but in fact pieces of cement and giant boulders. Between the space from the road to the building was only a few feet, so the fact that dad was able to avoid the building was another miracle. As dad came back onto the road, we almost hit two cars but came through a narrow space that brought us safely back onto the road.

Another near death experience at the hands of my father. He says the only reason we survived that accident is because he was driving. I think God might have had a little bit to do with that one.

Driving Down the Middle

My father is unlike any person I've ever known. I hope you get the pleasure of meeting him some day, and I guarantee you'll leave laughing. He's funny when he doesn't mean to be; he says random stuff that even makes us wonder where his train of thought is going. He's a great man, and I'm proud to call him my pops.

However, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, my dad is the worst driver I've ever been in a car with. We kids have never understood why my mom allows him to drive (especially when they come to Denver). Once they enter the city, one of us kids takes over the driving. He says he's never been in accident. We kids wonder, "How many accidents has he CAUSED that he doesn't even know about?" He gets lost in parking lots, and there have been many times when we have driven around in circles for over fifteen minutes just trying to find the main road. He's gone down a one way road in California only to see a giant Greyhound bus headed straight toward us. There was actually a man in ANOTHER car who literally shielded his face because he thought my dad was going to ram into him; we narrowly missed this man by inches. He doesn't check his blind spot until he's already changed lanes, and then he'll glance over his shoulder to see if anyone WAS there (by now, they are probably in a ditch because they had to swerve to avoid being hit by dad).

I originally started this post to tell you a story about a snowy day in Denver years ago, and for some reason my dad was the one driving (we hadn't learned our lesson yet). But as I started typing this story, I remembered another story that deserves attention, too. The snowy story will come later...

Eight years ago, I moved to Oregon to go to school for a year. Mom and dad drove me out there in September. It was a quick trip, as I had to get there for school, and they had to get back to NE for work. A two day drive there...A two day drive back (for them). A year later, it was time for me to move BACK to NE, but this time we were going to take a more leisurely trip home so we could experience the west coast. Shannon and Collin were able to come, and we had a great time touring through Oregon, California, Salt Lake City and Idaho. Our first part of the trip landed us in Portland, one of my favorite cities.

If you've never been to Portland, it is a city you MUST visit. It's gorgeous, as the river runs right through the main portion of the city. There are over a dozen bridges that take you from the east side of the city to the west side as you cross the river. Dad, of course, was drivingon this particular day, and all five of us were in the truck. None of us were familiar with the city, so we were just driving around enjoying this beautiful city. We crossed a bridge and were on the east side. We crossed another bridge and were back on the west side.

As we took our time driving through the city, dad saw a long bridge that he wanted to cross, so he began to make his way in that direction. As we started to drive up on the bridge, it was different than all the other ones we had crossed. There were two lanes headed east; there were two lanes headed west. BUT, right in the middle of the bridge, although wide enough to fit a truck through, was a brick partition that ran the entire length of the bridge. It looked like a single lane, but the only difference was it had a brick wall running along side it.

For whatever reason, dad, rather than driving in one of the two lanes heading east, decided to drive down the middle lane, instead. As we entered the lane (remember, there's a brick wall running along side, so once you start driving down the "road," there's no way to get out until you come to the end of the bridge), we all realized almost at once that it wasn't a "road" for cars. It was a "road" for trains. It was a railroad track!!!

Dad was barrelling down this track at 40 m.p.h. As you can imagine, the bumps on the track had us all bouncing in the truck and our teeth were clattering together. But most alarming was the fact that we were on a railroad track. And not only were we on a railroad track, but there was a brick wall on either side of us that was preventing us from getting OFF the railroad track. At this point, we had no other choice but to keep driving. Our main fear was that we were going to come head to head with a train. We were pretty sure the train would win that fight. In order to get off the track as quickly as possible, dad slammed on the pedal, lurching us forward at a speed of close to 50 m.p.h. Shannon ended up in my lap. Collin hit his head on the window. Mom was praying in the front seat. Dad was mumbling, "I don't know why they'd put a train track right in the middle of the bridge like this."

Obviously, the ending to my story is a little anti-climatic as we're all alive and safe today. We did NOT encounter a train that day on the tracks. We did NOT let dad keep driving. We did NOT stop laughing until hours later after the shock of what had happened wore off.

The rest of our family vacation was pretty "boring" after that. We had no more driving scares, and we were able to see the beautiful Redwood Forest in Cali and the amazing Salt Lake outside of Salt Lake City. We still get a laugh out of that story (dad doesn't think it's very funny) to this day.

NEVER, EVER

I did something I've NEVER, EVER done before. I went to the mall (no, that's not what I've never done before) to buy that shirt I told you about. Do you remember? In my last post I said I haven't shopped in 50 days but I might have to stop at the mall to buy a shirt I've wanted for a while. So I went to the mall. I tried on the shirt. I liked the shirt. The shirt was only $11.

I PUT THE SHIRT DOWN AND WALKED OUT OF THE STORE EMPTY HANDED!!! That, my friend, is something I've NEVER, EVER done before.

My Mind

Things on my mind lately...

1. Lady land is a hurting unit. I'm beginning to get back onto the bike, and let me tell you, it's a sensitive area down there!

2. There's six more weeks of school left, which means I only have a job for six more weeks.

3. I haven't been home since Christmas, so I'm looking forward to going to NE next weekend.

4. Shan and Jeff downgraded our cable, so all my favorite shows are gone!

5. I have two giant bruises on my body, and I have no idea where they came from.

6. This past weekend, I got a total of eight hours of sleep (TOTAL), and it's starting to catch up with me. I'm sleepy. But it was a fun weekend.

7. Have I ever told you I like shopping? NO? Oh, well I do, and it's now been 50 days since I bought clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc.

8. Speaking of shopping, maybe I'll go to the mall on my way home. There's a shirt there I really want.

9. I have a good shot at getting a job at Chatfield Senior High. I haven't interviewed yet, but the buzz around the school is that they really like me.

10. April is sick with strep throat and a temp, so keep her in your prayers.

11. My mama had surgery last week, and she's going in for major back surgery in May. It's a pretty high risk surgery, so keep her in your prayers.

12. I have 90 essays to start grading. I'm putting them off. Grading is the worst part of this job.

13. I'm REALLY looking forward to this weekend.

Wuv, Twue Wuv

I've never fully understood the concept of getting a divorce after being married for 15 or 20 years. It used to blow my mind that a couple could be married for so long and then just call it quits. It made more sense for the newly married to give up. As I grow older, though, I realize now more than ever that we are constantly changing, and unfortunately, if your spouse isn't changing and growing with you, then it is very easy for two people to drift further and further apart.

As I think of myself, I know for certain that I have changed a lot in the last year. Sometimes I don't recognize the person I was a year ago, but at the same time, I'm not so totally different that people wouldn't know who I am. We are changing all the time, and as we develop and grow relationships, we hope that our friends, family, and lovers are growing and changing along with us.

With that being said, my favorite radio station had a very intriguing topic today that has been on my mind all afternoon. A listener wrote in with the following problem: He and his fiance are madly in love. Everything was going great until...his fiance found God and has completely changed her life to follow Christ. She decided that they should remain celibate until their wedding...which isn't until June, 2010. Before she found God, they were having relations several times a week and this man was wondering if she had a right to change this "habit" they've formed together just because she found religion. He said he's madly in love with her still, but he doesn't know if he's willing to not sleep with her for over a year.

The thing on my mind isn't whether he should or should not break up with her, although I would love to hear your feedback on the subject. The thing that has me thinking is what happens when two people find love, get married, are happily married and then years down the road one of them has a major change that alters their relationship? What if the man I marry tells me he wants to have kids, but after several years of marriage, he changes his mind and decides he doesn't want children? Or what if we both find a wonderful church we both love, but someone from the church hurt me terribly and I decide I want nothing to do with God?

Those things, among many other huge changes, can greatly affect a marriage. What do you do when someone in the relationship so drastically changes that he/she isn't the same person you married? These questions haunt me at times, but it is then that I give my relationships to Christ and let Him lead the way. I most definitely cannot see my future, nor do I know who I'm going to marry, but Christ does.

So back to the problem at hand from the radio station, I don't know what this man is going to do. Will he break up with his woman because she won't have relations with him? If he does, he's very shallow. But at the same time, maybe they aren't meant to be together. Maybe this girl found God and will also realize that God has a better relationship in store for her. I'm a romantic at heart, and I believe God's will is at work in this relationship. I also believe that God is leading me in the direction to find my one true love, too.

Oops!

This segment of my long-term sub position has me as advisor for the school newspaper. It's a big job. I have to edit every story, make sure the students make deadline, oversee everything, and most importantly, make sure that nothing goes into the paper that is libelous or represents the school in a bad way. At the end of the day, I get blamed for anything that goes awry.

My first issue went to press two weeks ago. It was our Spring Break issue, so it HAD to be passed out on the Friday before Spring Break in order to be timely. We had a huge center spread on Spring Break, which included a page with statistics about drinking and sex that takes place over Spring Break. This page had some alarming stats, such as:

*3 out of 5 women will have unprotected sex over Spring Break
*97% of college students, legal or not, will drink over Spring Break
*Students drink an average of 20 alcoholic beverages a day over Spring Break
*65% of students have at least one sexual encounter over Spring Break

At the bottom of the page, the page designer needed to fill some space, so she wrote, "Have fun this Spring Break!"

The editors and I stayed after school on the day we had to send it to the printer. We had a lot of work to do, but we were hurrying to get it done so we could all go home. I was editing pages, and the editors were designing layout. We finally felt like we had an almost perfect paper, so off it was sent to the printer. Then the snow hit, and Jeffco shut down school for the next two days. To my dissapointment, that meant that the paper wouldn't be delivered before Spring Break. Oh well, what could I do about it?

We finally returned back to school two days ago. My staff delivered the paper around the school, and I was quite proud of how great it looked. I even had an Assistant Principal come tell me he thought the paper looked great.

Today, I split my staff into two groups, and I took the seniors into another room for a meeting. During this meeting, I had another student come into the room and say, "Miss Nichols, I need to talk to you as soon as possible." I quickly excused myself into the hall to see what she needed.

"What's going on, Nicole? Is everything OK?"
"Umm. You're in trouble. Mrs. Lacy (Assistant Principal) wants to speak to you right away. It's about the paper."
"OK. Do you know what it's about?"
"She said the stats on the center spread are promoting sex and alcohol, and she's pissed. She is searching for you right now."

I'll admit, my heart started pounding, but I still had a class to run, so I continued the meeting with my seniors. I knew that as the teacher, I was the one to blame, so I was ready to take the blame for this one. The bell eventually rang, and rather than wait for Mrs. Lacy to come find me (I was afraid she'd be around every corner searching for me), I decided to go find Mrs. Lacy and get it over with. I didn't want to spend my day on the look out for my scolding.

I tracked down Mrs. Lacy and said, "I hear you wanted to talk to me?"
She laughed. "Well, that's not exactly what I told Nicole, but while you're here, yes, let's talk." Very gently, she proceeded to tell me that she had received a few phone calls from some parents who were upset by the center spread with the stats about sex and alcohol. She said it wasn't the fact that we put those in the paper; it was the fact that we put "Have a fun Spring Break" at the bottom of that page. Some parents took it as if we were promoting those ideas. Of course, we weren't, but you know how some people are. She said Littleton is a very Mormon community, so I just needed to be careful about what we printed in the paper. She said the paper looked great, and she was pleased by what she saw, but I needed to be careful on the next paper.

Problem solved. That was easy. Nicole made it sound like I was in for a lynching, but Mrs. Lacy was very kind. Problem averted. Phew! I'm glad I tracked her down because I would have been sick with worry all day wondering when she was going to find me.

Fighting the Temptation

You know that saying..."It's like putting an alcoholic in a liquor store"... ???

That is what I have felt like this past week. Like a chocolate addict stuck inside a candy store. It's been terrible. It's been hard. It's been miserable at times. But I am proud to say that I have resisted the temptation, and I have avoided sweets for almost 40 days now.

I do OK when I'm at school because I'm busy and don't have time to think about M&Ms. But last week was Spring Break, so I was inside my house for 11 days with not a whole lot to do. All I could think about was candy, ice cream, chocolate, M&Ms, and ICE CREAM. It took everything in my power to avoid those these, and I'm quite proud of myself.

Tonight, I was making brownies for a friend's birthday. My mouth salivated as the smell hit my nostrils. I told Jeff I was going to cheat and lick out the bowl. He frowned at me and told me, "NO!" I felt like a two year old, so I didn't lick out the bowl. I ran it under hot water and watched the remains twirl down the sink.

Now I am in complete misery as Shan, Jeff, and Case all sit upstairs eating ice cream and MY brownies. I can hear their spoon clink on the bowl while I sit downstairs writing about brownies. Oh joy. Six more days and I can have a brownie. They will probably be either 1) gone or 2) stale and hard.

Liquor never gets stale and hard!

Nicknames

I have a new friend whom I've known for about three months now. We don't get to spend a lot of one-on-one time together, but we talk on the phone every night.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on my bed talking to my friend. Case, my nephew, was getting ready for bed, and he decided he wanted to say goodnight to me. Shannon brought him downstairs, and Case came running into my room yelling, "Night night Dido!"

I was still talking on the phone, but I didn't want to ignore my nephew, so I said, "Night night baby."

Case ran out of my room, and I realized the person on the other line had gotten really quiet. It dawned on me that he thought I was talking to him and had called him baby. I didn't want to freak him out, so I explained to him that I was talking to my nephew.

He said, "Oh. I thought you were talking to me, and I didn't realize we were at the nickname stage yet." We both had a good chuckle, but I was a little embarrassed.

Searching for a Job

I applied to my first teaching job today. It's in the Cherry Creek School District, which is a nice area to work. It's at a middle school, which wouldn't be my first choice (I really like high school), but I'm taking whatever I can get at this point. The middle school is Campus Middle School.

The application took me about three hours to fill out. The next application should go quicker, but this was my first time, so I had to spend a lot of time looking up phone numbers for references, getting addresses to the schools where I've taught, making copies of my letters of reference, etc. It took a long time. Once the application was complete, then I had to take a Gallup Poll, which took about 30 minutes. This poll asks you a million questions, all of which are very similar to one another. They want to make sure that you're answering true to what you believe, so they just re-word the questions several times to try to trick you.

Then it was off to the post office to mail the package. It's now in the mail, so I have to wait until the job closes, which is April 13. Once it closes, they will start calling applicants, so pray that I get a phone call. This job would be an answer to prayer. I'm also keeping my eyes open for any other Language Arts positions, but as of today, this is the one and only L/A spot open in the Denver area.

Tomorrow, I'm going to find a part time job. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do this summer for a job, so I figure if I can get a job now, I'll at least have that as a backup.

April 1, 1998

I don't play jokes on people. I'm not a good liar, and I don't like fooling people or playing games with them. It's probably no surprise, then, that I've only ever successfully played one April Fool's Day joke.

The year was 1998, and I was a senior in high school; my brother was a sophomore. Collin was in track and field, as were most of his friends, including his best friends, Ben and Luke. My best friend was Tiffany, and her sister, Brittany, was dating Luke. The six of us decided to take a road trip to Columbus, NE, to watch a track meet on April Fool's Day. Tiffany asked her mom if we could take the mini van so all of us could ride together. I was the oldest, so I was voted to do the driving.

We took off that morning on our four hour road trip. We had a blast on the way, singing songs, laughing, and sharing stories. Once at the track meet, the boys took off to watch their teammates (Collin, Luke and Ben weren't running in this meet). Tiffany, Brittany, and I spent the afternoon in the stands cheering for KHS. As the afternoon droned on, we began to get a little bored, so we decided to play a joke on the boys. We figured out all the details, and much to my horror, the main part of the joke fell on my shoulders.

After the track meet, we piled back in the mini van and headed back to Kearney. This is where the joke started. As I was driving down the two lane highway in the middle of nowhere, it was my job to make the van "break down." I started tapping on the brake, which of course made the car start to jerk.

"Uh, oh. Something is wrong with the van," I shouted.
"Try and pull over slowly," Collin said.
"This sucks. We're out in the middle of nowhere. What are we going to do?"
"Don't worry, we'll take a look and see if we can figure it out."

I carefully pulled over the van as I continued to punch the brake to make it jerk back and forth. As soon as the van was stopped, the three boys hopped out and popped the hood. We girls sat in the van giggling to ourselves. So far our plan was working like a charm. They really thought we had broken down.

We girls got out the van to see what they were seeing. All three boys had their head in the engine. Each one had their own opinion as to what was "wrong."

"The spark plugs are really dirty. Do you think that could be the problem?" asked Ben.
"No, it's not the spark plugs," replied Collin. "It for sure has something to do with the engine."

The boys continued to speculate what the problem was, when much to our dismay, a very kind motorist coming from the opposite direction saw us broken down on the side of the road. He decided to stop and assist us. This was not in the plan! We girls didn't know what to do because in all reality, there was nothing wrong with the van! Tiffany, Brittany and I knew we needed to do something because we didn't want to waste this man's time. I sent Tiffany to try to tell the man we didn't need his help.

Tiffany tried to pull the man aside, but he was intent on looking at the engine. Tiffany really had no choice but to tell everyone it was all a joke. As Tiffany told the group of boys, including the stranger, that the van was perfect and we were just playing a joke, the younger boys all began to laugh. They knew they had been had. The stranger, on the other hand, didn't take the news as well. In fact, he was pretty upset that he had wasted his time to try to help us when we didn't really need help. It was just a group of teenagers playing a joke on each other. We thanked the man for his help, and he left us grumbling to himself.

The six of us piled back into the van to head on our way. The entire way back, Tiffany, Brittany, and I made fun of the boys. "I think it's the gas pump..." "No, it's the anti freeze..." In all truth, the boys had no idea what they were doing, but they put on a good show. If the van really had been in trouble, I'm pretty sure the boys would not have been our savior that afternoon. In order to save their own pride, the boys told us they knew there was nothing wrong with the van.

We learned our lesson, though. I've never tried playing a joke on anyone else since that day, but every year I can't help but smile knowing that we really did fool these boys.