An Accident During the Primary Program

Here is Damien's embarrassing childhood memory.

When I was little, for some reason I always thought I needed Mom’s permission to go to the bathroom. Whenever I felt the call of nature, I would run and tell Mom, “I have to pee!” or “I have to poop!” And she would usually reply, “Well, go do it, then!” Neither of us is sure why I felt such a need to ask permission/announce my trips to the bathroom.

One Sunday at church we had the Primary Program. All of us children went up to the stand and sat in the choir seats. For a child, any normal Sacrament meeting can seem like a long time. For a child that needs to pee, Sacrament meeting can drag on for eternity.

Some time into the program, I started feeling that familiar pressure down below that means a trip to the restroom is at hand. Unfortunately, I had no idea how much longer the program was going to last. So, I tried to get Mom’s attention, in order to ask for her permission to leave the stand and sprint to the restroom.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to get Mom’s attention. I admit my attempts were feeble. There was no way I was going to wave my hands and make a scene in from of the whole congregation. So, I settled on making pained faces and hoping she would notice.

That wasn’t getting me anywhere and things were starting to get serious. All of my fidgeting was no longer from boredom; it was an attempt to stave off the inevitable. My faces were getting more and more desperate and my agony was playing out in front of the whole church.

Finally, I reached the breaking point. Mom was never going to notice me and my little body couldn’t suffer another minute. So I did the only sensible thing.

I wet my pants.

Fortunately, the choir seat had a nice thick cushion that soaked things up better than a kitchen sponge. I was able to enjoy the rest of the program in warm comfort. Everything was just fine until the program ended. Then I had to get out of my seat and reveal my dirty deed.

I have no recollection of what happened after that. Maybe Mom took me home to change my clothes. Maybe I was forced to wear them for the rest of church as a punishment. Whatever happened, from that point on I made fewer and fewer attempts to ask Mom for permission before going to the bathroom. I was growing up!

On a related note, I feel bad for whoever sat in that chair after me…

An Embarassing Moment from Childhood

I've been wanting Damien and I to record stories about our lives. We want these stories for two reasons:

1. a way for our posterity to remember us
2. something to look back on and remember all the funny times in our lives

We began this evening by writing about an embarrassing moment from childhood. Here is my story.

In Spokane, one of our neighbors was the Maughan family. They had seven children, including a daughter a year younger than me. Our backyards faced each other and there used to be a slat missing in the fence so we could slide back and forth between yards to play.

The Maughans always had things going on at their house and a pool in their backyard. Bean and I accepted every opportunity to play and swim because they were few and far between. The Maughan children were not allowed to play unless their rooms were clean and chores done, which they never were.

One day I was over there swimming, don’t remember if Bean was there or not, and we were taking turns jumping into the pool. They had this old red-painted wooden picnic table and we slid it close to the edge of the pool so we could jump off of it into the deep end. We had taken a couple of turns already and everything had been fine. I got up to jump off again and this time I jumped and the table collapsed underneath me.

Thankfully, I was able to get enough momentum and make it into the pool, but the table was not so lucky. It had had enough and finally the legs gave out. I felt embarrassed about it falling on my turn and the Maughans gave me a bad time about it, only making it worse.

Looking back, the table was quite old and it could have happened to any one of us. That table had been left out in the weather for years and it was just a matter of time before it gave out. It’s too bad that it had to happen on my turn though.

I'll post Damien's next.

Another 5k Down...

two more to go. Damien signed up to participate in this program at his work. He got a free t-shirt for signing up and now he has to participate in 3 races between June 1 and sometime in September. The first 5k we did in May doesn't even count because it was before the start date. We ran the a 5k last Saturday, so we have two more races to run.

The race last week went quite well. We improved our time by a whole minute and I beat Damien by 5 seconds. We decided to try GU because we had talked to some friends about it and how they really liked it. (Side note: GU is a gel that you eat to help with energy levels during a race. It is mostly for endurance races, but we wanted to try it anyway to see if it made a difference.) We both took a GU 30 minutes before the race and this is how Damien felt by the end.


Yes, he looks ill. He actually threw up moments after crossing the finish line. He looked and felt much better after that.


I only experienced a side ache as a result of the GU and was able to push through it. I was quite satisfied with my race. I was able to sprint past this lady right before the finish line. She wasn't too thrilled about it, but it made my day!


Clark Howard, a consumer advocate who has a radio and television show, was talking to people after the race. Damien listens to him on a regular basis and wanted to talk to him. We were actually filmed during our chat, so we'll let you know if we see it air.

Raspberries

I just ate a huge handful of raspberries from Costco. Yum, they are so delicious! Definitely one of my favorite fruits! Every time I eat them they remind me of being a kid at my grandparents' house in Utah. They used to have a large raspberry patch in their backyard and every summer when we were there, we'd get to pick raspberries! I remember eating the sun-warmed raspberries right off the plant. Yes, I picked it off the plant first, but I didn't wait to wash them inside first.

Although, it might be a good idea to wash them first. This one time I was out in the patch picking and eating berries, when I was supposed to be collecting them for everyone to enjoy, and I started to chew this one. It was so gross, a little crunchy and very pungent. Yeah, there must have been a bug on that berry. If I would have washed it first, that bug probably wouldn't have been on there. That didn't stop me from eating them right off the plant though. After that, I just double checked to make sure there weren't any bugs on them before I popped them into my mouth.

Does anyone else love raspberries? Damien doesn't love them because of all the seeds. I was telling some girls at work how much I loved raspberries and they couldn't believe anybody actually liked them. Up to that point, I was under the impression that a lot of people like raspberries. I mean they sell them in huge containers at Costco. People have to be buying them for Costco to keep carrying them.