Names Changed*

Michelle and I were notorious in Jr High and High School for being that crazy duo that thinks in weird ways. We made it a point to do as many projects as we could together, because it was just that much more interesting. The best ever was when we were supposed to do a performance of a scene from Julius Caesar. We got assigned the scene where Julius tells his wife about the dream he had, where they were drinking his blood, as well as some of the happenings before his demise.

We rewrote the scenes Mission Impossible style.

It was cheesy. It has bad music. It was EPIC. Oh, and the dream? We filmed is as a commercial break.

“It’s cool, it’s thick, it’s REFRESHING!”

I find it really disturbing that this is still on the internet, but there is documentation from when this actually happened, on a web page that should not exist and could potentially tarnish my good name What? It was 2000. Cut me some slack. Michelle is looking for the video tapes, because the world needs to see them.

We had also done scenes from another Shakespeare play, in which Michelle plays a man, and stuffs a sock down her pants. The sock is in the Bonus Features, in all kinds of weird places, with a voice over annoucing that “This is my manhood ________________________” (in the tree, on the tripod, etc).

We got A’s, of course.

Andy was a piercer on the East coast; I always forget if he was from Philadelphia or somewhere else. Anyway, he was legally licensed to do piercings somewhere that wasn’t Los Angeles. Considering that I got my first tattoo in my uncle’s back yard, the idea of getting a piercing in someones kitchen didn’t seem that bad to me.

I wanted to get my eyebrow done and Sonia wanted to get her lip pierced, and Andy kindly volunteered to do them for us for the low price of bringing him something to eat, which beats the hell out of $40/each.

After being rescheduled a few times, getting lost, and having Andy not be home when we showed up, we eventually got all 3 of us in the same place with the proper equipment and said meal. I got my eyebrow done first, as Sonia had never gotten a piercing and was kind of nervous. It was pretty straightforward and weird-feeling. It didn’t hurt that much but didn’t stop me from saying “OW Andy I hate you!” even though I didn’t mean it.

So then we sat Sonia down to get her lip pierced. She said it didn’t hurt that much and then got up and went to look at it in the bathroom, and all seemed well… until she got this glazed look in her eyes. Andy got up and got her some bread, which she nibbled, the wobbled…

Then fell forward, hit her head on the table and fell out of her chair.

I freaked out. Not even kidding. She was laying on the ground, kind of twitching. “OMFG ANDY YOU KILLED SONIA!” He casually sauntered over and commented that that had never happened before and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. That didn’t calm me down any. “OMG OMG OMG ANDY!!!!!!! What am I going to tell her parents?!”

A moment later, Sonia sat up and looked around, with a clear “why the hell am I on the floor?” look on her face and said “Oh, hi guys” like NOTHING HAPPENED. I was still freaking out. “OMG SONIA YOU WERE DEAD AND ANDY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND OMG OMG OMG!” I had never seen anybody go into shock; I’m surprised I didn’t pass out watching.

Afterward we went to her house, got in trouble and watched Butterfly Effect. Sonia actually still has that piercing. I had to take mine out at one point, but I got it redone because I missed it.

I would argue that the perfect banana split has so many toppings that you don’t get any ice cream in the first bite. The problem I have with banana splits is, OMG who the hell needs 3 scoops of ice cream, a banana, and a mountain of toppings?! That’s just way too much sugar for one person. Enter Jeff, who was always there to share my banana split with me to keep me from killing myself of diabetic shock. Jeff either agrees with me on the topping thing or didn’t feel like arguing.

Turns out most people don’t agree with my topping theory.

So we turned it into a social experiment. We called it The How People at Baskin Robbins React When Told “I want a banana split with everything on it” Project.

Turns out that 34/35 will proceed to list off the 4billion toppings and wait for us to nod at every.single.one. of them.

25 of those 34 will ask at the end “Everything then? Why didn’t you just say so?”, which results in a *facepalm* from me and Jeff.

15 of the same 34 will raise an eyebrow when handing over the concoction

The 1/35 that doesn’t ask will then proceed to only put chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on the banana split.

All 35 times, we ended the conversation with “Banana Split with everything, thx”.

On a similar note, I was just at a Baskin Robbins the other day and asked for a single scoop sundae with half a banana and “everything on it”… and dude was part of the 34 of 35 that lists off all 4billion toppings and waits for me to nod at every.single.one of them. However, he was not one of the 25 that asks why I didn’t say so in the first place. He did raise an eyebrow though. Alas, I didn’t have my Jeffreybean there to share it with though, which is why I downsized from banana split to single scoop sundae. It was still way too much sugar.

One of my aunts often gets annual passes to Dodger’s games. On occasion she’ll give some tickets to my grandma, to go to the ball game. One time, she took me and told me to invite a friend, so I invited the only person I figured would be interested; Steve. I believe the conversation went something like this:

Me: Steve. We’re going to a Dodger game this weekend.
Steve: Okay!

So we went to the game. When we arrived, the conversation was something like this:

Steve: Woah. These seats are not even close to nosebleed! I’ve never sat this close!
Me: I know, isn’t it awesome?

The problem with taking me to a sporting event is that I have very little focus, and without the commentator to tell me what’s going on, I either have no idea what’s happening or I forget to pay attention to the game. The problem with having good seats is that occasionally, a ball that went astray will land in your section. That makes for a dangerous conversation.

So at one point, while Steve and I are not paying attention, a fly ball whizzes right over my head. I’m talking, I felt the wind move my hair. I could have been dead. My eyes got all big and round and I turned and looked at Steve and said, “Steve, if I die here today, please make sure they put something cool on my tombstone. None of that “beloved daughter and friend” crap, okay?”

Katie Wagner
1985-2005
“Oh Yeah, Baseball Game…”

It was one of those days, where work just, you know, sucked. It sucked something fierce, and not just for me. It was a universal thing it seemed. So after work, Friend Tom and I headed to Island’s for Happy Hour, because margaritas make everything better.

I believe it may have been this trip that lead to “FACÉ!!!!!” which to this day makes me giggle. But that’s another story.

During this Happy Hour, our Master Plan was born. You see, Friend Tom and I are going to take over the world. It’s a fact; it’s just that nobody believes us. But when you see tortilla chips on car windshields, you will know one of two things: either our master plan is going into effect, or Friend Tom and Friend Katie have had WAY too much to drink.

On one of those occasions when Sonia, Andy and I cut class did field research for our class, we were driving around Santa Monica talking about nothing in particular. Well, mostly, Sonia and Andy were talking about nothing in particular. I was in the back seat keeping to my self because I was kind of moody that day. After a while, the conversation turned to my cheese eating habits. Yes. Sonia and Andy were talking about when I will and will not eat cheese, because they were not content to simply leave it at “I don’t really like cheese”.

So they went on a step by step analysis on when they had seen me eat cheese.

“She eats pizza.” “She doesn’t like cheese on her sandwich at Subway.” “On occasion, she’ll eat a cheeseburger and not a plain hamburger.” “She doesn’t eat cheese balls with her family at Christmas.” and so on and so forth. Do you have any idea how WEIRD it is listening to two people analyze your eating habits while driving around town?! Very.

After about 5 minutes, Andy turned around and looked at me, and said, “Well, it’s not an exact science, but we’ve decided that for the most part, you like cheese if it’s melted!”

He sounded very pleased with himself.

Hope randomly showed up on my doorstep one day while I was busy feeling sorry for myself. I don’t know what made her fly out to see me; I guess she must have been bored. I also don’t know how she knew where I lived; but then again, I’m no longer surprised when Hope finds me. She takes amateur stalking to a whole new level. This was surprisingly less creepy than the time her and some of her friends drove to Los Angeles from somewhere in New Mexico and picked me up at the bus stop I was waiting at. But that’s a whole other story.

It was a Friday night and I was home by myself shortly after I moved to Portland, and there was a knock on the door. I kind of crept out and peeped through the little hole in the door and was floored to see Hope standing there. She let herself in, proclaiming that she had forgotten I had moved, and finding me was kind of hard cause she had been looking in Burbank for the first half hour of her “research”. She looked at me impatiently and asked me why I wasn’t dressed for going out yet. Somehow the whole situation struck her as “normal”. So I did what any rational person would do: I got dressed for going out and out we went!

I hadn’t really been in Portland long enough to figure out where the “happening” places to go were yet, but that didn’t matter. Hope did her homework and knew where we were going anyway. I wish I remembered where we went; it was pretty fun. We hit a couple spots before picking one to stay at for more than twenty minutes. Cruising around town was fun. I had been kind of homesick and missed the city lights, and this outing took care of that.

When we finally picked a bar to stay out, we found a cozy little booth to sit in and had some drinks and chatted about life and things. People (mostly boys) would wander up to our table and Hope would shoo them away; we were both taken, and besides, she was here to see ME. We were having a grand old time until somebody came along who didn’t get the meaning of the words “go away”. I had forgotten how much of a temper Hope has; she’s pretty quiet about it, but there’s no mistaking when she’s angry. Unless, of course, you’re Captain Oblivious, as this guy apparently was.

So she dumped her drink over his head.

Names Changed* is now open! The layout is still kind of in testing, as I implemented some features I hadn’t made use of before. If something doesn’t appear to be working, or seems odd, please take a moment to leave a comment here and let me know, as chances are I haven’t noticed if it hasn’t been fixed yet. Thanks!