AUTHOR’S NOTE: As I sit here in my church office trying to rewrite and rework this short story about a church robbery I started feeling guilty. And anxious. Guilty because I am writing about robbing a church, and anxious because the final draft is due at midnight.

I have the idea but I am completely reworking the entire structure and telling of the story and I can’t quite get it all together like I want. But I do have the new beginning and I thought I would share it with you, to see if you like it, but mostly to give myself a break from reworking it.

I hope you like it. The beginning at least.

Church Robbery

Kevin K Lewis

Thomas sat there, speechless, one hand still handcuffed to the table, and wondered how he had ever gone from playing the drums in the youth group band to robbing a church with a group of guys led by a psychopath with a lizard tattooed on his skull.

Alone in the room he prayed to a God he knew he’d disappointed, a God he knew he had shamed, a God he was sure had stopped listening to him years ago.

The door opened and a short, unkept man with a hand-me-down suit walked in shuffling what he assumed was his case file.

“My name is Mack and I will be your attorney,” he said as he set the file on the table and reached his hand to Thomas.

Thomas half stood and shook his hand as though they were meeting at a social gathering at the country club instead of the gray brick windowless interrogation room.

As he shuffled through the papers Thomas looked from the overworked public defender up to the two out of date cameras in either corner. One was focused on him, the other on the lawyer, telling both their stories simultaneously.

His thoughts jumped to the other guys who were probably in similar rooms talking with similar lawyers and he wondered what stories they were telling, wondered if they were trying to take a deal, too, wondered if they were trying to pin it all on him.

“Simon planned it all, he was the mastermind.”

The lawyer looked up and Thomas continued, “The one with the skull tattoo, the one who got shot—” He trailed off as Mack sat staring at him from across the table as if this was just another case like any other, like he had seen it a thousand times.

“Simon says you came up with it. He says you are the one with all the insights. He says he couldn’t have done it without PK, that’s what he calls you, ‘PK’. He said if you weren’t a preacher’s boy he wouldn’t have ever been able to think of this.”

“That’s a lie!” he said. “And leave my dad out of this,” he said it seemed more to the video camera than his lawyer.

NOTE: I don’t know where I am going to go from there, I added several paragraphs after I pasted this in here. I’m not sure he will be the Preacher’s Kid, I didn’t even know he was until about 30 seconds ago.

The premise of the story is a group of guys, a “gang”, come up with the idea to rob a church on a Sunday morning. Now I just have to figure out how to tell it where the story is as interesting as the premise.

And with that, I’m off to take a quick power-nap so I can hopefully get this done by midnight.

I’ll post the final version later. Thanks for reading.

“I just got a text from Father Thomas,” Robert said as he stood and showed Zach the phone. “It says Father Matthews is in Vegas. Drunk,” he continued through a smile as he began to loosen his bow tie.

“That explains my last text… ‘I LOVE HOOTERS!!’… a forward I got from Chad that he said was from Father Matthews. I just thought he was being stupid, but now I’m not so sure…”

Secretly Robert was elated. Father Matthews drunk in Vegas wasn’t exactly the answer to his at least twice daily prayer he thought he would get, but at this point he would take it.

“If this marriage is not meant to be -and I’m pretty sure it isn’t- please send me a sign…” he would pray. “Let me know…  intervene in some way, God. Please. Please… Please.”

Not that his fiancée, Ann Elizabeth, wasn’t great, she was. She was going to be the perfect wife. Too perfect.

It had been her dream since she was about five, the age Robert thought she probably started her “My Perfect Wedding” scrapbook. There were newspaper clippings of wedding announcements and Bridal Shop ads. There were magazine clippings of dresses and tuxes and flower arrangements. There were swatches of every color of pink and purple that ever could have existed. Within that scrapbook she had planned every detail of the wedding down to the color of the napkin rings- Light Cucumber Green. That was fine with him, he hadn’t really had a dream wedding in mind, he had never really even thought about a wedding.

Robert, being timid and nonconfrontational, wasn’t about to start messing with her “Perfect Wedding”. She could have said that the napkin rings were going to be made of actual light green cucumbers and he wouldn’t have said anything. It had taken him nearly 7 years of them working together every day to get up the courage to ask her out, he wasn’t about to start trying to change the color of the napkin rings.

But two months into the engagement he found out that not only did Ann Elizabeth have a “My Perfect Wedding” scrapbook, she also had a “My Perfect Marriage” scrapbook. She had it all planned out. There were newspaper clippings of houses for sale and furniture store ads. She had compiled 6 whole pages of realtors’ cards and had them arranged in sequence in order of how they rated on her special 4 star rating system. She had a list of allergy free dogs along with the closest breeder in the tri-state area highlighted. She had everything planned out.

She would have 2 kids, a girl named Mary Allison, and a boy named _______ Jr. Her family –her husband, her blond haired daughter and brown haired son, along with their allergy free dog would live in a two story, 4 bedroom slate blue craftsman style home somewhere in the suburbs.

Robert saw all of this, but being timid and nonconfrontational, let it go.

Ann Elizabeth hadn’t filled in Robert’s name to the _______ Jr. yet, which was now strangely encouraging. Maybe she didn’t want to get married either…he thought.

Or maybe she was too busy compiling her “My Perfect Husband” scrapbook. It had newspaper clippings of athletes and actors, and there were articles from Readers Digest and quizzes she had taken from Cosmo. There were lists of jobs where her “perfect husband” would work, the kind of cars he would drive, and even sketches of what her he would look like.

Robert had seen the latest scrapbook about a month ago and was none too pleased to find out that he would soon be sporting a goatee. Never one for facial hair, he decided then and there he was not, no matter what, going to marry Ann Elizabeth.

So, being timid and nonconfrontational, he began to pray.

Just then his phone buzzed indicating he had another text. He opened up and read the text from Father Thomas.

“Just kidding buddy, he’s right here in the sanctuary with me. It’s awesome in here, you guys are going to have the perfect wedding.”

So, being timid and nonconfrontational, Robert put his phone back in his pocket and walked to meet the pastor at the front of the sanctuary for the perfect wedding.

Where this story came from:

I wrote this as an assignment in my Creative Writing Class. It was based on grabbing 4 random pieces of paper from a hat. One had a Setting (a place for it all to happen), one had 2 Characters (major character and minor character), one had a Problem (a problem or uncomfortable situation), and one had a Style (humor, horror, etc)

I reached into the hat and got the following:

Setting:

High class grocery store filled with pretentious pompus and well-to-do. Meat department, near closing.

(I forgot to use any of this.)

Characters:

Main- Robert, early 30′s, reserved, timid, realizing marriage is a mistake.

Minor- Ann Elizabeth, late 20′s, quintessential wife figure.

Problem:

Main character is getting married but the pastor is drunk in Vegas, the wedding is in Ohio. Starts in 20 minutes.

Style:

Humor.

(Let’s be honest, I was probably going to lean that way with this one anyway…)

Annnnnnnd that’s how I came up with this story. Thanks for reading!

So I thought it would be fun if on My Lime Green Blog this week’s  _____ of the Week was…

Old School Blog of the Week

For those of you who don’t know what my Old School Blogs were like, here are a couple of samples from my old MySpace Blog:

So my couch has an imDb.com page and I don’t. Awesome.

Hitler ruined the “Charlie Chaplin” moustache for A LOT of people.

Makes Me Want To Dye My Chest Hair Gray

Go Green or Go Home

Okay, enough of that, if you want to read more feel free to go HERE and explore till your heart is content.

Now, for this week’s _____ of the Week!!!

Old School Blog of the Week

I am down to only one roll of toilet paper between both of my bathrooms. This is either okay or a really big deal depending on which bathroom I am in and depending on which bathroom the toilet paper is in.

If we are both in the same bathroom: okay.

If we are in separate bathrooms: really big deal.

I hope to one day marry a woman who remembers to buy toilet paper. That’s not the number one quality I am looking for in a mate, but it’s pretty high up there.

Have you heard The Breakfast Song?

You probably haven’t. But you probably should. My good friend, Matt Rector posted it on his blog today, you should watch it.

Click on Matt Rector’s face to see it…

Some say this video reminds them of The Montgomery Flea Market song… “The Mini Mall Rap” video.

They should definitely be friends. Definitely.

I bet Stevie Wonder would be better than most people at that old game show “This Is Your Life”.

Game Show Host: Do you recognize this voice, Stevie?

Voice From Behind Curtain: Hey Stevie, do you remember that—

Stevie Wonder: Yes, that is Tom, we went to high school together.

I am going to start an imDb.com page for all those Amish dudes on that electric fireplace infomercial. I know they will never see it, but they deserve it.

Plus, it will be really ironic.

I’m Just Saying…

Have you seen those new Volkswagen commercials where the old beetle bug is talking to the people? “He” is the new spokesperson for the company.

In case you haven’t seen it, watch this:

March Madness BONUS for sports fans, click here for the Bobby Knight Commercial:  HERE

So now that you have seen it, we can talk about it.

I think it is great and clever and all but it seems like the same guys who thought it would be a great idea to throw back to the vintage bug as the face of the company would also realize that in old VW bugs the engine is in the back and the trunk is in the front so the “face” would be in the back.

Not a big deal I guess, but it just doesn’t seem to me to be the best idea to have the appearance that the “face” of your company, the official spokesperson,  is talking out of his butt.

I’m Just Saying…

Tomorrow is Mrs Grace’s birthday. She is going to be 88. This morning I called her to tell her happy birthday. Since her birthday isn’t until tomorrow, I sang “Happy Birthday Eve To YOU!” instead of happy birthday.

After I sang, which consisted of me flinging and flailing my arms even though she couldn’t see me, she said, “My birthday is today.”

I said, “Today? I thought it was tomorrow.”

She said, “Isn’t today the 14th?”

I said, “No, today is the 13th.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, “I think I read that in the paper this morning.”

I have three things in my freezer and two of those things are fish sticks.

Today is the second Friday the 13th in a row. I don’t really care for scary movies, but I think they should have had another Jason movie come out today. They had one come out last month which seemed weird because it was Valentine’s Day weekend.

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too…. let’s go see a horror movie.”

It doesn’t make sense.

They could have waited a month and done one of those “Jason versus…” movies. With it being a few days before St Patrick’s Day they could do Friday the 13th: Jason versus Leprachaun.

It would be cool for anyone who likes St Patrick’s Day, anyone who likes horror movies, or anyone who likes movie series that should have ended 11 movies ago.

I bought “Thank You” cards today and it again made me seriously consider inventing “You’re Welcome” cards.

I just think that thankers shouldn’t have all the responsibility. It’s time the you’re welcomers accept their responsibility. I just think it’d be fun if by the time my kids are grown it is common courtesy to send a “You’re Welcome” card to someone who sends then a “Thank You” card.

It could start an endless cycle, and that is funny to me.

Coming Soon…

“Honorable Mention Photos of the Day”

A WHOLE blog entry devoted to the “almost” Photos of the Day photos from the last couple of weeks.

Including several of BILL MACK.

Who tailgated at a funeral today, by the way.

I brought a camera crew along to document my trip.

The following is my adventure…

Kevin K Lewis vs Wild

episode 1: Prentice Cooper

Next month we are going to hike a little bit of the Appalachian Trail, so over the next few weeks we are going to go on a few hikes to “practice” and get in better shape. Today we went to Prentice Cooper on Signal Mountain. We hiked a couple miles in and a couple miles back, no big deal, but I pretended like we were trying to find our way back to civilization the whole time.

David and Tony are seasoned hikers, I on the other hand have only been a couple of times and that was a long time ago.

This is us at the start of the hike, the beginning picture:

That’s me and David and Tony and Madison. Madison was supposed to be at school but she had shingles so instead of going to school, she went hiking with us.

What? You never know what you are going to come across on the AT, we have to be prepared for anything, even shingles.

Anyway, I wanted to take this picture in case we died and didn’t make it out.

Okay, so we got going and we hiked for a little bit when David stopped. I thought we were at the top so I got Madison to take a picture of us.

Turns out we weren’t at the top, David had gotten a phone call.

I said, “You have cell phone coverage??…. we MUST be getting close to civilization!”

“The car is about a quarter of a mile that way, ” he said.

“A quarter of a mile??? Really? Are you sure we haven’t walked more than that??”

He didn’t answer, he just turned and started walking up the mountain.

We then came across some “scat” that most likely was from a bear or mountain lion or raccoon.

It was too soon to try it, but I saw Bear Grylls eat pieces of apple out of bear poop one time.

I tried to see if Madison would try it, but she also passed.

We continued and soon came across a fallen tree that looked like it might contain grubs. I really wanted to eat a grub. Bear says you should always be on the lookout for sources of energy and protein and grubs are a good source of both.

I dug and dug with my multi-tool but I couldn’t find any grubs.

We kept moving and soon came across water…

I tried to explain to David that we should follow the water because as Bear says, where there is water, there are people.

David said, “There are people at the top of the mountain too, let’s keep climbing.”

We climbed for a while and then we stopped to rest. While we were resting I looked to the sky and said, “The sun is going to go down tonight.”

My watch said “2:30pm” but I was leery knowing that when you are in a survival situation, it is best to not trust watches you have purchased at Wal*Mart.

As David and Tony and Madison continued resting I decided I should build a shelter for the night just in case.

Pretty good, huh? And my mom said watching 18 hours of tv a day would never help me do anything but get fat.

Yeah, get fat AND build a pine tree house!

Despite having more than adequate shelter for the night, David wanted to press on.

Parched from building the shelter, I stopped to pick up a few ice cubes I found lying in the cracks of the mountain.

I was practicing holding the camera myself in case I were to ever have to climb a tree. Bear always holds his own handheld camera when he climbs a tree.

I asked, but David would not let me climb a tree.

So we hiked higher. And higher. And higher. Getting further and further up the mountain.

For those of you who are sure where Prentice Cooper is, it is apparently on Mount Everest.

Seriously, we climbed forever!

When we finally got to the top I leaned against a rock to rest.

Tired and leaning against the first surface I came to, I did not notice the large rock hanging over my head. David screamed, “HEADS UP! LOOK OUT! THE ROCK IS FALLING!!” and pointed up.

Hearing him panic and yelling I looked up and freaked out, screamed like a girl and scrambled to jump and dive out of the way.

NOTE: Lying on a pile of leaves and mud and looking up at David and Tony and Madison laughing, I was starting to think that maybe I should have done Survivor Guy with Kevin K Lewis, at least he doesn’t have crazy cameramen pulling pranks on him while he’s working!

“This isn’t Weekend at Bernies we are filming here, this is Kevin K Lewis vs Wild! How about we quit messing around and eat some grubs!” I yelled!

Everything under control again, we started hiking back down the mountain. Getting hungry, I continued searching for any kind of grubs or lizard eggs I could find.

I added lizard eggs to my search remembering they too were a good source of protein and unlike beehives did not contain bees.

I looked in a hollowed out tree trunk I came across.

But I found nothing.

I looked under the bark another tree…

probably for too long. And I found nothing.

I soon discovered that hiking down was almost harder than I hiking up. It put constant pressure on toes and knees and several muscles I’m sure. I was getting thirsty and I wanted something to drink when we came across this mud puddle.

I wanted to drink out of it filtering it through my sock but Madison deterred me saying, “I wouldn’t, you might catch shingles.”

I was unaware, but apparently Madison had gotten shingles from drinking water out of a mud puddle.

A little while later we came across a stream trickling across the path and I noticed it had lots of green moss on the rocks. I had seen Bear Grylls drink water from camel dung in the desert and I figured if he could squeeze water out of camel dung, I could squeeze water out of moss.

So I did.

Ironically it tasted like camel dung.

I called ahead to the guys to be on the lookout for a wintergreen leaf or sasparilla root so that I could get the awful taste of camel dung water out of my mouth.

The longer we hiked, the more sure we were lost I became. David said we were going back the same way we had come, but I wasn’t so sure.  I began to try to pay more attention to the things around me.

Which made me notice how there are a lot of fallen trees in the forest. And how some of them seem to fall down more cleanly than others. For example, this one…

is really jagged and rough, while this one…

seemed to have a much cleaner break.

As we got closer to the finish they started walking faster, or I started walking slower, but they got way ahead. At one point I couldn’t even see them…

Luckily I had used the “Where did I park” app on my iPhone so I knew the general direction I should be walking.

Eventually I caught up with them and showed them which way we should be headed.

We eventually did make it out, partially because of David’s hiking skills, and partially because of my iPhone’s “Where Did I Park” app and I thought it would be fun to take a picture of them on the bridge as a fun souvenir of the trip.

We had almost come to the end of the hike and I realized I had yet to do a “here’s how you survive in this situation” like Bear Grylls does every show.

The cold stream was right there so I thought I would show people how to react if you were to fall into a cold, fast flowing mountain stream.

So I took my shirt off and started to jump in.

NOTE: I did not want to take my shirt off, but I felt it was in keeping with what Bear would do.

For those of you who would rather I have not taken my shirt off, here is the same picture with me wearing an authentic Mexican poncho.

For those who would like to see more pictures of me without a shirt, click HERE.

Anyway, I dipped my toes in the water and realized that the water was way too cold to jump in so I decided to put my shirt back on and instead direct you to this website where Bear shows you how to survive falling in cold water (it’s actually a cold bog, but it’ll work):

Notice how he took off his shirt! See, you thought I was just making that up!

Anyway, it was getting late so we headed to the car. We made it back and even though we were all really tired I wanted to take a picture to mark the occasion.

And then we took a picture of our injuries:

Yup, I am pretty sure this is exactly how an episode of Man vs Wild happens. That’s exactly how Bear Grylls would have done it. It was a blast, I had a lot of fun and as we drove back down the mountain and back into the world I couldn’t help but think…

I, Kevin K Lewis, went into the wild, survived, and hopefully gave you some tips that might help you survive were you to ever find yourself  stranded on a 3 hour hike 15 minutes from Downtown Chattanooga.

I was also thinking how next time I was gonna have to remember to bring gum because I still had the taste of camel dung water in my mouth…

This is a KevinTheCoolGuy Classic. It’s from a few months back so I know some of you haven’t read it. If you have read it, read it again. Come on, it’s for charity!

I made that up. But still, read it any way.

Here is a picture to entice you to read it:

Yup, that’s me… dressed as… THAT. For YOU.

Enticed? Alright, well get to reading!

Good KleeN Fun

Originally Posted: 09september2008

Today Tony asked me to clean the popcorn popper. Popcorn poppers are the fish tanks of the corn world so I wasn’t all that excited about cleaning it. We have been out of the cleaner for a few weeks so the gunk has really built up. We got new cleaner in today so as Tony ran errands and worked on other things I began to clean the popcorn popper.

What I used was KleeN Sweep. Yes, it has one giant N for no apparent reason. It is basically just a superduper degreaser. So like any red-blooded American man I grabbed the can, the popcorn popper innards and I took them into the sink in the back closet room area and I sprayed the bejesus out of it.

And then, lightheaded from the fumes and waiting on the superduper degreaser to do its magic, I read the back label. It said, and I quote:

KleeN Sweep is a powerful gel that dissolves grease and carbon buildup from metal surfaces, brick, and glass. KleeN Sweep works quickly and easily saving time and labor.

Heck YES! I remember thinking, Tony has given me this crap responsibility but it is going to turn out to be easy-breezy and I will have plenty of time to make it to the store for some Q-tips. I was out of Q-tips, it has absolutely nothing to do with the story I was just really hoping to have time to go to the store for Q-tips before my soccer game.

And then I continued reading,

DIRECTIONS

SHAKE WELL BEFORE USING. Wear rubber gloves and protective eye gear. Be sure appliance is cool and dry. Spray KleeN Sweep generously, holding can 8 to 10 inches from the surface. Do not get on skin, paint, floors, walls or plastic tile. Leave KleeN Sweep on appliance for 15 minutes to 5 hours. Test with small wooden stick to see if carbon…

Wait, what? I thought. My mind was working a little slower because of the fumes and I didn’t really catch all I was reading at first so I read again, “Wear rubber gloves and protective eye gear.” Ehh, that’s just something they say because they have to, I thought. “Be sure appliance is cool and dry. Spray KleeN Sweep blah, blah, blah… Do not get on skin, paint, floors, walls….” Wait, WHAT?? Don’t get on skin, paint or FLOORS??? Huh? Wait, what is this stuff???

The fumes were really starting to get to me at this point, I was getting more lightheaded and I suddenly felt like I was in that scene from Black Sheep where Chris Farley and David Spade were driving and the nitrous oxide tank leaks into the car. I was like “road… rude…ru-AD…roo-ad…ROW-ads…rudezz…HOLY CRAP WE’RE STONED!”

My tongue was tingling and my lungs felt like someone had reached in and slathered them down with Vicks Vapor Rub. I felt like my breath was from that gum commercial where when you breathe out things around you get frozen. The gunk was being superduper degreased while at the same time I was being poisoned through every orifice.

I walked out of the room and went over to Chad who was working on his sermon for Wednesday night and said, “I think I might die.”

He said, “Okay.” because we have a very loving and caring friendship.

I said, “I think I might have… wait, stand back, I don’t want to freeze you… I think I might have breathed in too much of that stuff.”

“What is it?” he said.

“KleeN Sweep with a big N,” I said, not really trying to be funny, thinking that I better give him as much detail as possible in case I passed out.

“‘Kleen Sweep with a big N’??” he said as he laughed.

“Yes,” I said upset he didn’t think this was serious. “I feel like I have breathed in poison,” I told him as I breathed out really deep and hard thinking I could rid my lungs of it.

“What is that stuff?”

“Superduper degreaser that you are supposed to leave on 15 minutes to 5 hours.”

“15 minutes to 5 hours???” he repeated as he laughed thinking I was joking again.

“No really, that’s what it says, ’15 minutes to 5 hours.’ That’s the kind of product we are dealing with here.” And then I hugged him and said, “I love you, man.”

To which his response was, “Huh?”

I said, “I love you, man. I just want to tell you that just in case.”

He said, “In case you die.” And laughed.

NOTE: We don’t handle serious situations seriously. Were we ever to get our legs chopped off at the local mall as we were lying there waiting on the ambulance we would make several jokes that would make those around us very uncomfortable. But they would make us laugh and really, we would be the ones with our legs chopped off so at that point it would kinda be all about us anyway.

“I keep breathing out really hard thinking I can get it out of my lungs,” I said as I breathed out hard again. “You know how if you drink something poisonous you induce vomiting or eat bread or something… I want to breathe in bread. I know that my esophagus and my bronchial tubes are different and I know that sounds weird but I think I would be better if I could just inhale bread and let it just soak up all the poison in my lungs.”

“I think there’s some cinnamon rolls over there left over from Sunday,” Chad said not even looking up from his computer.

“Maybe I should drink milk,” I said.

I was walking around still doing the hard breathing out thing like a cat with a hairball stuck in its throat picking up random things thinking I might be able to MacGyver something up to feel better. As I picked up a mustard packet, a styrofoam cup and a pencil I said to Chad, “Mango Habanero wings and huffing KleeN Sweep is probably not the best way to get ready for my soccer game tonight…”

“Yeah, probably not,” he said looking up at me and laughing seeming to appreciate my dying which provided a bit of a break in his afternoon work.

I poured a glass of orange juice because I couldn’t find milk and took a sip. “I don’t even like Sunny Delight to tell you the truth,” I told Chad I guess thinking if I am going out I didn’t want him thinking I did. It’s weird what you do and say when you think you are gonna die.

I continued to wonder around HHUUUUUUHHHHing and HHEEEEEEEing somehow thinking that if I breathed just right I could birth the poisonous fumes right out of my lungs.

“I’m gonna meet Paul Barys high,” talking about Maggie’s dad who was gonna be at the soccer game but sounding completely ridiculous to anyone not knowing that.

“What???” Chad said as he looked up from his screen laughing still enjoying the fact that I was loopy thinking that maybe I was just putting together ridiculous verbs and nouns like my side of the conversation was some kind of reading back of a random MadLibs.

“I feel like there are Smurfs riverdancing on my eyeballs,” I said back to him in response, continuing, “I need protective eye gear.”

He laughed which made me laugh and for some reason I began putting on some rubber gloves I had found. I pulled 6 or 7 paper towels off the roll and began to tie a makeshift face mask to protect my nose and mouth as I went back into the back closet room to check the progress. It had been about 20 minutes, which was at the lower end of the 15 minutes to 5 hour window I was given on the KleeN Sweep can but I wanted to see how much of the gunk had been removed, in the back of my mind knowing that the same amount had probably been removed from the lining of my lungs.

Chad hollered at me, “Hey man, I think I am going to go home and check on Shepherd.” Shepherd is his 6 month old baby who has had an off and on stomach virus thing for a few days and someone I think he should love and care about… but I was dying a slow high death before his eyes. Even still, a good friend till the end I said, “Okay, let me know if you need anything.”

The next few minutes I spent scrubbing the popcorn popper with a giant green scrubby pad still breathing in the fumes from underneath my makeshift gas mask which instead of protecting me was only succeeding in making my tingling nose and lips all sweaty.

I sprayed more of the KleeN Sweep on the popcorn popper innards because at this point I figured if I was going out that at least I was gonna leave the world with a superduper degreased popcorn popper. I walked out of the back closet room and seemed to kind of wander around. For some reason I left my rubber latex gloves and paper towel mask on, not realizing how ridiculous I must look. Looking back it would have been funny had a neighboring office looked in through the windows and seen me wandering around and called the police thinking I was a burglar or something.

There’s no telling what I would have said to the police but I am sure it would have included something crazy about breathing in bread which would surely have gotten me thrown in the nut house. I waited around for a few more minutes before I decided that with a window as loose as ’15 minutes to 5 hours’ a few more hours couldn’t hurt, so I took off my hazmat suit and packed my bag up to go. I debated whether or not I should make and drink a cup of coffee to sober me up before I drove home, but then figuring I only lived on the next street over, about a 200 yards as the crow flies I cranked my Jeep and drove through the woods home.

The moral of this story: The next time you go to the movies and the concession stand guy is laughing and carrying on and seeming to have way more fun with his job than he should, take a quick glance at the clean popcorn machine and just know, there’s probably a reason…

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The Grand Prix de Dupre.

In the land of Dupresia we like to have fun. For example, we sometimes have races. They usually involve the normal race things: Babies, Bicycles, and Photo Finishes.

But let’s start from the beginning…

Recently Hope got a new bicycle. It is one of those cool mountain bikes that came with a helmet and everything. Chad and I were hanging out in the driveway pushing Shepherd around in his big red car (he thought he was driving himself, something we perpetuated) when Chad started talking about Hope’s bike.

He asked me if I wanted to ride it, I said of course.

I haven’t ridden a bike in a while but you know the old saying, “It’s like riding a bike, you never forget.”

I am pretty sure that saying is more about memory than it is about actual bike riding, because when I jumped on the bike to ride it around the yard I looked more like a circus clown all flipping and flopping around than I did a mountain biker.

I don’t know if we were just bored or if it was my baby-like bike skills that made us think a race against Shepherd was in order, but once it came up it quickly became the best idea in the world ever.

Based upon my lack of off-road skills and the certainty of death were I to get in the street, we decided their driveway was the best place for The Race of the Century!

NOTE: My job as the cool uncle is to over-dramaticize everything and pretend as if it is the greatest thing ever. Chad and Hope’s job as parents is to be realistic.

So, as the cool uncle, I proclaimed our showdown as The Race of the Century! and we set up at the end of the driveway. “On your mark, get set, GO!!” and we were off.

The race was short and yet there were many lead changes. After it was over the results were disputed, mostly by me and Chad, Shepherd seemed to be content to just be “driving” his car around.

On the 6th or 7th race, Hope came outside to see what was going on.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked.

“We are racing,” Chad and I said in unison as if a grown clown-man on bike and baby in a car were racing in every driveway in America.

“Who won?” she asked.

“I DID!” Chad and I screamed at the same time.

“Why is Kevin wearing a helmet and Shepherd not?” Hope asked, clearly thinking that two men so intense about who won such a ridiculous race should not be in charge of a baby’s safety.

“It’s not dangerous, he doesn’t really need one,” I said adjusting the strap on my helmet.

“If you want to keep racing he needs to be wearing a helmet,” she said matter-of-factly.

Annoyed by her responsibleness but also excited to have someone to take pictures, we found Shepherd a helmet and got set at the Starting Line.

The problem we were running into before was that it seemed whoever got to say, “On you mark, get set, GO!!” always seemed to win the race, so now that Hope was around, we let her be the one to officiate.

“On your mark… get set… GO!!!”

AND WE WERE OFF!!

Despite Shepherd not being able to see, it was a surprisingly close race.

I was in the lead.

and then HE was in the lead.

and then I was in the lead again!

It was so close, it was so exciting, it was…

I should probably mention at this point that we live on Dupre Road in East Brainerd. It is one of the busier roads in the area because people use it as a short cut to the mall. So far Chad and I had been racing for a while and now we were racing, a grown man in flip flops on a mountain bike and a baby in car with a bowl on his head, in a driveway with a woman taking pictures.

Soooo…

we were racing… Shepherd was in the lead, I was in the lead, Shepherd was in the lead, I was in the lead…

It was amazing!

“Who won? Who won?!?!?!” Chad and I asked Hope as we came to a stop at the end of the race.

“I couldn’t see… I was at a bad angle. It was really close.”

Seeing that we were disappointed she quickly added, “You should probably race again.”

Agreed.

So we lined up on the Starting Line again…

Hope thought it would be better if Shepherd were wearing the helmet and I was wearing the bowl. I agreed because I figured if it came down to a photo finish I wanted her on my side.

“On your mark… get set… GO!!!”

AND WE WERE OFF!!!!… for the 9th time.

I jumped out to a quick lead…

but towards the end somehow Shepherd had regained the lead.

And somehow Chad was wearing the helmet.

Determined not to lose to a baby I lowered my bowled head, dropped the bike into 1st gear and pumped the pedals as hard as I could and by the finish line…

SWEET VICTORY!!!!

The joy was short-lived because in all the excitement I forgot the brakes were on the handlebars and not on the pedals and I slammed full speed into the fence.

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CLICK ON a Chinese Man Re-enacting my wreck to get back to KevinTheCoolGuy.com

]]> http://mylimegreenblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/my-adventurous-life-the-grand-prix-de-dupre/feed/ 1 kevinthecoolguy 06february2009-grand-prix-de-dupre grand-prix-de-dupre-1 grand-prix-de-dupre-2 grand-prix-de-dupre-3 grand-prix-de-dupre-4 grand-prix-de-dupre-5 grand-prix-de-dupre-6 grand-prix-de-dupre-7 grand-prix-de-dupre-8 grand-prix-de-dupre-9 grand-prix-de-dupre-10 artist-rendering-of-bike-wreck-3 http://mylimegreenblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/_____-of-the-week/ http://mylimegreenblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/_____-of-the-week/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:41:48 +0000 kevinthecoolguy http://mylimegreenblog.wordpress.com/?p=6 ]]> Over the past one hundred years there have been many scientific breakthroughs, many discoveries, many cures, many improvements, many men and women worthy of much praise. Expanded to include the scope of all time the inventions and scientific discoveries, the inventors and the scientists whom have improved our lives with medicines and technologies, the guys who invented flip flops for example, have made our lives better and are worthy of our deepest gratitude and certainly deserve a whole post on my blog devoted to them. But to go back and highlight the inventor of the wheel or the designer of the paper clip, along with thousands of others would be too laborious and too time consuming a task for me to undertake or you to sit through soooo instead….

In this, the first edition of _____ of the Week (pronounced “Blank of the Week“) on my new My Lime Green Blog, I will limit my scope of time and I will hone in my focus as we discuss the….

Scientist of the Week

I know many of you have your favorite scientist, one whom you hope I choose, one whom perhaps you celebrate with a poster on your bedroom wall or possibly devote a whole shelf of your bookcase to, all of which are valid contenders for Scientist of the Week.

Before I tell you who it is and why, I guess I should tell you who it’s not.

It’s not Sir Isaac Newton.

While I appreciate Sir Isaac Newton inventing gravity, something I use most every day, his hair precludes me from picking him. Now before you get upset and say it is unfair to not pick him based on his hair because his hairstyle was probably popular when he was alive, you need to know that it was not. Even in his own time, his hairstyle was not accepted and in many instances it cost him a shot at Scientist of the Week in my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s -Sir Evaline King of the Britains- blog.

Despite his amazing beard, it is not Charles Darwin either… at this point, although by the end of the blog he might just evolve into my choice.

It is not Madame Marie Curie despite her many achievements in physics and chemistry and despite the fact that she is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two separate fields and have an elementary school named after her in Ontario, Canada, she too is disqualified because when given the chance to name the chemical element she discovered, instead of going with something really cool and catchy she went with “Curium”. If you are gonna win the coveted title of Scientist of the Week on My Lime Green Blog, you are gonna have to be more creative than that Marie.

For the record, I think if I ever discovered a chemical element I would name it Ralph.

It is also is not Albert Einstein, despite his amazing hair.

He is too obvious a pick and has been honored far too often for him to win Scientist of the Week, although I do appreciate his dedication to his work on discovering just who was the man behind the curtain…

(That was a combo E = mc² and Wizard of Oz reference for those who do not get it.)

Neither is it more recent scientists like Bill Nye the Science Guy.

While I appreciate all that Bill Nye the Science Guy has brought to the science community and education via his television show Bill Nye the Science Guy and his zany antics more recently on his Planet Green television show Stuff Happens, as well as being the most famous scientist to have his wedding officiated by Rick Warren he is not my pick.

Probably because I am jealous that he has a bobblehead doll and I don’t.

Also Mr Wizard was my television scientist of choice.

I used to watch Mr Wizard every morning before school. What I liked so much about Mr Wizard is that he seemed like a normal guy who lived in a normal neighborhood who just happened to invite kids over to his house to mix dangerous chemicals together and light things on fire to see what would happen. I always wished I lived in a neighborhood with a guy like Mr Wizard, but all I had was an old lady who would give us saltine crackers and make us Tang.

I know a lot of you are too young to know who Mr Wizard is so here is a YouTube clip of Mr Wizard’s awesomeness…

I could go on all day naming who is NOT the Scientist of the Week. I could show you pictures and videos and tell you in detail why it is not the guy who invented chicken nuggets, not the guy who invented cell phones, not the guy who invented Chapstick for polar bears, and how no, it’s not even Al Gore who invented the Internet or global warming, but I know like me, you guys are excited and want to stop taking about who the Scientist of the Week of the week is not, and start talking about who the Scientist of the Week of the week IS. So without further adieu… the Scientist of the Week is…

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Scientist of the Week

Daniel Faraday from LOST!

Why is Daniel Faraday from LOST the Scientist of the Week??? Well, in addition to him being on one of my most favorite shows ever and being super cool, which I realize could qualify Miles from LOST as well because after all he is a scientist who talks to dead people just like a regular modern day Haley Joel Osment, and that in and of itself is pretty cool.

So what qualifies Daniel Faraday to be the Scientist of the Week over all these other great scientific minds? Is it that he can travel through time? Well, that is a big part of it but that by itself is not enough to qualify him because after all Michael J Fox traveled through time 3 times himself and he is not the Scientist of the Week.

Is it that he is on a tv show that I love? No, remember that Mr Wizard was on a tv show that I love and he didn’t win. And even still, if that was the only qualification then I would probably choose Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory because he is hilarious!

It is a combination of many things, two of which being that he travels through time and that he is on one of my favorite shows, but the thing that really really puts Daniel Faraday over the top is the fact that he always, always has on a tie.

Always.

It’s true. Have you ever noticed how he, no matter what the situation, always has on his tie? He is trapped on a tropical island, which is apparently “alive” and is constantly shifting through space and time and yet he always has on his tie.

When he is dismantling rockets…

He is wearing his tie.

When he is carrying dead bodies out of the forest…

He is wearing his tie.

When he is hanging with the boys…

He is wearing his tie.

When he is hanging with the girls…

He is wearing his tie.

(notice how the girls can’t even keep their jackets on)

When he is setting up wireless internet on the island…

He is wearing his tie.

When he is arm wrestling invisible midgets…

He is wearing his tie.

Whether he is in the past…

or in the Future…

or somewhere in between…

He is wearing his tie.

And it this, his unfailing commitment to his tie that sets him apart from the others (LOST pun intended) and makes him the Scientist of the Week.

Check back soon for Blog Features such as Blank of the Week and My Adventurous Life.

Kevin K Lewis