Big Brother To The Rescue Part 2

          I started looking around the house to see where my sister's boyfriend was. I found him half drunk and messing around in the dinning room. After asking for his help we both walked into the bathroom to get her. He helped her up by one arm and I got the other. We both than led her into the hall and than up the stairs. Instead of taking her to her bedroom, we ended up taking her to the upstairs bathroom. After lowering her to the floor, she nearly collapsed on the ground. I think I remember her getting sick again and than laying back down.
          I tried telling her she needed to get to bed, but she didn't move from the ground. Her boyfriend tried telling her the same thing. He than grabbed her arm and tried to pull her up. But instead of sitting up, her limp body swung sideways and her head ended up smacking into the toilet bowl. She than dropped back to the floor again not moving.  Figuring he was too drunk to be of any use, I made her boyfriend get out of my way so I could help her.
          I than sat down and held her in my lap. It felt like I was holding a dead body. She was completely limp, her skin was white, and I could barely tell if she was breathing. The only thing that let me know she was alive was her pulse. I didn't know what to do and felt trapped. On the one hand I wanted to call 911 for help, but I had a bunch of minors running around my house with alcohol and God only knows what else. Since I was the oldest one there, I was convinced I would some how get in trouble for what was taking place.
          "F-ck" I thought to myself "I told my parents I didn't want to be here for this".  I bet that me drinking earlier was helping me to maintain my calm. Because if I hadn't, I would have completely lost my mind from the pressure and fear. I sat there a bit longer saying a silent prayer to myself. Eventually I decided to pick her up in my arms and take her to her bed. After laying her down, I left her in the room to sleep.
          I immediately started walking around the house trying to figure out what she had. I was convinced that there was no way in hell that just alcohol led her to this. But no one was entirely sure what had happened, they just said that she had been drinking. I eventually got a call from my parents who wanted to know how the party was going. I considered telling them about what had happened, but instead said that everything was fine.
          Now I did not do this to cover the kids in my house, I did this because I felt it was pointless to alarm my parents when they were so far away and it was so late. I also wanted them to enjoy their night without any worries. After I was done talking to them I went back to check on my sister again. I walked back into her room to find her out of her bed and face down on the floor. This story will be concluded in the next post.

Big Brother To The Rescue Part 1

          This took place last year during my younger sisters twentieth birthday party during the winter. My mom and sister practically have their birthday on the same day, so my sister bought my mom and dad tickets to Atlantic City for the night so that they could have a good time together. Of course the other part of her plan was to get our parents out of the house so that she could throw a party with her friends. My mom agreed that it would be OK to have a party while they were gone, so long as it was with a small group of her friends. My mom also asked me to be there so that I could supervise things and keep an eye on the dog.
          In all honesty, I did not want to do it. I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen and since I would be the oldest one there, it would be my responsibility to maintain order. I especially didn't want to do it when my sister told me the party was going to be a bit bigger than she let my mom know. I only agreed to it because my mom begged me to and I wanted to be able to watch over my house and pets.
          So the day of the party arrived and my younger brother, sister, and I, were left alone in the house. I could hang upstairs with the dog, while my brother and sister had their little party downstairs. I would just have to go down occasionally to make sure things were OK. So the friends started to arrive bringing various gifts to the party. After letting a few more arrive I decided to go downstairs and check things out. As I hung around I noticed that it wasn't just her friends that decided to arrive. There was her boyfriends friends, my brothers friends, and some of their friends friends.
          I didn't recognize half, if not more of the kids there. As I suspected would happen, some of the kids had brought alcohol to the party. "Fine" I thought "I didn't provide it, so I can't get into trouble for it. As long as things don't get out of control,  everything will be fine". However, I did start to get anxious when I saw that a small amount of the kids had brought their own marijuana to the party. As tempted as I was to kick them out, I didn't want my sister to get mad at me for harassing her guests. So I decided to have a drink to help calm myself down and just went about doing my own thing.
          About an hour into the party a few of my sisters friends came running up to me saying "Chris, Chelsea needs your help".  "OK" I said "Where is she?". They told me that my sister was in the bathroom. Thinking they were overreacting I casually walked up to the bathroom door and knocked.  "Chell?" I asked "Are you alright?".  "Yea Chris" she said "I'm good". I opened the door to see her on the floor, just barely over the toilet. Figuring she had just drank too much, I decided to just wait outside the door while she tried to get a hold of herself. But instead, I noticed after a while that she was slowly losing conciseness. I decided to find her boyfriend so that he could help me get her up the stairs and into her bed. This story will be continued in the next post.

Tipped Off 2: Machete Man

          This story is similar to the last in that it is about tipping, but the scenario is entirely different. This story took place on an island that my family and I were dropped off on during a cruise. No I don't know the name of the island, I just know it wasn't in the US. Anyway, as my family and I were being driven to the beach of the island, I noticed a man sitting on the side of the road with a pile of coconuts and a machete. What he was doing was making tropical drinks out of the coconuts and opening them with the machete. I had to have one.
          When I was done swimming in the water I asked my mom if I could have money to get a coconut drink from the guy. She gave me the money and I ran over to see the guy on the side of the road. After asking for one, the guy picked up a coconut from the pile and placed it on the log in front of him. He than took the machete and started hacking into it until he made a small opening. He told me to come back when I finished drinking so he could split the coconut open. I paid the man what he asked for and started to turn away with my drink.
          "Hey" he said while raising his machete at me "you no give tip". "Tip?" I thought to myself "Why does he want a tip? The money I paid for the coconut goes straight to him, it's not like he has a boss collecting the sale. Further more, who the hell comes right out and asks for a tip?". I kept my thoughts to myself though and tipped the guy while saying "oh sorry". I'm not about to get into an argument or fight with a guy holding a machete. I than went to the water to enjoy my drink.
          When I was done I remembered that the guy had told me to come back so he could cut the coconut open for me. I made my way to his spot and handed him the coconut. "What took you so long?" he asked as he started to cut into my drink. I explained to him that I had been in the water. When he was done I grabbed the coconut and started to turn. "You no give tip again?" he said while lifting his machete with an irritated look on his face. "Really?" I thought "Is this guy seriously asking for a second tip?".
          As badly as I wanted to walk away, his machete persuaded me to give him something. I reached into my pocket to see if I had even had any money left. I ended up pulling out a single dollar bill. "Oh my God" I thought "I'm going to be decapitated". I handed him the dollar while apologizing that I didn't have more. With an annoyed look he took the dollar from my hand and I went back to the water. I didn't tell my parents about what happened until later.

Tipped Off 1

          This will be a short story. It all started when my mom had dropped me off at the barbers to get a haircut. She gave me the money that I needed and I went inside. After I was done with my haircut I went up to pay the lady. She gave me the price and I took out the money my mom gave me. I noticed that she had given me more than was needed so I just paid the lady the price of the hair cut and held on to the rest of the money. I than walked out of the shop and went to the car. But as I was walking I realized I had forgotten something.
          I turned around and walked back inside. I noticed that the woman who had cut my hair was happy to see me return. At the time I just figured she was being nice. As I walked to one of the chairs I said "I just forgot my coat". I grabbed my coat and walked back outside. I noticed that the barber wasn't too thrilled to see me walk back out.
          Later that night my family and I were all eating dinner and talking. "Oh mom" I said "I just remembered, you gave me too much money for the haircut. I've still got a few dollars left to give back to you". I than took the money out of my pocket and gave it to her. "Chris" she said "You were supposed to give this money to the lady as a tip". "Oh, really?" I said "oops". Now I knew why she had looked happy when I walked back for my coat.

I Want You To Hit Me

          This is another story where I should probably warn you to not try what I did. This story starts by taking place at Dave's dad's house. It was just Dave and I hanging out in his dad's living room while he was off somewhere. At some point during our time down there I hatched an idea. I got up from the couch and said "I want you to hit me". "What?" Dave asked "Why would you want me to do that?". I explained to him that I wanted to harden my gut up and thought that if I had him hit me, it would build up a resistance of muscle.
          "No way, I'm not punching you in the gut" Dave said. "Oh come on" I said "Let's give it a try". After a bit more convincing he gave in. Before he started he said "I'm not going to use full force OK". "Fine" I said. I felt the pressure of his fist hitting me, but it didn't really hurt. "Alright" I said "again". "Again?" he asked. "That's right" I said "keep going". So he hit me again and I was still on my feet. I had him keep punching me for a bit longer. It got to the point where he wanted to end it so he gave a harder shot. The force of his punch made me fall back onto the couch behind me.
          I sat for a second than got back up again. "All right I'm ready" I said. "I'm not hitting you again" he said "I just knocked you into the couch". "Well now I'm back up again" I said "let's go". His next hit was even harder than the last and sent me into the couch again. I sat a bit longer this time and than got back up. "All right I'm good" I said. "No, I'm done" he said "this is sick, I'm gonna end up hurting you". I agreed that it may be time to stop.
          About a week later I had an appointment with the doctor. During that time he did a physical examination on me. When he was done he informed me that he found one of my organs was pressed up against my stomach. He warned that if it received too much physical force or trauma, it could rupture and bleed out. Which would of course lead to my death.
          I immediately thought of how I had just asked Dave to hit me in the same spot. I started laughing to myself about the whole thing. The next time I saw Dave I told him what the doctor said. With a sick look on his face he said "Oh my God, I could've killed. Don't ever ask me to hit you again, cause I'm not doing it".

Music Class

          This story took place over a year ago when I was taking a music class. I was at Dave's house and we were discussing the classes that we had for the semester. After he told me about the business and economic courses he had, I started telling him about my class. I told him how so far my music class had been like a joke. In class our teacher hands out wooden sticks to everyone and we have to follow her lead by tapping the sticks together at a certain beat. I felt like I was in elementary school music class again.
          This didn't sit too well with Dave and he started complaining about how he easy I had it. It was funny to see how mad he got. I found out that a few days later after our conversation that he was struggling in one of his classes. While trying to do his work and getting frustrated, he thought to himself "I f-cken hate him! I have to sit here and do marketing statistics, whiles he's off in his music class tapping two sticks together. This is bull sh-t!" I died laughing when I heard about that.

Celery?

          This is going to be about yet another test that I failed. This test took place during early high school or elementary school, I can't remember which. What I do remember is that it was during our health class and the teacher had just given us a test about nutrition. We had all handed in our tests and after looking over our results, our teacher was mad. She than started giving us a speech about how disappointed she was in us for doing so poorly on the test. After going on about how horrible we did, she decided to use an example.
          She skimmed through the tests and picked up the one that I guess she felt had one of the dumbest answers. "Listen to what this one student wrote" she sad "The question was, name an essential nutrient, this student answered by writing celery". "Celery?" she said again, amazed at the stupidity of the answer. The kids around the table started looking around to see who was the moron that wrote it. I tried so hard to stay quite, but I couldn't hold it in anymore. I burst out laughing as the teacher glared at me. "Be quite Chris" she said "It's not funny". "I'm sorry" I laughed "But it was the only thing I could think of writing". Naturally the rest of the kids started laughing after knowing it was me. This just made the teacher even angrier. For the next few weeks people would people would pass me in the hall and say "Hey Chris, Celery!". It was amazing to learn how many people had found out about my answer.

Nose Bleed

WARNING: I should probably put a warning on this post since it is a bit gruesome and one of my activities was dangerous. So yea, don't try what I did in this.
          With that out of the way, it is very rare for me to get a nose bleed, but when I do, it is bad. It usually ends up happening when it's dry out or if I have a cold. So I was at my house and my nose started to bleed, so I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a piece of toilet paper and shoved it up my nose. But the blood was coming out so fast it was soaking through the paper. I quickly grabbed another piece from the role and got it ready. I kept my face over the toilet as I went to make the switch.
          The moment I took the paper out of my nose, a faucet of blood came out and landed in water of the bowl. I quickly jammed the other piece of toilet paper into my nose as blood dropped onto my hand. I than immediately tilted my head back to stop the blood from coming out. But it didn't do much and I had to again switch to another piece of toilet paper. This time I laid on my back, but the blood just ended up sliding to the back of my throat.
          I got bored waiting and decided there had to be another way to move this process along. I thought to my self "Maybe if I stuff an ice cube up my nose, that will slow the flow of blood". So I got up and walked to the freezer, while trying to keep my nose covered. I grabbed out an ice cube and headed back to the bathroom. I took the toilet paper out of my nostril and put in the ice, which I held with a paper towel.
          It had the opposite effect that I wanted and started making my nose bleed even faster. I decided to give it time to work, but the blood kept pouring out. I eventually gave up and let the ice drop into the toilet. Than a new idea occurred to me "Maybe if I just let it bleed out, it will stop on it's own". So I just kept my head over the toilet letting the blood pour out. I waited, but there was no sign of it slowing down, let alone stopping.
          As I watched the water get redder and started feeling light headed, I thought I might need to call someone for help. It couldn't be healthy to lose this much blood, even if I wasn't in pain. I was strongly considering the idea of making a phone call when yet another idea came to mind. I thought "Maybe I can cauterize it with some fire".
          In a last ditch effort I made my way to our cabinet and took out the lighter we use for lighting our grill. I than went back to the bathroom and tried to figure out how I was going to do it. In the end I decided I should just hold the flame under my nose. So I clicked the flame on and put it under my nostril. I than inhaled through my nose thinking it would help the heat to travel further up.
          When it became more than I could take, I took the flame away and turned off the lighter. To my amazement, it worked. The blood had dried up and was no longer leaking. I put the lighter back and cleaned the toilet, no more problems. However, I did notice that I had managed to singe my eye lashes a little bit. But I did manage to stop my nose from bleeding and was now free to go about my day.

Catching a Con Part 2

          I just sat there looking at the screen not believing what I was seeing. The firm this guy was from was being accused of various acts of fraud and were now being sued by their investors for massive amounts of money. Now he was coming for me in hopes of luring me into their game. I wanted nothing to do with these guys and tried thinking of ways I could get out of the meeting.
          I considered the idea of calling the guy and telling him to turn around or to just bail before he makes it to the college. But those thoughts didn't sit well with me because he may still attempt to contact me afterwords. I also considered the idea of calling my parants for help, but they had no clue about the meeting and I didn't want to worry them. I started to feel a slight panic, until an idea popped into my head.
          I printed out two articles regarding the lawsuit and started highlighting the parts that I felt were important. I than stuffed them into my back pack and waited outside for the guy to arrive. I was nervouse about what I was going to do because I had no idea how he would react. After waiting a few minutes more on a bench, the guy arrived dressed up in a suit and carrying a briefcase. "This is it" I thought "game on".
          I walked up to him and politely welcomed him to the college. We than walked into the college cafeteria and sat down. He opened up his briefcase and started pitching his sale to me. He started by telling me about all the different ways that their firm is able to help their clients and how they can assist me. He also started naming off the investments that they suggest to their customers and how "safe" they are. A lot of what he claimed was actualy a load of crap, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to start an argument.
          He than started talking about what investments he would go about putting my money into. This did not sit well with me because I felt he was acting like I had already agreed to participat. He than wanted to start asking questions about my personal life. I felt that he was going in for the kill, so I decided to beat him to it. It was at this point that I decided to play my trump card.
          "Before we go any further" I said "there is one question I have been dying to ask you". "What's that?" he asked. I unzipped my backpack and took out the articles. After dropping them on the table in front of him I said "What's this all about with you being sued by your investors?" I'd love to know what he was thinking after I pulled that move. He picked the papers off the table and started reading them.
          When done he started claiming that the lawsuit was frivolous and was the result of an unhappy investor. After saying a few more things that he felt would put him in a better light, he tried to get back to our original conversation. I decided to end it right than and there. "Look" I said "I apreciate your time, but I'm not interested." I thanked him for his time and we walked out of the building.
          Later that night, I decided to do more research about the firm out of my own curiousity. I found out that these guys mostly target senior citizens and occasionaly unsophisticated investors. Believe me when I tell you that these guys put alot of people in bad shape.  One of the worst stories I read about was regarding an elderly woman who had invested a large percentage of her money with them. After becomeing ill, she wasn't able to withdraw her money to pay for her bills. Eventualy, she died and as far as I know, her children are still fighting to get their mothers money back. If these people had just checked online, I'm sure they could have found out about the trap they were walking into. Thankfully, I looked before leaping. I haven't heard from anyone at that firm since our last meeting.

Catching a Con Part 1

          This is a story that took place just this summer. If I haven't mentioned it already, I am an investor and am always looking for new ways to expaned my knowledge of the investment world. So one day I was doing some announcing work at a town fair, when I got bored and started roaming the grounds. I came upon a table that was promoting an investment firm. I am not going to give the name of the firm because I don't want them coming after me after I get done bashing them.
          Any way, I noticed that they had some material on their table that they were giving away for free and decided to take a look at what they had. I figured I could read some of their brochures to pass the time until I was needed again. So I walked up to the table and started picking up a few things. As I did, one of the guys behind the table aproached me and introduced himself. He than started questioning me about my knowledge of investing and what investments I was in.
          After giving my answer he started talking to me briefly about his firm and what they do. He than suggested that I leave my contact information with him so that he could send me more information about them. He also wanted to see if we could set up another time that we could meet one on one and talk more. Figuring I had nothing to lose I left him my information and walked off.
          About a week or so later I got a package in the mail that contained more information about the firm. I also got a phone call from the same guy, asking if there was a time and a place that he could meet with me personaly. I ended up deciding to meet with him the following week on my college campus. I started reading the information in the package I had gotten so that I could get a sense of what the firm had to offer.
          I won't lie, alot of what it said fell right in line with my investment goals and beliefs. My only concern was that they were in direct violation of one of my personal investing rules. My rule is that I am the one that manages and chooses my investments. While I am open to advice, I am the one who makes the decisions for what to do with my investments. They wanted me to hand my money over to them, so that they could invest it for me. I still went ahead with the meeting though, because I wanted to see what he had to say.
          The day of the meeting I got out of class and gave the guy a call. He told me that he was on his way and would arrive in about a twenty minutes. I decided to go on one of the college computers to see if I could find any current information about the firm. After a quick google search I found out that they were being sued by there investors for fraud. This story will be concluded in the next post.

The Canadian Boarder

          I think this story is perfect to tell after my last post. It all started during one of the camping trips I went on with Dave and his dad up north. On this trip we had a crowd of four since it was me, Dave, his father, and his fathers friend Hammer. While we were sitting around our campsite, Dave's dad asked us to go buy him another pack of cigarettes. So we hopped into the truck and drove off to find a store.
          We found a local shop and went in to see what they had. Unfortunitly, they didn't sell cigarettes, but they did tell us about another store we could buy them at. We got back in the truck and followed the road they told us to. As we drove we noticed that we had crossed the boarder into Canada, strangly there weren't any police watching the area.
          Eventually we made it to the store and were able to buy Dave's dad's preciouse cigarettes. After we bought two packs or so, we made our way back. As we drove we noticed that a line of cars were forming up ahead at the boarder. The police were now there and were checking people out before letting them cross into the US. So we sat in the line of cars waiting for our turn to go through.
          I than started laughing to myself "Hey Dave, wouldn't it be funny if we got up there and the officer asked us if we were going to America" I said "And in response I said to him si senor, we going to America to look for work". Dave didn't laugh "I swear to God Chris if you pull a stunt like that I will take that cops gun out of his belt and shoot you with it". I started laughing at his response as he continued "You just sit there and be quite. The last time you talked to an officer you got me and my car searched. The guy probably thought you were on some kind of drugs". My laughing eventualy started to calm down as we waited.
          All of a sudden a scary thought went through my mind. "Uh Dave" I said "What if Hammer accidently left his medicine in here?" Dave's eyes got big as the realization hit him. Hammer is a veteran that suffers from some kind of medical problem that I can't remember, to help him cope with the pain he is prescribed legal medical marijuana, he calls it his medicine. "It's OK" Dave said "I'm pretty sure he took it out of the truck with him". "But what if he didn't?" I asked "What if he left it somewhere in here?" "Look" Dave said "If anything happen's we'll call my dad and he'll be able to explain everything".
          We were getting closer to the boarder. "Oh great" I thought "We are so going to jail if it's in here and they find it. There is no way in hell they're going to believe our explination. As for the phone call, I suspect we won't be able to make that until after they have us locked up". This is why I have NEVER taken an illegal drug in my life. It can't possibly be worth the consequence if you get caught.
          Soon we approached the boarder and a patrol officer walked up to us. After looking through the window and in the truck bed, he asked Dave and I some questions. After he was done we were allowed to go through. I can't tell you how relieved I was when we made it. When we got back to the camp, we found out the "medicine" hadn't been in the truck and Dave's dad got his cigarettes.