Because the project I am currently working on for this site is taking a little longer than expected (Not the MAC one, my secret project), I decided to fill the time between with a look at some of my more dubious moments in life.

I got the idea to do this because of an incident that occurred last week, which we will get to later in the article. It is a classic, I can guarantee you that for those who don’t know what I am talking about.

Without further ado, let’s get to the highlight reel!

Run Down by a Granny in a Cadillac

I’m going to start this one off with a bang … actually it was more like a sickening thud.

The year was 1999, and it was my senior year of high school. Now, I don’t know how it is or was in your school, but at Yorktown High School we were required to do a “Senior Project” to complete 12th grade English. So, what I decided to do was a report on the topic of “elderly driving.”

Essentially, what I wanted to prove was that every year after the age of 65 or 70 (I forget the number), senior citizens would have to retake their road test. You know how it is when you are in High School. You’re young, you’re stupid, and you love to speed around in your car. And if there was one thing that pissed you off, it was those little old blue-haired grannies holding up the process.

By taking the easy way out, which has always been my prerogative, I decided to make this project into a video. Doing that was always so much easier than writing some god damned paper.

I recruited Nick Rude and my brother Bryan to help me in this assignment, and we headed to Jefferson Village, the retirement area in Yorktown, to get some sweet footage.

At first, basically all we did was sneak around and film old, decrepit looking people getting into their cars and making comments about how obvious it was that they were unfit to drive. And this was all fine and dandy, but I needed some hard proof.

Then an idea went off in my head, probably one of the dumbest ones ever at that.

This was the plan. I would wait in the middle of the road, and when a car would approach, I would yell, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” to see how long it takes for the senior citizen to react. This would prove the slower reaction time of the senior citizen, strongly arguing for my re-test plan.

Obviously though, I was not going to take the risk of getting hit by some old schmuck in a ’87 Buick. No, no, no, we would stage this whole operation.

We dressed Rude up in old lady gear, gave him the keys to my 1980, pimp-white Cadillac El Dorado and planned to have him hit me with my own car.

Genius, right?

So, here I am in the middle of the road, talking to the camera, which Bryan was holding, and saying what exactly I was planning to do for the benefit of my study.

At that point, you hear some kind of oldie blasting from a car approaching (we told Nick to crank up the oldies), and then you see the grill of the El Dorado approaching at about 5 miles an hour.

I yell out, “wait, stop!” and then the Cadillac hits me on my hip and I do an unnatural spin move along the side of my car. The car passes, I limp over to the camera and explain my plight.

Let’s just say that I had no idea how much it would hurt getting hit by a 2,000-pound vehicle made of pure steel. Good god, they don’t make them like they used to. I figured that if it were going only 5 an hour, I could either jump on the hood of the car or just get grazed and jump to the side. Well, when it got closer, I realized that 5 miles per hour isn’t actually that slow when you are standing stationary, so I chickened out about jumping on the hood and I took the shot in the hip and took a ride into the hard concrete road.

But hey, in the end, the teacher bought the whole scene and gave me an A for my work. The rest of the class realized that it was my car and that it was staged (sans Kristy Rella, but that’s another story), but at least the teacher did not.

Sadly, I cannot find this video. Mike Scott has requested to view it many ‘o times, but I have never been able to find it. It is around here somewhere though, and I will continue to search.

16 Candles

Also taking place my senior year, this is a story that makes me cringe with embarrassment to this day, even though I don’t really think anyone noticed it.

I was at some chick’s sweet 16, and as she was going through her “16 Candles” schpeel, naming her closest people and having them come up to light a candle, I thought I heard her say my name, “Jim.”

I was confused, as I really wasn’t that close with her at this point, but I got up anyway and prepared to approach the center of the floor where the whole setup was located at.

I took a few steps when I saw a girl named Jen heading there as well. “OH SHIT,” I thought, she said “Jen,” not “Jim!” Immediately I dropped to one knee as if pretending to tie my shoes.

What a fucking tool I must have looked like. People were probably like, “what the hell does this douche think he is doing?”

The rest of my night was ruined after that.

Another Jen story

Though my asshole friends think I am lying and will never believe this actually happened, I swear to God it is the truth.

It is one of my earliest, and most distinct memories.

The setting is first grade. I really have to take a dump, but as you know, there is only one bathroom in the classroom and it is a unisex one, and someone is already in there.

“Fuck,” I thought to my self. “I have to take a fucking shit, who is this asshole holding things up? Mothaaaafucka.”

Ok, so I probably wasn’t thinking that. I would imagine it was more along the lines of, “Someone is in there, now I have to wait. I guess I will go back to playing with my Dino-Riders toys and wait this one out.”

Maybe I wasn’t thinking that either … eh, who knows what I was thinking? I was frigging six years old and I had to drop a deuce!

Well anyway, I am waiting outside the door to the bathroom, when finally it opens. Out walks Jen Kull, the girl that every 6-year old boy longed for. Ask Rude about this one, he still has a crush on this chick to this day.

But oh no, not me. Not after what I was about to witness.

I walked into the bathroom, looked in the toilet, and there it was. Ms. Kull forgot to flush the toilet, and there was a Kull Bomb sitting right in there.

I nearly fainted, and then tried clawing my eyes out with my bare hands.

Kull was forever ruined for me, and I can actually still remember what that butt nugget looked like and the gross odor that she left in there. Ugh.

Let’s move on.

More Shit?

In ninth grade, I went to Colorado with my Dad to go hiking in the mountains of the Rockies, Mount Elbert actually, the tallest in North America. It was a great trip, one of the most fun ever, and I would definitely want to go back.

The best part was that I got to shit in the woods! That was awesome! Just plopped down on a fallen tree far into the woods away from our camp, let my ass hang over it, and relieved my self.

And what a log it was!

Freaking sweet!

The Shower Scene

Ok, here is the story that inspired me to write this column.

Last week, after a night of drinking at the local watering hole, I came home and did the usual routine. Drunkenly posted on the forum, ate a bowl of cereal and watched some SportsCenter and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Then I went to bed, business as usual.

At some point in the middle of the night though, I woke up as I felt cold water spraying me in the chest. It was freezing, I thought to myself, and so dark too.

The next thing I noticed was that my socks were soaking wet with cold water, and my feet were actually in a pool of this cold water.

This was all like a dream, but I soon put 1 and 1 together and realized that I was in the fucking shower, with a shirt, Adidas pants, and socks on, while the shower and then faucet were blasting with cold water.

The bathroom was pitch black, I had forgotten to turn on the light I guess, but I got out of the shower and headed to my room. I peeled off my soaking wet and freezing cold apparel, and hopped into bed.

When I woke up, I figured this all had to be a dream. I was in only my boxers, and I went down on the floor to investigate the situation. What I found there was a pile of sopping wet clothes!

Holy shit. I was sleepwalking and took a shower fully clothed. What the hell is wrong with me, I thought.

What makes this even more bizarre is that I remember my Mom waking me up one week before, while I was just standing in the shower (not turned on this time) in the middle of the night!

This has not happened since the second time, but if anyone has any explanations for this, please e-mail me or contact me on the forum. It was actually kind of creepy considering I have never sleep walked before. Granted I have talked about gibberish like “The Z-Man comics” while sleeping before, but I have never gotten out of my bed and proceeded to do anything like take a shower.

Freaking weird!

I’m going to cut these stories short now, but you can be sure that I have plenty more of them. Any time that it is taking me too long to update, I will fill in with some more Real Highlights from the Reel of Life.

Hope you enjoyed, peace.

Questions or comments? An explanation for my sleepwalking? E-mail me at Y2JimProblem1@yahoo.com