Ambulance Driver Files A Day in the Life | Kelly Grayson
…that weren’t already shared here, here, here, here, here or even here.
That’s right folks, Scott over at Forging Iron Man has managed to fling a big pile of meme right square into my lovable face. I sure hope this stuff washes out.
*sigh*
I need to learn to dodge better.
Okay, so here goes:
1. I once got in-school suspension for six weeks for drawing a lifesized naked lady on the cafeteria wall. I had to stay in Mr. Hammett’s office at recess and after lunch and write I will not deface school property with pornographic drawings.
I was in the fourth grade.
How did they catch me, you may ask?
I signed my work. Duhr!
After three weeks, I convinced Mister Hammett to parole me and instead dole out ten licks with The Beast, this huge polished wooden paddle that hung on the wall behind his desk.
It was worth every lick, too.
2. At that same school, we did these standardized reading skills tests called, if memory serves, SRA Readers. They took all the fourth graders and tested their reading comprehension level by giving them a two-page pamphlet containing a short story, and then giving them a quiz on what they had read.
I maxed it out. I believe the scale went to college junior, and I pegged that. I don’t remember them being particularly difficult, and hey, it certainly beat writing lines in Mr. Hammett’s office.
The teachers pressed my parents to let me skip a couple of grades, or at least place me in gifted classes.
My parents refused, because they felt that it would stunt my social growth to be placed two years ahead of my peers.
Pssssst, Mom and Dad?
I was already drawing nekkid pictures on the frickin’ walls.
3. I once posed as a professional wrestler and got away with it. I waited tables at a hotel restaurant, and the Midsouth Wrestling stars would stay at the hotel whenever they were in town.
One late night, Sting, Terry Gordy, and Gentleman Chris Adams were drinking on the hotel patio until closing. My buddy Ron and I were drafted to inform them that the restaurant was closing and that they’d have to move their fun elsewhere.
Well, we hit it off with these guys and they drafted us as their tour guides of the local nightspots. We wound up at a club called Private Eyes, and Ron and I sat and listened to wild tales of wrestling groupies and drank ourselves silly, all on their tab.
As an added bonus, we also basked in the attention of Sting’s rejects from the seemingly neverending horde of attractive females who flocked to our table.
At one point, one of them asked, “I know who these guys are (pointing to the wrestlers), but who are you two?”
Chris Adams gave a gentle belch and said confidentially, “That’s Grappler I and Grappler II, but we’d appreciate you keeping that to yourself.”
A scholar and a gentleman, that Chris Adams.
It worked out well, until Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert managed to find his way to the same bar, and picked a fight with me on the dance floor. I was so drunk at the time that it’s all a bit fuzzy, but I think I spilled a beer on him, no doubt trying to do the YMCA without setting my longneck down first.
It’s a frequent blunder of mine.
He got all up into my grill, and I wasn’t so inebriated that the thought didn’t run through my mind, “Damn, he’s a lot bigger than he looks on TV.”
So, I apologized profusely and backed down, because I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t realize the folly of getting into a physical altercation with a behemoth who got brained by folding chairs every week on national TV for a living.
Something told me that, despite the cowardly character he played, my ass-whipping skills weren’t gonna impress him much.
Unfortunately, my female companion lacked both my relative sobriety and my discretion. She shifted into Trailer Park Harpy Mode, got all up in his grill and defended my honor.
“Obviously, yew don’ know who yer fuckin’ with, Pussy Boy! I see yew git yer ass stomped every week! Duh yew know who this is? DUH YEW KNOW WHO THIS IS??? He’ll whup yer fuckin’ ass, Pussy Boy!”
Thank God for Sting, is all I can say. He heard the commotion, and intervened just in time to keep me from getting stomped into a greasy spot blowing my cover.
4. I have sung karaoke exactly once in my life. Normally, I find nothing more amusing than watching three drunken Japanese businessmen singing Ice Ice Baby, but I limit my enjoyment to the role of spectator.
But when KatyBeth was three, I took her to a local crawfish joint on karaoke night. She was absolutely enchanted with the fact that anyone could just get up on stage and sing songs!
With a microphone!
She bugged me to let her sing, so after I polished off my crawfish and she finished her chicken nuggets, I led her to the stage and whispered her selection to the emcee.
When the music started, and my three-year-old stared out at the crowd…she froze. Solid.
So, I swallowed my embarassment, went up to the stage, and rescued my daughter. We had the emcee cue it up again, and my daughter and I sang Drift Away as a duet. We rocked the house. Once I got over my self-consciousness and just sang, I sounded pretty good too.
But I wasn’t nearly as bright a star as my kid. To cap the perfect evening, some anonymous patron even picked up our check.
5. I got busted turning in a fake doctor’s excuse in my senior year of high school. My English teacher, Mr. Halbrook, caught the forgery and extracted a plea agreement from me to read one book of his choosing every week, for the entire second semester, in return for his continued silence.
He had me by the short and curlies. Without that excuse, I’d have flunked an entire semester of my senior year for excessive absenteeism. That meant summer school.
So, he took one book of his choosing from the Honors English reading list, and gave me one of his patented describe-the-universe-and-provide-two-examples essay tests every Friday.
Not only that, but he’d go buy a copy of the Cliff’s Notes, and ask every question that it didn’t cover. For the relatively obscure titles, he’d simply buy up all the Cliff’s Notes in town.
In his words, “Now you will know what it is like to work for your A, instead of sleeping your way through my class.”
Thank you Marshall Halbrook, you magnificent bastard. That was a lesson I needed to learn.
6. I used to let my state paramedic certification lapse every two years.
Not for long, mind you. Just a couple of weeks. You see, the National Registry of EMTs’ certification period lasts for two years, and always ends at midnight, March 31.
I typically waited until March 31, and Fedexed my renewal application that day. Now, this left usually two w
eeks for them to process the renewal application, two weeks in which I was unable to practice until I had received my new card and forwarded it to our state EMS office.
Why, you ask?
Spring turkey season, that’s why.
7. I hate to talk on the phone. Hate, hate, HATE to have phone conversations. Always have. To this date, I think my longest phone conversations have been with Babs and Matt G., and neither of them lasted as much as an hour.
Now, I’ll IM with Babs for four hours, every single night…but talk on the phone?
Uh uh. No way. Lucky for me, she feels the same way.
Okay Scott, that’s all seven. If anyone else wants to play along, feel free.