Coldstone Classic

So there I was at a party in California. I ran into my friend Eric (we'll call him Eric because that is actually his name and no other name would accurately portray his awesome role in said account). He told me that we had to go get ice cream. I said we should definitely do that sometime. He said, "No, we need to go right now." I finally consented and he said, "We're going to Coldstone. Don't worry I've got coupons so I've got you covered." From said comment I determined that our friendly ice cream run was now a date.

We arrived at Coldstone and stood in line for a long time. I soon discovered that Coldstone had really hit a rut in the recession. In order to combat the recession Coldstone started a program where customers could bring in flavors of their own making to donate to Coldstone. Genius! Well, when Eric and I got up to the counter, the Coldstone employee asked which flavor(s) we would like to try. I noticed that one of the flavors was called 'Berry Applesauce'. Eric insisted that I try it. Sure enough, 'Berry Applesauce' was applesauce combined with raspberries and then frozen. I thought the sample was disgusting, but I smiled and nodded my head instead. (After all, I was on a date.)

About this time, two men in sunglasses and dark suits and ties with American flags on their lapels walked into Coldstone. They glanced in my direction and approached me immediately. "Miss, you must come with us." they said. "Me?" I said in disbelief. "Yes, you." We are with the FBI and you must come back to headquarters with us for questioning.

We headed to headquarters on foot. Along the way I asked what I had possibly done wrong for the FBI to question me. "We can't even speak of the things you've done" they told me.

"I am pretty sure you have the wrong girl. What did I do?" I asked.

"You are a traitor to your country. We know that you have ties to [insert name of terrorist organization here]." they responded.

"Terrorists? I don't think so. You've got the wrong girl" I said.

"No we don't. We saw you go to the drinking fountain TWICE before getting any ice cream tonight. Everyone knows that the universal signal to [insert said name of terrorist organization here]."

About this time, we were approaching the building. All of the sudden, Eric came running up the sidewalk and opened the door to the building for us. "Thanks for getting my door." I said.

"It's the least that I could do for you." he answered.

Once inside the building, the agents lead me toward the interrogation room for questioning. While in the adjoining room, I could see the lead interrogator. She was a very feisty agent and she was tearing apart a group of college aged individuals in the room. At that moment she saw me through the glass and motioned for the agents to bring me in. "You!" she said and pointed her finger in my direction. "I can't even speak of the things you have done! You are a disgrace to your country, the very dirtiest kind of traitor. You are despicable and I cannot even stand to look at you!"

"I'm sorry mam, but I still have no idea what I did to become such a traitor." I responded.

"You went to the drinking fountain TWICE before getting any ice cream!" she bellowed.

"Yeah, about that. I still don't understand how that is a signal to the terrorists?" I asked.

"Why else would you possibly need to get two drinks of water before having any ice cream, unless you were trying to signal the enemy?" She countered.

"Well I was with a boy and I was very nervous and...I was trying to impress him." I said sheepishly.

"Say no more. You may go." She said and everyone in the room started to laugh.

I exited the building and found Eric sitting on the curb. He ran up to me, "They let you go! What happened? Are you alright?"

"They asked for an explanation. I said one sentence. They all laughed at me and then they let me go." I said. In my head I was thinking, "Please don't ask what the one sentence was...please don't ask what the one sentence was." And then he didn't ask.

"Well," he said, "We still need to get ice cream." So we went to find ice cream although Coldstone was entirely different than the first location we went to. After getting ice cream we decided to take a drive. We ended up in the foothills where we ran into my sister who was running on foot.

"You see that trail that leads from those houses up there down to the valley over there?" she said.

"Yes." I answered. "Well, that's where those Poteet girls run every morning, but I just don't know how they get down there." she added.

"See that spot where the trail connects right here?" I pointed out. "Ohhhhh. I see." she said.

Disclaimer: Coldstone has not asked customers to donate flavors in order to stay in business (at least to my knowledge). I do not give signals to terrorist organizations and all events depicted here are from my actual dream. Except the part about Eric being awesome. That part is true.

A Very Green Birthday

So it's my friend's birthday and I really wanted to do something special. I spent all week thinking about the perfect homemade card that I could make expressing all of the things that I appreciate about him. Well the actual day of the birthday arrived and I found myself going through old birthday cards that friends and relatives had sent to me years ago. I found one card that was particularly sentimental with flowers and butterflies on the front and flowery prose inside. It was one of those awesome cards that has a poem on the cover, the inside, the back cover, etc. and my relative had handwritten my name on the top of each page. I found myself crossing out my name and writing the name of my friend instead. Keep in mind that his name looked very much out of place on the very feminine card which I knew, but for some reason I felt like recycling this card was the most responsible way to tell said friend Happy Birthday. Just before sealing the envelope, I considered handwriting a note telling him all of the things that I appreciate about him as an insert in the card, but ultimately decided that I could not compete with the poetry already expressed.

Disclaimer: This entire account represents a dream. I have never recycled a birthday card and I will not be giving said friend a card with butterflies and poetry on the front for his actual birthday.

Me, Myself, & Oversleeping

My alarm (Karl Wolf's 'Africa') sounded and I convinced myself that there were literally two people inside of me. The one gave a speech to the other that went something like this, "You hear that sound? You don't have to do anything about it until it sounds the fourth time. When you hear that song the fourth time you need to wake both of us up. Okay? I'm going to continue to sleep so you have to be responsible for the both of us." Well responsible Whitney realized quite quickly that being responsible was not as fun as sleeping and why should she have to be responsible and let sleeping Whitney have all the fun? So responsible Whitney went to sleep as well and slept right through all three encores of Africa.

Disclaimer: This really happened. Although I was coherent enough to be aware of my surroundings, I was still in full dream mode and had the above discussion with myself while being completely asleep.

Mars & Venus

I just found out that Bruno Mars is the younger brother of Venus and Serena Williams. This finally clicked! I mean duh Venus and Mars, right?! Then I had a flashback and remembered the little boy that was carted around to all of Venus and Serena's tennis tournaments that no one thought would ever amount to anything. Way to go Bruno! Way to make your mark on the world...just the way you are.

Disclaimer: The thoughts depicted above represent an actual dream I had. Believe it or not, Bruno is not a sibling to Venus and Serena.

Educating Jimmer

So there I was at a party. The house was full of people milling about. I was standing in one room when all of the sudden a guy bumped me as he tried to walk past me. I fell backwards on to a lovesac that was already occupied with a few people, but luckily I landed in the only open space available. I decided that as crazy as my surroundings were I should stay where I was for the time being. All of the sudden the guy next to me rolled over and I was staring into the face of Jimmer. My thoughts went something like this...'Oh my gosh, it's Jimmer. IT'S JIMMER. Okay Whitney calm down. You don't want him to think you are a freak. You are on a lovesac next to Jimmer Fredette and you will make normal conversation without being even the slightest bit nervous. YOU WILL BEHAVE LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.' After this self pep talk, I began to make casual conversation with Jimmer.

It was going pretty well until all of the sudden another guy pushed me from the opposite side right as Jimmer happened to sit up and lean forward on the lovesac. I fell hard right into the area he had just been occupying. I quickly recovered by sitting back up and I said, "Oh my gosh, the only thing I could think right then was don't hurt Jimmer, of all the people in the world to injure right now, Jimmer Fredette would be the worst."

Then the guy on the other side of Jimmer started laughing and said, "You thought that YOU could injure Jimmer Fredette?!?!" And then he started laughing like a hyena.

Jimmer was quite distracted by this time. He left the lovesac and headed into a connecting room. I watched him approach his girlfriend and a few other people. Right then, my roommate, Rachel J. (we'll call her Rachel J because that is her name and at the time all of my roommates were named Rachel) came running in. "Jimmer?! Oh my gosh?!?!!! Jimmer is that you? Jimmer, I have to show you my artwork. I just have to say that I have been SO inspired ever since I started watching you play. I mean look!" And she shoved a painting into Jimmer's face exclamining, "Can you believe it? It's my best work yet. Oh Jimmer, I just find you so inspiring." At this point she turned the painting around and I gasped as I saw a picture of an ice castle with Jimmer jumping in perfect form in his white #32 jersey in front of an enormous photo realistic ice castle. Jimmer was trying very hard to be polite. Meanwhile I could see his girlfriend stifling her laughter and trying not to show her annoyance that my roommate was hitting on her boy friend. Rachel J then shoved the painting in Jimmer's face and said, "But Jimmer, look at how I captured the light!"

Needless to say I was quite embarrassed of my roommate by this time so I decided to get some fresh air. I walked out of the house and discovered that the party was taking place in an old farm house. In the surrounding field I saw my car parked among the rows of crops, but I had no recollection of parking there. I was soon approached by the farmer who said that he noticed I had parked in his field. "Yes, I'm quite sorry about that." I said.

"Well, I'll let it slide this time, just don't ever do it again." he responded. Then he added, "Come here and pull on this rope down here."

"You mean that vine?" I asked.

"Yes, pull on that vine." I reached down and pulled on the vine which eventually yielded a gigantic squash. I love squash so I was happy to see my prize.

"Well look at that. Listen here little lady," he instructed, "I'm going to have to give you a ride home tonight because you won't be able to transport that squash in your nice car."

I returned to the house and upon entering I found both Jimmer Fredette and Jackson Emery seated in the arm chairs in the entry way. I proceeded past them and then came back. I approached the young men and said, "Alright, I know you've heard this from everyone, but it's my turn to say it. I just want to say that I am really proud of you guys. This year has been so amazing and I have loved watching you play. I just really hope that the rest of the semester goes well, and that you do well on your finals, and that graduation is a blast."

Jimmer interrupted, "I'm going to stop you right there Whitney...I already made my decision."

"What decision?" I asked.

"I'm going back to my team. They need me and I want to be there for them."

"What team?"

"The Buffalo Something Somethings."

"What?! But what about the NBA draft? You can't be serious."

"What can I say, my boys need me."

"But when are you leaving?"

"Friday, May 16th."

"Oh my gosh, Jimmer when you said Friday, I thought you were going to stop there meaning that you were leaving on this Friday and I was about to say, Jimmer stay in school. You've come so far. Please just graduate. You will never regret finishing school."

At this point Jackson started laughing and punched Jimmer in the arm, "Dude, she just gave you the education speech." And he proceeded to laugh.

"Well, it's time for me to go, but you guys should go outside and pull a vine. You never know what kind of prize you've going to get! ...Apparently I'm supposed to get a ride home with the farmer tonight?"

"Yeah, we wouldn't take that ride if we were you." Jackson said, and Jimmer nodded in agreement.

I walked back out the door to see that the gasoline tank door on my car was open. I knew I didn't get gasoline in the field. In fact, I could not even remember when I had last filled my car with gas. I had no idea what was going on.

Disclaimer: All events listed above are from an actual dream I had. Rachel J does not paint, nor does she stalk athletes. No Jimmers or crops were harmed in the making of this dream.

Just Try to Hit Me in the Stomach

I was at a sparring championship of epic proportions. Surrounded by dozens of competitors suited up in brightly colored Lycra from collarbone to ankle and wrist (think Power Ranger outfits). I struggled to pick up on the rules of the match. You must start with your feet shoulder length apart. Then you must hold your right hand flat with your thumb tucked in and place this hand over your left elbow (while your left arm hangs by your side). When the horn sounds you must attempt to hit your opponent in the stomach with your hand. (Your hand must stay flat with the thumb tucked in for the hit to be legal.) Your opponent can stand next to you or across from you when starting the match. For every time that you successful hit your opponent in the stomach, you get a point. The competitor with the most points wins. Needless to say, I was not doing so well, but before long I was caught a glimpse of the reigning world champion in action: my mother. That's right my mother was suited up in her florescent purple Lycra suit kicking the trash out of all of her competitors, be they male or female, young adults, or nearly elderly. While watching these matches I realized I was going to be very late for work and yelled across the room to my coworker, "Hey, we have to leave right now for work. We have to open and we are going to be late." To which she responded "Yeah, we will leave soon. Maybe after the next match? Maybe not? Ok?" In frustration I walked away just in time to see my mother's next match. She was competing against a man in his late forties/early fifties and she destroyed him. I ran to congratulate her. When he gained his composure, he told my mother that he was greatly impressed with her skills and that he had indeed been greatly humbled by the match. He shook her hand and asked if we would like to join him on the British Price is Right. Of course we accepted the invitation.

We entered the studio for the Price is Right (British version of course) and I was shocked to find that instead of the auditorium and stage I was so accustomed to the room was much like a set up for group therapy. We all sat in a circle and shared information about ourselves. Soon the door opened and the host announced that our sparring friend had been selected to try a pricing game and win the next prize! He said (in an announcer voice that did not have even the slightest hint of a British accent), "We know you are a sailor, Chet. You have the chance to win this...a new sailboat! A classic EFY boat of course! (Apparently EFY stands for something else in England??) But that's not all. In this game you can risk the sailboat and take your chances on winning the party boat! But that's not all. You can risk the party boat and win this...a fully decked out extended yacht!!! Now the sailboat is worth $13,000, while the party boat is worth $100,000 and the yacht is worth $2,000,000!! The choice is yours. Let's play the game. Do you want to take home the sailboat or try your chances at winning the yacht?"

At this point I found myself on a balcony at the marina overlooking the three prize boats. I was soon approached by three young men and we began to engage in a heated discussion about game theory economics and how Chet could play this game and most likely walk away with the best outcome. I offered, "Well, he didn't come with anything so he goes for the yacht and wins big or he leaves just as he came. Or he realizes he does not need to be greedy since he came with nothing and walks away with a guaranteed sailboat." Our conversation continued much more in depth when I suddenly looked over the balcony and saw a friend from home (we'll call him Charlie because that is not his name), Charlie's mother, and my mother basking in the sun on beach chairs below.

I left my game theory friends and went down to talk to Charlie, as I have not seen him in over a year. His mother and my mother acknowledged my arrival and promptly left. I sat down and asked Charlie how he was doing. He said he had recently heard that my family was moving to Houston. I told him that was true, but that no one was supposed to know yet. I said that my father had originally been assigned to the Copper Hills Temple. Charlie said he didn't think that was the name of the temple and I said I agreed that I must have gotten the name wrong. Just then an Australian gentleman, his wife, and his sister walked past. We called out to them and asked them if they knew the names of the two temples that had been dedicated early this year. We all said Budapest at once and then the man said, "Oh that one in Utah. Legion Hills." So I turned to Charlie and said that my father had been assigned to the Legion Hills Temple, but that they had recently changed his assignment to the Houston Temple. But as I reminded him no one was supposed to know that yet. He said that is must be ok because he knew. I then asked him how life in Florida was treating him when I saw my coworker again and said that we really had to go to work. She said we would, but that she wanted to see if Chet won the prize.

Shortly thereafter I found myself back at work. I hadn't been there long when a boy (who may or may not be a past or current crush) came to pick me up. As we were driving away from the warehouse, I thought "This is a smaller car. I am sitting very close to him. I wonder what will happen next..." He interrupted my thoughts and told me that we needed to come up with our team name as we would soon be arriving at the game night with other couples. He suggested a name and I voiced my disappointment. To which he said, "Ok, Whitney, what do you think we should call our team." I told him that I wanted to be called the Annihilators. He laughed at me and then kinldy agreed.

Disclaimer: All events described above are from an actual dream I had. My family is not moving to Houston and while my mother is incredible, she is not currently a world champion at hitting opponents in the stomach.