The Time I Went to Festival of Colors

Listen… can I tell someone else’s embarrassing story? Like I was involved, but mostly just to enjoy the misfortune of this particular person. I feel like it’s cheating to use my blog to embarrass other people but… I just really REALLY LOVE TELLING THIS STORY.

Okay, so we’ll call this guy… Sam. So Sam was my super close best friend. And we basically did everything together. One of the things we decided to do was go to The Festival of Colors.

If you don’t know, The Festival of Colors or Holi is a Hindu spring festival to celebrate love and life. Everyone gathers together to throw chalk paint on each other and it’s just a ridiculous amount of fun.

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We decided to go in the morning because Sam had a date to the Spring Formal later that evening. Why he thought he could do the three-hour drive there and back and still make it to the dance… beats me haha. But here’s the real kicker… they were going to have a day date activity and he actually had white-lied an excuse to get out of it so he could go to Festival of Colors instead. (I want to make it clear that Sam is not a d-bag even a bit and he felt really bad about this the whole time.)

So we get there and immediately decide that we’re going to go ALL IN on this experience. So we pushed through to get as much into the crowd as possible. We had so much chalk thrown on us that we went from lightly sprinkled to a thick layer of brown in like ten minutes.

Then Sam asks a couple of guys to hoist him up so he can crowd surf. Now I’ve been to more than a handful of concerts by then so I know that he’s A) about to be groped and B) about to have his shoes stolen. So I yell to him, “Quick! Give me your shoes! Give me your shoes!” But it was too late. As he desperately tried to untie his shoes, someone else beat him to it. They took his shoes off and threw them on the roof of the pavilion outside of the temple. So those were gone forever.

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Anyways. We finish out the rest of the event, Sam in his socks the whole time. And then suddenly we realize Woooooah. He is going to be late for the dance

We are FLYING home at the most dangerous speeds I’ve probably ever experienced in a car. We calculate that we would arrive home at the exact moment that his date was supposed to be showing up at his house. Now keep in mind that Sam was trying to keep his attendance at Festival of Colors a secret from her. Also, we were layered in two inches thick of chalk paint.

It’s also important to note that the only way I could convince my mom to give me permission to get that dirty was on the condition that I was not to come home that dirty. So I had planned to take a shower at Sam’s house… which is fine, except for now Sam is like asking me to hide until he leaves with his date so she doesn’t see another girl in a towel and misinterpret what’s going on. Does this sound like a rom-com yet?

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Somehow we miraculously beat her to the house. We rush inside and he yells at me before he hops in the shower, “Run into my room and pick out something for me to wear and lay it out on my bed!” Wait, what? Me??

I don’t even know what I grabbed for him. I think it was a black button-up shirt and a mustard yellow blazer… which I probably dusted with all the crap that was on my hands. The outfit was picked out but then we had another problem… Sam did not have an extra pair of shoes to wear. So he grabbed a pair of his brother’s which were honestly chewed up to hell and I think he would have been better off with socks.

Anyways, despite ALL OF THIS. He somehow gets showered and dressed JUST in time for the date to ring the doorbell. Now I’m hiding out in his room as per his wishes so I did not see the final product Sam that walked out the door…

But about four weeks later the dance pictures come back…

And OH. MY. GOOD. GRACIOUS.

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It was obviously a quick shower. Because he was still a bright pink hue. Not only that but he hadn’t gotten the mixes of chalk out from in between his eyelashes, so homeboy straight looked like was wearing liquid eyeliner. He looked like he was trying to go to the dance as the evil genie version of Jafaar.

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And with the bee outfit I picked out and the deformed shoes. Holy smokes.

The best part is that this poor girl had no idea about Festival of Colors… so I can only imagine what she thinks of the way her date showed up to this dance.

Ah. I love that story.

The Moment I Found Out I was Pregnant!

Sweet baby comes this month! Aaaah! In the past few weeks, I went from scared to peacefully accepting to REALLY excited! Not that the anxiety has gone totally away. With Daniel’s medical residency, being far away from family and navigating a clingy toddler, doubling my number of kids will definitely be a challenge but I’m just ready for it all. Ready to fall in love all over again.

Anyways, in honor of it being his birth month (well, month of his due date) here is the exact moment I found out he existed! Enjoy!

PS. Yes, I know this is 2018, but I’m a freaking grandma and I don’t know how to hold my phone horizontal when taking video.

 

The Time My Phone Got Switched with a Detective’s

I haven’t told too many people this story, mostly because it became kinda dangerous to talk about…

I think it’s okay now though. Probably.

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So when I worked as a receptionist I would get a LOT of phone calls. My job was to transfer the call to the right department, which was usually easy but some of the weirder ones were more of a puzzle. Like there were multiple types of IT departments for some reason? And also a lot of people would just straight up give you some weird story that made you want to transfer them to the hang-up department.

Well, one day some of my phone calls started getting weirder than normal.

I’m not even sure what the first one was about. It was in Spanish, which I speak… but that didn’t make me any less confused. The guy was like stressing out about some kind of fine or ticket or something? He was trying to access his criminal records or something. I was like, Bro, this is a printer company… Which just pissed him off worse and he kept repeating that this was the number that the police officer had given him. I hung up like, huh… that was weird. But it just got WEIRDER AND WEIRDER.

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I answer the phone and this guy asks for a detective with a really distinct last name. I don’t feel comfortable publicly disclosing that name, so I’ll just call him Detective Benitez.

Me: *Printer Company Name* This is Valerie. How may I direct your call?
Man: Put me on with Benitez.
Me: … Um. I’m sorry. There’s no one here by that name.
Man: Is this 801-bla-blah?
Me: … yes, that’s my personal line.
Man: Oh are you his assistant then?
Me: I’m a receptionist at a printer company…
Man: Oh, the receptionist. Well, can you deliver him a message?
Me: … uh–
Man: Tell him to stop f—ing harassing me because I never f—ing assaulted her in the first place.
Me: …
Man: Tell him Dale says that.
Me: K. Will do.

I would get these kinds of calls all the time. BUT ONLY ME. The other receptionist’s phone wouldn’t ring because they weren’t calling the main line they were calling me DIRECTLY. And sharing very weird personal incriminating information.

So anyways, one Monday I come in and the little light on my phone is blinking and I’m like… nah fam. Like the only way I have a message on my PERSONAL PHONE is if it’s for this Benitez guy. So I already knew what it was.

I was not prepared for what I was about to hear.

On my phone was a message from a woman relaying some key information about a murder.

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K. Now, I know all y’all Criminal Mind bingers are like ooh how interesting. Nah. This scared the … swear word out of me. I felt like I WAS a witness just by association of this event. Like now I had sensitive information that a psycho would not appreciate me having. And this murder was particularly dangerous too… (lol that was dumb, all murders are dangerous. But just know that it was a crazy enough one that my now involvement made me feel really uncomfortable!)

So we tracked down the real detective to give him this super important message. The detective took one look at his business cards and *whoops* TYPO. His number had been printed one digit off and he was doling my number all around town

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So that happened! Because my phone number got mixed up I had to deliver some significant evidence to a detective. And if you’re wondering if I would ever turn that premise into a book. UH-YEAH! Of course I will! I even kinda thought it would be fun to set it in the sixties and have it be about a serial killer who entices girls by pretending to be one of the Beatles… HAHAHAHA! Is that dumb?? I’ve never told anyone that idea before. It just kind of blurted out of my fingertips there.

Anyways! I try to often post about crazy stories, embarrassing stories, um stupid book ideas and stuff. Subscribe to follow along if you want more!