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Once upon a time when I was in high school, Shawn demonstrated why he shouldn't be left alone with a cordless phone or a microwave.

I wrote this one up for helpful context in metaquotes a while ago.

We were chatting on the phone. I heard the telltale signs of him getting bored. Him bored is dangerous. Him bored while stoned is even more so. He'd already slammed his nose in the door several times -- the first time by accident, the subsequent times to see if it would hurt any less. (It didn't.)

Him: "I wonder what would happen if I put this phone in the microwave."
Me: "Don't."
Microwave door: *slams shut*
Microwave: *beep beep beep HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*
Me: "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, YOU IDIOT?"
Phone: *sizzle crackle*
Me: "STOP IT, YOU IDIOT!!!"
Microwave: *HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*
Phone: *SZZCCHHHTTT POP SCCHCHCHTTHZZT POP POP HSSSST SZZZCTH*
Me: "YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY DOING THIS!!!!!!!!!"
Phone: *SZT ZZZT HCCCT SZZT SZZT!* *OMINOUS SILENCE*
My phone: "If you'd like to make a call..."
Weird Al: "In Allllllbuquerque!"
Me: "He didn't. He didn't. Oh, god, he did." *facepalm*
My phone: *rings*
Him: *subdued* "That's my third phone today."
Me: ...

brimtoast requested a bedtime story tonight in chat. The Green Plastic Bucket story sounded so innocent, and she wanted to discover the hidden mischief! So!


Once upon a time (in 1996), my then-best-friend That Idiot Shawn went from staying with his mother in Alaska to staying with his father (and stepmother, and three half-brothers) in Colorado.

Shawn was the oldest, at 16. All of his half-brothers were younger, ranging from middle school to elementary school to preschool.

One day, Shawn's father, stepmother, oldest half-brother, and youngest half-brother all went somewhere, leaving Shawn home to keep an eye on his middle half-brother, who had a summer reading assignment of some sort. Shawn's middle half-brother was not all about the reading, but Shawn banished him to the living room until such time as the reading was done.

This left Shawn on the phone with me (I believe in the kitchen). I was having a lovely lazy summer afternoon and was enjoying my talk with him.

"I have a green plastic bucket!" Shawn said. I did not doubt this. He had a good number of things around, and sometimes chose to amuse himself with them. "Listen to this sound it makes!" he said.

I heard a tik tik tik noise. Shawn's voice sounded hollow all of a sudden, also. Echoing!

I was not a dumb girl. I concluded that the bucket was now on his head! I told him of my conclusions! He was surprised that I could hear this! The bucket was, in fact, on his head.

( Oh, Shawn. )

Once upon a time in high school, I had this best friend.

( Brazen stupidity of the genius IQ type involving electrical weaponry, do-it-yourself-ish-ness, and the public school system. )

Once upon a time in high school, I had this best friend. We'd spend hours on the phone, because that's the sort of friends we were. And he'd get himself in alarming trouble, because that's the sort of guy he was.

One day, while we were on the phone, he found himself standing behind the couch (he may have been lounging on the back of the couch? Or something?) with a need to get out.

So he tried sidling out. This did not work, as the couch was pushed up tightly against the wall; the reason he could be where he was standing was because there was a window behind the couch, and that created enough space for him to stand. So he tried pushing the couch.

This was even less successful. As he probably should have already known, but discovered loudly right in my ear, the windowsill behind him housed his mother and stepfather's reasonably impressive collection of potted cacti. Pushing the couch forward meant pushing his bottom backward, and behind him was not open air, but a tasteful selection of succulents with thorns.

Of course, neither of his parents were home to push the couch to let him out. He was stuck.

After I stopped giggling at his expense, I suggested that he fall forward, letting his torso down onto the couch, and his feet would follow, and all would be good. He argued with me a little, and continued in his fruitless attempts to push the couch forward for a bit (spearing himself on the cacti behind every time) but after he got tired of playing pincushion with his butt, he followed my advice and escaped.

So, back in high school, I had this best friend. That Idiot Shawn.

( It always goes downhill after this point. )

Poll #163899 Shawn Stories
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

I have heard the "That Idiot Shawn" stories about:

I would like to hear (or hear again) the "That Idiot Shawn" stories about:

Last night at work, votania cheered up a lady who was having a grumpy day by telling her the tale of Oscar the Iguana and That Idiot Shawn.

Shawn was going to his dad's house for the summer, and was bringing his pet iguana Oscar (a very new pet) and didn't want Oscar to be riding down with the luggage, because hello, iguana, cold-blooded, need good climate control.

So he stuck Oscar in an empty duffel bag and decided to carry him on the plane. Like, in his lap or something.

So he went through Security with Oscar in the duffel bag, and told them, you know, to not put it through the X-Ray machine, as he was an iguana, see? The security checkpoint people being much less vigilant in those days, unlike the guards from the youth of Miles who would have disintegrated the iguana on the spot and then sifted through its remains for bombs, bugs, and the like, let Shawn, and the iguana, pass through.

Shawn got on the plane and got settled down, and then the plane was boarded by some people who did not look like they had much of a sense of humor, and they told Shawn that no, his iguana did not belong on the airplane with the passengers. In vain, Shawn argued that the iguana would be very good and would stay inside his bag. The officials said no, that he would have to check Oscar or leave him behind.

Shawn's mother, who fortunately hadn't departed the airport, was called into the negotiations, and wound up taking Oscar home with her for the summer.

The text of my post that caused good ol' Fuzzy to flip...

( Read more... )

Of course, "Ben" is Fuzzy, and "Sandy" is his wife.

Next, I tell the tale of the Bachelor Party from Hell...

( Read more... )

Once upon a time, I had a high school best friend. His current online nickname is Fuzzy Modem, and he hangs out at this spacebattles board a lot.

One day, he and I were on the phone. This happened a lot. He got hungry, and decided to make himself something to eat. Mindful of the past debacle with a can of beans, I made sure that he'd cooked it correctly (open can, put in frying pan).

He walked into the living room with the pan of beans and sat down at the table to eat it.

Somewhere in there, he stood at the door for a long time, calling the dog in. He was barefoot.

He ate until he was full, and then reflected that his feet were cold. He noticed that the substantial leftovers from his lunch were warm, even hot.

The only logical thing to do was, of course, stick his feet in the pan of beans to warm them up. Not surprisingly, it worked.

We chatted for a while. He mentioned how nice and warm the beans were between his toes. He noticed that they were growing cold, and decided it was probably a good time to get his feet out of the beans and go into the kitchen and... shit.

His feet were all covered with beans. He was sitting in the carpeted living room.

He decided to take care of things. He called the dog. When she finally wandered over, sled-dog ears perking at him, he pointed her to his bean-covered feet and ordered her to lick. She gave his feet a few swipes with her tongue, which made him giggle at the tickling, but she found the beans not interesting, and wandered off about her own business.

He eventually crawled into the kitchen, washed his feet off, and retrieved the pan of beans, now with footprints. He seriously considered finishing it off. Disgusted, I hung up on him.

[Edit: "HSBF" is better known as That Idiot Shawn.]

Once upon a time, when I was way the fuck too young and stupid, I had the honor to be a guest at one of my high school best friend's parties, this one to be afterwards known as "the ill-fated orgy." I was a freshman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the year was 1998.

The guests at this party were as follows:

J*, a very sweet girl, the best friend of my college roommate
M*, my college roommate
Poppa Smurf, a guy who was only 18 like most of the rest of us, but looked overage
HSBF, that idiot my high school best friend
C*, HSBF's girlfriend
T*, a friend of J* and C*, very detached from the whole thing
G*, this chick
Tomcat, G*'s fuck of the moment, a very sweet guy
R*, HSBF's best male friend, dating/fucking J*
Mel, the ditzy chick from a few doors down on my floor in the dorms, fired from her job as a student police officer, turned down by the paramedics as a volunteer

...and me.


Everybody showed up at some point or other. There was drinking, laughing, loud music, talking, gossip, smoking weed. I did not participate in that very much, if at all. I can't remember. Poppa Smurf drank some hydrogen peroxide because we'd hidden the booze from him (he was totally plastered and hitting on J* invasively) and got extremely sick. Mel and M* left with him, leaving:

J* and R*;
HSBF and C*;
G* and Tomcat
T*, and me.

Naturally, one would think that in a situation where people were getting naked and stuff like that, that the uncoupled people, seeing as one was male and the other female, would couple up together. Not so. I had really no attraction towards T*, and he had none toward me; we were in perfect agreement on that score. T* left.

The girls in the group, myself included, were by this time very drunk, and we decided to make it a chicks' night out, and piled into the computer room with J*'s massage lotions, and all stripped down and gave each other backrubs, no guys allowed. I did one of those tearful "I'm so glad for the two of you" Drunken True Confessions to C*, saying I was cool with whatever she and HSBF did as long as he was happy. R* leaned on the door and wanted to come in. We said: "No men allowed."

"But what if I cross-dress?" R* wanted to know.

So R* became Roxie, and entered. Tomcat became ... umm, Tonya, I think. HSBF wanted to enter, but refused to take on a female persona, and was barred from entering. He got mad, punched out the door, and went out to his car to sulk. I sent C* after him to cheer him up, which she did quite well.

It eventually turned out that everyone else, all the couples, went into the bedroom and fucked. A fucking orgy. I was left out. Pissed me off to no end, even through the alcohol, and *nothing* disturbs me when I'm drunk. They were in there for what seemed like hours.

I know I'm screwing up the chronology of this, because I know that T* was there while the orgy was happening, and so was Poppa Smurf, because he was standing on his head against the computer room door, talking to the cat, and writing very bad poetry in a notebook I happened to have with me. So the orgy must have happened before Mel and M* got there. Ah, I love chronology.

But I was pissy. I drank a total of five shots of whiskey that night. I'd only ever drunk a bit of rum in soda before, so I was totally drunk. Apparently at some point M* advised me against drinking that fifth shot. I drank it anyway, nothing to take away the burning down my throat.

The night is a blur. I do remember that at one point I walked out to the outhouse (Alaskan plumbing, don't you love it?) totally stark naked, this in the middle of winter, except for my shoes, and found it very funny that I was doing so. I wobbled and stumbled, but didn't fall, not even once.

There was another cute moment with three redheads in one bed -- J*, C*, and G*. My hair wasn't red at this point.

I didn't get laid. I had a very bad time. Poppa Smurf and I didn't talk to each other much after the event, not that we'd talked to each other much before. J* and I were still friends. C* and I.... well, the less said there the better.

yes, this is a very disorganized post. I defy you to remember anything that happened under the same sort of circumstances, given that HSBF was Prime Candidate #1 for marriage, way back when, and he'd even made some comments to that effect in my presence...