A little while back I wrote something that was several stories with nothing in common. The reason for this is that I had no ideas for a column with a common theme. We are at that crossroad again, so I have more stories that have little in common with each other, though some of them are a little common.

The Chase

I was at my sister and brother-in-law's house a little while back and a telemarketer called. Chris, seeing the opportunity to have someone else answer the call, handed the phone to me. I have to admit that I was a little off guard and wasn't really sure that I would have any material to use for the call. I could have just answered and said I wasn't interested, but then I remembered rule 1. I answered the phone.

"Hello sir, I'm so-and-so from Chase Bank of Manhattan.."

I interrupted her with, "Really? Then you can probably answer a question that I have. I heard a rumor the other day that Chevy Chase owned Chase Bank. Is that true?"

"Well sir, I really don't know."

"Do you think you could find out? This is a really burning question for me, " I prodded.

"Hold on one moment sir, "She said as she put me on hold. I wasn't sure if she was getting her manager to tell me to shut the hell up or if she was actually finding out if Chevy Chase owned Chase Bank. I waited several minutes and she came back and said, "Sir, no Chase Bank is not owned by Chevy Chase sir. They are owned by Chase Manhattan."

I said, "Oh..."

Maybe I should take a break here. Maybe I'm expecting people to know too much. For those of you who don't know. Chevy Chase is an actor who had such films as Fletch, National Lampoon's Vacation, Christmas Vacation, and I think possibly Colonoscopy Vacation. That last one I'm not sure on. He also had a very short lived daytime talk show. Now that we're all acquainted with Chevy Chase, let me wrap up.

There was silence after I said oh for probably about as much time as it took you to read my break. Then I said, "Well, if it's not owned by Chevy Chase then I'm not interested, " and hung up the phone.


Moped

It was the same day as the story I just told and Levi and I were hanging around at the end of the night. We were standing around Chris' motorcycle and pretty unexpectedly Levi pulls out his wallet and hands me his drivers license. I didn't really know why, but he said, "Look at it, pretty cool, huh?"

I looked and wasn't really sure what I was looking for so I asked, "What? What's the big deal?"

He then pointed out the M under license class and flipped it over to show me the moped restriction. I said, "Wait, you have a moped license?"

"Yeah, isn't it cool?"

"Well, why did you get a moped license, you don't own a moped?"

"Well, you never can be too prepared," Levi answered.

I didn't even know that you had to have a license to drive a moped. I just thought you would have to have good enough balance to stay on a bicycle or bicycle-like device and a big enough ego to not be afraid of the ridicule you will get from riding a moped.


Road Trip

After my senior year in high school, my friend Trevor and I took a trip up to my old hometown in Tennessee. I had a ten year old Plymouth Horizon that was not in the greatest shape. Nonetheless, we were looking for the fastest way there and decided that we would follow the fastest car that we could find on the road. We ended up behind a blue sedan and ended up driving way over what the spedometer would go. The spedometer went up to 85 and I would estimate that we were going at least ten over that. We did manage to make it all the way up there without any problem though.

The trip back wasn't nearly as fast and we were doing a nice eighty most of the way. When we got through Memphis, I was tired so Trevor volunteered to drive for a little bit. He put it in first, then second, then third and fourth gear. Then he kept accelerating. I was getting a little concerned and I suggested that he put it in fifth gear. He hadn't driven a five speed before so I told him I would shift it in ther. We went a few hundred feet and then the engine started revving and the car started slowing down.

We pulled over and I drove, but every time I would shift into fifth gear it would slip right out. We pulled over and talked to a mechanic who told us that there was a problem with the transmission, but that if we manually held it in place in fifth gear it would be just fine. Here's the funny part.

Trevor decided to devise a way to hold the stick in fifth gear for the rest of the trip. He took one of the laces out of his shoe and tied one end to the stick and the other end to his shoe. When I shifted into fifth gear, he straightened his leg out and the lace became tight and held the stick in fifth gear for the rest of the trip. Good times, good times.

An interesting post note to this story is that a couple months after this I sold the car for the exact same price that I had bought it for a year earlier.


Double Wrap

This was even earlier than the last one. My sophomore year in high school in Tennessee and I was working on the print version of The Valley during my psychology class. Suddenly my concentration was interrupted with. "What do you think John?"

One of the guys that me and my friends talked to in the class pretty frequently, but who's only name I knew was the one that I happened to start calling him (Joe) was talking to me. I said, "What?"

"Well, I was asking your opinion, but I see you weren't paying attention."

"No really, what do you want?"

"Ok, do you think a girl would be offended if I were to wear two condoms when I was about to have sex with her?" Joe asked.

"Why would you do that?"

"I'm just really worried about getting someone pregnant." he said.

"Hell, I don't know, maybe you should ask her."