Archive for the 'Memories' Category

Pre-Life Crisis

Published
by
Chris Meller
on May 8, 2005
in Memories and Psycho-analytical
. 0 Comments

I’ve written a couple of times lately about how I’m no longer a ‘kid’. If you’re tired of hearing me talk about my pre-life crisis, then I’m sorry, but you need to move on and find something else to read…

There probably couldn’t be a better day for me to write an entry like this, really. Today, as I slowly leave my teenage years officially in the past, I take yet another psycho-analytical look at my life, as it is now, and as it shall slowly become.

As I leave behind my childhood, I look back on a flood of memories. Some good, some bad; some filled with happiness, others overflowing with sadness.

In these random flashes of my life that flow before my eyes, I see my first girlfriend, I remember our first (and only) date, and I recall how hurt I was when she actually ended it, even though there hadn’t been anything there to begin with. For the first time in what had seemed like years, I had actually cried.

I remember sunny weekends of my childhood spent at the zoo and out and about with my dad and (at times) my little brother. With those memories of grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzel sticks, honey-nut cheerios, spaghetti-o’s, superted cartoons, and care-free weekends also come their sad endings as we all returned to the harsh work-week reality that we had come from.

Also at the fore-front of my memories is the feeling of freedom and liberation when I got my first car. It served me very well for a long time, but also brings back memories of very depressing relationships and the hardships and heartaches they brought.

I remember those first few innocent crushes in middle and high school, and how the feelings some of them brought last even to today.

I remember birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, weddings, and funerals. I remember being mad at my mom for having to work all the time, and the late nights spent watching Star Trek in her bed while she was working at the hospital. I remember moving from my childhood home, back home to be closer to my mom’s family. I remember cheating on tests, my first kiss, and the first time I stole something. I also remember how guilty I felt as soon as I did it, and every time I thought about it for months after.

I remember fights with my brother, as well as the long summer days when we were finally old enough to stay home alone, spent wiling away watching stupid children’s shows on Nick and PBS. I remember wonderful teachers, as well as bullies. I remember book reports, essays, and science projects not done until the very last minute.

I remember days when my mom would take me into work with her when I’d be happier than could be for no real reason. The woman in the office next to her would pay me a quarter an hour to put things in ABC order for her – but don’t tell anyone!

As I look back on the last 20 years of my life, and the last 5 years of which I’ve been working, it’s a huge mass of flooded images. There’s no pattern, no logic, no order to them, and I can’t turn off the flow.

I can’t stop the past from living on inside of me anymore than I can stop the future from moving on outside of me. All I can do is trudge on day after day, contributing what little I can to the world around me, and try to make sense of it all.

Here’s to life and waiting for a mid-life crisis…

A Monumental Anniversary!

Published
by
Chris Meller
on April 4, 2005
in Announcements and Memories
. 1 Comment

I just realized a few minutes ago, which is absolutely amazing, that today marks the 11 year anniversary of the end of the legendary Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

The last comic written by Bill Watterson was published on April 4th, 1994 and didn’t really provide any closer…

The Forgotten Hearts Club

Published
by
Chris Meller
on April 2, 2005
in Daily Grind and Memories
. 0 Comments

I was digging through a box of things out of my old desk, from when we cleaned up recently. I forget what I was looking for, but I saw an old paper heart form high school.

You see, back in high school, every Valentine’s day, they would rotate between girls and boys. Every year, one of them would get a heart, and wouldn’t be allowed to talk all day. The first person of the opposite sex to get them to talk would get their paper heart.

Well, this particular year, it was the girls who got the hearts, and the guys who tried to steal them, and I actually got one to talk. I don’t remember how or when, all I remember is getting her to talk. Her name was Jennifer, and I still have her (by now wrinkled and beat up) paper heart to this very day.

I don’t know why that was such a big deal, because when Maggie, Ryan and I went to the school the other day, on our way out we passed Jennifer in the stairs, and she didn’t seem to pay any notice to me. It just made me think about old times and cute chicks.

The Stax Story

Published
by
Chris Meller
on January 29, 2005
in Memories
. 0 Comments

So in my last entry I mentioned the Hooters waitress and the comment the guy I work with made about drinking and Stax. Most of you probably didn’t get that, so I said I’d explain in my next post. Well, here’s that post…

First, a little background info: For the record, I work with some of the biggest drinkers I’ve ever met. Actually, probably not ’some of’, they’re probably THE biggest drinkers I’ve ever met.

Second, our company (even though it’s very small), has invested in 4 season tickets to our local hockey games (go Greenville Grrrowl!). The 4 owners of course get first dibs on any tickets, and afterwards, they start working their way down the company line until someone that wants them shows up.

Third, I love hockey.

So throw all this together and you do the math. 1 + 2 + 3 = … wait, what does that equal? Oh yeah, 6… And you thought this would be easy? OK, so really. It all started one Thursday when one of the guys I work with got the 4 company hockey tickets. 3 guys from our company and 1 of their friends was invited along for a free ticket. They then start asking if anyone else would like to join up with them (as long as they buy their own ticket, of course). So, logically, I take them up on it. We all get to the game, they get arm bands and we all sit down. Immediately, they all get up and go buy the first round, returning with huge cups of beer for everyone (including me, of course).

So, a few periods and numerous rounds later, one of the guys decides he hasn’t eaten and goes up to the club lounge (who would have thought our company would have sprung for the VIP tickets?). So, we all go upstairs to the lounge. One of the other guys and I lagged behind the rest of the crowd, so when we showed up, they’d already started a tab at the bar. Of course, this is like spending on a credit card versus cash. It’s so much easier to lose sight of how much you’ve spent. After an hour and an $80 bar tab, they closed the lounge (the game had been over quite a while now).

So we all leave and decide that we still need food. On the way, the 3 of us in this one car (me lying down in the back laughing my ass off the entire way) stop at a convenience store and go through another 6 pack on our way to another bar. Well, we get to the bar and are waiting for the other car to show up. The guys hand me a couple bottles to go toss over a wall, and tell me that if I have to piss, go ahead and do it on the wall. So here I am, it’s midnight, I toss 3 beer bottles over a 10 foot wall and hear them crash behind it, and then I go all over the wall, more than a little inebriated by then.

Well, the other car finally shows up and we go inside. It’s crowded, and we try to sit down at the bar, but the bartender IDs me, and we all leave (yeah, bummer, I know). So we go across the street to Stax, an all-night diner that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner 24/7. We sit down and the other 3 order. By this point, I’m practically passed out in the booth, leaning against the windowsill. The toast comes and they tell me to eat up, because I’ll probably need it.

I get one, maybe two bites out of the piece of toast and here it comes. The guy next to me slides out and rushes me to the bathroom (all the way across the restaurant). We make it, and I puke my guts up in the toilet. So we go back to the booth and everyone relaxes. Well, we made 2 more trips (3 in all). I only really remember the 1st and 3rd trips, both of which I made it to the bathroom for (and almost pass out next to the toilet during the 3rd one).

Afterwards, the other two guys leave, and I’m wwaayy too drunk to drive home, so the one other guy (who actually sits across from me at work) virtually has to carry me out to the car, and then back up to his apartment, where I pass out in his bed (alone, perv).

At 2:30am, my mom calls my cell phone and I answer (foolishly). Apparently she’d already called one of the other guys I was out with and woke him up (although he didn’t remember it the next morning). I foolishly tell her I’m drunk and that I’m alright and where I am, and she hangs up. Aside from a little awkwardness the next day (and a lot of sleeping on the job), not much else interesting happened.

The really funny part is, a month later, we’re at our company Christmas party. People are thinning out by this point, and we’re sitting around talking (more or less the same group that was at the hockey game). One of the guys is telling the story to the wife of one of the others and gets to the part about Stax, at which I learn what happened the 2nd time I lost it, which I didn’t remember. Apparently, much to my embarrassment, the 2nd time it was totally unexpected on everyone’s part, and I actually puked all over the table. One of the guys was off (probably cleaning up my puke in the bathroom), and the other two just kinda looked at it, thought ‘Yeah, that’s really gross, but we’re really really hungry’ and kept eating.

So that’s my big drinking story. It was fun, at first. Then we got to Stax, and it all went downhill very very sharply, as soon as I sat down and settled down and the rest of the alcohol hit. Needless to say, I’ve tried to stay away from alcohol since then.

High School Memories

Published
by
Chris Meller
on September 24, 2004
in Memories
. 1 Comment

You know, something odd occurred to me the other day. I was sitting on my bed reading for Psychology, when I suddenly remembered something from wwwaaayyy back in High School.

In my Junior year, I was taking English 3 Honors. Every week, our teacher would give us a set of 20 vocabulary words out of our book, as well as a list of varying lengths that she randomly picked each day. In any given week, we would have to memorize anywhere between 20 and 80 words, to be tested on 10 each Friday. This is in no way an unusual occurrence, I’m sure (although the volume may be a bit more than most are used to), however, it did spur us to seek “alternative means of success”, shall we say?

This success came in the form of some “Helpful Study Aides”, if you will. No, not quite your typical vocabulary flash card? While they were cards, they weren’t exactly used for studying. Every week, I would print up small cards with each word and a short 1 to 3 word definition of it, which would nicely hide under a piece of notebook paper and show through just enough to read the definitions you needed. What started out as two friends helping each other raise their grade to a passing level soon grew into a vast cheating conspiracy.

At its peak, out of a total of approximately 70 students in 2 English classes, I was distributing 50+ copies of these cards each week. People would walk up to me at lunch and just stand beside my table and say “3″ or “5″. I would glance around, reach into the back pocket of my backpack and pull out the number of cards they needed and slide them across the table to them. It was so amazing how popular they became, without any of the teachers or administrators ever actually finding out. It was like a drug ring. If I’d been charging even $1 for each card, I’d have been rich by the end of the semester.

Unfortunately, the empire went through a drastic reduction. Apparently the teacher got a little wise to my friend and I cheating (since we did, after all, do it less than 3 feet in front of her desk)and one week she abruptly got up and ripped the papers off our desks and sent us outside and then down to the principle’s office. We were told that we’d be excluded from any grade-related honors and kicked out of the Beta Club, in addition to our parents being notified. As it turns out, it was obviously just a scare tactic. We were never excluded from anything, weren’t kicked out, and our parents never found out a word about it.

Just one of the “interesting” experiences of my Junior year in High School. Most of my other experiences aren’t pleasant enough to remember or repeat, but there are smatterings of interesting experiences that I’ll remember for a lifetime (obviously).

Note: This story is absolutely 100% true and from my real life experiences. Fear my uber cheating abilities and watch for a story on some of my other cheating adventures!!