Saturday, April 30, 2011

Adventure #8: Nothin' But Nettie

Story time! About a very special someone! (Not my "special someone," but someone I really love and admire)
My friend Jeannette and I met in a beginning acting class at BYU. We had one of those relationship (that I have often) when I would quietly talk and joke with her, but she ended up being the one that got caught talking. Sometimes she was reprimanded for distracting me from what was happening in class.

This semester, Jeannette took a break from school to nanny in Texas and has even blogged about her nannying experiences. I've missed her a lot and have been meaning to write this post for several months now. I dedicate it to her! Here's to Jeannette and our adventures!

In January 2010, we attended a BYU stage production of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Afterward, we ate Teriyaki Stix for dinner. She was hesitant but ordered some bowl with fried rice. After two bites, she was sick of it, so I tasted it and found that it tasted like barf. DISGUSTING! So, we threw it away.

Anyway, it was at this meal that we decided we should take another class together and decided we'd take a Doctrine & Covenants (LDS scripture and church history) class. MISTAKE! We took it from a professor whose name we could never pronounce, spelled something like: Schaalje. It was at 10 in the morning. Jeannette only woke up early enough to come to one class meeting, and I kept being late, causing me to miss several quizzes and forget to make sure I signed the roll. Regardless of her attendance history, Jeannette scored higher than me on our first exam, which she also failed...there shan't be more comparison of our scores.

Pregnant Penelope and baby
Also, the other class members were fairly odd, it seems. They had a habit of staring at me. NO JOKE. For instance, one day (that I came late) I took a seat in the front right corner. After progression in the lesson, someone from the front left corner was commenting, so I turned to listen to her. She talked a long time, and I grew tired of looking that direction, so I turned to glance at the back left corner of the room and found about half of my classmates staring at me. Half of the stare-ers corrected themselves and turned away, uneasily, while the other half persisted staring. This was very uncomfortable for me, so I turned to the front of the room to face a blank white board...It was very awkward...There were other similar instances, but soon after our exam failure, Jeannette and I formally Withdrew from the class.

Among other fantastical happenings of that semester were randomly befriending Garrett, a Tuesday night security guard for BYU's fine arts center, and Jeannette's pregnant balloon poodle, Penelope; on a random night, I made the impromptu decision to join her at a BYU dance but was denied entrance, because I was wearing jeans, instead of slacks.

One last highlight of visiting Jeannette was last Fall semester. She had recently moved, so she gave me the numbers to her new address but didn't distinguish the direction of north/south/west/east. I found Mountain View Apartments, which was somewhat in a seeming vicinity of what she told me, so I called her, waking her.

"Hey, I'm at Mountain View Apartments. Is this where you're at? Which one is yours?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, I think that's it," she replied. "I live across the street from there."

I looked across the street to find Wasatch Mental Health.

"I'm pretty sure you don't live across the street," I laughed, "Unless there's something you haven't told me...Is it alright for me to come over? How long are your visiting hours?...What is your real address?"

Eventually, I found my way over to her apartment building and approached the apartment that was hers. I rang the doorbell. The lights were off inside, and I waited. No one came. I knocked and rang the doorbell more to no answer. I called her, again.

"I'm here," I told her.

"'Kay. Come in."

I tried the door. "I can't. The door is locked."

"Um, it shouldn't be."

"Well, it is."

"Did you ring the doorbell?" she inquired.

"Yeah," I replied.

"I didn't hear it. I don't even see you out my window. Where are you?"

"I'm at the place you told me. I'm ringing the doorbell." I obnoxiously repeatedly pushed the doorbell. "It's ringing. I can hear it."

I heard the door to the apartment next to me open and looked up to see Jeannette standing in its doorway. She didn't say anything but shot me a sassy smile. I walked down and joined her in her apartment.

We played a game of Battle of the Sexes, which I won (Go Men!), and had a lot of fun. On my way home, the windows of my car were rolled down, and I had Madonna's "Give It 2 Me" blasting while I was singing, cruising down Center Street in Provo. I stopped at a light just in time to scream, "GIVE IT TO ME!" and to catch the attention of people on the sidewalk...

These are just a few of my memories with Jeannette, but whenever I am with her, we have so much fun! She is very much like Glozell from Youtube, if you are at all familiar with Glozell. Everything she does is so entertaining. She is someone I can always depend on for a good time and who I can trust will be respectful in personal conversation. I am excited for her to come back to Provo next month and look forward to great more fun with my friend!