Bigger is Better

I realized an important phenomenon this weekend that I think applies to every college-aged male. I like to call it the "Bigger is always better" phenomenon. No we're not talking about that. Instead, every time one of use gets an idea that on its own would be pretty rational and normal, we're required to blow it way out of proportion to the point that we could never pull it off. You know what I'm talking about. Somebody mentions something like making some popcorn in the microwave, then his buddy dares him to put it in there for 10 minutes, and then it just grows exponentially from there, with the last guy suggesting that you first douse the bag with gasoline and throw it on the grill. That's just what happens with these things.

I've got a couple of really good examples of this from my experiences. One of my friends told us that he really wanted a blackboard to do his homework on. Upon being informed that you can buy panit that makes a blackboard surface, one would assume that a person would take a piece of plywood and make a blackboard out of it. Not so with us. It started small, like wanting to paint a closet. Then we decided that he should just paint his whole apartment. I have to admit that in my nerdliness, that idea sounds pretty awesome. My wildlife science-major roommate commented that if he had his walls as blackboard, they would probably be covered with animals (or critters as he refers to them). I think this is an idea that should be explored further.

Sometimes these expanding ideas actually come to fruition. After several years of attending Kiwanis pancake breakfasts, I decided that a couple pancakes no longer did it for me. Thus, when I came down to visit one time last year, my afforementioned current roommate and I had a waffle eating competition. Things got out of hand quickly, and I ended up downing 13 full sized eggos compared to his 17. Unfortunately, I only managed to keep 11 of them. Since I never learn my lesson from anything, we're doing it again this year. The Awful Waffle '07 is tentatively scheduled for March 3rd, so keep your calendars open. I think it would help me if we had a crowd there this time.

My parents were visiting this weekend, and as we were tailgating my dad tried to lower the window of this truck so we could listen to the radio. The window immediately fell off the tracks and down in to the depths of the door. I thought it was much more humorous than he did. We ended up having to go to Wal-Mart to buy some plastic sheeting and waterproof tape to cover up the window space. Ghettofying my dad's truck has to rank right on up there as one of the most unusually satisfying experiences in my life. Anyhow, the point of this story is that we had to buy a roll of plastic sheeting that was 25 X 100 feet, and we only used a very small part of it. So, like any logical person, I decided we could use the rest to make a slip 'n slide. Stay tuned for when this one actually takes place.