T-shirt #56: National Sarcasm Society: Like we need your support.

This is one of my favorites, given to me by my awesome aunt (NOT pronounced like an insect), a.k.a. Auntie. She was so excited to give it to me, she wanted me to open it before the day of our yearly Christmas gift exchange…I didn’t argue.

So yeah, I guess I have a reputation for joking around. In particular, this shirt reminds me of two times in my life when this reputation has made it difficult for me to convince people of something…namely my medical condition at that particular time.

One afternoon during 5^th grade, there were a bunch of us hanging out in Mr. Fournier’s (who we affectionately referred to as “Chuck” behind his back, until one morning a student [I will just say P.J. and some of you will know] called him that to his face…but that’s another story) class waiting for the busses to be called (I believe I took bus 13 at the time). All of a sudden, a just started feeling “weird”. I felt dizzy, a bit nauseous, and was wondering what the hell was happening. I told one of my classmates I was feeling kinda funny, and he just laughed at me. When I continued with a “no, I don’t know what’s going on”, his laughter only increased along with my other cohorts. I vaguely remember trying to be serious and yelping “I am NOT kidding” right before I fell and everything went black. I woke up to the faces of Mr. Fournier (who my aunt actually had as a teacher, I think), the principal, and my classmates trying to peek in the door from outside the classroom. The nurse and my mother eventually showed up to, and soon I was feeling better and on my way home. I’m not sure what the official diagnosis was (fainting spell?), but I was back to school the next day…dammit.

Another time I had trouble convincing someone of my situation happened when I was a junior in college (a story already mentioned for a precious t-shirt). Living off campus on Comm Ave., I took the BC shuttle bus to and from school just about every day. One such day in early November, I got off the bus on my way back to the apartment I shared with my friends Chris and Kevin. The stop was at a traffic light, and when I noticed the bus sitting there, I (very stupidly) assumed the light must be red. Instead of checking (smartly), I just walked out in front of the bus and into the street. I remember seeing the bumper of a large vehicle about 5-10 feet away from me. I remember being hit and waking up on the ground. What I don’t remember (what I found out from a friend of a friend Colin who witnessed it from the other side) was flying through the air 20-40 feet after I got hit…and it was a Ford Bronco (not driven by OJ, though)

There was a crowd around me, and I remember hearing the sounds of a few fire trucks and ambulances. After being put on one of the ambulances, the EMT was asking me questions to see how “with it” I was. He asked me my name, the date, and who the president was. Even though I was perfectly “with it”, I decided to play a joke and told him I thought the president was “JFK, right?”. I quickly laughed to the shock look on his face and told him I was kidding.

At the hospital, for some reason, you could not make a long distance call from the ER. So instead of calling my parents, I called my roommate Kevin and asked him to call my parents and tell them what happened. I said something like “Hey Kev, it’s Dave…look, I got hit by a truck and I’m in the hospital”, and he just laughed and asked me what I wanted. I kept trying to convince him and finally asked him if he saw all the firetrucks and ambulances outside of our apartment. “Oh, that was YOU?”. So, he finally believed me and he called my family.

I went to class the next day, and while getting off the bus said hello to Colin. Not knowing what he had seen, I was puzzled by the look of shock on his face in response to my simple “hey man”. I laughed and asked him why he was looking at me that way and he was speechless. He finally managed to say something like “I, what, I mean…I SAW what happened to you yesterday!” I told him I only had broken my clavicle and I was on some pretty sweet pain meds. His response was simply “Dude…I thought you were dead!” Nope.

Oh, and in the picture I am holding the article from the BC paper about my accident. I am quoted in the article as saying “If anyone should be charged with anything, I should be charged with being stupid”. It was also the only time I made it in the BC paper (not counting the few anonymous times I made it in the police blotter).