Tag: friend

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Family Storytime: Cousin’s Crunchy Chicken Tenders

KC J. Hutchins

Hanging around my family during the past holiday gave me another story. This was given to me by my cousin. As I’ve mentioned before, the town I grew up in hosted a midway during the 4th of July. This would include food trucks. So, as we were walking around my cousin became hungry. We joined him in line for the truck. I think we were the second or third in line at the time. He placed his order, and they said it be like a ten-minute wait. Shrugging, we stood by him to receive the food. The time comes and goes… no tenders. We wait another ten minutes… Still nothing. My cousin goes to check in… They say another ten minutes. Almost everyone else in the line received their food, including someone who ordered chicken tenders behind us. We complained about this to the staff who stated it must’ve been a mistake. We shook our heads and tried to reason with my cousin. At this point, we urged him to demand a refund. However, he pointed out we waited this long already. We shrugged and continued talking.

Now, one of my friends possessed a habit of talking with his hands. In the middle of his story the truck finally announces the food is done while saying it was the last order of the night. My cousin picked up the food, turned around, and his food was immediately struck out of his hands. My friend whacked the tenders by accident. He looked at his hands, down at the ground, back at my cousin, and booked it. My cousin just looked at the ground and let out a long sigh. He picked the food up to dispose of in the trash. Before throwing them out, two old men said they’d eat them. My cousin came to the conclusion if they’d eat them… He should eat them. To this day, he calls them the crunchiest chicken tenders he’s ever eaten.

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Family Storytime: Defending the Pedestal

KC J. Hutchins

While growing up, our town would celebrate the 4th of July in grand style. A pancake breakfast, parade, fireworks, and an exciting midway. There were a few inflatable attractions to partake. A basketball dunking contest where we connected to military recruits by bungee cord. After beating one of them, I was offered to a spot to join them which I politely declined. Next was another bungee one. Two people start attached to them with vests and they run as fast/strong as possible to place a beanie at the end of a Velcro track. Now these two were fun, but nothing beat the last one. An inflatable small arena was set up with two pedestal/platforms. Each person received a helmet and a cushioned staff to knock their opponents off.

Now, back then I was quite physically fit and still keeping up with my karate. These two factors made a marathon of others trying to defeat me. To the point where people paid me to rumble with them. Of course, I couldn’t employ the same strategies over and over again… That would be predictable and easy to counter. This led to an epic few matches since I didn’t want them to predict anything. One of my first moments, was a bout where the match wasn’t going anywhere. There needed to be a change to upset the rhythm of the fight. So, I jumped on the other person’s pedestal and pushed them off. They were sooooo annoyed and surprised by the move while trying to get the ref to side with them. However, the rule was just to stay on a pedestal and knock your opponent off. The next one was hilarious. I’d gone a few rounds with the same opponent who was annoyed at how I kept winning. They finally managed to get the staff out of my hand. I smirked at him as he tried to bat me off with a hard swing. The problem was when someone goes for a heavy attack, it was quite easy to counter it. Watching the path, I grabbed the staff on impact and pulled my opponent off the pedestal. They were shocked but gave me a high five for the tactic. At one point, I was getting really tired from the constant matches one after another. So, as they were preparing to steady themselves at the beginning of the bout, I threw the staff and knocked them off because they tried to catch it instead of blocking it. I’m very unsure what their mindset was at that moment. Made me laugh a bit too as I helped them up. However, all of these paled in comparison to my favorite moment in the ring. Her I was facing off with one of my friends. We’d done this a couple times now, and he improved after each one. So much so, he blocked every strike I gave him as I did the same. Finally, I saw an opening as our two strikes met. I slid my hand down his weapon and grabbed one of the handles. In an effort to stay on, he let go of his staff and just looked at me. I gave them a twirl as I readied myself to strike again. However, he looked at me, their hands, back at me, then jumped off the pedestal themselves. I laughed so hard I needed to sit down… Such fun times back in the day. For the record, I was undefeated.

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School Storytime: Woodn’t That Hurt?

KC J. Hutchins

I was a theater kid in high school if I hadn’t said this before. Now, we possessed a small budget, which meant we needed to save money wherever possible. One way was to recycle old set pieces, using bits of it over and over again. This we stored in a closet. During my senior year, I noticed how disorganized it became over the years. Either I decided to take on the task to get my mind off things or I was assigned to it… I don’t remember. Whatever the reason it, I should’ve thought twice before agreeing. It. Took. Forever. To make things worse, it was very heavy. By the end of it I was sweating like a pig and sore beyond belief. Literally laid on the floor for a good twenty minutes to restore my energy. By the end of it, it was organized by size and easy to access. I was pretty proud of my work.

Closing night came for our musical and we were breaking down the set. They needed my height to help with it. I noticed groups bringing wood to the closet. Without a second thought, I reminded them I’d organized it and to please keep it that way. They agreed, but a feeling lingered in my stomach… So, once I was no longer needed, I went to check on it. Turning the corner, a clear yell erupted from my throat. Instead of my finely kept project, I was greeted with a wooden pile of chaos. My noise was so loud my stage manager across the way asked if I was ok. He at the time was putting away and organizing the props. Striding across the stage, his mouth dropped seeing the dilemma. He’d seen the finished product and said he’d talk to everyone later. Back to his spot, I tried to adjust a few pieces… and heard a bit of tumbling and creaking. I knew what was about to happen… crossed my arms and braced myself while the pile of wood crashed down on me. For a second, I just laid there… grumbling and growling from the pain. A friend of mine found me, yelling for others to help me. After a few pieces were removed, I shook off the rest while crawling out. I shot the group a look and walked away. I could hear some yelling at them, but I didn’t care at that point. Spent the rest of the time venting to my stage manager. On the positive side, I wasn’t required to do anything else for the rest of the night. It was a shame since it was the musical for my senior year. Left me with a bitter taste in my mouth… or was that just a mouthful of splinters? In all seriousness, I was fine by the end of it. No injuries to speak of that night. I wish there was a picture, because I guarantee it looked really funny with me under the pile.

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School Storytime: A Smell

KC J. Hutchins

While in high school, I befriended many people in the marching band. (A shocker I know) So, almost every Friday I went to the games while it was in season. This particular night I went with a friend of mine. We didn’t possess any money at the time, and it cost a little bit to attend the game. Usually, we stayed after school to avoid this obstacle. However, I was sure there was some money in my room at home. We went to my house and gamed for a couple hours before leaving. My mom was nice enough to drop us off and agreed to pick us up later. My friend and I walked up to the gate, and I looked in my wallet… empty. Well, that’s a problem. We can’t go in through the school because it’s locked at this time of night.

As I’m wracking my brain on how to slip in, my friend suggests an idea. The back way around was never monitored. I mention a concern about how sketchy people seem to hang around there. He assured me it would be fine. We made our way around and are greeted with smoke. Several individuals were doing so as we passed by. We tried not to look at anyone between some make out sessions and the others. Finally passing through, my friend and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Almost at the same time we both said, “Never again.” Remarking, afterwards at how someone back there must of angered a skunk for the smell was awful.

The game went on normal enough. A few looks here and there. Later in the night, we noticed the cops blocked off the passage we originally entered. We didn’t think much about it. Figured they caught some of the underaged smokers back there. Towards the end of the night, one of the officers came towards us. Asking if we went into the roped off area. We told the truth and he seemed satisfied with the answer. The rest of the night was uneventful; just a normal night of fun and our team lost again.

When it was time to leave, we crawled into my mom’s car. Immediately, she turned around, glared, and growled, “What were you doing?”
My friend and I were like deer caught in the headlights… looking at each other with baffled expressions. We both were calculating what we could’ve done to anger her so quickly.
“What do you mean Mom?” I asked
“The smell…”
“What smell?” My friend asked.
“You both know what smell. It’s so distinctive.” She snapped.
“Is it a skunk smell? We smelt it earlier, but we didn’t think it sprayed us. Quick pull over and we cant put a coat underneath us.” I said hurriedly.
She pulled over, turned around, and said, “No! Boys you smell like weed!”

Click. Soooooo many things made sense from our night.
My friend was the first to say, “I swear we didn’t.” Following this up by explaining our night to her… including the part of avoiding entry payment. I, being the savvy health student, pointed out some facts.
“Our eyes aren’t bloodshot right? And isn’t hard to be coherent while under that influence? If we were high, there’s no way we could hide that.”
She looked at both of us and figured we told the truth. Commenting afterwards, if we needed the money to enter we could always ask her and not to take the passage again. Not that we ever would after everything. Besides we couldn’t, the cops watched the area from then onwards. We breathed a sigh of relief from the whole ordeal… and we now knew the smell. As an adult writing this, I don’t know why we couldn’t smell it on us.