Tag: storytelling

Story Time

Family Storytime: Naked Cheeseburger Boy and Root Beer Snot

KC J. Hutchins

Back in the years of elementary school, my family used to go to fast food more often. You know, back when it was cheaper. To age myself, when there were actually items costing only a dollar. While hanging with my cousin, best friend, maybe my brother, and other childhood friends, my dad offered to take us there. We drive up to the menu and my dad turns back to ask what we want. Completely serious, my best friend asked for a cheeseburger without cheese. We started cracking up.
I say between laughs, “You mean a hamburger?”
My friend looked at me, then my dad, and simply said, “Yes.”
He realized what he’d said and was just trying to smooth it over.

Fast forward to sitting down and eating our stuff. My best friend starts making fun of some of our friend’s meals. I suspect to make his little incident less silly.
My dad shot back, Sure, Naked Cheeseburger Boy.”
We all lost ourselves in laughter… my cousin so much so his root beer came shooting out of his nose.
My dad turned on him and declared, “And Root Beer Snot is here to join you.”
We were all on the ground from the laughter. He gave names to the others, but I don’t remember them. (No, I didn’t get one. I was boring as a kid and only ordered chicken nuggets and French fries.) However, the legend of Naked Cheeseburger Boy and Root Beer Snot live on… the story surfacing every so often to give us a laugh.

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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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Family Storytime: A Clown’s History

KC J. Hutchins

Fun fact. Did you know as a kid I debated on joining the circus and becoming a clown? No joke. I even learned how to do card tricks and make balloon animals. Why was did I want this? I was intrigued from my own family history. Turns out I came from a line of circus clowns from my grandfather’s side. They specialized in unicycle acts which amused the crowd with their antics. I learned this history when I was asked if I wanted to join a visiting circus. The ringmaster knew my grandfather and knew of my interest. I, being young, declined the offer at the time since I wanted to finish school with my friends. (What a silly decision in hindsight… so much opportunity for my future. Then again…) When I returned to my seat, I asked my grandfather why we weren’t part of it anymore. He pointed at the high wire and shook his head. In his strange way, he told me he was afraid of heights… this was shared by his children. I shook my head at the twist of fate. After all I was already known as a clown… might as well made it official.

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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.