Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Embarrasing Story Time: Number One

"Boomshakalaka!"
A true, yet embarrasing story.

It was the spring time of my 6th grade year at the Catholic school I attended. The leaves were starting to bud from what I could tell from our window-stacked wall facing the hills of West Virginia. We were in the middle of our busy art session in which we were asked to sign a card for all the people in a local shut-in.

"Shut-in. Shut-in? What is a shut-in?", I asked myself. It took a few minutes as I itched my hairless chin... and then it came to me!

I started to get a good feeling all through my body and I got all excited, thinking about how fortunate the people at the local shut-in were to be able to stay up all night, hangout with all their friends, eat pizza endlessly, and play basketball until they dropped dead because they weren't allowed to leave. Yeeahhh, a shut-in!

During this time in my life, one of my favorite games on Super Nintendo was NBA Jam. If you aren't familiar with this game, it was one of the most fast paced, realistic games of our time with up-to-date stats of all the players, including the all-time favorite Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls. Another feature of this game was that during "on fire" points, Dick Vitale or someone of the like would make the comment "BOOMSHAKALAKA", rejoicing in the amazingness of the prior play. And I loved that line.

I loved that line so much that when I was thinking about all the people in the shut-in, I quickly reached for my sharpie (which was next to my sacred colored pencil collection), and wrote in the heart-felt Hallmark card, full of comments and prayers from other students, "Boomshakalaka. Have fun! - Chris"

So massively that it took up 1/4 of the inside of the card. And engraved so hard the intoxicating ink of the sharpie bled through the front cover.

Once my teacher got the card, her eyes grew large and red, almost like a red light that you are more than surprised to see in the middle of the interstate, telling you that a train is about to come and intersect you on your path down ignorance.

She then elegantly stomped over to the bookshelf, grabbed a dictionary, and slammed it down in front of me. The definition was something like this:

shut-in [shuht-in] -adj. 1. confined to one's home, a hospital, etc., as from illness.
(Dictionary.com)

...

whoops.



8 comments:

  1. funny. Boomshalaka was a popular song here in the Philippines during the 90's. Good Times :) Can't wait to receive your CD here soon Chris. Me and my Kuya (brother) are excited. Ingat palagi.

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  2. haha. Funny stuff, Chris. I love it.

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  3. haha BOOMSHAKALAKA..
    that's a classic. I loved that game

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  4. K, Chris... I love you, and you know this.
    Still, I have to say, this wasn't a "Creative Writing" assignment.
    I'm going to have to talk to my buddy Sam, 'cause whilst I was on tour with my then b/f's band, of which he was a part, we stoped and played a show at some church in NY. Whilst we were there, we found the library and the was a book written by Vitale, which had the most ridiculous name.
    We had another month to go on that said tour, and I could've killed all of those boys for reading that stupid book... even though some of it was quite funny, as you can imagine... but only for a certain period of time.
    I shall now contact Sam and ask him the name of that blasphemous literature, and let you know... I'm sure a copy wouldn't cost that much!

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  5. AH yes... it was "Time Out, Baby!" Sweet Jebus... I'm glad I haven't heard those words in years. You're welcome to come back to my haouse and mention the book, give me a head nod, and I'll get it all. However, if you do an impression and say those words, I can't say I won't have a punch for you. It's common to my nature now after those few months in a van hearing nothing but.
    Maybe for x-mas this year I'll get you a copy, since it is so hilarious. I just never want to speak of it again!

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  6. oh snaaap NBA JAM yeaaah. IS IT THE SHOES!! THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN!! then the random king kong/ tarzan scream hahah I loved that game if you typed your initials in as ARK you could be Bill Clinton. but daaang that's embarrassing but hey that's what I would have thought at that age.

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