Nostalgic Moment #26

Okay, so last week's signing at Authorpalooza (Orem Barnes and Noble) was a great success. There were over 30 local authors including James Dashner, Jeff Savage, Lisa Mangum, Aubrey Mace, Jillayne Clements and of course a ton more. So if you missed it you really missed it. The gang at the Orem Barnes and Noble worked some serious magic (Brandi, Melyn, Michelle and all the other tee-shirt wearing crew members were amazing and I owe them a huge thanks for letting me join in the fun.)

Now, I will be doing a couple signings this week as well. So here's the breakdown:

Tuesday afternoon from 2:30-4:30, I will be signing at BYU education week at the BYU bookstore (Wilkinson Student Center). There will be tons of authors there as well, so if you're sick of seeing me (how could that ever be?) then you can visit someone else.

Thursday morning from 10-12, I will be at Cedar Fort's Outlet store in Springville (2373 W. 700 S.) signing books during their blowout clearance sale. Hopefully, they're not blowing out my books for clearance prices, but if they are... hey that would be a good time to show up and buy some.

Friday evening from 6-8 p.m. I will be at the Seagull book in Taylorsville (5720 S. Redwood Road). Lots of opportunities to come see me and chat or throw egg in my face. I could use the protein. If anything, it should be fun to watch me draw customers toward my table. I'm pretty loud and obnoxious and I'm giving away marbles. What more could you ask for in terms of an entertaining afternoon?

Now, back by popular demand (my wife) here's a nostalgic moment to chew on...

It was a cold night in Ogden, Utah and Heidi and I were newlyweds living in a matchbox. Seriously, this apartment was so small you had to turn sideways to enter it in order to squeeze by the refrigerator. For some reason it did have a second floor. The stairs went straight into the only bedroom. Did I mention this apartment was small? Well, let me paint a better picture. On our first night in the apartment we stopped at Merrill's Mattress Emporium (may or may not be the actual name of that establishment) and purchased our first bed. After Merrill crammed the mattress into my in-laws van (scratching the sides to the point that we almost couldn't pry it out) we headed back to our humble abode, giddy with excitement from our first big purchase. Of course the bed wouldn't fit through the door because no one owning anything larger than a twin bed had ever rented the apartment before us, so we had to smash out the second floor window and shove it through. As a side note, we had to smash the window again to remove the bed when we moved, but I was clever enough to disguise the destruction so that our landlord had no idea what had happened until we were long gone (I feel very bad about this... now, ten years removed from the incident.) Wow, talk about rambling on and on. Did I ever veer! I'm like in a completely different neighborhood right now. I don't even recognize any of the road signs. Let me steer us back toward the nostalgic moment I intended to tell.

Like I said, it was a cold night and Heidi and I were snug in our bed (a Merrill special) and snoring. At around 2 a.m. Heidi nudged me awake.

"Frank, did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" I mumbled, trying to go back to sleep.

"Someone just knocked on our door."

That startled me a little and I sat up in bed to listen. Sure enough, someone was knocking. No, that's not the right term. Someone was banging on our door. I was about to go down stairs to see who it was, when the person (several persons to be exact) started banging again on the door. It seemed clear that whoever it was, they were trying very hard to come in. I was a little baffled by this and I remember looking at Heidi in confusion. Suddenly, the intruders left our porch and headed to the side living room window where they began heaving on the glass trying to open it. What the heck was going on? I pointed to Heidi and told her to call 911 because we were obviously about to be robbed. Heidi grabbed the phone and started dialing, but after a few tries I could tell there was a problem. She just stared at me as tears welled up in her eyes and said,

"The phone's dead!"

The phone's dead?!! Well that meant the criminals outside had somehow cut the phone lines and they were coming in for the kill. I got to my feet and looked around the room for a weapon. We, of course, didn't own a weapon because Heidi didn't trust what I could do with it in my sleep. Outside, the intruders had given up on the window and had returned to the porch. Now they were ramming the front door with their shoulders (I figured there were at least three of them.) You're probably wondering how on earth could our pathetic apartment withstand such abuse especially since it had maybe 300 square feet of real estate and a toilet from the 40's, but I should remind you that it was an Ogden apartment. Everything there is tough.

I needed to do something before it was too late, but what could I do? I'm sure if I went downstairs and answered the door in nothing but my underwear I would only encourage the criminals to attack. I looked at my poor wife who, by now, was sobbing and realized it was time to defend everything I held dear. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and shouted at the top of my lungs,

"HEY!" I screamed in a voice my wife would later say was not my own. I like to think it had kind of a rich James Earl Jones sort of tone. Immediately the pounding stopped and I could hear the men stumbling off the porch. Oh make no mistake, my voice carried and it was loud.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Again the same voice, but now it sounded even more evil. I imagine it was a healthy mix of The Chef off Southpark and Satan.

After some mumbling outside, I heard one of the guys say, "We're looking for Joey!"

Without any hesitation I answered, "YOU GOT THE WRONG HOUSE, MAN!"

To which the three intruders bounded off the porch, hopped into their car and sped off. Finally, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and I looked toward Heidi to see if she was all right. She had a dumbfounded look on her face and she whispered,

"What got into you?"

I didn't know, but I told her to try the phone again. This time it worked, because before Heidi was smashing the numbers too fast and the line couldn't connect. About a half hour later the cops drove by and patrolled the neighborhood, but all was well in our neck of the woods. I didn't sleep much that night, but chose to stay downstairs (now fully clothed) prepared to engage the enemy head on, with my new found talent of demon impersonation.

Turns out, our neighbor's oldest son was a gang member and a drug dealer named Joey and had those criminals succeeded in entering our house, they would've probably done some serious damage to us before they had realized they had the wrong people.

I still do that voice from time to time at parties and whenever I want to scare the daylights out of my children. Ah, I love parenthood...