Miscellanea

Here are some places my mind wandered as I read this week's Sunday School curriculum:

--A convert named Apollos is introduced in Acts 18:23-28. Any time I see his name, I think of the world-famous Apollo Theater, and how I always tell people to check out Amateur Night when they visit New York but none of them ever do. Seriously, if you're in NYC on a Wednesday you have to go to Amateur Night. You won't regret it.

--The seven sons of Sceva tried to cast out evil spirits but just made them mad, and as a result had to "[flee] out of that house naked and wounded" (Acts 19:16). Reminds me of the time I got pantsed while playing coed basketball at recess in 6th grade (the last time I ever wore sweats to school). It also reminds me of the time I performed at the Apollo.

--The fallout from the failed exorcism included a massive book burning (v.19). I got a little wistful when I realized that four years from now, the next time these chapters cycle through the Sunday School rotation, it may be impossible to have a big book burning. Unless you burn a pile of Nooks and Kindles.

I'm going to miss bookstores. I have fond memories of going on my lunch break from Mrs. Fields (my first job), scarfing down something from Arby's or Sbarro (a place I won't miss), then spending the rest of my time loitering at Walden Book. Bookstores are a great place to waste time when waiting to meet friends at one of the restaurants in the strip mall, and they're even better places to steal wifi. I'm going to miss walking past all of the books to get to the DVD section. I'm going to miss digging through the 75%-off page-a-day calendars in February. Most of all, though, I think I'll miss the repetitive (but always funny) jokes about a bookstore's main function being a bathroom for the homeless.

--Finally, there's the story of Eutychus, the young man bored to death literally bored to death by Paul's long speech, then brought back to life by the apostle (Acts 20:7-12). There are likely more, but right now I can only recall two times when I've embarrassingly lost consciousness.

A few years ago I made my first-ever journey to New Jersey to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour (it was the Joshua-Katee cast, the show's best season ever). I was pretty sick but went anyway. It was really warm on the train back to New York, and as we were approaching Penn Station, I stood up to let others on my row get by and crowd around the door. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with my friends and a few Transit Authority employees hovering above me. Apparently I had fainted, and fallen right on top of my friend Gaby. Good times.

Sickness is a better excuse than boredom, so this other story is more shameful. As a junior in high school, I was asked to a dance by a girl I hardly knew. And she asked me by simply calling me on the phone! And we went to dinner at Wendy's! Now, I think that would be an awesome date, but that kind of behavior is pretty taboo in the Utah high school dance megadate scene.

There were three couples in our group, and I didn't know any of the other people. After some horseback riding (very fun, at least in part because I didn't have to talk to the other people much), dinner and then the dance, we went to the house of one of the girls to watch a movie. Our choices: Jaws and Children of the Corn. Seriously. About half an hour into Jaws, I and one of the other guys fell asleep. (I still haven't seen that movie all the way through.) They woke us up so they could drive us home. It was perhaps the worst date of my life (and yes, I realize that that was largely my fault).

If anyone reading is still awake at this point, feel free to share your embarrassing falling-asleep stories--especially if they take place in a bookstore.