I can hear you getting fatter.*

I was looking through some old post (I'm narcissistic) and I had one that I called Reminiscent Wednesday. I think at some point I thought I would make this a regular thing - but something tells me that with my memory this is a bad idea. Regardless - I wanted to do one again (p.s. I realize it's not Wednesday).


So, as most of these stories will be (if I decide to try this out), it's from college. P.S. my apologies if I have shared this story before. I tried to search through to make sure I hadn't.

One summer I stayed out at school. I had a few reasons for doing this, but the one that is sticking out as actually being true was because there was a Flannery O'Connor course being offered, only that summer, and with a special guest professor from the University of Georgia. I don't know how many people are familiar with Flannery O'Connor but I just love her work. She's a bit dark - and I really dig/dug that in high school. So when I heard there was a course I decided that I had to stay out there (thanks Mom and Dad for letting me!)

Jessie (a.k.a. Dragon), Erin and I moved in to Normandy Apartments. It was this little slab of a building, three stories, a handful of apartments, a giant brick wall that block the air flow to the three middle apartments, one of which was mine....apartment 9 - did I mention apartments in Rexburg don't have AC?

Apartment 9 was a little, teeny, tiny apartment. One bedroom, three girls, a kitchen/dining room and a living room with a super cute built in bookshelf (have I mentioned before how much I love built in bookshelves? …have I mentioned that “have I mentioned” is probably one of my most used phrases?). No dishwasher either - not the point.

It was while living in this apartment that a lot of great things happened. I got hooked me up with a job; I made awesome friends like Cassie, Sarah, and Tami; I almost got the hang of skateboarding...until the accident.

Big summer.

It was also where I first saw the movie "The Ring". Erin and her boyfriend (now husband), Steve rented The Ring and had watched it for a date night. They told me that I could watch it; I was a bit nervous because I heard it was really scary and I'm not one for watching scary movies...ever. I like suspense - not scary. Anyway, so I decided to watch it, but with someone and during the day. So Tami (my upstairs neighbor) and I watched it at her apartment. It was FREAKY! I don't really watch scary movies so I don't know if there are movies that top it, but I was scared. It was the scared-est I think I had ever seen! When Tami and I had finished we realized we still had lots of time left in the day. That's the thing about Rexburg, the days seem to drag with endless amounts of time but nothing to fill it with. So we decided to go get ice cream in Idaho Falls. There was a cool little dairy down there (at least that's why I think we were going down there). So I go downstairs to get ready and I walk into the apartment - no one is home and the television is on, but it's not on a channel, it's just that static...the kind you see in The Ring! I don't even think I went any further into my apartment. I turned around and ran upstairs to Tami's apartment! I eventually forced myself to take the most terrifying shower of my life (ahem - well, up to that point. The most terrifying was after having seen a small portion of The Grudge through my slotted fingers at the movie theater). Then we set off for our adventures.

We got to the dairy and then we saw signs for Craters of the Moon and we thought, "what the heck." So we followed the signs for a while and wondered how far away Craters of the Moon was. We were getting ready to give up when we saw a small sign for Devil's Gate or something like that. So we decided that we would go there instead. We pulled down this gravel road and drove for a little ways (maybe a quarter of a mile).

We parked and got out of the car. It was quiet there, there were no cars passing on the nearby road, no trees for the wind to blow through, had there even been wind. There were no birds chirping and no animals scurrying about. When I say it was quiet I mean quiet - almost as though we were in a vacuum. Hell's/Devil's gate was a bunch of rock that we climbed around, took a few pictures, but overall, not much to it. Once or twice I almost had a heart attack because when something did make noise it seemed so much louder against the deafening silence. I was relieved when Tami was ready to go. We got back in to the car and I pulled out of our "spot" and then it happened...

I don't know how I had missed it before, but as I looked into the rearview mirror I stared straight at a well. My foot went from the brake to the accelerator so fast that gravel was shooting out behind us and my car slightly fishtailed. A well!? To me it looked just like the one in The Ring. By the time we got back on the paved road headed toward the dairy and safety, my heart finally slowed down. That night we watched The Ring again, because I needed to fall asleep while watching it - that way I wouldn't be so freaked out by it. Mission Accomplished. While that movie doesn't freak me out and I ended up watching it many times the next school year, I just avoid it now. But that's my story about the first time I saw The Ring. Hope you enjoyed.