“Say, I smell bacon. Does anyone else smell bacon?”

So Mindy’s been a bit of an "A hole" lately (her words, not mine), and in a round about sort of way I called her on it. Which I guess is only fair since I was being an "A hole" and she called me on it. Anyway, she does this thing where she’s real cold to me and evasive, the sort of thing people do when they don’t want you around (I may have seen it once or twice before). They act distracted or preoccupied and that your presence is a sort of nuisance. Then like a half hour later, she’s fun, cool, wants to hang out and everything’s fine. “First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me...BLOW.” So I scratched my head, had a few ‘Dews’ and figured she’s probably just trying to get mentally ready to leave and not get attached (as if I’m that irresistible). Do I like this? No. Do I understand this? Well, yes. So I decided to just give her some space. And by give her some space, I mean ignore her. Not in some rude sort of way, I just did my own thing. And apparently I’m about as easy to read as a comic book, because she came over after work and straight up asked if I was pissed at her. “Umm…yeah.” We talked and it turns out that I was pretty much right about what was going on, but she didn’t want to not hang out; she just didn’t want to be a jerk. Hey, I’m cool with that. So...problem resolved, I guess. Better still, she thinks she’s probably gonna come back out here until she goes into the MTC. Bonus.

After a day of work, Institute and a wicked good nap, what better than to join some friends in the outdoors for a bonfire? The San Jose posse from down the hall has a bonfire every Thursday night called “Weekend Warm-up.” They go down to Utah lake or usually up by this 4X4 path in Lindon. It’s really nice up there, you can see out all over “Happy Valley.” So like always we all drive up, and unload some palettes and start a nice little bonfire. They burned rather quickly and as I walked around exploring/looking for fire wood, a white suburban pulled up. I thought “that’s weird; I wonder who else was coming?” Oh, that’s right we invited the cops. Actually it was first some older gentleman who asked us if we knew it was illegal to be up there and then informed us that some officers were coming up. So what do I do? I run and dive in the bushes. And I hear a “Ouch! Would you get down, you’re gonna give us away!” Turns out Brittany and Mindy were already in the bushes. Why is it that when authority figures show up, my instincts are to run?

I don’t hate cops…no, really. But I do seem to have issues with the authority, especially here in Utah. It’s hard for me really like them when they chase you down, shine a flashlight in your eyes while they radio in to call off the man-hunt, as though you had just committed a triple homicide hit and run then shot a man in the face as you escaped with a kidnapped 14 year-old – I was skateboarding on the sidewalk near the dorms. Or when they treat you like a bunch of drunken gang members and threaten to charge you with trespassing and breaking and entering when you go swimming in the pool after 11 – even if you live there at the apartment complex. At any rate, there is some sort of rush running down a mountainside as the cops are rounding people up and putting the fire out. I guess it like a high stakes game of hide-and-go-seek. Instead of just being “it” if you get caught, you also get a large fine and a criminal record. Yipee!

It turns out that all anyone got was warnings, which I expected because there were no signs stating that it was illegal to be up there, or even anything hindering a car from the approach (it was an obvious dirt road). But one of these days, I’m gonna get a group of people together and we’re gonna wait for a cop to drive by. And when he does, we are all gonna sprint away as fast as we can in the most frantic manner, with the most guilty looks on our faces. And when they (plural because the one will obviously have called in back-up) catch me, I'll just smile, with my hands cuffed behind my back and say “Tag,” *headbutt* “You’re it!” Don’t the cops have better things to do than cite kids for longboarding in the street without reflective vests on? In Provo, maybe not. Just remember, you never keep ID on you when you go do marginally culpable activities and you always keep the personal information of a close friend or associate on the tip of your tongue. Isn’t that right, Justin Crandall?

...“Yeah, I definitely smell a pork product of some type.”