I Suck At Scare Tactics

Today has been a random day. With it being Prince Spaghetti day, Karen, our baby daughter (Briana), and I hung out with our friends (Marc, Kelley, and Andrea). On the agenda for the night: nothing.

Ever since Lost ended and Wipeout ran its course for the summer, we really have not found that next show to watch together as a group. That is totally fine with me because I get more entertainment out of just hanging out with everyone anyway.

Well, with nothing really planned, we decided to see what was on-demand. Eventually, we decided to give Scare Tactics a try. Now, I suck at Scare Tactics. Upon watching the show, however, I was laughing in stitches.

For anyone curious, Scare Tactics is a reality television comedy similar to the show Punk'd... or Candid Camera. Unsuspecting victims who are set up by friends and family are filmed as practical jokes are played out on them. The first two seasons of the show were hosted by Shannen Doherty (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame). Stephen Baldwin actually took over hosting duties midway through the second season. And from season three on, the show has been hosted by Tracy Morgan.

I was laughing so hard during the show. In fact, I think my infectious laughter had Andrea going for awhile as well. Needless to say, I had a great time watching the show with everyone.

And naturally, what kind of friends would we be if we didn't think it was a great idea to try and get one of our own friends on the show? In particular, we were thinking that it would be awesome to get our friend (Garv) on the show simply because Garv is a wimp. (And if you are curious, the process to suggest a victim for the show is by sending an email to stcasting@yahoo.com.) Just the idea of watching Garv poop his pants would be classic.

Perhaps I will suggest the idea to my friend (Aimee), who is better qualified at pulling off these types of pranks. Speaking of whom, I was digging through some old stuff that my mother brought and found something written by Aimee. My mother has been cleaning out the attic of late. In an effort to clean up her attic, she has brought loads upon loads of boxes that contain my belongings. Among those belongings: everything I kept from high school on.

I have only gone through one box thus far. In my defense, I just received the boxes today while my mom came over to watch Briana. She has assured me that more boxes will come. Great.

Anyway, the box I looked through today contained a random collection of things, but most of the items were my class notes from high school. The notes were all in binders. I had every note I ever took in class, which apparently contained a lot of scribbles and doodles of my name. I had every homework that passed in and got graded. I even had book covers that were used to cover books.

Interestingly enough, there was a note from my BFF (Kerry) on one of the book covers. She wrote "hi mike you are the classic nerd! saving your book covers! see ya kerry". And of course, Kerry's position was confirmed by another friend: "Hi Mike, Kerry is right, your a nerd. Are you gonna save the book cover? bye, Maryellen". I wonder if kids these days even cover their books with paper bags anymore...

Nevertheless, the book cover made me chuckle. I guess there was a reason why I kept that book cover after all. It's funny. At the time, I thought I would keep everything because I thought I could use the class notes or whatever as a reference later on in life. Oh how wrong I was, as evident from the fact that the box has done nothing but collect dust in my mother's attic.

Looking back now, it does seem ridiculous to keep everything from high school on. Heck, the box I went through today even had items I pilfered from the Holiday Inn when I spent the night there for a track event. I can only imagine what else is in the other boxes that my mother has waiting for me.

I know there used to be a box of stainless steel knives somewhere. I went through a klepto stage whereby I would take knives from restaurants that I ate at. Granted, most of those knives were from the Ground Round because that was were all of my friends and I generally ended up eating at. I had a track box that contained all of my running shoes and all of my track spikes. Yes, I'm insane. I can't wait to go through all of my crap now.

But also within the box was this letter written by Aimee on October 2, 1992. I loved getting things from Aimee because she just made me laugh. Her letter was actually from when I was in college. More specifically, it was during our first year in college. Heck, we were only a month into college. The letter was typed out on the computer. This was back when computer printouts looked cheesy.

The funny thing about the letter was that even though she printed it out, she never mailed it. At the bottom of the letter, she hand wrote that she didn't send the letter because she ran out of stamps. So I must have seen her, to which she gave me the letter. Classic.

The letter even brought back the memory of my scientology experience because Aimee sarcastically asked how that was coming along for me. Back when I was a lowly college freshman, I was approached while walking down the street of my college campus at the time, which was Northeastern University. The ever polite person that I am, I obliged the person who seemed normal enough. Let's just say, it was a complete waste of two hours of my life. Damn you scientologists!

Anyway, it was good to look back through my old stuff and cherish the things that made me... me... like my friends.