LEMONS TO LEMONADE

        My High School friends and I weren’t evil. We were just terrible teases. We enjoyed teasing girls, especially beautiful college girls, all dressed up in their finest church clothes. You see, there was a hill on the road just south of the Bean Museum that ran eastward down to a stop sign on Ninth East. To the right were the Heritage Halls which housed BYU coeds. On the other side of Ninth East was the church building the girls would attend faithfully each Sunday. On wet winter days a huge puddle of slushy snow and water would pool up right next to the sidewalk. Oh my, I think you can see where this is going.

        Still dressed in our Sunday duds Dave, Paul, Jed, and I would lurk patiently at the top of the hill waiting for the campus ward to let out. Just like clockwork, dozens of BYUs finest young women would gather in bunches waiting to cross Ninth East and move safely to the sidewalk leading them back to their dorms, and not so safely past the giant “puddle of doom.”

        Sitting in Dad’s red VW Bug with the engine purring quietly we exchanged sly glances knowing that the gaggle of girls had just entered the perfect slush zone. Suddenly the Red Bug lurched forward gaining speed as it accelerated down the hill, at the last moment veering right into the ice cold pool and sending a wall of slush cascading up and over the shocked church goers, covering them from head to toe. Running the stop sign on Ninth East we would turn south making our escape amid a barrage of shaking fists, obscene gestures, and language rarely heard from such well-dressed BYU church goers. 

Snarl!

        Soon other BY High friends caught wind of our adventures and wanted in on the action, come the next slushy day. And so it went. This time it was Brent, Bruce, and Paul Number Two who begged to share in the excitement. The puddle was bigger than ever. The crowd of girls was bigger than ever. And the crest of ice cold, slushy water was incredible. What a rush!

Puddle of Doom

        Several days later a letter addressed to my parents showed up at my house. The return address said BYU Campus Security. Evidently one of the angry girls must have had the eyes of an eagle. She had spotted my license plate number, and with the help of the campus cops they had traced it back to Dad’s red VW Bug.  The letter informed Dad that his car had been involved in a “splash and run.” The girls involved didn’t want to press charges. They just wanted $40 to pay for their dry cleaning. Needless to say, Dad wasn’t very happy. “I’ll get the money from my friends. It was an unfortunate accident,” I explained. Yeah, as if Dad believed that it was an “unfortunate accident” with Dave, Paul and Jed in the car. That would be a first! 

Ca ching! Ca ching! Ca ching!

        Let’s see. Forty dollars divided by four would be ten dollars each. A brilliant idea popped into my conniving brain. What about Brent, Bruce and Paul No. Two? We didn’t actually know which group of perpetrators had been found out. If I could collect ten dollars from all six of them, that would total sixty dollars. My share would be “zero” – and after paying the $40 for the dry cleaning, I would have a net profit of $20! CA CHING! After all, what are friends for?  All went as planned and each paid their ten dollars. No one was the wiser until years later at a class reunion when a group of us were swapping old war stories and the two different car loads told the same story. I had been found out at last! We had a good laugh and went on to more reminiscing about our youthful escapades.

        One day not too long ago Brent and I and our wives were out to dinner when we began laughing about the big splash incident. Brent’s wife, who had been listening, spoke up and said, “I think I was one of those girls!” Then with a disgusted glare, my wife growled, “If I had been one of those girls, I would still, after all these years, punch you in the nose!” Good thing she wasn’t!

(No last names of those involved will be given to protect the rights of the juvenile perpetrators.)