Sometimes you really think that you know a person just by the way that you see them in a public situation. All of that can change quickly when you put them in an informal situation like a backyard cookout. Stories get told that make you see people in a whole new light.
My wife and I had a wonderful time over the weekend attending a backyard cookout at a friend’s house in Ursine, Nevada. The evening started out innocently enough with hamburgers on the grill. The fun part was figuring out what was going to be put on the hamburgers. Enter the dartboard. Yes, we were given 6 darts and asked to land them anywhere on the board. Accuracy had nothing to do with it. It seems that each of the 20 numbers was secretly tied to something that would be included on your hamburger. #10-jalapeño peppers, #6-American cheese, #13-blue cheese, #7-chili, #12-green chili and #18 was bacon. These are where my six darts fell. Sounds appetizing right? By the way, other things that I could have landed on included grilled cheese, coleslaw, turkey burger, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, and of course, the standards, lettuce, onion, tomato, ketchup and mustard. Fortunately, in the end, it was all just for fun, and we were informed that we could put anything we wanted on our burgers. A few of us chose to be brave and try our dartboard concoction. It was a unique and fun way of serving hamburgers.
Next, everyone was asked to take their chairs and form a circle around the campfire. Now, I use the word ‘campfire’ liberally here, as it was really just a couple of citronella candles, but you get the point. A stack of cards came out that had conversation starters written on them like, “share your most embarrassing moment.” What was really fun about this, was that it was just good small town memories. Doing this game with our city friends, I believe would have brought about drastically different results.
One of my favorite stories came from the category about practical jokes. At told, one of the guys and his buddies, in their younger years, had come across a guy passed out in the drivers seat of his car outside of a bar with his engine still running. A man that had had way too much to drink, came out of the bar, staggered around a little bit and then dropped to the ground, hitting his head on a parking block, completely knocking him out. Carefully, these practical jokers drug the body of the drunken man in front of the tire of the idling car with the passed out driver. Then the young man and his friend went to the window of the car and started screaming as loud as they could, “Oh, my gosh, you hit him!” The startled driver woke up, got out of his car and saw the man laying in front of the car. The practical joker said that the man freaked out. He started running around like a chicken with his head cut off. This young man and his buddies went inside and called the ambulance. I asked, “Did you ever tell the driver?” The answer was no. I’ve heard of the TV show called “Scared Straight,” and I wonder if the driver of the car was ever guilty of drinking and driving again.
Like I said, this was one of many stories told throughout the night. It had been awhile since I had laughed that hard. Good times, good times!
My wife and I had a wonderful time over the weekend attending a backyard cookout at a friend’s house in Ursine, Nevada. The evening started out innocently enough with hamburgers on the grill. The fun part was figuring out what was going to be put on the hamburgers. Enter the dartboard. Yes, we were given 6 darts and asked to land them anywhere on the board. Accuracy had nothing to do with it. It seems that each of the 20 numbers was secretly tied to something that would be included on your hamburger. #10-jalapeño peppers, #6-American cheese, #13-blue cheese, #7-chili, #12-green chili and #18 was bacon. These are where my six darts fell. Sounds appetizing right? By the way, other things that I could have landed on included grilled cheese, coleslaw, turkey burger, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, and of course, the standards, lettuce, onion, tomato, ketchup and mustard. Fortunately, in the end, it was all just for fun, and we were informed that we could put anything we wanted on our burgers. A few of us chose to be brave and try our dartboard concoction. It was a unique and fun way of serving hamburgers.
Next, everyone was asked to take their chairs and form a circle around the campfire. Now, I use the word ‘campfire’ liberally here, as it was really just a couple of citronella candles, but you get the point. A stack of cards came out that had conversation starters written on them like, “share your most embarrassing moment.” What was really fun about this, was that it was just good small town memories. Doing this game with our city friends, I believe would have brought about drastically different results.
One of my favorite stories came from the category about practical jokes. At told, one of the guys and his buddies, in their younger years, had come across a guy passed out in the drivers seat of his car outside of a bar with his engine still running. A man that had had way too much to drink, came out of the bar, staggered around a little bit and then dropped to the ground, hitting his head on a parking block, completely knocking him out. Carefully, these practical jokers drug the body of the drunken man in front of the tire of the idling car with the passed out driver. Then the young man and his friend went to the window of the car and started screaming as loud as they could, “Oh, my gosh, you hit him!” The startled driver woke up, got out of his car and saw the man laying in front of the car. The practical joker said that the man freaked out. He started running around like a chicken with his head cut off. This young man and his buddies went inside and called the ambulance. I asked, “Did you ever tell the driver?” The answer was no. I’ve heard of the TV show called “Scared Straight,” and I wonder if the driver of the car was ever guilty of drinking and driving again.
Like I said, this was one of many stories told throughout the night. It had been awhile since I had laughed that hard. Good times, good times!
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