the infamous mushroom story

On my recent post about our music listening habits, my dear friend Kelli (who has known me a very long time) left a comment alluding to a certain incident in my younger years. It is a story that needs to be documented for posterity sake- for no other reason than for a few good laughs.

To give a little background...

I was a junior in high school, coming from a very small town in Oregon (total population of 1,200 and a high school class consisting of 67 students). I had just gotten my driver's license a few weeks earlier. Within the first week of getting my license, I got pulled over and got a ticket (by a family friend none the less who was trying to make an example of me- thanks Pat!) in front of the high school, AS SCHOOL WAS LETTING OUT. Yeah, I don't think I EVER lived that one down. Anyway, this piece of embarrassing information is essential to understanding why I was at traffic school... where I met Graham.

Graham was from a much larger school in the "BIG" city of Eugene and it was apparent that he had a little bit of a bad boy streak in him. I was a sucker for bad boys, so we hit it off as we sat next to each other... at traffic school. That really should have been my first red flag.

Graham and I hung out for a few weeks, getting together occasionally and talking on the phone regularly. So, when my mom was in town for the week, I wanted her to meet him. I called him up to see if we could plan something. This is how the fateful conversation went down....

ME: Hey, my mom is in town and I wanted to see if you wanted to get
together so she can meet you.
Graham: I can't
ME: Why not?
Graham: Well, I am kind of grounded.
ME: What did you do?
Graham: I got arrested last night!
ME: FOR WHAT?!
Graham: Well, some friends and I were driving around and we got pulled over
because there was a SUBWAY that had been robbed in the area.
ME: Did you do it? Did you rob the SUBWAY?
Graham: NO!
ME: Then what was the problem?
Graham: When they searched our car, they found
mushrooms.
ME: So you DID rob the SUBWAY?!
Graham: No.
ME: But, what about the mushrooms!?
Graham: SHROOMS!
ME: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! Got it.

Then I laughed, trying to play off that I really knew what he was talking about the whole time. ha ha!

Needless to say, that was the last time a talked to Graham- although I did run into him a few times around the BIG city. Each time he would laugh at my expense. It's ok though, because I have continued to tell the story for the same reason. It really is hysterical. I mean, first of all- I don't think that mushrooms are even an option at Subway- in fact, I have checked and they are not. Secondly, if they HAD robbed the Subway, why on earth would they have stopped to grab the mushrooms? My rational for this thought process initially was that maybe they tracked mushrooms in on their shoes?! Weak, I know. And lastly, I had absolutely NO clue that he was talking about mushrooms as in the drug kind. How was I supposed to know?! Now, if he had just called them 'shrooms from the get go (that is what I learned them to be called in my health drug education class- which is the only way I knew anything about them), I wouldn't have this crazy story to tell, which illustrates my naivety at its finest. Kelli kindly brought this to my attention as she thought that me not realizing what the words of songs are actually SAYING was another example that fine quality. Thanks Kel! I have other stories- a few actually, but those will just have to wait for another time- or maybe never.

I want to clarify that I am not a ditz. I really am intelligent, by most standards. My husband just likes to point out that I may be book smart, but don't have a whole lot of street smarts. Is that really such a bad thing?! I don't think so.