Beth Ventura: The Animal Detective

Yes. This black cat that is staring at you with a "what are you looking at" expression is mine. Well to say that it's mine implies that it's my property. To which it isn't, rather he and I live in the same household. His name is Mew. Yes very original I know. XD

I found my father in a state of panic when I came home today. He was demanded if I knew where Mew was. To which I replied no because 1. I had been away from home for seven and a half hours and 2. Even if I were home I wouldn't know, because Mew finds the most obscure corners of the house to hide himself in.

It was weird that Mew couldn't be found in the house because I had already shown my parents the favorite hiding spots of Mew and that's pretty much the only places where he could be inside the house.

I looked around in the usually places where Mew would hide himself. But I found myself worrying because I couldn't find him. I looked at Beth, my other cat, and she looked so guilty. So I asked her, "What'd you do with Mew?". She first ran away from me guiltily, as if she had done something wrong. Which is something that she does usually despite her usually being innocent of anything anyone accuses of. She's not a total angel, but usually if something happened, it's Mew's fault.

Beth, looking guilty as her usual self...

But something particularly odd that she did was that she went to the corner of the living room and kept sniffing the wall. I followed her because well, I was initially trying to get some love from her because I'm lonely and lame during the summer. Which is when I heard a faint "Meewwww" from the corner of the wall.

My first thought was. Jeez... Just how did you get inside of the wall? 

To be fair, he climbed inside of a couch before, which it took me 20 minutes to find him because he was cozily laying inside like nothing was wrong. I only found him because when I called out to him, I heard a faint and famous "Meeewwww" (as his name implies) resounding out of the couch.

So I put my ear close to the wall and listened for him again. But I heard nothing. At first I thought maybe I was just crazy and I didn't hear anything. But Beth kept rubbing her face against the wall and making her little squeaks. She came to me and rubbed her face against my shins then squeaked again, walked circles around me and then sniffed the corner of the living room wall again.

I was so confused.

A lightbulb switched in my brain and I came to the realization that Mew might be in the garage. So I went into the garage, and there he was. Sitting in his glory in the spare bookshelf in the garage, trapped due to a fan that fell down. His body just totally covered in cobwebs and dust.

I brought him into the bathroom and gave him a much needed wash, which of course, he hated.

Beth got lots of treats that night.

;)

Pee Painting

My dad used to run this math academy in Korea where he taught/tutored math to students ranging from elementary to high school. As a little kid, (around 4) I would periodically hang out at his academy, and bother/entertain the other students that were there. To keep me occupied, my dad would let me go buy sweets at a nearby store, and other things.

This one specific day, my dad let me go to the store and buy banana milk. I loved banana milk, it was in one of those cartons of milk you would get in elementary school. I drank all of the banana milk. Unfortunately, being a little kid meant I also had a small bladder. One that couldn't withstand the amount of fluid that I drank.

Another thing about my dad's academy back then was that there were no bathrooms in it. So if I or any other student wanted to pee we had to walk all the way to the store and go to the bathroom there. This particular day, my father was especially busy. I was also scared of going to the bathroom by myself because I was a kid and I had been traumatized by horrible stranger danger stories.

So my solution to this problem was to pee into the carton of milk I had drank from, and I did.

Then I went about my day playing outside and bothering more students that were in school. But after the day was over, it was time to clean up the academy.

I did my best to help out, throw things in the trash. But when I came to the carton of banana milk I thought was empty, when I picked it up, there was liquid that was sloshing around in it. My mouth curled in smiles of delight as I realized there was some left.

So I picked it up and drank it.

I was expecting sweet, creamy, delicious, artificial flavored banana hinting with the milk. Instead I got a mouth full of salty pee.

I spewed it out immediately, and like a paint can tipped over, there was pee all over the table.

My father was pissed as he was the one that cleaned up the mess my I was coughing, choking on the taste of pee that was left in my life.

It looked disgustingly beautiful ;)

Pink Sandal Slap

Yes, I was one of those that were picked on as a child. I mean, I guess I still am a child. Does fourteen mean I'm a child? Depends on the person I guess. Anyways, yes I was bullied. Probably because I was an international student, and easy to pick on. (I had a small stature in size) This is one of many of my funny bully stories.

I went to this church in town, and in it was a family similar to mine. Which is totally untrue, but it was what my parents thought anyways. This family had two parents, and a son and daughter.
Now, our parents were somewhat sociable creatures, and I wouldn't say totally befriend but became acquaintances. Btw to any parents who read this, (prob none) please stop trying to pair up your friend's children with yours. If we like each other, sure that's fine, if we don't, just stop trying or else something like this happens. 

 Woah getting off track. That's exactly what happened though. My sister and I didn't like the other children. Let's name them... Nathan and Nicole or the "N" siblings. Nathan was the older sibling, and was in similar age with my older sister. Nicole on the other hand was younger than I. I was 5 years old.

Being five years old is hard. Well, at least it was for me. Everyone expected me to not throw that many tantrums anymore and be a good boy. It was harder when our parents paired me up to be friends with some people I didn't like. The 4 of us didn't like each other immediately. I don't remember everything totally but all I remember is that we used to give each other lots of stink eyes.

Being five I always would act smart, more mature, and adultish than I actually was. In this case, I remember vaguely of an argument occurring between the three of us. I don't remember what caused it, only what it became to be. I choose to act really tough like those movie protagonists that bluff and sneak out of situations.

Let me explain what happened. My sister and I were standing on one side of a hallway like thing, (This was after the church service finished and all the adults were in the kitchen eating)  while on the other side were the N sibling. I folded my hands and tested how far they would go to win the argument. I challenged Nicole to hit me in the face.

Yes it was stupid. I was five, and I was trying to be all tough. I don't exactly remember what I said but it was something along the lines of "I bet you wouldn't hit me in the face" in really poor and broken English. (remember, I had just come from Korea recently).

I remember that she was steaming mad and red in the face. I don't really remember exactly what happened until she hit me in the face.

Now, I challenged her to hit me in the face just to see her squirm, get mad, but walk away because she was too scared to hit me in the face. I totally did not expect/it never went through my mind that she would actually hit me in the face.

Not only did she hit me in the face, but she also hit me in the face with her shoe.

I remember, she had these pink sandals on. They were cutesy ones with flowers or whatever decorations, and were very worn and dirty. She slipped them right off, and without knowing what the hell she was doing, she tiptoed up to me and bitch-smacked me across my face.

Yes, that's right. This girl that was younger than me, and shorter than me, took off her dirty sandals that have been stepping on godknowswhat for the amount of time she'd been wearing them, then hit me with the bottom side, that she might've taken steps in dog crap or whatever on, across my cheek/ear.

I was in total shock.

Of course, me being five meant whatever type of pain/frustration/embarrassment/strong emotion I feel I start tearing up. Which is exactly what happened. I held back the tears as hard as I could but yakno when there's too much tears are in your eyes that it kinda spills out? Yeah, that happened.

My face was beat red, I was crying, my ears were ringing. It wasn't a pretty sight.

What I remember is that I staggered back, and looked at Nathan's face go from shock, to laughter. What an ass... Nicole also had a surprised expression on her face, which also went to laughter.

I don't remember much after that, it's just those expressions that stuck to me for a while.

So yeah, that's what happened.

Many years later (I think like 8?) I came to the same school that Nathan was going to. I don't know if he remembers that day, probably not, but I don't know because I never talked to him. He just looked at me, when we saw each other for the first time in a while, and then just moved on.

I was plotting revenge for a while, and thinking up a way of humiliating him, until I realized how stupid I was being. We were itty-bitty tiny kids. I was being stupid, they were being stupid, and if they looked back on it now, they probably would never do that.

The thing is, I just want to tell you guys, maybe this sorta thing has happened to you. Maybe this sorta thing is what you caused. Just wanna tell those who might've caused this type of shtuff.

We remember this shit even if it's been toomanyyearstocount.
Watch your back.









Jkjk. ;-)

Love,
Abraham Han

Aiming at Gophers

I'm a laugher, I laugh a lot. Some think it's creepy, and just nervously laugh along (especially if they met me for the first time XD ), and others think it's absolutely hilarious and laugh too. I apologize if your one of those people who think that it's creepy when I laugh. Yet, I'm happy that I can openly laugh, I'm proud of not being afraid to laugh. But it does have it's cons. Such as, when I die of laughter, I'm left crumpled clutching my sore abs that are in pain. Also, some people think because I'm laughing it means I'm not taking them seriously, but I'm just trying to lighten the mood.

So, one day in fourth grade, it was groundhogs day. My friends and I had a great big argument on whether or not groundhogs counted as gophers, and we still hadn't drawn a conclusion on whether or not a gopher was a groundhog. In the end, we just laughed it off in fear that there would be someone who would end up being upset if we were to continue.

Anyways, during recess we were playing 2v2 basketball as usual. We would always "trash talk" each other, but not to get them to be mad, but rather to make them crack up and mess up. Mostly it was me going "POOP!" or such, and whoever was holding the ball would laugh. I almost never cracked up at whatever someone screamed at me, but I would laugh at the mistakes I would make.

So I was dribbling and then I picked up my dribble. There was one of my friends Richie up in my face going "BLEAURGHBLEAHBLAHBLEH" in my face. I couldn't help but giggle a bit. He was sticking his tongue out and everything. The crazed, and humorous look in his eyes. It was hilarious.

My teammate couldn't get open as Richie's teammate was sticking to him like a  bug. Hungrily waiting for me to pass the ball when my teammate wasn't open.

The only option was for me to shoot it at the hoop.

It was an unrealistic shot, I couldn't pull it off like a normal shot with my fourth grader arm, I would have to throw it like a discus.

So I did.

The aim was so bad, it looked like I had thrown a baseball. It was only 4 feet off the ground and 10 ft right of the hoop.Back then it would be called an "Ultimate FAIL" XD

But instead of yelling "Ultimate FAIL" Richie yelled "He's tryna hit a GOPHER!"

All four of us fell flat to the ground cracking up.

I love the burning sensation one feels when they are laughing so hard their abs are getting quite the workout. It hurts, but the laughing feels so good, it's refreshing.

It took us another good 2 minutes of giggling until one of us crawled towards the place where the ball had gone, and to retrieve it in an attempt for the game to resume.

When we had the ball back, we all breathed in deep breaths to contain the laughter. We bit our lips, hoping that none of us would start laughing because we knew we all would.

The game continued for another 5 minutes until my teammate got stuck. Richie's teammate stuck to me like glue, not letting me get open for a pass. It was a hot day and so in the end I just gave up, I was too tired.

"Just shoot it" I yelled.

It was a good/bad idea. He did the same move as me, not being able to shoot it properly, he just threw the ball low and fast threw the air like it was a discus.

We didn't even need the punchline to start laughing. We all had the same phrase in our head.

But Richie said it anyway inbetween the gasps of breaths. "Are you *gasp* tryna hit a gopher?".

We all crumpled shapes on the ground. The supervisor, concerned came over to us thinking that we had just suffered from a heat stroke or something. When he finally realized that we were just laughing, he smiled also as we were trying to explain what had happened but just failed uselessly, saying bits of words like "He...ball...flew too low...gopher...".

He gave a great bellow with a blow of a whistle telling everyone to line up outside the door, ready to go back into the school.

We crawled into the school, still shaking with laughter. I started walking backwards trying to explain to the other kids the fun thing that had happened during recess. Making wild noises and dramatizing the whole event for comedic event.

It was fun. All my friends and peers were laughing.

What I didn't realize was that there were fire extinguishers that were hanging on the side of the walls in case of emergencies. I was walking backwards with my hand trailing the wall so that I would be able to hold onto the wall. But that also meant that fire extinguishers were a hazard.

Something else was that I was really short back then. I was just the right height for my head to hit the extinguisher.

So as I was retelling my story as I was walking backwards my head it the fire extinguisher.

"I was trapped, so I just threw the basketball like thi..." BAM, CLANG CLANG, roll.

All my friends fell to the floor laughing, and dying, while everyone else there was giggling.

My head hurt a lot, like to the point I felt like crying but it was too funny for me to cry, instead I just laughed along.

My laughter stopped when I realized that the teacher was glaring at me. I looked at her and where she pointed. The fire extinguisher. There was a massive dent in the fire extinguisher.

There were two things that I learned that day:

1. Making people laugh is fun and it feels good.
2. Fire extinguishers are expensive.

;)

Freezing Burns in the Morning

I'm not an early bird. That's for sure. 

Keep me awake with coffee or any other caffeine loaded beverage for the whole night any day, but waking up in the morning? Nope, not my thing. 

Yet going to school means I need to wake up from the beautiful feeling of sleep. I love going to school. School is a place where I can meet up with my friends. Yes that's the wrong reason for loving going to school but hey, at least I do.

Anyways, back to waking up. I hope my fellow night owls sympathize.

I'm so bad at waking up in the morning that I have to set up 3 alarms for myself with 10 minute intervals, and each with a snooze every five minutes so that I have 30 minutes of alarms going off for me to get up. In total I have 6 alarms going off every morning. Yes, I know that's sad. I sympathize for my future roommate that gets to hear all that.

The night before this painful morning, I had just been physically exhausted. P.E. during school where we had a running workout, then basketball practice, going to the YMCA with my mother, and then working my butt off to do all my homework (oh the pains). All of that equaled to one extremely tired Abraham. The moment I had finished all my homework and whatever else I needed to do I went to my bed to sleep, and I immediately fell asleep.

When it came time for me to wake up (round 6:30), my first alarm went off. But I didn't hear a thing. My body had decided that waking up wasn't worth the deliciously amazing beauty sleep that I was getting. 

So I slept through all 6 alarms that went off. When it came to be about 7:20 AM, my father knew that I was sleeping in, so he decided that it'd wouldn't definitely not be unnecessary to yell whilest barging into my room "ABULAHAM WAIK UP SON".

I immediately woke up, my body probably thinking there was some immediate physical danger. After realizing that it was just my father being excessively loud, my body decided it'd be fun for me to experience grogginess.

Disoriented and still half asleep, I made my way to my bathroom, turned on the lights groaned as the light blinded me. Squinting until my eyes would adjust, I jumped back, scaring myself by looking into the mirror when they did adjust. I looked around the clutter of items in front of me and grabbed the toothbrush and toothpaste.

Brushing my teeth wasn't always such a hard task, but this particular morning, the universe had decided that it would be. Opening the bottle of toothpaste, I decided that it would be a good idea to squeeze the toothpaste out onto my pointer finger then to my toothbrush.

So I squeezed out the toothpaste into my finger, but before I could transfer the toothpaste onto my toothbrush, I noticed that I had those eye booger thingies that you get in the corners of your eyes. So I also decided that it would be a good idea to pick them out.

I wiped my eye with my finger while the finger still held the 'would-be-painful-if-in-eye' toothpaste in it. Once I did, I realized the amount of stupidity the action that I just did was. My eye burned cold. I had never felt such thing in my life. It burned, but it burned cold. Every second that my eye was open, the moisture would dry out creating the feeling of cold burning.

I screamed out loud scaring the cat that had accompanied me into the bathroom, and because I was standing in front of the entrance, the cat had nowhere to go, and so it ran around the bathroom whilest I was screaming.

My brain slowly worked out that it would be a good idea to wash my eye so that the toothpaste could be washed away, so I tried, but washed the other eye. I screamed even louder.

After a while, and quite a considerable amount of blinking, the pain had somewhat subsided and I could see between my rapid blinking. I brushed my teeth (this time putting the toothpaste directly onto my toothbrush), washed my face, and did all other things to get ready for school.

I got in my car, after eating breakfast, and my father drove me and my sister to school.

When I got to school, my eye still burned freezing cold, and so I had to keep blinking my eyes. Upperclassmen laughed and looked at me weird as I walked up stairs to my locker.

When I got to my locker one of my friends asked "Dude what's wrong with your eye? Does it hurt? It's really red man. How does it hurt?"

I just sighed and said "It burns cold... It's... It's a long story"

;)

Kindergarten's Number 1 Epidemic

I was in kindergarten, and I didn't speak much English.

I'll let that sink in. 

I was a Korean boy that could barely speak any English and was thrown into the energy consuming purgatory with devil children, also called school. 

I never got the chance to go to a Korean school, because I was too young and so my first form of official education was one that happened to be when I was still in the midst of a culture shock.

But that's just some background info.

One eventful day when I was in Kindergarten I came upon the need to pee in the middle of story time. The teacher's loud and booming voice tickled my ears as her words just came out as random jumbles in my head. She was speaking nonsense. But apparently she was speaking important nonsense because a poor child asked to go to the bathroom feeling the call of the wild as I was feeling but just ended up getting yelled at.

I didn't want to get yelled at.

So I held it in.

I had decided that asking to go to the "BAHthwoom" (my pronunciation back then) wouldn't be worth getting yelled at by the ferocious and big woman the teacher was, and so being a little trooper that I was, I was going to wait until it was the end of class.

I waited, and waited, watching each second that passed by on the clock, and the more I thought about how much that I needed to go to the bathroom the more did I have to go pee. I crossed my legs, I tried not to think about peeing I curled my little kid hands into fists, then uncurled them, and grit my teeth as hard as I could.

Nothing worked.

When my bladder felt like it was about to explode I finally raised my hands having no regrets. I needed to go to the bathroom. Badly.

The teacher ignored me. I would assume that she thought I had a stupid question but little did she know that she was about to experience a first-hand kindergarten disaster.

I raised my hand, tall and high, as high as my arm would allow it and when the teacher didn't acknowledge my hand in the air, I even stood up a little, half standing and half crouching in the air.

I remembered on the first day of school the teacher had told me that I shouldn't get out of my seat and leave the classroom for any reason. There were no excuses to leaving the classroom. None. Ever. Period. Is what she had said, and I feared her greatly.

So half standing half sitting and reaching high for the sky, I let the floodgates open into sweet release. The horrible pleasure of warm, almost hot fluid streaming down my thighs and to my ankles being soaked up by the fabric of my jeans was terrible. The humility and the embarrassment that I felt as my hand was high and showing was like none other. So, not surprisingly, tears began to stream down my face and ugly sobs choked up my throat.

Finally, seeing the dark stains on my leg the teacher finally told me to just go to the office, and I did.

The people of the office were kindhearted and gave me looks like I was a hurt puppy. (It was what I needed at the time of course but now thinking about it, I laugh). They also pulled out a dirty pair of shorts out of the lost and found box and told me to change into them.

'Remember, I know your underwear is still wet, but you still need to wear it, okay? If you don't wear it, that's not clean.' One of the office ladies slowly said. I nodded.

So out of the office I came with shorts several sizes to big, first time wearing athletic shorts, realized how it felt with the air on my legs, and the breeze going straight through my shorts. I became fascinated with the fact that no matter how much of urine I smelled, that there were holes in the shorts allowing air travel through and give me the pleasure of no more stinky dark and damp jeans.

I hadn't understood crap about what she said.

;)