Ten D's I Never Learned in The MTC

As several of the people that follow this blog are associated with my days as a full time missionary, I have decided to write a post about 10 things I learned on my mission that no one ever teaches you about. Most of these are not meant to be taken totally seriously. Several of these are about food. Others are not. They actually all seem to either be about food or personal injury. Some of these are a bit risky to share, but it is what it is. These ten points are just my opinion. Some of you may disagree with them. Please contact me if you feel that I have again dishonored your Great Granny Bazookaloo (Two girls have already contacted me over the 10 P's of dating post; neither was happy).

1. Disgusting Mayonnaise. I began life as a hater of mayonnaise. And then I went on a mission. When I received my mission call numerous people told me I would have to eat dogs (see below), squat in every appointment and in every loo, and probably would lose weight (I served in one of those places). They never mentioned the whole "mayonnaise on a sweet potato" thing. Yet somehow on my very first full day in the mission field I was handed a sweet potato heaped with mayonnaise. After two years in the country and another five-and-a-half to contemplate the whole ordeal, I still am not quite sure if that was Elmer's wood glue or that putty stuff that my 4th grade teacher put in her wig to make it shimmer.

2.  Dislocation: If you stretch once, you will stretch forever. I made the mistake of leading the mission in stretches once at a Christmas party. I then led the mission in stretches for the rest of my mission. Some of those last zone conferences were the hardest because I had to continue to think of new stretches to do and I was becoming less and less flexible.

3. Dancing with the Saints' girls. There is a talk by Spencer W Kimball where he speaks on the evils of dancing with the Saints' girls. Yet I did it. I danced with 'dem girls. Now, I am rather poor at line dancing (Is that what that type of dancing was called?), however we had a ward party where I had to dance with the sister missionaries. Disclaimer: We never touched each other. I guess you could almost  say that I danced with my companion, but that sounds even more inappropriate, so we will stick with the first explanation. I learned from this experience that "If You're Gonna Play in Texas, You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band." I also learned that I am not built to dance. This has never hurt me in life.

4. Dames of correspondence. If you are a man, there are five types of women you might receive letters from on your mission: Grandmother, Mother, Sister, Girl you will marry, Girl you will not marry. I received three of these types. Keep in mind that I have no sister and I am not married. I am pretty sure that several of the girls that wrote me letters on my mission literally can no longer remember my name--and the rest wish they couldn't.

5. Dog tastes like beef. Just take my word for it. I've been to a dog farm.

6. Dress Code: Watch what the companion wears. Tie? Check. White shirt? Check. Nametag? Check. Leopard print pencil skirt? Check.....Wait what? Let's just say it had been a crazy two years and we were LOOONG gone. 'Nuff said.

7. Doors: Subway doors will shut on your head if you let them. My very first day in the mission field, even before the awful mayonnaise incident, I was riding on the subway to get to my area. I had all of my earthly possessions (and by that I mean 3 suitcases) with me. Somehow my trainer had also ended up at the "Meet your young padawan" meeting with his own suitcase. So we had a lot of burdens to carry and we were the beasts to bear them. Jollily we rode along on the subway until my companion realized our stop was THIS ONE, RIGHT HERE. He then made his grand exit. But when you have two bags the size of small cars, graceful exits will not be your forte. I was no different in this case. I grabbed my bags and lunged for the doors, right as they began to close. If those doors shut, it obviously would be bad, as I had no money and could not speak the language.  To make matters worse, the next subway stop left the mission. So thinking fast, I tried to throw myself out of the doors. But these huge bags held every part of me--besides my head--inside the subway. Yet my head got out! And the doors shut. I am pretty sure that the entirety of my 2 years passed in this next moment, but someone screamed and a lot of people jumped up. Somehow the doors opened and I got out. The rest of those missionary buffoons I was with thought it was quite the lark. 

8. Dream Diagnostics: Avoid the mission psychiatrist. Every year a psychiatrist would come and talk about mental health. Now I am in all seriousness an advocate of good mental health. However this guy always made me feel nuts. It is like when someone talks about lice. You just feel involuntarily itchy. I remember the time he came when I was about 4 months from going home. He gave a 15 point checklist for self diagnosing a mental illness. And I had about 13 of the 15 bullet points. Again, 'nuff said. 

9. Domestic delicacies: The weirdest food you will eat is "American." Some may disagree with me on this, but I ate some wacko pizza and hamburgers on my mission. All too often, someone would hand me food that was "American," yet had some strange twist done to it. The only possible place they could have received inspiration for that concoction is my elementary school cafeteria--and they sent four or five kids to the ER every year with their salad dressing alone.

10. Don't dink then drive: You can be involved in a hit and run and walk away from it. This probably was actually a true miracle. One day when I was walking to district meeting, a lady on a cell phone hit me with her car as I was walking down the side of the road. She swerved back into the road and drove away. Or at least she was gone when I was able to get up and ambulate again. (Somehow I actually got up and walked away from this). It was in front of the temple, so maybe that helped my cause. If you wonder, I did not tell my family about this until after I was home.

Bonus. For those that know: Bawk, Squawk, Squawk, Squawk. Chirp, Squawk, Tweetle.

The 10 P's of Dating

There is a talk called "Dating versus Hanging Out" by Dallin H Oaks (Given May 1, 2005) that has become legendary for those that advise the YSAs of the USA. I think that everything Elder Oaks says in that talk is based upon valid conclusions.  People just love to (mis)quote from it. It can be fun! Now I could write a lot about this talk and some of the odd dative dogmas that have sprouted like cheese mold from it. Perhaps at some point I will write a post about social statistics and what it tells us about marriage trends, dating, and hanging out (and how it is not at all as bad as we think). But for now you can read about the Gale Shapley algorithm on Wikipedia.  However, before moving on, let me just add that the last time that I hung out, none of you under age 30 were married. In fact I can think of a few people over age 30 that were not married at that point. I read from the talk again while writing this. Please do not look at what I say here as some sort of serious exposition on the topic of dating. Instead, this is a serious exposition on the topic of post Cold War approaches to reconstructing the poultry industry in Strandburg, South Dakota.....errrr wait, wrong blog......

 

And now!!!!The moment of truth!!!! The 10 P's of dating. But first a comment on the original three. They actually came from a teenage girl. We will overlook that. The original P's are "Planned," "Paid," and "Paired." Insofar as I can determine, I have never broken these rules. Although maybe I will receive multiple nasty messages from girls I've dated, saying I dissed them, their people, and their Great-Granny Bazookaloo. Well, I probably will get such messages whether I say anything on this blog or not, so there you have it.

Okay, now I really will post the 10 P's. These are all mine. Some are more pragmatic than others. In order for something to count as a date, you must fulfill at least 7 of the 10. 

1. Practice. Some of you may remember "Practice on the expendables." Do a few basic run throughs with your roommates. Watch for the high ball screen and the pick and roll. And someone box out Rondo!

2. Pack the Peanuts. Salted, unsalted, shelled, unshelled, dry roasted, honey roasted...doesn't really matter. Something high in protein will keep you in the game when you are feeling listless and all you can talk about is eggplant.

3. Precious. Say "My precious" at least three times on the date. The glory of this phrase is that it can be used in two different ways. If the lady is a romantic, "My precious" is a great term of endearment. I use different terms myself, however. On the other hand, if the situation dictates, you can use this exact same phrase, but said in a creepy Gollum voice. It all depends on the girl. Some of them really go for the "short, balding, ring-obsessed, man sporting only a loin cloth" types. 

4. Polka Dots. Something about white circles on a dark background just screams "Hey honeybunch, who's your dream boat?"

5. Puppetry. If you ever feel yourself grasping for things to say, a puppet should be your go to move. Sock puppet, marionette, ventriloquist dummy, or hand puppet; each will liven the mood. Both entertaining and educational, puppets can make even the most awkward situations manageable. Get in the groove and let the puppet do the talking. 

6. Prom. Don't go.

7. Personal Flotation Device (PFD). Marty McFly wore one for the entirety of the first Back To the Future movie. And girls liked him because of it. A PFD will significantly lower your risk of drowning in her ocean of emotion. Or at the very least you will not go down if the waiter spills your drink on you. Remember that most PFDs are dry clean only. 

8. Pass on the Princess. If she is a primadona with a tiara, you better check she's not still in preschool. Such a puerile practice should have been purged by prepubescence. As the saying goes, when you date a princess, you date her fairy godmother. And then you end up riding around in an oversized squash for the rest of your life. 

9. Pine Sol. Ladies love that fresh "just cleaned" smell. Dab a bit behind the ears and in the armpits. Avoid the mouth and eyes.

10. Progressively Peculiar. Begin the night by acting quite normal. Slowly ease the discussion towards a conversation on beavers. End the night by asking her opinion on men that wear hip waders to restaurants. Slowly raise your pant leg to show you have a pair on under your trousers. Smile knowingly because, hey, you have to use those waders and that $30 fishing pole somehow.
 

Validation

Earlier this year I attended a social function, which is rather rare for me. As with most social adventures of this nature, attendees came from various levels of coolness/importance in society. When I attend events such as this, I have a tendency to rank  the people in attendance. Here my rankings were based in large measure upon where a given person was sitting and with whom they were seated. The seating was not assigned, but attendees generally placed themselves in a sort of natural hierarchy. Those of larger importance at the party sat closer to the food. Those of lesser importance sat further from the food and also many times had fewer guests at their table.

Part of the way through the event, one of the associates that I attended this event with was invited to move from our table and ascend to a table of higher "rank." The people at this table were more highly regarded by those in attendance than the table I was seated at. The people at this table observed my associate and deemed him worthy to ascend to a higher rank. This was validation.

A person I was sharing my low ranking table with connected this to a parable in Luke 14. I will not fully relate it here, but it speaks of moving from a position of low rank to a position of higher rank at feasts.

Now I was okay with this associate moving up to a higher table, as he usually has zero validation in his life. As my brother and I have said, "Ryan always gets the short end of the stick." I like to think of it as the "bunting game." If you are familiar with baseball, sometimes when a player gets on base, the following batter will lay down a sacrifice bunt to move the base runner into scoring position. There are deeper examples of the bunting game that are topics for another day. (Generally, our success always comes at the expense of someone else. This leads to null/fixed points in topological sociology models. If you have seen A Beautiful Mind, John Nash studies topological sociology).

After this social event with said ascendancies, I began to think about validation. Generally there are four types of validation:

1. Validation we seek and which is appropriate.

2. Validation we seek, but which is not appropriate.

3. Validation we do not seek, but which is appropriate.

4. Validation we do not seek and which is not appropriate.

Here I will define "appropriate" as "validation that promotes a positive and meaningful outcome or existence." I will give examples of these in the following order: 3,2,1,4

My associate Ryan received type 3 validation. He did not seek to move up to a better table, but he was glad to do so.  

Now for #2. When I was a teenager, I was at a formal gathering of sorts. The final person to address us (a woman of about 32 years of age) got up and began her speech with a joke about nuns relieving themselves in a fountain of holy water and a priest drinking it. The joke was inappropriate on multiple levels. (And you know it's bad when a 14 year-old boy recognizes this).  But people laughed. And the joke would not have been funny even if told in a saloon at 2 a.m. Yet somehow people felt obligated to validate the lady for her poorly delivered and inappropriate joke. Type 2 validation.

I think we all get what #1 is talking about. You buy some sort of "cute outfit" and 23 tall dark and handsome men compliment you on it. This is of course an example from the perspective of a girl, albeit an example that probably never happens in real life. Let's face it, most men cannot even remember what they are wearing, let alone deliver a meaningful compliment to a girl on what she is wearing. This is perhaps because most men only know the names of basic items of clothing and stopped learning colors after the first grade. A man might say "Oh, Jennifer, that is a lovely red shirt." But, what the man does not know is that  Jennifer is wearing a "rosso corsa" (that's a color) rujjilerubbledijeridooin, which in some obscure Aborigine dialect  means 'thing made from a squirrel pelt that looks like a shirt, but is in fact also a pair of shoes and a designer Swiss watch that accentuates the eyes.'" This latter example possibly demonstrates #4. Jennifer does not seek validation in regard to her clothing in that manner and the validation was not appropriate.

 I actually have both given and received #4 type validation. I remember one time about 10 years ago when a girl told me she liked my shoes. Trying to be humble (or something), I told her I liked her shoes also. Then I noticed that she was wearing some ratty Reeboks that had probably seen about 20,000 miles. She was not seeking validation for her shoes and my attempt at validation was rather meaningless.

My receipt of #4 type validation occurred once when I was being given a calling at church. I was told that, with my "outgoing personality," I would be a great fit for a certain calling they wanted me to do. The only problem is that I have a corrosive and closed off personality. And admittedly I despise the "social church." So I was validated for being "outgoing," but am in truth about as outgoing as a squirrel pelt. Who knows, maybe they mistook my necktie for a rujjilerubbledijeridooin and thought it meant I actually liked people.



Note: I wrote this in part during a Math 675 seminar while a student was babbling about Puiseux Series Approximations.  Whatever that is. His handwriting was so bad that I could not follow him.