Thanks for the ride, Uncle George.

At the very beginning of Fall semester this year, our ward (for those of you who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a ward is our term for a congregation at church) had the first "break the fast" of the semester (for those who don't know what this is: on the first Sunday of each month Mormons fast for 24 hours and donate the money we would have spent on food for those meals to the church's system of feeding those who cannot feed themselves. In designated singles wards [meaning all the people who attend are young and unmarried] we have a party-esque meeting on Fast Sunday evenings where we get together to break our fast with yummy food) ANYWAY. The first break the fast was held at the house of one of the members in our Bishopric. Although this was very generous, I don't think our leaders realized that for a ward containing a large amount of young college students, the vast majority of whom did not have a car, it was unwise to hold an activity 3 miles from our apartment complex. (They have since remedied this by holding activities at more convenient locations)

At this point in time, none of the six of us (me and my roommates) had automotive transportation. We decided that we would ride bikes there, even though only two out of the six of us had bikes, and one of those bikes had two flat tires. We were not deterred.

We unsuccessfully attempted to fit all six of us on one bike (remember, the other bike had flat tires and as college students, none of us wanted to invest in a bike pump). We literally spent at least 45 minutes trying to configure ourselves onto a bike. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, and we were not about to let the evil bike win. At some point, I think we toppled over and the bike crushed me (I should have realized then that I would not be getting along with bikes ever again.). After several bumps and bruises, we realized that it was really only logical to fit three on one bike. (because of course, that seems logical...) We rode around in circles this way for a bit and decided we could make it work. However, some of our male friends saw us through their apartment window and were rightly outraged at our dangerous attempts at transporting ourselves. (In reality, I believe we knocked on their window to draw their attention to our idiotic exploits, trusting in the righteous indignation that would surely fuel them into assisting us in our quest.) Regardless of how these young men noticed us, we somehow ended up trying to convince them to loan us a bike (none of them had cars either). After successfully being unable to attain a bike, we decided to seek other alternatives.

My roommate who shall be referred to as Cat Lady told us that she could probably convince her uncle to give us a ride.We all agreed that this would be best. Uncle George showed up to take us to the random house that we had never been to before, nor did we know the exact location of. An increasingly awkward car ride ensued. Uncle George seemed quite annoyed at our plight, and the fact that we were all very compressed in the back seat of his car did not seem to make him any happier. As I recall, the ride was partially filled with silence broken up by our pleading glances to one another and partly Uncle George telling us that we would need to find our own way home because he had better things to do than pick us up later in the evening. We were all wondering how we would manage the three mile trek back home in our heels, navigating the labyrinth of unfamiliar Provo neighborhoods.

Eventually, we arrived at what we thought was the correct address (in reality we were approximately two houses down.) Once the car came to a halt, my cool roommate opened the door and began to disembark. With one foot out the door, and approximately 50 percent of her weight distributed within the confines of Uncle George's vehicle, the car lurched forward. I couldn't help but chuckle at the disgruntled state of my roommate's predicament. Her forward motion caused her to move in a continuous trajectory, forcing her to stumble out of the car. Uncle George continued driving, apparently unaware that one of his passengers was no longer in the cluttered back seat. My cool roommate tried to walk alongside the car as we shut the door and continued driving. Her bewildered look was matched with ours and we all chuckled as we drove a few more feet, arriving at the correct address. (I think it is worth mentioning that at this point, we had been living together for a week or two and did not really know one another very well.) We thanked Uncle George for the ride and carefully left the car, attempting to withhold our laughter until we were a safe distance from the vehicle. We still talk about our wonderful exploits with Uncle George's car...

We had our Bishop give us a ride home after the activity.

-E