The Past in the Present

There was once a time when people made soap by hand. They would make lye from wood ash, mix it with water and animal fat, and boil it over an open fire. The process was hot and time-consuming, and pioneers would only do it in large batches once or twice a year. People used this process to make their own soap until it was largely replaced by commercial soap in the 20^th century, and the art of home-made soap gradually disappeared.  However, there are some who still practice the art of soap-making, preserving this piece of history in every bar they make. Patricia Fielding of Idaho Falls is one of those people.

In 1996, Fielding was looking for an easy way to supplement her income and support her seven children. One day she found herself in a ceramics shop. As she was leaving, she noticed a basket of rough-cut, hand-made bars of soap and decided to buy one for decoration. She wrapped it in raffia and put it in her bathroom, and there it sat for a couple years until, one day, she decided to use it.

“It felt different,” Fielding says. “I thought it was going to be wimpy, but it wasn’t.” She knew she wanted more, but that that bar of soap would run out eventually. She decided she would find out how to make soap by hand and enjoy that unique, old-time feeling again and again.

Rediscovering the art of soap-making was not an easy process, especially since there are so many ways to do it. The pioneers made a soft soap by boiling ash lye and refined animal fat over an open fire, but Fielding wanted a hard bar soap, which takes a little more time and effort. “I did some trial and error,” she recalls. “I made some goop, I made some stuff that was not pretty at all, and then I finally figured out how to do it.”

Whether it’s hard bar soap, soft pioneer soap, or liquid hand soap, the basic ingredients remain the same – oils and lye. Pioneers used refined animal fat called tallow, but any oil will do. The combination of oils determines the qualities of the soap. Each one will contribute its own characteristic, whether it makes more lather or whether it makes the bar harder or softer.

The other ingredient, lye, comes in many forms as well. Pioneers mixed wood ash with water. Wood ash contains potassium hydroxide, which modern soap-makers use today. Patricia prefers using sodium hydroxide for her bar soap, but both will make lye. Patricia says lye has a bad reputation because it’s a dangerous caustic. It can cause skin rashes and even first or second-degree burns if left in contact with skin for too long.

Fielding starts by mixing the lye and oil mixture in a stainless steel pot over constant heat, just as the pioneers did. “The kids hated it, because you’d have to stir for 45 minutes to an hour,” she says with a laugh. Sometimes she’d get her local Cub Scout troop to help out. “They can each stir for about five minutes, and by the time the whole pack got done stirring soap, it’d be done,” she says.

Once the soap begins to harden, it’s poured it into molds, and the soap itself does the rest. Mixing lye and oils begins a chemical reaction that generates its own heat, so as long as it’s insulated inside the mold, it will cook itself.

Once the soap hardens in the mold, it can be cut into bars and set on shelves to finish drying. After a few weeks, it’s ready to be used – or, as Fielding found, packaged and sold to stores across the country. It turns out she wasn’t the only one who thought hand-made soap was something special. She gave a few bars to her neighbors, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. “One neighbor said, ‘My husband really likes this stuff, I’d like to buy a whole bunch from you,’” she says.

She researched how much it would cost and where she could get supplies and decided to give it a try. In December of 1997, she borrowed $300, made several hundred bars of soap, and set up a booth at a local craft fair. Before the second day had ended, she’d sold every bar she’d made and went home with orders for more. She was able to pay off her debt and make a $350 profit. She used that money to buy more materials, and in January of 1998, she opened her own soap company, Rainy Creek Soap, which specializes in hand-made soap.

The interest in her soap extended well beyond Idaho Falls. “My very first ever customer was the Mangy Moose in Jackson, Wyoming,” Fielding says. “They just have a standing order of ‘x’ number of bars per every other week.” Most of her sales are to gift shops, where people from all over can find her hand-made soap and discover what she found at that ceramic shop in ‘96.

Fielding’s product line has expanded beyond hand-crafted bars of soap. She now makes lotions, lip balm, body butters, and bath salts, all of it by hand. She has since improved her methods to meet increasing demands for her products. In the early days, she made 24-bar batches with a small stainless steel pot, a few plastic-lined cardboard boxes, and a homemade soap cutter. Now she can make batches of 900 bars at a time using a large steel vat, specialized molds, and large soap cutters. She has improved her formula as well, reducing the average cook time to 20 minutes, which allows her to make more soap in less time. Still, the process is basically the same as it was a hundred years ago, and her soap sometimes sells faster than she can get it off the drying rack.

Most of all, though, she has renewed a connection with her pioneer ancestors of old. Though she may not compete with the large companies, her product has found its place in the hearts of those who recognize in her hand-made soap something special.

Tanks and Petra

It was a normal day until the tank flew through his window.

Sterling had only just gotten home from the library when it happened. He walked into his tiny two-room apartment – if bathrooms count as a second room – and was looking for something to appear in his refrigerator when an obnoxious buzzing drilled its way into his eardrum. He walked to the window and saw the miniature tank plummeting towards him. He dove out of the way just before the tank smashed the glass and crash-landed on his bed, spewing smoke and ash.

This, of course, did not improve Sterling’s already sour mood. Four years studying history at a ridiculously expensive university had landed him a dead-end job in the children’s section of the city library. Why did the library bother maintaining a children’s section, anyway? All kids cared about these days were their video games and third-grade boyfriends. Sterling loved books, but the job was pointless and boring. He desperately hoped that another opportunity would pop up. A broken window and ruined sheets were the exact opposite of what he needed.

Sterling watched the tank warily. It was about a foot and a half long, and its treads were coating in black muck. A hatch opened above the turret, and a four-inch tall man crawled out, cursing under his breath. His skin and hair were dark, and he wore grimy overalls over a soot-covered orange t-shirt. He opened a hatch at the front of the tank, letting loose a fresh cloud of smoke, and started doing something that involved a wrench and a lot of banging.

Sterling had no idea who – or even what – the man was or why he’d crash-landed on his bed, but Sterling wasn’t going to stand for it. “Who are you and what do you want?”

The man noticed him for the first time and squinted at him from inside the tank. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” he demanded, his voice deep.

“Ruining my sheets.”

The man shook his head and returned to his work. Sterling crossed the room and grabbed the man by his overalls. “Hey! Lemme go!” the man shouted, striking Sterling’s fingers with his tiny wrench.

“Not ‘till you tell me who you are and why you crashed a tank on my bed,” Sterling answered.

“What’s going on?” A female voice emerged from the tank, followed by a five-inch female body. She caught sight of her companion in Sterling’s grasp and said, “Oh my.”

“I think I’mma need a little help here, Petra,” the man said.

“Listen, sir,” the female said slowly. “We apologize for the intrusion. We had some mechanical problems, but if you’ll release my mechanic, we’ll be on our way in a moment.”

Sterling looked back and forth between the two tiny people. “Seriously, what are you?”

“Man, this guy’s a scratched CD,” the man mumbled.

“We’re representatives of the United Federation of Spirits and Sprites on our way to negotiate a peace treaty between the nymphs and the gremlins,” the woman explained. “Please, our mission is urgent, and we cannot afford delays.”

“So you’re fairies?”

“Hey, you gone too far now!” the man shouted, swinging his wrench at Sterling’s fingers.

“Tanks, please!” the woman said. Apparently the man was named after his vehicle. To Sterling, she added, “Please, sir. We’ll only be a moment.”

Sterling put Tanks on the bed and stepped back. “Fine. Just make it quick. I don’t need a bunch of fairies or pixies or whatever in my apartment.”

Tanks grumbled something Sterling couldn’t hear and returned to his repairs. “My name is Petra,” the woman said. “If you don’t mind, sir, might I ask your name?”

“Sterling,” he answered. Petra was clearly the diplomat of the outfit, and not just because of her even temper. She was wearing white robes lined with blue at the seams, and she had a silver tiara on her head. Sterling supposed she was attractive, but he didn’t usually go after women who were barely five inches tall.

Wait a minute. Sterling shook his head. Now that the shock had worn off, he had to be hallucinating. “Okay, deep breaths,” he muttered. “Just calm down, and they’ll go away.”

“Man, what you talkin’ ‘bout?”

Much to his annoyance, the two tiny people and miniature tank were still on his bed. “Alright, this is crazy,” Sterling said. “Fairies don’t exist. This has to be a nervous breakdown or something.”

“Hey man, you lookin’ to get beat or somethin’?” Tanks demanded.

“You shut up. I don’t believe in fairies.”

Petra looked stricken. “Sterling, please! Every time someone says that-”

“A fairy somewhere drops dead, I know,” Sterling interrupted.

“No, Tanks tries to blow his face off.”

Sterling looked down at Tanks, who stood expectantly with his beefy arms crossed. “I’ll do it. Don’t you doubt it.”

Sterling gave up. This was at least more interesting than alphabetizing picture books all day, even if it was all in his head. “So, you’re off to negotiate a peace treaty?”

“Oh, yes,” Petra said emphatically while Tanks returned to his work. “It’s quite dreadful. The nymphs and gremlins are always quarreling, even at the best of times, but now they’ve become practically impossible. The nymphs raided one of the gremlin outposts yesterday, and unless we can-”

“Yeah, not to be rude, but isn’t taking a tank to a peace treaty kind of a bad idea?”

“You’ve obviously never dealt with nymphs before,” Tanks called from the tank’s innards. “Besides, this baby’s the fastest thing we got.”

“Don’t fairies have wings?”

Tanks extracted himself from his work. “Man, I told you to stop calling us fairies!”

“It’s a sensitive topic,” Petra explained. “The fairies broke away from the Federation several years ago.”

“So the fairies are like rebels?”

“They’re worse,” Tanks said from somewhere inside the tank. “They’ve been attackin’ and raidin’ the Federation ever since, wipin’ out whoever they want.”

“So why don’t you send your tank in after them?” Sterling asked.

“You think we’re the only ones with tanks?” Tanks said as he slammed the lid shut. “They’re the reason we had to land. This ol’ girl’s tough, but not indestructible.”

“Al…righty then.”

“Well, she’s as good as she’s gonna get for now,” Tanks told Petra. “We’d better be off before they track us here.”

“Right.” Petra turned to Sterling with a smile. “Sterling, we thank you for your hospitality and take our leave.”

Sterling wanted to point out that he hadn’t offered them anything, but decided he didn’t care enough to fight about it. The two climbed into the tank and took off, flying through the window and out of sight. Sterling dug a board out of the dumpster outside and put it over the window. Hopefully he’d be able to get it fixed before the landlord noticed.

Microblogs 1

The Republican Primaries

The problem I have with politics (or anything conroversial) is that so many people are completely polarized and set in their ways. It seems these people come out more on the internet and major political events than in real life. Their represenation is proportionally greater than the actual population. Candidates need to pander to the extremes of their party in order to win the primaries, and then suddenly take a more moderate view to appeal to the general public. How can we tell what a candidate's real stance and ideas are when they have to say what pleases the crowd in order to get elected in the first place?

I think politics, in this aspect, is just a silly popularity contest and a test of how well a person can play to the crowd, rather than whether or not he can make the country a better place. I think this country and politics would be a lot better (and more palatable for the genreal public) if the candidates would focus more on what they uniquely can give the country, rather than telling crowds what they want to hear and trying to trip up the other candidates. The Republican candidates focus a lot on "who can beat Obama," as though the focus were to defeat Obama rather than strengthen the country. Some say that the two are one and the same, but others will disagree.

 

Hurricane Elrond

 

The worsts storms I have ever experienced were during my mission in Mexico, particularly the cities. Most of them don't have anywhere for water to drain off the road, so in heavy rain, it's almost easier to row to appointments than walk or drive. The first time I had this experience was in an area called Cosoleacaque. I had only been out for six months, and we were headed to an appointment when the rain started. My companion and I took shelter under a roof to wait the storm out. Unfortunately, it lasted longer than either of us expected.

The street slowly filled with water, and we moved closer to the house to avoid the rain. Wind soon drove the rain sideways, rendering our shelter useless. Finally, we decided to make a run for the house. We dashed into the street, water rushing by our ankles. By the time we got to our house it was halfway up our calves, and our clothes were completely soaked. We hurried inside and changed all our clothes to avoid getting sick and decided to study until the storm abated.

(By the way, that title is completely irrelevent.)

On the Monarch of the Sea

This is a project I did for my Advanced Media Writing class. One day, I went out to the graveyard in Rexburg and picked a random tombstone. I then had to find as much as we could about that person and his life and write about something that happened to him with as much detail as possible.

Note: The hyperlinks for the footnotes are kind of not working for me. It'll probably be easier to just scroll down to see them.

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On the Monarch of the Sea

Liverpool, England; May 16, 1861

            Hundreds of immigrants swarmed the docks, making their final preparations before boarding the Monarch of the Sea for their month-long voyage to America. Voices speaking in English, French, Dutch, German, and Swiss buzzed with anticipation. Presidents Lyman, Rich, and Cannon had just organized the party of nearly a thousand saints and appointed Elder Jabez Woodard as President during the voyage, with Elders Hanz . O. Hansen and Niels Wilhelmsen as his counselors. Soon the ship would lift anchor, and the next leg of the long journey to Utah would begin.

            Casper Steiner stayed close to his parents so he wouldn’t get lost in the masses. He and his family had been baptized the year before, when he was but fourteen, and now they had left their home in Bern, Switzerland to join the rest of the Saints in Utah. They had arrived in Liverpool just two days ago, and within hours they had secured passage on the Monarch of the Sea with a company of about 560 converts from Denmark, Switzerland, and Norway. In total, almost a thousand Saints would be making this voyage. Rumor said that the Monarch was the largest ship to have carried Latter-day Saints across the Atlantic thus far. Rumor also said that this was the largest company of Saints to make the voyage on one ship. Casper had no trouble believing either.

            The Saints gradually made their way to the steerage, the lowest deck of the ship, where they would be staying for the duration of the voyage. There was almost no privacy, or even room to move about, among so many travelers packed into so small a space. Already some of the Saints were murmuring about the cramped space and the rickety state of the ship. Casper hoped the meals wouldn’t cause further dissention. He’d heard from other travelers that the food given to steerage passengers was unsatisfactory more often than not.

            Soon the ship set sail, and the voyage began. It would take one month to reach New York. From there, the Saints would travel by land to reach Utah. Then their new lives would begin.

            Casper ate his cold lunch in silence, envying the passengers whose turn it was to cook. He knew it was impossible for everyone to cook all their meals, and that the limitation of five hot meals a week was necessary, but he longed for a bit of bacon to go with his hard tack. The provisions were decent, and sometimes the captain would send a little soup down to them, but the smell of warm bacon he could not have made his stomach rumble nonetheless.

            Casper noticed a little Swedish girl, about six years old, eating what looked like a dried apple slice[1]. “What’s your name?” he asked in German. The girl looked startled and hid the apple behind her back. He wondered where she’d gotten the apple in the first place. Passengers in the steerage didn’t usually get such rations. She didn’t look like she spoke German, so he decided to let her be.

            Casper went up on deck to get some fresh air. The smell in the steerage was becoming unbearable, and the air was always stale. The sea was choppy today, and he saw a few icebergs in the distance. One must have been at least 200 feet high, but he had no way of knowing for sure. Two young Swedish women were standing a short distance away, pointing towards the icebergs. Above them, a young sailor was working in the mast. A heavy iron spike slipped from his grasp and plummeted to the deck. There was a dull thud! and one of the Swedish girls cried out in pain, blood streaming from her head.

            The young sailor quickly climbed down from the mast. A couple officers were already at her side. The other girl had disappeared inside the ship, undoubtedly to find the injured girl’s mother. The officers immediately began yelling at the young sailor, and soon their argument came to blows. Casper knew it had been an accident, but he had no way of telling the officers, so the beating continued, causing passersby to stop and watch.

            The girl’s mother emerged from below. By now a small crowd had gathered around the scene, some to help the injured girl and others to shout their disdain at the young sailor. The mother pushed her way through the crowd and began yelling at the officers in Swedish. Though few understood her words, everyone could see what she meant. “You leave him be!” she was saying. “He never meant to hurt my daughter!”

            The officers backed away from the young sailor, who thanked the Swedish woman for her kindness. The girl was taken below to rest and recover. Though the sailor and the woman spoke different languages, their messages were clear to all who saw.

            The kitchen bustled. Mealtime was nearing, and the sailors wanted their food. The Negro cook was passing food to the crew as fast as he could, and soon the crowd dispersed. Casper didn’t usually come here, but the Danish boys he usually played with were in a sacrament meeting. With so many Saints onboard, President Woodard had divided them into 11 wards, and some held meetings during the week[2]. His ward usually met on Tuesdays, but rough weather had forced them to cancel the meeting. Even now, too many got seasick for them to really gather and share their testimonies.

            Casper noticed the little Swedish girl talking to the Negro cook. She was well-known among the crew and had befriended most of the sailors. As he watched, the cook passed her a couple prunes when he thought no one was looking. Casper pretended not to notice as the little girl hurried away with her prize. He wondered what the punishment would be if Captain Gardner found out the cook was sneaking treats to the steerage passengers. The Captain was a kind man, but strict, and the little girl was by no means the only beneficiary of the Negro’s generosity. He would sneak soup down to the Saints from time to time, and Casper had a feeling the missing soup would not go unnoticed for much longer.

            The ship creaked and groaned as the storm raged around it. The Saints had been huddled in the steerage for four days, and the tempest showed no signs of ending. The crew had readied all six longboats in case the Monarch began to go under and had sworn that no Mormon would get on them. Casper knew it was unfair, but there was nothing they could do to persuade the sailors otherwise. They were all frightened, despite Captain Gardner’s reassurance that they would make it to New York. “We always get through when we have Mormons,” he’d said.

            On the fourth day, President Woodard called several elders together and began speaking to them in low tones. Then he announced, “We are going outside to pray for our safety. If you aren’t praying already, now would be a good time to start.” The group of elders headed for the upper decks, and the steerage soon filled with a thousand muttered prayers.[3]

            A short time later, the winds grew still and the waves shrank. The storm had passed. “I told you we’d make it,” Captain Gardner said. “We always get through when we have Mormons.”

            The Negro cook was dead. Rumor had it that the captain had starved him to death after he found out he was giving the Saints food he shouldn’t have given them. Now his body was wrapped in a sheet and lying on a long board with a weight tied to his legs. The sailors carried him to the side of the ship and slid him into the ocean. There was a splash, and then nothing.

            The little Swedish girl stood on the deck for a while, crying, until her mother came and took her below. Casper followed them a few minutes later.

            The Matriarch landed in New York after 35 days at sea. A thousand Saints disembarked in Castle Garden under the watchful gaze of the Goddess of Liberty.[4] They thanked the crew for their kind treatment and carried their things ashore. Soldiers were marching through the streets, recruiting men to fight against the South, which had rebelled against the North. Casper didn’t know what that meant for him or his family, but he hoped they wouldn’t be separated before they reached Utah.

            Castle Garden seemed to be where all the emigrants came. People were spreading quilts and blankets on the dirty floor to sleep on during the night. Some of the emigrants found shelter in hotels. They only spent a few days in New York before continuing on to Salt Lake.[5]

            The party arrived in Salt Lake in September of that year. Casper would go on to settle Rexburg with his wife and children. He would serve as a bishop and as a member of the high council before succumbing to pneumonia in January of 1910. Of course, he had no way of knowing this as a boy of fifteen lying on the floor in Castle Garden. Only God knew what his future would hold.

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[1] I don’t know if Casper Steiner and Alma Elizabeth Mineer Felt ever met or spoke. However, given the circumstances, I think it’s likely.

[2] Whether they were forced to do so with so many wards or whether they simply enjoyed gathering to share testimonies is unclear from the evidence I’ve gathered.

[3] I don’t know the details of how this event happened, but this seems a reasonable guess as to how it might have occurred.

[4] This I assume is an older name for the Statue of Liberty.

[5] Here the various accounts of the journey differ, and it’s probable that different families took different routes. I used the route that seems most common to me.

Simple Things

So up here in Rexburg, it snows a lot, and this week has been no exception. I had my first experience shoveling a sidewalk last night, which was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Turns out no matter how much you scoop and scrape, you'll never get it all off. (I found out later we had a bucket of salt specifically for that purpose. Go figure, huh?)

Anyways, yesterday I had a 9:00 shift at the writing center, where I've been working since last semester. That might sound miserable, but the shift was only an hour long, and besides, I really enjoy the work there. I had my science class at 10:15 in a building nearby, so at 10:00 I clocked out and headed to class. The writing center is located on the 2nd floor of the library, which doesn't usually see a lot of traffic. The first floor, on the other hand, was pretty crowded, since most students were headed to and from class, and the library is a nice, warm shortcut across campus.

I made it out the front doors without a problem and started walking to the science building. As I looked around, I noticed a woman who was not walking on the sidewalk, but rather making footprints in the snow. At first I thought she was trying to save two seconds on her commute by cutting through the grass, but she seemed to be walking in circles. She was smiling and laughing, almost like a child. She was an older woman with graying hair and dressed like a teacher, though I couldn't figure out why a professor would be making snow tracks.

The first thought that crossed my mind was that she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but though I tried, I couldn't see in her face any sign of mental problems. She lay down and started making a snow angel (though there wasn't really enough snow for that yet), and then I passed her, trying not to look back. What could be wrong with her? I thought to myself.

As I entered the building and started climbing the stairs, a thought occurred to me: Why do you think something's wrong with her? As I thought about it, I realized I really didn't have a reason to think there was. So she liked the snow. Doesn't everyone, to some degree? Little kids make snow tracks and snow angels all the time. Why can't grown people do the same?

In today's society, we're all expected to 'act our age.' And certainly there are times when being professional is critical. But other times, maybe more than we realize, is there really anything wrong about returning to the simple joys of childhood? Growing up doesn't have to be accompanied by growing cold, dull, and lifeless. There'll be plenty of time for that when we're dead. Is it wrong to be awestruck by a sunset or raindrops on water or crashing waves or a fresh coat of snow? There was nothing wrong with that woman outside the library; if anything, there was something wrong with me. For it was I who had lost sight of the simple things that can bring us joy if we let them. The world is full of problems. Why not take a moment to enjoy the good things, no matter how small, that happen to come our way?

The Pong-themed Wedding

So Britny and I were discussing wedding themes, and she asked me what video game I'd like to use as a wedding theme. I answered, "Pong." Britny was quick to tell me that wasn't possible, but I begged to differ. This is what my Pong-themed wedding would look like:

Needless to say, we won't be using this theme for our wedding. But, it is possible!

How I Met Britny

My middle school cafeteria was average, I guess. The floors and ceiling were off-white and dull, the walls were a brownish tan, and the tables and chairs were so entirely unremarkable that I can’t recall anything unique about them. It served the usual selection of cafeteria food – pizza-shaped rubber, filler burgers, and might-be-chicken sandwiches, all of it slathered in grease. Like most middle school guys I knew, I didn’t much care what it was so long as it was warm and tasted vaguely like what it was supposed to resemble.

I had one friend, JJ, who would always buy pizza and dab the oily residue away with a stack of paper napkins, noting that he was “wiping the acne off.” The rest of knew he was just being silly. After all, nutrition facts only mattered on health tests, not in real-life application. Our favorite lunchroom game, “Spewing Fruitworks, consisted of me taking a drink of my favorite lunchtime beverage –  a FruitWorks-brand strawberry lemonade – and one of my friends making me laugh mid-swig. The resulting explosion would cover a good part of the table with spit-laden, strawberry-flavored pink liquid and probably made most of the cleaning ladies hate our guts.

It was in these less-than-glorious circumstances that I met the girl of my dreams.

Sometime during my seventh-grade year, between wiping the grease off his pizza and making me spray perfectly good carbonated drink across the table, JJ was telling us about a girl he was dating. The whole thing seemed very odd to me. After all, we were only thirteen, barely even teenagers. I’d seen and heard about people ‘dating’ but never given it much thought, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be real dating. You couldn’t do that ‘till you were sixteen, after all.

“How long have you been dating?” one of my friends – probably Brandon – asked over the general hubbub of the cafeteria.

“About a week,” JJ answered. He had long brown hair that flopped over his eyes and an old blue coat that had probably been in his family for a couple generations. He was usually the most socially awkward one of the group, which made his current relationship status all the more surprising.

“So what have you guys been doing?” another – Stephen, perhaps – inquired.

“Um… nothing,” JJ answered. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve talked to her since I asked her out.”

I was only halfway paying attention to this conversation. I was probably forming a self-righteous rant in my head about how much better I was because I would follow the Prophet’s counsel and wait until I reached the designated age. I was far too timid to actually share it, of course, but gratifying my pride didn’t require anyone other than myself and my overactive imagination. I don’t want to date right now anyway, I told myself – even if I had, I was far too chicken to actually ask anyone – so it doesn’t even matter.

“I want to be a good boyfriend for her,” JJ was saying, “so I’ve decided to stop watching South Park.” I only knew about two things about South Park: we didn’t get whatever channel it was on, and my parents didn’t like it. Since I still got most of my opinions from my parents, I disliked it as well without really knowing why. It also happened to be JJ’s favorite program, which was why his ‘sacrifice’ was so impressive.

A few minutes later, a girl appeared at JJ’s shoulder. She was thin and had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. She was probably wearing a purple T-shirt. I didn’t recognize her, but then, I didn’t recognize a lot of people back then.

“Hey, JJ,” she said.

“Oh, hey, Britny,” JJ replied. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” the girl named Britny answered. “So… listen, about us dating… I don’t think it’s working out.”

I’d never been in a relationship before, but my parents had subjected me to a sufficient number of romance movies for me to recognize that this was a breakup and to know what the generally appropriate response was to the situation. Apparently, JJ’s parents hadn’t taken such an interest in their son’s future love life.

“Oh,” JJ said. “Well, actually, that’s kind of a relief. Now I can watch South Park again.”

Britny stood there for a moment, and then left without another word. The rest of us turned to JJ in disbelief.

“Dude, you don’t say that right in front of her!”

“Shouldn’t you be upset or something?”

Being thirteen-year-old boys, we had a good laugh while instructing our friend on proper breakup etiquette. A few minutes later, we were back to our grease-wiping, drink-spewing games as though nothing had happened. That was the first time I met Britny Lewis. Little did I know that almost a decade later, she would become my fiancée.