Honest to a Fault

The University of Colorado bookstore has a problem every year with immoral students stealing books, candy, iMacs, etc. During the first week of every semester, the store swarms with confused freshmen, and haughty looking upperclassmen. The store hires scores of student employees to monitor the crowd, and if they could, I'm sure they would provide these security forces with tasers to intimidate. However, since the student employees are mostly indifferent, high, hippie college students, theft still occasionally goes unnoticed. In my junior year of college, I braved the crowds to get my painfully heavy pile of books. For one of my books, the checker could not find the skew to ring up the price, so he just put the book in the bag with my purchased books. I gave him a baffled look, pulled the book out of the bag, and showed him where the skew was on the book. He countered with his own baffled look, drowsily said, "wow, you're honest," and continued checking out my books.

I left to meet some friends on the quad to eat lunch, and observed how inexpensive all my books were on my receipt when I realized that the checker decided not to charge me for my most expensive book, the $150 Voet and Voet Biochemisty text. Maybe he thought it was karma to give me my most expensive book for free, but I didn't see it that way. I called the bookstore, and told them they hadn't charged me for the text, and told them they could charge me over the phone if they wanted. The guy on the phone didn't believe me for some reason, and just started getting aggravated when I kept harrassing him to let me pay for the book. Frustrated, I told him that I was still on campus, and would just head back to the store and pay in person. I went back to the store, marched up to customer service, and explained the situation. The looks of incredulity on the staff's faces were awesome to behold. The customer service guy had his mouth slightly ajar the whole time he checked out my book.

He told me, "This is incredibly honest of you... I wish I could give you a discount, but I can't."

"That's alright," I said, "I was planning on buying the book anyway, so I have the money to pay." I've recounted this tale to people before, and I'm always amazed how people's opinions are split in half. They think I'm either really nice, or really stupid - honest to a fault.

Today, my honesty just turns into TMI situations. I tell people lots of things that they really don't need to know, like that dress makes you look like a hussy, or I had to dissect an asshole once in anatomy class. Sometimes I just blurt out my thoughts without thinking, but other times I think I blurt out personal details to make somebody else feel less isolated in their own problems. It's as if to say hey you're not alone, my life is awkward too. But the joke's on me, because almost nobody has a life nearly as awkward as mine, and nobody likes being called a hussy. I've integrated sassy sarcastic sayings into my honesty over the years to mess with people, but at the root of it all, I am just joking around and don't like telling lies. hmm... I'm not sure what the moral of this story is... maybe it's don't lie, or maybe it's lie in moderation... actually, it's probably honesty is for losers.

--By Farrah, who didn't want to say anything, but those pants give you muffin top... sorry!

The Boy Who Died

Unlike the rest of the backrow ballers, I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I sporadically go to the website Mugglenet.com to get the latest Harry Potter news, and I go see midnight showings for the newest films. I went to the midnight release for book 6 and had a grand time with my friends at Denver's own indie book store - The Tattered Cover. For book 7, however, I went to the mountains with my parents, and none of my friends could join me until the following day. I did not want to wait until the next morning to get my very own copy of the final installment, so I went to the midnight party at Borders in Dillon, CO... by myself. I endured the crowds of children screaming responses to trivia questions while their parents sat nearby rolling their eyes. After waiting in line for over an hour, I went home to read the first 150 pages before finally falling asleep.

Three of my friends joined me the next day, and we sat in a room in the condo, each with our own copy, each sitting on our own twin sized bed, and read the book all day long. After reading all day, my dad convinced us all to leave the room to go to an outdoor concert at the Dillon Amphitheater. We walked there with our books in tow, sat outside the concert on a bench, and read the book through the entire concert. There we were, surrounded by the beauty of Dillon lake and the Rocky Mountains, just reading - four dorks on a bench. We made up for it the next day by going whitewater rafting down the Arkansas river, but my dad still made fun of us all weekend for being so obsessed with Harry Potter's magical world.

Anyway, the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book is called "The boy who lived." Now, I don't want to give anything away, but it's pretty obvious that Ron kills Harry because of the monkey robot uprising. I think it would have been neat if JK Rowling had ended the book with a chapter called "The boy who died." Twelve-year-olds everywhere would hate her for killing their beloved wizard, but I would give her a high five for bringing the chapter titles full circle.

--By Farrah, who bruised her bum whitewater rafting, and now when she sits down it feels awkward

Meet the Epitome of Evil...Ann Coulter

I really hate Ann Coulter. Watching the above video made me viscerally angry. My stomach started churning (a sure sign that my acid reflux a la Ashlee Simpson was on the rise), and I felt a sudden urge to throw a pie at Ann's sad attempt at a "sexy" black dress (which actually reminds me of something from Liz Hurley's reject pile...circa 1994).

Anyways, fashion criticism aside, Ann reminds me of that loud, lanky, blond girl with stringy hair that no amount of John Frieda products could volumnize and an endless array of skimpy outfits from high school. She wasn't especially attractive but her loudness and ability to make pointed racist remarks about class minority/underdog granted her some social standing in the hierarchal world of high school. Despite her grating personality, her over the top, sensationalist comments kept her from being relegated her to the loser lunch table, but internally, you just hoped she got expelled or pregnant...or something.

Ann Coulter reminds me of this girl I knew in middle school, Betsey Jean (ahh, the South with its love of two-part names), who told me that I was "one of the Indians who wasn't that bad." Poor Betsey, still stuck in 1946, when India and Pakistan were one. She liked to call ethnic kids "damn foreigners" in her charming Southern drawl (granted, this was when said ethnic kid made her mad). Betsey finally left Carlisle our senior year, under a cloud of hazy circumstances, and unlike our gal Ann, she luckily sunk into anonymity.

And so, while freedom of speech rules, I really wish that Ann would shut the hell up.

--By Mariam, who feels that YouTube revolutionized Al Gore's second most important invention (after global warming).

My Love Affair...with The Ladies of The View

Recently, my three nameless bffs and I were told that watching a conversation between the four of us was like watching an entertaining episode of The View. This analogy was both fitting and truly exciting because I have watched The View since its inception in 1997. I was told that I was the Barbara Walters of the group, which I find to be an immense compliment because a) all of the other options seem less appealing (despite Elizabitch's hotness, her right wing politics are really offensive) and b) despite Barb's matronly wardrobe of prim power suits in primary colors, she is staid mainstay of the group...so thanks for the compliment.

Anyways, I find The View's lasting appeal in how real it is, and by this I mean how it is a testament to live awkwardness, a brand of humor that Ricky Gervais and I savor and relish. Most morning shows are not only aired at an offensively early hour, but they possess a bland, PR sheen. But on The View, the ladies get angry on air with each other and have to issue a round of apologetic, unbelievable statements to the press, like, "We are great friends. I sent Rosie/Joy/Elizabeth an email this morning!"

Above is an awesome testament to the "Elizabitch," resident hotty and the most famous Republican in Hollywood (besides the Terminator), as she get really temperamental at Perez Hilton, a Hollywood blogger. What results is a whole lot of...awkward.

--By Mariam, who finds the prospect of summer ending horrifying.