Its a fashion statement

Half-way through my Pathophysiology class today the girl sitting behind me leaned over and asked me if I knew that my polo shirt was on inside-out. I thought it was a joke until I looked down and noticed the stitching on my sleeves were clearly outside. I told her I was making a fashion statement...then I busted up laughing because I actually had no idea that I'd gone the entire morning with my shirt inside-out. Good thing the tag on my back made it obvious to everyone else.

They dont teach manners in Medical School

[Not the actual Dr P. Just
a stock photo I found
on the interwebs]

Job shadowing at the hospital is essential for medical school applications because it gives us pre-med students a chance to really experience healthcare firsthand. But some learning experiences are more painful than others… Doctor P was an intelligent woman who probably didn't mean to come off as rude, but social interactions were definitely not her strong point. As I followed her through her rounds, I asked a question here and there—just like I usually do with the doctors I'm shadowing. Most of them love imparting their vast stores of medical knowledge to easily impressed pre-med students who'll believe anything they say. But apparently Dr. P is not “most doctors.” I asked her about some of the treatments, diseases, and terminology that she had used on one of her patients, and after a minute, she turned to me and said "you know Spencer, I'll just give you my medical dictionary so you don't have to keep asking what some people would consider to be stupid questions."  (Very awkward pause) Wait seriously, did you really just say that? I spent the rest of the morning chuckling quietly to myself in disbelief; and what made it even better was that we still had 2 more hours of shadowing to go! I decided to save the rest of my questions for a doctor who actually cares…

Grandpas favorite cookie

With all of the family that constantly visit, my grandparents always keep their pantry stocked with goodies. Oreos are a favorite of both young and old alike, including my Grandpa Smith. He was recently fitted with dentures, and much to his dismay, he was also told that he needed to cut down on his sugar intake.  With close supervision from Grandma he seemed to be adjusting quite well; however, one night my grandparents retired to bed and I decided to grab some snacks and finish the movie I was watching.  The lights were all out except for the sporadic flickering of the television when I reached into the pantry and grabbed a handful of Oreos. I popped one in my mouth and immediately recognized that something was amiss. I ate another one, and sure enough, they seemed “dry.” I flipped on the light and began to inspect the cookies. Much to my surprise, there was no cream filling!  My grandpa was unable to crunch the Oreos without his teeth, so he would pull the cookies apart, suck off the cream, and stick the chocolate halves back in the pantry to keep Grandma from knowing! I wonder if he ever considered what would happen when the grandkids came over?

Kayak to the kisser

Kayaking is now officially one of my favorite activities in the entire world, even though the learning curve was pretty steep. I was taking an Outdoor Recreation class and all fourteen of us were figuring this out together.  After several minutes of maneuvering without any problems, the wind picked up and things began to get interesting.  I leaned hard to the right, hoping to compensate for my sudden instability as a wall of water caught me from behind and plunged me headlong into the wake. The frigid waves engulfed me, and I thrust myself—gasping—to the surface. As soon as my head emerged, I began to make my way towards the capsized vessel when I heard a sudden shriek from behind me: "Watch out!" I spun around to see another unruly kayaker barreling towards me, only a couple feet away. This girl had seen me tip and whipped her boat around to try and help.  The only thing is, she didn’t really know how to steer and the tip of her kayak torpedo-ed me right in the kisser.  My jaw took the brunt of the impact and the boat slid over top of me, forcing my head back under the surf.  It hurt to chew for next few days, but have you ever seen a goose egg on the side of someone’s face?  That was awesome.

Hmm, no one told me I was getting married?

     Tuesday is my busy day. It’s a continual rush from one place to another so I never really have time to use my cell phone, which usually just sits in my coat pocket on silent. This particular week, in between one of my classes I checked my phone and saw that I'd missed 3 calls from mom. Kinda weird, but my class was starting and I didn't have time to call her back just yet. Right after class ended, I got my phone back out and to my surprise, I had thirteen more missed calls from various members of my family! I began to worry that something was wrong, so I quickly checked my voicemails. My little sister didn’t leave any details, but just told me to call her back ASAP, so I did and hurriedly asked if everything was alright. Her response bewildered me: "No, everything is NOT alright. You are engaged and didn't even tell us!"  It took a second for these words to register in my mind. Uh... what? Did you just say what I think you said? I was dumbfounded. "What are you talking about?" She assured me that she wasn't going to fall for any of my cover-up stories and that I had better fess up and tell the family about this girl that I was going to marry.  Naturally my mind is racing, and I'm trying desperately to come up with anything that would have given her this idea. After trying to convince her for several minutes that I really don’t know what she is talking about, she asks me if I know Wendy Peppercorn (name changed to protect the innocent). I replied "Oh yeah, we were friends from freshman year. I think she just got back from a mission in Hong Kong; but how do you know her?"

     My cousin Nicole was also serving a mission in the Hong Kong, and I had told her to keep an eye out for my old friend Wendy. Sure enough, they ran into each other and soon became good friends. I had written Wendy a letter or two while she was still abroad, and my cousin thought that we must have feelings for each other. When she got home a few months later, she tells a bunch of her mission friends that she is engaged to a boy named Spencer from her freshman year. Naturally my cousin assumes this is me, when in actuality it was my freshman roommate who also happened to be named Spencer! (Crazy, right?) So my cousin sends out an email saying: "family, you're never going to believe this, one of my old mission friends just got engaged to our cousin Spencer!" She sends the message to 29 members of our extended family--but ironically I did not get the email and had no idea until my little sister called me up demanding to know everything. Naturally this created quite a stir amidst my relatives and I got several calls that night congratulating me, chewing me out, or asking for more details about my fiancée. It was a big hilarious mess, but to top it all off, I never even got invited to the real wedding?

The happiest people ever

Spit-shine gone wrong

Its not very often that I polish my dress shoes, but I decided they were looking pretty drab recently so I dug the black polish out from the depths of my junk drawer. The stupid container said to "shake well" and then squeeze to apply the polish.  Well I shook that sucker up and then squoze and squoze and squoze to no avail. I must have triedat least 948 times and nothing came out—that is until the 949th time when the joke was one me and a stream of inky-blackness shot out all over our brand-new carpet. Go figure.

Don't stop, cop

When my brother and I were in high school, we attended early morning seminary at our local church from 6-7am (yeah like I said, “early”). Afterwards we’d usually have about 20 minutes to get to school before classes started. One morning we were thus in route when my brother Jeremy (who was driving) stopped at a traffic light and a police vehicle pulled up right behind us. Jer glanced in his rearview mirror and said “hey look, there’s a cop behind me. I’d better not do anything stupid.” So naturally I thought he was pulling my leg when he started inching forward a few seconds later. The green arrow had just come on for the left turn lane, but our light was still very much red. Jer saw the movement of the vehicles beside us, and hit the gas. We cruised right on through the intersection before I realized he wasn’t joking and he realized what had just happened. We were immediately pulled over, and even the police officer couldn’t hide her amusement when she asked "too early for you?"