Oh, Canada

Whenever I travel to a different country (which is only like thrice, maybe four times), I try to not live to the stereotypes of being American - lazy, stupid, entitled, etc. I've done a pretty good job of that, I think, except for one time. About six or seven years ago, I went to Edmonton (that's in Canada) with my cousins, the Jackson family. They have a pretty large family, so we traveled in a really big van. I mean really big. We had a generator and a TV in there. My second cousin (that's his relation to me, he's not my second cousin, like the second one to exist or whatever), Billy, and I played Xbox for almost the whole drive.

When we got to Edmonton, we went to the West Edmonton Mall. I'm not sure if there is an East Edmonton Mall, but if there is, there shouldn't be because the West Edmonton Mall is the largest mall in North America. Since most of you aren't Canadian, very few of you have probably ever heard of the WEM (that's what I like to call it) and thought the Mall of America was the biggest mall in North America. Ha. Silly Americans.

The WEM has a hotel in it, and this is the hotel in which we stayed. Billy, his brother, Elijah, their cousin Joshua, and I shared a suite. Billy and I decided we should hook up the Xbox to the TV in our suite. Unfortunately, the audio and video ports on the TV were blocked. No problem - we'll just get the TV from the van, we thought. We went out to the parking lot and found the van. Unbeknownst to us, there had been a recent spree of crime in the area, and more cops were on patrol than normal. Billy was in the van unplugging the TV when a couple of cops pulled up in their car. I'm sure it looked pretty fishy - one teenager in a van and another teenager keeping watch. The cops called me over. "Oh, man. This probably looks a bit sketchy. Oh well - I'll clear things up," I thought. Unfortunately, I hadn't yet mastered the English language. Or problem solving.

"What are you guys doing?" asked one cop.

"Oh, we're just taking the TV out of the van," I responded. As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted saying them. I became flustered, which didn't make the situation any better.

"Uh-huh... I see. Is this your van?"

"No. Well it's not my van, it's his van," I said, motioning to Billy, who was still inside the van. "Well, it's not his van, it's his dad's van." I felt like telling the truth was the most important thing for me to do, regardless of the sketchiness used to tell it.

"Uh... right. Do you have any form of ID on you?"

"Um, I have a debit card...? Does that count?" I was only 14, I think. I didn't have my driver's permit, and I certainly didn't have my driver's license.

"Yeah, sure, let's see that." I handed the cop my debit card. I have no idea what purpose that could've served. I peeked at what they were writing, and it was just my name. "Alright, Joe, have a nice day," the one cop said, and they just drove off.

I poked my head in the van to see how close Billy was to having the TV unplugged from everything. He looked up and asked, "Hey, who were you talking to?"

Emotionally Intense

I have a problem. Okay, I have a few problems. Okay, I have a plethora of problems, but I'm only going to write about one. For now, anyway. This problem I have that I'm writing about is that I get way too emotionally involved in forms of entertainment: movies, tv shows, books, I'm pretty sure I got pretty intense emotionally during a video game or two. Don't judge me.

There are two items that really stick out in my mind that had me emotionally entranced. The first was a few months ago when I was binge-watching How I Met Your Mother. A lot of times I would get saturated with emotion from watching that show, but I remember one time I got really mad at Barney (I'm not going to say the reason, in case some of you are watching and haven't gotten to this point yet. No spoilers from this guy!). I was literally yelling at my laptop, throwing soft objects in my room. I took a week long hiatus from watching the show. I just couldn't handle it. Another time - I can't really remember if this episode is before or after the Barney-throwing-me-into-a-frenzy episode - I cried. That's the first time I cried in three years, and it was because of a tv show. Remember before how I said no spoilers? Well, spoiler alert. It was the episode where Marshall's dad died. Marshall's my favie, and to see him in that situation, well, it broke my very-much-not-gay heart. I took another week long break from the show so I could recover.

The second item that triggered my emotions was The Hunger Games trilogy. I don't read many books, but when I do, I get into it. Just the other day I finished the third book, and that, itself, was enough to make me all sad. However, there were two instances where my emotional cup overflowed. Okay, I'm not that guy who's just going to flood this post with spoilers, so I'm not going to say what happened. Both instances were in the third book, though, I will say that. One made me really sad, and though I didn't have to fight back any tears, I did have to take a break for a few hours to regain my composure. The second instance just made me so flabbergasted, I couldn't think right about anything. Instead of reading on, like a normal person, I stopped and started pacing around my room trying to make sense of what had just happened. It was pretty intense - emotionally intense.