Any more "duh" and I'd need a helmet.

Okay, so I’m ten years old, my brother is twelve, and he has a crush on the girl that lives down the street.  (What little boy doesn’t, right?)  So, we’re playing around outside one day and one of us (I couldn’t possibly tell you who at this point, but this smacks of my stupidity.) decides that he should take her a bouquet of flowers.  (For, surely, our humble offering would win her heart.)  Being the resourceful children that we are, we decide the best way to accomplish this goal is to collect wildflowers.  We set to work gathering every random colorful weed we can find and when we’ve got a fistful, I wrap them all with a vine that is most likely poison ivy.  (For that gift that keeps on giving.)  Bouquet in hand, we hop on our bikes and ride the short distance to her house.  On the way we decide that, in order to make this delivery more professional, he needs to hide while I deliver the “flowers” and the message.  (Because, what twelve year old girl wouldn’t swoon at the site of a classmate’s little sister on her doorstep with a fistful of poisonous foliage?) 

I go up to the front door and knock a couple of times and no one answers.  No problem, I think to myself, I will simple ring the doorbell.  I push the button and wait.  No answer.  I hop off the porch and join my brother on the dirt road that passes behind their house.  From this vantage point we can clearly see that their rear-facing garage is open and there is a car parked inside.  This leads us to an epiphany.  At our house, we don’t go in and out through the front door.  We, and all of our family, usually use the garage.  Seeing as their garage is wide open, this must be the case here as well.  I chuckle to myself at my silly formality and walk up to the door, while my brother waits at the street. 

Once inside the garage, I knock on the door.  I wait.  There is no answer.  Perhaps they can’t hear it, I wonder to myself.  Often the TV is loud at our house or we’re in another room and we would have trouble hearing a knock at the door.  I’ll knock louder.  I wait.  There’s still no answer.  Hmm.  Oh, there’s the answer!  I’m so silly!  Of course, I’ll just ring this handy dandy doorbell.  (Are you wondering why they have a doorbell at their garage entry door?  You’re confused.  You’re asking yourself now, what kind of bizarre family is this?  But let me ask you, have you ever noticed how similar a doorbell button and a garage door button are in appearance?  I hadn’t.) 

So I ring the doorbell, which I am very surprised to discover is not actually a doorbell at all, but the garage door button.  The door let’s out these incredibly loud groans and creaks.  I am positive that this noise is more than adequate to alert the family inside that someone is trespassing in their garage.  I am suddenly aware that I am actually IN their house at this moment.  I’m breaking and entering.  I’m a ten-year-old hooligan and I’m going to jail.  I see the door beginning to close.  I’m having an Indiana Jones moment.  I toss the bouquet aside.  It hits the car and explodes, sending weeds flying in all directions as I hurl myself under the garage door, just clearing it.  Heart beating a thousand times a minute I race to the end of the driveway, where my brother is waiting, and grab my bike.  “RUN, GO NOW!” I scream as I run along the bumpy road, trying desperately to make the jump onto my bike, which has already gotten ahead of me in my panic.  We tear off down the street, kicking up clouds of dust in our wake.  When we’ve gotten a safe distance away, (Tahiti) I tell him what happened.  “I thought it was a doorbell!”  I shriek through gasping breaths. 

So there you have it, folks, the second and last example of one of my “duh” moments.  Well, for this contest, that is.  Meanwhile, it’s been brought to my attention that some people don’t come to the site on the weekends so I’ve decided to extend the contest a little and allow the submissions to continue until Monday night at 8:30.  Afterward, they’ll be available to be voted on from Monday around 9:00 PM through Tuesday around the same time.  Also, to send your submissions, you can click Email Me in the left column of this site.

Comments

[bluepaintred]

i announced your duh contest on my blog tonight but im gonna iwn , mmk?

[Monkee]

Thanks for spreading the word! I couldn't help but notice there were an awful lot of threats involved...=)

[Webmiztris]

lol lol lol...that's a great story! i'm sure her parents were seriously confused when they found the wildflower remains strewn about the garage!