Extreme Extremism (or how to love)

I forgot to tell you the funniest part about my daughter's homecoming date. It wasn't the chastity belt, or even the piano belt. It was an incident which occurred while they were taking pictures at the public park across the street from the temple.

Suddenly a guy jumps out at them and starts yelling that they are trespassing. I mean he's really letting them have it. Freaking out, as my 15-year-old son would say. He paid $500 to reserve the entire park for a wedding reception so he tells them at the top of his lungs that if they want to pay him $500, they can take all the pictures they want.

Then he pushes the photographer and threatens to call the proper authorities.

Which. he. does.

Wouldn't you know it, the police actually arrive on the scene and start questioning the photographer. He had to fill out a report and everything.

Imagine the poor cop who took that call. "Mr. Policeman, sir. I'd like to report four teenagers in Sunday best trying to take adorable photos in the public park. Could you please come and arrest them ASAP! Before they get away with it."

But my daughter, through it all, found a way to say what she needed to say.

Bless her li'l subversive heart.

You probably don't get that do you? Raise your hand if you get that? You're too young to understand the subtle innuendo, huh?

First person who gets that I'll send you a Jamba Juice. Hopefully you don't live in Florida or something because it might be melted by the time it arrives. I hear Florida's hot like that.

Okay, I'll give you a clue. Two words. First word. Sounds like Potter. Only it's not spelled like Potter. It's the stuff that came out of the drain when my laundry room flooded last night.

Second word. Sounds like late. As in, I was up late last night because my laundry room flooded.

Now put it together . . . Potter . . . late. Potterlate.

You still don't get it do you?

Okay, last clue.

Now you're laughing, huh?

Me neither. But mostly because my laundry room is flooded.

You know when I lived in Hawaii I only feared one thing--besides racism and socialism and my kids being killed on Kam Highway--and that was skin-cancerism. Now that I live in Utah I'm afeared of many things. Underground pornism, blind perfectionism and culturally-induced depressionism, to name a few. I'm also afeared of women who look like they've been sucking on lemons or playing with Barbies. And of teenagers who only group date. And of adults who alert the proper authorities because they don't want to share the public park.

Come to think of it, I'm only afeared of one thing--extreme extremism.

In Hawaii that photographer probably would have been beaten to a pulp, or vice versa, without the proper authorities ever being alerted. (Especially if one of them was a "stupid haole" (I would add a URL link to that quote, but all the Urban Dictionary definitions include swear words.)

Or if the proper authorities had been alerted, they probably wouldn't have showed up.

Case in point. You get me?

You know what I'm most afeared of in Utah? Extreme happiness. Did you guys see that Acappella group from BYU on The Sing Off last night?

They say they want to conquer the world with happiness. YIKES! Is that a scary thought or what? I'm worried that outsiders are going to get the wrong idea about Mormons. What if they think we want to force everyone at gunpoint to smile from ear to ear? Not all Mormons want to impose their happiness on others like that.

It's just too bad the miserable Mormons aren't ever represented on t.v. The ones who didn't score a 32 on their ACT.

Isn't there an accapella group somewhere in Utah made up of those who failed their AP exams and who single dated in high school? Exclusively?

I would like to see those BYU singers sing about something that really happens for once. I mean, fer reals, no one jumps, jives or wails when it hails anymore. I want to hear them sing something by Lil' Wayne. Something like How to Love. Even extremely happy Mormons are trying to figure that out.

Am I right? Or am I right?