The Kenny Flop

Last week when hubby was in Singapore for work, I managed to hook him up with an old friend of mine, who is also living in Singapore with his family right now. I’m sure it was the tiniest bit awkward, since I haven’t seen this friend in at least 10 years, and Ryan’s only met him once or twice. But, being in a foreign country maybe makes Americans want to stick together, and I was glad that Ken and Angie invited Ryan over for dinner.

However, what do two people talk about who only really have one person in common? They talked about me.

A little background on Ken. Ken was in my ward growing up, and once he skipped a grade, he was in my class about every year. And since it seems we always had to sit alphabetically, it went “Coleman (me), Clayton (Ken), then Chaffin (my friend Stacie).” I don’t know how many years Ken had to sit in between me and Stacie, but it was pretty often. So, he got to be the note passer, the talk around-er, AND, we would also play with him. He entertained my husband with stories of how we would drag him into our recess games, our little plays, and other such nonsense. I do vaguely remember that he would sometimes play “Charlie’s Angel’s with us”. No, he didn’t get to do the exciting action that we got to do. He played Bosley and got to tell us our assignments (of course he had to be Bosley–he was a boy). Apparently (and I really don’t remember this, but it does sound like something we would do), he was attempting to do a trick on the monkey bars called the ‘penny drop’. You hang upside down, flip over and land on your feet. It didn’t go so well for Ken, and we renamed the trick “the Kenny flop”.

I stick to my story that I have NO MEMORY of teasing him that way.

But it’s funny, right?

If he can still retell the story some 30 years later, I worry that I destroyed the poor boy’s self esteem. Did he have confidence issues and nightmares about the “Kenny flop”?

I’m a bad person.

No, not a bad person, just a tease. But as my favorite children book tells me, “teasing isn’t nice.”

It probably made him a stronger person, ready to face junior high and high school. And we played with him, didn’t we? It’s not like we were bullying the kid.

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In other news, Ryan did a “sleep study” last night. Maybe they should call it a “toss and turn study”. He says it’s the WORST night’s sleep he’s EVER had. And to top it off, he had to go to the dentist this morning. My guess is he’ll spend the rest of the day sleeping. Poor guy.

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And to my friends in Arizona, you just have to read THIS POST. Or even if you don’t live in Arizona, it’s still funny.

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Another friend posted all about our Bells on Temple Square summer party. I’ll just link you to BRITTANY’S post instead of writing about it myself. Hey, she included pictures of us and everything!

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I’m off now to make cookies, supervise the playground bark delivery, clean the kitchen, and take care of stapling about 400 more PTA papers together. John’s birthday is tomorrow, and his baptism is on Saturday! Exciting times around here!

Have a GREAT day!