Well, That Was a Bad Idea!

Yet another installment from next month's writing class. The topic is "well, that was a bad idea!" I've had a few over the years.

What ideas turn into bad ideas? What motivates my choices? Thinking over some of the dumb mistakes I’ve made over the years, there are a few common denominators. Not thinking things through is number one.

I am not a very spontaneous person; I like things listed in order, planned in advance and followed through on time. “Spur of the moment” is not my motto, though it seems that everyone else in the world can be so adventurous and on the move in an instant! Why can’t I? Well, as Popeye would say, I yam who I yam.

As a young adult I hung out at the Institute on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, directly across the street from Pasadena City College. I still couldn’t get a Mormon to ask me out. I went to a stake dance almost weekly, I took Institute classes and attended the young adult ward faithfully. I had crushes on several young LDS men but few would ask me out. One day a group of young adults decided to go grunion running. Grunions are tiny ocean fish that come up onto the sand to lay their eggs in the middle of the night. They number in the thousands and it was supposed to be quite a sight.

I’ll go, I cried! How fun to socialize and be a part of the group. We all piled into two cars and went down to one of the Southern California beaches at around 11:00 PM to await nature’s spectacle. After the cars were parked everyone got out and chatted and it seemed like the beginning of a fun night. We looked for grunion on the beach but there weren’t any to be seen, not yet anyway. There weren’t very many people down there at the very dark beach. Before ten minutes everyone paired up as couples and disappeared. Where did everyone go? No one certainly wanted me as a third wheel to tag along with. Thankfully Sandy Escandon was left out also, so we hung out together. I didn’t know Sandy too well, but she was very sweet and quiet and we created an alliance.

Walking around this dark deserted beach with no one around was a bit unnerving, and we only saw one dead grunion on the sand, no thousands of flipping, jumping little silver creatures at all. One dead fish. This was one stupid idea. So a grunion run was just an excuse to go cuddle or make out with your boyfriend or whatever. Sandy and I walked around in the dark for hours trying to find our group. We were tired, mad and just wanting to be home! After what seemed an eternity our group finally came back and I was home at 6:00 AM with a perturbed mother waiting for me.