The U of U....where mediocrity happens.

GO COUGS!

For those who may not know, I love BYU football. It is probably my biggest passion. I'm a total geek to anything related to BYU football.

A few years ago, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to go and decorate my neighbor/friend's yard with BYU business the night before the rivalry game. He happens to be my exact antithesis. In other words he's about the biggest Yewt fan I know. I was kind of hoping to start an annual gig where we try to prank each other for the game. So anyway, I spent all this time and effort painting a white king size sheet into a BYU flag. I spent hours on it. It turned out amazing. It looked almost professional I might say. So we ended up decorating his yard with all this Cougar stuff. No harm was done. We hung some flags, and painted a bunch of stuff on the windows of his car. It turned out pretty good. But not really...

It turned out that he wasn't even in town. For his anniversary, he had left and gone to stay up at Park City. He had gone to the game from Park City, and then went back after instead of coming home. Well this was the 2006 game, the "Harline is still open" game. You know...the one where Beck single handedly ripped the Utes collective hearts out with one incredible pass with :03 remaining on the clock. You remember? Here...I'll throw in a little reminder just for fun...



ANYWAY... back to the story - So my friend went back to Park City after the game - so he didn't see our neat little decoration job until the next morning. At which point it no longer represented a good natured, just-for-fun, sportsman-like ribbing. It had now morphed into a classless, in-your-face, pour-salt-into-your-wounds gloating. He was supposed to see it BEFORE the game, not after. So it didn't really go over that well. I have no doubt that my friend knew it was me - that part was going to be obvious all along. I remember watching him from my bedroom window as he RIPPED that flag out of that tree with such fury - I thought he would tear my own heart out if he ever got a hold of me. In fact, to this day we have never spoken of it, never joked about it, never even hinted of it ever occurring. Bad form Spence...Bad form.

But given the bad form, and how my little prank went seriously south, I still can't help but smile when I think about it. In fact - I think he's due for another disastrous metaphorical BYU flogging...

So this last Friday (and this is related to the above story) in our ward we had an auction to raise money for the Young Womens program. I had offered my services of mowing, edging, and trimming someone's yard to be auctioned off. When it came to my auction item, the bidding started out at $15 bucks. Immediately my Yewt friend's hand went up and he shouted, "$35.00! But only if he does it in a Yewtah jersey!" So I argued stubbornly against it, but the crowd had gotten into it and were now egging me on... and that image of him tearing that flag out of that tree flashed across my mind...so I caved and agreed. But only for the Young Women.

So - some time in the next couple weeks I've got to swallow my pride and head over to my buddy's house and mow, edge, and trim his yard in a Yewt jersey. I suppose what goes around comes around right?