Day 358: Pop Rocks Rumor Control

I don't remember how old I was when I first started hearing rumors about, "Paul, Kevin's friend from the Wonder Years," but once I heard the first, all of the rest quickly followed.

When the show was still on the air, I heard that he and Winnie Cooper were a couple off screen, and it was actually Kevin (played by Fred Savage) who was really a nerd.

Years after the show went into syndication, someone told me, with such conviction I couldn't help but at least consider it, that Paul had grown up to become Marilyn Manson.

I'm not sure who comes up with these rumors, or why Paul from the Wonder Years was always the main character in them (what did he ever do to anyone?), but by far the most tragic of all was that he was dead, and the seemingly innocent activity that killed him?

Eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coca-Cola at the same time.

I hadn't thought of the Paul rumor and this apparently lethal concoction until my friend Anne suggested that I test the urban legend for myself for the blog. In her email she included the sinister, "dun dun dun . . .")

She was kidding, of course, and all research (i.e. Internet searches) led me to believe that no one had ever died by drinking Coca Cola and eating Pop Rocks. If Paul from the Wonder Years had ever even tried it (and there was absolutely no evidence that he did), his questionable choice didn't kill him. He was alive and well.

But rumors usually have some basis in fact, don't they? What if someone did die trying this? Was I playing with fire? There were just seven days to go until my birthday; should I risk it?

Of course I should! If I'm going down, I'm going down in a blaze of candy and soda! Day 358's thing I've never done before was to mix Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola and hopefully live to tell the tale.

Before work, I drove to Richards Variety Store to buy the Pop Rocks, something that I'd looked for at the grocery store and other discount stores, but couldn't find. Richards is a completely random store full of anything from hilarious greeting cards to hand crank egg beaters to Pez dispensers. I could spend many hours and several hundred dollars there.

Emily happily joined me for this challenge when I told her what I was up to, and I asked Justin to film it.

The video is long, and includes Emily and I willing our personal possessions to members of our families in case the urban legend was true, and this candy soda experiment did make us explode.

I willed everything to my brother, Jeff, and sister-in-law, Katie. Everything except for my car, which I said Justin could have, in light of Day 353.

Emily willed her stuff to her parents, since, "they are responsible for me having most of it anyway," and because her Mom, Joan, is an active Project 29 to 30 blog reader.

I felt badly for having left out my parents completely, so I went on to explain why I left it all to Jeff and Katie. I was actually thinking about my dad complaining, when he can't find anything in his closet or in the attic, "There's too much crap in this house! When I die, it's going to take you kids years to sort through all of it!" (As I've said before, my father talks about his death as if it is happening any minute.) But, understanding his detest of all the clutter that he blames all on my mother, I figured forcing my brother and Katie to acquire all of my things would at least make my dad happy.

So after we willed our personal belongings away, Emily and I opened up our Pop Rocks' packages, tilted our heads back, and dumped the contents into our mouth.

Pop Rocks is a carbonated candy, and the gimmick is that the "rocks" will fizz once eaten. I know that I ate Pop Rocks when I was a little kid, but I didn't remember them tasting so terrible. They're extremely sugary and I felt like my teeth could rot right then and there.

I took a sip of coke, which was difficult because there was so much going on with the Pop Rocks. Even after I swallowed, the fizzing continued down my esophagus. It was all very weird. I could have expected some negative life-threatening reaction and there wasn't one. I survived!

Emily said she thinks the bubbles of the soda negate the bubbles of the Pop Rocks, but I couldn't disagree more. I couldn't even taste anything, all I could taste were bubbles and sugar.

But we lived. Like it or not, I thought, I would make it to 30.

I had to laugh at this ridiculous rumor and how it got started in the first place. I imagine someone retells a story so many times that words and tenses get omitted or mixed up. After having tried this combo myself, I have to believe that if Paul from the Wonder Years tried it, be probably said afterward that he wanted to die.

Which makes perfect sense, because it's weird. And disgusting.

Day 357: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y

When it comes to celebrating milestones, wins, or any good news, I'm extremely superstitious, and I never count my chickens before they've hatched. Maybe I'm a pessimist, or maybe I've just been pulling for sports teams all of my life who always managed to blow sizable leads with hardly any time left on the clock. Regardless of how obvious and attainable a victory may be, I know how quickly things can change and not until the clock reads 00:00, do I ever raise my hands in triumph.

Declaring victory on Project 29 to 30, then, could only come if and when I turned 30 and had successfully done 365 things I'd never done before.

Maybe victory shouldn't have been declared until I actually wrote about them (who knew it would take me this long?), but with just a week to go, and a new thing already planned for each of the seven days headed into my birthday weekend, I knew success was mine. And on Day 357, I let all of Athens, Georgia know when I rang the Chapel Bell on North Campus and declared “victory” over my 29th year as the thing I've never done before.

Not that it matters, but I didn't set out to ring the victory bell on Day 357. Georgia lost to Arkansas the day before, and to South Carolina the week before that, so as a Bulldog, I didn't have much to celebrate.

In fact, I drove over to Athens to see Rebecca, my friend, former college roommate, and recipient of the diaper cake I made on Day 209 with no other plans than to meet her new baby daughter, Edie. No surprise, Edie was adorable and perfect, and had the cutest fat rolls I'd ever seen.

Because Athens is like a playground for young adults, I knew the possibilities for new things were endless and I'd have no problem finding something to check off the list. Yet, after Edie went down for a nap, Rebecca and I didn't set our sights on something new; instead, we set out on an all-too-familiar journey.

When Rebecca and I lived together and found ourselves bogged down with schoolwork and all of the drama associated with being 20-years old in college with literally no responsibility, we walked. We walked for hours through campus, talking about everything and nothing, solving each other's problems, and the problems of the world, that at the time, seemed monumental. We talked about the real world post-college like it was so far away, and we talked about the men that we would marry like we weren't sure that they even existed.

When Rebecca got married, she woke on her wedding day full of nervous energy and excitement. So we did what felt natural to us, and we walked. We walked and we laughed about the angst we shared years ago over thinking this day would never come, and mostly laughed that she was marrying Brian -- THE Brian we'd known since college, followed around at band parties and stalked on spring break. He was that obscure guy she thought she'd never find! We walked with a spring in our steps, and as we did, we cried tears of happiness.

And on that September Sunday, with 356 new experiences under my belt and one week before my 30th birthday, we walked again. We walked in front of fraternity houses where we once partied, and next to buildings we'd taken most of our classes in, and through some that didn't even exist when we were in school. We wondered, as we walked, if we could still pass for college girls and we laughed as a cute, shaggy haired fraternity guy walked by and we both checked him out. I tried to think if there was anything better than walking through Athens on a Sunday in the fall.

Somehow, in reminiscing about our pasts and daydreaming about our hypothetical futures, we found ourselves completely present in a beautiful moment, on a beautiful day, in one of my most favorite cities on earth.

A victory indeed.

Suddenly, what I needed to do that day as the thing I've never done before became quite clear.

We apprehensively approached the Chapel Bell, and pretending to be civilized, read about its history. Rebecca took my camera and took over, equal parts photo director and blog supporter/friend.

I stood next to the rope and looked up at the bell, having no idea how difficult ringing the bell would be. I gave it a little pull, just to check it out, and much to our surprise, it rang. Not as loudly as we knew it could, but enough to startle us both.

Once I knew what I was dealing with, I had nothing else to do but go for it. Completely sober, in the light of day, with no football victories to speak of, I rang the Chapel Bell at UGA.

The sound echoed throughout campus, and in a strange way, embarrassed me. Even though I know I'm not the first person to ring the bell in the middle of the day for no reason, I was happy, at first, that it was just Rebecca and me. But once the bell started to slow down, I stopped caring, and I rang it again, this time getting lifted up by the rope and taking it for a ride.

I felt joyful. And silly. And amazing.

In so many ways, ringing the bell before my birthday was much like spiking the football before getting to the end zone and therefore completely out of character for me. But then again, so was the whole year.

Then I hoped that someone might walk by and ask me who won, because I had the best answer.

It was me.

I won.

Day 356: Black and Tans and Other Stuff

My friend (and new neighbor) Andrew called me the morning of Day 356 to see if I wanted to walk to nearby East Atlanta Village to see our friend Jarrett's band perform at a festival. I had a list of things to accomplish that day, but I knew nothing was going to happen without first getting a cup of coffee, so I agreed.

Jarrett's band, Animal & the Evolvers, put on a riveting performance to a small but spirited group. Their song, "Love is in the Air at the Indy Zoo," was epic, and since I'd never heard them before, technically that is the first thing I did on Day 356 that I'd never done before.

I really had no intentions of spending all afternoon in East Atlanta. Seriously, I didn't. But Day 356 was one of those days where I just decided to go with the flow. I had nowhere to be, so why not stay and have a beer in the middle of the beautiful day?

So I did, and we all headed to the EARL, where I drank my first Black and Tan, the second thing on Day 356 that I'd never done before. A Black and Tan is a mix of two beers, usually a pale ale like Bass and a stout or a porter like Guinness.

I'd already tried a Guinness, and about a dozen other drinks, for the blog, so adding another wasn't too far out of my comfort level. When the waitress brought me the pint, I was surprised to see that the Guinness floats to the top of a Black and Tan, and the Bass sinks. Based on the heaviness of a Guinness, I guess I thought the opposite would occur.

I took a sip and further proved that there aren't many beers, or mixture of beers, out there that I don't like. I can't really explain what it tastes like, because I'm terrible at that; it tastes like beer. Heavier than a pale ale, not as heavy as a stout. I had to assume, based on this experience and after having tried a black velvet, that I most enjoy a Guinness when it's mixed with something else.

After a few beers, we decided to walk down the street to grab some food at Midway Pub. On the way, we saw a mechanical bull ride. And naturally, everyone that I was with, after hearing about the blog, suggested that I ride it.

I'm unsure whether or not this is the third thing I did on Day 356 that I'd never done before. I went to Wild Bill's years ago for a bachelorette party and hilariously witnessed my friends taking turns riding the mechanical bull. I'd like to think that I would've joined in the fun, but I can't remember if I did. Isn't riding a mechanical bull something I should remember for life?

So, maybe that's where the new thing will emerge here. Andrew insisted that I climb aboard, if not for the blog, then for his own amusement. And I took a mechanical bull ride that I will never forget.

It's certainly no secret that I like attention; it's why I tell stories, it's why I started this blog. But I like attention that I can manage, and when I found myself mounted on this ride in front of strangers, I quickly realized that I was no longer in control. Plus, perhaps I've seen too many bad movies, but I associate riding a mechanical bull with women arching their backs in an overtly sexual manner and I felt extremely uncomfortable from the start.

The ride operator talked like a high school dance D.J. and gave his own play by play.

"Do you wanna go fasterrrrrrrrr?"

"We're gonna speed it up now! Ahhhhh yeah."

The bull spun around slowly at first and bucked only lightly. But so it goes with mechanical bulls, the longer I stayed on, the more difficult and the faster it went. I was nervous, embarrassed and physically exhausted after only a few minutes.

I didn't last very long on the bull. The moment I thought I was going to have to arch my back to stay on was the very moment that I gave in. When I got knocked off the bull, and landed on the trampoline below, I noticed a group of kids hanging over the side of the "bull ring" laughing hysterically. I didn't mind; my friends and I were all laughing too.

As I tried to garner the momentum to stand up and get out of the ring, one of the kids that was laughing leaned over the edge and aggressively yelled at me, "GOD YOU SUCK!"

I immediately stopped laughing and looked around to see what caused this insane preteen to flip his asshole switch and be so hateful. In the span of five minutes, I went from feeling much younger than 30-years old, wasting away my Saturday and riding a mechanical bull to feeling much older, wanting to grab this little punk by the ears and hand deliver him to his parents.

It was a strange ending to an unexpected and awesome day of saying, "yes," to whatever adventure came my way. A day when young Stephanie gave old Stephanie the middle finger and said, "Whatever chores you had to take care of can wait, now is the time to have fun."

And I did.