Odd looks and Bug-eyed stares

"ODD LOOKS AND BUG-EYED STARES"

As far as I can tell, most individuals proceed through the bulk of their life-time without attracting excessive amounts of attention. By attention I mean perplexed expressions, odd looks and my personal favorite; the bug-eyed stare. Sure, we've all been there. Someone in your remote vicinity, without warning does something viewed as "Moronic" and you find your face contorting into a perplexed expression. Depending on the potency of the stupidity of the act you may even find yourself sending and odd look or worse- a bug-eyed stare!

With much pride I claim to be an expert of these types of facial expressions. Particularly receiving them! Oh yes, many a man has stiffened his posture and contorted his face upon being made witness of my follies.

It's been brought to my attention though that I have been accused of necessitating such expressions as a result of my own "Stunts" as my mother would call it.
" Mom I'm goin' out with the boys!" I'd yell while racing for the door.
" Wait right there buster!" She'd holler. "What kind of crazy stunts you plannin' this time?"
" We ain't doin' nothing. I promise!"
" Then what's the big hurry?"
" We're just gonna ride our bikes around town. Really that's all."
" All right, but no crazy stunts!" She'd hiss.

One July morning after the usual briefing from Mom, me and the boys were out for a leisurely ride around town. Danny and Chris weren't the brightest kids in town, but they'd give their right arm for you.
"Hey" Danny perked." I seen this thing the other day on TV. Some guy rode his bike off a mountain and parachuted to the ground!"
"No kiddin'" Chris answered. "Let's try it!"
"Chris, where we gonna get a mountain and parachute from?" I asked.

To this day, I regret the question. Sixteen feet of clothes line, a roll of scotch tape, a ladder, one hockey helmet, Moms queen bed sheets and three hours later I found my hands sore with tension. Not from assembling our unique contraption, but rather because they were gripped to my handlebars for dear life as I sat perched on the second-story roof of our house.

Sure the guys would have given their right arm for me, but they did have a few good points. Their houses were too short and I am a brave kind of guy.

So there I was, psyching myself up for the descent. We didn't have those professional "Crash-pads" they have now-a-days, but we made due with a few ugly shrubs from the front yard.

The actual stunt took split seconds. Surprisingly, it was a partial success! The parachute caught the wind beautifully and stayed aloft for quite sometime. I imagine it would have been a total success had I stayed attached to it but the light bulb wasn't successful the first time either. I did manage to bulls-eye the "Crash-pads". In fact, they bullseyed me as well. All over! Danny and Chris failed to mention the sharp, poky things all over the stems. They figured that drawing blood was better than breaking bones, but felt that my concentration would be better if I didn't know.

By the time I got the nerve to actually perform the death-defying stunt, almost everyone in the sub-division had gathered on the side-walk to watch. Yes, sub-division.

From that day on I have yet to have the memory elude me of all the perplexed expressions, odd looks and bug-eyed stares I received. Of course, those were better than what I received from my mother!