I was sitting in my Grandpa Shew's living room in his chair watching tv. I changed the channel to MTV, and I heard the quiet guitar picking at the beginning of "MMM MMM MMM MMM" by the Crash Test Dummies. Except the video was different--the music was playing to a screen full of swirling white clouds over a sky blue background (instead of the band seated in a school auditorium like in the real video). Then it got even weirder, as spoken words began to accompany the music where the singing should have started. I sat up and thought "That's not Brad Roberts (the Crash Test Dummies lead singer), it's Matt Johnson (the singer for The The)!!"

Then I sat and watched as the song changed more and more with an entirely new video. At one point, there was a young woman sitting in a torch-lit cave playing a piano. She turned towards the camera, gave a sinister grin, and then her head exploded and when the smoke cleared she had a large purple pumpkin-like head with streamers going out in all directions from where the stem would be. Sort of a Medusa-like effect. The video would then continue on through tunnels connecting other caves. In the last cave, Slash, of Guns N Roses fame, stepped out of the shadows and played the ending solo to "November Rain."

When the song ended, the little credits down in the corner of the screen listed the title as just a long jumbling of the individual song names. It then listed all of the contributing bands. The only ones I remember being listed were Crash Test Dummies, The The, Don Was, and Guns N Roses. After the video ended, there was some sort of spot--I don't remember if it was a VJ announcing this or a commercial--that said that these twisted medleys were part of a new half hour show on MTV! I thought that was pretty cool, so I decided to start telling everyone I knew.

I went to the Selleck desk so I could tell whoever was there. I remember telling people, and it seems like I told a lot of them, but I don't remember who. I went to the back of the office where the couch and chairs are to tell George, the SA. While I was telling him, he looked up and yelled "Hey Tom!" I spun around and there was a 40s-ish policeman with a man in a wheelchair. I shouted "Police Chief Tom O'Callahan! Oh my gosh I can't believe this!!" I ran up to him and tried to give him a hug. He said "Who are you?" and I said "I'm Neal Obermeyer, but you don't know me. I'm a big fan of your radio spots where you talk about safety. I used to listen to Royals baseball games and I heard your little segments, and I liked them so much that I started listening to the baseball games JUST so I could hear your spots!! My favorite one is the one about not getting into cars with strangers."

Then a large group of girls came in. One of them came up to me and said "I'm going to be going to school here in the fall and I'll be playing volleyball. I would like to know if that means I have any scholarships." I turned to Christie (fellow deskworker), who just happened to be standing there beside me, and she said "There's a book in that drawer down there." So I pulled open the drawer and saw one of the biggest messes I have ever seen. (Note: I did not say 'I pulled open my drawers and saw one of the biggest messes I have ever seen.' There is a big difference.) I searched around in that drawer for a long time looking for the scholarship book. I never did find it, but I did find two old monster toys that I thought I had lost forever. So I grabbed those and stuck them in my pocket and left.

I went home (Nemaha county home, not dorm room) and situated the two monsters on the chess table in the living room. I think I spent more time getting them into intimidating poses than I did actually playing with them. But that doesn't mean I didn't play with them for a long time. Then I sat down and read a comic book. There were a bunch of people riding horses out in this rocky desert. The sky was all purpley-red and pretty scary. Iceman was on one of the horses but he got shot or speared or something and he fell off his horse. He cried for help but no one would turn around and help him. They turned around and yelled "Sorry" but that was all they did. Poor Iceman. He won't last long in the desert.

I went out to the middle school to get my breathing checked. Some balding middle aged man with the personality of a football coach was leading the testing. We had these suits that we had to wear that had a glowing circle in the center of the upper body, like where the septum ends--where the bottoms of the pectorals meet. When we would breathe in, the glowing area would expand along the bottom of the pecs, sort of making a smiley-mouth shape. As we breathed deeper, the glowing line would approach the height of our armpits (but it still stayed on the front of our body on our pecs.) Our coach yelled out "Come on! Like Luke Skywalker always used to say, 'It ain't worth breathing if you can't get yer Breath-o-meter up to your Star Trek insignia!'" At first I was like "What?!? The guy has gone mad!" But then I looked at my chest, and our suits did indeed have Star Trek insignias on the left breast. And it was just a little bit higher than my Breath-o-meter was reaching. So I tried to concentrate and breathe more deeply and slowly. As I was trying to do this, the coach yelled out "Pay no mind to Beverly. She's not really this flat-chested. It's because of how tight the suit is."

After most people had gone in, this strange looking girl came up to me. She had blue skin and blue hair that was flowing as if she were underwater. She was also wearing a shiny blue dress. She said "I shouldn't be helping you after what you did to my father." I was kind of confused. I didn't know what she was doing to help me, nor did I know what I did to her father. I said "I'm sorry; I don't really understand--" "You know exactly what you did to him, but I am willing to be an adult about it and not kill you for it," she interrupted. "Out in the desert, when you felt his existence threatened you..." she added. In the desert? I was thinking...I couldn't remember doing anything to anyone in a desert. But then I thought back--Iceman! That was just a comic book, though, wasn't it? Maybe it wasn't _just_ a comic book! Maybe I had documented those memories of mine as sort of a pictoral diary! I must have been the one who speared or shot Iceman and then led the rest of the riders away from him!

"Your dad was Iceman!! I'm so sorry!! I shouldn't have speared him or shot him or whatever I did!! Forgive me!!" I cried. She replied "What? Are you MAD? Iceman is a comic book character, you moron. You didn't kill him!" "Oh, I didn't?" "No, you idiot. My dad was trying to take over your planet with his fleet of intergalactic pirates. You exiled him to an eternal state of nothingness." This was interesting. I said, "So, by getting rid of your dad, I sort of saved the world?" "Yeah, I guess," she said. "Oh, well then, I guess that's pretty cool that I did that to your dad." Then I left and drove to Kansas.

I went to this small one level house that looked like it was extremely cheaply constructed. I would guess no basement. Anyway, there was some sort of concert going on there, and most of my Auburn friends were there. I was standing in the back along the side where the back door was. Adam Prior, the head night clerk at Selleck, was coming in and out of the door. Between songs, the guy who was performing would run off stage and over to where I was and Adam would whisper something into his ear. After about 20 times of getting whispered to, the guy yelled "SARAH'S PLAYING?!?" and ran out the door. I asked Adam what was going on, and he said "Oh, the Lilith Fair is next door and Sarah McLachlan is playing now." I was like "Whoa, how much are tickets?" and he said "Oh don't worry about it--just go in the side."

I left the house and sure enough, in the lot next door to the west was a small makeshift stage facing an open space about half the size of a football field surrounded by an electric fence. There was a small lit concession stand in the back and one streetlight over in the northwest corner. Counting Ms. McLachlan, the fans, and the concession stand employees, there were probably no more than 20 people there. I walked over and stepped over the electric fence. I didn't recognize the song she was playing, but as she did it, she kept tossing out these wooden flute type things. They were probably 8-10" long, but the few people that were there were going crazy over them. She tossed one roughly in my direction, so I went over and dove for it and got it right before this other kid did. So I went over and stood with some of my friends, who had since found their way over to this show.

After a short while, 4 leather-clad teenagers with multicolored spiked hair walked up to me and said "Hey. We're like the modern version of Megadeth." I was like "Huh? What? You guys are a crappy band or something?" Then again they said "We're like the modern version of Megadeth." Then I said, "Sorry, I don't really care. I hate Megadeth. They're terrible." Then one of them said "I don't think you understand," and I yelled "What gave you that impression? Was it the look on my face? Was it when I repeatedly said 'What?' and 'Huh?'" He continued, "We're not a band, we're a gang." "Ok," I said, and turned to watch the rest of the show. "We want your flute. We like Sarah McLachlan, and we like flutes." I kind of figured these guys were trouble, so I thought in order to avoid any trouble, I'd go put myself in the company of some authority figure. I found a large man standing near the concession stand with a nametag, so I thought he'd be a good start. I needed to think of something to say so that I'd have a reason to stand by him. "Uh...excuse me sir...uh...can you tell me what town this is?" He replied "Topeka." "Thanks," I said. So then I walked back to my friends. That plan kind of flopped. "Megadeth" followed me.

"That's our flute, man." I said, "Listen, I got to it first, therefore it's mine. If you would have asked nicely or cried or something, then maybe I would have given it to you. But definitely not now after this behavior." My friends were like "Uh, Neal...remember the Jake incident?" and I said "Yeah, but these guys are like Megadeth!" and we all laughed.

That was enough to set them off. Conveniently for me, they began attacking one by one. As they'd draw nearer, I'd thwack them in the head with the flute and they'd splash down into the mud. (it instantly became muddy at the beginning of the fight, by the way) This kept on for I don't know how long. The battle carried off the concert lawn and into a nearby park which had nice muddy hills and trees. We were sliding everywhere, slamming into the trees and garbage barrels and picnic shelters. Then it began SNOWING. Two of the four had been thoroughly thwacked out of commission. The other two were the head Megadether, and the big bruiser. When the aforementioned bruiser got closer to me, I realized that he was Chris Kelsay, an Auburn person. I said "Chris, come on, do you really want to be doing this?" THWACK. "Am I really the one you want to attack?" THWACK. "Answer me this--who's the one who is making you get all muddy and wet over a FLUTE?" THWACK. "Not to mention a bit bruised." THWACK. "Plus, he names you guys after a speed metal band, and then makes you go to a Sarah McLachlan concert so you can steal a woodwind instrument?!?" THWACK. "I think we know who the REAL enemy is!" THWACK. He answered, "Yeah! Let's get him!" So then Chris and I ran after the head guy and I thwacked him while Chris beat him. Then I thanked Chris and invited him to come over to where I was staying.

Apparently I was staying in the same house where the first concert was, and I was living with Josh Able, Mike Fass, Guy Cipolla, Josh Smith, Brian McConnell, and Brandon Uglow. Josh Able and Mike and I were sitting in a darkened living room/bedroom (it was a small house--some people had to sleep on the living room floor). I was sitting in front of the stereo along the wall. Josh yelled "HOLY CRAP NEAL!! Look what they did to you!" and pointed behind me. I turned around and looked and saw nothing. I turned back around to face him and before I could say anything, he yelled "Ha ha, it's just fake blood! See?" and he held up a fake blood squirt gun. I was like "What are you talking about?" and he said "Oh, you didn't see the blood?" and I said "No!" I turned around again and looked all over, and there on the cd player I saw a small splatter of "blood." I said "Shoot me on the hand!" and I held up my right hand and he soaked it in fake blood.

I ran into the kitchen where Josh Smith, Brian, and Brandon were washing dishes. I screamed "AAAH!! Look guys, I cut off my thumb!!" Brandon went "Oh, not again!!" (note: Brandon was there when I did it the first time) I held up my arm in front of Josh Smith, but the fake blood was turning kind of a pinkish purple color. I was like "Hey, what's going on here?" and Josh Smith said "Ha ha, very funny." I started to wash it off in the sink when I noticed that a blood vessel of mine had somehow come out of my arm. It came out up by my wrist and went back in down by my elbow. I was like "Hey, is this normal that I should be able to put my hand underneath this blood vessel?" I started twanging it like it was a guitar string.

Guy walked in the room and said something about my external blood vessel but I didn't really pay attention to what he said because not only did he just walk in the room, but he was also standing right next to me at the sink. I said "Hey, you can't be Guy!" and he said "Why not?" I replied "Because _HE'S_ guy!" gesturing towards the one at the sink. Then they both walked together and put an arm around each other and said, "Why can't we just be a couple of Guys?" I said "I think I need to go take a shower."

I went into my room at home even though that house wasn't my house. My mom and sisters were there. My mom said "We were cleaning your room and we found this envelope with your plane tickets in it!" I said "Those aren't my tickets!! Those are tickets to Sesame Street Live!" My mom looked down at the floor and said "I know...we just missed you, and we thought this would be a good excuse to come see you again."

I grabbed my towel and went to the shower to get cleaned off. When I came out, the house was gone, and I was at Indian Cave State park where an Obermeyer family reunion just happened to be taking place. There was a large blue tent with card tables set up underneath, but not many people were there. Cars were driving off, and apparently I showed up just at the end of the celebration. I was wearing my towel, and I had some underwear and shorts, but I didn't have anywhere to change. The tent had three open sides to it, so I decided to go behind the one wall. If anyone drove along the road in front of the tent (the closed wall was perpendicular to the road) they would be able to see me in all of my splendor, but it was a chance I had to take. I took off my towel and grabbed my shorts. I had them almost all the way on when I realized that I forgot to put my underwear on first. So I dropped my shorts and grabbed my underwear.

Well, when I took of the shorts, I didn't step out of them, so they were still around my ankles. This made the task of getting my underwear on VERY difficult. Finally I figured out what the problem was and I got my shorts off and made another run at the underwear. I was still having a terrible time when some lady I didn't know walked by and said, "You're never going to them on with something THAT small." At first I thought she was insulting me, but then I figured out what she was talking about--my underwear was about half the size that it should have been, and the leg holes were barely big enough for my ankles. Needless to say, when I finally got dressed, I was walking funny.

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