How I ENDED IN UTAH: An Experience -- Part 2

Issuing a challenge was a way for us to avoid a fist-fight. You would issue a challenge. And no matter what the other person had to honor it and respect it. There was no backing-out and no dismissing the seriousness of the challenge. This was our way of defusing a situation before it came to physical confrontation. That was the number one rule of the Challenge Code of Ethics.

“You can’t do that?”
“But you can joke about my mom?”
“That’s a violation of civic homeland equities.”
“What?”
“I have no idea what I just said.”
“You gonna put on a dress or take this challenge.”

Logic was telling me that I was flat-out wrong. I should just accept the challenge and it would be over and done with. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with my adolescent ego


“Oh no. This chumps gonna break the rules. And then call us out, in our own house. We can’t have that. We have to handle this. This boy must have lost his mind. We can’t stand for that.”


“We”, huh. If he suckered punched me, where would I find “we.” I tell you, on vacation chillin’ in the shade, sipping fruit punch kool-aide. Leaving me to host the newcomer, pain. “We”, right. So I listened to logic and accepted the challenge.

“What’s the challenge?”

His eyes filled with excitement. I knew something was on his mind. Something he’d been planning for a long time. It was time for him to use his trump card.
He pulled out this huge book. This thing was enormous. It must have been the size of Texas. He had to use two hands to pull it out his backpack. When it hit the floor, it made a distinct thud. And the dust around it formed a mushroom cloud.

“Sixty bucks says you can’t go through this book. Pick a college. Apply. And get accepted.”
“Any college in that book.”
“Yeah. Oh, if you get an Ivy League. Consider it a do over.”
“I’m in. Let’s do this. Like Brutish.”

I knew I was going to win. How could I lose. I had great SAT and ACT scores, a decent GPA and I qualified for certain academic scholarships. So I considered this a win-win situation. I was going to take this sucker’s money and get paid. There was no possible way I was going to lose.

“When I say stop. You gotta stop.”
“What?”
“And your eyes gotta be closed.”

This was the conversational gulp. Jaw locking, stiff neck filled with tension. The college handbook of doom was huge. Every college known to man had it’s own single page. This book made Delaware look small.

“For real?”
“For real. For real.”
“If I don’t do this?”
“Then you gotta wear the pink plaid skirt with a bra. And perform a fashion show in the middle of mall on Saturday night.”

The rules of the challenge always favored the challenger, not the challengee. You could either do it or deal with the consequence. And I wasn’t into the whole mall thing. If the ladies saw me parading around in a dress, I would have to join the military or move to some small remote village in Russia.



The greatest and most important decision of my life was left to a sixty-dollar challenge or bet. My most valued and trusted consultant, the magic eight ball, wasn’t any help. The dog that enjoys biting people, left the room. And my father who always tells me get to work, was nowhere to be found. I had no distractions. No outs. So I tried a last ditch effort. I pulled a narcoleptic.


“Yo. That passing out thing is so played out. Get up or wear the dress. Rules are rules.”


Rules are rules. So after 15 minutes I got up, picked-up Delaware and started flipping the pages. As I’m flipping, I could feel the water trickling down my forehead. It wasn’t sweat, it was the drool from the dog.

Each page brought a new level of nervous anxiety. I had no choice but to patiently wait until I heard the welcomed word, “stop”. I felt the pages pass from one finger to the next. Each page was getting heavier and heavier. The room was getting hot. And my so called best friend was laughing his ass off.


“Yo, I wish I had a Polaroid. You look like a whimpering old man, who just lost his pension.”


I was laughing too, nervously laughing. He was gaining so much joy in my pain. Then I thought “If I piss myself. I can get out of the challenge.” Then logic kicked-in once again. “If you piss yourself, you’ll be the piss boy attending Burger U.” My thoughts started going all over the place, from logical to crazy. I thought about a ton and half of crazy delusional ideas of how to get out of this challenge.


“Stop.”


I questioned myself. “Did I hear stop?” Then I heard it again. Sweet Jesus. What a welcomed relief. I’m was almost out of the woods and I anxiously wanted to see where I was applying to school.

“Weber State College?”
“You in the W’s. How funny.”
“Ogden, Utah?”
“You going to school in Utah. Black man in Utah. That’s an after school special.”

A school in the W’s? Weber State College in Ogden, Utah. Utah. I knew where it was on the map, but I had no idea. Soon, another level of nervous tension took over.

“Yo, Utah. Oh no, that’s Ivy League. So it’s do over.”
“No it’s not. You going to Utah.”
“Do over.”
“Nah.”

So I started making every excuse I could possibly think of to get out of the challenge.

“I got sunburn in the eye. See.”
“Your eyes were closed.”
“I’m afraid of the water.”
“They have mountains.”
“I’mma miss Sanford and Son.”
“You going to school in Utah.”



The challenge was the challenge, and there was no way out. So, I did what I had to do, called for an application, filled it out, and got accepted. I had no idea what the school was about. No idea what-so-ever. I figured, might as well look into the school. It wasn’t like the college-thick-packets were overcrowding the mailbox.

The first thing I looked into was the minority population of the student body. A healthy population of white students. A wealth of Asian students – that threw me for a loop. Asian students in Utah? I just couldn’t figure that one out. Large Hispanic student population. Strong Native American student body. And very small, excuse me, not a lot of African American students.

My mind started racing “Not a lot of black people? Soundin’ like a bad mid-western horror flick, where you know who dies first.” I was fast, incredibly fast -- and I emphasize ”was”. But that was a lot of running from Utah to a black household. It was probably about 700 miles with no exits signs pointing me in the right direction. I decided not be a surface prick and dig deeper to find out what Weber State was all about.

I was surprised. Very surprised. Great college. Incredible student-to-teacher ratio. I won’t go too deep, because I don’t want to sound like a used car salesman. It was a lot of fun.

In a long extended nutshell, that’s how I ended up in Utah. ON A CHALLENGE, THAT TURNED INTO A BET, THAT BECAME AN EXPERIENCE.

How I ENDED IN UTAH: An Experience -- Part 1

It started as a casual rib between myself and a good friend. He’d just gotten into college and I was still undecided about what to do. I was faced with several decisions “should I do community college, local in state college, or the military.” I had no clue.

He, on the other hand, had a life script detailing his entire career. It was his gospel. It was his law. It was his NRA creed “It’s going to work, or death.” And me not having a plan, was perceived as being one step away from a lifetime of “would you like fries with that burger?”

“Yo. I just got into Morgan.”
“Morgan, huh. Great school. Happy for ya bra.”
“Yeah. My people are happy as well.”
“Cool.”
“I’m gonna be up in Morgan like that Spike Lee joint. Doin’ tha Butt with all the freak honeys.”


We both laughed to the point that someone broke wind. I won’t mention names but it wasn’t him.


“I know you’ll make it happen. Just do you up at Morgan.”


I was happy and excited for him. We both defied the young black male statistical odds. No criminal records, constantly employed, two parent household, educated families, etc. We both resembled the modern educated black family with a strong blue-collar work ethic. The conversation was on the up and up, until, he struck the first blow. A horrific hip-hop rendition of a song that was dreadfully off-key. It almost made me bark.

“Morgan State. Morgan State.
Is so great. Is so great.
And I’m so great.
‘Cause I’m going to Morgan State.”



Twelve minutes. That’s right, twelve minutes of a Luther Vandross broken record gone terribly wrong. The song sounded like garbage mixed with horrifying bad-breath. Till this day, I thank god that he wasn’t multilingual and the breeze wasn’t blowing my direction.

I just wanted him to SHUT-UP. Instead of thinking it, Tourettes of the mouth took over and a lot more came out than just SHUT-UP. The look on his face was priceless. A look that obviously revealed he was not a happy camper. The boiling water had runneth over and someone had to get burnt. The ball was in his court to strike, so guess who was getting burnt.

“It’s like that, huh.”
“Like a flapjack son.”
“Let me ask you this Mr. Get All Loud. Where you going to school? Burger U. To study the art of the flip. Under professor Mc.D.”

For such a simple question, I had no witty comeback. I went brain dead. He knew the weak spot and crippled my sarcastic defenses.

“You know. I’m aahhh, planning on, ahhh. Doing that, what’s it face. That place on the, ahhh. Over by the number 20 stop. Across from the Weave Hut.”

I was reaching. Not for a clever come back, but for anything that would give me some type of conversational hope. I was down for the eight count, and it was only the second round. It didn’t look good.


“If you don’t know, you don’t know. Hey, my man. Can I have some bbq sauce with my mcnuggets. You must practice mop technique DanielSon. Left. Right.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
“Left. Dominate hand is strength. Right.”
“You got jokes.”
“Weaker had is guide. Left. Right.”
“Okay.”
“Power come from back. Left. Right.”
“Alright. Enough already. Do me this favor?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Tell your hairy knuckle mom, not to use too much starch on my uniform. Ethel knows how I do.”

I was back in the fight. I temporarily stunned him with a verbal jab. Instead of hitting him in the chest and knocking him back a little. I went a little below the belt. Real low with the whole mom joke. It raised the DEFCON level to 3.85.

“So you got mom jokes, right?”
“My bad.”
“Nah. Nah. That’s cool. I know what you about.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. But she does cut her nails with a hedge trimmer.”
“Mr. Funny Man.”
“Yo, I’m just playin’.”

I took the wind right out of his sail. I had his left, right. According to the judges table, I was up 2 rounds to 1.

“Challenge.”
“Yo, I was just playin’.”
“Nah. Challenge.”