Category Archives: Adult Stories

“Missing Flight? Missing Person?” By Chad Robert Parker

June 20, 2016AirportChad Robert Parker

“YOK,” “yok,” “YOK,” “yok” the goof-ball kids I mentored were exclaiming, half bored and half on a mission, as they marched back and forth in the airport. They were alternating speech and each holding up a sign. One sign read, Yok (sounding like yoke or yolk) the nickname for the foreign exchange student we were to pick up. The other sign read, Welcome.

In college I had left a girl at the airport. I forgot to bring my cell phone. After driving around for a couple hours and walking through the terminals a few times I gave up. I figured she would have contacted roommates and other friends by the time I was done looking. Unfortunately, when I got back home she was not there. Her roommates ended up going and picking her up. I felt horrible about that. I don’t know how I never saw where she was sitting, waiting, outside along the pickup curb. I was not going to leave anyone else stranded.

This young Chinese girl could be even harder to find. I didn’t know how we were going to track her down. The flight she was supposed to be on had arrived and we never saw her exit the security area to the baggage claim in the thirty minutes we were waiting.

My counterparts were getting a bit restless. They were pushing each other around in a wheelchair and starting to annoy the Senior citizens. We put a call out on the PA system for Yok to come to the Service Desk. Yok didn’t know much English so I didn’t know if she would catch her name being called out or know where to go. We went to the International terminal also, although she wasn’t supposed to be on an International flight for her last leg. We tried the PA system again 15 minutes later. Finally, an employee of the airport accompanied Yok back to us upon realizing we were the one’s looking for this little Chinese girl she had found wandering around.

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“Visiting the Sick” By Chad Robert Parker

May 30, 2016Called in SickChad Robert Parker

Good friends pay a visit when you are sick. They come to cheer you up. If you are really blessed they bring you more than well wishes and might even care for you until you are back to health.

It was almost 10am when banging on the outside door shook my whole 640 square foot apartment. It startled me awake and sounded like it was right outside my bedroom door. I slid from the covers, pulled on a tee-shirt to go with my pajama bottoms, and cautiously walked toward the front room. It literally sounded like the cops were outside ready to barge in. “Chad, we know you are in there.”

I rubbed my eyes and opened the door. There stood tiny, staring down from over his sunglasses, overalls already dirty and mud on his boots from a rainy day, nicknamed in jest for his gigantic build. I sneezed. “Oh, you really are sick.” He ruffled my already disheveled hair.

“We thought you were playing hooky.” My tattooed counterpart, whom I normally work with, explained, as they both stepped through the entry. I knew they had been working since 6am so I suspected they were only really visiting because they were tired.

“You owe me,” the first said. “You got anything to eat?”

“He had to fill in for you,” the second explained.

“What, you don’t like our crew?” I asked him as he rummaged through my fridge.

“Nah, actually I’d rather work rotary (billboard changing).” He spun around and shut the fridge. “You got nothing. What do you eat?”

“I know and I’m sick. You two should be bringing me food.” I joked.

I turned around and the other was sitting on the couch surfing my few local TV channels. “You don’t have cable? What do you watch?”

I shrugged. “I don’t hang out here much.”

“Well, you can sleep away the day if you want. We got work to do.” Tiny motioned to the other.

“I’m still resting!”

“But I’m hungry!”

“And I’m sick!” I pushed them out into the elements and went back to bed, with no regrets.

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“Deer Miss” By Chad Robert Parker

March 7, 2016Deer Huntbow hunt, bow hunting, deer, deer hunt, hunting, hunting storyChad Robert Parker

My older brother is cool. He often included me in his interests. Whether it was my thing or not he made it exciting. Early in the morning and early in the season he had his bow calibrated and he was ready to go deer hunting.

Being two city kids transferred into the country, I’m not sure we knew how to bag a deer. We found an area that seemed clear of “no trespassing” signs. We didn’t see anyone in the tree stands on our way in. We tried to walk quietly. All you could hear was our cold breath forming a fog in front of us. My brother had scouted the spot out and had a particular place in mind. We climbed into our post. It was calm for the first hour. Nothing moved.

At the edge of the forest was a cornfield, perfect for deer to bed down or hide. My brother asked if I would go around the field and try to flush anything out. I trusted him, but I didn’t want any accidents. He assured me that all I had to do was rattle some corn leaves at the far end of the field, leave my scent away from our hangout, if possible, and then wait until he whistled the all clear. Sure enough, I roused a deer, but it was a little guy. It ran off unharmed. We waited and then tried again. Nothing.

Several attempts later I chased two different deer out at different times. He zipped an arrow right over the first and again over the second. The same thing happened the next week we went out and the week after that. He was sure he had sighted his bow correctly, but then he learned that it needed to be sighted differently to shoot from a stand. He was missing by the same distance each time, only a foot or so. The season ended without seeing more deer. We did see a scary coyote, however, scurrying about aimlessly underneath us, which made me wonder why I had been wandering around on the ground.

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“Snow In Love” By Chad Robert Parker

February 13, 2016My Valentine, Snowy DaysValentine, Valentine gifts, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day storyChad Robert Parker

My Valentine’s Days have usually been single awareness days. It’s a day for those with relationships. And yet, I still like Valentine’s Day.

As a single male, and with no girlfriend at that time each year, it was the one day I could justifiably take a day off from weekend dating without feeling any regret, whatsoever. Then I saw the day from the single girl’s perspective.

One year a leader of single adults in my church was asking me what I was doing for Valentine’s Day. I told him my philosophy and that I would enjoy taking it easy that day. He lamented that their were several girls that day who would feel sad and not feel loved.

It wouldn’t be genuine for me to take them on a date and pretend like we were in love. Thankfully, I did have a few successful attempts at showing interest in innocent, bashful kinds of ways on Valentine’s Days through the years, but that mostly in grade school. Most of the time since I didn’t even have a prospect with whom I wanted to hint at that I would like to be her not-so-secret admirer. I thought of how women probably are not that excited to receive Valentine’s Day recognition as a sympathy gesture, especially if it came from the urging of married leadership.

Still, something would have to be better than nothing. That year, on the night before Valentine’s Day, was the worst snow storm I remember experiencing in Utah. It stranded me, and all my neighbors coming home from work, on Main Street in Lehi, UT for five hours. I had enough gas but I was getting hungry. I couldn’t eat the Valentine’s Day candy. I checked my trunk and found some dried out crackers. Yuck! Then I opened the back door to look for any other morsels stashed away. The balloons all started flying out. I lost half of them to the blowing wind. The person behind me was laughing at that. I did manage to attach one balloon per candy bag and delivered them at 2AM.

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“Three Dollar Fix” By Chad Robert Parker

January 11, 2016Do It Yourself (DIY)broken faucet, broken spout, DIY, do-it-yourself, repairs, simple fixChad Robert Parker

I’m the first one to admit that I am not a handyman. I am thrifty, however. If a fix sounds easy enough I will attempt a do-it-yourself project.

My tub spout started leaking. I worried that the drip might be mostly going back into the wall, so I purchased a new spout and went to work. When you have followed every instruction to the “T” and it still leaks, that’s when you know you really have a problem. What do you do then? I checked “google” to see if any others experienced the same complication. None had. Online videos showed that the task was easy enough. No one seemed to have had any trouble, whatsoever, with the three dollar fix. Although, as I investigated further, I realized I did have a similar problem as others. Turns out my original leak was actually coming from above in the handle. There was one of two possibilities. One would require a professional the other one was another DIY option. I took the handle off and found out I would have to call a plumber after all.

The dumbest part about it was that the piece I chose to “fix” was not broken until I messed around with it and squished the O-ring to death. And then my test run caused my worst fear as it was re-directing water right back into the wall and down into my neighbor’s closet ceiling below me. I apologized to her and offered to fix any issues there, for what that is worth, but thankfully we caught it before there was any lasting damage. I’m certain if there were a problem we would be turning to the professionals on that one, also, rather than continuing the do-it-yourself domino effect to our own detriment.

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“Missing Stockings” By Chad Robert Parker

December 25, 2015Last minute gifts, NewlywedsChristmas, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas gifts, Christmas Stockings, Christmas traditions, gifts, traditionsChad Robert Parker

The first Christmas story alludes to the birth of the Savior Jesus Christ. Many of the Christmas traditions we celebrate today by recognizing Christmas on December 25th, however, have more origins going back to the Christmas story where Santa Claus began. It started with a man sneaking treats into kids socks hung over the warmth of the fireplace, if I’m not mistaken. Celebrating Christmas as a newlywed with my wife from the Philippines means we are learning each others’ traditions. I wanted to be sure Christmas Stockings were a part of that tradition.

I staked out a few stores and found the Stockings to fill with nuts, candies, popcorn, and the like, along with oranges, pomegranate (which she has never tried), and a filipina twist, mango. But I ran into one problem. My last minute Christmas shopping was not going to work this year.

We have been rather busy and always together. I found my one perfect opportunity to go to the store yesterday when I had a day off from work and after I dropped her off at her job. To my surprise the stores I had scouted out before, however, had already pulled the stockings from their offerings. So for Christmas Eve I will be creating makeshift stockings to put all of our goodies into. Merry Christmas!

Update: Christmas Eve on the 4th attempt I happened by a store with the perfect $1 stockings to go along with our humble Christmas Day. Stockings will be hung after all (fireplace not included). Merry Christmas!

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“The Sponge Bath Best Option” by Ray (Spanish Fork, UT)

February 5, 2015Worst JobsChad Robert Parker

While working for an industrial roofing contractor on the west coast, spraying asphalt emulsion (water based tar) with a fiber glass binder onto industrial roofs, the material had to be sprayed to the very edge of the building. A half piece of quarter inch plywood was pulled along the outside edge while the Sprayman would run along behind the board and put down a layer of material. This sealed the edge of the roof. The purpose of the board was to shield anything over the edge from being over sprayed like equipment, materials, cars, etc. Occasionally a breeze would come up and the person holding the plywood was completely at the mercy of the wind and got covered by the overspray blowing back onto them.

It made them appear to be a tar baby. It coated everything it touched; ears, hair, eyes, clothes, everything. The overspray would set up in seconds and then have to be scrubbed off. The problem was it couldn’t be removed with soap and water, but only with hand cleaner which was extremely slow and not very efficient, or a sponge bath in a five gallon can with about a gallon of gas in it. Since we worked from dawn to dark and dinner was suspended until after cleanup, spending a lot of time to cleanup was not desirable for a hungry crew, so the sponge bath became the best option.

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“Too Much to Learn Too Young” by Robyn (Spanish Fork, UT)

February 3, 2015Worst JobsChad Robert Parker

When I was 16 years old, I became a Nurse’s Aide in a Care Center for the aging. Changing diapers was not so bad after I was introduced to catheterization. Enough said!

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“High Level Marketing” by Chad Robert Parker

February 2, 2015Worst JobsChad Robert Parker

Editor’s Example:

Dangling from 70 feet in the air and keenly aware of terminal velocity, I questioned once again if this was the right job for me.

After a 9 month search for the perfect position, I took a job at the ground level to work my way up. So there I was posting advertisements high above Salt Lake City’s skyline. I was lucky enough to get a job in Marketing, but you see hanging from billboards was not exactly the exposure I had in mind.

Winter is the worse season, but hot summers aren’t much better. I learned about momma bird season (they protect their nest and make quite a mess to work through) and wasp season (I was averaging two bites a day and often running perilously across the board swatting at the air).

I was told it was only a matter of time before injury. I was told one had fallen from a height of 35, or so, feet, broke both ankles and never walked the same again. I myself had nearly electrically charged a board and all its occupants. I prayed that I would not fall victim.

On this occasion I was working on one of the 40% of bad boards that were falling apart. Despite signing a contract that I would tie off 100% of the time—so my boss could appease OSHA—I found myself facing an exception that had to be made. An angle iron fell loose and I hung on for the ride. In order to swing to the side platform I was going to need to unhook my lifeline tethering me to the broken board and keeping me just out of reach of tying off to safety ahead. Well, I lived to tell the tale and worked another year in that job.

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“Sleep-talking” by Zach (Saratoga Springs, Utah)

January 5, 2015Embarrassing Moment(s), Newlyweds, Sleep TalkingChad Robert Parker

Early in our marriage, my wife and I discovered that we were both sleep-talkers. One night I awoke to a strange noise that I couldn’t quite figure out. It was a consistent, flat hum. The kind a kid makes when they are pretending to be a race car. As I became more conscience, I realized that the sound was coming from my wife.“Baby,” I said, “what are you doing?” “I’m on a mint green moped.” she replied. Although she spoke very clearly, I could tell she was not awake. The hum, which I now recognized as her mimicking the sound of an engine, continued. Flat, consistent, unchanging. “Baby,” I asked again, “what are you doing on a moped?”

“I’m in a race!” (More flat humming)

“Well, are you winning?”

“No! They’re getting away,” (Flat hum)

“Try shifting gears!”

At this suggestion, she immediately changed the hum, as though she finally found second gear, then third, then fourth. At some point she must have crossed the finish line because the humming faded away, and I faded back into sleep. The next morning, she remembered the entire race, but not a word of the conversation.

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