enter church pulpit: insert head (33 years of this stuff)

okay, so in the spirit of fairness to my friend johnny miller, i must admit that it is my birthday today and, as such, share an embarrassing moment from my checkered past.

but before i get to that, a few quick fun facts that are bound to show up in the jeremy cooper category of jeopardy someday soon. go on, quiz yourself...

i'll take jeremy cooper for $100, alex.

i am now as old as the oldest sibling in my family but the oldest sibling and i are not twins and we both have the same parents.

who is jeremy cooper at age 33? correct. jeff and i are what you call irish twins. born in the same year, but not actually twins. i am not sure why siblings like these are called irish twins, but i am guessing it has something to do with the roman catholic church, its opposition to birth control/abortion and multiply and replenish mentality. funny thing is we aren't irish and we're definitely not catholic, but we do oppose abortion and are all for pro-creation. funny because, in our case not only were jeff and i both born within a 12 month period, but we were both born in the same calendar year: 1975. that is no easy task my friends, not that i would know from personal experience but because my mom makes mention of this all the time. so, go figure.

on we go.

i'll take jeremy cooper for $200, alex.

this irish twin is married to a woman whose sisters are both married to twins one of which was also born on 12/2.

who is jeremy cooper? correct again. the hodges sisters all married twins in one form or another. moreover, the two oldest sisters, aimee and heidi both married guys who were born on 12/2. the most recent to marry, tami, married a twin as well: adam. problem is, adam wasn't born on 12/2. adam! jury's still out on this non-12/2'er since not all twins are created equally... unless of course they are identical which quin (heidi's husband) and adam are, so i guess to a certain extent they are created equally. scratch this last thought...

let's move on to jeremy cooper for $300, mr. trebek.

it's the daily double. i'll wager all $300.

the individual in the video clip below's youtube reenactment of a jedi training session was so convincing that george lucas, upon viewing the clip, issued a $1 million reward for the first bounty hunter that could bring what he thought to be a real jedi to him in frozen carbon. and no it's not that other youtube lightsaber guy... any non-kid who would videotape himself fighting with a toy lightsaber is a total dork. wait a second...



who is jeremy cooper, alex? amazing, three for three, my friend. while it is true that jeremy cooper is not a real jedi, his kids do not know this and, apparently, neither did mr. lucas. no worries, this certainly was not the first time such a mistake has been made, but george definitely had the most to lose in making it. i mean, c'mon, it's george lucas...

i'm on a roll, so let's stay with jeremy cooper. for $400, alex.

i can't think of a $400 answer. nothing in jeremy cooper's life is quite worthy of a $400 answer. one, two, three or even five hundred dollars, yes, but $400, not so much. let's just move onto the main event.

... with jeremy for $500, alex.

this individual, as a little boy, once got his head stuck in a church pulpit while waiting for his mom to finish choir practice. anyone who, as a little kid, has seen the electric church pulpits move up and down for the different sized speakers who approach them has felt the urge to sit at the helm of the pulpit's command center and have complete control over the mechanical workings of this modern day wonder. this boy was no different and so one day, when he and his older brother were up on the stand by themselves after church waiting for mom to finish la la la'ing, they began to play around with the pulpit by moving it up and down.

this was fun for a minute or two, but after a couple of tries it was time to try something else. and what made more sense at that time than for one of the young boys to stick his head in between the upper moving portion of the pulpit and the base while the other brother moved the top down onto his head? well, that is exactly what this boy did. like an obedient younger brother with complete faith in his older brother, the boy put his head face down onto the base of the pulpit and calmly waited like a lamb to the slaughter for the top portion to lower down onto his head.

and so brother number two waited anxiously as he heard the low-pitched hum of the pulpit's inner mechanical workings do their thing. upon sensing the soft massaging vibrations of the moving upper piece descend down upon him, he almost felt a at peace and was momentarily lulled away into a nirvana-like trance. unfortunately for brother unmber two, the boy's state of peace was suddenly interrupted when he felt the engaging pressure of the pulpit's wooden top squeeze gently down onto the back of his head. but, what was only gentle pressure at first, quickly became more crushing in its application to the point where the tightening compression induced a tinge of pain. when the boy had felt enough, he told brother number one to stop and he did.

what a site this must have been: one brother at the pulpit's control switch gazing at the other brother whose his head was securely clamped in a pulpit on the stand in a chapel of a church of god. as they say in latin america, sin verguenza. that means without verguenza.

the boys thought this was funny for a second or two, but seeing as how their attention spans were only slightly longer than the hair plugs of a certain vp elect, it was time to move on to their next dastardly deed. "alright, lift it up," pled one brother to the other. and so he did... or at least he tried to. for what was once easily accomplished by a simple flick of the switch was now unaccomplishable by simply flicking the same switch. believe me... he tried, several times, but to no avail. brother number 2 was stuck and no amount of switch-flicking or head-pulling was moving the pulpit or getting bro 2 out. so great was his stuckery that i'm afraid at that moment not even moses could have parted those two pieces of wood. methinks someone was being taught a great and terrible lesson.

naturally, brother number two panicked and his first thoughts of the jaws of life, hours of operation by world class surgeons and having to sit through the following week's high counselor's discourse for all three wards that met in the building were almost more than the boy could bear. what's more is that all of sudden the tightly pressed wood on the brother number two's big head started to burn the his forehead and the tears began to flow... right onto the wood a half inch below his eyes. fortunately, there was tissue close by for the boy to blow his nose on, but the tissue and its close proximity was of no help as brother number two's nose was pinned tightly shut on the wooden base up against it preventing any mucas from escaping.

to make a short story longer, in the heat of the moment, brother number one ran to get his mom for some help. mom was option number one because she was not nearly as likely to get as mad as dad would. in ran mom with another friend's mom to survey the situation. both women tried to lift the pulpit by flipping the switch. guess brother number one should have thought of that before running for help, oh wait, he did, and it didn't work. well, it didn't work for mom and her friend either. thus, in the midst of the sudden frenzy of anxious anticipation, not unlike that which the nation experienced when it watched with baited breath as rescue crews tried to extract a little girl named jessica who had fallen down and become stuck in a well in texas for several days on end, mom and her friend momentarily lost control of their bodily and verbal functions resulting in mom's friend blurting out profanities in the house of the lord: "the damn thing won't move!"

brother number two had no forewarning that such language would be spoken... and even if he had, it wuoldn't have mattered for his poor virgin ears as he was literally in no position to cover his ears and shield his delicate mind from such street talk. not that it mattered anyway, all he wanted at this point was to get out unscathed and live a normal life, go to college, get married and have little a.d.d. miscreants of his own... something he was losing hope of by the minute.

ultimately, mom and her friend proved to be about as helpful in lifting the pulpit as brothers one and two, so brother one gave in to the last resort and went to get father. normally the thought of getting father to help son one or two in a situation like this would have been enough to get brother number two to cut his losses, pull his head out on his own no matter the pain, or amputate the entrapepd extremity like that stranded hiker who cut off his own arm after getting it stuck in between some rocks; but, something told brother number two that, given the severity of the situation, it was wiser to wait for an alternative solution to present itself since a head is much more vital to the human body than the arm... even if it meant facing the scorn of dear old dad.

so he did, and while he could not see his father's face upon witnessing the spectacle before him, he is certain it consisted of a snide "serves-you-right" type grin. brother number two is also convinced that his father exerted no urgency in remedying the situation and took his time before actually attempting to right this affront to all church pulpits everywhere he now witnessed before him. why you might ask? so he could (1) simply enjoy the sight of his son's folly just a little longer and (2) so son number two could fear his apparent fate for a few more moments. in the end, dad had mercy and, at last, came to the rescue with a swift and sure tug to the upper portion of the pulpit. all it needed was some jarring and up it came freeing brother number two from his mortal coil (well, not really, but you get the pitcure).

hallelujah! he was free at last and thank goodness... or else we might not have this blessed blog in these the last days.

that's right, who is jeremy cooper? and no, that's not why my head is so big. the swelling went down years ago. for the record, i have come to the conclusion that my head is as big as it is because i was not really born, but created in a lab somewhere as part of some ultra super secret government project to create super humans. apparently, the scientists put a little too much of the superhero serum in my head... you'd think they would have learned after captain america. anyway, the government project also explains how my supposed "brother" and i were both born in 1975, as if i am falling for that one anymore. you think it's just a coincidence that we live so close to area 51? think again, preferably while you are watching x-files or fringe.

happy birthday to me.