My Official First Entry into the Greatest Story Ever Contest

Before you read this blog you must first read the blog that comes directly before this one or else you will be confused and bewildered, and no on likes being bewildered.

Okay, I have waited long enough. I feel like the anticipation has built to a point that if I do not submit my first entry today a riot might breakout. And that wouldn't be good because someone could get hurt.

I do confess that I have a bit of a dilemma here. My first deli ma is that I have told many of y'all a lot of my greatest stories as illustrations on Sunday morning. My second dilemma is that I still have so many good stories I am not sure what three I want to submit. My third dilemma is that I have never been to Antarctica (see Colin's first story). Oh well, I must press on for the sake of the game.

I believe that each story I will submit in this contest will come from a different stage in my life. The first will be a family story that took place when I was a sophomore in high school, the second will take place when I was in college living with my roommates and my third will be about me and Krista. So without further ado, let story time begin...

Official Story entry #1: To Prank and To Be Pranked

A little background for the story: One of the greatest things about my family is that we had fun together. Growing up we would have "family night" on Thursday nights. We would eat together and hang out and my Dad would lead us in a family devotional of some kind and we would talk about stuff. Sometimes on family night we would do a thing we called an ice cream drop. We would all jump in our sweet Ford Aerostar Van swing by a grocery story pick up some Blue Bell ice cream and randomly and always unannounced we would show up at a friends house and ring the door bell, leave the ice cream on the porch and run. We would hide and watch their expressions and laugh and it was always a good time. Another thing that my family did together was pranks. We wrapped a lot of houses together, forked a few yards and even dog-biscuited a yard (another story for another time).

One night my family decided it was time to combine a prank with the ice cream drop. Word had gotten around the church that the Boxes did ice cream drops and so there wasn't much surprise factor to it anymore so we thought we would actually make a ice cream delivery this time with a twist. Instead of just dropping off ice cream we would make sure we got invited into the house and then the pranks would begin. And so they did.

The lucky family we targeted were the Ledbetters, good family friends of ours from the church. We picked up some ice cream and cruised on up to their place in the old Aerostar. It was cold night so me and my brother where wearing our sweet huge Starter jackets. (Sadly before most of your time) We rang the door bell and the were greeted warmly by the Ledbetters. Happy to see us and happy to get ice cream they invited us in. We sat down in the living room and spent some time catching up. Then, as planned, one at a time each kid (me, my brother Ben and my sister Kaley) got up to use the restroom. While we were in the restroom our mission was to steal (spelled right) all the toothbrushes and toilet paper in the house. Ben and I would pack the stuff in our jackets and you couldn't tell (like I said they were big). Kaley had a oversized purse to put her stuff in. Then one at a time we would come back into the living room and join the conversation like nothing ever happened. Right before we left my Mom asked excused herself to use the restroom and managed to sneak into the Ledbetters bedroom. While in there she stole the last of the toothbrushes and toilet paper and hid an alarm clock we had brought under their bed and set it for 2:00 am. I know, she is awesome. Finally it was time to go so my Dad offered to pray for the Ledbetter family and thank God for them and their friendship. Then we left.

When we got in the van Ben and I unzipped our jackets to unveil a mission accomplished. We ended up with over 12 rolls of toilet paper (every roll in the house) and every tooth brush. With all of that toilet paper it only felt right for us to go use it so we headed over to another families house that lived pretty close by and wrapped their house with the Ledbetter's toilet paper. After ringing the door bell and jumping into the sweet Aerostar as my Dad peeled out (if you can do that in a minivan) as the door opened at the house we wrapped we knew it was a successful family night.

When we got home we had a couple of messages on the phone from the Ledbetters. Turns out that when they had sent their kids to bed the kids could not find their tooth brushes and on top of that they could not find any of their toilet paper. We assured them we did not have their toilet paper and hoped they would find their tooth brushes soon. We also got a phone call at 2:05 am that morning. No one bothered to get up for it though, we knew who was calling.