Getting to know Amelia Merritt

So I have noticed that the people who read this are Brett's friends.  Hi.  Most of you do not know me, really, so I thought that I would help you learn about the person Brett married.  Let's get acquainted via the common date question, "What is your most embarrassing moment?"

First let me confess, I often give a fake answer to this question.  I say it was when I was a cyclist and I crashed a teammates brand new bike into a pole in a parking lot and was taken away by Ambulance.  Yeah, that did totally suck, but these other gems actually turned out way worse then scrubbing my lips with asphalt.  (I just secretly like dropping that I was a cyclist.)

Here are the top five.

#5.  While using the bathroom at the Mall my son decided to play with the door.  I told him repeatedly to get off of it and then heard that ominous sound.  Click.  I grabbed toilet paper to beat it out of there when sure enough, the door opened and an older hispanic man walked in on me, in mid-wipe.

#4.  I heard the Prom King was asking me to Prom.  But I found out that a boy that wasn't the Prom King was also going to ask me.  So I told the King's friends to tell him to hurry it up.  He asked me that night and I said yes but I felt really bad I rigged it in my favor.  My mom worked internationally then and was flying home the day of prom.  I bought a dress from the Limited for 20 bucks.  It looked just like a Calvin Klein slip dress I had seen on the runway.  I loved it.  No one else did.  It was a slip dress.  I was sixteen.  My mom planned to come home and sew in some modesty.  She arrived late.  My date waited an hour while I was being sewn into my dress.  And the couple we were with also waited, in the car, for an hour.  We went to the dance and my dress fell apart.  I spent an hour in the bathroom.  I tied the spaghetti straps that were luckily still sewn into the front behind my neck and was the first girl in Utah County to wear a halter to prom.  We had a late night carriage ride I froze through.  At the door I leaned in to kiss his cheek.  He got a mouth full of hair.  This one agonized me for years.  Really, years.  Until...

#3.  I tried to kiss my best friend in college.  I had been spending every day with him and got confused.  I called our mutual third party best friend at Princeton.  He told me I had to just hold him down and kiss him or I'd spend the rest of my life dropping hints.  I mulled this over and then saw Reality Bites.  I cut my hair like Winona's.  I went over to his apartment.  He was taking a date to see Reality Bites.  I had to give him something to think about during the movie. I told him we had to talk.  He had to go.  But he had to get past me.  I stood in the doorway of his room and I actually...oh the horror... put my leg up to block him.  Then I grabbed his shirt and went in.  He ducked under my leg and ran.  Leaving me to front confused questions by his roommates, walk home in shame and writhe in the pain of the retarded.  He said later that he needed to just pretend it never happened.  So we did.  And we still do.

#2   I was in New York with Aidan's dad.  Next to our hotel was a movie premiere for a Sandra Bullock thriller film who's name now escapes me.  While we stood there and watched the stars, someone from the event came up and gave us free tickets!  So we decide to change our plans because how often do you watch a movie with Sandra Bullock?  Seriously.  We walk the red carpet.  It took two hundredths of a second and not one of the photographers was fooled into thinking we were someone. We got our free popcorn and the theater was EMPTY! I think they walk the carpet right out the back door.  We sit in the middle.  But like High School, all the cool kids sit in the back.  The only stars even remotely near us are Donald and Melania.  (Boy is she pretty.)  So I tell Ty, "Dude, I have my camera.  I have pictures from out front but I want a picture of Donald."  He proceeds to tell me how lame I would be for acting so uncool.  I tell him I don't care.  He and I have obviously not been officially introduced in our four year relationship.  I am uncool.   So I go back to the cool kids area with my crappy digital.  And I ask, "May I please have a picture of you and your lovely girlfriend Mr. Trump?"  (Not bad.)  And he says OK.   And I know this only because he nods his head in the affirmative.  I take the picture.  And then he says, "asdvnb nuas a ekjbfu hka kdhsfhuh kewh fjb."  And I realize I have no idea what he is saying to me.  I can't hear anything.  And all my mind thinks is, "Donald Trump is talking to you right now.  See, his lips are moving.  Do something."  So I nod my head in the affirmative.  And then I walk away.  What did Donald Trump say to me?  Perhaps, "Are you looking forward to the movie?"  And I nodded, yes.  Or, "Are you enjoying New York?"  And I nodded, yes.  Or, "Do I look like a ridiculous pedophile next to this gorgeous girl?"  And I nodded, yes. 

Why couldn't I just say, "Pardon?  I couldn't hear you."   I don't know.  I don't know.  I still find myself on odd months contemplating possible combinations of things Donald Trump may or may not have asked me one spring night in New York City.

#1  Here it is.  My skeleton.  It's not my illegitimate kids, everyone knows about them!  It's Pictionary.  I am really good at Pictionary.  And back in the day there were shows like, Win Lose or Draw and...Pictionary.  So I decide one day that I would follow in our grand family tradition and go on a game show.  (My mother was on Sale of the Century and stared without blinking for the whole hour long episode and managed to answer the ONE question with the shaky response of..."The ice man never cometh."  I was nine and I knew the never part was wrong.  But I digress.)  I call up and get the try out info.  I go to LA.  I muster up more personality than usual and play well.  They have me come in a bunch of times and play other contestants in front of multiple producers and everything.   I come back to Utah and get called with a shooting date.  I drive to California and check-in with the contestant coordinator, Tony.  He says they have some special stuff planned for shooting.  I should bring extra changes of clothes.  I immediately start thinking about actually being on TV.  I get sick.  But not to my stomach.  I get a sore throat and fever of 102.  I have the chills in my Hollywood Hotel 6.  I try to sleep and can't.  I show up the next day and can barely draw a dinosaur.  I take a handful of Dayquill at the CBS drinking fountain.  I go back to the practice to find out they have changed the rules for today's show.  We are on a special cut-throat episode.  Returning champs have been re-instated for our show only.  If we win today, we come back.  We may need our extra outfits.  As an added bonus, the creator of the show, the producers and even the man who created Pictionary are all on set for our episode, to watch.  I meet the other contestant, a nice boy from Canada.  I meet the host, Alan Thicke.   I am asked to pick a colored envelope.   Orange or Purple.  I hear a voice in my head say, "PURPLE!"  I go, uhm...orange.  WTF Amelia?

Now I told everyone before I left that my dream team would be Screech and Jim J Bullock.  Those two exact names.  It seemed like a funny and unlikely duo.   And now who do you suppose is on the Purple team?  Jim J. Bullock and Screech.  And who do you suppose is on my team?  Some anorexic B actress and Joan Van Arc, who is wearing more make-up than her head should physically be able to support.   And we sit down and prepare to shoot.  I hate the intro for some reason.   Alan makes no sense and says I am a Tailor from Utah while visibly kissing up to the Canadian boy.  Alan is from Canada, too!   We begin to play.  I'm beating the Canadian.  And then we break and come back to tell a "spontaneous" story about brushes with fame we've had.  I once met Pierce Brosnan and I relay that I just melted on the floor.  I then said, and I quote myself, "There was a puddle of me."  Alan laughs AT me and makes a Pee Pee joke at my expense before sitting on the other couch and fawning all over the Canuk.  Next is the lightening round.  And the theme is cliches.  My team is first and I eventually get one I have to pass.  But Alan Thick sticks out his arm and says, "No."  No!   I go back and try and draw but I just have to pass.  This time he "lets" me.  The next cliche puzzle Joan tries to draw.  She draws notes and cans and breathes heavy before she passes to the skinny girl but she's at a loss.  She draws piano keys and a fish.  Time runs out.  The cliche' is revealed.  It was, "You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish."  My mind reels.  The other guy sails through the lightening round and got more puzzles than me and gets to come back.  He wins five thousand dollars.  I collect my six other outfits.  Tony tells me that since the cliche was questionable and since Alan stopped me from passing that I am welcome to come back.  From somewhere way down inside of myself I manage to say, "No thanks."  And I drive 10 hours home dizzy from Dayquil and regret.  Alan Thick.  Bah.