My elephant

So, we're kind of honorary members of Reid and Karen's BYU single's ward. We fit right in...only we're not single... Most of the "big kids," as they are known in our household, know this (now) but a few rather awkward conversations took place. Like this one time a girl asked me if she could sit next to me on the couch so I said yes and so she did but she missed and kind of sat on me. At first I wasn't sure if she noticed or not because she didn't move over and she just kept on talking.

"What apartment are you in?" she asked.

"Actually, I live here. I'm the bishop's daughter-in-law."

"Oh," she said, and finally moved over.

I don't know if she was just looking for an appropriate moment or if I intimidated her so much she felt like I had to give back my personal space. Either way it was kind of awkward.

Anyway, there's this kid in their ward who is really cool—he speaks Russian and everything. We once considered setting him up with Emily but then she returned home from her mission practically engaged and now is engaged so that didn't ever happen. Still, he's cool, and his name is Paul.

The funny thing about Paul is that I see him nearly every time I am on BYU campus. It's bizarre, really. I mean, I'm not on campus very often and the times I go are very sporadic yet every time I go, I run into Paul.

The first time wasn't even on campus. It was just near campus. Morgan, Emily's fiance, had come down for the weekend and we had just gotten back from camping with the BYU ward. We were in the car, heading to go bowling at Fat Cats, which is just across the street from BYU, with Emily and Morgan and Andrew's parents. We happened to be talking about Paul for some reason—I think because he's on the activities committee and so was spending a lot of time with another girl on the activities committee and Andrew said something like, "Why don't they just date already? They're always together anyway." And then I said something like, "Well, I don't know if they like each other but I do know that they're both on the activities committee so they have to spend a lot of time together." And then Paul walked across the crosswalk right in front of us. He smiled and waved.

"Oh, there's Paul," I said, "Speak of the devil."

A few weeks later and I went to campus with the girls and we saw him in the library.

"Hello, Sister...ummm..."

"Heiss," I said, "It's easy because it's the bishop's name."

"That's right," he said, "I knew I knew you."

I know there has been at least one other time that I have seen him on campus and that's saying something because I'm really not on campus that often.

Earlier this week Andrew was telling me about how one of his classmates—Richard (who is hilarious: I once watched him eat a cookie off his forehead without using his hands, he is growing a nasty mustache just to petition, in a way, against the honour code, and he once brought a real cigar to school as a prop for a skit because he didn't realize he could buy a fake one)—told him that in the course of any given day you will find an incident of elephants being mentioned at least once. I think it's a bit of a silly theory. Nevertheless, Andrew insists that ever since Richard told him this he has heard or read the word elephant. Everyday.

Today we were walking out of the library, where we met after my lunch and Andrew's classes, and who should we pass walking into the library? Paul.

"There's Paul," I whispered to Andrew before managing to snicker a polite hello to Paul. "Hi, Paul."

"Hello, Brother and Sister Heiss. You look nice today."

That compliment was directed at both of us. Andrew had to wear a suit for his Grantwell class and I had to wear business casual for the ladies' lunch. Usually we can be seen in jeans and t-shirts so this was a bit of an anomaly for Paul.

"Paul is my elephant," I told Andrew after we were out of earshot.

"And there's my elephant-reference for today!" exclaimed Andrew.

The only thing is that Paul doesn't know he's my elephant so he's probably wondering why I'm laughing every time I see him.

And speaking of seeing people, we went to Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner and Andrew ran into this huge guy while getting pizza. They apologized to each other and I looked at the guy and I thought, "Wow. That looks like my cousin Sara-Beth's husband. Nah. What would he be doing down here?" My cousin lives in Canada and we're a good 12 hour drive from there.

But then we were eating dinner and I saw another guy and kind of dropped my pizza and stared.

"Wow!" I thought to myself, "That guy looks like my cousin Heather's husband. How weird that I would see two guys who look like two of my cousin's husbands in the same night! Wait a minute...they're sitting together! That's just creepy-weird."

Then I got smart and walked over to the buffet line so I could scope out their table.

They were sitting with two other men who happened to look very much like my cousin Matthew and my Uncle Dennis.

I stopped in front of their table.

"Ummm...Hi!" I said, "What are you all doing here?"

"Nancy!" said Ryan, my cousin Heather's husband, "What are you doing here?! I take it you're back from Egypt..."

Heather and I are pretty much like best friends except that now we're both married and raising children and live in different countries so we don't get together as often as we'd like anymore. And apparently we have some catching up to do.

Anyway, Todd, Ryan, Matt, and Dennis are on an extended man-date of sorts. They went to the BYU basketball game this evening and are planning on going to the football game tomorrow.

Also, we saw Andrew's former-as-of-today boss, Cyndee, with her husband at the same restaurant which is really funny because the last time I saw them was, incidentally, when we were out to dinner with Andrew's parents at Joe Vera's, so that was a little odd.

Maybe I have more than one elephant.

Or just a knack for bumping into people.