Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana

The Cantaloupe

Let me begin by describing the last time I was in the shower. Don’t worry, I’m not going to provide too many awful details here. None at all.
What I really want to say about the shower is this: Most people have a place where they do their best thinking. Some people think the best in bed or on a favorite chair; others like me think the best in the shower. As of late, living in Edmonton, there’s been less things keeping me busy and I can think of wonderfully petty things like reviving whatever the heck the Cantaloupe is.
So there I was in the shower thinking about writing another Cantaloupe and totally forgetting to wash the shampoo out of my hair (fortunately there isn’t a bill here for gratuitous use of hot water). I realized that since I got engaged there has only been two new issues of the Cantaloupe. Thus I vowed that with my new found oodles of free time, I would rectify this situation.

Is It the Suds

Of all the odd places to think, why is it that I would think in the shower? And why so well? So I present a couple hypotheses as to the prevalence of the shower.

Clothes inhibit thinking
Sometimes the desire to wear clothes hurts people’s thinking skills. During a previous Labour Day Classic between Calgary and Edmonton there were a number of streakers near the end of the game, I’d say about five to eight of them all coming from the same place. Well one man of that group ran on the field wearing a pair of jeans, clearly not wanting 35000 people to see what was underneath. Unfortunately the police found out what it was, that’s right, marijuana! Thus his streaking modesty lead to him not thinking. Did his completely nude friends have marijuana? The cops will never know since they thought it through.
A counterpoint however would be the most famous naked people, Adam and Eve. If a snake told you to eat an apple would you do it? I’d probably wonder why a snake was talking to me personally. I’ve never even known a talking snake.Anyways, I’m not certain this is the answer we a looking for, so we must continue searching.

The real answer
The point at which I said I became lost in thought was just after my hair had become scrubbed with shampoo. While doing research for this issue (yes, I DO research), I came across some advertisements for Indian Head Massage. They claim that this process leads to clear thinking. In the same way, wouldn’t massaging your scalp with shampoo lead to clear thinking? Why pay money to some educated professional when you can simply do it yourself?
Head massage provides clear thinking. So why don’t we all go around rubbing our heads all day? Unfortunately myself, as well as most people, are afraid of developing a case of messy hair. If I went around rubbing my scalp my hair would be a giant poofball in twenty minutes. The reason I can do it when I’m in the shower is because while my hair is wet and lathered in shampoo, still a work in progress. Once my hair is a completed product I don’t want to touch it. Therefore if we were to keep our hair as an uncompleted product all day long, we could massage our scalps and we could use our brains.
My proposal is this: keep the shampoo in your hair. In fact carry a bottle of shampoo everywhere you go, constantly lathering your scalp.

Now that Shampoo Companies Love Me, The Tables Turn

The one thing I don’t quite understand about shampoo (other than the fact that they aren’t even giving you real poo) is the whole “no tears” shampoo. Can they really make that promise?If a baby has recently sat on a cactus and has cactus needles in their diaper, you think giving them shampoo is going to cause them to stop crying? Honestly I’m willing to guess not.Secondly, who tests these things when they are making it. Do they test it on real babies? For example does Herb the product tester jab a baby in the eyes with shampoo? Or maybe if it’s not okay to do on babies, do they jab a rat in the eyes?
Perhaps we will never know, but one theory I have is that the only way to really guarantee a “no tears” shampoo would be if somehow the shampoo dried up your tear ducts, which must logically be true, since all advertising slogans are correct.

Conditioner is good too, I like it.

YVR

(If anyone actually attempts to shampoo their hair in public, The Cantaloupe takes full responsibility for all damages, providing the damage is to the tails of cows. The Cantaloupe also takes responsibility for you being the coolest kid in school or at work. Be ready for eight promotions and a 25 cent salary increase annually.)

This is the writer of The Cantaloupe. He often wears underwear just like everyone else. Just remember that if you dare.

We've Got Stalks and Stalks

The Cantaloupe

When people explode it can be a celebration or a tragedy. It is really up to you. Were they someone quite important to your life? In that case, mourning would be the most appropriate action. On the other hand, if what exploded was a murderer bound to kill every living child on Earth, celebration would be better.
Of course what would be happier yet still is if nobody were to explode except a stupid mannequin which has no life in it at all. Man that would be an event to call home about. You could say, "Hello, is Mom home?.....No, she's out?......Okay, well could you leave a message....Uhhh...I saw a mannequin explode, yeah that's right, a mannequin exploded. Is that not the coolest thing ever?......Okay, you're right, that is cooler.....and that too.....wow, a lot of things are cooler......okay.....fine.......yep.........bye"
But there's two sides to every coin (unless you count the edges, but who would do that?). Some people would still be sad if you exploded a mannequin. For example, what if the mannequin was designed to sell products for a department store. How would they sell products? Then the owner of that store would become sad and maybe he'd go and run over someone's favorite pet hamster. The one that always squeaks, you know, Squeaky?? That would be bad.
But as I said, there's two sides to things. What if that company had a reputation for making rude jokes to 21 year old girls. Then would deserve to fail and have their mannequin explode. Asking girls, "So you're 21, going to out to clubs and partying with the boys?" is not an acceptable business practice. And squeaking is fairly annoying so maybe the family got a better hamster.
On the other hand maybe those girls were actually going out partying and the comment wasn't inappropriate in the first place. So you see, I could go on and no issue would be safe. I could argue as to why nuking the moon would benefit us or why Vanilla Ice was a one hit wonder, things like that.

The Obvious

So recently I got married and it was a wedding that all Cantaloupe readers must have enjoyed (if they were in attendance). Not only was there kissing (one of my personal favorite parts), but also mini trampolining! About three weeks before the wedding I thought "what better way to get onto the stage, but by bouncing there". So I did. And now I have a mini trampoline.
Speaking of mini trampolines, I found this safety tidbit online for the use of mini trampolines. And yes, I wrote it myself.
"The operation of a mini trampoline is not for everyone. Before you jump on one, make sure it is on a stable surface, not placed on the edge of a cliff or on a live grizzly bear. As well watch out for hazards around you (in case you want to jump off) such as pool of molten magma or a large man-eating plant. Finally only one person at a time should be on the mini trampoline, not ten kids and a fat pyromaniac holding a bowling ball."

Creepy is just Ypeerc Backwards

When you get married and move into your own place you often have to get stuff to fill that place up. Melissa and I were on a quest to find a new couch a couple of weeks back and that quest nearly turned scary.
You see we went to a store called "Leon's" where once we walked in there was this guy that came up to us and offered to help us select a couch. He was middle aged, bald (you know with the ring), he had a mustache and was regular height and decently thin. Basically he was every woman's dream physically. I don't quite remember his name, but for our purposes let's call him Philbert.
We told Philbert that we didn't need any help selecting a couch and that we were "fine". Of course that wasn't what Philbert heard, as we shall see later in this story. So we left Philbert there and went in search of the perfect couch. We walked to the back of the store looking at couches, but we couldn't find anything we wanted. It was all stuff that was meant to be purchased by people like Philbert and not younger people. So we started back towards the middle of the store and who was standing but twenty feet away but Philbert! He was undoubtedly looking for a couch himself for his make out sessions (you know since he's a woman's best friend). We walked by him and went to the other end of store to look at couches, but it seemed Philbert was following us the whole way. This was getting a little bit strange. Hopefully he wasn't after my wife, because in that competition I wouldn't have had a chance. So we kept looking and he kept about twenty feet between us and him.
That's when I felt my bladder twitch. I needed to find a washroom. So I walked yet to another part of the store where the washrooms were and entered. I walked to the urinal and I heard a sound. Was it Philbert? No, it was me using the urinal. I finished and washed my hands, still waiting. I walked out of the washroom where to my non surprise Philbert kept guard about twenty feet away. I could take it no longer, I had to leave. I grabbed Melissa and escorted her out of the store without a couch.
This is a true story, don't let Leon's get to you and your children. Stay away, stay far away or they'll take your girl out for fine dining.

Where will Philbert strike next? Stay tuned

Further Marriage Tips

Here's a list of advice for anyone getting married in the next eighty years or so
-If you're a bride and you're about to walk down the aisle, make sure to pick your nose clean before you go in, because you might get the urge up front and there's a lot of eyes watching.
-It might be cute to throw some stupid line into your vows (like "I promise to love you even when you have PMS"), but remember that your significant other can always throw in a cute line of their own like "I don't"
-Find socks to wear that don't have holes in them. Trust me on this one.
-Getting married is tiring and you need sleep so make sure once you get to your hotel to go straight to bed. You see all you have in a hotel room is a TV anyways and there's nothing on late at night, so just get your sleep.

Just remember those things. Goodnight.


Trevor YVR Plett


(Marriage is like a sleepover, only there's less sleep and more making food and cleaning up things)

Stories From the Depths of Bible College

The Cantaloupe

As you may have noticed being engaged has its ups and downs. One of the downsides is you get far less Cantaloupes as usual, although that could have other reasons as well (busyness). So I needed to get back to the basics and what better way than to tell you some things that have really happened and really occured? Or things that at least were part of my regular life. Or part of my "regular" life. Thus I present to you stories from the depths of the Bible College experience.

Self fulfilling prophecy at its peak

On Mondays and Wednesdays there seems to be a deeply seated desire from some of our parts to go out for lunch. I honestly can not figure out why this is. Lunch to me is the second least important meal of the day. Why would you bother going out to eat it? Whatever.
Anyways, the story goes as follows. The designated spot for this so-called eating ended up being Wendy's. Now while we were standing in line my friend Trevor (just in case you're confused his last name begins with P) tells me to go order a "Wendy's basket". I ask him what that is. He says "exactly". I am game for anything I guess so I go up to the counter and I say "I'd like a Wendy's basket". The lady at the counter is confused and I confess that I'd actually rather have a Spicy Chicken Sandwich in a combo. Disaster averted, but the story doesn't end there.
Lunch has been eaten and we are sitting around doing whatever. Suddenly one of the employees at Wendy's comes to our table with the Wendy's basket! Yes, the Wendy's basket that contains mints. This is all I know, there is no coincidences, I have never seen a Wendy's basket before or after and it came out the day I asked for one.
The moral of the story is that the customer is always right. If only I had asked for the Wendy's briefcase full of money.

Acts of Power

There is a story in the Bible that we were discussing in class one day and I am going to tell you about it. It has amazing relevence to us today. It all started in class when the story of Philip and the Ethopian eunoch came up. Well as the story goes the eunoch was walking around depressed not only by the fact that he couldn't understand Scripture, but also the fact that he had lost his manhood. Philip comes by and pities the poor dude, and he explains the Scriptures and reassures him that in the next life he can have his manhood back.
This of course isn't the point of the story. The point of the story that is of the utmost importance was directly after this, Philip randomly disappears and reappears in another location! Here's the actual quote, "When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea". This was a very cool thing that happened. Christians are supposed to want amazing spiritual gifts, but never before did I realize I could have the spiritual gift of teleportation! Just like Nightcrawler!

The Christian Doctrine of Superpowers (i.e. Mutation)

We have now established that teleportation is possible, but what about other abilities? Let us go straight to the words of Jesus, whom the entire faith is based upon. "And Jesus answered and said to them, 'Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' it will happen.'" So just as Jesus caused a fig tree to wither, you could pick up a mountain with your mind and move it! Professor X had some amazing mental abilities, and could move things with his mind, but a mountain? So certainly your abilities would have to include all of his if you were greater. So you see, the gift of telekinesis is another spiritual gift.
Let's look further, Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake without any effects and was stoned without any effects. If there isn't Wolverine references there I don't know what they are. That's some pretty crazy healing.
Elijah called down fire on multiple occasions, clearly an impressive power. Moses did a whole bunch of cool things.
Here's the kicker, Jesus once said to his disciples this message, ""Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do". Now what are some of the things he did, he walked on water, he walked through walls, he controlled the weather (Storm?) and so on.
Thus all Christians have the ability to develop superpowers, whether flying, healing, strength, morphing, or whatever. I'm still holding out on the power that I want to be able to shoot any liquid out of my hands/fingers.

On the superpower track

When we were discussing superpowers, one that came up was Elisha's ability to control animals. There's a story where he goes into this village and a bunch of youth jeered him, so he calls down bears which maul and kill 42 of them.
Basically the moral I came up with is I would never ever want Elisha to work in youth ministry. That simply wouldn't do. When leading a bunch of teenagers, you can't get angry and call bears to attack and kill them. Not the best way to deal with problems really.
I can just picture it. Elisha has a few announcements to make and the youth are being rowdy, well it's not quite as severe, so maybe he calls a herd of big horn sheep to butt the youth into submission. If there's a hyper junior high kid that is getting on Elisha's nerves, maybe he'd call in a woodpecker to come after his knees. Yeah I just don't think he'd last long in ministry.

ANGRY YOUTH PARENT- Didn't the schedule call for Praise & Worship?
ELISHA- Yes, that's what we did
AYP- Is it relatively common for badgers to be involved in this?
ELISHA- The youth weren't taking it seriously enough
AYP- Well now my kid has huge scratches all over his face!
ELISHA- A handy reminder

Either way, I just don't think it'd be his gift.

ANNOUNCEMENT

From the creative mind who brought you the Cantaloupe and curly hair for all, comes a night of comedy and drama called "The Eight Legged Phylange (with Nine Legs)". This wonderful event happens on April 28th at 7:00 p.m. at Abbeydale Christian Fellowship Church (1352 Abbeydale Dr. SE) so come out and enjoy the laughter and fun.
As for cost? None, BUT it is a fundraiser for our youth as we head out to Saskatchewan so those would be appreciated. Thank you.

Oh yes, and a reminder to go and check out the archives of all old Cantaloupe articles at http://thecantaloupe.blogspot.com

Trevor YVR Plett

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Interplanetary Delinquency

The Cantaloupe

Hello everyone and a very late happy new year. The Cantaloupe has had a long and illustrious history and yes, my current writing efforts are not going out to producing much in the way of entertainment of you all. I think it's mainly because I'm more selfish than ever before. You see when I could be making people laugh and thus happy, I'd rather go to school or spend time with girl. How selfish can I get? Thus I owe all of you an apology, because things aren't going to change. When you get the Cantaloupe you will get it. That's when you'll get it in case you were wondering. Get it?

Our Earth is in Peril

A picture I saw on someone's fridge the other week got my thinking. When you have kids, sometimes you will have obedient ones and sometimes you will have disobedient ones. I'm not talking about you specifically as in you the reader, because most of you are not in the position to be having kids. Having kids is bad, they drain your wallet and they steal attention from you. Anyways I was talking about a random person's kids. What is true about all kids is that they crave attention and they want people to notice them.
A healthy child will find that they are happier receiving good attention for doing good things. There are kids however that do not receive a lot of attention period and thus will rebel as a mean of having others notice them.For example, a child may neglect their school work so that mom and dad will notice them and spend time with them. A child may beat another kid up. Sometimes a child will even listen to country "music". Usually, children will do this when their parents are absent.
This brings me back to the picture on the fridge. It had aliens in it. This made me think, are aliens a lot like disobedient children? Actually I have no idea why I made this connection, but that's not the point.
"What do aliens do us", you ask. Have you seen the movies? Aliens are evil and they have in mind only to abduct and torture innocent people, or they want to annihilate the human race entirely. For these reasons, people are afraid of alienkind.
But why do you think aliens act the way they do? Most people don't even acknowledge their existence! Just like a neglected child, a neglected alien is likely to lash out in an attempt to get your attention. Then we simply reinforce that behavior by giving them that attention. Humankind is guilty of ignoring these cries for help from a species vastly beyond our own in technology, but behind in the area of social development.
Now I ask, just because these creatures are more destructive than your average child, does that mean we should treat them any differently? No! So when a large UFO flies over the city of Los Angeles and reduces it from a thriving city to a pile of dust, should that dominate the newspapers around the entire world? No! That just gives these attention-starved aliens what they want. Soon they'll do it again just so we will know they are here. Instead we need to commend the good things the aliens do. Let's take them to our leaders and make them feel welcomed. Let's announce in the newspapers all the times when the aliens DIDN'T reduce a city to heaps of rubble. For example the daily news could be "ALIENS FOUGHT URGE OF DESTRUCTION OF PLANET AND WON!" Wouldn't that help the aliens get positive attention?
You don't have to believe me and do what I say. You can all huffy and talk about those "aliens these days that have no respect for anything. They're noisy, lazy, foul-mouthed and most of all completely murderous!" Why do you think they're murderous? It's because of you and your self-fulfilling prophecies. You cause them to be so with your ignorance.
Aliens are here to stay, they aren't going anywhere and they are the future of Earth. Let's teach them how to govern it when they eventually take over. You can love them, care for them, show them how to ride a bike. Yes, be their friend, but give them firm boundaries. If they get out of line, they need disciplining. They crave discipline. Even if they vaporize one of your kids as a joke, remember not to get too upset. Tell them how wrong that behavior was. Try and see things from their perspective; your kid may have been annoying them and might be just as at fault as the alien. That doesn't get them off the hook however and they need to be punished for their actions. I recommend a loss of privileges for such an action. For the next week they will not be allowed to insert their uranium tubes into their stomach. If they vaporize more kids, then you'll have to just be more firm. Hopefully it won't come to that.
Thanks for listening to this, the future of our planet depends on your actions.

Our Wonderful Land to the North

Two weekends ago I took an unexpected turn and drove north three hours to the city of Edmonton. There had been a fairly substantial snowstorm two days before I went up and that city was blanketed. Thus, when I got to drive around town, every road in the city was covered with bumpy hard-packed snow. Clearly the city council had decided to save money for the city by abandoning use of snowplows. A smart decision I must say. Let driver's drive at their own risk. It's a very good motto for anyone to have. Say a thumbtack truck accidentally unloads all his cargo in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway, well it's too bad if you're a sucky driver. You could have avoided the ten foot high pile of tacks! It would take half an hour at least to clear the road. That's far too much time and effort!
Now I must say I don't know where I'm going with this piece of writing. Am I making fun of the city of Edmonton? Yes, it would appear to be the way of paper, but really I wanted to mention it as a start of a satirical piece. It didn't work out very well and I'm not quite sure where I want to end up. You see I often do this, I'll start out saying something and then I'll stop and realize this doesn't work out that well.You see, the city of Edmonton has loads of good memories for me. I can't really complain about it too much. But that's not something funny and because of that I feel I have failed you as an audience.
If any of you ask it of me, I will end my life

Inside a Common Elevator

Since I'm bad at writing comedy, I'll write biography instead. They have always said that the best cure for a crazy man is to find a crazy woman and that would cure you. Well Melissa isn't quite that crazy, you know, as me.
You see sometimes a man likes to carry around a lunch pail sized box that has flower patterns on the outside. I am one of those types of men. You see when you carry around something like that, people will always ask you what is in the box. It gives you an aura of mystery. What if there is nothing in the box? Also some men like to have cola bottles (you know the candy) in that box so they can give it to their girlfriend while in an elevator. They're the best candy ever so why wouldn't you want to have them in a flowery box? Also some men have smaller boxes in these boxes, you know the whole Russian doll thing. And yes, unfortunately some men when taking out the smaller box, accidentally drop the larger box onto their girlfriend and hurt her in the process. I swear I didn't mean to! However sometimes when you're riding an elevator you have an urge to drop to one knee and ask Melissa to marry you with the contents of the smaller box. I got such an urge almost two weeks ago. And so I did it. I know it's the most incredibly romantic place on the Earth, probably because I know the female mind much better than anybody else, how else would I know that what woman really want for Valentine's Day was a bag of potatoes?
Anyways the moral of the story is that I am going to be getting married, most likely in November to a very wonderful girl (oh yes, and for bonus points, she is beautiful as well). So for the next couple issues of The Cantaloupe I will talk about wedding preparations. YAY! Okay, I might not for all of them.

Question of the Occasion

What Cantaloupe-esque thing should I do at my wedding?

Thank you and have a wonderful January

Trevor YVR Plett

(Oh yes, I predicted this would happen. I got engaged on January 13, 2007. It was an event that I very often referenced as "Christmas", making Melissa think it would actually happen at Christmas. She doesn't quite understand metaphors, and I don't quite understand onomatopoeia. Now go back to the Cantaloupe archives and find an issue called "Hope Hype Type" which mentions the day I would propose. Go and find it yourself!)