So, I had a lot of fun with my last blog post where I used The Storymatic: Rememory, I wasn't going to post more than a couple now and then, but I was playing with the cards and came up with something funny. It takes me back to being 14 and a scout camp. I will show you the cards here:
So this is a story, and then a funny tidbit at the end.
When I was 14, my friends and I were getting ready for our weeklong scout camp. The grocery store by our houses had bins of different kinds of candy. Winco still has bins that, but Winco didn't exist at that time. I had four best friends at the time and we were in the same LDS ward. As a side note, one of my friend's dad thought I was a huge bad influence. Anytime we got into mischief, I was automatically blamed for orchestrating whatever trouble we got into, which was never a terrible act compared to what the other kids in our neighborhood were into. What made things suck was my friend's dad was also our scout leader, and he would be on my case. He treated me like I was a lost cause.
Anyway, my friends and I walked to the store, and we all bought different kinds of candy, and then we always intended to share it with each other. So, we get the candy, and we get to our scout camp. So, my friend, whose dad didn't like me, brought up a deck of cards and he said, "Hey, when we go to bed tonight, I brought a deck of cards. We should take our candy and use them as poker chips." We then decided which candy pieces were worth, for example, M&Ms were worth one, whereas the Swedish Fish were worth ten. That night we went to bed around ten, but we broke out the cards and candy and started to play poker. We agreed after the game whoever ended up winning was just for fun, and it was our way of sharing all of it. It was harmless.
Anyway, we are about an hour into our poker game, and here comes my our scout leader, and he opens our tent door and sees us playing poker. Automatically, he got mad at everyone for gambling, and then blamed me for the activity even though it was his own son that came up with the idea and was the person who decided which candy was worth what. Well, we got in trouble, and once again was blamed for the activity.
I always thought it was ridiculous that we even got in trouble in the first place. It wasn't like the other kids in our LDS teenage kids who were way into drugs, or jocks that didn't go to scout camps, or even church. However this is where it gets funny.
I was using ChatGPT to look up silly laws in different states. There are some really weird laws out there. From what I understand, most of the funny laws are in place because the lawmakers have these really long and boring meetings while they are changing up different laws, so when the session is almost over, they make up silly laws that aren't really enforced, but they are still in the lawbooks. Some of them have been done away with, but in Utah, there is a funny law.
Under Utah law, gambling is illegal, even if you are only gambling with candy. This is what the AI response was when I did a Google search to see if gambling with candy was still illegal:
"Yes, it is still illegal to bet with candy in Utah. Utah has a very strict anti-gambling stance and bans all forms of gambling. This includes betting anything of value, such as money, chips, credit, merchandise, or any other thing representative of value, on the outcome of a game or contest that is based on chance. Salt Lake City municipal code explicitly lists candy as a prohibited item for gambling purposes."
So, whether he knew it or not, my friend's dad was actually telling us to stop breaking the law.
I don't think it was a terrible thing. We didn't see our candy as "a thing representative of value".
We just thought it would be something to make the game fun, and then equally divide the candy.
Was my friend's dad over-reacting, I think so. Is it a law that would get us into trouble, I think not.
but even though I got in trouble for things that usually weren't my fault, and how frustrated and
hurt feelings I had about things that weren't really anything bad at all. I think sometimes when
we get into trouble, and we feel guilty and ashamed for something not that bad, we need to forgive
ourselves and not dwell on the negative, and find the lesson, or find a way to make that bad experience
and change it into something that you can laugh at in the future, even if it's breaking a minor law.
I hope that doing the Rememory set-up for two blogs in a row isn't annoying. I have another place where I usually do my creative writing. It's another blog that I don't share with anyone. I just use it to organize my weird creative writing.
I also felt that since my blog is now five years old, (Can you believe it?), I wanted to change up the look of my blog, so there are two new pictures and a redesign of the "Quality Blog" logo that I actually had suggested to me on a logo app I was using at the time. Whether my blog is quality or not depends on all of you, but I like to think sharing things with all of you is a good thing.
I hope you are all well and had a great Independence Day! I will try to post more often, as we do a lot of fun things with our family and friends that I should recommend to you all. Sometimes I just forget. Take care, and I will see you all later.
No comments:
Post a Comment