How Silent Scott Got His Name

Let's reflect back on the great works of Rudyard Kipling, you know the ones. Didn't we all succumb to reading them as a kid because we'd already read and re-read "The Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree" (pictured below...) until it literally fell apart, and there was nothing left to read in the whole house?
(There was plenty, by the way. With a school teacher for a mom our house never lacked books. Let's simply ignore that The Berenstain Bears was far too juvenile for me since it belonged to my younger brother but I insisted on reading illustrated stories for far too long, AND that I only convinced myself to read Just So Stories because it had simple, black and white sketches sparsely placed throughout the pages, AAAND because the stories were short enough to make it seem less like a grown-up book...OK! I know what you're going to say! I know it's also referred to as Just So Stories for Little Children but it was normal-paperback-book-sized, like a Louis L'Amour,so I always assumed it would be like one of my dad's boring western books! Sheesh!)

Um, wow...that has got to be my longest, most incoherent opening paragraph ever, so I'll get on with it before things get weirder. I mean weird... Here's a lovely journal entry from Dec. 1, 1997. I was a Loganite, living on Darwin Avenue in the one-bedroom apartment with 2 sets of bunk-beds.



"A couple weeks ago I went to a dance with Katie. It was the Green and Gold Ball put on by the Institute for the handicapped ward. Katie's friend Arthur was in charge of the music and he told Katie we should go so that we could ask the handicapped kids to dance. He brought his friend Scott, who was sure an interesting guy. He was such a true-blue, through and though cowboy, which I normally love, but I thought I was going to die! He wore black Wranglers, his legs were skinnier than my arms, he wore a black leather vest with fringe that he made himself, and he wore a black cowboy hat but it wasn't the cool kind. It looked like this:


And he had a handlebar mustache like this:
(Side note: I really drew pictures like this in my journal.) He was the shyest boy I've ever met, but that didn't stop him from asking me to dance the whole night. I thought the point was for us to dance with the handicapped kids! (Side note #2: Is anyone else cringing when they read the word "handicapped"? It just doesn't sound very kosher now-a-days, does it? Let's substitute it with the much more p.c. version "special needs".) To top it all off, he was 30! I could not believe it! It was so horrible. (Side note #3: I'll give you a little peak inside my 19 year old (or so) head. When I was 21 and about to leave on my mission, I thought this 23 year old girl in my ward who had just gotten home from her mission was a sad, washed-up, lost cause. So a 30 year old? When I'm only 19??? Forget it! Ok, sorry for the interruptions. I'll get back to the original writings...) Well, he called me last night, but I wasn't home so I called him back. This was our whole conversation:

Me: "Hi, Scott. This is Robin."
Scott: "Oh, hi."
Me: "My roommates said you called."
Scott: "Yeah."

Then there was this huge silence. Finally he said, "How was your Thanksgiving?"
Me: "It was fine. How was yours?"
Scott: "Good."

Then there was another loooong silence. Then he asked me what I was doing this weekend but I made up an excuse so he asked me about the next weekend and I told him that my brother is getting married (he really is). So he asked me out for the weekend after that but I'll already be home for Christmas Break. Then there was another HUGE long pause for about 5 minutes. My roommates were gathered around, and they asked me what he was saying so I mouthed, "Nothing!" They thought I meant something like, "Nothing much, just rambling, etc." since I wasn't talking at all. But I was like, "No, he's not saying ANYTHING! It's totally silent on the other end!" Finally I told him bye and hung up. I feel really bad that he is 30 and doesn't even know how to talk to someone. That was the worst experience of my life. Well, I am going to go now.

Love, Robin"


Oh please. The worst experience of my life? What a drama queen I was! And honestly, did I seriously ignore the fact that a phone call takes two people?? Why in the world did I stay on the phone in the first place and even let there be an awkward 5 minute silence? I'm not exaggerating, it was 5 minutes long. Why didn't I just say goodbye after 20 seconds? Try it, right now. Sit in silence for 20 seconds (imagining you're on the phone with a boy you don't want to talk to) and tell me you'd let that drag on for 5 whole minutes! I was just as socially challenged, if not more so, because I was oblivious to my faults. Whereas I'm sure Silent Scott was keenly aware that he had trouble talking to girls, putting him one step ahead of me.

Anyway, one of my favorite memories of this whole story comes from me telling my sisters and their husbands about it a few days later, every detail from dancing to the phone call. At one point my brother-in-law said, "A nancing!?!" and laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. No, I didn't misspell it. He said a nancing. He had mistaken what I said and of course he had no idea what a nancing was (since it doesn't exist). But he didn't want to miss out on something funny so he laughed right along with everyone. We probably laughed harder about that than the original story.

To sum up a very long story that will have Mr. Kipling rolling in his grave...that's how Silent Scott got his name.

P.S. I was wrong-it is a word! I just looked up nancing online and Urban Dictionary defines it as a verb meaning "to spread joy and happiness with true genuity." It couldn't be more fitting because that's what that memory of my brother-in-law does to me!

P.P.S. I often gave nicknames to boys that liked me but that I didn't want to have anything to do with. I'll write about that tomorrow since this post is longer than any post should ever be.