LouisCaravan

Hi Ryan, I just wanted to share a story with you that will stay with me for a lifetime:

When I was in High School, I used to wear the "Beards over Babies" shirt from your website. I wore the shirt all the time, so I ended up being the "Beards over Babies" guy. I honestly wasn't very popular, but if I wore that shirt, I got "Beards over Babies!" yelled in the hallways every time.

So one winter, my mother was going to be really late picking me up. Like, crazy-late. Rather than go anywhere, I opted to hang around at school and mess around on the ice/snow around the property.

So there's this big hill by the school, and I thought, "Why not?" and spent maybe 1.5 hours writing "Beards over Babies" in huge letters on the hill. Like I just walked up and down and around, making multi-footstep-wide letters, covering the entire hill in a down-to-the-grass message of favoring the Beard Life. It actually came out looking really nice! I had to jump quite a bit and ended up falling a lot, but it was worth it.

Flash-forward to the next day. Sadly, barely anyone notices. I got 2 guys from my computer class (which overlooked the hill) who came running up to me screaming, "You wrote Beards over Babies in the snow!" and 1 girl. That was it. Most people probably had no idea what it was or what it meant. It was just so fun to go to computer class and see that perfectly written sign of beardly preference so beautifully written and preserved. So much of the snow had melted, but "Beards over Babies" was perfectly readable. And gigantic.

Come 5th period (art), a message comes over the loudspeaker: "Please send /u/LouisCaravan down to the main office." Lots of "Ooh"s and "Trooooouble!"s. No one in that class knew I had written "Beards over Babies" in giant letters - or, at least, they didn't say anything. Or didn't care. Regardless, I knew why I was being called down.

Now, our principal hated me. Why?

A little backstory: A lot of my friends were troublemakers, and I was mostly along for the ride. Every single time they got in trouble for something, I was always just over the edge of plausibility to send to detention. I was in the passenger seat when one of my friends held onto the back of a car and skateboarded in front of the parking lot. I was "in the area" when one of my friends painted mustaches on the fancy murals drawn on the school's corridor walls.

I actually broke the door to our courtyard path between two separate parts of our school, because it was locked, and I said, "screw it" and pulled it really hard. Turns out the lock was bad, and it just snapped. I didn't realize we weren't supposed to walk through it (what is it for, if not a shortcut?), and eventually someone caught on and yelled at me for lockpicking (seriously). But nothing could come of it, because they couldn't prove I broke the door and, apparently, for safety reasons it shouldn't be locked. Long story short, I was always around trouble but never got detention.

So, back on track, I get called to the principals office. The guy has the smugest look on his face, like he desperately wanted to catch me doing something. Honestly, I didn't have enough of a reputation or social status in school for him to hate me, but man, I'll never remember that smug smile. he hated me, and he was happy I was going to school jail.

"/u/LouisCaravan," he said. "You have a 3-hour Saturday detention!" He was so happy. I really have no idea why. I just frowned.

"Do you know why?" he asked. I said I didn't.

"Because you," he pointed to me at this point, "parked in a teacher's spot!"

"Oh," I said. "I... don't own a car."

Another thing I will never forget is how goddamn fast the smile died on his face and turned into an angry frown. It was like someone shot his smile. And not one of those dramatic, slow deaths. It was like one of those movies where everything is taken very seriously, and they shoot a guy, and he just drops. And then the main character says, "Huh, it's always slower and cooler looking in the movies." That's what happened to his smile.

He proceeded to grill me for another 10 minutes. Apparently someone stole my unused parking ID number and parked in a teacher's spot, so their car registered as mine. He had to let me go. I walked away, very relieved and proud of myself that I didn't say "...for writing Beards over Babies in giant letters in the snow?" when he asked what I'd done.

So that's it. My foray into artistic vandalism began and ended with a preference for beards. The snow melted by the next day, and no one else mentioned it. But I'll always have a photo of "Beards over Babies" written in giant letters in the snow on my old Verizon Chocolate phone, and the lingering memory of a confusingly hateful old man's smile committing suicide in front of me.

The shirt's just a tad small now, along with the Wizard/Whale shirt and the "/take boat" shirt, but I still love seeing them in my drawer every day. Just thought I'd share!~

But aren't some of these "mistake" prices? Airlines wouldn't want to partner with someone who points out potentially revenue-undercutting prices, as great as it is for the consumer.

Hi Grant, just wanted to say I'm a huge fan of your work! I owned the BK soundtrack and used to listen to Grunty's final battle music on repeat all the time when I was younger.

Is it true you voiced Donkey Kong in DK64? That must have been an odd recording session.