Zachary Grant BessFollow

Date Collected

Fall 12-1-2017

Place item was collected

Logan, Utah

Informant

Ryker Moore

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Ryker Moore grew up in Bountiful, Utah, attending Bountiful High School, graduated in 2012. Raised and currently LDS. He is studying Social Work at Utah State, and is the former President of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity. He is currently the President of the Inter-Fraternal Council, the governing body of Fraternity Life here at USU. He also an employee of SAAVI on campus and works with victims of relationship violence. We’re brothers under the same aforementioned fraternity, and friends.

Context

My roommates and I were in my Kitchen, talking about a gamut of subjects, including our love lives and other funny things about people we know. We are all in the same fraternity, so while we all have different lives and are involved in very different things around the community, we have enough mutual friends and stories to keep us going. This night I was cooking. In the midst of us telling stories, I turned my recorder on, knowing what story Ryker was about to tell, getting his consent earlier that week to record him for this project.

Text

Me: “What is the worst date you’ve ever been on?”

[Not skipping a beat] Ryker: “OH. Easy. Junior Ball. Her parents drove, we did not get dinner, I had to live off the winter mints they have on the table, and like the water…like you know at high school. You go to a high school dance and they have the little ‘Lifesaver Wintermint’ I had to live off of those and water, and a to-go box out of my friend’s trunk. [laughing] it was from his date, because of course THEY went to dinner.”

[interjecting] ME: Wait why did you not go to dinner?”

Ryker: “Because… I don’t know… we didn’t go to dinner. It was a girl’s choice dance, and I literally got asked two weeks before the dance, she moved in to the school from like Florida…”

[interjecting roommate] Luke: “Well buddy you chose the. Wrong. Girl.”

[Frustrated and annoyed] Ryker: “IT was a GIRLS. CHOICE. DANCE. Those are not an option. You cannot say no, or you will never go to a dance again.”

Luke: “Is this true? I guess we didn’t have girls’ choice dances”

Ryker: “Yeah we had girls’ choice dances, and if you said no, you were never getting asked again. You were an asshole who would never get asked to a girls’ choice dance again.”

[Luke interjects with story about girl at his high school]

Ryker: “Well I don’t know where that story came from, but anyways, she picks me up, and to her credit, she did clean up really quite nice, I was impressed, I was like ‘WOW.’ I mean she wasn’t like ugly, but she wasn’t like ‘wow, this girl is going to be damn good looking in a like a dress’, but then she showed up in this like black dress, and I was like ‘okay, well hello.’ So we start walking out to the car, and I was like ‘oh yeah, there’s people in the car’ and like, I figured so, cause I knew she didn’t drive. So I was like sittin there, and it’s like winter, and she’s from Florida, so she’s really not going to drive now, so I’m like ‘ oh it’s our group.’ And I hopped in the car and it’s Dad, Mom in the passenger seat, and little brother in the backseat In the middle with us. So I’m like ‘this is literally a movie, like I’m getting punked’ Like Ashton Kutcher was going to pop out of nowhere and be like… Anyways, so we start driving, I’m like, well her dad’s pissed, because I’m trying to give him directions. And he’s like “SNOW. FLORIDA. ‘F’ EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD’, ‘how dare you take my daughter on a date: Don’t look at her’” [said in quite the sarcastic angry voice] He’s being the usual dad, pissed off. And her mom’s doing the usual “So what do your parents do?... What do you like to do? …Where are you from?...” And then little Brother’s playing video games. And then like halfway through this drive, I have this conversation in my head that is like ‘OH SHIT, are they going to dinner with us?’ I’m like ‘are we going to have this family dinner, and me?’ and I’m like. NO they dropped us fifteen minutes off early, before the dance starts. It’s start’s at eight, I’m there at 7:45. Like the Vice Principal is still setting stuff up, the lights aren’t even off yet. And you can tell. And this is how great my Vice Principal was, She’s like, Sue Bayles, loved her to death, she was my homie. But you could just tell she was like strugglin’, like “OH YOU’RE HERE, AWWWESWOME” [shrill female surprised voice] Like they don’t have a table out for tickets yet or anything, so she’s like “okay, go right in, have a grand ole time’ she’s just like ‘SHIT what do I do, I don’t know, there is nothing set-up, but I am going to act like it is perfectly normal that you are here’”

Spencer: “…On time...” [laughing]

Ryker: “EARLY. We were there EARLY. I walk up stairs thinking ‘there is going to be no-one, but us. Like only us will be here. WRONG. There is like eight kids from the damn theatre group, Which, OF COURSE, SHE KNOWS, And is friends [with.] And at the same time I’m sitting there like ‘why the hell are we not with these kids, because these kids surely got dinner.” [laughing] “AND, their parent’s did not drive. I would rather sit awkwardly with nine people I did not enjoy, then have to ride alone, in a car with parents, and not-get-fed. Like…”

Me: “Had your date already ate?”

Ryker: “I don’t know.” [High voice, unsure, almost hoping] “I mean she didn’t text me and say “Hey, eat dinner before” and when she said “I’ll pick you up at seven” that didn’t sound weird because lt was like we’ll go to dinner, and then show up at the dance at like nine, so like nothing was out of the usual for a normal dance. Had no reason to raise a red flag.”

Luke: [faintly] “That’s fuckin’ hilarious…”

Ryker: “And like, it’s like when you played sports, when you stopped moving, or stopped running, your coach would make it worse?”

Me: [referring to Luke] “Yeah he didn’t play sports…” [knowing he played sports, but mocking his weight]

Luke: [pissed] “Who are you talk about? ME?”

[Ryker laughing trying to keep his sotry on track]

Ryker: “So it was like that though, with dancing, It was like that with dancing: Like if I stoped dancing, I would have to talk, and it would be worse, so I power-fisted, dance moved, three and half hours man. [lots of laughter] I was not stopping for anything. Like “unce unce unce” [making techno dance songs while dancing for us]

--

[Conversation diverged to talking about grinding style dancing]

--

Ryker: “So like then during the dance, she would come up to me and be like “We have an hour and fifteen minutes left.” in like five to ten minute intervals. Like, giving me this minute break down, so I’m like “we can go, if you’re just counting down the minutes… We don’t need to stay the whole time” So at this point, I’m finally having fun. I’ve finally got some sort of energy, and my friends are there so I can just like chill with them, and ya know, like she was around, I didn’t ditch her… Every slow dance I danced with her…”

--

[Conversation diverged to talking about how this girl actually helped Ryker graduate in a class]

--

Ryker: “So like the dance get’s over, and I think it’s like ‘oh I’ll head to the car and I can talk to her mom’ WRONG. It’s just dad. Who is pissed off again, because it’s snowing, and he’s not in florida, and this state is awful or something. So we’re driving home, and my driveway, you’ve seen it. [pointing to me] he’s like “I’m not pulling up that.” And I’m like “I understand” So I had to walk up in the snow, which is like no problem, but she was like “do you want me to walk you up?” and I’m like “Nah, you stay here” I gave her a fistbump and walked away. And I was like “MOM! Where’s food? I’m dying…” And that was the end, of my worst date.”

[Conversation returns to how she helped him graduate]

Texture

Ryker started the story as if he knew we were going to ask the question. He had the answer loaded, he’s told the story before. Because it was in my kitchen, the story was told quite loud, but knowing Ryker, that isn’t out of character. He found humor in the whole story, surely knowing how ridiculous some of the details are. Ryker is a story teller, quite opinionated and this story seemed like part of his normal routine.

Course

English 2210

Instructor

Lynne S. McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G7: Courtship

EAD Number

3.9.3.36

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