Collegiate Guest Blogger

Today we have a "guest" blogger.

He doesn't know he's a guest blogger, but that's not important.

Garrett was asked to write a one page personal sketch for a class.
It could be about anything.
He made the mistake of sending it sent it to me.

It's untitled, but they were supposed to submit it under a "pen name."
His pen name is ANITA GUTGRAY
Say it aloud!

Thank you Garrett for unknowingly supplying today's post!

A common misconception among fourteen year olds is that they are invincible. However, because I have always been ahead of my time, I was only four when I discovered that I was invincible. Despite how young I was, my memory is still vivid of that day in Sandy, Utah. It was a typical day. I ate breakfast, got myself dressed, went to preschool, got dragged along on several errands, did some napping, and pretty much just hung out. Toward the end of the afternoon, I got tied up in an adult conversation on the end of my driveway. My mom and her friend were waiting for my brother to come home from school and were just chit-chatting about who knows what, typical parent nonsense. Since it had no relevance to me and being the invincible big kid I knew I was, I decided to roll out.



I headed to the backyard for some adventure. I didn’t have to go far. The Little Cottonwood Creek ran through my backyard. This time I wasn’t the only one hanging out by the creek. A visitor came to get dinner as well. I stopped and stared for a minute at what I saw. Right there, 20 feet in front of me, was a giant Tiger walking along the creek. When what I saw finally clicked in my brain,. I sprinted up the driveway, past my mom and into the house. My mom saw me running in teary eyed, and assumed I was hurrying to the bathroom.


As time passed, I did not return. She wondered why I hadn’t come back out and opened the door and called for me to come back out. Frantically, I replied, “I can’t. I saw a tiger.” My mom assumed I was making it up but decided to go along with it. “Oh and was the tiger black and orange with strips?” she asked.

My eyes fearfully fixated on the creek. I mumbled to my mom, “Noooooo. It was a yellowish and brownish color.” My mom must seen some humor in my response. She continued, “Oh and did it talk to you?” as if it were some imaginary friend. Still scared out of my mind, I replied, “Nooo…. It didn’t see me.”


That was the end of it. She didn’t even go out to the backyard. My claim was thought to be just another four-year-olds imagination. Days passed. I didn’t see the tiger again. But then, my parents were talking with a couple of their neighborhood friends outside again. It was the typical boring stuff. But then, something good came up. The neighbors told my parents that three different families had spotted a mountain lion in the neighborhood. Some people had seen him sunning himself on a rock. Some people had seen him walking along the creek looking for food. My story finally started to make sense.


However, it did not fully set in until weeks later when we made a trip to Cabela’s (an outdoorsman sporting goods store). While we were there, among all of the hunting trophies, I saw a stuffed version of the mountain lion I had seen down by the creek.

I told my parents, “Look! There’s the tiger I saw in the backyard!” I was right. So it wasn’t a tiger, but I did see a mountain lion! The mountain lion did not see me. But if it did, it probably would have been scared and ran inside to its mom. I was an invincible four-year-old.