OH, DO I HAVE A STORY FOR YOU.

Although fall technically arrived in Tennessee last week, it made its first weather appearance yesterday when I woke up to 50 degree temperatures. Seeing as fall is the best season of the year, I was almost required to celebrate its arrival by cooking tacos for my nearest and dearest. Neighbor Clay was there, but of course. And obviously Cate came, too.

And then there’s this punk.

Two or three weeks ago, Nicholas took this mask from one of his friends and has henceforth been using it to terrorize me at every given opportunity. When he arrived on my doorstep last night, guess what I opened my door to? And then, ten minutes later, when I turned around from stirring the taco meat, guess what was standing right behind me? And how about five minutes after that, when I stood in the corner of my kitchen with my hands over my eyes begging him to TAKE OFF THE MASK, GOSLING, guess who crept closer and closer to me so that I’d know he was still there wearing that ridiculous mask?

Unfortunately Gosling hasn’t known me long enough to know that, when I have had enough, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH. I reached over, grabbed the spatula I had been using to warm the tortilla shells and chased that boy down so I could beat the fire out of him with my pink spatula until he took that mask off. You think I’m joking, but I did not even HESITATE. I took that spatula to his legs and just did not stop until the mask was fully off and he had learned to respect the pink spatula.

After our quaint, calm dinner, we headed over to the soccer field at our university to watch the men’s game. What’s that, blog readers? You didn’t know I have a love for soccer? You’re confused because I’ve never even mentioned soccer before? Perhaps it will all suddenly make sense when I inform you that, in addition to having an accent that can cause me to drive off various roads on the way to Bible Study, British Boy also has the honor of being our university’s star soccer player!

Between Clay, Cate, Nicholas and I, our young British Boy had his very own cheering section even though we were sitting on the other team’s bleachers because we arrived a wee bit late. They only had about five people on their set of bleachers, however, so we decided it would be okay to sit with them especially since it would be very clear whom we were cheering for given the fact I was wearing a homemade t-shirt bearing British Boy’s face across it.

Oh, I kid. I’m not wearing that t-shirt until the championship game.

About halfway through the match, the other team’s women’s soccer team (whom our female soccer team had beat a mere hour before, but whatev’) came and settled in on the rows directly behind us. Before long, they were yelling some very unsportsmanship-like things towards our players. They then began trying to talk a little smack to us about our players and, whilst everyone else ignored them, I tried to make a joke of it by telling them that I was exercising the fruits of the spirit to keep from responding to them.

Which prompted Cate to turn to me and — I KID YOU NOT — say “and if they had ever done a Beth Moore Bible Study before, they’d know that the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness AND SELF-CONTROL.”

I believe that’s what we call “The Christian Girl Throw Down,” y’all.

Also: can you believe she found a way to incorporate Beth Moore’s name into her throw down? I have never been so proud of her in my life.

Well, our little soccer friends behind us must have not really cared for the throw down because they began making their feelings known by upping the ante a bit which caused Cate and I to become a wee bit frustrated.

I had made the unfortunately mistake of mentioning British Boy’s name earlier when I was cheering for him, so they began taunting him — USING HIS NAME — from behind me. Which, naturally, prompted me to flip around so fast that my ponytail almost took off a couple of their heads and inform them in a few choice words that, whilst they may choose to say certain things about other boys on our team, they would NOT be saying things about number 10 whilst I was around.

Y’all, I swear to you they went dead silent.

I turned back around, thought for a second, and turned back towards them and offered a little throw down of my own: “Girls, it’s gonna be a long drive back to Alabama tonight when we whip your team’s tails, so you might want to quieten down a bit” except I was feeling REAL SOUTHERN-LIKE so I made sure the word “Alabama” came out like “AL-LA-BAM-MA.”

And then we lost the game. So, really, my throw down was kinda pointless.

But on the bright side, I got to hang out with Clate, the duo formerly known as Clay and Cate.

And listen to Gosling tell me not to turn around and saying anything else to the girls behind us.

And, perhaps most importantly, wear a sweater, drink hot chocolate from Starbucks and cheer on my favorite British Boy.

I’d say the night was a success, even without certain fruits of the spirit being exercised.