Today Matt is 27! For his birthday this year, I decided that I would collect stories about Matt from family and friends, and put them all together into one book. Now this was no easy task, but my nagging skills came in handy (Matt tells me I have improved). I was able to get it together while Matt was teaching seminary at 5am. He read the stories and I heard much laughing.


Thank you everyone for your stories! If I missed anyone or you still have a story, email them to me at kaarynpalmer@gmail.com and I will put them in. We want to keep adding so it is never too late.

There are 2 stories which I want to include on our blog. The first is from Matt's brother, Nolan, who I had to threaten with love songs (because I thought it would shame him into it) and Stewie Foust, who is a friend of Matt, and his story has much less poop than the first.

WARNING! This story contains funny jokes about poop. If you are eating dinner you might want to wait (I am talking to you Saleem!)

From Nolan:

Kaaryn asked us to write down our favorite “Matt stories,” so I figured since it’s a gift to you I might as well write it as if I was talking to you. Before I begin with the story I will make a request that you don’t think of correcting my grammar or punctuation. I write criminal reports, not novels, so please don’t give me grief. Unless you want a punch in the face and if so please advise.

My story is about the time when you came to work with me at Capitol for those two magical weeks. Fortunately for you that was all, but for me the nightmare continued on for several months. We had previously discussed that you would come to my house in the morning and leave your car there so we could drive to work together. You wanted to carpool because it was more logically sound to use one car instead of two but I think you were using you economic and ecologic sensitivity as a front to cover your cheapness. There I said it, you’re cheap and everyone knows it. I wish I was but look who I married.

When you arrived in the morning the first thing you said to me was “I have to poop so bad.” I offered you the use of my toilet so you could take care of the poop that was so bad it required an announcement but you refused and said you could wait until we got to work. You continued to mention the poop several times before we actually left my house and I figured that if the poop was this bad it was probably fully cooked and would come flying out of there but you insisted that we leave for work.

Once we hit the road and started driving westbound on the 202 north freeway we began to chit-chat about random topics but you would occasionally interrupt the conversation to let me know that there was still poop in you that was begging for air. At that point we had made a commitment to get to work on time and we both agreed you could still make it there without accident. I believe that if we would have been in some cheesy, predictable, Hollywood summer blockbuster it would have been the moment when they zoom out to show my car driving on the freeway from a bird’s eye view with some ominous orchestra work playing in the background. As if the audience couldn’t figure out from the dialogue that you were going to straight-up mess those drawers to the point of no return.

As we passed under the 101 overpass you suddenly thrust your hips into the air and yelled “Nolan, pull over. I don’t care where.” I argued that I was unfamiliar with the area and wasn’t sure where I should pull over and you desperately replied in a high pitched squeaky voice “Anywhere!” The first exit I had available was at Scottsdale Rd in Tempe (ironically where I now work.) I exited northbound and pulled into a Jack in the Box parking lot on Scottsdale Rd and Curry Rd. I kid you not as soon as the car was going less than ten miles per hour you jumped out and took off running towards the entrance to the restaurant. In all you haste you neglected to see that no lights were on in the restaurant and a group of homeless men were sleeping at the front door. But either way that didn’t stop you from grabbing onto the front door handle and pulling on it with you whole body in desperation. The question I have is if you were able to break that door open would you still be able to concentrate enough to poop knowing you had just committed a crime? Or was the poop so cooked that there was no concentration required?

After you had come to the realization that you were not going to get you then turned, ran in front of my car, got on your tippy toes and yelled “I’m pooping my pants!” You yelled it out several times, enough to wake up the homeless sleeping in front of the restaurant. I imagine the bums were thinking to themselves “This is the best dope I’ve ever had. I need to find that dealer, kiss him and pay whatever he wants to get some more.” It’s not everyday that you find a white guy in business casual attire yelling out that he defecated himself at four in the morning. I think it was a first for everyone involved.

Once you finished the announcement you got back into my car, hips still thrust forward out of consideration for my upholstery (which I appreciated,) and we headed northbound on Scottsdale until we could find an open gas station. A Shell station was the first we found and you ran inside trying to find a bathroom. Unfortunately they kept the bathroom locked, forcing you to go to the front desk and frantically explain you needed the key. You should have seen that! You were wildly waiving your arms and your sense of urgency caused the attendant to panic so he couldn’t focus and find the key. Eventually he gave it to you and you ran back into the bathroom. At that point I was glad you had gone out of sight because I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. I was to the point where I was dry-heaving and getting dangerously close to vomiting if I didn’t stop soon.

Five minutes later you returned, undies in hand, defeated by the poop you said you could handle. Personally I believe that poop heard you inside your intestines and took it as an insult to his size and strength, deciding at that moment you would pay for your lack of faith. If my memory serves me well you didn’t go home to change after the poop but instead decided to fly Han Solo, a gutsy move that could have ended in disaster. So there you are a good “Matt story.” Don’t spend it all in one place.

From Stewie:

Matt is a very gifted writer. Anyone who knows him well is aware of this fact. While I was on my mission, I received many well-written and humorous letters from Matt that were a welcome escape from some of the stress and pressure of missionary work. The only problem with Matt's letters is that he would tend to neglect including the important stuff. Of all the information he could have sent, his letters would include things like a story about kids that dress as James Dean and rob elderly women. My favorite letter was one in which Matt said "Oh by the way, did I tell you I got married" (I wasn't even aware he was seeing anyone) "anyway, here are 100 random thoughts I've been writing for the last few months." Though highly entertaining, Matt's letters were chock-full of irrelevant information. But in the end isn't that the information that is truly relevant? The answer is no.

Happy birthday Matt! You are a great friend and we only wish there were more of you to go around.

Yours always,

Stewie