Aaron
Aaron Scott Barrus
d. November 19, 2014
The Man passed away early Friday morning. I feel a lot of pressure to write something extraordinary about him so you'll all know what a badass he is. I can't do it. There's no one story to sum that up. I'll just write facts instead.
He can fit a whole crawdad up his nose. We have documented proof and witnesses.
He can fold his hand into itself and make it completely flat. It looks like a hamburger or something.
He doesn't like pickles. And, along with his work minions, he sometimes electrified them. (There's a video on YouTube.)
He made it all through his voluminously misspent youth without making a single dry ice bomb. (I know. It blew me away too.) Thankfully he married a pro and he was a quick learner.
He liked vanilla bean ice cream. He ate it every day.
Every.
Day.
He never learned how to apologize. He was utter crap at it. Even after I showed him the "How To Apologize" sign at Jimmy John's. Oh well.
He has superhuman man strength and goes through shoes laces like some people use toilet paper. He was always breaking them. We bought 4-5 packages at a time.
He has an amazing body. I just have to say it. It's true. The dude lived a rugged and manly lifestyle that included chopping wood, carrying me around, and moving one million pound servers on the regular. From an early age The Kid complained about it. She preferred to cuddle with me because "Mom has all the soft tissue. You're just hard!"
He had a lisp that got much better after his jaw surgery... .but that never stopped us from asking him to say "Sally sells seashells by the seashore."
He's not great at laundry. Mostly because he can't tell if a shirt is inside out or not. He can't tell the difference between socks and sometimes he matches one of his HUUUUUUUGE black socks with one of my dainty white socks.
It was like Face Blindness... but with socks.
He had terrible table manners. Not the worst... but they weren't good. The concept of "This area here... .with my plate and cup and stuff? That's like a private thing where you have to knock to enter or something. Don't go there unless you have permission." made no sense to him. On more than one occasion he drank out of other people's glasses. He couldn't be bothered with territorial issues and he didn't notice if he suddenly started drinking a completely different beverage. We used to sit back and watch him do this. Every time he did it he was shocked and denied it. I think he thought we were making it up.
We were at an Aerosmith concert once and he started drinking from a cup on the floor. He spit it out and complained about our drink being watery and tasting weird.
We hadn't bought any drinks.
EVERYONE spent at least 20 minutes helping him look for his keys/wallet/phone/shoes. Every. Day.
He was the Chuck Norris Ninja of misplacing items. One time he lost his phone because he had put it down while building a server. Almost a year later he was doing some maintenance on it and finally found his phone sitting inside it. I'm not sure if he ever told his work.
He built tools into our walls. We usually find at least a screwdriver when we have to replace sheet rock he's previously replaced.
One of his wedding rings is forever cemented into our front porch. (I eventually stopped buying them for him.)
I drove to his work all the time to bring keys to him because he had locked them in his car. One time I had to bring gas and keys because he had locked himself out of the truck while it was running... and he couldn't get back into work because he had left his keycard in his wallet. On his desk. It was winter. And 3AM. (He was the only DBA at that job and spent many nights working nerd voodoo on servers.)
He rarely knew what day of the week it was, or which month it was. Transient things like that weren't important to him. Because of this, almost every birthday was a surprise party. "It's *MY* birthday?! Didn't I just have one?"
He told an inappropriate joke the first time he met my grandparents. It was at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Only my grandpa laughed. My grandpa had dementia. They got along great.
He LOOOOOVES stupid jokes!! And cat videos. He would watch cat videos with The Kid and giggle until tears streamed down his face. They would have to pause the video so he could blow his nose and wipe his eyes.
He was a great dad. The last time he made The Kid's lunch for school, in 1st grade, he packed her 11 Gobstoppers instead of a sandwich.
He was directionally challenged when it came to writing in cards. He always wrote with the card upside down, sideways, or even on the front or back. What he wrote was hilarious, so we forgave him. Examples "Thank you for the honey bear, we fight over it every night at dinner." "CA is making me send Thank-You cards. That means when she reads this she will find out that you gave us fudge. I did not share it. Life is hard..." He wrote this last one to a favorite aunt and uncle "1. Do NOT (this bit was underlined several times) believe anything that Nathan says about what happens in Utah. Children start lying when they move out. I'm sure he is. 2. Thank you for the pasta and cinnamon. I later learned that they were not intended to be together in the same recipe. Whew!"
He's the reason The Kid told the Helen Keller joke to her kindergarten teacher. "Why can't Helen Keller drive? 'Cause she's A WOMAN!" That was a memorable teacher meeting, The Man couldn't stop laughing through it... "Oh man! That's such a good joke, though! You'd expect it's because she's blind... ."
It was more work than it should have been to explain the reason Mrs. Porter didn't laugh wasn't because she didn't "get" the joke.
He hated sports. He never learned the terms and he didn't know the rules. It caused him to yell out things like "PUNT THE GOAL STICK!" and ask questions like "Didn't you tell me it was illegal to run with the ball? But...THAT'S ALL THESE GUYS ARE DOING!" We were watching football. He was talking about the no traveling rule in basketball.
He misheard lyrics to every song not sung by Metallica. Including nursery rhymes. "My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean" is not a song about cremated lovers. Billy Joel's "Shameless" is not a song about emasculating men through body hair removal.
His Andy Griffith obsession was unhealthy.
He had amazing moments where he knew the right thing to say... like the time we watched a movie that made both of us cry. I'm talking hardcore holding onto each other and bawling our ever-loving eyes out for almost two hours. It was ridiculous! After it was over, I turned to him and sobbed out, "Holy curse word here! That was intense! I did NOT know it was gonna be like that! We need to watch something to lighten the mood."
Through tears of his own, he shot back, "Sooooo... .Schindler's List?"
He was imperfect. He tried not to be. He's my favorite. He's the reason my stories are good.
Survived by his beautiful wife of 18 years, CarrieAnne, and favorite daughter, Tessa. Also survived by his mother, Debbie Romere, father, Kelvin Barrus, his favorite other mother, Peg Richards, siblings, Jim, David, Matt, Jared, Anika, Elyse, and many other family members who adored him.
Wake without casket-Wednesday November 19 th , 6:00-8:00pm at the 1440 East 900 South chapel in Springville
Funeral-Thursday November 20 th , 11:00am at the 1440 East 900 South chapel in Springville One hour prior, friends may call
He can fit a whole crawdad up his nose. We have documented proof and witnesses.
He can fold his hand into itself and make it completely flat. It looks like a hamburger or something.
He doesn't like pickles. And, along with his work minions, he sometimes electrified them. (There's a video on YouTube.)
He made it all through his voluminously misspent youth without making a single dry ice bomb. (I know. It blew me away too.) Thankfully he married a pro and he was a quick learner.
He liked vanilla bean ice cream. He ate it every day.
Every.
Day.
He never learned how to apologize. He was utter crap at it. Even after I showed him the "How To Apologize" sign at Jimmy John's. Oh well.
He has superhuman man strength and goes through shoes laces like some people use toilet paper. He was always breaking them. We bought 4-5 packages at a time.
He has an amazing body. I just have to say it. It's true. The dude lived a rugged and manly lifestyle that included chopping wood, carrying me around, and moving one million pound servers on the regular. From an early age The Kid complained about it. She preferred to cuddle with me because "Mom has all the soft tissue. You're just hard!"
He had a lisp that got much better after his jaw surgery... .but that never stopped us from asking him to say "Sally sells seashells by the seashore."
He's not great at laundry. Mostly because he can't tell if a shirt is inside out or not. He can't tell the difference between socks and sometimes he matches one of his HUUUUUUUGE black socks with one of my dainty white socks.
It was like Face Blindness... but with socks.
He had terrible table manners. Not the worst... but they weren't good. The concept of "This area here... .with my plate and cup and stuff? That's like a private thing where you have to knock to enter or something. Don't go there unless you have permission." made no sense to him. On more than one occasion he drank out of other people's glasses. He couldn't be bothered with territorial issues and he didn't notice if he suddenly started drinking a completely different beverage. We used to sit back and watch him do this. Every time he did it he was shocked and denied it. I think he thought we were making it up.
We were at an Aerosmith concert once and he started drinking from a cup on the floor. He spit it out and complained about our drink being watery and tasting weird.
We hadn't bought any drinks.
EVERYONE spent at least 20 minutes helping him look for his keys/wallet/phone/shoes. Every. Day.
He was the Chuck Norris Ninja of misplacing items. One time he lost his phone because he had put it down while building a server. Almost a year later he was doing some maintenance on it and finally found his phone sitting inside it. I'm not sure if he ever told his work.
He built tools into our walls. We usually find at least a screwdriver when we have to replace sheet rock he's previously replaced.
One of his wedding rings is forever cemented into our front porch. (I eventually stopped buying them for him.)
I drove to his work all the time to bring keys to him because he had locked them in his car. One time I had to bring gas and keys because he had locked himself out of the truck while it was running... and he couldn't get back into work because he had left his keycard in his wallet. On his desk. It was winter. And 3AM. (He was the only DBA at that job and spent many nights working nerd voodoo on servers.)
He rarely knew what day of the week it was, or which month it was. Transient things like that weren't important to him. Because of this, almost every birthday was a surprise party. "It's *MY* birthday?! Didn't I just have one?"
He told an inappropriate joke the first time he met my grandparents. It was at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Only my grandpa laughed. My grandpa had dementia. They got along great.
He LOOOOOVES stupid jokes!! And cat videos. He would watch cat videos with The Kid and giggle until tears streamed down his face. They would have to pause the video so he could blow his nose and wipe his eyes.
He was a great dad. The last time he made The Kid's lunch for school, in 1st grade, he packed her 11 Gobstoppers instead of a sandwich.
He was directionally challenged when it came to writing in cards. He always wrote with the card upside down, sideways, or even on the front or back. What he wrote was hilarious, so we forgave him. Examples "Thank you for the honey bear, we fight over it every night at dinner." "CA is making me send Thank-You cards. That means when she reads this she will find out that you gave us fudge. I did not share it. Life is hard..." He wrote this last one to a favorite aunt and uncle "1. Do NOT (this bit was underlined several times) believe anything that Nathan says about what happens in Utah. Children start lying when they move out. I'm sure he is. 2. Thank you for the pasta and cinnamon. I later learned that they were not intended to be together in the same recipe. Whew!"
He's the reason The Kid told the Helen Keller joke to her kindergarten teacher. "Why can't Helen Keller drive? 'Cause she's A WOMAN!" That was a memorable teacher meeting, The Man couldn't stop laughing through it... "Oh man! That's such a good joke, though! You'd expect it's because she's blind... ."
It was more work than it should have been to explain the reason Mrs. Porter didn't laugh wasn't because she didn't "get" the joke.
He hated sports. He never learned the terms and he didn't know the rules. It caused him to yell out things like "PUNT THE GOAL STICK!" and ask questions like "Didn't you tell me it was illegal to run with the ball? But...THAT'S ALL THESE GUYS ARE DOING!" We were watching football. He was talking about the no traveling rule in basketball.
He misheard lyrics to every song not sung by Metallica. Including nursery rhymes. "My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean" is not a song about cremated lovers. Billy Joel's "Shameless" is not a song about emasculating men through body hair removal.
His Andy Griffith obsession was unhealthy.
He had amazing moments where he knew the right thing to say... like the time we watched a movie that made both of us cry. I'm talking hardcore holding onto each other and bawling our ever-loving eyes out for almost two hours. It was ridiculous! After it was over, I turned to him and sobbed out, "Holy curse word here! That was intense! I did NOT know it was gonna be like that! We need to watch something to lighten the mood."
Through tears of his own, he shot back, "Sooooo... .Schindler's List?"
He was imperfect. He tried not to be. He's my favorite. He's the reason my stories are good.
Survived by his beautiful wife of 18 years, CarrieAnne, and favorite daughter, Tessa. Also survived by his mother, Debbie Romere, father, Kelvin Barrus, his favorite other mother, Peg Richards, siblings, Jim, David, Matt, Jared, Anika, Elyse, and many other family members who adored him.
Wake without casket-Wednesday November 19 th , 6:00-8:00pm at the 1440 East 900 South chapel in Springville
Funeral-Thursday November 20 th , 11:00am at the 1440 East 900 South chapel in Springville One hour prior, friends may call
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