Just in case x 2

I've asked the question before in this very blog...what are the odds? It seems that in my life the odds are seemingly much greater than should be expected. Strange and coincidental happenings seem to follow me everywhere that I go. This particular coincidence involves myself and my fellow coworker and friend Brynne (and Julie in an indirect way). I apologize to anyone who reads this story and finds that my accounts of the first half aren't 100% correct, I'm going off of second hand accounts and I can't remember it all perfectly, but for our purposes my description of the events is perfectly fine.

To get to the point there's this guy that works for the organization that runs the South U Art Festival every year. He comes into the store to get his jobs done, and he happens to be about 35 with some kind of haircut approaching mullet status. He also happens to have quite the crush on Brynne, enough so that he chose to ask her if she had a boyfriend one day while effectively creeping her out at the counter. She lied and responded that she did. The very next day this same guy runs into Julie in the alley to Za's and asks her if what Brynne had said was true. She replied that she did in fact have a boyfriend and even inferred that it might be serious. Although discouraged, this older weird man was not ready to give up. He showed up to drop off yet another job the very next day and was helped by none other than Brynne. When he had finished his business with her he started his real business proposition - he laid down a piece of paper with his phone number and uttered the famous phrase, "Just in case."

This story alone is pretty humorous, but it was only made more bizarre by the events that occurred to me the very next day. This story goes back probably an entire month to when this Christian group, "Campus Crusade," came into the store to copy the bible or something. They were there all day and pretty much ran us out of stock on several items. I finally decided to talk to the girl who seemed to be running the show to see if I could order anything for her that would make this all easier on my inventory. We came to a conclusion and I sent a driver to get her specially ordered stock. Once it had come in and I gave it to her she responded with an unusual, "You're awesome!" I was taken a little aback, but I felt good. Brynne and Julie mocked me the rest of the day saying that they loved watching me interact with customers because I'm "cute." I will agree with them by saying that many an old lady at Target used to tell me the same thing when I rang them up at the register....anyway...

These girls returned the day after Brynne's "just in case" and proceeded to once again start killing my cardstock supply. I went up again and talked to the same girl from before and she seemed to be eyeing me. Let me mention for all you readers out there that the girl was tall and decently cute, but not exactly the type of girl I would normally be attracted to. I went about my day until Julie came back to report something rather funny to me. Turns out this girl had mentioned to the counter girls that I was cute and questioned the existence of a girl friend in my life. I was flattered, but told Julie that I would assume that I'm a little too immoral for a Christian leader kinda girl. The crusaders finished and left without any more interaction. About an hour later both Brynne and Julie left their posts at the front to report yet another interesting tidbit. Seems that this girl had returned to the store, in her own car, alone, to pass on a message. She supposedly said, "Give this to the cute guy, just in case." Again, name and number. Two days in a row. Same phrase. What are the odds?

A weekend by the lake

So, much to my surprise I actually managed to make something of the memorial day weekend this year. I received a surprise invitation to my friend Craig's cabin on Lake Huron via Mike Shea, and with a moment's notice I decided that I needed to get away. It was actually quite random, as the entire event was spawned courtesy of a lunchtime IM from Mike that I would have never received unless I had been called off of work that day. Mike simply mentioned what he was doing for the break and I commented that it sounded like fun, and Mike replied that he would call Craig (or Guck as many of us call him) and see if there was room for any more people. Obviously there was, and I can't tell you how relieved I was to know I had somewhere not in Ann Arbor or back home to be for once.

Without going into too great of detail here's a rundown of some of the more interesting happenings that went down over the weekend. The one single thing that I brought the most evidence back of was yet another new scar I'll likely have to live with forever. The premise behind it occuring is absolutely ridiculous to say the least.

We started off the day getting drunk out on the golf course (first time I have played a round in 3-4 years...no idea how long it's been really - needless to say I wasn't all that impressive) and then proceeded to drink pretty liberally throughout the night. Oh, I guess I should mention that the we I refer to included 3 other friends I knew from college (2 of which were girls), a friend of Guck's from his apartment, and anyone already mentioned. At one point a couple of us decided that we should maybe try and hop into Lake Huron in some drunked fun. In the end though it ended up being me and Guck completely naked with one of the girls going in her underwear and shirt. Thank God it was pitch black out. I made it a little ways in the water but it was like 55 degrees out (much colder on the lake than it was here that day) and returned back to the dock. To my chagrin I was photographed (with flash of course) emerging from the water with nothing but my hand over my junk to prevent a completely innappropriate facebook tagging (not completely sure this pic won't eventually make it).

After this minor incident we all returned back to the cabin and decided to utilize this portable elevated fire pit we had. Being from the UP Mike was the obvious choice for this task, and he undoubtedly built a mighty blaze. For God knows what reason we got into playing never-have-I-ever where anybody who had "ever" had to drink a shot of yeiger (spelling?). Obviously this was a very intoxicating game, but equally alarming was the extent of many people's "evers." Anyway...now for the meat of the story - needless to say, I was very drunk. I also happened to be sitting comfortably next to a very warm fire. Before long I fell asleep. During my slumber a log fell from the fire pit. A challenge was issued to Shea that he couldn't flip the log back into the pit with the stick he had been using to poke and prod it. He accepted and the first thing I remember upon waking up was having ashes knocked off of every part of my body as I stood up frantically in a complete daze.

I awoke having no idea what had happened whatsoever. It turns out that the still burning log had landed directly in my lap, and I was too drunk and tired to wake up immediately. More surprising was that I didn't even wake up despite the fact that it had landed directly on the first two knuckles of my right hand. Once I had come to and been informed that everybody but Mike had looked on in complete shock until he had shaken me and helped me to my feet I noticed that the skin on my right hand felt funny. I had been burned so badly that as is typical of 3rd degree burns I could feel no pain where I had been hit the worst (due to the nerves being burnt straight through). I think that this burn will likely skick with me the rest of my life - it was much uglier than any of the other run-ins I've had with fire.

On a lighter note it really felt good to get away from Ann Arbor for a change. Not that I have any problems with anyone or anything here per se, but the stress level is certainly lower for me outside of the city limits. It's just easier to not have to think about potentially depressing issues that I am often reminded of during my daily grind here. The last night there I slept outside under the stars and awoke to the sight of the sun rising over an extremely calm Lake Huron. It was a great moment as it was blemished with not one thought of any issue I may face that day, one of the few times I can say that's happened in some time.

Well, glad I could share that with you. Since I started writing this blog I had to save my progress and go out to the bar, and by the random coincidence ever I ran into the two girls from the cabin. The one had her digital camera and she showed me the picture of myself naked - pretty scandalous, but actually appropriate for facebook potentially. Expect to see it up there sometime soon. Alright, enough for now, I'm out.