Going to bed last night I had that sudden sickly feeling I used to get back in high school or college when I would realize that I had forgotten to do a piece of homework for whatever reason. Seems I didn’t write a blog entry. With schoolwork there is some bit of consequence but I suppose the benefit of knowing no one reads this is that if I am late there is no consequence other than what I give myself. I blame Jack Bauer for my distraction. I’ve never seen the show 24 prior to Sunday and after watching them detonate a suitcase nuke it became very obvious to me that this show is awesome. Jack Bauer kicks more ass in one hour than the collective we do all fucking year. But I digress.
Saturday was a very long day and I will get to that, but allow me to explain the circumstances that directly led to me meeting people that I am going to hypothesize were swingers. Last Monday, the 8 th I was attending a social event over other people hired in the last 3 years. I was tired and didn’t really have any desire to go but it was my insistence that we have the event at this particular location so I guilted myself into making an appearance. While there it was mostly small talk with me telling the occasional random stupid story from my past. When I was leaving I ran into a dude by the name of Vince that told me I should stop by to see his band Anomaly (Music will auto play) Saturday night. I had pretty much made up my mind that I would go to the bar cause he seemed nice enough and I really needed an excuse to break out of my rut. Plus I visited the band’s website and learned the band in question has some genuinely good original material. (You’d understand the surprise if you knew the area well enough to realize how unlikely that seems.)
Saturday morning I wake up and begin the 80+ trip to Ikea and Guitar Center. The Ikea trip was almost fruitful but I hesitated on buying a couch when I found out how much it would cost to get it delivered to my apartment. Not an unreasonable amount but significant enough that I decided I should check local furniture stores before throwing away the money. I did get a table, but more on that later.
From Ikea I made my way to the Guitar Center. Despite having intentions otherwise I did not buy a guitar. I putzed around looking at all sorts of guitars, playing a few different SG’s even the one I mentioned last week. Even though they were all some fine guitars at the end of the day I had to ask myself if buying any of the guitars in question would be settling and after some consultation of a friend it was decided I should wait to buy the Menace if only because it looks insanely evil. No problem though I bought some cables and etc to make the trip worth while and headed home.
I arrived home sometime after 6PM roughly and made the requisite calls to all that potentially would be interested in my outing to “The Island” as the locals call it fully aware that none were going to come but I felt compelled to call anyway knowing their answer would somehow give me the drive to go anyway. (If you ever want me to do something explain to me how it’s the kind of thing you think I’d never do and say it in the most condescending tone you can muster.) I have some time to kill to I start to assemble my table and realize a bolt is missing. I am now in possession of a table with only 3 legs. After a lengthy discussion with an Ikea representative who much to my dismay did not have a Swedish accent of any kind we both agreed that it was unreasonable to expect me to return the store because it was well over 70 miles away and they would instead mail it to me. You would think I had just asked them to deliver their first born child to me.
Let’s recap my day until this point. No couch, no guitar, and a table missing a leg. Things were not looking good for me. My resolve to go to a bar by myself was waning. I called my friend Chris from Philly to see what he had to say. As my lawyer he advised me to go there, have something to drink, if was uncomfortable leave, otherwise stay. Using that advice I got there a little after 9PM. I left around 12:30 AM. Oh yeah.
After I got over the initial shock of being entirely by myself I ran into the bassist who introduced me to a bunch of people and all was well. Turns out I’m quite the skilled small talker because I managed to talk to just about anyone that bumped elbows with me. I even managed to fake interest in some kind of sporting event by saying “I’m from North Eastern Pennsylvania, I’m contractually obligated to root for the Eagles.” which sounded plausible enough that everyone believed me. The most interesting part of the night though was when I started talking to some dude that was wearing a Ducati jacket about motorcycles. During the conversation I had with this dude and his soon to be wife I got the impression they might be swingers. I’m trying not to speculate but there was signs sprinkled into conversation that wouldn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to start piecing things together. Though nothing as blatant as the main man Paul Jenkin’s encounter.
Overall the band was awesome. (Aee them if you’re in the area.) Loud enough to cause some temporary hearing loss, I met some cool new people, and I got out of the house for the night. Missions accomplished.
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