I like going to my friend’s house in Indiana: they’re fun to
be around, their kids and pets aren’t obnoxious and there is usually some sort
of debauchery (drinking, gambling, Amanda). They’re not math teachers, but they’ll do.
Jason and Erin live in the wilderness of Indiana far from where the Golden Arches shine or an iPhone will work properly. Chaos Bean won’t admit it but I know that she thinks they’ve descended into Hell. There are several ways to get to their house and I always take the longest route because it is the simplest and the least treacherous. Jason always gives me different routes I could take here or there, but I stick with what I know. On Saturday night, I decided to try the alternate route.
The decision I made was on the spur of the moment so I didn’t double-check my route with Jason before leaving. This was a special kind of stupid. I took a road that winds up a hill on what I like to call a series of z turns along the side. It wasn’t too intimidating, I drive a Volkswagen and what can’t it handle? I should remember that, while my car is awesome, other people’s cars and trucks are not. The Ford truck in front of me disintegrated on a road where I didn’t have a lot room to avoid the less glamorous parts of the exhaust and emissions system. I knew my car could slalom but I didn’t know I could slalom. Sometimes, I even impress myself. Not only did I slalom but I didn't soil myself.
Once I got to the top of the hill the road stopped and I had to turn – but I didn’t remember if I was supposed to turn right or left. I turned left because I felt I should turn right and I am always wrong on the first guess insofar as a sense of direction. The record will note that I should have turned right but my politics and faith turn me left, and toward Jesus all the time so I took that to geography as well. I drove through the woods and then some cornfields and a trailer park before hitting another wooded area, all while making haphazard turns on roads I’d never seen before. It was in the second wooded area that the beginnings of concern took root in my mind and MC Hammer came onto my iPod; realizing that I too was too legit to quit and pressed on. Luckily, their house was around the next bend.
I was never lost, though. I always knew that I was still in Indiana where I intended to be all along.
The night’s activities included poker (something I know nothing about) and Wii Sports Resort: which I had brought with me. Chaos Bean and I had been training on the games so Erin’s eight-year-old wouldn’t school us on the games. If I had any pride I would have been ashamed but shame isn’t something I feel or recognize; I am terrible at both activities but, again, I was too legit to quit. After Erin and I were both out of the poker game we revisited the Wii Sports Resort where she schooled everyone, in every game. I am too legit to quit but not so legit that I can’t be repeatedly beaten, I’m just glad it wasn’t the eight-year-old because at this point I’d probably have had my ear bitten off (for good measure). Through all of this Asian Reporter Jason had confiscated my phone and took pictures of just about everything, and I believe the best picture of me ever taken was captured on Saturday night.
I need to teach these people some religion, infuse some decency. Indeed: if this were a group of math teachers (as I prefer) there would have been a good game of Left-Right-Center for the centerpiece gambling with real money. When I host the barbeque I will pay for it with their money through the generosity of Left-Right-Center. I know that not everyone can be a math teacher but I rejoice in the fact that poker wasn’t played with money but rather with chips.
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