Well I never felt this way at twenty-four

Hey, Megs,

Fun times for a Thursday morning. I was listening to my favorite college radio show, Best of Bread (WRVU, Thursdays 9-11 a.m.), when I got a call from Evan. He usually calls me after funny things occur so that we can laugh and laugh on the phone. This morning's show featured Mad Libs, because the usual co-host, Greg, had to work. The subject of the Mad Lib was a shuttle launch, and it featured the line (I'm remembering this, so it may not be exactly right), "After climbing to an altitude of [number] feet, the shuttle orbited the [noun]." A caller named "pi" as the number and "limb" as the noun, so that the completed sentence read, "After climbing to an altitude of pi feet, the shuttle orbited the limb." It was pretty funny for 9:30 a.m. on a Thursday. Anyway, it hit Evan just right, so he called.

In the midst of our conversation--which veered off into musings on Evan's favorite comedians (Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, and Mitch Hedberg [his favorite Hedberg bit is the one about escalators: “An escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. You would never see an 'Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order' sign, just 'Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.'” My favorite is the one about the number 13, "I'm staying in a hotel right now, and there's no 13th floor because of superstition, but come on, man! The people on the 14th floor? You know what floor you're really on. If you jump out of the 14th floor hoping to kill yourself, you will die earlier. Thirteen is an unlucky number. If 13 is unlucky, then so should the letter 'B' be, because 'B' looks like a scrunched together 13." Oh, just go watch it here {13 part starts at 2:25, but you would do well to watch the whole thing: the end has a joke about Carmex! and the bit about the above-ground pool right after the 13 bit is hilarious, too.])--Evan got out of his truck on the way into work and said, "Hey, what is this in my pocket? Oh, a CD. What CD is it? Hey, Centro-Matic. I've been looking for this one." That made me laugh and laugh even more that Best of Bread.

Now, the reason this is hilarious is this: Last year, Evan and I went to see Centro-Matic at the Mercy Lounge. For several days leading up to the show, and for a good portion of the night pre-show, Evan kept talking about how great this particular CD of theirs was. "I would burn a copy for you," he said, "but I lent it out and whoever I lent it to never returned it." He would continue along on this theme for a several minutes, at least, each time, referring to the mysterious lendee as any variation of jerkwad.

"This is why I don't lend things out anymore!" he would groan. It was really a time of crisis for him, a questioning of humanity, if you will.

So, back to this morning. "Wait, Centro-Matic?" I guffawed. "The same Centro-Matic CD that you loaned out long ago and never got back?" Again, I laughed and laughed, and then told him the very same tale that I recounted above. He responded, "Well, I don't remember that, so clearly it never happened." The best part about that? He drank cranberry juice that night. I remember the bartender giving him shite for it.

Good times. I'm gonna miss that bastard when he's gone.

I hope all is well with you. I miss you!

love, molly

previous post title source: "Step Into Christmas," Elton John