You Can't Win Sometimes...

*Zoinks*

The above Scooby-Doo reference was all I had typed early Thursday afternoon when all hell broke loose.

It had been a long week already. We were short handed, people were getting bitchy, Paterson was still recovering from the floods.

A pipe sprung a leak in my ceiling on Tuesday. Two days and six hundred dollars later there was still a noticeable leak with no noticeable source and now there was a nice hole in my ceiling to match.

We were behind in just about every way possible, I had loaned out so much money I was nearly broke, my car was acting up, some clown on one of my busses broke a windshield on a car by throwing a glass bottle (allegedly I suppose). I was exhausted.

The vehicle insurance having just been conquered I was moving onto the health insurance and it wasn't going very well. I was recovering at the end of an unpleasant meeting on a rather warm afternoon when my brother and I heard a crash from outside our office. We rushed to the window just quick enough to watch as the tension and ground wires on the telephone poles snapped and the phone line themselves broke apart and crashed to the ground. Needless to say my internet connection and the barely born post crashed with it. We spend the next four days without phones and little to no sign of help from the phone company.

With 5 business lines forwarded to my cell phone the damn thing didn't stop ringing all weekend. I was tired and fed up and it showed in my responses to callers at odd hours.:

To the guy who refused to give me any information about himself or the job he was calling in reference to when he asked what my name was, "I'm Fu." "What?" "Fu" "I don't understand. How do you spell that?" "F-U buddy." (He called back today...ha.)

To the girl who called looking for her golf cleats, "Hey you sound kind of cute. How old are you?" (She didn't call back today...double ha.)

To the genius who called three times asking if we could bus his group to Atlantic City after I had already told him no twice ,"Yeah sure we could do that. Do I need your information? Nope. Just have your group standing outside waiting for me." (If he ever calls back...)

But the week wasn't all bad. Wednesday night I stopped by the Youth Ministry meeting and ended up grabbing a bite to eat with some of my favorite people. Friday could have been great but only two people showed up for the movie screening in the church basement so it was merely fun. Saturday I grabbed lunch with Nick and Forti and went for Tuxes for the first wedding. More on that later... Saturday night I grabbed a drink with Michelle and was very glad that I did.

This is how the original entry would have started, "You can't win sometimes..."

And this is how this one ends,"...but sometimes you can."

Fellatio? Who's That?

Alright...so...yeah.

I think the best part about my weekends is that no matter how much planning or thought goes into anything there is absolutely no way that I can have any idea what the hell is going to happen by the time Sunday night rolls around. It's a safe bet nothing too crazy is going down. Nothing going to get out of hand. But there's really no way of telling exactly which way any one event is going.

Examples from the past two weekends.

Last Friday at noon I had decided to take it easy and not really do anything that weekend. It had been a rough week. Seventeen hours later I had won a hundred bucks in a poker game, snagged a strippers phone number, driven to Vernon for no apparent reason, and made it into work early enough that I managed to pass out at my desk for fifteen minutes.

This Sunday at 2:00 I was planning on getting a bus and taking a group of kids bowling. 9 hours later we had stolen my father's Hummer, started what would turn into a 7 hour long joke about blow jobs, played skee-ball, interrupted a priest's homily with spontaneous bouts of laughter, gone 80 mph up Route 3 to make a movie on time, and convinced a police officer he needed to use his weapon to get the girls to hurry up so we weren't late for said movie.

Like I said...it's sort of tough to see where my weekends are going nowadays.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

In a brief postscript:

There are very few things in my life that have brought me the joy working with the Antioch Team has. Every year since I've been there we've tried to keep the group together once the weekend is over. It never works. The friendships you make don't necessarily go away, but the banner of team, the cohesiveness you develop working with these people over a long period of time begins to wear away.

I've always said the saddest thing in the world is finding out that the only thing you had in common with someone you called a friend is that you happened to be in the same place at the same time.

It's an uncomfortable thought. One which puts me in an odd position over and over again. We never keep the team together, they usually all stay friends, some stay close, others drift away. And for years we would say, "This will be the year. This will be the year." And then when it wasn't we would say, "Next year. Next year." All the while sort of knowing that it is what it is. So there were no expectations this year. No hope really.

But things change...things surprise you sometimes.

We're not all that far removed and its been a struggle every step of the way, but who knows?

Maybe this...maybe this will be the year.

You can never really tell, now can you?

Let Me Clear My Throat...

Whoa...

Start the whirlwind.

Monday...

16 hour day, throat hurts so bad I can't swallow. Glands all swollen to fuck so that I can't even turn my head. Coughing up god knows what. Getting ready to make the biggest mistakes of my life. Get out of work at 9, find out they've cancelled Black Donnelys, have to be back at work before 6. Sleep? Hell no. Stay out all night. None of your damn business where I was or what I was doing.

Tuesday...

Inspection. Old Man's back. Still sick. 16 hours. Home. Sleep? Hell no. Seriously improving at Tiger Woods Golf.

Wednesday...

Inspection. Old Man is oddly not pissed. 10 hours. (YEAH!) Home. Sleep? Finally. Passed out by ten. Up at 3:20. Vonnegut's dead. Shit.

Thursday...

I-N-S-P-E-C-T-I-O-N. Raining like whoa. Accountant says we're in trouble because we're making so much money. Friggin' Great. Old Man talks to wife on phone about sitting home watching American Idol. Mispronounces Sanjaya four times. Pretends he can't remember his name the fifth time. 14 hours. Home. Sleep? Not so much.

Friday...(into Saturday)

Friday the 13th. Go in to work late. Bust my ass on paperwork. Ready to kill the kid. Jere wants to play cards. I agree. Out of work by 9. Clean clean clean. Whole house smells like bleach. Lots of Iced Tea and Yoo-Hoo. Cards. Consecutive flushes put me up big. Don't win a hand for nearly three hours. Low man at table. Enough to match the blind one more hand. 8-2 off suit. The dreaded Vilaboy hand. Fuck it. All in. Take the pot with a pair of 2's. Son of a bitch it's go time. Still the low man. Run three straight guys. Win for the night. Up 80 on the game. Strip club at 2 A.M. Jesus books. Favorite dancer. Presidential Room? In then and out. Vip Room? In then out. Back in the Vip finally. In for way too long. Dancer tells me to wait on the way out. Slips me a piece of paper as she walks past. Her phone number. What the fuck just happened? Pick up Jere to take him to car dealer ship in Wayne. Cars blocked in by three other cars. Going nowhere. "When did they tell you to pick it up?" "They didn't." "When did you tell them you were coming?" "I didn't." "Fucking great." Driving to Vernon at 4 A.M. Drop Jere off at 4:50, secretly wish that he gets raped by a bear with AIDS. Back at the office by 5:30. Daze all morning. Drivers fighting. Favorite sixteen year old drunk stories. Next door makes small talk, borrows $600. Faux Grandma in to chat. Climbing through emergency exits, chinese food for lunch, driving the kid to East Orange even though he's a pain in my ass. It's still Saturday

GOTTA LOVE THIS LIFE