In an effort to break out of the “Sunday Leftovers” style of writing that has been featured on the blog lately, I have decided to recount (and offer commentary to) a series of recent conversations with a friend. This is one of those “this is how my mind works” sort of things and I am most definitely making fun of myself and the friend I am telling the story about. I know he is going to read this and I hope he finds it amusing.
A few weeks ago one of my good friends called me and told me he had a surprise for me and was going to stay over a weekend in July. I enjoy this friend’s visits and always try to make sure he has a good time (sometimes I do well and sometimes I feel like he wasted his time; so I feel a little pressure to deliver when he comes over). I checked my calendar for the weekend he mentioned and I noticed it was another friend’s birthday – this friend sometimes wants to celebrate and sometimes does not, but I always keep the weekend opened. So I go back to my visiting friend and ask him if his plans are flexible, he said that he didn’t have a specific agenda for when he was coming. For the moment I think “this is good”: it means we could potentially go to my other friend’s birthday celebration should there be one and if not, we would do something else. Then I started to think “this is bad; if he doesn’t have plans, what the hell could the surprise be?”
My friend has baseball season tickets and he often goes to Sunday games. He usually times his visits with those Sunday games because he lives a few hours away from the baseball stadium and my house. It is a good setup: Less driving for him, and we get to hang out the night before the game. I started to put the clues together. The surprise had to be either a person or a thing, and I know he isn’t much of an items person, so I focused my thoughts on people. I surmised that this person must be going to the baseball game. I narrowed my list down and came up with two candidates and I was leaning towards one heavily. I will digress for a moment and say that the reason I put so much thought into this is because I might be having another guest at the house that weekend, and I needed to know what the room situation will be and most importantly, if someone is going to stay over I like to be prepared (this is where my crazy lives).
Flash forward to last night; I am in Hartford, CT and my friend calls. I step outside of the restaurant to talk to him (I had been in an all day team meeting and it would be good to hear some irreverent filthiness coming out of his mouth) and he tells me he is all pumped out for the surprise weekend. I hadn’t thought about it for a few weeks, so this was a good opportunity to pump him for information. I mentioned my other friend’s birthday again and he assured me it wouldn’t be an issue, so I said his surprise has to be a thing or a person. He said he didn’t want to tell me anymore because I would guess. We did this dance for a few minutes, and then I said “I think you are bringing Bla Bla Bla (good Christian name isn’t it?) and then you will go to the game the next day”, he kinda gets quiet and says “that’s your guess eh?” A few minutes later he is calling me an asshole because I had guessed correctly. As he is confirming the additional guest I am thinking “okay I am going to need more beer, what else does this guy drink, I should probably buy two boxes of microwavable white castle because I am not cooking when we get drunk, oh shit where is he going to sleep if Allison’s friend is staying over…” and then my mind starts to shift into “well this is one hell of a surprise, now I got to make sure two people don’t have a sucky weekend, thanks alot buddy!”.
I tend to think about the way I think about things (Stop. Re-read that. Get it? Good.) So during the 4-hour drive home from Hartford I thought about my initial mental reaction to hearing that this other guest, a friend I haven’t seen since my wedding, would be visiting. The reaction wasn’t happy or sad (or any of the other dwarfs) it was “Oh shit, I need to prepare”. I don’t think this is good or bad, I just think this is me. But I also thought about the nature of surprises; was this really a surprise? Should it even be a surprise? If I was bringing someone over to someone else’s house I would let them know, but I am also the same person who wrote 850 words and counting about such a situation. So what do you think blogger-verse? Am I too uptight? Should a guest inform a host of another potential guest even if it is under the guise of a surprise? Does that even count as a surprise? Get back to me here, I need to be validated or shut down.
You can reach me via facebook comments (if you are reading this post there) or via email: blog at joeylombardi.com (screw you spammers!). I will post the replies for amusement’s sake.
PS: I’d like to thank my friend for giving me an additional 1000 words to write about this week (Well 985 to be exact).
