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Chapter 3: Another Day, Another Friend

Let's see. What happened today . . . . . oh yeah! NO MORE WORK!!!!! I completed my final day of shop work for the rest of the summer! Now I can do stuff I want to do! I'm gonna stay up, sleep in, and . . . hmm. I didn't think that far ahead. Let's see . . . . . I could . . . . . wake up, then . . . eat something . . . . then . . . . . damn. Basically I did nothing that morning. I listened to the local radio station's morning show, tried not to let the neighbor's lawn-mower wake me up, and when my bladder couldn't take it any more, I got up and . . . ya know. So anyway, once I arose from my near-eternal slumber and, uh . . . "emptied the spit-valve on the trumpet", if ya get my . . . drift. I decided to waste EVEN more of my day by watching TV. Yeah, so I did this with an open box of Honey-Nut Cheerios and a glass of milk at my side for about an hour or two, until the phone rang.

"Hello?" I opened weakly.
"Hi, is Ernie there?" spoke a familiar-yet-lost voice.
"That would be me," I replied in an extremely relaxed tone.
"Oh. So . . . what're you doing right now?" I'm always amazed at how many times people will open with this line. I, in turn, respond with my wearing-out line,
"Nothing." (Keep in mind I STILL don't know who this is).
"Yeah, I've been calling around, and no one's been around."
"Yeah. Bastards! So what are you doing?
"Taking apart an old lawnmower motor." (Oh! It's Jason!) "It broke a while ago, and we got a new one, so I decided to tear it open."
"Well, as FUN as THAT sounds . . ." I don't think I offended him or anything, because he came back quite strong with,
"Whatever. So, you wanna do something today?"
"Sure. You got an idea?"
"Uh . . . . . no. You?"
"I'll give you two guesses, ya only need one."
"I . . . see . . . . ." Well, neither of us had any ideas, but anything would be better than what I was doing right now. I broke the silence,
"Okay, I'll come over, we'll figure it out then. Okay?"
"Sure. See ya then."
"Later." (Click).

Well, while I'm riding my PC bike (PC for piece o' krrrip) to Jason's house, I'll fill you in. Jason is YET another high-school friend of mine. If not for his constant camping trips he probably would've hit that shop job instead of me. Jason, or "J", as we call him, is a real "out-doorsy" kind of guy. He's a mountain climber, a camper, and of course, a biker. Everyone also knows he has a thing for Tina, another grade-school friend o' mine. Funny thing is that everyone knows, except possibly Jason himself. Okay, that didn't make a lot of sense. I mean that although it's utterly clear he likes her and vice-versa, neither of them has ever even come close to admitting it to the other. Most of us feel that they both deserve a swift kick-in-the-ass for that.

I reached his place about twenty minutes later. He was still in the backyard, taking apart his motor. I approached slowly, just trying to see how close I could get before he realized I was here. It didn't take long. Honestly though, you'd think a big mechanical guy like Jason would've oiled that gate. One creak later, J was alert to my presence.
"Hey Ern," he says, "What's up?"
"Well, not a lot, as far as I know," I replied.
"I see . . ." Not one of my more talkative friends, but a friend nonetheless. I instinctively broke the silence, and queried,
"So, WHY are you taking apart this motor?"
"Well, the lawnmower stopped working, so I took it apart to see why." I noted that the new lawnmower had taken up residence in the newly vacant under-patio area. The old mower-husk was propped up next to it.

We spent the next five or ten minutes in what I guess we could call a low-class form of conversation as Jason continued in his operations to take apart the mower-motor. Once he finally did, I thought it was kinda funny how he explained the motor's problem:
"Yeah, there's no oil in it."
"Oh, so does that mean you can fix it now?"
"Nope. I broke a piston while busting the motor open." This is my friend Jason. A mechanical genius, but not exactly a guy of finesse. "So, what do you want to do now?" All of a sudden the day got bleak again.
"I dunno." I replied YET again.
"Wanna go biking?" Jason responded almost automatically.
"Surewhynot?" was all I could say.

So there we were. Two guys with bikes (except mine SUCKS!), following a path in the city I didn't even know existed. It was relaxing. We didn't even go that fast. Both of us just enjoying the ride, breathing the slightly fresher air, feeling the somewhat cool breeze, just having a good time on a lazy Thursday. Man, I didn't even know about this part of the city! I've never seen so many proud and wonderful buildings in quiet seclusion within the rolling hills. Okay, fancy imagery and hyperbole aside, it was just plain cool. Well, not including the fact that my bike just refused to gear-change.

We stopped at a nearby 7-11 when we reached suburbia again for a little break. Another five minutes were expended in our day to drink some relatively large slurpees, and we continued with our so-called conversation. Ya know. Guy stuff. We spoke of our respective summers, our respective FUTURE summers, new movies, new bikes, and all the while we never (not ever), touched on our respective relationship problems. Come on, we're guys! We don't talk about that stuff. If it ain't cars, motorcycles, or wrestling, we don't give a damn!

On our way back, my frickin' bike's chain fell off going up a hill. Needless to say, I was really PO'ed AGAIN. I really have to get a new bike. I mean, of all the bikes I've ever had control of, I've only had one real "new" bike. In fact, this rusty-red crud-bucket I'm riding presently was a hand-me-down! But enough about this dumb bike, seeing as all the griping in the world won't fix it.

The ride back to J's place seemed quicker than the one away from it. All the great scenery I noted before became a background that you don't really think about, and as always, my bike was madly clicking away with the faulty gearshifts. A little more frustrating pedaling later, we reached Jason's place again. We once again had nothing to do. I asked,
"Okay, now what?"
"I dunno," he answered, "watch TV?"
"Why not?" We settled in the den, and he clicked the buttons. We found to our disgust that there was nothing on. Primetime weeknight, and there was nothing on. Hold on, THIS gets "better". We eventually settled on the bastardized law administration that is "Judge Judy". I still couldn't believe the crap some people can't settle with a simple apology.

Halfway through "this person's dog bit this person", Jason's phone rang. I won't bore you with what he said, seeing as all I got was his end of the conversation. Just as "Judy" was about to "rule", J hung up.
"It was Tony. He's getting people together for a game of football, or something," Jason says.
"Oh, cool. Let's g . . . hold on . . . . ." And . . . . . . . . . . . . Oh, prosecution wins! Aaaaaaaaanyway, we were talking about going to the park for some ball playing.

We biked to the nearby park, and sure enough, there were some people already there. Okay, only two, but that's still people already there. They were still kind of far, so I looked with extra-acuteness. Let's see . . . it is Tony . . . and . . . . . Jody. Hmm. I wonder how long they've been here . . . Eh. "Not gonna think about it". I rode up with a quote straight off of the beginning of the Jerry Seinfeld CD.
"Well, well, well. I can't believe you made it. I don't even know how you got tickets!" Of course, now that I've said that, Tony has to kill the joke with reality.
"What are you talking about?! It's a public park! You don't NEED tickets!"
"Hey." was all Jody had to say (ooh, that rhymes!). Yeah, so we just killed time talking about god knows what until everyone else got to the park. So let's see . . . There's myself, Jody, Jason, Tony, Robyn, Meg, Craig couldn't make it due to babysitting, and . . . oh, here's an old face. It's Tina! (Jason instantly perked up, but masked it directly afterwards, [which he can do quite well, actually].) So let's see. Seven people. We're not going to have equal sides. Oh, wait! It doesn't matter! No one brought a football to the park! Isn't THAT ironic, don'tya think? (It's like RAIII . . no. I won't do it.)

Well, all the girls decided it would be a good idea to head for the playground/swing area, and since they outnumbered us, we "allowed it to happen". So, yeah. We're all playing on the playground, we're having lots of fun, we're . . . oh shoot! I need to give you another 3-line biography.
Tina: She's been my friend since kindergarten, has always had a good sense of humour (and of several levels), and enjoys Star Wars ALMOST as much as I do. She also has a God-given gift to spontaneously change the colour of her hair at what seems to be in the snap of a finger. She's a great friend, and will also probably be one of my longest lasting as well. Unless, of course, she and Jason get together and forget about us, but that's another story.

Surprisingly, we spent about an hour on that playground. Yes. Seven adolescent senior high-school students spent an entire hour in children's playground. But hey, it was fun, and we NEVER could've made that merry-go-round spin as fast as it did when we were younger. There were some pretty cool memories of that trip. Meg and Robyn freaked out simultaneously for a stupid reason again, Jason flew about ten meters from the swings, and I was able to do thirty consecutive chin-ups! Of course, no one cared. Typical.

Anyway, everyone decided to head home, and I sure as hell couldn't blame them. Then we headed our respective ways. At this point I felt kinda robbed, seeing as I was the only one going the direction I was headed (well, Robyn, Tina and Meg live the same way, but they got a ride). Not so much that I was getting lonely, or anything. More so that in the past couple days I haven't had a chance to really talk to Jody, being that I haven't really called her up much (come on, people will talk. My brother ALREADY has, and he's just bugging me with no REAL knowledge of my situation). Jody hasn't been on ICQ in a while either. That means one of three things. One: her Internet access was cut off (that doesn't seem like it). Two: she just hasn't gone online for a while/hasn't gone on the same time as me (fairly possible, but still, 2-3 weeks?). Three: she HAS been online, but has her thing on private and I'm getting blocked off (very possible, but I don't want to think it's true).