Day 159 - The Return

Put them Socks on, Boy

September 13th, 2015

Another early morning; another massive breakfast. Lt. Dan at the helm and his trusty sidekick, Steve, beautifully frying the shit out of the pool of eggs the massive wok. Steve, as anyone who knows him knows, eats a lot of eggs. The 7 of us sat around the table, largely silent, devouring the plates of potatoes, sausages, eggs, and whatever other food we had. I have it written that we at 18 eggs that day, though I’m not sure if that’s true 100% true.

Everyone went out on the paddle boats again, save for me, Dan, and Joe. While sitting there, we talked about what we would want to do when virtual reality is as real as, say, the matrix. If you could fabricate any world you could imagine, what world would you want to check out first? This then brought the conversation to whether happiness in a virtual world would be as valid as happiness in the real world. Would people work just enough to go home to their fake* world? I argued that a lot of people already do that with entertainment, and drugs. We talked about business, and general philosophy. I couldn't tell how engaged they were with those topics, letting them drop when it seemed appropriate.

The boating parties returned to dock, wading in the water and trying to catch tiny fish the size of squashed golf balls. The twins kept at it while I drank the leftover singles of craft beers. Can’t let those babies go untested. 

Joe Louis' FIST

It was a slow, drawn out packing up and cleaning, pushing it to the very last minute of the grace period, noon. The twins and Shikhar left before us. As we pulled out, Dan glanced at the clock: 12:02. Shhh! They'll never catch us alive! The gas was cheap. Damn cheap. That's what they told me at least. When you don't drive, you don't tend to care. Next door was a Mcdonalds, which we grabbed coffee in. Have I mentioned that I like coffee? The Macca's was strangely quiet. There were people at all the tables, yet no one was talking. They weren’t even eating. Just sitting there silent, or quietly murmuring. Bizarro Mannequins. Or.. regular mannequins?

We drove for a couple hours until the twins called and said they wanted to meet up at the outlet mall. Dan wanted some underarmour, and Shikhar wanted to see the Bose store. I don’t really go to outlet malls. Or normal malls. Malls, really.** It’s weird to go into a store like Bose and see so much empty space with sporadically placed headphone stands. "Look at us, we are marking this shit up so much that we can afford to pay for all this wasted space." The other car had already eaten and I sure wasn’t going to be buying anything, so I partially wondered why we even bothered to coordinate with one another.

I promise these aren't all the same one.

I’ve never eaten at Arby’s before, but I did notice a sign for $1 sliders. We couldn’t resist. Originally, we sought out “the biggest, best sub in the world" as described by a sign. BEST in the WORLD! …but that was nowhere to be found.

Instead, Arbys. They have some damn good sliders. The Jalapeño one was actually pretty spicy. Definitly not what I call “white people spicy,” which is just a mild tingle and no real burn. After ordering, I stood alone, waiting for my food. A little girl in the line started singing “I want to ring that bell, ooh, ooh” and dancing like a female pop star. I weep for today’s youth. What happened to you America's morality?*** Steve and I ate our 5 sliders each, while Kirk and Dan were a bit more reasonable in their orders. No regrets. Never regrets.

Back across the border, I finally have reception with my phone to find that Shimou was worrying for the past 24 because she thought something might have happened. It seems as though her friends were telling her that I'd probably just stop talking to her, and this was totally what happened. Or I was dead. I’d never gone dark for that long before, and she didn’t realize that I would be completely without service/wifi for the entire weekend. Hell, I didn’t even realize until we were across the border and the blackout had already begun.

Adeline picked Steve and I up in Windsor, talking about business and the weekend. She seemed bemused at how Everyone is John worked out, and told us about a promising work prospect. Exciting! Once we got to Chatham, Steve and Adeline stopped in to say hello, saying they wouldn’t be staying long.

11pm rolls around after long discussions revolving around politics and business between me, Steve, and my Dad, while Adeline and my mom shared things online with one another. Apparently they’re both Pinteresters. Around that time, my Dad called it a night, popping the social bubble and dispersing everyone to their corners of the world.

Editing Music: Blackout by Muse

Oh, and I think I figured out how to post a video:

*Another line of thought: What makes one reality more valid than another? They're all just chemical signals in the brain, after all. See: Solipsism

**Mall is starting to look like a fake word to me.

**Just to be clear, I was mostly amused by the antics, but also vaguely disturbed.