Why does drinking always seem like such a good idea while you’re doing it? I woke up feeling a little less than stellar.
The Urban Hiker folks responded to my e-mail asking why the June and July ’04 archives link on their website wasn’t working. They responded, with a copy of my story attached: “Here’s a PDF of your story. Sorry about the website. We’ve known about the problems with those two issues for months, but our tech guy has been either unwilling or unable to fix them. Thanks for thinking of us.” Sounds like some internal personnel issues.
I wanted this copy to include in my portfolio for ENG 519. I was so excited to have this story, My Detainment, published last year. I love the teaser line they put just under my title: John Martin meets a suspicious character: himself
At about 4:00, Joe and I walked around the lake. Afterwards, we agreed to meet for dinner at Baja Burrito at Mission Valley. He’d never eaten there, and I told him that I really like it, that Jay and I have met there to eat a couple of times.
As we sit down to enjoy our burritos, who should walk in? Jay. Who knew?
He was with a guy named Powell, and they ended up joining us for dinner. We had fun conversation, and as we were leaving I was being a dork up by the trash cans. They have a hole in the shelf above the trash cans, one such that the baskets they give you your food in won’t fit through. Away from the hole, on the shelf, there’s a sign that says, “Place your basket here.”
I grabbed my crotch, and said to Jay, “Can you help me get my basket up there?” We all cracked up.
Joe and I played one or two games of pool ourselves, and then “Stu and Shane” put their names on the board. We offered the table to them, as being as bad as we are, we don’t like to play other people.
“Don’t you want one of us to play the winner?”
“Oh no, we’re too bad to play with other people,” I explained.
“Well, we’re bad, too.”
I said, “Okay, let’s play doubles then.” Bad-on-bad, if-you-will.
I explained that we played “shit pool”: anything that goes in, you squeal like a girl, and act like it was a flash of brilliance. The only ball you have to call is the 8-ball.
On the first game, they had 3 balls left, and I scratched on the 8-ball.
On the second game, we got down to them having one ball left with me shooting for the 8-ball. I said, “I want it to go in this pocket right here” (pointing to a side pocket). Shane said, “Oh no, it’s going to go there” (pointing to a corner pocket).
I said, “Okay, I’m going to call that corner pocket, but if it goes in this side pocket, you’re going to have to live with that.” I shot.
The ball went in the corner pocket — at the other end of the fucking table. Who knew?