A collection of stories from the life of Monkeyman

Last night, I went out to have some fun with a bunch of my old university friends. First, though, one of my friends (Kevin) came over to my new house to get the tour, and then I got a ride with him. We went down to my old house to see if Kevin's allergies would act up there because of the cat dander still present from when Mocha was there, because we are thinking about moving our D&D gaming there. As it turns out, it didn't bother him a great deal, and we were there for about three hours.

The best part of the visit, though, was the act of kindness at the end of it. As we were getting ready to leave, our host (my best friend and former roommate Jason) wrote me a check for fifty dollars as a gift to help me through my tight financial situation. They (he and his wife) intended it as a gift, and I had to threaten to buy them a gift that was of equivalent value and sneak it into their home when they weren't looking to even discuss the possibility of re-payment. I feel very blessed by their generosity. :-)

Moving along, when Kevin and I left, we went back to his apartment to meet up with Alison (his wife), then barbecued up burgers for dinner (and they made this GREAT salad with MUSHROOMS!) After dinner, we went on up to Dale's place.

When we arrived, I saw another of my friends (Daryck) sitting in his car across the street, finishing off some food before he went inside. I walked over to his car and knocked on the window, and when he opened the door, I said something idiotic like "Do you have a permit to eat that in this neighbourhood?" We started talking, and then went into the house. He left his keys in the ignition of his car.

The evening was spent socializing, and of course, playing poker. (The purpose of the evening was for some of these guys, who are planning a trip to Las Vegas, to learn more about the real rules for various poker games.) Of course, I have no money for gambling right now (and as much as I love to gamble, I shouldn't even if I do have money) so I was there for the socializing, as were Kevin and Alison. I did get to watch a lot of poker, though, and learned some interesting games--Guts is one of the coolest poker games I have ever seen. I did get to play for one round--they wanted to play a Texas Hold 'Em tournament, which works better with a lot of people, so Dale bought me in for five dollars. I was the first one out. (No, I don't play any better when I'm playing with my own money, which is one reason why I shouldn't ever gamble.)

Anyway, at some point, Daryck was getting ready to leave, and this was when he discovered that he had locked his keys in his car. Before I even realized that it might have been partly my fault (for distracting him when he was getting out of the car) I offered to use my AMA membership to get a guy to come pop his lock for him. That worked out fine, and I learned that I get up to five locks popped for free each year with my membership, which is fine, since I haven't locked my keys in my car in about five years, and it is August already--if I lock my keys in my car more than four times before December, I've got other problems.

The other thing I did inside was play this game which resembled Trivial Pursuit, but was a very novel twist on the concept. It was a lot of fun, but one particular incident comes to mind as being a funny (annoying) anecdote.

One round, as we were playing, Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" came on on the CD we were listening to as background music. As I was singing along and bobbing my head like an idiot, I admitted to being a big Billy Joel fan. Not TEN SECONDS later, a question comes up for me: "Which of the following artists/bands had a hit single with the opening line (something about uptown in a limousine). Everyone kind of giggled, because it sounded like Uptown Girl, but I immediately told them all it was not--I knew the opening line to Uptown Girl was not that by a long shot. However, one of the four options was Billy Joel, which had everyone else giggling again because of the irony of the timing of all this. I immediately discarded Billy Joel as an option, because I figured they were trying to trick people with the "Uptown" connection. I WAS NOT GOING TO BE FOOLED. Or so I believed.

As it turned out, it WAS Billy Joel. It was the opening line to another of his songs, "Big Shot". I am familiar with "Big Shot". I HATE "Big Shot". Everyone laughed and laughed at my expense, though, because right after admitting to being a Billy Joel fan, I got asked a question about one of his hit songs, and got it wrong.

It gets worse. TWO ROUNDS LATER, I get a question where I have to pick which one of four names is NOT a Billy Joel album. OK, I like Billy Joel, but all I ever listened to was the two volume Greatest Hits album. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HIS ORIGINAL ALBUMS WERE CALLED. Getting this question wrong, I was subjected to some thorough humiliation. If I would have just kept my mouth shut about liking Billy Joel, none of the mocking would have taken place. Fortunately, "Piano Man" also happened to be on the CD we were listening to, and it came on shortly after all this and soothed me. :-)

The final anecdote from last night relates to how RinkWorks helped me get a question right, and then short-sightedness helped me get it WRONG anyway.

The question was: "Toronto is to 12:00 as Rome is to _______" I knew IMMEDIATELY how to work it out. Toronto is two times zones east of me, so it is two hours later than me. Rome is in the same time zone as Travholt, which is eight hours east of me. Hence, when it is 12:00 in Toronto, it is 6:00 in Rome! I looked at the four answers, and the first one was a) 6:00, so I said a) 6:00... And then was WRONG because the answers were done in the 24 hour clock and I hadn't even READ the rest to see c) 18:00. *sigh*

My one remaining anecdote related to the dream I had this morning before waking up. (Nothing else in between was noteworthy.)

I dreamt that I was doing some running around downtown. Dave, a guy I used to work with who was also one of the poker players last night, was with me, and he had a briefcase that was desgined like a fancy cigar box from Cuba. (Kevin had showed me his Cuban cigars when I was at his house--he and Alison bought 50 cigars when they were there for their honeymoon.) Anyway, Dave was going back to work, and for some reason, in my dream I had been coming into the office and doing volunteer work (???). This particular day, though, was unusual. It was Naked Day at my old company. (In my dream, I figured that was why I had gotten laid off--God didn't want me to still be working there during Naked Day, so He got me out.) I was sorely tempted to go up to do my volunteer work on Naked Day (some of my former female co-workers were VERY attractive) but amazingly, my willpower won out, and I simply left to go home.

I had parked my car illegally across the street at a condo complex (why there was a condo complex in downtown Calgary, I have no idea--the rest of downtown looked right, though).

Anyway, I was waiting at a light to cross the C-Train line to get to my car. I got there just as the "Don't Walk" light started flashing, and being the law-abiding little Monkey that I am, I waited. The light went solid, and then, when I figured it had to change, a C-Train pulled up, and it started flashing again, even though the "Walk" light hadn't come on. About this time, a REALLY cute girl came up on rollerblades and stopped next to me. She asked, "Didn't that light just go twice?" and I told her it had, and she commented that it was weird, and then the light changed, but the "Don't Walk" light didn't go off, so both the "Walk" and the "Don't Walk" lights were on. I started across, and so did the girl on rollerblades (and all the other people at the light). I made a comment about how both signs were up, and how it was impossible to both Walk and Don't Walk, and then I made a crack about how she had it all figured out, since she was on rollerblades, and she was doing both, or something. It made sense in the dream, anyway, and it was FUNNY, and she LAUGHED, and she WANTED ME. So anyway, she made a comment about it being weird being off campus, and then rollerbladed off.

As it turned out, she was rollerblading to a townhouse right in front of where my car was parked, where she met up with a big group of other young adults who were hanging out on a driveway. As I approached, I was not visible to them because of some trees on a little island in the middle of the complex, and I heard her voice saying "Donald Jackson, SPE--does that mean anything to any of you?" And my first thought was, "She got my name somehow, and she liked me enough to ask her friends if they know me!" But then I wondered why the SPE thing was mentioned, and I suddenly figured it out--she must have had my SPE membership card somehow. I checked my pocket, and sure enough, it was empty. SHE HAD PICKED MY POCKET IN MY DREAM. I was just lucky that I had been heading in that same direction.

This is where the action starts. I ran up, and before any of them got away, I said that the jig was up, and demanded that she give me all my stuff back. This one other guy had a couple of receipts I had had in my pocket and a quarter, and she had the rest. I got my stuff from them, then backed away slowly towards my car. One scary guy jumped at one point, but I scared him off by pointing my keys at him (???) and I eventually got into my car and got away--also known as "I got into my car and woke up suddenly, unable to fall back asleep."

So anyway, there's an old legend that if you die in a dream, you will die in real life. If your wallet gets stolen in a dream, does your wallet get stole in real life, too? Just a thought.

I've rambled long enough.

Don Monkey