Poop Shute

Karmic Balance

That same day that I last posted about a friendship sliding downhill I ran into a friend I haven't spoken with in roughly ten years.

I was at Casey Moore's bar hanging out with some friends and struggling to stay in a good mood, but very near tears. Then who walks in but Nick Colon. I stared right at him for a long second. He looked exactly the same. He walked over to the bar and ordered himself a drink.

From elementary school to somewhere in the middle of high school Nick and I were inseparable. We would often eat and/or sleep over at each other's houses, we always walked to school together, and we told each other everything. Nick was my best friend in the world and he lived about a hundred yards from my house. Then my sophomore year my Dad got remarried and we moved to the other side of town. Granted it was only about 2 miles away, but that new distance combined with that fact that Nick and I had each been developing other friendships and other interests outside of each other since hitting high school eventually lead to us drifting apart completely. There wasn't a falling out or anything we both just sort of moved on.

I excused myself from my table and went over to say hello. I decided to mess with him a little bit. I sat down on the stool next to him and stared at him, waiting for him to look my way. When he did I smiled and said "hello." He responded with a "what's up, man" that had that tone in it that said "why are you staring at me, you weird guy." Then he looked back to the bartender to order his drink.

After he ordered and the bartender went off to pull his beer I asked "You have no idea who I am, do you?" Then he looked at me with a confused expression for a long second. Suddenly his face lit up and you could almost hear the cartoony "ding!" of the lightbulb turning on in his brain. "Joey!"

It was good to see him. He's doing well. We exchanged numbers and I told him I would call him this weekend after Charlie opens.

Meg pointed out that the day in some ways was karmically balanced for me. I mourned the loss of one old friendship, and celebrated the rekindling of another one. At the very least my mood was on a more even keel for the rest of the night.

What's that old saying? When Life closes one door it kicks in another... something like that.