Last week I drove a bus for Gene, many others also know the correct route but he asked me.
Then he asked for my snailer, at first I said no need and a million people have it...he replied "so make it a million and one".
I did.
The next thing I learned is Eugene is numerically lysdexic. This caused a funny mystery adventure as he reversed the digits of my street address.
The short version (aLLeGeDLy) is that Gene received a delivery notification but had not heard from me, so understandably he asked if I had the parcel...which I did not.
Then he contacted me to let me know the address he accidently used (13 instead of 31) and I went a bit down the street, no one home, so I left a note with my cell numbah.
Around dinner time I got a "potential spam" call and ignored it. Minutes later the door bell rang and it was Derrick from down the street. Handing me the parcel, he said he tried to call (my bad) and explained that his wife threw it out after seeing an unfamiliar name as the addressee!
He went on to say, as he rolled his eyes and sighed, that he went through two bags of trash to find it. I explained that Gene was a friend I had yet to meet from a cigar forum, to which Derrick interrupted with "oh, that's not cigars, it's a knife".
How, Derrick, would you know that? This box is still sealed. "oh, Gene called me"!!! "and it's a good thing he called today cuz tomorrow is trash day and it would have been on it's way to the dump".
Gene can find you, no matter where you live! Aaaaaannd, this knife is so sweeeeet! Hopefully he will correct my description:
Spyderco Ethnic Series Shabaria, designed by the late Eduard Bradichansky, a Russian who emigrated to Israel and died in a terrorist attack...
I have been absolutely enamored with this beauty. I've had some very small knives since I was a kid, no real use for them other than some whittling or very minor tasks like wire stripping...but I simply can not stop playing with this one. I have been maniacally trying to master the one-hand flip opening trick (using the hole) to the point of distraction.
And what may be a coincidence, The Lovely Caren hasn't been able to sleep for several nights lately. Huh.
Part deux:
Rfenster was in town earlier this month for a wedding. We had been promising to meet one day for over a decade, and this would prove to be our best opportunity.
After a few humorous misinterpreted texts, I picked him up at his downtown Boston Hotel and whisked him west along the Charles River, passing Boston University on our left, and MIT and parts of Harvard across the river to our right.
We were headed to a cigar shpo/lounge I had not been to before but seemed like a nice place from the website...and it was better than that. It was like finding gourmet food in a dive bar.
It looked like it was out of business, never mind out of place in a quiet working class neighborhood of two and three family homes in Watertown. But the door was unlocked, and in we went. Inside was a very nice and well stocked humidor, several seats clustered around the small room with several large screen TV's and a room full of the friendliest Viet Nam vets you'd ever meet.
We settled in, bought a couple smokes, but Robert insisted on catering this herf, first with a pair of HU half coronas (he remembered how I used to love them) followed by a couple JL #2 (or #1? not sure) which I also used to love.
We just kept looking at each other whenever there was a pause in conversation, shaking our heads and remarking about how amazing this scene was...a couple guys who had no logical reason to be together as friends...other than due to the Magic That Happens Here. I keep tellin' all of ya's!
Gene, Robert, I'm unable to adequately express what I've been feeling lately, and how you (and so many others here) have taken the sting out of a coinciding painful memory from my life.
I'll just try "thank you" and hope it's enough.
