Dec 7 2008
Random Picture Sunday
A few years ago, Henry and I ate breakfast at this nice family restaurant in Buffalo, NY. When I was there a few weeks ago with Christina, I was delighted, absolutely ebullient, to see that we were staying in a hotel right across the street from it. I took a picture with my phone and sent it to Henry, hoping it would tug on his old, leathery heart strings. But it didn’t. It was probably tough for him to see the picture as he tried to look at his phone from around the call girl’s buoyant titties.
Anyway, after Christina and I left the scene of my broken heart, I decided that the only thing that would heal my shattered psyche would be a grilled cheese and pie, any pie, some delicious pie, from that very same restaurant.
We went back to our room first so I could remove any evidence of my previous tearshed. While there, we decided it would be a good idea to find out how late they were even open, because it was practically sleeting out there and we didn’t want to venture out in vain.
My Blackberry kept telling me there was no such establishment as the Olympic Family Restaurant and that obviously I am retarded for thinking there might be. Then I had an epiphany! “Hey, what if we check that there thingie that our parents used to use all the doggone time, what the heck is that thing called? A phone book?”
So I pulled the hotel’s complementary yellow pages onto my lap, slipped one finger in the middle of the pages and flipped it open.
“Um, Christina?” I whispered. “I opened it to the exact page, wtf?”
And I sat there, staring at this book, splayed open on my lap like some kind of magical tome, waiting for a genie or Satan himself to appear in a seductive cloak, begging to grant my wishes.
Nothing like that happened, and the coconut cream pie I ordered at the Olympic wasn’t all that, but in my mind I pretended it was baked with holy water and the breath of a mermaid and that I will never ever get the flu ever again.
Coincidentally, the page number of the phone book was 653, which is also the exchange of my old childhood telephone number. Two days later, I got two calls from two different numbers with a 653 area code. I didn’t answer, of course, because I was afraid Sadako was on the other end.
I was all about playing those numbers. I could visualize myself walking into a CoGo’s and holding up the line while I try to wrap my head around the rules of Lottery. Maybe I’d even treat myself to a Snickers. In the end, my general malaise brewed over and I went back to watching True Life on MTV. It probably would have been futile anyway, considering that I’m obviously cursed now.
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Um, WEIRD!
The Olympic by the airport (the one you went to) isn’t the good one. The original Olympic is about 20 minutes from there in Tonawanda and the food there is much better in my opinion.
I live about 5 minutes from where you stayed…
I couldn’t even remember what the food was like, just that Henry and I had eaten there and apparently I only have to travel 3 hours to get homesick.
We were that close to you?? I wish I had known. I’m always looking for a reason to ditch Christina.
yeah… We’re talking literally 5 minutes. The Denny’s next to where you stayed is where I have spent numerous drunken nights.
If you ever come back to our shit hole again, give me a heads up!
Dude, weirdness like this happens to me all the time, but check this:
I was watching Happy Days and ruminating about how there are so few Arnolds in the world. Later that afternoon, I got a flyer stuck in my front door from Arnold Machinery or some shit. The day after that my girlfriend texts me a pic of her new pet turtle whom she had named Arnold. The day after THAT, I got hired at the job I’m at now and got introduced to not one, but two Arnolds.
3 days. 3 days of apocalyptic caliber coincidences that all point to the fact that tomorrow I’m going to wake up and find the Four Horsemen parked in my front yard eating the Arnold Machinery flier and shitting brimstone all over my cactus.
That is crazy shit! I remember we had a discussion about this stuff back in the day on LJ.
Weird coincidences like that happen to me all the time (especially stuff with names, like you mentioned) and you would think it would be cool, like I was charmed or some shit, but I wish it would stop because I have the WORST LUCK. Universe, this shit ain’t cool.
The email you used to comment here, is that your main one? Because I tried to email a few times in your absence (I was freaked out dude, don’t leave me again!) but I was sending it to gmail and they were bounced back. This Internet thang, ain’t got the hang of it yet.
Yep the email I use here is my main and one I ALWAYS read…have had it for years. Damn, forgot I even had that gmail one. Sorry!
that was crazy!
it was so nice of you to leave the page in there…
though i bet taking it would have been like having a horse shoe.
so glad you captured this photo.