Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Labor Day weekend may have been the greatest couple of days in my sad, sorry little life. Of course, then I got the hiccups for nearly five days, had to get a chest x-ray and a blood test, took prescription antacids and finally had the hiccups supplanted by constant, horrible coughing. And the pills made my crap turn black and spherical, like little bowling balls. Not to mention the constant job search, and getting turned down for a crap job AT THE MALL by people who are too stupid to use a PC. If Apple's share of the personal computer market is growing by leaps and bounds, then how come half the online applications for retail stores I tried to fill out wouldn't even let me finish because they weren't Mac-compatible? Congratulations on that five percent of the market, fellas. Keep reaching for the stars! But enough about all that. Back to Labor Day.

The awesomeness started when Brianna got back that Saturday. Oh yeah, I somehow forgot to mention that she's been in South Carolina since July 4th and the house has been heartbreakingly empty without her. Anyway, she'd been gone all summer and finally came back with Michele's sister that Saturday night. To celebrate, we went to Famous Dave's, Brianna's favorite restaurant. She got taller over the summer, and turned nine at the end of September. Man, that's depressing. It seems like just the other day she was wearing playing in my pajama pants. There's got to be a better way of saying that.

The other thing that would have been reported earlier were it not for my habit of long spells of infrequent updates is Nick and Heidi moved into the house next door to my parents. They moved in the weekend before Labor Day, and I asked my mom which day we were going to have a barbecue, because Nick might be having one, too. Somehow, this pure speculation on my part became fact, after Nick called me and said, "Did you tell your mom I was having a barbecue?" No, I said might. I saw a red grill when we were unloading the moving truck and, knowing that traditionally people have barbecues on Labor Day weekend for some reason, I thought there was a possibility that maybe they'd be doing something, and I just thought we'd coordinate. Well, whatever. My "idea" turned into a whole bunch of people coming over to Nick's place Monday, most of whom I'd never seen before or since. One of them was actually the mother of someone who was invited, but couldn't go so she sent her mom instead. Huh. I guess they're Hedie's friends. It's weird to think of her in her own world outside of our sheltered little group, I guess in the same way I can't really picture Lord Loser hanging out with his non-blog buddies, probably sitting around a campfire, eating cow placenta and talking about their beards.

Before the barbecue, I was out in the woods by the river behind my parent's house. Why? Well, you may remember a few years ago my brother found some rusty old gun barrels buried in the hill. We've also found some old bottles, most of which are worthless, but there's actually people out there that collect old bottles, and not just for the five cent deposit. One of the bottles I dug up a few years ago is an amber Warner's Safe Cure bottle which are apparently big collector's items. So I went out by the river to see if I could find any other cool stuff in the ground. Little did I know what I was about to unearth. Not anything I could sell, but something much, much better.

Long periods of no rain coupled with unseasonably warm weather left the already humble river withered down to a mere trickle. Behind my grandmother's house, sand patches that normally made up the riverbed now protruded into islands that baked in the noonday sun.





As I stood on the muddy riverbank, looking across at one such island, the clouds parted and a shimmering ray of sunlight shown down directly on possibly the greatest thing I'd ever seen. There, caked in mud and sitting atop a sand dune in the middle of the river, was what looked like...no, it can't be. Yes, it was! A Rock'em Sock'em Robot!



I knew right then that this was probably going to be the highlight of my life until I have kids. And even then it's a toss-up. I'd never owned a Rock'em Sock'em Robot set, or even had the desire to, but something about seeing that lone robot discarded in the river made my face light up. It was much bigger than I'd always pictured these things. Presumably years in the mud had stained it almost completely black, and at first I figured it was the blue one, but after cleaning it off a bit, faint traces of red were detected in the um, crotch area.



Not far from where I found the robot, I found a pretty cool squirt gun that, like the robot, had been transformed by years of gunk and filth from a goofy neon orange color to a realistic matte black. Subsequent trips further down the river revealed an ominous decapitated doll and a weathered and mangy Abu from Aladdin, both found in the woods on the other side of the river and creeped me out more than a little.







I also saw a snapping turtle chilling out in one of the few spots where the water was still deep enough to completely submerge itself. I saw him the next day sunbathing over by where the robot was. I asked it how to stop The Nothing, but it mostly just ignored me.





So anyway, finding that robot wrapped me in a swaddling cloth of confidence, as if it bestowed mystic Rock'em Sock'em powers unto me as thanks for releasing it from it's watery tomb. Everything from that point on seemed to be going my way. During the barbecue, I showed Nick and Hedie around their new home, since I practically grew up over there. My parents unlocked the upstairs apartment to show them around up there, and in one of the closets I found an abandoned Xbox game. I even uncharacteristically volunteered to go down the bulkhead into the creepy basement that seemed to be literally carved out rock and may have had some corpses down there. And later that night, we played a Madden 08 tournament and, despite a long and glorious history of losing in a spectacular fashion, I easily smoked everyone that stood in my path. It was the greatest weekend ever.

And then everything turned to crap. The robot giveth, the robot taketh away. Maybe I wasn't supposed to disturb him from his eternal slumber, and I've upset the delicate balance of something or other. Maybe it's like that cursed tiki idol from The Brady Bunch. But it's so cool. Maybe it's the ratty old Abu doll that's doing it. Yeah, that makes more sense. Evil monkey doll.

Anyway, everything's been going downhill ever since that weekend. So even the tiniest bit of good luck right now would be greatly appreciated.

Posted in: friends,photos