Shit Happens

Between bouts of extreme fatigue and arbitrary wireless connection, not to mention some much appreciated home cooked dinners from my aunts, I have not been able to write.

So I am now going to shed light on past adventures, like an old man.

Oprah, and others who subscribe to the notion of destiny and fate, believe everything to happen for a reason. Regardless of reasoning and an invisible logic to the universe, things do happen.

Arbitrary torrential rains destroy new shoes, the stereotypically bad food in England still causes people to gain weight, and wild umbrellas crash down on innocent Americans at dinner. Shit happens.

We all wanted to go somewhere nice for our last evening together. We wanted to eat by the water, and though I knew the area, I did not remember the quality of the restaurant, but expecting something classy, we all wore something nice.

And we ended up at one of the same pub style restaurants, though outside, that had consumed our money in exchange for greasy, generic food for the last month. After some bickering, we finally decided to make do with the limited options at this place in Gabriel's Wharf. Except for a few dishes, most people found their food satisfying, and all was well with dinner until time came to pay the check.

The bill was not the problem. But while we were collecting and counting money, one of our friends suddenly gasped, and, with no warning but a soft whistling sound, a large red and white umbrella came flying out of the air, landing on one of our party's heads.

We were stunned. Only the drunken laughs from the other tables brought us back to the reality of a very large and unstable umbrella resting on our table, wet with spilled drinks and covered in shards of glass. The boy who almost had a concussion went for a smoke, not wanting to cause a public display. Seeing no waitress in sight who could have witnessed and possible apologized, I went inside and let the waitress know what "the loud band" (as she had called it) was.

She didn't understand.

She sent the manager, who smiled at our wet pants, saw that no one was bleeding, and said, "things happen. what can I do?" After some kids started yelling about liability and responsibility and appeals for a discount, the manager took the service charge off, which is optional anyways.

"It's not their fault! We don't mind paying the service! It's the principle of the thing! This is bullshit!"

To which he suddenly took offense. "This is certainly not bulllshit. What can I do? You're outside. It happens."

We tried to justify the bad experience with the quality food, but couldn't muster up the courage to make such a brazen lie. Instead we wandered to the next pub, and drowned our sorrows in--oh no, there was no drowning of any sort, because, like all places in London except for McDonald's, this place closed at 11. So as soon as we got there, we essentially made one quick, hurried, emotional toast, and strolled out.

We took more pictures in the Tube station than we did above ground. We took candid ones, posed ones. We got on the Tube and took more, a documentation of all the events on a Tube ride, including sneezing and the possible elbow in your face. When we got back, the last leg of the group, my favorite people in London, all came and sat in my room. Three of us managed to squeeze onto the matchbox sized bed, and the other at my desk, farting.

I finally got to bed by dawn. The sun rose (excessively early, as usual), only to remind us that the small pocket of time we had shared in London became forever engrained in our memories, and nothing else.

There were tears at departure. We promised to meet in the States. We knew we would always have London, but we hoped we could have some of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, too.