The Greatest Night Ever: Part 1

Many people argue that you can not do anything fun without having something planned out to fill all the available time. Movie. Amusement park. Party. What they fail to do is see the possibilities in unplanned time.

I believe differently than those people. I argue, “The unplanned times can turn out to be the best of times.” Mind you, this argument has the support of literally thousands from many different fronts, sides, ideals, beliefs, viewpoints, values, standards, principles, morals, ethics, philosophies, doctrines, ideologies, thoughts, AND creeds. The proof is in the pudding.

The idea planted itself when we first heard the three words “narrative about ANYTHING.” The idea formulated over a week and finally came to fruition when Russell said to Ryan and me, “Wizard of Oz. My house. Poker.” 

The night, of course, started with the performance of the “The Wizard of Oz.” Well, actually, it started before that. The night really began with the afternoon. I was getting ready to leave for the play after rejecting numerous other invitations to go to do things with friends who had just returned from college, oh, and by numerous I mean one invitation to the same thing by three separate people. So having already gotten ready I left for the play, hopping into my ride and driving off with a “Hi Ho Silver, away!” I arrived at the school with plenty of time to spare after driving at an average of about 300 miles per hour. I parked, strolled up to the school and spotted Russell and his sister waiting outside. Not bothering to wait for that other guy, whoever he was (I forget), Russell and I dashed inside and with blindingly-fast-lightning-strike-speed we choose seats before anyone else could steal them in the virtually empty theater. After a few minutes of talking and looking around the theater when we had nothing to talk about Russell got a text message that stated, and I quote, “Sorry. I will be late. I forgot my phonshiznik.” Russell and I both stared at the cryptic message trying to decipher it. “What’s a phonshinik? And who’s that from?” I asked Russell who gave me a blank look for a moment and responded “It appears to be some kind of alien code word of some sort from that one guy from English, the one who sits next me.” Astounded, I jumped up in the air and shouted, “Someone sits next to you in English?!” People turned to stare at me, but I didn’t care, “When did this happen?!” Russell nodded in understanding, “Since the beginning of the year…I think, and – don’t quote me on this – I believe his name is Ryan.” I sit back down as if nothing had happened and we continued looking around the theater spotting familiar faces such as our English teacher with her daughter, which came as a shock because we had previously thought that the legendary Teachers With Lives And Families (TWLAF) existed only in the myths and legends of yesteryear. Finally, the guy who apparently sat next to Russell everyday in English, Ryan, wearing his trademark Purdue baseball cap, appeared and sat down next to Russell with a “Watssup.” The play, The Wizard of Oz, began soon after.

The play was, of course, excellent! I personally was impressed by the large amount of talented singers, dancers, and actors in the school. However I was disappointed by the fact that The Wizard of Oz seemed to be a shameless rip-off of both 1984 and Terminator albeit without the same level of guns, explosions, deaths, and destruction. It’s as if the author of the “original” book had decided to take out large sections of both 1984 and Terminator, slam them together into some kind of mass of stuff, and then gleefully yell “Eureka! I have done it!” while running down the streets of Greece naked, oh wait…

Well anyway, one as perceptive as I could easily see where the author stole his ideas. The grand old Wizard of Oz = Big Brother; Dorothy and her group follow his yellow or “golden” (perfect) path set for them to reach their ultimate goal, meeting Big Brother/ the Wizard of Oz. The Ministry of Truth = the Lullaby League, the Ministry of Peace = the Lollipop Guild, and so on. The Terminator rip-off sections were even more easy to catch. The Tin Man absolutely reeked of the Terminator himself, during the course of the play I half-expected him to roar “Come with me if you want to live!” in a strong Austrian accent and then go around destroying everything with his axe. If only…

After Wizard of Oz ended Ryan and I left the school, leaving Russell behind to fetch his sister. Ryan and I made the decision that I would follow Ryan’s GPS enabled car to Russell’s house in the middle of nowhere. Of course, as soon as we hit the road, another car came between me and Ryan, effectively keeping me from seeing where he was going, leaving me no choice but to challenge the opposing car to a BATTLE-DEATH RACE TO THE DEATH! However, like everyone I have ever challenged to a BATTLE-DEATH RACE TO THE DEATH(!!!!), he refused. So I calmly followed Ryan to Russell’s house, where we arrived after thirty horror filled minutes of driving down a thin, winding road in the pitch black night filled with the stuff of nightmares. We parked on the street by Russell’s driveway and proceeded to wait for Russell. We lamented the fact that we left a man behind for a minute and then moved on to talking about poppies and music. Ryan, sick of waiting, texted Russell asking if “he is still alive and if so where is he?” Russell replied that he had already arrived home a while ago. Annoyed we charged up the driveway, Ryan with the direct approach, I off to the side, nothing more than a shadow (LIKE A STEALTHY NINJA!) Russell left his home with his handy-dandy flashlight (never leave home without it!), swiped his beam of light around and instantly spotted Ryan, but not me. Russell asked where I am and Ryan responded with a clever “I don’t know, he followed me here, but I lost him.” Disappointing me, Russell simply replied “Oh, that’s too bad. Oh well.” and they slowly meandered back towards Russell’s house and then came upon me grinning stupidly and leaning nonchalantly against a tree. Having a laugh we went through the front door.

Once inside, Russell introduced us to his parents, and then we went into Russell’s garage, passing Mothra (“Where’s Godzilla when you need him?”) on the way to his table for some poker. We sat down in the garage and I looked around, noting the unique style of the room with its unfinished ceiling and walls and with an assortment of various odds and ends thrown all about. Russell, however, interrupted my thoughts, loudly saying, “Drinks in the fridge, chips and food here on the table. The game of Texas hold ’em is on!” He passed out the poker chips, dealt out the cards, and the game took off like a racehorse! Well, sort of. The game mostly consisted of over the top bluffs backed up by nothing more than big words and smug expressions, like the stock market in 1929. Having thoroughly failed at Texas hold ’em without speaking, we moved on to playing Texas hold ’em with speaking. The quickly-switching-topic talk mainly revolved around poppies, school, girls, graduation, females, more school, women, and various other highly classified pieces of information (Yours today for only five payments of $19.95!).

After playing for only a short while, Ryan foolishly decided to go all-in and –shockingly! – lost so Russell and I decided to have one final showdown (queue The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly music). An all-in superfantasicallyawesomelyamazing showdown. We did this as a five card stud. Russell dealt out the cards. I looked at mine. He looked at his. I didn’t react to my cards and neither did he. Perfect poker faces, the only giveaway that bead of sweat slowly sliding down Russell’s face. I smirked, it’s over. “Read ’em and weep,” I declared, utterly confident. I laid down my cards, showing that I had…absolutely nothing. Smiling, Russell laid down his cards. Both our hands were void of anything even remotely useful, but Russell had the highest card – an ace – and he won.

Continued in Part 2, because I story this good can't be told all at once. See link below.