| I’m online when I get a message from a guy named Matt. I instantly recognize “Matt” as someone I’d been chatting with for months, the very best of online friends. Here’s about what we said: Me: Hey Matt, what's up? Matt: Not much, just hanging around. Me: Ah. Done anything interesting lately? Matt: No. Watched a lot of TV. Me: Ah. Not much going on here either. Matt: Wait-something is going on here. Me: What? Matt: I'm going to visit my relatives in Indiana next week. Me: Indiana? You never told me about relatives in Indiana. Matt: Ooops... :( Well, I'm not looking forward to that multiple-day drive. Me: Where do you live, anyway? Matt: East coast. Me: Hey, maybe we could meet somewhere-I live in between you and Indiana. Matt: Where? Me: Iowa. Muscatine. It's on the Mississippi. Matt: Sounds cool. Where should we meet? Me: McDonald's is pretty hard to miss... Matt: Meet you in the PlayPlace then? Saturday? Me: Sure. About noonish? How will I know you? Matt: Noon's ok. How about we both bring white carnations? Me: Ok. You can't miss me-I'll be the one in the Hawaiian shirt. And we end our chatting for the night. Cut to Saturday. (I love dream time) There I am in Mickey D’s, in our PlayPlace, kicking my heels and watching the little kids play, and trying not to crush my carnation (wrapped in blue paper.) The door opens, and a guy in black shades walks in holding a carnation wrapped in yellow paper. I figure, “Ok, that’s Matt.” I get up and walk over, we exchange carnations, and he slides off the sunglasses to reveal his amazingly Al-like features. In fact, it is the Weird One himself. I stand there in shock, my jaw dropped all the way. (Picture a goldfish.) “Megan?” I’m still staring. “Matt?” He nods. “Matt.” He nods again. “Um, you’re Al, right?” He nods yet again. “Um....okay....” and I begin to blather. Eventually, he gets around to shutting me up (nicely) and telling me he didn’t really have relatives in Indiana, he just said that so he could meet me...sigh...and we decide to go back to my house to watch “Howard the Duck.” An excellent 80’s flick-everyone should see it. That’s the conclusion Al and I came to when, during one of the scenes (perhaps the one where Phil and Howard have hijacked a one-person plane and are trying to escape the cops) we laughed so hard the popcorn bowl fell on the ground and spilled everywhere. As we knelt on the floor to pick up the fallen kernels, we looked into each other’s eyes- And then the alarm went off, Al disappeared and was replaced with Monday. During math class, I realized Matthew is his middle name...but I’m questioning his decision to drive from California. It is a good thirty hours from there to here... My Take On It Next Dream |
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