Quiet Morning and the story of Ben

For the first time in a very very very long time, I was the first to arrive at work this morning. I know this may not seem much to anyone, but it's nice to have a few quiet moments in a place where there is nothing happening, no one talking, no phones ringing, and no music playing. Complete serene quiet. Ahhhh....


For this is the time when I blog most efficiently and creatively. No interruptions, no one peering over my shoulder to see what I am doing. I just don't get the urge when there are people all around.

My friend Ben emailed me yesterday. (hi ben!) I haven't talked to him in a very long time. How Ben & I met is an interesting story actually, but not as interesting as what me and my friend Dee did to him one April Fools Day a long long time ago in a land far far away...Well, it's actually not all the far from where I reside now, but he lives far far away, so it works. But I digress...
I met Ben and his friends Rick and Cauley on a plane from Atlanta to Vail. We had all received the same promotional ticket thru Rocky Mtn Ski & Snowboard shop here in Atlanta. I remember hearing the promotion commercial vividly as if I just heard it 5 minutes ago...it said this: Buy ANY skis or snowboard in their shop and get a free ticket to Vail. I flipped when I heard it. I was getting ready for work (at Planet Hollywood in Atlanta - it is no longer - bankrupt u see) and dropped everything. See, I needed a new snowboard anyways, so what the hell! AND a free flight to Vail! I still had many friends in Aspen (I had only just moved from there less than a yr before) so I could fly into Vail - and scurry over thro the mtns to Aspen (only about a 2 hr drive) to stay with and spend time with my friends! And go snowboarding on my brand spankin new (at the time - never summer had just come out) Never Summer 157 too! (extra bonus!) Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

So anyways, one of my friends was on her way to pick me up to drive me to Aspen - but wasn't going to be there for a few hrs after we landed - so I had time to kill. So I met Ben and his friends on the plane, and they were going to try and get a few runs in before the mtn closed. We landed about 3:00 and the mtn closes at 5....however, a little secret about Vail...if you get on the mtn AFTER 4PM - you can ski/snowboard for free. That's right. FREE VAIL. But the only drawback is that only the gondola is running after 4 - so you have to make sure that you can always get back to the base of the mtn where the gondola is - you would think this might be an easy task - but let me assure you - it can be difficult - Vail is a HUGE ASS MTN. When I say HUGE - I mean that Vail has over 5,289 acres of skiable terrain. That's 230,389,783 square feet, 8.26 square miles.
Anyhow, I ended up riding with these guys - and got totally lost and separated from them on the mtn. Now keep in mind - I didn't really know these guys - not everyone had cell phones yet - and all my shit was left back at the condo they had rented for the weekend. Now, for some reason, I wasn't really all that worried about it - I figured I could find my way back to the place if I had too - but, by some miraculous grace of God, I was shimmying down and thought I saw Ben - and shouted for him and it was him!

---interruption--- one of my co-workers that sits back here with me just arrived. Oh well, it wasn't going to last forever. I did have a good 35 minutes tho!
---continuing on---

Anyhow, to make this too long of a story short - I found them and we got off the mtn and commenced with the Apres Ski. That bonded us and we became life-long friends. Well, friends anyways - he lived down the street from me back in the ATL and we would go out and party together. In fact - he was unemployed when I got laid off and was kind enough to take me to the unemployment office to show me where it was - after which we stopped by the liquor store (in the same parking lot of course) and bought some 40's (which by the way we kept in the brown bag for authenticity) to celebrate our being laid off and commenced with the drinking and domino's on my front porch in the highlands...ahh.. good times... :)

Now, onto the April Fools Day scenario...
So, I had had a party at my house on St. Charles Ave (ahh, those parties were the bomb!) and Cauley & Rick had come into town (they both lived in Florida and Ben was in Canada for work) and were staying at Ben's place. These guys were always pranking each other in some way or another - so at about 2am we devised an ingenius plan to "get" Ben real good. See Rick & Cauley had both met my good friend Dee - but Ben had never met her since he was out of town. Dee also worked part-time as a leasing agent. We concocted a plan out of pure evil genius. We decided that when Ben cam home from being in Canada for about 3 weeks - he would come home to this girl Dee - who had "sub-let" this apartment from Cauley & Rick. The story was this... Dee had just moved to Atlanta from Buffalo, she met these guys out at a bar, they offered her Ben's apartment to sublet thru the summer for $1000 - she paid them and they blew it all on strip clubs in Atlanta that very same night - so the money was gone. She brought over all her stuff - clothes, hairdryer, her dog, she even had tampons scattered about in the bathroom - she even replaced a photo in a frame with a picture of her and her boyfriend. Oh yeah and we stuck some of his movies and stuff in a box like he was coming to pick it up. I was hiding in the shower behind the curtain - b/c he knew me) so when Ben came in - he was startled cuz the dog was barking at him and Dee was just sitting there - playing solitaire, having a drink.
They went back and forth with who what how and he reached to pick up the photo frame - to say look - its my apt - i live here - but he picked it up and there was a photo of dee and her boy instead of Ben! She also showed him fake phone connection contracts and a fake lease (remember - she was working as a leasing agent at the time) so it all looked very real! He was on the phone with Cauley telling him that he had stepped over the line and that he was about to bring her down to Florida so that Cauley could take care if it- b/c Ben thinks that Dee is an innocent victim in the whole thing! Meanwhile - I am trying to contain myself from laughing in the bath tub. Finally after about 20 minutes of keeping him going - we tell him its a joke and I burst out of the shower stall and he is so worked up and relieved - we go out for drinks in the highlands as he proclaims how we are his hero! Funniest shit ever - still wish I had thought to video tape it! DAMNIT JIM!