About once a week I’d hit up the mall for lunch. It was a nice change of scenery; and fun to people watch. The bum was on that corner every time I drove by; a smile on his face, waving and throwing peace signs at people. I noted to myself that he never really looked that dirty. Strange, but I shrugged it off.

It’s been months later and today I drove past the intersection and there he was again; with that stupid sign, that idiotic grin, and that pseudo friendly waves and peace signs. Some poor sap pulled over and gave the man some money.

It’s infuriating that this asshole is taking advantage of people’s goodwill to sustain himself. He’s so broke it hurts. He’s so broke he can’t make any effort to improve his situation. Nah, he’ll just stand on that corner everyday and wave at cars passing by and give that imbecilic grin. He’s so broke that he has a change of clothes everyday and stays pretty clean.

He’s far from malnourished. I’m sure the only thing that hurts is his feet from standing all day taking money from suckers. Every time I pass by, I’m very tempted to flip him off. I’m above that though. I’ll just tell him that if he’s gonna work the corner, he should go all the way and enter prostitution. I’m sure that there’s a fetish for old, “homeless” men. Until then, I’ll just passive-aggressively glare at him.

“Yes?” I replied as I opened the door.

“Hey, are you hungry?” asked Christian.

“Maybe. Why?” I sarcastically replied.

“I’m hungry and want to get dinner. “

I sighed. I really didn’t want to get up after getting comfortable. After some hesitation, I answered back.

“What time did you want to go?”

“Right now?”

“Alright, let me get my shoes,” I apprehensively replied.

“Okay. I’m gonna go check out the backyard.”

For the duration of the day the construction workers have been working on the backyard. Today they put up the new fence and Christian hadn’t looked at it yet. Christian ventured into the backyard while I remained in my room and tied my shoes. He passed by my opened window and spoke.

“Oh, wow. They really are done with the fence.”

“Yeah, man. It’s exciting. We’re finally gonna have a good backyard,” I commented as I got up from my chair.

We got in Christian’s car and began our drive to get dinner. We hit a stop sign and a girl on a motorcycle drives by. She wore a small top and what looked almost like pajama pants. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. My eyes stayed locked on her.

“Wow . . . what the hell is she thinking?” I commented.

Right after I spoke, a police cruiser did a U-Turn in the direction of the girl. Christian gleefully began laughing at the girl’s plight; after all, the situation is entirely her fault. She pulled over and the cop came out of his car while we passed by; Christian still in hysterical laughter.

After we bought dinner, we drove back home. We reach the street the girl was pulled over and she’s still there. A man who looked to be her boyfriend stood by her side. She looked like she was on the verge of tears while the cop wrote her a ticket.

Who would be stupid enough to do that? Why do some people have such blatant disregard for their safety? I could only hope that she gets her license revoked and her motorcycle taken away. In the meantime I’ll just look back and continue to laugh at her idiocy.

“What the hell? Did Eric pee on the floor?”

“Nah, man!”

I accompanied David in the bathroom where we C.S.I’d that shit. We took toilet paper and carefully applied it on the little puddle and discovered that it was a little yellow. We showed our findings to Mark who went out in the living room to share the verdict.

“Eric! What were you thinking? That’s a shot!”

“Nah, man. You got the wrong guy,” Eric retorted while he walked closer to the font door with his beer in his hand.

“Dude! It was you! Take a shot!”

“It wasn’t me!” Eric yelled while he got even closer to the door.

A few of us walked closer to Eric while he inched away. Suddenly, Eric threw his beer at us, pulled the front door open, and ran. It was 15 minutes later that we realized he had no intention of coming back; he abandoned his car.

Eric — wherever you are — keep running, my crazy friend; there’s still a shot waiting for you.

Of course this is tinfoil-hat bullshit, but it only gets better; Richard Thompson of Thomas More Law Center writes:

“The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin.”

Either Mr. Thompson doesn’t know that the package of crime laws does not apply to freedom of speech; or he believes that violence and murder towards homosexuals is a valid and socially acceptable expression of Christian faith.

It’s appalling when someone twists a religion to fit their platform of hate towards people they don’t approve. Thanks, fanatics, for making the rest of us look bad.

(Christian group feels threatened)

“It’d be pretty funny if we abandoned our cars here,” I told Ivan.

Nevertheless, we gave up and we headed back to the cabin. We informed the others that we couldn’t find the cars, so Tim offered to come with us to find them. We again hiked along icy roadsides and headed for the parking lot.

“Holy shit . . . .”

Up front and center of the parking lot are two, six feet piles of snow. Somehow we miraculously abandoned our cars in a parking lot. With shovels in hand, we dug. We worked in shifts to keep things continuous – there was still snowboarding to be had. Raul and I began one of our morbid conversations.

“I’d bury a puppy in snow as my present for my kid. He’d hear it whimper and I’d say, ‘You better start digging before your present dies’” said Raul.

I replied, “And already have a blank tombstone and a plot in a pet cemetery already taken care of, just in case your kid is too damn slow.”

Bystanders walked by and gave us odd looks while we dug. Mark suddenly went insane and began to sing screamo.

“I hate my life! My girlfriend left me! I want to die!”

It didn’t end there. He switched gears and sang country.

“My wife left me; my dog died; I’m drinking whiskey.”

As we dug, a roadside worker walked over to see how we’re doing, and imparted us with a little story.

“I lived here all my life and this is seriously the worst snowstorm we’ve had in over 20 years.”

Of course it was our luck to think that we could drive through some snowfall, but no, it was a full-on blizzard. We were snowed in on the mountain. Trapped. And no one was able to get on the mountain too. We worked diligently and got one of the cars free. We had a brief celebration and went straight to work on the second car. We were men on a mission; we still wanted to snowboard despite all the hard labor we’re going through.

We successfully freed the second car and brought them back to the cabin. Half of us booked it to the slopes and realized that there will be hardly anyone riding – people who wanted to get on the mountain couldn’t. The powder was fresh and the place felt empty. It was a night of riding that we rightfully deserved.