St. Patrick’s Day was yesterday so I’m seeing the town return from its fit of green hour by hour. The strangest thing happened to me last night, it all started with “Sweet Caroline”.
“Good times never seemed so good…”
The mixture of the melody and a vibrating end table told me my phone was ringing. Assuming it was a friend confirming plans, I answered without looking.
“Hello?”
“Hi…is Tyler around?”
Confused, I reply, “No I’m sorry you must have the wrong number. Unless my dog changed his name to Tyler and was expecting a call.”
A deep, exhaled laugh fills his end of the phone, “He mentioned something about eating his phone on accident and told me I could reach him with this number. Apparently his upgrade isn’t for a few more weeks.”
This guy has jokes. Before I can catch myself, I start uncontrollably laughing. “Plus the buttons were too small for his paws, he said something about feeling like an animal when he tried to press them. I think it was hard for his self esteem.”
“Well he has struggled with that in the past. I once caught him chewing on celery instead of a bone. There was talk of beach bodies and Spring Break. I tried to help him through it.”
At this point laughter takes over entirely. Both of us add, “Oh my gosh” between laughs.
“So Tyler has never mentioned you, what’s your name?” he asks.
I proceed to jokingly give him the name, Arnold Palmer. “You must be pretty sweet then, Arnold. Well if I can’t get your name can I at least give you mine?”
What harm could it be to know this witty stranger’s name? “Sure, why not?”
“Drew. Mountain Drew. We have so much in common, beverage names are so rare these days.” Right as he said Mountain Drew he tried to suppress laughs but he couldn’t. How is he still on this roll of his?
Hanging up the phone I look at the screen and realize I’ve been talking to this man for three hours. Over the course of that time I changed my mind about my previous plans, ignored 6 calls and talked about nearly everything under the sun with this faceless someone.
I found out his name was Andrew, so Mountain Drew wasn’t too far off, I suppose. He graduated from my cousin’s alma mater and knows good music when he hears it. Our common interests are found in seventies jams, action movies and crappy comics in the newspaper.
We laughed, told embarrassing stories and found we put our faith in the same One.
Instead of getting wasted on watered down boredom we spent the evening exchanging experiences and expanding what we see as possible.
From here on we may appear to be only two people who recently followed the other on Twitter but somehow this accidental encounter splashed truth on us both.
We all have a common denominator. This world isn’t as big as we make it out to be, in fact, its shrinking everyday. And last night was a prime example of that. There is so much out there for us to find. Adventure and memories are simply waiting for you. All you have to do is answer the phone.
Legends of Youth: 