...later is now

A friend flew in from Vegas for St. Patrick’s Day and to make it more of a trip she came a day early and stayed a couple days later. Our plan was to meet for lunch on Wednesday and then again after work. Lunch didn’t go as planned and we only got to see each other for 10 minutes, so then we were going to focus on after work.

After work, she was still hanging out with a mutual friend and that mutual friend texted me to say where they were so I joined them. We talked about old times and other mutual friends which lead to a call to a bartender we all know.

We went to where he was working, which is classier than most of us are on any regular day but he didn’t care because he’s a good friend. After a few, we got the word that he could go as long as nobody was at the bar and seeing how only my group was at the bar at that time, we left with plans that he would meet us up the street.

Up the street we were all introduced to the new friends of our friend from Vegas. While our friend from Vegas was catching up with her new friends, Lauren asked me about my family, my job and Lady G and her kids. She asked if there was anything new and the best I could come up with was my iPod Touch which I pulled out and showed her.

She then scrolled through all my photos. She said that my nieces had gotten big and then she asked why I didn’t take photos professionally. I told her it was because if I had to take photos then I would end up hating taking photos.

We talked for awhile and then she said that she had some bad news for me. The news was that someone had stolen her Red Sox bottle opener. She then called everyone into the conversation and lamented her lose. I said it was just a bottle opener. “Yeah, but I had it for three years, Timmy. And my best customer gave it to me,” she stressed the ‘my’ and the ‘best.’

Three years is a long time for a fulltime bartender to have a bottle opener. She was always losing or having her bottle openers stolen and it’s hard to claim back your bottle opener when all the bottle openers look the same, so when I saw the type of bottle opener that she likes with a vinyl grip and a Red Sox logo, I bought it for her. I really didn’t think much of it at the time.

We then joined the group in their conversations had more drinks and maybe got a little silly. She asked me for my camera and after a moment when she was handing it back she told me that there was a surprise on it for me when I got home.