Day Ten

WeMass in Dallas

Pulling into Dallas, I get off the bus and look at the map of the area. Behind me, I hear someone talking and turn around to find a girl just yapping away to herself. That’s always a pleasant surprise, right? She’ll end up on the news someday. Keep an eye out for an adult, orphan Annie on the loose in Dallas.

I wait by the curb, and two minutes later, I see a silver truck slow down and without actually seeing Chris because of the tinted windows, I start smiling like a maniac. He rolls down the window. His smile is matching mine and we both start laughing. Chris and I went to UMass together. Our last year and a half there we became pretty close and it was bittersweet to part ways. I was glad that he got a job right away, but also I knew that I wouldn’t get to see him much. And by not see him much, this is the first time in six years.

Thursday, I woke up tired and beat. It was such a relief to be able to sleep in. Chris’ house, even though I was there alone, is practically a Dave and Busters. He’s got a pool table, surround sound TV set up with video games, and a kickass backyard with a pool and hot tub. Any adult alone for five hours will have a great time.

At one point I set out to go get a coffee and instead found myself at a TCBY Yogurt shop. After almost dying the day before, I convinced myself that I deserved it. So, I’m looking around at the flavors and the girl behind the counter says, “Can I help you, Sir?” In my head I sigh for her calling me out on being old. “Yeah, how does this work?” “Would you like a cone or a cup?” “A cup,” I say. She looks up at the menu board behind her. “How many scoops would you like?” “Well, I’d really like to try two flavors, so two, I guess. And then she asks me if I’d like to sample them to make sure I like them, like there’s a chance that I’m not going to like chocolate chip cookie dough and mocha almond. I tell her “No, thanks. I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I just know myself like that. She throws some white chocolate chips and chocolate sprinkles on it and I proceed to sit in the chair outside along the highway alone and eat the entire thing. I can’t even remember if I liked it.

Chris came home after work and we sat on the patio and talked for a bit. It’s like we never missed a beat. You know how good of friends you are with people when you can go long amounts of time and be on the same page still. We clicked during our UMass days, and six years later, we’ve seem to grow along that same timeline together. We have yet to veer and stray from friendship. Chris and I went to a drive-in burger place that’s like Sonic but it serves you beers too. I don’t know how it’s legal since it actively breaks a law of open container in a car, but God bless Merica that it exists. After that we went to one of his favorite bars, a quiet place that we drank and played darts at. We caught up and talked about the goods and bads in life since parting ways at UMass. All I got to say about that, is reach out to the friends that you have. Make sure each other are doing alright. While we are both doing fine now, we found that we both hit a rough patch at one point or another. Being so far away, we never checked in on each other like that. We probably both would have benefited from it.

My stay at Chris’ was two nights, but really only one to hang out since I got in too late the first night. I’ll be back though. Dallas seems to have a great city. Austin was cool also, but seemed to have more of a collegiate influence. Texas is big, but not empty. Don’t underestimate it or mess with it either. They hate when you mess with it.