I get together with a small group of close friends once or twice a month (as schedules permit) for beer and hot wings at a downtown bar. We trace most of our relationships back to university, and our ability to get together socially over the intervening 12 years (holy cow!) has slowly but inexorably lessened. These few opportunities to drink and nosh and generally shoot the shit for a couple hours before heading home after work of a Thursday evening are quaint little treasures.
These outings are organised by one of the more socially adept (and persistent) of us, and she also makes a pretty mean seven-layer dip. She will be away, alas, in February, and I was quickly nominated to replace her in the capacity of ad hoc Hot Wing & Beer Committee Chair for the month.
The laconic nomination went thus:
I’m out for this week and I nominate Simon to take over the wing duties for February.
My rather more grandiloquent acceptance was then:
But lo!
What is this yoke descried before me? The weathered grain of ancient wood shows all the years of ceaseless toil conducted through its unyielding fibres. Evinced by stains of sweat and blood and the salty streaks of unfettered tears, all shed in the thankless toil demanded of it. Yet in the wake of its straining has fertile earth been tilled and and the perennial hope of spring cashed in its currency for the patient growth of unending fields of summer verdure.
If sweat is the coin and strengthened bonds of friendship my yield in fair exchange, then gladly do I set my shoulders under this yoke! Though it weigh me down under its own mass and further demand of me the effort for which it was made, still do I rise up under it, for such is my ebullience at the task set before me that no tool so crude nor weight so pressing could stay me from my desired end. All labours are light and airy and all hardships are as the kindest favours when conducted under the auspices of love!
Tally ho, foolish friends! If you follow me into the depths of beer and hot wings for the month of February, I will expend all effort to ensure that all are led out safe again, into the blazing light of day, though your name be Orpheus and you glance back again and again at Eurydice in your moments of weakness. I give you this commitment and assure you I will not fail, but succeed beyond all hope and expectation.
Yours, cordially, in the spirit of 3rd Degree Hot Sauce,
Simon
Yours, cordially, in the spirit of getting carried away for no reason whatsoever,
Simon
