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That Old Black Magic...
Oct. 12th, 2004 11:00 pmMaybe there was more than we though to our senior year English teacher...
Back in high school, I wasn't a real socializer. I had two basic packs of friends - my gaming buddies, and a small group of people I always wound up in class with. Of this latter bunch, Matt, Rob, Tom, and I were pretty fast friends.
Mr. G was our English teacher senior year. Great teacher, loved to use literary references. Darned observant, too. Mr. G saw us clustered in the corner of his class. He saw us in the halls, talked to other teachers about us. A pack of four nearly inseparable people. He termed us "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse".
We thought he did that mostly to make us look up the reference. I mean, it isn't like we actually caused any trouble. At least nothing considered trouble when it came from solid honors students. I suppose that we could have been dangerous, if we'd set our minds to it. But we weren't. Not that we minded being given a gang name. I mean, what teenage boy is going to mind being called one of the Four Horsemen, right? We even though of having jackets made up...
We should have known better. That Bambino dude's a duffer at curses...
Over the intervening years, we've gone our varied ways, spread around the country. And we've started getting married.
When Matt got married, there was a hurricane two days before, so that events unfolded without the benefit of electric lights or air conditioning.
When Rob got married, he ended up in a hospital bed rather than at the altar. He'd run himself ragged during the previous week, had a binge of a bachelor party, and wound up stressed and dehydrated to the point where standing on his own two feet really wasn't an option. He needed a couple hours of bed rest and IV fluids to get him operational enough to get hitched later that day...
And, at the reception, some moron had to point out that I was likely the next to get married, and ask how I planned to top them. I laughed it off, because everyone knows you can draw a trend line with only two data points. But tempting fate was not bright.
Thanks to my Lady's phenomenal powers of planning and drive, things have gone pretty darned smoothly. And when some possible nastiness raised it's head, she very efficiently hired a steamroller and made things smooth again. The woman is a marvel, honestly. We had to knock wood every time someone asked us how the planning was going, because the answer was "Pretty darned well," and we didn't want to jinx it.
Maybe it just took a while to find something my Lady couldn't fix - the common cold. She's got one, just a few days before the wedding. I dunno which elder powers Mr. G may have sicced on us way back when, but they've just made their big mistake. A second flood, a simple famine, a plague of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake I'd accept with some despair. But they messed with my woman. And that cheeses me off.
Perhaps my poor fellow Horsemen were caught unawares, and without power to counter their particular jinxes. But I am forewarned, and better armed against such a piratical assault upon the seas of Fate. I will pamper my Lady to within an inch of her life, if that'll make her better by Sunday. I will run every errand, seek the sacred NyQuil elixir, brew every pot of tea until the foe be banished.
And if simple home medicine be not enough, there are... other powers I can call upon. Physicist or not, I recall the old ways. I still remember how to gain the favor of the Great Gumbala, God of Junk Food, patron of my gaming group. We've already bought the hors d'oeuvres, and we shall have the splendid cakes. All that is required is the ritual sacrifice of the biggest chip in the bag and the proper chanting... Oyum de! Oyum deedum de! Oyum de!
So, Powers That Be, you've messed with the wrong dude. I know your tricks, and I can and will fight them. What my Lady cannot stop, I can. And my friends are coming, and they'll be on my side in this. The Horsemen gather in Boston this weekend, you seething little gremlins. Sure as heck you, whoever you are, cannot stand against such heralds as these. Neener neener!
Back in high school, I wasn't a real socializer. I had two basic packs of friends - my gaming buddies, and a small group of people I always wound up in class with. Of this latter bunch, Matt, Rob, Tom, and I were pretty fast friends.
Mr. G was our English teacher senior year. Great teacher, loved to use literary references. Darned observant, too. Mr. G saw us clustered in the corner of his class. He saw us in the halls, talked to other teachers about us. A pack of four nearly inseparable people. He termed us "the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse".
We thought he did that mostly to make us look up the reference. I mean, it isn't like we actually caused any trouble. At least nothing considered trouble when it came from solid honors students. I suppose that we could have been dangerous, if we'd set our minds to it. But we weren't. Not that we minded being given a gang name. I mean, what teenage boy is going to mind being called one of the Four Horsemen, right? We even though of having jackets made up...
We should have known better. That Bambino dude's a duffer at curses...
Over the intervening years, we've gone our varied ways, spread around the country. And we've started getting married.
When Matt got married, there was a hurricane two days before, so that events unfolded without the benefit of electric lights or air conditioning.
When Rob got married, he ended up in a hospital bed rather than at the altar. He'd run himself ragged during the previous week, had a binge of a bachelor party, and wound up stressed and dehydrated to the point where standing on his own two feet really wasn't an option. He needed a couple hours of bed rest and IV fluids to get him operational enough to get hitched later that day...
And, at the reception, some moron had to point out that I was likely the next to get married, and ask how I planned to top them. I laughed it off, because everyone knows you can draw a trend line with only two data points. But tempting fate was not bright.
Thanks to my Lady's phenomenal powers of planning and drive, things have gone pretty darned smoothly. And when some possible nastiness raised it's head, she very efficiently hired a steamroller and made things smooth again. The woman is a marvel, honestly. We had to knock wood every time someone asked us how the planning was going, because the answer was "Pretty darned well," and we didn't want to jinx it.
Maybe it just took a while to find something my Lady couldn't fix - the common cold. She's got one, just a few days before the wedding. I dunno which elder powers Mr. G may have sicced on us way back when, but they've just made their big mistake. A second flood, a simple famine, a plague of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake I'd accept with some despair. But they messed with my woman. And that cheeses me off.
Perhaps my poor fellow Horsemen were caught unawares, and without power to counter their particular jinxes. But I am forewarned, and better armed against such a piratical assault upon the seas of Fate. I will pamper my Lady to within an inch of her life, if that'll make her better by Sunday. I will run every errand, seek the sacred NyQuil elixir, brew every pot of tea until the foe be banished.
And if simple home medicine be not enough, there are... other powers I can call upon. Physicist or not, I recall the old ways. I still remember how to gain the favor of the Great Gumbala, God of Junk Food, patron of my gaming group. We've already bought the hors d'oeuvres, and we shall have the splendid cakes. All that is required is the ritual sacrifice of the biggest chip in the bag and the proper chanting... Oyum de! Oyum deedum de! Oyum de!
So, Powers That Be, you've messed with the wrong dude. I know your tricks, and I can and will fight them. What my Lady cannot stop, I can. And my friends are coming, and they'll be on my side in this. The Horsemen gather in Boston this weekend, you seething little gremlins. Sure as heck you, whoever you are, cannot stand against such heralds as these. Neener neener!
