Ring a ding ding!

When I lived in Michigan, I had a friend and former roommate named Brad: super nice dude, drank too much Coca Cola, and was more into Detroit Tigers baseball than anyone else I had ever met. We worked together, too, and strangely enough never got at each other’s throats. It was lovely. Brad always had some crazy situations surrounding him. One in particular sticks out…

I was sitting at home on the night of the Malace at the Palace and had re-arranged the furniture in the family room, much to Brad’s initial shock and severe confusion. Some people just have a thing about the placement of their futons. At any rate, I heard a pair of voices behind me coming in the front door of the apartment and recognized one of them. The other was high pitched and pretty-like. It was a woman that Brad had managed to convince to swing by apartment 12A-182 before they headed back out. This was particularly intriguing to me because she was 6’1” and looked like a model and Brad was 5’10” and (strangely enough) looked like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. “Good for him!” I thought as I turned my attention back to the television.

Three seconds later, Brad had picked me up and spun me over his head like a pro wrestler would and made my foot hit the ceiling fan. This was both exciting and annoying. “ROBBBBBBBIT!” he yelled. “This is [insert generic name of a woman here]. We’re going back out to the bar and you’re comin’! Hang on, I gotta go make bears.” If you have to ask what “make bears” means, I don’t want to be the one to tell you. Furthermore, if you’re into pickin’ up chicks at the bar and have already one back to your pad, why would you want to risk going out again? Bah… No matter. It didn’t make sense to me but then again neither did many of Brad’s plans.

During the long Michigan winters when external home improvements and window cleanings all but grind to a halt, I would often find myself with nothing to do. I got really good at Madden 2005 once… I was playing it several hours a day. I read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy three times that winter, too. I may have even made it to the post office a time or two. I was pretty productive. Brad, however would be scheming. Always scheming, he was… For the precioussss… And that’s not too much of an exaggeration.

One plan of Brad’s that I found particularly intriguing was his plan to rob a bank. Yes. Rob a bank. I don’t think he’d ever actually do it because he wasn’t very stealthy but that’s just nitpicking, in’it? Anyway, his plan was to head up to the U.P. and find a bank in a county with one cop. He was going to stage a car accident on one side of the county and while Johnny Law was out dealing with that he would go rob a bank. I mentioned to him that his planned sounded awfully similar to the plot of Reindeer Games and he called me a “Ben Affleck lover” and got mad. Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo. Besides, I wasn’t the one trying to rob a bank.

Pure of heart, I am was.

Recently, the biggest heist in London’s history took place. Yes, folks, things outside of the realm of celebrity deaths happen in the world… Although this summer seems to be proving that point to the contrary. Conspirators are turning up left and right in this burglary.

I haven’t talked to Brad in a few years. I, unfortunately, lost contact with him when I moved to Nashville. I know he isn’t improving homes any longer. I know he wanted to go get his MBA. What I don’t know is if he ever honed his safecracking abilities. Or if he’s been to London recently. Or if I’m really going to get that 10% cut that he promised me for keeping my mouth shut. I probably won’t now, though…

So, Brad, keep running. Don’t travel at night. Stay off the roads. Wait… that was hobbit advice and we all know that Gollum can’t resist a gold ring.