So I'm sitting in a bar last night...

Drinking to say the least... listening to some old men one up each other with stories about their lives and I have to admit... a lot of them were facinating. Now who knows how much of them were made up, I didn't really care... either way it made me realize something. Life is an awesome possibilty, plain and simple. It told me that at the end of everything, during your final years... it really doesn't matter what you've amassed... the friends you've made and lost, the opportunities that got away. The only thing that matters is did have a good time? Do you have a good story? Did you do anything worth talking about, did you live a life you can be proud of? Did you sit behind a desk day after day absolutely miserable, or did you go to work everyday with the idea in your head that you were going to do just enough to get through the day... not too much to make you crazy, and everyday remind yourself that you were sacing for that next trip... that next adventure? In between those times did you take mini adventures? Hell did you even fucking go to "Great Adventure"? Did you ever leave your house one night with a friend, a bunch of friends or by yourself, had really nothing in mind to do... and end up having one the craziest, funnest nights of your life? Did you ever just say fuck it... like in "Risky Business"? Put your ass on the line or just really put yourself out there? No I'm not talking about love... I'm talking about just letting go... getting nuts, seizing the opportunity that life presented you...

Or did you play it safe? Were you scared to take risks... do you wonder what if? There was a recent study done at Columbia University asking alumni that were now in the latter part of their life (over 75) and they found that most of them... 87% regretted what they didn't do... not what they did. Think about that... the chances they didn't take out wieghed the regrets from the ones they did... only 8% went the other way with 5% undecided. That's staggering... we're talking Columbia Students here... a lot of them, probably strait laced desk job types like most of us, and they regretted, to get all Robert Frosty on you here, not choosing the path less followed. Not putting balls to the wall and going nutso, taking a chance. Well screw that. I'm definitely going to be in that 8%, I'm going to have that great story, I'm going to die with a smile on my face. As I sit in this office and watch strangers wheel the bodies of the dead wrapped in a blanket by my office I think about how demeaning that is. How final. Then you get a bunch of people standing around looking at something that looks nothing like you and commenting about your life. I want the people there to say things like... "Remeber that time at 4 in the morning when we drove to AC and stayed there for four days... we all called out sick with diarrhea" (I'm talking to you Rooney) or "I remember the time he and I walked around my college campus, flying out of our minds holding a five foot tall garfield doll between us, before handing it to some girl because she looked sad and lonely" (I'm looking at you Vass). That's the good stuff right there, that's what old people probably sit there and laugh to themselves about when they're sitting in an old folks home because someone forgot about them and now all they have is their memories... hopefully. Am I gonna cry and miss my family as I choke down Tapioca pudding (what's with old people and tapioca anyway?) or am I going to be in a wheelchair pushed up next to a window looking out at the grass laughing my freaking balls off? I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that one. Toodles.

P.S. Had to share something I heard last night with you...

This one old man is starting this story and he says... "I remember one time I was occasionally seeing this pogostick..." Now me being me I had to know what this was so I interupted... his reply follows "You know boy a pogo stick... a person your screwing that's fun to ride... but you wouldn't want your friends to know you do it." That was comedic gold... thanks Dougie... hope you got to sleep that one off before the dog jumped on your balls, this morning. I owe you a Jack and Ginger.