my salute to the red, white, and BLUE…not just the red and white…

so, my friday at a glance….wake up the second most pleasant way i know how (don’t get perverted with that one…it was meant in the wake-up call sense of the phrase), then it was off to sa. this was trip number FIVE to the alamo city in SEVEN days. think that’ll about do it with sa for a while (but not too long a while…rumor has it i’m working the show at sunken gardens next sunday) then back to san marcos to do some (non) work on the system at sundance (they say it was giving them problems, but all worked fine for me…guess it knows who daddy is, huh?) lunch at gil’s broiler (new owners, new decor, same taste..that was cool) and then back to a-town to set up for a couple of shows there, the second of which decided to be a pill, delaying me to the point of NEVER making an in-office appearance on friday. then worked VERY briefly at the hockey game (but still got paid for the full three hours; man, company policies are cool sometimes), then plopped down and watched the game (we lost..but just barely) with jim & katy (jim being the older brother of my “sister” kathi, and was actually how she became my “sister” in the first place), and josh ended up joining us for late night tex-mex at trudy’s post-game….looking back at it in text form, the day sucked, but not TOO bad i suppose…

but when i went back to the old office to rummage for workable cables (found two..and one actually worked) i found one personal item that apparently got left behind in the recent office move (did NOT find my giant tool poster, which has disappeared off the old office wall…and i bet i know who has it). the item i found was visual proof of why i drink pepsi so religiously over coke. it’s because pepsi has never scared the fucking daylights out of me, and coke has. allow me to explain…

in may of 2k, the fragility tour came through texas….that tour being nine inch nails and a perfect circle. if you missed it, you missed one hell of a show; but it only played two texas dates – dallas and houston. i “acquired” primo seats and a ride up via a local radio station so not only could i GO to the show, but i could get loaded on the way. a date was found, a bottle of maker’s was bought, and we raided the station vending machine for stuff to mix with, and got four cokes.

now, somehow almost the entire fifth of makers went away, but only three of the cokes got used (picture how much fun i must have been THAT day). show was killer, ride back almost killed me (that story i WON’T share with you…let’s just say bad whataburger + bathroom on BUS = level of hell that even dante couldn’t put into words) and somehow i still crawled into work the next day, having to run out to the expo center (i.e. the hockey stadium, and tonight arena football stadium, then tomorrow hockey again…curious how they’re gonna pull this off).

the quickest way to get to the expo center from the downtown office was to travel through east austin, which is not known for being the most cracker-friendly area of town. i’m driving along, minding my own business, looking like SUCH the concert geek since i’m not only wearing my nin shirt from the show (just like high school…remember the day after the cool show when EVERYBODY wore the shirt they got to class?) but i’m also listening to the cd as well.

all of a sudden i hear this sound that sounds like a shotgun blast. it happened so fast everything seemed to go in slow motion for the next few seconds…

(BOOM!!!!!)

“oh shit…what was that?!?!?” i thought “….and why is my shirt suddenly all wet? fuck me…..did i just get shot?” i mean, i didn’t hear any glass breaking, but i’ve got both front windows down…christ, was i scared to look down. when i finally did, i see my shirt is drenched…and no longer white, but brown.

i look over in the passenger seat and see coke number four from the day before. apparently it couldn’t take the heat, so it decided to get the hell out of the kitchen. mossberg style. (mossberg is a brand of shotgun, in case you’re curious). the top of the can has been peeled back with so much force that it looks like the whole lid had been gone at with an electric can opener; but the tab and normal drinking hole were still sealed shut. the coke had blasted out with such force there was hardly any on the passenger seat…it had just splattered me, the steering wheel and the driver’s side door. the rest had gone out the open window. i pulled over, grabbed a shirt out of my gym bag, and swore off coke unless i was somewhere where pepsi WASN’T an option. and the rest is history. but i found the can on the floor near my old desk yesterday, and now it’s on my desk at home…a little reminder of why i need some blue with my red and white.