As the frail kicker thrusted his foot through the football, the crowd hushed in a frozen moment. The pigskin sailed in the air. It glided, and glided, and continued to soar until it pierced through the uprights. The Ohio University Bobcats had accumulated a 3-0 lead over the University of Florida Gators, and suddenly a massive cloud of despair beared over Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Thunder and lightning cursed the field, the rain poured unrelentlessly, the Earth cracked along its axes, pigs flew through the gray skies ever so majestically, and Satan himself penetrated through the soggy mud and pelted the shocked specators with snowballs from his recently frozen-over hell. The witnesses fled in fear and misery for protection under the outer barracades of the stadium ramps. Some maintained their loyalties and eventually faced the aftermath at the Swamp, while others surrendered to the fear and escaped from the grasps of the stadium and abandoned their beloved Gator football.

So there I sat, in the passenger seat of Ben's car as he drove me home after our three minutes at the football game. Tropical storm Hanna added to the already dreary conditions of this evening's game: facing a team we were expected to dominate in a boring manner, coming from a blowout loss early in the year, then actually falling behind a team that up to that point had failed to score a single point the entire season! I saw a tree uprooted and crash-landed into my apartment complex. The tree now rested in the apartment directly above mine. I rushed into Dave's room to see if he had any damage, and although it appeared conditions were safe at the time, we are discovering slight moisture to the ceiling. But not even a tropical storm and a tree in the roof could subside the eccentric activities of a social in the house of Dave, Mason, and Anthony...

Yes, even with the rain, the wind, and the debris floating around, Mason flipped the generic-brand beef patties that were flaming on the grill. Dave and Mason buy these cheap frozen meat discs for burgers because they like to grill often and these are dirt cheap. Flanders brand frozen beef patties cost $3.99 for a pack of 20 quarter-pound slabs that consist of beef, water, and beef hearts (yeah, I just read the ingredients tonight, and that beef heart thing hit me from out of nowhere). The living room was filled with a well-balanced dude-to-lady ratio. All the attendants were invitees of Dave and Mason. For some reason, I could not get myself to pick up the phone and persuade someone I call a friend to come barbeque in a thunder storm. The evening ended with Dave, Mason, Maria, and I playing this card game Dave calls, "Oh Hell." Oh Hell is essentially spades, except every man works solo, and the trump card is randomly determined by whichever suit appears on the top card. After twenty rounds points are accumulated to determine a winner. I'm not going to lie: at the beginning of the game, I was majorly sucking. Everyone had at least twice as many points as I did, and I could never correctly guess how many tricks I would win. To give you an idea of how pathetically I started, here were the scores as of Round Seven:

Maria: 58, Mason: 46, Dave: 39, Anthony: 16

Nevertheless, something inside me (probably my ego) compelled me to boast aloud, "I'm not going to come in last when this is all over. I hope you all know that. I'm just stating fact here. Someone will come in last, and I guarantee it will not be me." My playing backed my snobby mouth, as I grabbed my shovel and did what most people would have claimed to be impossible: I dug myself out of a hole. My ego forbid me to admit defeat, and after twenty rounds were dealt and played, here were the final tallies:

Maria: 154, Mason: 141, Dave: 133, Anthony: 142

The ancestor of the game had ended at the bottom, while my Joe Namath-esque bantering propelled me to runner-up spot. Hey, I didn't finish atop the entire crowd, but my hat goes off to Maria; she is a true competitor.

A mere glance out any Gainesville window today could have told you that today would be one of those days where nothing productive would develop, one of those days where the clock has barely touched evening and you're ready to call it a day. And yeah, I could have done more productive things during my Saturday: I could have completed reading assignements for my classes; I could have practiced my saxophone; I could have worked out and toned my gut abs; I could have balanced my checkbook; I could have finished those e-mails that should have been long sent; I could have fixed my car...

but I look at what I would have deprived myself from, and I know I chose the best path for this partiular Saturday.