By the Bike

Friday night I was at Lazz's frat house. Before dinner a few of his bros started playing bocce ball in the front yard. This simple description sounds a lot more dignified than it was. In short, the bocce balls would bounce around tree roots, roll between a billion cigarette butts, and land with a tinkle of broken beer bottles.

At one point, someone threw the white ball and one of the guys couldn't see it. He asked, "Is it by the bike?" (There was a bike propped up against a tree) and someone said, "Yeah"--a complete lie. The dude chucked his ball towards the bike, completely missing the mark. Everyone laughed. And then Lazz joked, "Well it was by the bike. Cosmically."

How could something be so funny based on objects being far apart when universally, the bike and the ball and the boccee players are all on top of each other.

On Saturday Lazz asked me the magic question:

"Wanna go to Pancake City?
As in the restaurant--
not the city."



And we ate pancakes bigger than our faces! And mine had peanut butter and chocolate chips in them! And life was sweet! We are what we eat, we said. I am this pancake. You are that coffee. Cosmically, everything is by the bike!

But I am the stuff of happy endings
Though mostly bluff, belief suspending