Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Scrubly is Coming, Scrubly is Coming!

The Scrubly One is coming to visit this weekend. Hooray!

Scrubly was one of Bump's suitemates in college; he was also on the debate team with Aunt Bob. Scrubly and I both moved to DC because Aunt Bob needed a roommate. The woman she was planning to live with bailed on Washington at the last minute, so Aunt Bob put out the call for roommates. Scrubly and I took her up on plea, later chiding her that when looking for roommates, she should have asked for ones with jobs.

When told of the makeup of our household, my extended family often remarked, "Oh, like Three's Company!" We assured them that our days were filled with high-larious misunderstandings that resolved themselves within 30 minutes.

After a year, I moved out of the group house to move in with John, and Bump took my place in the house. I didn't know Bump in college, even though we had a lot of the same friends. It's funny how people come into your life when they're meant to.

Scrubly is one of those guys who has led a charmed life. His lovely wife just fell into his lap - literally and figuratively - and he seems to have been spared true misfortune thus far (unless you count his roto baseball team; that's a fricken dizASSter). I'm pretty sure all four of the man's grandparents are still alive, if you can believe it.

He's one of those guys who was born responsible. When he was a toddler, he saved his little brother's life when he caught him eating a jar of iron pills at his Aunt's (his brother thought they were M&Ms. Really bad M&Ms). His Aunt has two adopted children, and when she visited she would tell me her girls' stories.

Five years ago at this time, Scrubly was living in Boston and he and I were exchanging emails about a wager. His Giants were taking on my Vikings in the playoffs, and the bet was laid out like this:
I have a Vikings shot glass. Scrubly would be visiting in a few months, at which time he would drink from that glass. The number of shots he took would be determined by the number of points by which his team lost.
He accepted the bet, and didn't even make me spot him the two-and-a-half drinks the boys in Vegas would have given him at the time. If my Vikes lost, I would go out and buy a Giants shot glass for the point differential - but neither of us thought I'd be drinking.

For those of you who don't remember - and I am normally one of those people don't remember football scores from five years ago - this was the playoff game that the Vikings lost 41-0. Forty-one points, folks. It was a stunning, absolute, whole-hand pants-down spanking.

Scrubly eventually allowed that most of the shots taken out of my brand-(spanking)-new Giants shot glass could be beer. However, I owed seven "real" shots, one for each taunting/mocking email I had sent him in the week leading up to the game.

This is the email I received from Buttmunch after the game:
Just heard from [Scrubly] about your little football wager. Ha ha! I love it. I can just picture you watching that game -- and I can picture [Bump], [Aunt Bob], and Peter watching you watch that game. I chuckle just to think of it. I love it when there are many potential outcomes to a situation, and the funniest one occurs. That so rarely happens.
Since [Scrubly] let you off the hook on quantity, I suggested he should make up for it by increasing the nastiness of the quality. I did not, however, make any specific reommendations (vodka- and-warm-mayonnaise comes to mind).
--- Jimmy the Munch, football prognosticator, reminding you that few people have ever lost money betting against Denny Green in the playoffs
I changed the names to avoid confusion, not to protect anyone's identity. I left the signature line in to prove that Buttmunch really does go by Buttmunch (and variations thereof), I didn't make that up for this blog.

So, Scrubly is coming. I can't wait to see him. Anyone have suggestions for a wager?

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