The Curious Incident of the Cashews

b-vision2, originally uploaded by camille94019.

Sat Night, Safeway in Portland, buying beer for the afterparty.

I was standing in the checkout line with my water and the Wob was right behind me.

I found Shannon a few minutes later. I had wanted to pick up a few necessities for the ride home while we were at the grocery store.

We were ready to go the after-party. I looked behind me, and no wob. Shannon was anxious to go the party. I glanced around the store. It was one of those mega-safeways, that is the size of a football field. looking for him would have been hopeless. We asked the cashier to page him for us.

"wobbly, your party is waiting for you at aisle 6"

We waited for another five minutes. Nothing. I felt like a disloyal friend, but we left. BTW, we had walked there... so it wasn't like his futon wasn't a mere 3 blocks away. After a few blocks, I used Shannon's phone to call him. No answer. We were mystefied and Shannon told me about a really creepy movie where this dude's girlfriend disappears and he spends the rest of the movie looking for her. It was a dark, wet night. I thought of wobbly wandering around in the strange and hostile neighborhoods of Portland... a lost and lonely waif.

Finally Shannon's phone rang.

pause
We didn't drive (to me) he's looking for the car.
pause

me: Where is he?
S: the parking lot

pause

yeah.... take a right, cross the street, the street numbers will get lower...

me: Didn't he hear us page him?
S: do you really want to know?

Eventually we saw his silhouette approach. After our somewhat strained reunion.

me: Didn't you hear us page you?
W: Oh, yes. But I was in the middle choosing the salted or unsalted cashews.
me: so you ignored the page.
W: (as if it was no big deal) of course.

nb: I had a bag of cashews in the car the whole time.

Post Scriptum... where is that tin of cashews now? you might ask. They were last sighted sitting, where the wob left them before we left for home, on Shannon's kitchen table. I hope he likes cashews.