Ross Visits

Ross called me in the middle of lunch to tell me he'd meet me "some time after 7." There is a magical direction called "North." When I go that way from work, I can end up in either the World's Largest Barnes & Noble or Nintendo World. Today, I chose the former, and read comics until I got a call from Bert earlier than I expected.

I told him to meet me in the Nintendo Store, where I was doing research for the DS buying I planned next week. I had done some Craigslisting at work, but wasn't sure I wanted to spend 225 on a DS and several games. 180 seemed reasonable, though. I could've gotten a brand new DS for 130 at the Nintendo Store and gotten it engraved for an extra twenty bucks, but all of the engravings were pretty lame.

Ross found me playing Sonic at the virtual console. He was considerate enough not to hug me until after I put the controller down. This is what I like about Ross. We wandered around, and I showed him everything in the store and the various knickknacks Pelks and Bekah would go apeshit over, then we began a serious discussion of whether I should buy the stuffed Link. All indications were "later."

"Look, Ross," I said, pointing to my black striped shirt, dress pants, and shoes, "I'm blending in."
"I know," he said, with less condescension than I expected, "you look...chic."

Later, I realized I was better dressed than Ross at the time. "Enjoy it while you can," he said, but the important thing is that he did NOT deny it.

We watched a giant projected version of "The Man Who Came To Dinner" with Ross' friends, who were really fun to be around. At one point, after a long discussion of Batman R.I.P., Ross' friend Fred turned to me with widened eyes and said, "You just maxed out on nerd cred." He said it as though it were a major compliment.

After the movie, Ross invited his friends back to my apartment, which made me extremely happy. I was painfully aware there was very little furniture, but everyone seemed to have a great time -- especially after we began cooking tuna melts on my grill in the style of the movie Blues Brothers. I'm out one wire hanger, but up a pair of awesome tongs.

Oh, this is super important. ROSS KEPT A COFFEE BLOG AT ONE POINT IN HIS LIFE. He only updated it once, and it's somewhere on the Internet. Our mission is to find it. Thank you, loose tipsy tongues.

I showed Ross' friends Section 5 Babies, which was a huge hit. Some more Red Stripe later, it was time to go to bed. I made the mistake of telling Ross I had something to tell him before he got on the train, which resulted in him badgering me until we ended up wandering the neighborhood until 3. Which was why I didn't want to talk about it then. Nonetheless, it had strange effects:

"So what do you think I should do?"
"Ross, you askin' me for advice?"
"Well, yeah."
"Usually I just give it."
"I know. But I'm trying to take advice from people."
"Okay, well if you do this, you'll probably do the right thing. And you may even grow as a person."
"That makes a lot of sense."

Then Ross hugged me and got on the train.