string karma

My friend Greg is one great character. He's 100% lovable with just a dash of goofy and a tendency to be accident prone. It's pretty common for him to walk into something or drop something and then trip over it... you get the idea. That's just one of the reasons why he's so darn fun, especially because he has a great sense of humor about it.

For his birthday Greg put a big ol' rafting trip together. There were 18 of us there and it was an overnight deal where the company provided tents and everything. That night Greg decided to enjoy the fresh night air and sleep outside. To do this and avoid freezing he wore his trusty wool hat to keep him warm. This wool hat had strings to tie under his chin so that his head may stay warm no matter how much he tossed and turned during the night. In the morning one by one we straggled out of our tents to find a groggy Greg struggling to untie the knot that forced his warm wool hat to remain on his head. He tried pulling the hat off. He tried pulling the string over his face, resulting in comical pig-like nose and cheek contortions. He tried biting the strings. I had a go at it, and I'll tell you, that knot was like a pebble, it wasn't going anywhere. The whole lot of us had many laughs as we gave our unsolicited advise to Greg. "Cut it, cut it, cut it."

Eventually someone defeated the string without the cutting we all chanted for, leaving Greg's hat in tact. His pride... well, I think that was okay too, because he was still laughing.

We split up into 3 groups after breakfast for the actual rafting trip. Although my group did not include Greg we all talked about the hat incident and told our guide about it. As it would happen, the rafts would meet up periodically and as we cruised up to Greg's raft for the first time our guide asked (unprompted), "Are you the one who couldn't get your hat off this morning?" It was hilarious, both rafts were laughing it up, but I don't think Greg thought it was so funny this time. I felt a little bad for having told our guide about it.
sorry, Greg.

But I think Greg may have felt a little better when the string karma came back to bite me in the ass last week.

I was wearing an ill fitting pair of Gap pants, which I often complain about. every single time I wear them. These pants have a fly and a button, but they also have a drawstring. I guess this is the Gap's cop out on not having to fit a specific waist size. So last Thursday I was down in Greg's office chatting it up and when I was on my way back upstairs I realized I had to pee. I stopped in the bathroom that I hate, the one with 3 inches of space in between the stall door and the wall, which makes it easy for anyone who walks into that bathroom to see who is taking a leak. Nevertheless, I had to go, so there I was keeping an eye on who was coming in while trying to untie my drawstring pants. And then I kept trying to untie my drawstring pants. Two people came and left, probably wondering what the hell I was doing, because you can clearly see in the stall. And you know what happened then? I was still trying to untie my drawstring pants. A knot to rival the knot of Greg was thrust upon me, making it impossible to pee. After about 10 minutes I admitted defeat, and zipped and buttoned up my ill fitting pants and headed back to my desk. I thought about cutting the strings off, but I kind of needed them to keep the pants up. I looked for further options in my trusty pen mug, and next to the scissors which were taunting me I saw a letter opener which I thought would be perfect for trying to loosen the knot. I spent about 5 minutes debating whether it would be crazier to take the letter opener into the restroom with me or to sit in my cubicle fiddling with a letter opener near my crotch. For some reason I chose the latter which resulted in strange looks and a fair amount of humiliation. But I finally got the knot out, dammit!

and then I apologized to Greg.