Saying Something

This was an incident that happened on Saturday, September the 18th. I just wanted to write it down before I forget it.

I was supposed to go back to Greenville today, but Craig wanted to come with me to campus for music practice so I waited while he took a shower. We took the walk downtown and stopped by Jugheads so Craig could try out their hot dogs. There, the menu listed things like the Dabo dog (which Dabo Swinney himself ordered once), and something called the Frank Howard.

"Do you guys know Frank Howard III?" Craig asked the Jugheads employees.
"YES," said the blonde girl who was taking Craig's order. "He comes in here and gives us celebrity nicknames. I'm Taylor Swift."

Craig, laughing, recounted his first encounter with Frank Howard III: "He tackled me once."
"Well, he calls me Taylor Swift every time he sees me downtown. 'Taylor Swift! Taylor Swift!'"
She pointed to the other two employees. "What does he call you?" she asked one of them. "T-pain? Yes! It's T-Pain. And you, Brandon, he calls you John Cena."
"No, he calls the other guy John Cena," Brandon corrected, grinning.
"That's right."

Craig ordered a hot dog and something called blue cheese chips. He thought they were blue cheese flavored potato chips but they ended up being fried potato slices with blue cheese crumbles on them. I ended up helping him eat them while I asked him what relish was and who in the world was Frank Howard. Apparently, Frank Howard is a famous Clemson football coach. The stadium at my school is named the Frank Howard Field after him. "In giant, people-sized letters," Craig embellishes. I shrug. I never notice anything.

Craig also called me "very Asian" for not knowing what relish was, too. I think I'll order it next time I eat.

Anyway, we went to Spill the Beans afterwards where Craig bought me a chocolate cheesecake milkshake and we spent time talking to Rick and Calla (who happened to be in there). Katie Mitchum ended up giving an extra chocolate cheesecake milkshake to Craig, who handed it to Rick and Calla instead.

We left Spill the Beans and went to music practice in the bell tower. Practice consisted of playing our assigned pieces for, like, five minutes, and then spending a whole hour playing the gamut of Disney songs out of the songbooks they had up there. And by "they", I mean Dr. Dzuris--my teacher. I just call her Doctor. I used to call her Dr. D, but that reminded me of Dr. Doom from the Fantastic Four and she's too nice to for such a comparison.

Meanwhile, George and Craig were sending "messages of the textual variety" back and forth between our alternating Disney songs. George wanted to pick us up when we were done practicing.

We were going to meet him at Subway and we almost missed him. I was about to walk downtown when Craig waved me towards the stairs.

"We're going this way," he said. I caught the sight of something familiar out of the corner of my eye and it wasn't until I was already up the stairs that I turned around to see George waving at me from his car. I waved back.

"THERE'S GEORGE!" Craig exclaimed.
"Well, yeah," I said dumbly. "I was waving to him."

By that time, Craig had dragged me back down the stairs and George opened his car door to let us in.

"Go! Go! Go!" Craig yelled. He made a dive for the backseat while I calmly seated myself in the front (bit of a role reversal there. I'm usually the hysterical one in situations like this).

"Hi, George," I said as I got in the car, buckled up, and lied back. (I had left the seat in the laid-back position.)
"You guys walked right past me!" George exclaimed.
"We did?" Craig asked, confused.
"Yes. I was right there and you guys walked right past me. Then I waved hi to Lan Chi."
"Well, I waved hi back," I said defiantly.
"And you didn't SAY anything?!" Craig said, indignant.
"Oh, was I supposed to say something?" I asked, in my meek defense.

Craig just rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. I looked up and didn't see anything there. Sometimes, I wonder what he's looking at when he does that...