the way things was

OK 5 more phrases... I got a little bored of this one, but it's mildly entertaining...
sorry for the ending. :)

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Matt Chuchry and I went out for lunch at Chile’s.  Personally I wanted to go to TGI’s as I love the Jack Bourbon Chicken, but Matt wanted the Awesome Blossom, so Chile’s it was.  We had a lively conversation that brought be back to the good old days in the Chicken Coop (our old frat house).  We had some great times in that dilapidated sky blue turned burnt orange Victorian style house.  Of course there were the typical keg parties in the creepy stone basement and the beer pong tournaments in the breeze way, but my fondest memories were in the living room where a dozen couches created a semi-circle around a behemoth fireplace that would make Gaston from Beauty and the Beast jealous.
We would gather on those delightful davenports as brothers almost every evening and contemplate life’s most vexing questions.  Things like “why do we exist?” “how many digits make up pi?” “where does the universe begin?” and “I wonder what is in a wonderball”.  Things like that.  So many memories.

One Sunday afternoon, after a long weekend of lawn jarts and general fraternal revelry, our newest pledge, Frank Syzmanski had a couple too many libations, if you know what I mean.  He stumbled into the living room and collapsed on what happened to be my favorite of all the couches: a nice chartreuse crushed velvet number from 1963.  It smelled of grandma’s musty basement with a hint of dried macaroni and cheese.  Heavenly, really.  There Frank laid for what seemed like days.  He was stirred to consciousness by the faint yet distinct sound of tapping on the battered yet homely wooden floors.   He half opened his bloodshot eyes to see two rather large mice scurrying around the floor running from one couch to another.  Frank quickly jumped to his feet and grabbed a log from the epically proportioned fireplace.  Without aiming (or thinking) he threw the smoldering log onto the floor in hopes of sending the vermin to their fiery graves.  Much to Frank’s dismay, however, the log hit the hard wood floors and shattered into thousands of burning embers.  The floors had a lacquer made of decades of spilled vodka and whiskey that was surprisingly still quite flammable.  Within seconds the entire living room was engulfed in flames.  The dry wood and multiple polyester love seats made for a dangerous cocktail of fire.  By sun-down our beloved Chicken Coop was little more than ash and smoke.  Ironically, the mice had quite the network of tunnels in the old place, so they were able to easily escape the flames unharmed. 

We returned from our Sunday ritual of bocce ball and brunch to find our house decimated and Frank laying on the yard covered in soot and ashes.  We ran over to him to see if he was alright.  I took him in my arms as his limp head turned into my shoulder.  He slowly opened his eyes red from the thick smoke and whispered something into my ear that I will never forget.  He coughed slightly then said, “Life's a dance you learn as you go.”  And with that he died.
I took those words and made them into a song with my old friend Matt Chuckelry.  It went platinum and we made millions.

The End