A Link to the Past

College. It was a time of many pranks, many adventures, and little studying. It was a chapter of life riddled with late night free pizza runs, water ballooning frat guys, running from angry frat guys, and touring unsuspecting people through abandoned slaughter houses. These are the memories and moments that stand out. These are what I look back on with great excitement and subsequent nostalgia. It was a chapter of life that is closed and forever behind me.

Or is it?

With being married I have discovered that the metaphorical "college years" of my life do not necessarily have to be forever locked away in the memory vault. In the dorms I had Steve, Clint, Jason, Blake, Russ and countless other idiots to parade the town, search out free food from closing fast food chains, and terrorize pedestrians with. Now I have Kathryn. And we will carry on the torch together. We will. We must.

Last week while in Charlotte we were on one of our many, exhausting, yet necessary errands around the city to pick up something that was 'needed' for the apartment. The errand was Best Buy to try and snag a very-much needed television before they closed at 9:00 with some of our very-much appreciated wedding cash. We found one, grabbed it, and had it loaded in the back of my car by 9:15. It was dark now, of course, and the metal bars that Best Buy rigged up on the doors behind us reminded me that places were closing down at this time. So when I saw the Domino's Pizza neon blue sign glaring at me on the same strip mall, two and two were instantly put together. Like the Kingdom of God in reverse, the age before broke into the present and I menacingly convinced Kathryn to step inside to attempt a free pizza scam.

I couldn't hear anything from the car outside. I sat in the driver's seat and saw her through the window talking with the young man behind the counter. The tension was mounting. What was she saying? Why was it taking so long? I was trying to piece together the conversation given their behavior and head nods. But there was nothing to go off of. It was a silent movie with manikans. Then the man turned and began looking around behind him. My heart began to race, for I knew that if you can just get the employee to turn and search, the battle has already been won. He is now on your side. He is now looking for pizzas that have been put into the pile identified as "messed up orders" or "pick-ups that were never picked up." It was that set of pizzas that the employees ate on while they worked and it promised to be the set of pizzas we would eat on as well, though without cost. Kathyryn emerged from the door moments later with three pizza boxes in her arms, boasting of thin crusts' pepperoni and pineapple, jalepeno and canadian bacon, and hamburger and sausage. The score was big. The emotions ran high. The celebration had begun.

On her way out to the car, the employee that gave her the pizzas burst out the door shouting, "I hate Domino's. I quit!" As we drove away we could see him walking out to his car in the parking lot. Terrified and embarrassed that she had somehow gotten the poor man fired, Kathryn called up the Domino's to check it out. It turns out the young man was simply going out to his car to get something and wanted a little attention from Kathryn as she left. No harm done.

Kathryn wouldn't touch the half-eaten-on pizza, leaving three large pies just for me. For free. And in so doing, a new era of life has been ushered in, a strange hybrid of past and present, single and married, adolescent and adult. And with this new era I will enjoy not only the adrenaline and newfound company, but the fruits of free pizza, free chicken and biscuits, free rice, free tacos, free custard, and free food wherever Kathryn can be convinced of going into next. May the trumpets of marriage resound.