I'm gonna use initials here to protect the guilty...

So...this long, long night.

It all started when me and two good friends of mine went to this concert hosted by Scion. I don't remember who it was that month. That's not important. The fact that Scion put on the event isn't really important either. What's important is that I got this bomb parking space, and my two friends, who rode together, parked about a block away.

So we leave the show, and I make for my bomb parking space, and I get gone, since my car was so close. I'm at least a third of the way home, when my friends, L and F, call me. "We got towed. Come get us." I'm not gonna get into exactly why the car was towed(it was bogus), because that's not important either. So, it's up to me to get the fellas home, and to the complete the job, I've got to help get the car back, which in Atlanta, is a slightly convoluted process. To muddy the waters, it was F's car, and his house keys were in the car. To get your car back from the tow yard, you need your registration. Luckily, he had the registration at his house. Unluckily, like I said the house keys were in the car. So, first step: get into the house.

The only other person with keys to F's house...is F's mom. So we end up calling her at maybe 2:30 in the morning, telling her we're on the way to pick up the keys. By this time, we're all tired, and slightly agitated about the tow situation, so it's a good thing she didn't press her son for details on exactly why he needed his spare keys. It's a solid 25 minute drive to Mom's house. We retrieve the keys no problem. Next step: get the paperwork. 15 minute drive.

Here comes the funny part. We get to F's house for the paperwork. While he's upstairs digging through files, L and I hit the refrigerator. We both look in there, but separately. Neither of us find anything fetching. A few minutes, we look again. This time, one of draws attention to something that both of us noticed the first time we looked inside, but didn't mention. There are like...6...glass bottles of maple syrup in the fridge, on the door. Each has maybe 1/2 an inch of syrup in it. There are at least two more on the counter top, similarly emptied (almost). There is also a pretty full one on the counter. We ask each other..."What's with all this syrup? Does he have some sort of weird syrup addiction? Do we need to have an intervention? What's going on? We'll have to ask him. An intervention it is." A few minutes later, F comes back down.
I say to him something to the effect of: "Listen man. There's something we need to discuss with you. If it's none of our business, and you want us to drop it, just let us know, but we need to at least bring it up." F looks at us, looks around the kitchen and points to the fridge and exclaims: "The Syrup!". We all literally collapse to the floor in laughter. For at least 6 full minutes. I'm talking belly-aching, tears-down-the-face laughter. It turns out that he makes oatmeal every morning, and sweetens it with syrup. When the bottle gets empty enough that there's so little in the bottle that it doesn't work itself out of the bottle and into the bowl quickly enough for him, he just sticks it in the chiller, and grabs a fresh bottle. Life is too short to wait for syrup, apparently. We recover for a few minutes, and head out. Next step: L's house. Because L's house is MUCH closer to City Hall, which is Stop #1 in the process of retrieving your car.
20 minute drive.

We get to L's house, and for some reason, the electricity has been turned off. Sigh. By this time, it's after 4:00, and you can cut the exhaustion and the disappointment in the car with a dull, rusty butter knife. It really wouldn't do to trek all the way back across town to F's house, because he's farther away from City Hall than my house is. Answer: Head to my house. The thing is, I'm the only one who's married, so I have to call my wife at 4:something in the morning and tell her that I'm bringing the fellas over. She wasn't happy being roused from her ever-so-peaceful slumber in the wee hours of the day to get the house suitable for guests. Another 20 minute drive.

By the time we get to the house, and get everyone settled, it's like 5:00 in the morning. Sigh. Luckily, I didn't have to work the next day, so I was able to get up and get F to City Hall to without much trouble.

True story. Long night. To this day, if you want to elicit at least a brief snickering fit from us, walk up, point at a refrigerator, or point at anything really and say..."The Syrup!"

Yup. True story. I couldn't make this stuff up, peeps.

Holla. Good night.