there are two things you need to know for this story.

the first thing is that one of my best friends, bookguy, turned 50 six months before me. i have always basked extra-overtly in these six-month spans where he is older than me, with a lot of tired and sad jokes about old men and the like. these adolescent quips roll off him as easily as you'd expect with his knowledge that i am a few scant months off his heels. during my first visit after he turned 50, he mentioned getting an invitation to AARP which is the something-something-retired-people/persons club. i laughed mightily and laid on the old-man jabs super thick that visit. he reminded me that i'd be getting mine soon and that it is a sobering bit of reality. then punctual as the sunrise my card arrived, and yes i will attest, your sails do not quite have the pulling power they had the day before.

now the second thing to know for today's story is again between bookguy and myself, and is a phenomenon we call ju-ju, or bad ju-ju more specifically. bad ju-ju came into being a few decades ago when i came to work with a massive blemish on my forehead. it was one of those deep and wide pimples that you just couldn't get under or behind to pop, so it just festered and widened and darkened for several days. i remember debating the mirror about whether to go to work or not. half of me argued that no one could be expected to leave the house in this state. you'd scare children. and a defect of this magnitude would surely require rest and quiet and darkness to properly mend. the other half of me argued, largely in my mother's tone, that you can't call in sick to work because you have a pimple. that's beyond ludicrous and juvenile and vain and on and on. as is often the case my mother's TROY LANE DEARMITT voice won the day, and i left my mirror and apartment for work.

i skulked, eyes down all the way to my office and desk, planning on spending the full day spot-welded to that chair and looking only at my judgeless computer screen. then my "friend," who was at the time also my boss, called me into his office. shoulders sagged, i pushed back from my desk, grabbed a notepad, stood straight, then stood straighter, turned and walked to his door. my knuckles wrapped on the frame with the thinnest veneer of confidence possibly ever produced by bone on wood. he spun around and in the middle of his first word stopped ...

BOOKGUY
WHOA! what the hell is that?

TROY
yeah, i ...

BOOKGUY
indonesia called and asked for krakatoa back.

TROY
that's funny. you should be glad i even came work.

BOOKGUY
glad? i'm amazed. amazed that you left your house with that on your face!

it was a brutal moment in our early relationship and a little bit shocking we went on to become the good friends we did. but what happened next is what possibly saved us. i can't remember now exactly how many days passed, but it was more than four and less than ten, enough time for my Krakatoa to have receded back into the waters of my forehead. i was at work, and there was a knock on my cube wall. i turned, and there was bookguy. today he carried the whispy veil of confidence. as i took him in, i quickly saw why. on the tip of his nose was an enormous fire-engine red protuberance. it was slightly off-center which made it extra pronounced and had enough height to cast a multi-directional shadow. it seemed to pulse as if fed by a dedicated blood supply. the skin all around it had been ravaged by his obvious efforts to quicken its demise. a slow smile crossed my face. he said, "ok. ok. get it over with. let me have it. i have it coming."

in reply, i told him i had nothing to say. that my mother raised me better than that and told me to never pick on people less fortunate than myself. as he turned to walk away, i told him to enjoy all of his meetings because i knew that the only reason he would have come to work in that state is because he had multiple face-to-face meetings he couldn't get out of.

after that day, this cosmic retribution became a consistent part of our relationship. if one of us would unduly tease the other over something out of their control, then some fate would be dealt to the teaser shortly thereafter. this was the birth of bad ju-ju, and it proved so reliable that we would sometimes, hand over mouth say, "ohhhh! you just woke the ju-ju gods and are gonna get it" sounding like a tattling pre-schooler. other times one of us might lay into the other over some irresistible morsel and say it was worth getting payback for this thing as it was just too good to pass up. and ever-reliable the payback came and sometimes you would take your punishment and feel that it was fully worth the past moment in the sun.

well, it seems the ju-ju gods have just delivered their payback to me for laughing at my friend and his AARP card because not only did i get my own AARP card but a few days later i also got an invitation in the mail to join a new community. anthony caught me studying this flyer in the kitchen and asked what it was. i held it up and began a heated diatribe about how this was not right. i pointed at the man in the picture and said: "this ain't me! who the hell do they think they are sending this here? no one asked for this offensive material to be brought into our home!". after taking in my dissertation anthony glanced at the brochure more closely, pointed at the man on the card and said, "i don't know dad. seems like a spittin' image to me."

if a comment that hurtful and scathing, especially from a 12-year old, doesn't stir the ju-ju gods, i don't know what would as i may have never seen a more deserving case.