Proof of Promise
Sorry it's been so long in between entries, but between exams and the end of the school year, most of my time has been occupied in such exciting endeavors as studying and writing 35 page papers while staying up for 38 hours straight. I will be more diligent in my blogging duties,
I promise... or do I? A promise is a very serious matter, evidently so much that a select group of people feel the need to validate it by spending inordinate amounts of money through the exchanging of a ring from one party to the other. To me, this concept is unfathomably ridiculous.
To my knowledge, the most commonly used function of the promise ring is to signify the promise of engagement for marriage. In other words, boy decides he is dating his future wife thus purchasing said ring in order to promise matrimony to lucky (or not so lucky) girl in question. Then, at some point down the road, boy purchases yet another ring, this one of the engagement variety, and gives it to girl
in order to promise matrimony. Am I missing something here? Does the latter situation that I just decribed not match almost exactly the former? Some ambitious entrepreneur really cashed in on this one. If you want to buy your girlfriend jewellry, go ahead. If you want to get engaged or signify your commitment to marriage, buy an
engagement ring. Now I'm no philosophical genius, but I am a business major, and I know that if I'm going to buy something that serves a specific purpose, i'm sure as hell not going to by the same thing a second time. It's common sense. What a waste of money.
The above picture is apparently not a ring, but a six hundred dollar promise. We had a guy in res my first year at Tyndale who bought his girlfriend a nine hundred dollar promise ring. Why not just verbally agree to get married, and then get an engagement ring when you're ready? Does that not make more sense? Honestly, I don't see how a "promise ring" is some sort of a guarantee that it's definitely going to happen. Does it have magic power? When your girlfriend wears it, does she mysteriously feel unable to decide otherwise? Does she think to herself, "I don't love this guy anymore, but this damn ring is screwing my life way the heck up!!"? No, she doesn't! If she decides she isn't marrying you, all the promise rings in the world will not convince her otherwise. In this day and age, an engagement ring - let alone a wedding ring - is hardly enough to guarantee marriage or even that one will stay married.
It's hilarious to imagine this practice being applied in the "real world". When you get hired for a job, does your new employer say, "Here ________, have this ring that promises you that you have a job, and also take this ring that signifies a promise on our part to pay you bi-weekly for the work you do for our company." Rather than stores issuing warranties on their products, maybe they should issue two hundred dollar rings that bear a promise that guarantees the working life of their product. What about motivational speakers? When they give their encouraging pep talks that tell you that the "new you" will be more exciting and will do great things, do they finish their speech off by declaring, "This is our promise! Rings for everyone!!!!"? I submit that they do not.
Stay tuned for my next blog entry, coming soon -- I promise. Just don't expect a ring in the mail.
Weed Man to the rescue... Or not.
Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a Blue Jays game at the newly dubbed 'Rogers Centre', with a few friends from Tyndale. Since this outing was part of a fundraiser for the Baseball League I play in there were more than 850 people who had bought tickets from the league sitting around us. Needless to say, with teams from Pickering, Whitby, Barrie, and Oshawa present, there was bound to be an unprecedented amount of trailer park inhabitants doing their thing while getting as intoxicated as is humanly possible.
Much to my surprise, the first part of the game went down without any problems. Then, the third inning arrived and along with it came Weed Man.
This particular Weed Man was not of the friendly neighborhood variety that you see on the television, saving your lawns and gardens from the various types of weeds that infest and kill them. No, this Weed Man was the much more intellectually deficient intoxicated distant relative of that particular Weed Man.
Weed Man, as he is now so lovingly named arrived in his seat no less than an hour after the first pitch of the ball game and immediately felt it necessary to make his presence known. As he sat down he let the world - and the many little children and parents sitting in our immediate vicinity - know that he was ready to cause havoc as he let loose with the traditional cheer of the intoxicated, issuing a loud "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO", for all to hear. As if that wasn't enough, he unfurled a home made sign that revealed, "The Blue Jays play better on grass." Pure and utter genius! It may have seemed clever to his legion of faithful pot heads, but to the average baseball fan, it was downright moronic.
As is evidenced from the above photos, there is no grass present in the Rogers centre. Unless he saw the top picture and mistook it for some sort of a grow operation - the lights may have influenced his demented mind - there is no excuse to think that his signmaking would be found hysterical by those surrounding him. As if this wasn't enough, it must have been laid on his heart that he should annoy the living hell out of me, since I was so fortunate as to be sitting almost directly behind him.
Things were bound to get worse as it was discovered that there were a large contingent of Red Sox fans sitting directly to our right, and sure enough, they did. Weed Man found it prudent to add another line to his sign that boldly proclaimed, "The Red Sox can't handle our grass". He found this to be hysterical, even though one particular Red Sox fan has this to say back to him: "It's artificial turf, you dumbass!" Priceless. As the game wound down and it became evident that Toronto was going to win, the Jays faithful serenaded the Boston fans with a traditional "Na na na na, Na na na na, Hey Hey Hey, Good Bye...". All joined in except Weed Man, who substituted "Good Bye!" with "SMOKE WEED!", bellowed at the top of his lungs. As people began to heckle him, he became more and more rowdy, and at the end of the game while exiting the stadium he boldly proclaimed to the parents and children around us that "all of us rolled some big fatties, but since you didn't like my cheers, you don't get any." I'm sure they were heartbroken.
Figuring my day couldn't get any more inconvenient, I headed for home, stopping only to buy street meat at union station. No sooner did i sit down on the subway and take a bite of the aforementioned snack did a giant blob of ketchup fall out the back end of it and land directly on the lowest part of my crotch still visible from the front. Couple this with the fact that i had on light khaki shorts and my day went from bad to worse.
Luckily, I had two t-shirts on and was able to take one of them off and hang it over the front of my shorts, saving myself from further embarrassment, and preventing a rumor that there was a menstruating male on the subway, which given the amount of freakshows that ride the subway, wouldn't be so surprising. I'd fit right in with Weed Man.
