For anyone who knows anything – and I mean absolutely anything – about Adam, you know he has a fundamental inability to make plans. More often than not, he flat out refuses to. Which means by the time he has agreed to actually do something, the entire rest of the world has already made plans and there is nothing left to do…except hang out with his brother, who has the exact same problem and therefore is the only person left to hang out with (love you Scott & Deb!). But the few times he has even attempted to make a plan, it has just failed so miserably, that I insist he no longer even try.
Like the time he made plans with our close friends to go out for sushi at 6pm that night (the plan was made at around 2pm that day). Only he never told me…and then forgot he made the plans. So unbeknownst to me – we stood them up. Which I found out when they texted me at 6:30pm to see how much later we were going to be.
Or the time his friend told me he’d see me at our house that Thursday night for a guy’s night Adam had arranged. To which I told him to have fun with our kids because Adam and I would still be away on vacation that night.
And the list goes on.
But this particular story is truly special. Not just because of the circumstances behind it. But because Adam himself documented it in his own blog back on January 8, 2010. Sadly, his blog has since fizzled away. But there were quite a few gems in there that I will share from time to time. And in this case, I don’t think I could do this story any more justice even if I tried. So with that – in his own words, I give you…Shmadum:
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Don’t plan ahead, it can only mess up your plans.
I have often given my youngest bro crap for not making plans, but after this past week I think he is onto something.
IMAX is such a cool theater, but if there is a good movie playing on their massive screen chances are its sold out. Last Thursday my brothers and I had this great idea to see Avatar at IMAX; but tickets were sold out until the next week! Ahh, its time to make a plan.
I am not good with plans. My wife is in charge of the plan making because more often than not I will miss some detail and screw the entire god damn thing up. But she had no interest in seeing this, so I needed to step it up.
How hard could buying movie tickets be? In the past my biggest movie trick was paying for tickets at the little kiosk with a credit card and watch the suckers stand in line. It’s similar to watching those morons who don’t have EZPass sit in line as you fly through the express lane at 55 mph. I love credit cards.
I digress. The point here is that although I was a ticket buying ninja jedi at the kiosk thing, I was also an internet-ticket-pre-ordering virgin. At $36 for two tickets a week out, I had jumped into this pre-ordering game head first.
After paying through their website, a massive warning took over my screen as if I had just sold my soul for the tickets. “NO REFUNDS, NO PARKING, NO EXCHANGES, NO TRANSFERS, NO LOITERING, NO TALKING, NO EATING.. EVER.. FOREVER. DONT EVEN BOTHER ASKING FOR THAT MATTER OR WE WILL FIND WHERE YOU SLEEP.” I can’t be certain that was word for word, but it was very close.
Who would have thought buying a ticket would have so much permanence? I felt like I just got duped into marrying a movie I never met with the movie manager screaming in the background “NO BACKSIES!”. Even with the scary investment terms, I was happy because we now had reserved seats for Avatar 3D in IMAX!
Shortly after that, my plans met their match. Let me explain. It’s not often all of the brothers get together, so when we do, rules do not apply. It’s all about impulse.. no plans. Want to go out to eat.. right after dinner? SURE! Want to play 45 hours of video games until our eyes bleed? SURE! Want to take all of our parents firewood and build a 2 story structure out of it and then light it on fire at 1am? SURE! While drunk? SURE! How about going to see Avatar in the regular movie theater tomorrow? SURE!.. oh wait.. SURE!
OK, so now I did it. Half way through the movie I thought.. what I am going to do with the tickets for next Thursday? Should I see this insanely long movie twice? After all, my wife doesn’t even want to see it. Do I eat the 36 bucks and have the IMAX manager throw food and laugh at me every time I walk into the mall?
Thursday arrives, and I insist to my wife that she would love the movie. After hours of brain washing, she accepts my dinner / movie date night invitation and we were off to the races. We had one major issue though..
At 8:30pm we strolled into the mall for our 7pm movie. SHIT. I approach the ticket counter manger..
The #Shmadum Chronicles 