Love Goes Boom

Work was booooring today and I didn't talk to anyone (it's that time of year when we start running out of new numbers - I was not talking to the same people I didn't talk to last week. And the week before. I'm starting to memorize people's voicemail messages.), and I didn't feel like doing any studying, even though I probably should have. So, uh, instead this happened.

[For those not versed in the ways of the EPL and my lovely baby Gunners: Jack is Jack Wilshere. Aaron is Aaron Ramsey. Theo is Theo Walcott. Wayne Rooney is, of course, Wayne motherfucking Rooney, the Manc bastard. I am an enormous dork, but we already knew that. This is part of a longer Jack/Aaron story set after the England/Wales Euro qualifer, because why not?]


Cesc and Robin told him that it never really got any easier, playing against your teammates. You got better at ignoring it, not letting it affect you or carry back to the club. You learned how to deal with it – and Jack’s heard them in the shower, he knows how they deal with it. But in the end, they said, it was one of the trade-offs you accepted for being that good in the first place, like off-season matches and knee surgeries before your 21st birthday. No one made Jack play for England. No one made Aaron play for Wales.

 

That thought gets him off the pitch and into the showers, and it’s impossible to brood on the bus, especially after one of the coaches starts passing around bottles from a technically-against-the-rules cooler of beer. By the time they get back to the hotel Jack has a decent buzz going, which is probably why he follows the rest of the team to Terry’s room, remembering too late what the last NT party he went to was like.
 

 

Half an hour into the party Jack’s found a relatively out of the way corner to hide from Wayne Rooney and frantically drunk-text Theo back in London.
 

 

<going to set him on fire> he types. <capello wont yell too much if i just set him on fire a little right?>
 

 

The reply comes almost immediately. <Wenger will kill you!!!> followed a few seconds later by a second message, <also UEFA will fine you> and a third <and he’ll b back b4 we play Utd. >
 

 

Jack shakes his head. Theo is right about the timing, if nothing else.
 

 

<mayb ill get lucky and cole will shoot him> he replies. He glances around the room hopefully, but Cole is on the other side from Rooney, arm-wrestling Andy Carroll to much drunken cheering from the small but appreciative crowd.
 

 

<Cant b bad as all that or youd b 2 drunk 2 type by now>. Jack glares at his phone. Theo’s been capped more times than he has, he has to know what the parties are like.
 

 

<lamps n terry r making googly eyes!!> he types back. <also WAYNE ROONEY>
 

 

He pauses for a moment to consider and then adds, <mayb ill get lucky and cole will shoot me>.
 

<Or you could sneak out and check on Ramsey>
 

 

It might be the beer, but Jack doesn’t think that’s the worst idea Theo’s ever had.

 

It's Not I Have That Many Places to Lose Things

Things That I Have Found While Looking For My Insurance Card (before my doctor's appointment on Monday):

- my of-no-use-whatsoever insurance cards from freshman and sophomore year (when the school used a different insurance provider)
- a five dollar giftcard for Starbucks (which is unused because I don't like Starbucks, or for that matter COFFEE)
- my pay card from when I worked at the movie theater (for three weeks, three years ago)
- a 30 yuan phone card only useful in China (and not actually terribly useful there because I never figured out how to make international calls)
- a bank card with someone else's name on it (I think Freshman Guy must have dropped it when he was storing my stuff over the summer)
- a rather keen hat

Things I Have Not Found (sing along if you know the words):

- MY INSURANCE CARD

Guess I'm calling the insurance company tomorrow. YAY.

PS: OMG, what a hot mess today's Champions League match was. I'm torn between being frustrated that Barca felt like they had to sink to RM's level and play such ugly football to win(I love my boys, but let's face it, they were diving all over the place), and just loling over all the DRAMA. Mourinho throwing a tantrum and getting sent off the pitch by the ref? Pep trolling Real Madrid by replacing David Villa with a 19-year-old from the B Team? Both squads getting put in time-out in their locker-rooms after the match so they wouldn't start brawling in front of the cameras? This match has everything. Fucking amazing.