Last week I declared myself done with numbers. Tonight I tell you numbers aren't done with me.

(I suppose this is an addendum to this post.)

It wasn't that the day after I played the lottery I freed up some space on my computer and was left with 1.11 GB.

It wasn't that this weekend we parked next to a car with 111 on its license plate, or that our favorite CD sounded best at volume 111, or that we went to bed Saturday night at 1:11 AM. We parked next to dozens of cars over the course of this weekend, the volume turned out to be not 111, but rather three notches, and 1:11 happens every day. Twice, in fact.

It wasn't when we pulled off in Biddeford to check the map only to find we had stopped at Junction 111. Hell, it wasn't even when we drove through Biddeford the next day and saw that at the corner of Junction 111 there is a T-Shirt and Trophy shop pretty much identical to the one my dad owns.

What it was was that the painting hanging in our bathroom was numbered 111/500. It was a print of a painting to be precise, by an artist whose last name I couldn't decipher, of a bar called Gritty McDuff's, Portland's Original Brew House it claims. 111/500. Shit, that one was scary. That one did me in.

...

So, of course, the next night Jenni and I paid Gritty's a visit. Come on, we had to. Plus, interestingly enough, our waitress from the previous night suggested we check it out, so there were two reasons behind our decision. It was a nice place, I guess. Nice and cheap when compared to New York. It looked a lot like it does in the painting except there were some people in it. I ordered the Halloween Ale; Jenni tried the Raspberry. She liked mine better so we switched. Nothing all that extraordinary happened the hour we spent there, because the minute you start looking for things, they hide from you. Everyone knows that.


(One can only assume this is) To be continued ...



Tom, September 5, 2005, 10:38 PM