Played nine holes of golf yesterday with a friend (I've recently re-taken up the game of golf, now that I'm somewhere where I can actually keep golf clubs) at one of the Tampa Municipal Courses. This course was pretty nice, weaving it's way through an old Tampa neighborhood. We were teeing off on hole 4 or 5 (a par 4), Anthony gives the ball a good whack with his driver. He marches up to it, confidently wielding his 9 iron, and strikes. The ball flies low, then begins to slice right. Then begins to slice right hard, past the out of bounds marker, across the street and with a decidedly disgusting, metallic, thwack-thud, tink-tink-tink-tink, slams into the passenger side door of a Jeep Cherokee parked across the street. I grimaced. My friend looked terrified. We approached to investigate and discovered to our mutual horror an enormous dent in the door panel. "What should I do," he asked. I said, "The way I see there's two choices. You can either knock on the door or leave a note." He walked up the drive and approached the front door. I stood on the sidewalk, ready for any reaction that might occur. A man answered the door. The two chatted briefly as my friend explained what happened. Then my friend gave a big sigh, and laughed. The man patted him on the shoulder, and the two shook hands. Of all the reactions for which I was prepared, this was not one. My friend said the man explained to him that the dent had been there for over a year and it was not the fault of the misdirected golf ball. Thus, the sigh and laughter. My friend pointed out it was a case of double honesty, cause even as he was being honest about hitting the man's car, so too was the man being honest about the dent already being there. He could easily have recognized the situation as being one where he could have gotten his door fixed for free. I had not considered that possibility and felt my heart warmed by such a display of honesty and compassion. My faith in humanity went up 2 points.

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After the golf game, my friend and I agreed to meet up at Outback for dinner after we got cleaned up. His fianceé and another friend of ours were out doing wedding planning stuff, which left us with boys night out. When I arrived at Outback however, there she was, sitting there. I berated her, humorously, for ruining boys night out and stated emphatically that I thought she was doing wedding shopping with our other friend anyway. She cited that they had to quit once the money ran out. At this point, a woman waiting on the same bench felt called to interject her thoughts into our conversation. She turned to me and said, "Obviously they're getting married and you're the best friend. Otherwise you would not be able to make such remarks and get away with it." We chuckled and agreed. The woman inquired when the wedding was to happen and then turned back away. I picked up a menu and, in a terrible Australian accent, read some selections. The woman turned back and said to me, "Oh and you do great accents as well!" My friends told her that I used to act and can do all manner of terrible accents. The woman laughed and said,

"Just as long as you don't show up on their wedding day acting as the minister!" She laughed at her own joke. My engaged friends and I nearly bowled over.

I quipped, "Yes, I think I could even manage to find the right costume for that." The woman thought this was exceedingly funny, so I continued, "But, I have a sneaking suspicion the shirts will not fit properly."

-R