Shit hits the fan

Tonight brought on the end of an era here at 12 Hatcher Street.

When we first moved into this place way back at the first of September, one of the main draws to the room upstairs was that it had a relatively new ceiling fan installed in the... well... in the ceiling. Clearly. Coleman immediately claimed that living space, naively thinking that all this accessory would provide was a refreshing current of stale air on a warm night. Oh Coleman, how wrong you were.

We hadn't been living here a week before we'd discovered "The Fan Game" (not to be confused with "The Water Game" or "The Waving Game"). The Fan Game involved standing beneath the ceiling fan and just kinda daring yourself to jump up. We didn't do this all at once -- it was more like an ongoing event. Whenever I was up in Coleman's room and one of us thought of it, I'd just be like "Hey... Coleman..." and motion towards the fan with my eyes, and that would be it. You might say it was a... challenge. And who says no to challenges? Losers -- That's who. So we'd do this... You know -- just to see how close we could get to sticking our heads into the fan, but sort of without the intention of really doing it. I mean -- we knew that eventually one of us was going to actually do it, but we just didn't think that that day would come so soon...

So there we were tonight, two idiots jumping up and down below a ceiling fan like a pair of mentally incompetent chimpanzees hopped up on methamphetamines. And then it happened.

Coleman hit the fan.

The game stopped.

Coleman stood there.

And that was the end of it. Obviously, I had to do it too -- you know -- just to put the game to rest, but besides that... it was done. And all that we were left with was this bitter, empty feeling.

I think this probably says a little something about life. You think you've got this great and wonderful thing above you, just out of reach, and you spend a big part of your time down below trying to get to it -- making the attempt, but doing it half-heartedly -- not really trying to actually touch it. Because you know that if you do, it won't be as great as you'd built it up to be. And then one day, almost by accident, you reach that goal... only to be left with a now-wobbly ceiling fixture with a few too many attached hairs circling above your head.

So thank you oh-cherished ceiling fan, for bringing us so many minutes of pure, child-like joy. May your Part & Labour Warranty never be negated, and your resale-market value never stray too far from your MSRP. I salute you.