I had a friend way back in highschool before I ever really listened to anyone about Islam. Who got me busted for cheating when
HE copied my test paper. Who, in a summer heat streak, came to school with coolers and ice and
mysteriously broken/sabotaged school ACs, and proceeded to clean out the school cafeteria of moderately priced popscicles and icecreams and sold them back to the student population at outrageously inflated prices. Teachers said they were not worried about him at all, whether he got good grades or graduated or not, as they were sure he'd survive this life royally somehow. If I told you his lastname and you grew up in the same place I did, you'd nod you're head and say, "oh, the 'insert family name'" and rattle off one of your own stories about the brothers, or the father, or the uncles. Everyone in town had one, dating back to their grandfather. Anyways, I remember one summer before the fall he'd had raffle, where decided to raffle off his family beach cabin for a profit and a period of one week. A few of my friends and I decided this was the perfect way to end our summer and we picthed in together for the ticket. Mine was the winning ticket, so the four of us packed our bags for what was marketed as pristine beach front, a quaint and charming cabin complete with electricity, a wood stove, a fridge, a living room, a bedroom, and attic loft, and a wrap around porch. Nestled away in the forest from the road, it was very private, and when my father dropped me off, to be honest, everything looked exactly as stated. The house was as close as you could get to the beach without washing away, the veiws and privacy were amazing, and we had the most perfect day. At night though, we discovered something. Our beach cabin, was more of a shack really, because there were so many holes in the walls, cracks between the boards, that no matter how hot you got the wood stove, the heat all escaped. We were freezing. By the third day we began patching all the holes in the walls, and spent most of our down time restoring the old cabin. It was a less than relaxing vacation but our last day or so of the stay was nice and cosy. The day after we left this old friend who'd scammed us through a party at the cabin, knowing full well we'd have gone and done his job of fixing it up for warmth just to stay alive through the nights, lol. The last I'd heard he'd gone and married some South American heiress with a cattle ranch. So the moral of the story is, besides "never trust a 'insert family name'", despite how much you trust and cheer them on and laugh at yourselves once they've guiled you and the charm of the guile has worn off, was that, well, it is a memory that brings me joy now, whenever I think of it.
I kind of want to ring him up now, in Argentina or wherever (I'm sure I could find him on FB) and ask if I could rent the old cabin by the beach for the summer. Only I'd know upfront I'd have to fix it up. But I think I'd kind of love to. His cabin looked alot like the above, only a room and a porch bigger. I'm thinking 5 days work, one trip to the hardware store, and the local used store, and I could have it look like this:
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