Waking up that next morning wasn't too bad. The only real issue is that the blinds were wide open. Our old nemesis, Mr Sun, was beating down on us once again. With Femi and I not being familiar with the operating controls, combined with our lack of clear thought process, we struggled, but finally managed to block out that direct glare.
Femi instantly suggested we watch a movie. Ahbi's collection of movies spanned far and wide. We had a pick out of over 100 fairly recent and popular movies. By the time we'd finished scrolling through the entire list, I'd forgotten which movie I really wanted to see. We decided on Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper. Little did we know, we were watching a story that became an almost perfect comparison of our great weekend.
Without ruining the way the movie plays out, I'll just explain the premise for those who don't know. In the movie, Bradley Cooper's character, comes across an old acquaintance, who happens to have a magic pill. The pill allows him to use the other 80% of his brain that most humans are unable to access.
In all fairness, there's no way we were actually accessing the full 100% of our brains. I think it's OK to say that our luck so far this weekend was not a matter of pure coincidence, and that we had been given a solid 20% mental boost. No pills required.
Our Sunday had been fairly well planned out. We were going to be BBQ'ing for dinner, hosted by Ahbi's friend Melvin. We also had plans to see, my friend Evan's, Strip Comedy show. They both happened to be located fairly close to each other, which at this point, should come as no surprise.
The BBQ was going to be a well organized feast. We had purchased steaks the day before, because Ahbi was intent on a full day of marination, in his special Korean BBQ sauce. We still had to make a trip to the grocery store in order to add some potatoes, vegetables, and corn on the cob. No stone was left unturned.
While I was in Toronto purely for the party, the guys I was with are all men of business and deadlines. Ahbi and Femi had work to do in the afternoon. We were later joined by their friend Saw, who also had his own stuff to get done. The four of us were posted up on our laptops, a unique scene for me. We got some distracted work done, while witnessing a great finish to an NBA game, between the Knicks and Bulls.
After that small break in the festivities, it was time to grab all our food and make our way over to Melvin's place, for this much anticipated meal. When Melvin had told Ahbi that he had a BBQ, we weren't picturing a small camping charcoal BBQ, that could only take on one steak at a time. In addition to the size of the grill, to actually get a fire going on this windy day was also a challenge. Luckily, at this point I had been given the task of chopping vegetables. I had a great vantage point to view the furious fanning that was going on, in order to get the coals lit. As we all know now, it's not the size of the grill, it's how you use it.
The steaks were cooked one at a time, with the rest of the grill real estate being used for the vegetables. Ahbi was the master chef. He intended to follow through on providing delicious steaks from start to finish. Everyone enjoyed their steaks thoroughly, and it turned out that the one day of marination truly did make all the difference. All of the food was being finished in stages. It kept us eating for a solid two hours, as each dish continued to magically appear.
It's important to note, that throughout the BBQ there was house music being played the entire time. It was a great mood setter, as Melvin described it as "Some dirty tracks, mixed with top 40, and back to being dirty." We were only going to a stand up comedy show, but I was definitely ready to dance.
Considering the last few days we'd just had, it's not hard to believe that we spent a great deal of time telling stories of what had already happened on our trip. Melvin's friend, Rimoun, joined the group and actually ended up having the best story of them all. This man clearly deserved to share in our beer, and whatever food we had left.
When the subject of the comedy show came up, invites to Melvin and Rimoun were a given. They both had work the next day, but the laughs we'd been sharing were priceless, and were more than enough motivation for these guys to join our crew. In the interest of being frugal, we grabbed the remaining beers in the fridge, and set out down side streets with our walking pops.
Clearly the time had come to give a name to our posse. Isn't it true that sometimes the simple things in life are the best. We were still riding the wave of laughter at the time when Melvin put it best. "Six man team can take on anything!" And then we took an abrupt right turn into the darkest alley I've ever seen.
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