Screw Work

While I was enjoying some fine ales on a rather uneventful Thursday night at the Sun Tavern in Fanwood New Jersey, a familiar face popped up on the screen of my phone as it began to vibrate. Johnny Kinz was calling, with one hell of a question for me.

"So yeah, umm, Ben and I are going to Europe, wanna come with us?"

At this moment, everything seemed to slow down and I realized not only did I "wanna" go, I "NEED" to go. Who would I be if I turned down this trip to go sit at a desk and study? I left the bar and the gears in my head began to crank. In order to make the trip happen I now needed to sell the trip to my parents as well as find the cash I would need to go. I have a little bit of savings that could cover most of it and I would be starting steady work in just a few short weeks... Oh shit, work. I had just began a study program for the Series 7 stockbrokers exam which I need to pass in order to get hired to the position promised to me. SHIT. I guess the good news was I was only three days in out of the 30 day program, and this would have to be my selling point when I was going to pitch this to my future employer. I mean, going on the trip may jeopardize my standing with the company, but it was worth asking, and again, I need to go. But the last thing I wanted to do was start off on the wrong foot. So a phone call or two later and a lunch set up with my superiors the next day eventually led to me being told, "You better go. Just don't get a disease, and don't fail the test when you get back, that would be bad."
YES

For those of you who don't know who Johnny Gaudreau is, number one you should and number two I think  my emotions when I heard these words were similar to his here...


Or maybe I felt like Barry Almeida jumping up and down on the bench? Doesn't matter. One of the two.
Go Eagles!

So like Johnny Be-Gaudreau's goal in the Frozen Four final, this news changed everything...
My summer would again consist of a little bit of fun, rather than countless hours with my nose in books describing to me the tax procedures associated with different types of bonds. I found a hiking backpack I could borrow from a friend in about 22 seconds. To my surprise, my mother grudgingly said that it would be really cool and that I should definitely go. And to top it all off my best friend would up having enough frequent flyer miles to go to Mars and back, so it worked out he could go too.It all worked out almost too perfectly. In less than two weeks I will be gallivanting the streets of Madrid, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. So for the time being, Screw work. Bring it Europe.