Eric's First Love

This is a story about my good friend Eric (although that could yet be determined after he reads this blog :P), who will be known as Muffin in this story as it will serve my purposes quite nicely in the end (and it's his nickname).

Shortly after Scottie's dream - actually the following evening - Muffin, Scottie and MattyK were returning from another fun night at Cowboys, a local bar.

While riding in the cab, MattyK declared, "I'm hungry."
"There's a McDonald's 2 blocks from here", shared the cab driver.
"Ok", they all agreed.

And so down the road they went until a couple of blocks later, sure enough, there was the McDonald's. The cab driver pulled into the parking lot and let the car idle while the three guys stumbled out of the car (I told you they were at the bar. Sheesh). They walked arm in arm still humming the tunes that had been blasted at them all evening. But there was a problem as they could not get through the door with all of them having linked arms.Well, after a few tries, they realized that they could not all get through the door at once, so they unlinked arms and finally got through.

After having their fill of the best food they'd had in a long time (yes it's McDonald's, but hey, it's better than dorm food), they made their way back to the cab. As they were walking though, Muffin noticed something bright out of the corner of his eye. He glanced towards the drivethru, located next to the entrance, and saw this big bright high heeled stilletto. It was love at first sight, at least to Muffin. Scottie and MattyK were busy deciding who was going to open the cab door for who.

Muffin quickly ran over to the drivethru and picked the shoe up before the next car could drive over it. It was all covered in dog slobber, but Muffin didn't care. He just had to have the shoe.

"Hey Muffin, you comin' or what?" yelled Scottie. They had finally decided to open the cab door together and were waiting for Muffin to hop in the cab. So Muffin grabbed the shoe, hid it in his jacket so no one would see, and ran over to the cab. He knew the guys would think him crazy for falling for a shoe. I mean who does that? But Muffin didn't care, he just had to have the shoe.

Back at dorm, Muffin quickly hurried to his room and shut the door so that no one would bother him with his new found love. No one, except his roommate who really actually never bothered him. He was just there. Muffin sat on the bed and curled up with the stilletto shoe in his arm. He grabbed some Kleenex next to the bed and began to wipe the dirt and slobber of the shoe. He treated it with such care and delicacy, as if it were made of glass. He stroked each strap of the shoe with such tenderness...

Ok, enough sentimental jargle, cuz it's making me sick. Anyways, he eventually did put the shoe to bed that night making a soft bed of tissues in an empty shoe box he had lying around. The days following were much of the same, and the guys in dorm were starting to wonder what was up (for only Muffin's roommate knew the truth, but he wasn't going to say anything). Mike was wondering where is Warcraft buddy was, Scottie wanted to know who was going to play guitar/piano with him in Praise Band, and Neal just wanted to know where his evening entertainment had gone.

Finally, after some debate, it was decided that Scottie was the man to go talk to Muffin. I mean they live next door to each other (in the same dorm) and they tend to relate somewhat well to each other...that is when Muffin isn't taken aback by Scottie's antics. So Scottie knocks on Muffin's door and sure enough he was hiding in his room as always.

"Eric," Scottie started, using his real name for once, "we're all really worried about you. I mean, you haven't been out of your room except to go to classes. Wait, not even to go to classes, only exams. Mike misses playing Warcraft with you, Neal is lonely at night, and I'm starting to look for a new musician in our band because I don't know if I can rely on you anymore. What's up?"

This was enough to cause Muffin to cave. He couldn't possibly continue to hurt the dormies with a clear conscious.

"Scottie, I've fallen in love", he began slowly.
"Really? That's so exciting. With who?"

With that, Muffin got up and pulled the shoe box out from the closet and opened it up.

"I don't understand", Scottie said. "Why do you have her shoe, and only one of her shoes for that matter?"
"Scottie, this is my true love. It's the shoe", replied Muffin.
"What?! You cannot fall in love with a shoe!" declared Scottie. (I told you)
"Well, I did", was Muffin's only reply.
"Eric, this isn't right, but if it's what you want...", he trailed off.
"Do you think you could help me? I want to track down her parents so I can meet them. Any suggestions?" Muffin was quite excited about getting help with this almost impossible task.
"Actually," Scottie started unsure of what was still going on, "I may know who they belong to. Regan was saying that she was missing one of her heels and that it was yellow. You should talk to her." And with that, Scottie left the room because even this was a little too weird for him. He wasn't sure how to take it.

The next day at school, Muffin found Regan and asked about her missing shoe. It sounded very much so like she was the "parent" of this shoe (she's really just the owner, but Muffin insisted on her being the parent. I can't lie about the facts), and so they arranged to have dinner at her place so he could bring the shoe along.

That night he hurried over to Regan's place and rang the bell. Leah answered the door. "Why would Leah answer the door", he thought. He found out over dessert that the shoe actually belonged to Leah and Regan's grandmother and that both of them were the "parents".It wasn't long after that that the bickering began between Regan and Muffin.

"Thank you for finding the shoe, it will be nice to have it back again", started Regan.
"What? You ain't gettin' it back, I love it" declared Muffin.
"Excuse me? It's a shoe. Are you really that desperate?" asked Regan.
"Not as desperate as you are short" claimed Muffin.

He pointed at her and all of a sudden there was no sound. She was forming the words, but nothing was coming out. What blissfulness. It was grand!

"Eric...Eric...Earth to Eric." Leah waved her hand in front of his eyes. All she wanted to know was if he wanted more dessert. Eric snapped back to reality and kindly let her know that he was fine. He must have daydreamed that last part, but even that brought him enough joy; him imagining her mute. As he looked around he realized Regan must have stormed out when Leah had come in, for she was no longer there. "Oh well", he thought, and with that he said good-bye to Leah and left.

Over the weeks, Muffin continued to date this shoe. Very quickly the whole school found out (because as soon as the Concordia Grapevine gets a hold of it, you have about a day before everyone knows), and he was teased to no end. But he didn't care. He spent his time with the shoe.

One day he decided to take the shoe on a special date. He brought it to the place where they met. He thought the time spent was perfect. Just as they were about to leave, however, this rotweiller came trotting up for the big, yellow stilletto shoe had caught its attention. The dog jumped up and grabbed the shoe from Muffin's hand. Off it ran, and there was nothing Muffin could do to save it. He slumped against the side of the building. He didn't know if he could take losing the shoe. But he would have to for it was gone for good.

Upon returning to dorm, Scottie could sense something was wrong. He noticed the shoe was gone.

"What happened?" he asked.
"I don't want to talk about it", replied Muffin. "The shoe is gone...gone!" And with that he shut the door behind him and didn't come out for weeks.

The guys were again really worried about him, but there was nothing they could do. There was nothing Muffin would let them do. He wouldn't even let his roommate into the room (now that's bad...mostly just cuz then his roommate had to find another place to stay, such as his uncle's or something).

One day the guys were watching Shrek in the dorm lounge. They heard a creak from down the hall, but didn't think anything of it, for it couldn't be Muffin's door (they had decided he was just never coming out again and had even started stuffing food under the door so he wouldn't starve. It's quite the task, let me tell you).

"Whatcha watching?" All eyes turned and sure enough it was Muffin in the doorway. They couldn't believe there eyes and didn't know what to say. The dormies were actually speechless.

"Can I watch too?" Muffin asked.
Finally, Neal broke the silence, "Yeah, come sit by me!"
"Hey," exclaimed MattyK, "Neal, what ever happened to your loyalty to me?" And with that, the silence was no more. It was as if nothing had changed. They sat there watching the movie and enjoying themselves.

"Are you going to be ok?" Scottie asked Muffin.
"Yeah, I'll be fine", was his reply. "Hey, do you think I could have a chance with the Gingerbread Man? I hear he's looking for the Muffin Man." Everyone let out a huge groan. He was back.