Yesterday The Masters, Sopranos, Entourage. My eyes hurt.

You know what's interesting about Easter, is that no one ever really has any Great Easter stories. In fact I rack my brain to come up with this mediocre tale that ended with the Lake creating the policy, never do a group project with a friend.

1995. Freshman year of college I am taking Introduction To Business. Its early Feb, and we have to break up into groups of 4, pick a company and present on it later in the semester. I sit next to this guy who I will call the parking lot. He is a great friend who read at my wedding. We are both hopeless in even talking to girls. Across the classroom are two very attractive women. One was 5'4'' and Greek and I think was as a freshman starting for our basketball team I think. The other was from Colombia and always dressed like she was the girlfriend of Prince Harry. To two shy Catholic guys from the suburbs these girls were not just exotic, they might as well have been the woman in Total Recall with three breast. So I shyly approach them and ask if they want to make a foursome. They say yes. So we divide up the report. ONe takes Finance, One takes marketing. one takes government implications and one took Managment. We set up weekly meetings and the report seems to be going swimmingly. My witty banter while not wooing them into the lovefest I want it to be, has at least gotten me to the point where I feel comfortable talking to them, and actually spend time in their rooms going over things, and eating with them in the cafeteria. Finally it is holy week and we have Good Friday off. Our Presentation is the Monday following Easter. That Thursday we meet to hand in the presentation. I am going to put them all into one package over the weekend. Mission Accomplished. At the meeting however the Parking Lot tells me that he needs more time, the Greek girl does as well and the Colombian is nowhere to be found. Good Friday, the campus is empty. I go check my email, I have an email from the Colombian, she is back in Colombia she is having visa issues. She will call me at 4PM. The Greek emails me as well saying that she will be dropping off the disk in my dormroom at 5PM that night. No word from the parking lot. I go over to his room to find him asleep and hungover. 4PM the Colombian calls and says she is faxing me her final product at the campus business center. Through OCR I am able scan her fax and import it into the total document. 5PM the Greek drops off her disk with a little Easter basket filled with jelly beans and a hollow bunny. I take this as a sign of affection, she gives it as a sign of penance. Saturday morning I have incorporated the entire paper together and am waiting on this last piece. Saturday night, a non Catholic friend drives me and the Parking lot to a church in Woonsocket Rhode Island so we can go to the Easter Vigil. The Parking lot and I don't speak the whole mass. After a speech about foregiveness we both shake hands and go out back to campus and drink out half a bottle of Goldschlager and a bunch more Keystone Light. The next morning hungover we both went to the cafeteria and wrote the rest of the paper.

Easter is about redemption.