When I was in highschool my friends were bastards. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I suspect now, having a little more wisdom under my belt, that they weren’t really my friends at all, and that they liked the fact that I had a car. It wasn’t much of a car at the time, but it was better than skateboarding five or six blocks.

What likely made my situation worse was that I hated giving people rides. I was selfish with my car, to the point of being a bastard myself. I’ve decided over the years that this unwillingness to share was the source of a lot of their bastard like tendencies towards me. I can’t say I blame some of their actions, I’d do the same to me if I were them.

One night during the summer, we were all pretty bored. Having grown tired of launching water balloons out the window at joggers and dog walkers (yes, collectively we were all bastards), we’d thought of a new game.

We were going to play Army at the highschool when it got dark. Kevin (a borderline bastard) had done it before, and it was a lot of fun. I think the object was to team up, and then I’m not sure what, it didn’t really matter. Basic bored teenage male behavior.

We pulled up to the school, got out of the car and started to argue about teams and such, when the sky exploded into thunderous booms, and it began to hail like I’ve never seen before or since. The hail was like large marbles. Pretty big stuff, enough that it hurt like hell if you got hit right on the head.

It was fantastic running around in the hail, it was such a strange random event, that it made that boring summer night one to always remember.

While I was revelling in the strange weather event, one of the most bastard-like of my friends began to flip out. He turned on me, upset that we had “Arrived too late” to play our game, and that it was my fault for driving. I knew then he was a bastard, but I’ve since thought of that night, and suspect now he had some hidden dastardly plan that was directed towards me that he was now unable to carry out because of the weather. Too bad for him.

This same friend claimed he had stolen a school bus when he was in the 4th grade, and also proclaimed that when he died the world would know about it. I haven’t kept in touch. We had a falling out, and perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing.

I was reminded of this event by the recent hail storm in China

that killed 25 people. Egg shaped hail the report says. I suppose it’s not such a shock when you think about it, but dang, getting killed by hail? Bummer!