One More Year of Experience, But Not Any Wiser

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
-Douglas Adams
"Age is a very high price to pay for maturity."
-Tom Stoppard
"No man is ever old enough to know better."
-Holbrook Jackson

Jake got out of bed at exactly 6:00 AM on February 11. He always woke up at this time every day, no matter what time he fell asleep the night before. Always. Jake really didn't need that much sleep. Then again, he really didn't care for sleep that much. For example, Jake once went to a concert on a Friday night during college. His friend from high school, Cameron Harris, was the guitar player for a local band. It was also Elizabeth Grant's birthday and the end of final exam time. There were many things to celebrate that day. Jake, Elizabeth, and several of their mutual friends from high school had dinner, watched Ocean's Twelve, talked, and had fun with the band. He also discussed the merits of employment at Lowell and Park, his lack of a love life, and life in general with Elizabeth. This was before they and a hundred other people rocked to classic Guns N' Roses tunes like "Sweet Child Of Mine," "It's So Easy," "Paradise City," and "Welcome to the Jungle." Jake didn't get back home until two in the morning. The next morning, he woke up at 5:30 AM to get ready for an early morning church service. After six hours of sleep on Sunday night, he woke up at 6:00 AM the next morning for a law school final.
Jake, for most parts, was a creature of habit and routine; one could say he was almost fanatical in having things done in a certain way or it just wasn't right. Some of his best friends--Elizabeth included--called him various terms like "obsessive-compulsive," "freakish," and "crazy" when it came to his sleep patterns and all his other habits and quirks ingrained deeply into his mind. His girlfriend, who had obsessive-compulsive perfectionist tendencies, found Jake's own fanaticism in doing everything the "right way"--including minor details like folding towels--excessive sometimes. She considered Jake's ability to not be tired after three hours of sleep to be scary, but highly useful during finals period. Jake considered his behavior as "highly disciplined."
After waking up, Jake walked to the kitchen, placed a frying pan on the stove, and opened the refrigerator. He took out a carton of eggs and a bottle of Heinz ketchup. Jake selected two eggs and placed them carefully on the counter. He put the carton back into the refrigerator and closed the door. Jake turned the burner on, poured in some oil, and waited for the pan to heat up.
Jake liked sunny-side up eggs with the yolks barely cooked. The problem with cooking eggs this way is that they inevitably stuck to the pan. After some trial and error, Jake found the perfect method (at least in his opinion) to cook eggs so they didn't stick. You had to heat the pan along with the oil until you saw the oil shimmer. When this happened, the pan was hot enough so the eggs, when they hit the surface of the pan, instantly cooked and had little time to stick. With this method of cooking, Jake could flip the eggs over and have the yolks cook for about a minute. This left the inside of the yolk slightly runny, but at a temperature that killed off salmonella and e-coli. Getting food poisoning from a nasty e-coli or salmonella infection was not the best thing.
When the pan was hot enough, Jake cracked the eggs into the pan using one hand. Jake, when he first learned how to cook, always wanted to crack eggs with one hand. After some practice (many eggs and eggshells in the pan), Jake learned how to crack eggs with one hand. There wasn't any real need to learn this skill, but it was practical, if you stretched the definition of practical to an illogical extreme. Knowing this skill made it possible to crack two eggs at the same time. Of course, if you cracked them individually, it took about the same amount of time as it did to crack them both at the same time.
While the eggs cooked, Jake put two slices of whole wheat bread into the toaster. Jake checked the progress of the eggs. It was the right time to flip them over. He flipped the eggs so the top surface could cook for a minute. This set up the yolks so they were just barely cooked. The eggs and the toast finished cooking at the same time. Jake took out a plate and put the eggs and toast on it.
Jake quickly ate breakfast. He had a busy day scheduled. Despite being a person who was a stickler to routine, he believed that life was too short not to enjoy and fill with as much activity as possible. Unlike video game characters, you didn't have multiple lives and you didn't have a chance to reset and start all over again once you died. Everyone died, but not everyone truly lived. If you were going to do something, you did it with a hundred percent effort. As William Saroyan said, "Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough." Jake intended to do as much as he could without ending up in jail or ending up dying a premature death. Then again, as a law school student, every day was a busy day, but today was different. It was his birthday. He was a year older, but in Jake's opinion, he didn't feel any wiser.
**********
"Jake! Happy birthday! How are ya doing?"
"Doing pretty well, Fox. Doing pretty well."
"That's good. I haven't seen you this happy in quite a while. What brings you here?"
"I had some errands to run. The bank. The flower shop. The one-hour photo place. You know, the usual stuff. What about you?"
"Wait a minute. You went to a flower shop? To buy flowers? That's now usual?" Elizabeth cocked her head to one side and raised her voice in disbelief. "You once said that buying flowers and gifts to show romantic affection lowered love to cheap commercialism. You're buying them for Clarissa for Valentine's Day. Explain that for me."
"It's just weird. I don't know how to explain it. I guess that when you fall for a person, everything you think is right is wrong and everything that is wrong is right. It's this temporary madness that plays with your mind, but it can be a pleasant insanity. There's nothing wrong with buying gifts. If you believe that giving or receiving material possessions is the only way to prove affection for another person, something is wrong. That's when you turn love into cheap commercialism."
"Ah, I see. I'd like to hear more on this. You have some time?"
"Yeah, I've got about an hour."
"La Vita Dolce? Drink some coffee and talk, just like the old days before our days weren't as busy and our lives weren't as crazy."
"Sure, why not?"
"Why not. Come on, let's go."
**********
Jake sipped his double espresso. Plain with no sugar or milk. He liked his coffee black, strong, and hot. He liked his coffee plain; he had simple tastes. Occasionally, he might have coffee with a splash of cream and a scant teaspoon of sugar. That, he could tolerate, but just barely. Once you went beyond sugar and cream, things just got out of hand. Jake once went to a local branch of an unnamed coffee shop with world headquarters in Seattle to buy a cup of black coffee. He should have went somewhere else. While waiting in a long line, he saw the list of ways a person could modify their cup of coffee. He calculated there were at least 19,000 different combinations to make a cup of coffee at said establishment. It was highly unlikely Jake would order a half-caff double mochachino venti latte any time in the near future, with "near future" meaning "when the Earth was consumed by the Sun when the Sun turned into a red giant approximately five billion years in the future." Before his turn to order came up, Jake left this establishment and went to a cooking equipment store to buy a coffee maker.
"Let me get this straight. You, of all people, had flowers delivered during class?"
"And? What's so strange about that?"
"You're not...well...not to be insulting...known to be romantic. This love thing is messing with your head. Or you've changed in some way."
"I've heard this before. I'm still the same person. I've changed, yet I haven't changed."
"OK...that's really clear."
"Think of a person as a candle flame. When you look at it, the flame constantly changes. It flickers, it grows in intensity and it wanes in intensity. No matter what, it's still the same flame that was there when you first lit that candle. People, like the flame, change constantly. It's a fluid change that people never perceive. You're not the same person you were five years ago, let alone five months ago. Right?"
"That's correct."
"If that's so, why should I stay the same?"
"You've made your point. It's just weird coming from you."
"I guess you're right. I wonder who I am sometimes."
"You're one year older, but it seems like you have the wisdom of one of those legendary, supposedly immortal Zen monks. Weird."
"Let's just drink coffee. It's much more enjoyable."
"I'll drink to that."
"Oh, you've went back to being blond. It looks very nice."
"Thanks. Happy birthday."
**********
After completing his errands, Jake went home and had lunch. After eating lunch, Jake decided to surf the web and check his e-mail. He checked his school e-mail and he noted that there was a change to the Payments System assignment and Professor Glickstein canceled class on Wednesday. Jake also saw that seven of his friends at Davis Law posted messages on his Facebook Message Board. Other than for those three important e-mails, the rest was the usual spam.
Jake logged onto Facebook and checked the various messages that people posted on his message board. Facebook, in Jake's opinion, was quite possibly, the greatest time-wasting site on the Internet. Jake was resistant to joining Facebook when it originally became available to Davis University students, but he finally joined the thousands of Facebook users at Davis University. After he joined, Jake quickly gained Facebook friends. Then came joining the thousands of Facebook groups covering interests ranging from The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Bring Back Old School Nickelodeon. The newest addition to the Facebook realm was the Photo Album feature. Jake saw people spend entire class periods looking at photos in various photo albums.
Facebook was impossible to resist. It was the Internet equivalent of many highly addictive drugs, legal or illegal. One could use the ubiquitous "crack" simile, but that was overused. Once you considered the effects of Facebook use, the best drug analogy was a highly powerful and highly addictive painkiller like oxycontin or Pethidine. Not at strong as morphine, but pretty powerful, none the less. Law school students will log onto Facebook whenever they have a few minutes of free time during the day. "Free time," when used by law school students, encompasses a very broad definition. It is a term of art, just like other legal terms like "contract," "profits," and "privacy." Then again, nearly every term used solely within the legal profession is a term of art or so it seemed when you read some of the more laughable opinions printed in the casebooks used in law school classes. "Free time" included any stretch of time that was considered boring. This included any time during class. Facebook was the Internet opiate that killed boredom and not pain.
Jake read his messages. Most were the usual messages saying "Happy Birthday, Jake" or the many variations on a familiar theme. Clarissa posted a message--one that was of a more romantic nature, but based on the familiar theme. Melissa Trent and her friend, Allison Stanton, wrote some messages that seemed cryptic at first, but made perfect sense (well, at least for those who knew them) once you read their profiles. They wrote the following messages:

Allison Stanton (Davis) wrote
at 9:31 am February 10, 2006:
Happy Birthday, Jake! Let me know what song you want me to perform.
I'll wow you with my rap artistry.
Melissa Trent (Davis) wrote
at 9:32 am February 10, 2006:
Jake! Happy B-day! I'm Allie's backup singer. Have fun!

Allison Stanton, in her Facebook Profile, described herself as a "rap artist producing her first album for her independent record label." Jake found this description amusing; to be totally honest, he found it highly amusing. She was a Midwestern female rapper in the vein of Eminem and hopefully, not Vanilla Ice. Then again, when Vanilla Ice performed at Freedom Hall two years ago, a local performance venue, the concert sold out. Not too bad for a white rapper from Danbury, Connecticut, a town not known for drive-by shootings and hardcore OG's. Melissa Trent, in her profile, described herself as a "foot soldier for Allison's rap artistry." Basically, she was a back-up singer. Ah, she lived the life of a internationally known rock star, just without the sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Jake wondered what sort of reply to type out. After some thought and a search on Google, Jake decided to type out the following message to Allison:
Thanks for the lovely offer. How about "In Da Club" by Fifty Cent?
After checking some other profiles and browsing through some photo albums, Jake logged off.
**********
Jake arrived a few minutes early. He noticed a larger than average number of cars parked outside. Nearly all the guest spots were filled and he didn't notice any resident parking stickers. He did notice, however, red guest parking passes. Jake listened carefully and he didn't hear any loud music. No big parties. Most of the residents of Foxbridge were of the young professional type, those who commuted to work in a larger city. Even those who weren't young commuters tended to be quiet. Jake was going to Clarissa's place to meet up with their friends. They were going to go barhopping and have fun.
Something seemed odd. After scanning the townhouses again, Jake saw what was bothering him. The lights were on, but the curtains were closed. Clarissa, who was Elizabeth's neighbor, lived in the townhouse next door. Because she lived next door, the views from her windows were about the same as Elizabeth's windows. She enjoyed the views from her window and she generally kept her curtains open. The same thing with Elizabeth's windows, but her lights were off.
All of these details were little things, just like insignificant snowflakes. All these little snowflakes, however, once they gathered together, could create a massive avalanche. Tiny grains of sand could coalesce into a sandcastle. Clarissa was planning something. Probaby a surprise party. It wasn't much of a surprise if he figured out there was going to be a surprise party. He wasn't sure beyond a reasonable doubt, but the preponderance of the evidence was pointing towards that conclusion. How could a person be sure beyond a reasonable doubt? Even if he decided to enter the apartment right now, there could be other equally rational possibilities as to why Clarissa's curtains were closed.
Jake thought, "Maybe you should cut down on reading spy books. You're beginning to think a little too much." He was going to be 24. He still had enough time to live and learn and to know better. This was fun, thinking like a spy or protective agent (The term "bodyguard" could mean nothing more than a muscle-bound guy who jumped in front of bullets. That really required little skill.) and noticing small details at a higher level of vigilance. He decided to test his hypothesis by walking towards Clarissa's door. As he was walking towards the door, he saw the lights go off. That wasn't very smart. Whoever was in charge of the lights should have left them on. Jake decided to feign suprise.
Jake rang the doorbell and the door opened. A hand grabbed his and guided him down the hallway. When he reached the living room, the lights went on.
"Happy birthday Jake!"
Jake saw it was everyone he knew at Davis Law School.
"Wow, the whole gang is here. I'm actually surprised for once."
Everyone laughed.
"So Jake, what do you want me to rap?" It was Allison.
"How about something by Fifty? In the Club? It seems appropriate."
"Melissa? You ready?"
Melissa said, "Ready when you are."
Allison and Melissa rapped "In The Club" with exuberence, if not with the correct words at times. They weren't Fifty Cent, but you had to give them credit for doing it with a whole lot of effort. If you're going to do something, you might as well leap into it. Forget if you're going to look like a fool. There is a thin line between being incredibly brilliant and being incredibly idiotic. At least you're having fun and that was the most important thing.
While Allison and Melissa were performing, Clarissa handed him a Guinness. It was slightly chilled and not icy cold. Just right.
Clarissa said, "Happy Birthday Jake. How is everything?"
"Perfect. I've got everything anyone could want. What else would I want?"
Jake really meant it. He had great friends and family. He had a great girlfriend. He was alive to enjoy all of it. Every day that you had on Earth was a day to be thankful for. There were more moments to live life to the fullest, more moments of enjoyment to look forward to. When you really thought about it, what more could a person ask for?
"I don't know. How about this?" Clarissa kissed him.
"OK, I could accept another. That's good."
She laughed. "Come on, there's a cake with your name on it."
Life was good.