You can’t always judge a steak by its cover.

I have vowed to meet these couple of dear friends that I have — we will call them Thing 1 and Thing 2, which is appropriate — somewhere soon. We actually did it this weekend. We always talk — actually text — about these get-togethers that we will never do. Children and jobs and things — we know that it probably won’t happen. So we talk and say, “Here’s another thing we won’t ever do.”

Except this past weekend, we actually did it. Thing 1 met me in the Little Rock Marriott lobby. “We are doing this thing that we said we wouldn’t do!,” he said. Guys have GOT to love on another to meet in Little Rock — not offense to Little Rock, which actually is awesome. You just don’t think of it as Utopia. But it is, if a couple of your friends are there.

Thirty minutes later, Thing 2 rolled in. It was on.

The details of my roughly 24 hours in LR was a wonderful time for us. You can imagine it would have been the same for you, if you were with old friends. You are mature and old enough to know it probably won’t go perfectly, but still…it’ll be perfect.

Here’s an example.

We always fantasize about eating ”crisscross,” a steak with grill marks on it and all. It’s the “Bonanza Steak House” in us. Saturday night, we did. We ate crisscross together. Sort of.

See the picture above? Doesn’t that look good? It does, except it wasn’t.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 ate theirs to the bone. So happy for them. But the waitress saw I was struggling. I WANTED to enjoy it. Except it was terrible. Imagine trying to chew up a shingle. Must have come from a rogue cow.

Long story, but they didn’t charge me for my steak and I got full on my tater. Sometimes, life doesn’t work out as you’d hoped. BUT, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were there. That’s all that really mattered. I’d tasted the good life, and that’s what’s important.

(Besides, I knew the next day we were scheduled to eat catfish. Why worry?)

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