He's a brick.. house.

This is tightly based around a true story. In the case that we are some how held responsible for anything I write, tightly could also mean loosely or not at all.


Over the course of the last 6 months Erik has became a house. When we first arrived we both struggled with our packs. Sweating, exhausted, and angry we normally reached each destination with a pretty large headache. Over the past few months Erik has accumulated strength only comparable to Hulk’s. His shoulders have expanded to such a point the has a hard time fitting in chairs. In essence, he is now shaped ’like a house’. It seemed as though it just gradually pronounced itself. One day he was lifting his pack with more ease (as I watched on in envy), the next he was carrying my extra things for me. This strength situation was win/win! Erik has been our mule and I owe him indefinitely for the extra 20 lbs. he saves me from carrying on a semi-weekly basis.

Erik’s strength isn’t just contained to a few small deliberate walks here and there. It seems to escape through everything. Growing exponentially, it’s hard for myself, and especially Erik, to get a hold of his new strength. Half way through the trip Erik’s strength started to accidentally crush things. He would realize his strength and would dislodge a piece of wood or accidentally break something. His new name was THE HOUSE.

The house and I were on a train in the very recent past. It was an overnight train and neither of us were looking forward to it in the least. We had seats next to each other, and although they were large, they can never be quite big enough to guarantee more than an hour of really sub par sleep. Our chairs, large and industrial, were connected in the middle. Erik noticed that his chair allowed him the luxury of spreading out. NO FAIR! I wanted mine to spread out. ‘Scoot your butt, you have to scoot your butt forward and push back on the chair.’ I did this with no avail. Of course, I would get the chair stuck at a 90 degree angle! He said we should try it one more time, and he’d lean back while I pushed forward and scooted back.

1.….2.….3.


also known as, ‘snap. crackle. pop’.

Our industrial ‘love seat’ of chairs apparently shared the same axle. Which was now in complete disarray. Knowing to not draw attention to ourselves, we were biting our cheeks so hard I thought I’d bleed. Instantly our chairs started sounds like scary nocturnal animals. Weiiik, weeiiikk, weeiik. They rotated both back and forth, and up and down. WHAT A TREAT THAT RIDE WAS.

We suffered the entire evening on a pretty broken set of chairs, all the while being able to say or do nothing. A long night equaled an even longer morning. We were preparing to get off the train. This process always takes a while longer for us (and our 300 lbs.) so we start it early. Most people were still in their seats when Erik went to grab my pack from atop my head. I was seated next to the window, and directly above me were glass (industrial) shelves housing our overhead luggage.

I don’t know what happened. Well I do- THE HOUSE- but in reality, he didn’t do a thing that anyone else would not have done. He went to grab my bag, I don’t know if it was a combination of brute strength, position, pressure, or angle, but a very loud pop went off. At first, I couldn’t place the noise and because I didn’t have a reason to, thought nothing of it.

My pack now on the ground, I was hearing these very little cracking noises. I didn’t know where they were coming from, ‘Erik? Do you hear that? Listen.’ It would make good sense that we heard that. The last 10 minutes into the train station the glass overhead shelf was shattering into millions of tiny pieces. I’m being COMPLETELY SERIOUS. Millions of tiny pieces. I was watching and hearing the cracks in terrified hysteria and disbelief. There is NO WAY that this can get put on us. It had to have been sheer happenstance, there was a crack in the glass.. or Erik is just the house of all houses. I was praying that the shatter of a lifetime didn’t come pouring down on my head. Weeiiiiiik, Weeeiiiik, Weeeeiikkk, shattered glass. Act cool. After a very long and silent 15 minutes, we were able to disembark with the shelf still above our heads. Apparently there was a layer of plastic between us and the glass, so thankfully, I was never doomed.

This fact did not stop 10 minutes of belly laughter, and unchallengeable privileges of singing “ He’s A BRICK HOUSE” to Erik over and over.