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Cootie Girl: Small World Freak Out
4.12.2003
I am having one of those small world freak out things. Let me explain.
The year is 1988 I'm in my junior year of High School and I have a sister (Michelle) that is 4 years older than I am. She is dating this boy (whom she is now married too) who was in this band with some of his friends. The band was called Stop It Martin and all of the members were off the boat boys from Ireland/Scotland. They were quite good and they mostly played in small bars out in Queens. Brian (my brother-in-law) played guitar and Mick was the singer. The band was together for about a year and I am not sure why they broke up. My sister remained friends with that group of people and every so often, I would see some of them at a BBQ or something.
OK fast forward to 2000. On Thursday nights, I went to this quiz thing at a Rocky Sullivan's. It turns out that I had gone to High School with the bartender's sister. He introduces me to this guy Matt who turns out to be friends with this guy that dated a friend of mine from college. I think Matt also dated a girl I went to school with but that's besides the point. Anyway, Matt introduces me to this guy Gary and his wife Ann Marie. For about a year, the bunch of us went to quiz every Thursday and had a ball. Some of the quiz team even went out to Queens for a party in Gary and Ann Marie's neighborhood. Well in 2001, Gary switched jobs and was no longer able to go to quiz. We keep in touch now via emails.
Fast forward to last week. My sister and her husband are both in the army and I get an email from Mick asking if I was in fact Michelle's sister and if I had her and Brian's email addresses. I was a little weirded out because I didn't remember giving Mick my email address so I asked him how he got it (just checking if my name came up on a search or something I guess I was feeling paranoid at the time). Mick tells me that I had responded to one of his brothers emails and then it clicked - I realized they had the same last name. I had to email Mick to confirm in fact that is was the Mick from Stop It Martin and his brother was Gary married to the red headed Ann Marie. I don't think they look so much a like and without the accent, it never occurred to me that they would be related just because they had the same last name. Mick still has an accent I guess Gary was so young when the family came over he lost his altogether. This was my small world freak out - I knew Mick for 15 years, I knew Gary for 3 years both under different circumstances. They turn out to be brothers. HOW WEIRD IS THAT?
