I went to an election party a while back. You may have heard about this election. It was the one where you go and push on a Fisher-Price voting toy and then go home to learn who the machines picked as President. Anyway, I was having fun at an election party.

And in walks this guy who looks really, really familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I harassed him for a while:

“I swear I know you from somewhere,” I persisted. “Do you know Nate? Do you know blah? Did I meet you at blah?”

No match. Finally, he said, “maybe I had a beard when you saw me.”

I didn’t remember that, but you know what? Anything’s possible!

Eventually, we figured it out. I learned that he is Mason Poe, Flash Master and all around genius behind this set of photos in the Beard Contest. And he’s right, that is from where I had recognized him. What’s more, he’s good buddies with my good buddy Kenny, media magician and all-around swell guy. In addition to being deadpan hilarious, Mason is, apparently, also obsessed with Vienna, as am I, so we were obviously destined to meet and, eventually, get really drunk with Kenny in East Atlanta.

To complete the small world scenario, we were at a house in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta, just a few blocks from the home my wife owned when I met her, where an old friend of my wife’s, who had moved away, but then returned, was now living with her husband and baby, who was born one month after Maple. We met up with her randomly one day, only to discover that she was pregnant, with a due date only a week different than ours. Throwing in the fact that one of the guests also worked at the same place as I do, I got so seriously excited that a little bit of pee came out.