This is Clay Walker.
Last week, he was featured on this blog as both a part of our camp experience and the owner of a fascinating beard.
I devoted a significant amount of time and energy to this man. Because I care about him.
But he does not care about me.
Why would I say such a thing?
Here's why....
Kyle Grimes and I flew into Baltimore late last Sunday night. We waited for our other bandmates to arrive, then headed to our homes for the night. Forrest and Justin stayed with the Fullens, while Kyle and I crashed in the basement of Lance and Amy Burch. Clay, who arrived on Saturday, was also staying at Lance's house.
Upon arrival, we talked for a bit, then all went to bed.
The next morning, we all packed our gear to head out for camp.
At some point during this load-up, Clay asked Lance if we would be coming back to the Burch's house before heading to the airport once camp was over.
Now, there are a few problems with the whole exchange. They are not critical to the point of Clay's heartlessness, but they certainly deserve retelling. In this matter, Clay made a few faulty assumptions....
#1. That Lance already knew all of our flight times on Friday afternoon and knew who would be delivering us to the airport.
#2. That Friday's closing service and load-out times were a given.
Lance reportedly answers, "Sure, we can come back," and Clay decides to leave two t-shirts, a pair of shorts and a belt at the house. (I'm not exactly sure why - surely they would have fit in his suitcase?)
We go to camp. Camp is good. And on Thursday night, I talk to Jason about load-out. As he starts hearing our different flight times, he starts to get that we'll-never-make-that look. I am not a fan of this look.
On Friday, we load as fast as possible and begin structuring the vehicles in such a way so that Kyle and I get to our flight (which was first in the order...)
The problem was then revealed...rather than driving straight back to the church, we had to go significantly out of our way to pick up four articles of clothing from Lance's home.
Hear me now - I wasn't that mad at Clay for leaving his stuff. Kyle and I weren't stressing the departure or anything. I wasn't mad at Lance for answering Clay's question in the affirmative.
But I was mad nonetheless.
You know what Clay said when all of this confusion erupted? When it was realized that his shorts and shirts and belt might actually cause us to miss our flight?
Nothing.
No apologies. No "oh-gosh-guys-I-never-thought-about-that." As a matter of fact, when I said, "Clay, don't you even feel a little bit bad about this?" He said this:
"No! I mean, if you miss your flight, I might feel bad about it, but no. I'm not sorry. Lance told me we could come back."
Lance-told-me-we-could-come-back was pretty much his only defense, as evidenced by the 53 times he said it to us.
It was an unfortunate, but manageable, set of circumstances. That, we could deal with.
But one of my best friends so blatantly disregarding my concern and so flippantly speaking to me?
That was a huge hurt to me, and because of that, for the next five days this blog will be running a series that will seek to smear and castigate and ridicule one Mr. Clay Walker.
And maybe, he'll learn the lesson we all need to learn.
You do not mess with Todd Blog.
Clay has been notified of this week's blogging theme and is free to defend his actions here on the blog or via any other suitable online forum. But hopefully not his own blog, because it is totally lame.
You're probably familiar with the Flat Stanley movement.
But darn it if the little fellow didn't charm us back into his good graces! Here's to Flat Joey, the newest honorary member of the TWB!
