Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 14: Just Our Luck! Part 2 : The Wanderers

 Just Our Luck! Part 2: The Wanderers

On Wednesday, June 25, 2025, at around 4:00 P.M., I sat at Crimson Cup and waited for Lily to walk in. When she did, I ran up, hugged her, and we ordered our drinks. We picked up right where we left off. We talked about pretty much everything that has happened to both of us since 2021; most notably (on her end), she and Owen just bought a house!

Paige got a promotion, so she was working until about 9. I was on summer break, and Owen was out with a friend, so after we finished our coffees, we decided to go on a walk. Lily left her car at Crimson Cup, and I drove us down to the duck pond. After walking around the pond a few times, we decided to walk on the Olentangy Trail.

Now, from the duck pond, the trail takes about an hour and a half to get to OSU’s campus. But there are not a lot of discernible landmarks until you are on campus. At 6:30, I realized where we were. “Are we on campus?” I asked rhetorically.

“Oh my gosh,” she replied, “we are!”

We were both hungry, so we decided to go to Blaze Pizza. By the time we had walked to Blaze, ordered and eaten our food, and stepped back outside, it was already 7:30. Now, from where we were, it was a straight shot back to my car. “We could find a Lime scooter,” I suggested. She thought it was a good idea, and I opened the app- there were none in the city.

After realizing our situation, I texted Paige and told her that she was going to need to get someone else to take her home, and then Lily and I just started walking. About an hour and a half into our walk, we stumbled upon Insomnia Cookies, a place I'd always wanted to visit but had never tried. Another 30 minutes after Insomnia Cookies, we finally made it back to the duck pond, and I drove Lily back to Crimson Cup.

When I got back to the apartment, I told Paige the story, and she told me, “Yeah, they took Lime out of Columbus back in April- but there's a new bike and scooter app called Voe now.” 

“Really!?” I asked. Paige insisted, and I looked it up. When I confirmed it, I laughed and said, “Well, that’s just our luck!”

In the previous installment (before this two-parter), I talked about how Paige and I went to dinner with an old friend of mine and how I have been misreading how friendships change as we grow. In light of that, I thought about Lily’s falling out and the adventure we had just had, and I smiled, happy that we had rekindled our friendship.

Have a Greattastic Day and be safe!

 J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 13: Just Our Luck! Part 1: Lily‘s Falling Out

 Just Our Luck! Part 1: Lily’s Falling Out

Lily was a coworker of mine at Kroger and one of my first friends there. One of her most notable appearances in Rules for a Greattastic Life was in Season 1 when she and I accidentally broke one of the sliding glass doors together (Just My Luck!). We had a falling out a few years back. This is that story:

Lily had the strangest effect on her friends. A year after she started working at Kroger, her best friend, Maya, started working with us. Maya's brother, Ethan, started working with us shortly after that… and then the floodgates opened. After Lily moved to her new Kroger, her boyfriend, Owen, worked with me for a short time. Then Chloe, Lily, and Maya's other friend began working at Lily's new store. Heck, even Lily's nemesis, Summer, started working at my store along with their other friend Izzy (who I almost moved in with before Shane).

Late in the summer of 2021, Lily started causing some drama within the group. While I will not disclose the drama itself, I tried to stay out of it, despite how hurt I was feeling about it. On Thursday, September 23, toward the middle of my shift, I was on carts. While I was out there, Lily drove up to me. “Hey,” she said. I didn’t reply. “Look,”  she continued, “I really want to work this out. Can you please talk to Maya and Chloe about meeting up?”

When I went on my break, I found Maya and told her what had happened. By the time I was getting ready for bed that night, she had sent a group text to me, Lily, and Chloe, suggesting that we all meet up the next day.

Around 4:30, we met in a local high school parking lot, and from there we walked to a nearby duck pond. I knew that Maya and Chloe were going to team up on Lily, so I was there for moral support, even though I didn’t agree with Lily. We sat down at a shelter house at the duck pond, and Maya and Chloe spent the next hour laying into Lily. When they had said everything they needed to, they dramatically stood up and left.

As we watched them walk away, Lily became more and more distraught. She began asking me why they were acting that way, and I couldn’t really hide that I agreed with them on some level. We walked back to the high school, reminiscing on our 3 years of friendship, knowing that it was the end.

“I don’t want our friendship to end,” she cried when we got to our cars.

“Neither do I,” I replied, “maybe in a few years we can reconnect.”

“I would like that,” she said sadly.

On Tuesday, June 17, 2025, I went shopping at my old Kroger on my way home from work. While the store has been updated a lot since I left in early 2022, it still looks similar enough that I started feeling a little nostalgic. When I finished shopping and had brought everything into my car, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Lilly.

To Be Continued…