30 days of 25.
Part two of my 25th birthday adventure. Seeing as this opens by going back in time, the odds of a third part are outstanding.
So I woke up around 1 am or so. Being on GY time is the essence of an altered state. You are awake when everyone is asleep, you still get to enjoy the morning, (the working man’s best part of the day) and the dusk to dawn hours (the drinking, drugging, and sociopath’s favorite part of the day). Consequently, I miss the family man’s favorite part of the day. More Kelly Ripa and The Price Is Right; less American Idol and Adult Swim.
Unless you are on a coke binge, talking to your father and saying I have to get to bed, it’s 2 pm here is enough to make a housewife… searching for adjective… Desperate. Not that I know anything about being a woman.
Anyway so wake up came, and after the first couple of minutes where I was trying to figure out where I was, I went out to the outside table to join ev’ryone. We sat, took a few pictures and then some went to bed.
I joined D’A and some of the others who just weren’t ready to go to bed yet. We played pool, and in the list of the best features of this weekend, the house we rented had a pinball machine. A Terminator 2 pinball machine no less. So we drank more and played lots of pool. It was all basic shooting the shit, and just good times.
I likely missed any of the good stories of that day, including Ellie’s cell phone story, which I either can’t remember or didn’t get to hear.
I missed D’a trying to learn the Japanese word for taint, but I am not sure he remembers either.
But at the end of the night, it’s me and D’A standing over the upstairs toilet. The details are kind of hazy why the following conversation began, but here are the highlights.
Me: the toilet is broken, the seal isn’t closing as it should.
D’A: It’s not flushing. It’s broken.
Me: I agree with you that it is broken.
D’a: it’s not flushing because of this.
Me: No it’s not flushing because of this.
5 minutes later, out hands and as deep as they can be in the reservoir.
Me: Look the chain to the flush handle isn’t connecting.
D’a: It’s not working.
Me: I know.
D’a: we need to fix this by reworking this.
Me: no we need to do this.
Five minutes later, when I can hear people stirring.
D’a: What needs to happen is the water has to drain and we have to do this.
Me: you are wrong, but for the right reasons.
When does a dry conversation become comedy gold? When both of you are so shitfaced that working logic cedes to proving a point. Normally it’s an argument. This was about two of us logically trying to analyze with all of our prowess to fix a toilet that, in the end needed a new chain.
My favorite part was: I agree with you that this is broken.
Instead of arguing, we were in a drunken mood where we had both pretended to be scientists trying to solve the mystery of cold fusion.
Ultimately, drunken sensibility led us for more drinks, but sadly and hilariously took 15 minutes.
So I went downstairs to the bunk beds. Honestly. Bunk beds. Every woman knows that being on the bottom sucks and every man knows the danger and difficulty of being on top.
I had to sleep on the GD couch. No blankets. I used jackets and pillows. This was terrible at the moment, but now I sit here and think, this is as close to high school I have been a long time.
The couch is awesome.
The next day had a slow take off, as everyone was still a little hazy. Taking a long three hour trip and then going into a boozing fest doesn’t lie softly on the body. Namely on a couch or bunk bed.
The stroll out that morn was slow and for the first two hours all that happened was a viewing of Tom Hanks in Bachleor Party (I said it then, and I’ll say it now, if you ever want to see a film where Bugs Bunny is the lead, this is it) and lunch. They went on a hiking excursion, I decided to stay and take a sweet, sweet shower.
Right after the first night, the pecking order comes into sorts.
Depending on the group on the trip, people fall into one of the following categories.
Head of house: somehow builds this internal watch that chimes loud enough in their head that soon enough the dam burst and they direct the state of the trip.
Activity Leader: Shares the high perch with the HoH, but is just as likely to irritate them as they are to please them.
Examples of A and B:
HoH: It’s time for dinner everybody!
AL: All right everybody, that’s the last goal. We’ll pick up our game of ultimate later.
An hour later:
HoH: Well that was good cooking. Thanks for the vegetable medley Susan. Now if we all clean up, we can make some brown….
AL: WHO IS UP FOR SOME WATER POLO!!! Grab some of the dinner benches; we’ll use those for goals!
HoH: Wait!
AL: Bring the brownies outside. They’ll be good for halftime.
Rouge Wanderer: Passively goes from activity to activity. You never know where they will be. And you can’t seem to persuade them one way or the other. If they want to join, they will. If not, they will keep going. Kind of like a ghost, you know they are there, and they seem to be accounted for at all periods, but individuals will go hours without seeing them.
Lazy bastard: A cousin to the RW, but where he floats, this person just seems to stay in one place. They may be watching TV, and while you think this may be restricted to men, this also can happen to girls, you know, the ones who stay near the kitchen, not eating not saying much, just kind of hang-ing around, they always say “nah, I’m going to stay here,” even if that was prefaced by “there’s this guy giving out ferrari’s” or “Hey, wanna see a dead body.” Nothing gets them going.
Scared for Life Partner: Usually attached to an outsider, but this person never leaves the person they came with. They are attached at the hip. They don’t leave the person. Usually involves a Significant other or just started f’in role to the person. They are quiet, and if you ask them a question, they look to that person as if to ask if it’s all right to respond (note this is always answered with a head nod).
Drummer for their own beat: Just on another planet. Example:
You: We’re going to go on top of the roof, the Sorority next door is playing strip volleyball.
DFTOB: I’m going to dip myself in melted chocolate and sing to the elderly.
I have only once been a DFTOB.
During my Sophomore Summer of College, my friend will was doing a May-mester at Vanderbilt. (He failed African Art because he never went to class) We went down and had a legendary weekend, including a 6 hour game of three man that was protected from high by GOD HIMSELF. We were outside in a rainstorm and not a drop of water fell. Just when we would run low on booze, some one would bring us out a new case. By the end of the game, the three man hat had turned into a foil piece of armor complete with a sword and a shield.
I had my first introduction to coke. I was talking to this chick named… Leif (of all people who I would meet who have done cocaine, for their name to be similar to Leif Garret, well, I didn’t do it this time for this sole reason). She pulled me into the bathroom and did a line. Just high comedy.
This even lead to one of the better fights my friends have ever had, when Mikey and Brad found out that I saw a girl do coke, Will was nonchalant. They then asked if he had ever done it. He shrugged of the question. They lectured him about how dumb it was, and he denied anything. Suddenly, he sniffled, and they went nuts, yelling “TELL ME NOW!!! ARE YOU ON COKE. Golden.
Anyway, my DFTOB moment came when Brad and Will were playing a team of local-area models (both close to six feet) who we were calling the two-towers and team-too-tall (that one was mine). I had crashed for a bit, and when I woke up I grabbed the last steak off the grill and then starting eating it bare handed. I then walked into the house and was yelled at for interfering with the game (mainly by yelling TEAM TOO TALL IS TOO TALL TO GET IT DONE).
After being brushed away, I was inspired to sing a song that I just created, to the title of David is great.
It goes something like this:
OH, David is great
David is great.
David is great,
Dav-id, isssssss greeaaat.
Some will love,
Some will hate.
Others will agree
That DAVID IS GREAT!!!
Mind you I’m singing this with a 18 oz t-bone in my mouth.
The last one is
Booze Agenda Billy (or Billie for the birds): If I have to lay this one out for you, you need to turn 17.
Anyway, so this party broke down into only four stereotypes.
The girls became the HoH’s. (Yeah, I know that’s really funny)
D’A was activity leader (of sorts)
And most everyone else was a BAB. We were here to cut loose.
The lone exception was Greg, who fell into Rouge Wanderer. When it came time for cleanup, I got a text message from a friend about the Pacers game. It was in the final moments and I put it on. I tried to watch as much as I could, but I knew that I still had to clean up. But Greg had the RW mode in full effect. No body even approached him. Mind you this is the guy who plays poker for a living. End result, you just can’t intimidate this guy. People would come up to him waiting to ask him for something, but even before they got there, as if he sensed their vulnerability, would look at them and stare them down. Nobody even approached him. While I am sure he helped clean up, I must remind you of the rouge wander characteristics, you know they are there, but they are a ghost, always in a different place then when you left them last.
We did have Daniel’s friend who was first ballot Scared for Life Partner, but she left with him after night one, so that’s right out.
Anyway, as two-ish we went out to an ol’ rockin’ chair on the adjoining property. Actually it was just Brian, D’A and Me, and a well where we threw the emptied Coo Li, but this turned into a three hour story fest to rank with the best I have had.
So we pulled out some yarns from the spool and we got to it.
We started by going over the tales of yesterday. All this basically amounted to was us retelling the D’A stories where he took off low, and then crash landed the tale with lines like “she had AIDS” and “none of them… well none of them died, but some of them have died since.” I am not sure those don’t read as moments where you just have to be there, but I hope they don’t. I’ll be telling those til I die.
So I started telling another story which I thought was relevant to the moment, (and if you don’t think I am digressing, than you don’t know this man).
Anyway, Freshman summer of College, we all went up to my friend Andrew’s house in Leland Michigan. Just a beautiful place. This was my second time up there.
Mind you Andrew got married at 22. He immediately took on the HoH role, and became a nigh tyrant about it. A lot of the same cast of characters that were in my Chemistry class (well just Brad, Me, Josh, and Brian) were there, and lord would only expect us to defy any thought of authority.
There were three big highlights.
On the final night, everyone had gone to bed save Brian, Steve, and me. Somehow we got launched on a topic of what we would do if civilization failed. Water goes out, power goes out and everything that is keeping us civilized (including conscience of mortality) as breached and we become animals. This lasted until 6 am, with the collective agreement being it would be kill or be killed, taking over an RV, and heading to a house in a remote area with plenty of wildlife and a lake nearby for water and fish. This was ended by Andrew’s father coming down and telling us we have to go to bed. To which Steve asks: You didn’t happen to hear… anything about… what we were just saying???
After more than a few instances of us leaving the canoe on the dock instead of putting up in it’s lodging, Andrew was very angry about our collective laziness. This was becoming the site of the final battle that was brewing. The canoe had to be put in the dock, or he wasn’t going to serve us dinner. So we started playing badminton, and the shuttlecock became lodged in the pines. We knew the game was over. So we decided to go canoeing. When we returned, we came on a perfect reason to leave the canoe on the dock.
An hour later, we are all sitting on the patio, and Andrew comes up, guns ready at the side.
He asks, calmly: Why is the canoe on the dock.
Josh: To get the shuttlecock out of the tree.
Andrew: The shuttlecock is out of the tree.
Brian: Well I guess the canoe did it’s job.
Lastly, and brining us back to the point, I began telling the tale when me and Brad were driving home and we had to remember the address to his house. It was 3606. So Brad and I kept singing this over and over, starting from a barbershop rendition to the final incantation a la metal, THHHHIIIIRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYY SIIIIIIIIIXXXXXX OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SEEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEIIIIIIIXXXXXXXXX.
We got so bad at the end Andrew nearly had an aneurysm. Brad later made this worse when he found the Leland Yacht clubs handbook, and then proceeded to sing the theme song. Andrew once again threatened to take away dinner. Other’s were begging him to stop, I of course kept egging him on.
Dinner was 30 minutes late.
I bring these up because I was telling these three tales, alone with a few choice others, when D’A heard the last bit and started singing a little ditty of mine and his we came up with the day before.
(note I cannot post the actually numbers we were singing as they represent the SSN of Brian)
Me and D’A got no response from Brian, even though we thought he would say something,
DEAD SILENCE.
We kept singing his SSN, and nothing. Only then did we look at him and ask, “are you pissed?”
Long story short, he didn’t even recognize his SSN. This made an interlude of the day before a little bit better, as on the ride up, D’A and I sang his SSN for a good three minutes before falling silent out of fear, as if we had crossed a boundary. I was genuinely scared. Clearly memorizing one of your best friends SSN is tantamount to treason, but to be given the cold shoulder is terrifying. I thought that he was genuinely pissed.
Turns out he blocked out our incoherent ramblings and focused on other things. Going from feeling like a complete asshole to a guy who is singing the most important set of numbers assigned to man without the guy realizing it is the feeling of going from a 690 on the SAT’s to a 1560. It was their fault. And they didn’t even know.
To be fair, it wasn’t as good of a song as 3606.
But from that note, we’re off to part three.
So I woke up around 1 am or so. Being on GY time is the essence of an altered state. You are awake when everyone is asleep, you still get to enjoy the morning, (the working man’s best part of the day) and the dusk to dawn hours (the drinking, drugging, and sociopath’s favorite part of the day). Consequently, I miss the family man’s favorite part of the day. More Kelly Ripa and The Price Is Right; less American Idol and Adult Swim.
Unless you are on a coke binge, talking to your father and saying I have to get to bed, it’s 2 pm here is enough to make a housewife… searching for adjective… Desperate. Not that I know anything about being a woman.
Anyway so wake up came, and after the first couple of minutes where I was trying to figure out where I was, I went out to the outside table to join ev’ryone. We sat, took a few pictures and then some went to bed.
I joined D’A and some of the others who just weren’t ready to go to bed yet. We played pool, and in the list of the best features of this weekend, the house we rented had a pinball machine. A Terminator 2 pinball machine no less. So we drank more and played lots of pool. It was all basic shooting the shit, and just good times.
I likely missed any of the good stories of that day, including Ellie’s cell phone story, which I either can’t remember or didn’t get to hear.
I missed D’a trying to learn the Japanese word for taint, but I am not sure he remembers either.
But at the end of the night, it’s me and D’A standing over the upstairs toilet. The details are kind of hazy why the following conversation began, but here are the highlights.
Me: the toilet is broken, the seal isn’t closing as it should.
D’A: It’s not flushing. It’s broken.
Me: I agree with you that it is broken.
D’a: it’s not flushing because of this.
Me: No it’s not flushing because of this.
5 minutes later, out hands and as deep as they can be in the reservoir.
Me: Look the chain to the flush handle isn’t connecting.
D’a: It’s not working.
Me: I know.
D’a: we need to fix this by reworking this.
Me: no we need to do this.
Five minutes later, when I can hear people stirring.
D’a: What needs to happen is the water has to drain and we have to do this.
Me: you are wrong, but for the right reasons.
When does a dry conversation become comedy gold? When both of you are so shitfaced that working logic cedes to proving a point. Normally it’s an argument. This was about two of us logically trying to analyze with all of our prowess to fix a toilet that, in the end needed a new chain.
My favorite part was: I agree with you that this is broken.
Instead of arguing, we were in a drunken mood where we had both pretended to be scientists trying to solve the mystery of cold fusion.
Ultimately, drunken sensibility led us for more drinks, but sadly and hilariously took 15 minutes.
So I went downstairs to the bunk beds. Honestly. Bunk beds. Every woman knows that being on the bottom sucks and every man knows the danger and difficulty of being on top.
I had to sleep on the GD couch. No blankets. I used jackets and pillows. This was terrible at the moment, but now I sit here and think, this is as close to high school I have been a long time.
The couch is awesome.
The next day had a slow take off, as everyone was still a little hazy. Taking a long three hour trip and then going into a boozing fest doesn’t lie softly on the body. Namely on a couch or bunk bed.
The stroll out that morn was slow and for the first two hours all that happened was a viewing of Tom Hanks in Bachleor Party (I said it then, and I’ll say it now, if you ever want to see a film where Bugs Bunny is the lead, this is it) and lunch. They went on a hiking excursion, I decided to stay and take a sweet, sweet shower.
Right after the first night, the pecking order comes into sorts.
Depending on the group on the trip, people fall into one of the following categories.
Head of house: somehow builds this internal watch that chimes loud enough in their head that soon enough the dam burst and they direct the state of the trip.
Activity Leader: Shares the high perch with the HoH, but is just as likely to irritate them as they are to please them.
Examples of A and B:
HoH: It’s time for dinner everybody!
AL: All right everybody, that’s the last goal. We’ll pick up our game of ultimate later.
An hour later:
HoH: Well that was good cooking. Thanks for the vegetable medley Susan. Now if we all clean up, we can make some brown….
AL: WHO IS UP FOR SOME WATER POLO!!! Grab some of the dinner benches; we’ll use those for goals!
HoH: Wait!
AL: Bring the brownies outside. They’ll be good for halftime.
Rouge Wanderer: Passively goes from activity to activity. You never know where they will be. And you can’t seem to persuade them one way or the other. If they want to join, they will. If not, they will keep going. Kind of like a ghost, you know they are there, and they seem to be accounted for at all periods, but individuals will go hours without seeing them.
Lazy bastard: A cousin to the RW, but where he floats, this person just seems to stay in one place. They may be watching TV, and while you think this may be restricted to men, this also can happen to girls, you know, the ones who stay near the kitchen, not eating not saying much, just kind of hang-ing around, they always say “nah, I’m going to stay here,” even if that was prefaced by “there’s this guy giving out ferrari’s” or “Hey, wanna see a dead body.” Nothing gets them going.
Scared for Life Partner: Usually attached to an outsider, but this person never leaves the person they came with. They are attached at the hip. They don’t leave the person. Usually involves a Significant other or just started f’in role to the person. They are quiet, and if you ask them a question, they look to that person as if to ask if it’s all right to respond (note this is always answered with a head nod).
Drummer for their own beat: Just on another planet. Example:
You: We’re going to go on top of the roof, the Sorority next door is playing strip volleyball.
DFTOB: I’m going to dip myself in melted chocolate and sing to the elderly.
I have only once been a DFTOB.
During my Sophomore Summer of College, my friend will was doing a May-mester at Vanderbilt. (He failed African Art because he never went to class) We went down and had a legendary weekend, including a 6 hour game of three man that was protected from high by GOD HIMSELF. We were outside in a rainstorm and not a drop of water fell. Just when we would run low on booze, some one would bring us out a new case. By the end of the game, the three man hat had turned into a foil piece of armor complete with a sword and a shield.
I had my first introduction to coke. I was talking to this chick named… Leif (of all people who I would meet who have done cocaine, for their name to be similar to Leif Garret, well, I didn’t do it this time for this sole reason). She pulled me into the bathroom and did a line. Just high comedy.
This even lead to one of the better fights my friends have ever had, when Mikey and Brad found out that I saw a girl do coke, Will was nonchalant. They then asked if he had ever done it. He shrugged of the question. They lectured him about how dumb it was, and he denied anything. Suddenly, he sniffled, and they went nuts, yelling “TELL ME NOW!!! ARE YOU ON COKE. Golden.
Anyway, my DFTOB moment came when Brad and Will were playing a team of local-area models (both close to six feet) who we were calling the two-towers and team-too-tall (that one was mine). I had crashed for a bit, and when I woke up I grabbed the last steak off the grill and then starting eating it bare handed. I then walked into the house and was yelled at for interfering with the game (mainly by yelling TEAM TOO TALL IS TOO TALL TO GET IT DONE).
After being brushed away, I was inspired to sing a song that I just created, to the title of David is great.
It goes something like this:
OH, David is great
David is great.
David is great,
Dav-id, isssssss greeaaat.
Some will love,
Some will hate.
Others will agree
That DAVID IS GREAT!!!
Mind you I’m singing this with a 18 oz t-bone in my mouth.
The last one is
Booze Agenda Billy (or Billie for the birds): If I have to lay this one out for you, you need to turn 17.
Anyway, so this party broke down into only four stereotypes.
The girls became the HoH’s. (Yeah, I know that’s really funny)
D’A was activity leader (of sorts)
And most everyone else was a BAB. We were here to cut loose.
The lone exception was Greg, who fell into Rouge Wanderer. When it came time for cleanup, I got a text message from a friend about the Pacers game. It was in the final moments and I put it on. I tried to watch as much as I could, but I knew that I still had to clean up. But Greg had the RW mode in full effect. No body even approached him. Mind you this is the guy who plays poker for a living. End result, you just can’t intimidate this guy. People would come up to him waiting to ask him for something, but even before they got there, as if he sensed their vulnerability, would look at them and stare them down. Nobody even approached him. While I am sure he helped clean up, I must remind you of the rouge wander characteristics, you know they are there, but they are a ghost, always in a different place then when you left them last.
We did have Daniel’s friend who was first ballot Scared for Life Partner, but she left with him after night one, so that’s right out.
Anyway, as two-ish we went out to an ol’ rockin’ chair on the adjoining property. Actually it was just Brian, D’A and Me, and a well where we threw the emptied Coo Li, but this turned into a three hour story fest to rank with the best I have had.
So we pulled out some yarns from the spool and we got to it.
We started by going over the tales of yesterday. All this basically amounted to was us retelling the D’A stories where he took off low, and then crash landed the tale with lines like “she had AIDS” and “none of them… well none of them died, but some of them have died since.” I am not sure those don’t read as moments where you just have to be there, but I hope they don’t. I’ll be telling those til I die.
So I started telling another story which I thought was relevant to the moment, (and if you don’t think I am digressing, than you don’t know this man).
Anyway, Freshman summer of College, we all went up to my friend Andrew’s house in Leland Michigan. Just a beautiful place. This was my second time up there.
Mind you Andrew got married at 22. He immediately took on the HoH role, and became a nigh tyrant about it. A lot of the same cast of characters that were in my Chemistry class (well just Brad, Me, Josh, and Brian) were there, and lord would only expect us to defy any thought of authority.
There were three big highlights.
On the final night, everyone had gone to bed save Brian, Steve, and me. Somehow we got launched on a topic of what we would do if civilization failed. Water goes out, power goes out and everything that is keeping us civilized (including conscience of mortality) as breached and we become animals. This lasted until 6 am, with the collective agreement being it would be kill or be killed, taking over an RV, and heading to a house in a remote area with plenty of wildlife and a lake nearby for water and fish. This was ended by Andrew’s father coming down and telling us we have to go to bed. To which Steve asks: You didn’t happen to hear… anything about… what we were just saying???
After more than a few instances of us leaving the canoe on the dock instead of putting up in it’s lodging, Andrew was very angry about our collective laziness. This was becoming the site of the final battle that was brewing. The canoe had to be put in the dock, or he wasn’t going to serve us dinner. So we started playing badminton, and the shuttlecock became lodged in the pines. We knew the game was over. So we decided to go canoeing. When we returned, we came on a perfect reason to leave the canoe on the dock.
An hour later, we are all sitting on the patio, and Andrew comes up, guns ready at the side.
He asks, calmly: Why is the canoe on the dock.
Josh: To get the shuttlecock out of the tree.
Andrew: The shuttlecock is out of the tree.
Brian: Well I guess the canoe did it’s job.
Lastly, and brining us back to the point, I began telling the tale when me and Brad were driving home and we had to remember the address to his house. It was 3606. So Brad and I kept singing this over and over, starting from a barbershop rendition to the final incantation a la metal, THHHHIIIIRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYY SIIIIIIIIIXXXXXX OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SEEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEIIIIIIIXXXXXXXXX.
We got so bad at the end Andrew nearly had an aneurysm. Brad later made this worse when he found the Leland Yacht clubs handbook, and then proceeded to sing the theme song. Andrew once again threatened to take away dinner. Other’s were begging him to stop, I of course kept egging him on.
Dinner was 30 minutes late.
I bring these up because I was telling these three tales, alone with a few choice others, when D’A heard the last bit and started singing a little ditty of mine and his we came up with the day before.
(note I cannot post the actually numbers we were singing as they represent the SSN of Brian)
Me and D’A got no response from Brian, even though we thought he would say something,
DEAD SILENCE.
We kept singing his SSN, and nothing. Only then did we look at him and ask, “are you pissed?”
Long story short, he didn’t even recognize his SSN. This made an interlude of the day before a little bit better, as on the ride up, D’A and I sang his SSN for a good three minutes before falling silent out of fear, as if we had crossed a boundary. I was genuinely scared. Clearly memorizing one of your best friends SSN is tantamount to treason, but to be given the cold shoulder is terrifying. I thought that he was genuinely pissed.
Turns out he blocked out our incoherent ramblings and focused on other things. Going from feeling like a complete asshole to a guy who is singing the most important set of numbers assigned to man without the guy realizing it is the feeling of going from a 690 on the SAT’s to a 1560. It was their fault. And they didn’t even know.
To be fair, it wasn’t as good of a song as 3606.
But from that note, we’re off to part three.
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