Category: Uncategorized
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McNever Forget
The morning of September 11, 2001, I awoke excited. I was buying my new car that day, a ten-year-old Volvo, all black with leather seats and an aftermarket spoiler I couldn’t wait to remove.
I’d spent the previous months backing out on the concept of college after graduating high school because 18-year-old me placed an irrationally heavy emphasis (100% sexual) on having a car in college. Having totaled my Dad’s Volvo by exiting a freeway without the aid of an offramp (that’s paraphrased from the police report), my days consisted not of learning to smoke weed or appreciate the Dead in Santa Cruz, but two jobs: repairing golf clubs and stringing tennis rackets for chump change, and hustling golfers on courses and putting greens for significantly more. 8 months after becoming car-less, I’d made enough (half the actual amount, thanks to a loan from my parents and a tap-in birdie worth $760) to buy another.
I popped out of bed, too excited to shower. I flew out of my parents’ door and walked up 29th Street to my bus stop, ducking into my childhood McDonald’s because I had a few extra minutes as a result of not showering. I grabbed a #1 (Egg McMuffin, hash browns, OJ) and waited for the #7 on Pico. As I sat on a bench near 30th, a homeless man covered in excrement (or an extraordinarily done excrement-esque pattern) approached me. This wasn’t your typical Santa Monica homeless man, the “sleeping under a freeway, drunk or high at 9 AM on a Tuesday” variety– but more along the lines of the “tragically aware doomsday homeless man”; the only thing he lacked was an apocalyptic proclamation of my godlessness on sandwich boards.
“Gimme that Egg McMuffin and I’ll blow you mind!” he shouted, marching over.
And just like any other Tuesday morning (or Friday night, or Sunday afternoon), I dismissed him as if by instinct. “Look, if I give this excrement-covered hobo with a promise of blowing my mind my Egg McMuffin, I’ll have to give every excrement-covered hobo with a promise of blowing my mind an Egg McMuffin,” I thought to myself.
So, I didn’t. He stopped, turned, and stormed off in the other direction. “G’fuckyaself, man, they just blew up New York!” was all I could make out.
I didn’t make much of it at the time, sitting by myself on that bench, waiting for my bus, eating my breakfast. When my bus arrived, it wasn’t particularly full, nor was it particularly loud; certainly not tense, let alone somber or devastated. Mind you, this was 2001, “olden times” during which we still used our voices to call each other, dated people we’d initially met in person, read the news on actual paper. I finished my McMuffin on the bus, suddenly felt guilty about that excrement-covered homeless guy, and left my hash browns in the bag on my seat when I got off.
When I stepped into the shop, I had no idea I was entering one of the most common scenes across America that day: co-workers standing still as gravestones, hands glued to their backs of their necks like stock brokers in a recession still years away, necks craned upward to a developing loop of the most terrifying, ominous, awesome visuals I’d ever seen.
I’d end up buying the Volvo a week later than planned, but by then it had become a formality, not a coronation. Much like the rest of the country, I judged everyone a little more closely that day. Not on a racial or ethnic or socioeconomic basis, just anyone who came in to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on golf clubs and hit free balls into a net while lower Manhattan disintegrated.
Them, and excrement-covered hobos with a promise of blowing my mind.
If you don’t follow Mike on Twitter, the terrorists win.
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The Dos and Don’ts of America
A handy dandy list for living in the greatest country on Earth.
– DO marry a 16-year-old if you’re 50.
– DON’T marry a consenting adult of your same gender.– DO separate church and state.
– DON’T actually separate church and state.– DO drink alcohol and throw a table through the window.
– DON’T smoke marijuana and sit at home laughing at the wall.– DO share your teen pregnancy on national television.
– DON’T provide children with proper sex education.– DO vote.
– DON’T worry, it doesn’t always count.– DO buy food from a Walmart Supercenter.
– DON’T ask what’s in it or where it came from.– DO cut social programs that help struggling families.
– DON’T tax the wealthy! They’ve got more boats to buy.– DO hire foreigners for a low wage then kick them out for being aliens.
– DON’T allow foreigners to legally immigrate to our country and pay taxes.– DO bring your machine gun to the mall!
– DON’T discuss gun control in the White House; it’s not the right day, OK? -
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Come True
Ladies, and some exceptional gentleman, I recently fulfilled a childhood dream. Are you sitting down?
I picked wild flowers, fashioned them into a crown and frolicked in the countryside on a midsummer’s day; exactly like a storybook princess.
Now that you’ve stopped weeping gleefully, here’s what happened.
Once upon a time, I studied abroad for 10 months in Uppsala, Sweden, where I learned many life-lessons and came away with some very solid friends. This summer, my friend Katie, whom I met there, and I re-visited those lessons and friends, and my heart exploded all over the place. I cried when we landed, I cried when we left, but the highlight of our two-week stay was Midsummer.
Midsummer is the celebration of summer solstice, the second most-observed holiday in Scandinavia behind Christmas, which exists to appreciate the minimal months of warmth and sunshine.
On our third day in Sweden my two dearest Swedish friends, Tobes and Po, took us to a brick-red farmhouse surrounded by lush greenery and colorful blooms. Behind the house was a clothesline, because of course there was, and a herd of sheep grazed in the shade. Coolers filled with ice and beer sat on the front stoop where about 80 guys named Daniel and two sisters named Anette and Ann-Sofie welcomed us with open arms — literally. Hugs all around.
Before we knew it, we were at a park with beers in-hand standing before the midsummer maypole, which is essentially a giant staff covered in foliage, topped by a huge triangle with two wreaths dangling from the bottom corners. Children and seniors dressed in old-timey Swedish get-ups danced around the big, green phallus to the heaves of an accordion. People frolicked through the park wearing crowns made of flowers and I never wanted for anything so badly in my life.
My desire turned into quite a shameful American moment when I actually scoured the park for someone selling ready-made crowns. They’d make a killing off those things, so of course they’d have them for what? 150 kronor? But they weren’t for sale, and do you know why? People actually made the effort to pick flowers in the sunshine with their families, probably while holding hands, without entrepreneurial motives. Imagine that! Feeling like an asshole, I took a swig off my 7.5% tall boy and accepted my childhood wish would not come true.
Back at the red farmhouse, Anette handed Katie and I clear cups filled with assorted berries and vodka, and led us out to the country road lined by vast, green fields dotted with flowers. Does this mean what I think it means? Are we going to pick flowers in the countryside beneath the sun that never sets, to then be worn in our hair? Can everyone see the cardiovascular tissue being forced through my ribs from the overflow of happiness in my heart? It doesn’t hurt at all! Is this what dying feels like? I hope so!
The ladies set out into the fields while the Daniels and the other men readied the table to dine al fresco on pickled herring, or sill in Swedish. Katie and I skipped down the road like champions and the Swedish girls definitely thought we were idiots, but to be fair, we were. Flower picking to them is like finding syringes in the sandbox for us — no big deal. We collected blossoms with names like “priests collar” and “bitch tooth,” and were eaten alive by mosquitoes. “Check for tics!” the sisters reminded us. My cheeks ached from smiling.
Once we collected our flowers, we made our way back to the house and found the table covered in jars of sill, bottles of snaps (not to be confused with schnapps), a large pot of boiled potatoes and assorted condiments, so we placed our bushels on the grass and took our seats. As charcoal grills cooked steaks and slabs of Halloumi cheese, we sang songs and shot snaps chased by forkfuls of potatoes and sill. Taking snaps is like pouring Drano down your throat for shits and giggles, and not just figuratively.
Several rounds of songs and snaps and we were ready to make our crowns. Ann-Sofie materialized with a handful of birch branches to use as a base. Everyone knows birch branches are flexible enough to wrap around your skull, right? Totally.
As focused as we all could be after six hours of drinking, we wound white string tightly around our fistfuls of nature, then tried them on our heads. Once we found the right fit, we snipped off loose branches and helped each other fasten them with knots. My dream had come true. The swallows and fawns would appear any second to join me in a song I’d made up on the spot. My voice would sound as delicate as a butterfly’s wings and as sweet as the sap that drips from an enchanted willow tree.
I felt like this:
But probably looked more like this:
Regardless of how I appeared, it was some of the greatest fun I’d ever had. While sporting our floral hats, we stuffed delicious meat in our mouths, sang more songs and broke into teams to play music trivia — Swedes really know their music. Later on we danced beneath the dusky sky to European club music, then crammed into a sauna in our bathing suits. I tried to stick out the suffocation, but left for fear of dying. Next thing I know everyone’s inside the house, waiting to play their favorite song on Spotify and I’m having a drunken heart to heart with Tobes.
The following morning I awoke to a room packed with snoring Swedes and a violent urge to vomit. I spent a good two hours eroding the walls of my esophagus, then discovered that my magical crown of daisies had turned into a bundle of shriveled petals and twigs. The spell was broken, but as any princess would advise her forest friends, all good things must come to an end. Skål!
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American Nature: A Series About Your Mother
What would life be without trees? Bleak, sweltering, and full of carbon dioxide … for three. While we all enjoy ourselves a good tree once in a while, how much do we really know about them? Director Logan Leistikow reveals the true magnificence of The Giant Forest in Trees, the first installment of his new series, American Nature, now playing on Funny or Die.
“Life would definitely suck without trees,” Logan says.
No stranger to the indie production scene, Logan shot and directed the award-winning documentary The Comedy Garage and is currently producing its follow up, The Comedy Garage [Deluxe Edition]. Then there’s Space Rock – a story about the first moon landing, which includes real NASA footage and is scheduled to release this July.
Now that he’s thoroughly stalked struggling comedians and astronauts, Logan’s latest venture investigates his long-standing love affair with his mother, my mother and your mother — Mother Nature.
Logan’s special relationship with nature began at an early age by the influence of, “a lot of old white guys in Native American headdresses.”
“I was in Indian Guides, which was sort of similar [to Boy Scouts.],” he says. “We earned beads and feathers instead of badges and were taught the way of the natives.
“We didn’t learn useful skills oddly enough,” he continues. “Except fire safety, I guess.”
Fire safety, in fact, is one of many subjects covered in Trees. Find out why the Sequoias of The Giant Forest “like it hot,” and a slew of other earthly tidbits you probably learned at summer camp, but have definitely forgotten.
“I’ve always wanted to direct a nature documentary,” Logan says. “Although when I was a kid, I thought more along the lines of great white sharks or lions chasing gazelles.”
Leave the slow motion, HD shots of cheetahs to The Discovery Channel;
American Nature captures the simple yet beautiful wonders that may go unnoticed by busybodies like you and me.“Everyone can always stand to learn a little more,” Logan adds. “And I think most people find nature intrinsically fascinating.”
That they do, Logan, and if they don’t – what is wrong with them?
Check out Trees today! And, gear up for more mind-blowing Earth knowledge every month on Funny or Die. What’s next on American Nature? Buffalo and Volcanoes.
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15 Ways to Celebrate President’s Day
1. Grow a beard, wear a Lincoln hat.
2. Paint your house white and give tours.
3. Challenge someone to a duel.
4. Avoid all theaters, railroad stations, fairgrounds and Texas.
5. Wear wooden dentures and answer only to George.
6. Point at England on a globe and laugh.
7. Point at China on a globe and bend over.
8. Get aides.
9. Finally get around to building that fence between you and your Mexican neighbors.
10. Read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to your children and replace the word “Narnia” with “Canada.”
11. Tell everyone you’re a Christian.
12. Have a penis.
13. If you can’t get yourself a penis, go out in public with a stain on your skirt.
14. Play the saxophone, mispronounce simple words and/or sing to appear approachable.
15. Make stimulus packages for your friends: Fill a disposable bag with the economy, money you don’t have and hope. Then, seal the bag, shake vigorously and watch nothing happen at all. -
Be Our Thursday’s Valentine
The authors wanted to surprise you Valentine.
They got you something Valentine.
They all chipped in.
A bouquet of dirty, cynical, sometimes sappy haiku.
For you, Valentine.
A hot and dirty Valentine’s day haiku:
You are my coffee:
hot, cheap, and I like you best
all over my crotch.
A moderately suggestive Valentine’s day haiku:
Mountains look just like
Giants sleeping and snoring.
Dreaming of beanstalks.
A longing Valentine’s day haiku:
Young girl with hair dye,
Underneath a starbuck’s hat:
You only live once.
A gift, an order, a vagina monologue:
Wrapped in a pink bow,
filled with a tasty cordial.
Eat my heart shaped box.
A haiku encouraging shared-festering-joyful-love-sores:
Wear a red blouse.
Kiss a stranger on the mouth.
Spread V-day disease.
A subtle Valentine’s day haiku:
Windy valentine.
Make my leaves chime with your tongue.
By leaves, I mean cock.
Dear Valentine,
If we washed ashore
on “Fuck, Marry, Kill” Island,
we’d totally fuck.
A Valentine’s day proposal:
Today, let’s smoke pot,
Listen Mumford and Sons,
and fuck in the tub.
I love everything about you, valentine:
You like anyone?
Swear I won’t tell, cross my heart.
Kim? I heard she stuffs.
This Valentine’s day, create a garden for your love:
Since you go downtown,
I cleaned things up a wee bit.
Gentrification!
The more adventurous, consider:
For this special day,
I have bleached my ass hole clean.
So you may tongue it.
Remember your sweetie this Valentine’s day:
I only kissed you
because I was blackout drunk.
You smelled like garbage.
Alone? Remember:
V Day is made for
Needy bookworm women and
Sappy high school kids.
The honest truth:
I wrote this poem
so you’d think I’m really sweet.
Not so you’d fuck me.
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10 Things About Praying Mantises
Insects make many of us want to light ourselves on fire, and understandably so. Spiders (technically not insects but just go with it) are nightmares on eight legs that climb into your mouth while you sleep, and cockroaches are bullets of septic waste. June bugs float in your iced tea in the summer and moths molest your genitals. The jury is still out on bees, but only because their vomit is delicious. Butterflies are morons.
But there’s one bug that’s totally bitchin’: The praying mantis. At first glance they appear as pious pocket Martians with their green, triangular heads and grace-giving hands. However, they’re so much more.
1. You and I are more alien than these little dudes. They’ve been on Earth for .3 million years, which means their abuelos hung out with stegosauruses.
2. They have one designated ear located between their legs for the sole purpose of detecting bats. Just like Chaka Khan.
3. Praying hands? More like, preying hands! Their endearing green limbs are actually sharp, thorny claws for crushing unsuspecting lunch meat like wasps, tarantulas, small birds and your teacup poodle.
4. Males can mount females for 24 hours! But don’t go trolling for mantises yet, Ladies and Gents. It’s only because …
5. De-mounting results in post-coital cannibalism. “Oh yeah! Don’t stop!”
6. They’re out to kill Aladdin.
7. They can see up to 50 feet away with their sets of five eyes.
8. They win Oscars!
9. Their heads can rotate 180 degrees.10. They ask themselves, “what if?”
So before you run away in terror or point a can of Aqua Net at a mantis in your vicinity, take a moment to remember that really, they’re not so different from you or me or Tilda Swinton. -
That Song From That Commercial!
You know that song from that commercial where you think the woman is going dancing or to dinner theater because she talks about needing nylons, but instead she climbs a treacherous orange rock and looks out onto the vast landscape of Utah? Or Arizona? Either way, I found it!It’s called Into the Wild by LP and you can trade it for your email address and zip code here.
Here it is on YouTube: LP – Into the Wild
Anyway, why does Brian hates dogs so much?
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Shroomin’ at My Reunion
It’s Saturday night, and my best friend and I kick things off by smoking a bowl in his parents’ backyard– because since high school, on through college and into adulthood, that’s how most good nights start. (And bad nights, and mediocre nights, and nights when I wake up at 4 the following morning on the couch with the TV blaring and cake in my mouth.)
The only preparation I’ve made for my 10-year high school reunion is buying a pair of skinny Seven jeans (earlier this afternoon). I’m not successful, I’m not feeling particularly sociable or witty, I’m just gonna look the part. If I get laid tonight, better believe it’s gonna be for all the wrong reasons.
Actually, denim isn’t my only preparation. I’ve also armed myself with a fresh pack of smokes, gum, and a condom hidden in my blazer pocket. Because you never know, especially when you’re me. I usually don’t even know after the fact.
Then there are my buddy’s chocolates. And by “chocolates,” I actually mean “mushroom chocolates,” but that’s just too many syllables. And less catchy. So, there are chocolates.
Having agreed that arriving at our reunion stone sober is a bad idea, we meet up with a half dozen girls from our class at a bar on Main Street; four of whom I’ve spoken a collective dozen words (if that) in all of high school, one I’ve already told my buddy I’m planning on sleeping with, and one who, understatedly put, has blossomed. Holy shit. How–and WHEN–did she get that ass?
Since I’m already baked, not successful, and not feeling particularly sociable, I nurse a $10 beer for a half hour and stick to my game plan: innocent chit chat with my target, a few “you work in entertainment too?!” moments with the duckling-turned-swan, keep my career word total below 20 with the other four. No offense, ladies–I’m already planning on taking this one home, and–look at her, she just can’t stop kissing my cheek! What, do I have some peanut butter on there or something?
Before I can verbally cockblock myself, we’re back in the car and headed to the Moose Lodge. Have I mentioned our reunion is at the FUCKING MOOSE LODGE?! We park, spark another bowl for good measure, and take our first crescent moon-shaped bite of chocolate. (Final reminder: mushroom chocolate.)
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Walking around the corner of the building, we realize it’s only been 45 minutes since the doors opened. We have zero desire to be the first ones in, let alone in the first third. Thankfully, a small crowd’s already smoking outside. Oh yeah, we can do this now! No detentions for smoking ciggies! We’re greeted with handshakes and fist bumps from a few immediately recognizable faces: the druggie skater donning the same baggy sweater and cargo pants I last saw him in ten years ago, the half-black dude with the perfect smile who’s legitimately cool enough to pull off the leather jacket/tie/baseball cap trifecta, and the ambiguously ethnic loudmouth with a waxed chest and two too many shirt buttons undone. The latter can’t stop talking about how he’s got five bottles of Dom and Veuve Clicquot waiting inside. See? Told you there’d be bottle service at the Moose Lodge.
Before we can finish our first cigarette, one of our classmates pulls up in a shiny black Maserati. No valet, homie– it’s the fucking Moose Lodge, not Mastro’s. He scrapes the bottom of his car violently pulling into the parking lot, eliciting a hearty cackle of “Ohhhh”s from the whole smoking section, as if he’d been caught passing notes in geometry. Perhaps this won’t be so bad, after all.
– – –
We suck it up and head in– down a narrow, dusty hallway with Warren G’s ‘Regulate’ blasting on the other end. After filling out the obligatory name tags and receiving three drink tickets apiece (my heart sinks at this reality; no open bar?), we proceed through a curtain of cheap streamers and it hits me– I’m standing in a transplanted cafeteria of the last group I actually referred to as “my peers.” (Well, if anyone had actually hung out our school’s cafeteria, that is.) I deserve a hemorrhoid for making the reference, but there’s no better way to put it: this is straight out of Napoleon Dynamite.
No one’s dancing, and the only people sitting at tables are the plus-ones: husbands, wives, dates. Remember the kids’ table at Thanksgiving? It’s like that, without all the enjoyment of being a kid. Instead of chasing the family dog with a turkey leg in his mouth and tracing crayon outlines of your hand, you sit with the other misfits and watch your significant others being eye raped by their entire graduating class. If you’re lucky, she’ll turn around once every few minutes and blow you a kiss– but it’s gonna be a long night. There are many things in life I’ve never wanted to be: a meter maid, an amputee, and now a plus-one at a reunion.
My buddy taps on my shoulder. “We’re about to get drunk in a real life Facebook group.” He couldn’t be more on. Facebook has changed everything. Even if I haven’t seen you in person over the last decade, I do know what you look like, I do know that you got married to a disproportionately hot girl, and I do know that you ate lunch at Bay Cities yesterday. All I can think is “I’ve defriended so many people in this room!”
First up, the girl who couldn’t have been more than a few months away from becoming my stepsister. Her mom was my dad’s first girlfriend after my parents split, and her family moved to Santa Monica to be closer and make things work. They didn’t. I would’ve hit it back then. Not much has changed.
There’s the cheerleader I ended up going to college with, who complained after I didn’t take advantage of her the one time we hung out and killed three bottles of Charles Shaw. She’s a single mom now. Savor small victories.
There’s the kid who paid me $500 to do a semester’s worth of world history homework in tenth grade. (I loved history, it was a labor of love. Not to mention the fact that I was only copying mine verbatim.) He’s some sort of financial consultant in DC. You don’t say.
The worst thing about reunions? The moment you see someone you’re genuinely excited to catch up with from across the room, you’re charged with navigating a sea of familiar faces and handshakes just to get to them… and that’s assuming they don’t move on their own. Thankfully, my buddy’s got a reasonable size advantage on this portion of the crowd, so I call an audible and follow him through the crowd like a running back behind his trusty lineman.
And there she is, the closest thing I had to a long-term crush in high school, pint-sized and barely looking a day over 19. (We also met in world history; naturally, I did her homework for free.) We’d actually grown close after college when we both found ourselves back in Los Angeles, but nothing ever became of it, as I’d convinced myself my salary was less than half her prerequisite. She tells me she’s just broken up with her boyfriend in New York, and for the first time all night, I realize I should’ve driven my own car. But since I didn’t– to the bar!
Disappointed in my lack of foresight, I finally make it to the watering hole, wrestling for standing space next to an unidentifiable cue ball who looks better suited to be on the other side serving me. Before I can order, he’s on my shoulder: “What we drinkin’, son?!” Boy, this may get awkward when I can’t remember who you are. There’s a reason people write both their first AND last names on their tags, you know. When he offers up his name with a handshake and a double whiskey rocks, it all comes back. When he tells me he’s “livin’ the dream, producing porn in Texas and ridin’ a redhead with double-D’s,” I’m reminded why I didn’t have much of a reason to talk to him in high school, and tonight is no different. Thanks for the whiskey, though.
– – –
A handful of smokes, shots and Nate Dogg tracks later, we’re liberally slapping fixings on tacos by the food table with our good friend’s ex-girlfriend– the one we haven’t had much (if any) contact with since they broke up after 8 years together– since sophomore year. While he had the option to attend tonight, he declined. (Likely in that for the past few years, he’s found a different girlfriend who’ll likely be more than a girlfriend someday, and who’d want to deal with any of that nonsense?) I’ve bumped into her a few times already tonight, each time muttering something along the lines of “Thank God I’m high for this,” each time slightly less coherent than that which preceded it.
“You two smoking any more tonight?”
My boy and I lock eyes like we’re in a beer commercial; there’s understanding in our gaze.
“Blunt?”
God, yes. A friend with weed is a friend, indeed.
We step outside again. Ciggy, bite of chocolate, stare at the sidewalk for a hot minute.
“Anything yet?”
“Not really, to be honest.” You haven’t been accidentally feeding me just chocolate chocolate, have you? These jeans are so tight my balls are asleep, I don’t want excess calories unless they’re fucking me up.
“Alright, I thought I had an Optimo on me. We need papers.”
“No sweat, we’ll walk to the market right down the street.”
We walk down to the market right down the street. Closed. No biggie, we kill the last of the chocolate, hop in the car and drive to the nearest liquor store, back so fast we don’t even lose our parking spot.
I should mention I finally started losing my shit while waiting in line at the liquor store. I should also mention we were the only patrons in the liquor store. Must’ve been those lights on the ice cream freezer I couldn’t stop staring at. I should’ve gotten some ice cream. Ice cream sounds good right now.
In order to keep inconspicuous (and not have to share our drugs), the three of us stand a good 30 feet from the door and spark our blunt. Before it’s made a full rotation, two more have joined, but they’ve also contributed a joint. This has to be how the whole Occupy movement got started. While they’re moving in opposite directions around our mini-circle, I keep ending up with both the blunt and the joint at the same time. Plus, I’ve lit another ciggy, so I’m smoking like a goddamn factory at this point– a factory with a busted assembly line, sleeping employees and a faulty emergency system. My knees get wobbly and I can’t feel my right foot. Always a good sign.
– – –
Next thing I know, we’re back inside. I slink my way next to an absolute stunner who wouldn’t give me the time of day back in high school; from what I can gather in a matter of seconds, she’s a singer now, so she still won’t. Joke’s on her, I don’t even HAVE a sense of time right now! Plus, her older boyfriend blew a load in her eye junior year and everyone’s been joking about it ever since.
Remember the loudmouth with the waxed chest? He’s roving about with his merry gang of rich kids-turned-rich young adults, all of whom have an arm wrapped tightly around their dates’ waists. (Any tighter, and it might constitute rape.) As promised, champagne has been popped, so I’m grabbing at glasses like a toddler for treats. While gorgeous, these girls are virtually identical, one moment half-struggling to separate themselves from their captors’ steely claws, the next giving up and laughing at one at jokes I can’t even hear. I wonder if they’re all sisters, but I realize it’s likelier they all have the same employer. I wonder which one’s being paid the most for her company tonight. When did the Twilight Zone take a bath in hepatitis and hair gel?
After all that bubbly, I make a mad dash (read: determined stumble) to the bathroom and piss for a solid eight minutes, though looking back, the last seven were probably just me staring at patterns in floor tiles with my dick out.
Now I’m making small talk with the tall blonde I hooked up with in my little brother’s bed the summer after graduation, when my parents were out of town and I went all Risky Business on their house for the better part of a month. (It would’ve been my bed, but my room had been designated the VIP lap dance lounge by the strippers we’d hired and I couldn’t get past the bouncer standing guard at the top of the stairs.) She’s engaged now, to a 40-year-old with an Affliction t-shirt & receding hairline; he greets me with little more than an uninterested “Yeah.” In his defense, my input isn’t much richer, so I feign interest with a flat “CongratsI’mgonnagotothebarnow” and a limp handshake. Probably better than “I put those fingers on your fiancée’s cooch for fifteen seconds a decade before you, bro.”
I run into two of my old friends from elementary school all the way up until college, formerly scrawny little cousins who look nothing alike. One’s bursting out of his shirt in muscles I didn’t even know humans were supposed to grow, drunk as fuck and bouncing off everything (and everyone) in sight with his tongue wagging freely like a dog’s. Without a doubt the most forceful hug I get all night. I jokingly ask if he’s fighting UFC, and it turns out he’s actually fighting MMA. I think back to the time I gambled $64 away from him on a putting green after school; when his aunt showed up at my house to pick him and his cousin up, she’d made him pay. Probably wouldn’t go down that easily today. He suddenly grabs the back of my head, positioning my gaze squarely on the ass of the shortest girl in our graduating class, whom, as luck would have it, I’d also gone to college with. “How good does she look?!” I’d thought the same thing when she walked in in front of me earlier.
The second of the two cousins is slightly more proportionate, but comparably trashed. He’s finally growing a little facial hair. Turns out he lives down the street from my current apartment. He hypes the fact that despite the little sex we had in high school, tonight we’re surrounded by this “pussy buffet.” (Except for “the bitches with babies.”) He points out the duckling with the sleeper ass. Dude, I know!
– – –
As far as I’m concerned, the final hour or so didn’t happen.
I vaguely remember fielding a redundant barrage of questions on whether I still play golf, how I’ve been since my accident, and if I still remember any Latin. (When I can, awesome, nope!) Another old crush’s husband whom I’d only briefly met two weeks ago at a wedding told me he’s since fallen in love with my funny status updates. There may have been a slideshow. Pretty sure they didn’t hand out an award for funniest Twitter feed. Not that I’d prepared a 140-character speech or anything, who does that?
Seeing I’ve yet to hear any horror stories about how I poured a drink on my chemistry lab partner’s chest, my blazer didn’t require a trip to the dry cleaner the next day, and there’s no reason to believe I sexually harassed anyone with my iPhone, I can only assume I kept my shit together. (Reasonably.)
I do remember leaving. I got plenty close with my original target. Call it selective memory and maybe she was only holding me so tightly to prevent me from tumbling, but she kissed my cheek goodbye for what felt like 20 minutes on the way out and her name tag ended up on my lapel. Had I been of a better constitution at that point, I likely would’ve made a bold decision or two. Crap, I could’ve left this thing with a new reputation.
On the plus side, I’m visiting my best friend next weekend in San Francisco. Cheek kisser’s up there too.
I suppose the moral of the story is this: the best reunions require no specific date or anniversary– and much like this post, they never seem to end.
