Americans like to do peculiar things in their backyards. Like build monorails. Or wrestle. A few years ago during a moment of drunken weakness I purchased The Best of Backyard Wrestling on video (It was not offered on DVD). It was late, Southern Comfort was wearing off and I wanted to see some rednecks body slamming each other onto stained mattresses covered with barbed wire and hitting one another in the head with metal trashcans. After having the tape in my possession for five months, I loaned it to my Pakistani friend (who at the time was applying for American citizenship) and have not seen it since.
Monday Night Tomfoolery
Last night, I drank $2 Coors products with my Fantasy Football compatriots at a local watering hole. Humorous events unfolded. Here are some highlights from the evening:
- I mention to Tyler, the David Blaine lover, that the British were planning a flash-mob event underneath his stunt over the Thames. I proclaim that Blaine is just a poor man’s Harry Houdini. Tyler proclaims, “Fuck you and the limeys,” and begins a staunch defense of the man he no doubt wants to experience sexual intercourse with. Just like every other Monday night, the entire table ridicules Tyler immediately after he opens his mouth.
- The bar has televisions displaying numerous sporting events. Last night, Monday Night Football, game four of the ALCS and WWE Raw were on simultaneously. At one point during WWE action, Stone Cold Steve Austin offers his wrestling rival’s old lady a beer. She refuses said beer. Stone Cold persists. She finally sips the beer and it disgusts her. Upset by the turn of events, Stone Cold grabs her by the nape of the neck and power bombs her tee-totaling ass to the canvas. A great lesson can be learned from this and that is if your bitch does not like beer, than you should power bomb her.
- Conversation turns to Denver Bronco running back Clinton Portis. Wife of CH cracks off a slew of comments about the man. He is an idiot. She saw him at a bar once and he ordered a glass of White Zinfandel. She delivers the big funny when she utters, “His goatee looks like a goddamn pussy on his face.” (Wife of CH is a master of random comments. She once said of identical twin NFL athletes Tiki and Ronde Barber: “Tiki is more attractive because he has caramel skin.” During a Monday Night game between Denver and St. Louis (and after drinking an excessive amount of wine) she called Kurt Warner’s wife, “A fucking dyke” and summed up the pathetic Denver Bronco defensive performance with the simple comment, “Bitches”).
The Labor Day Weekend That Was
Friday. I work until three in the afternoon until I notice that myself, Neal and Brandon seem to be the only people left in the office. I give myself the rest of the day off. At home, I order Chinese food, drain four Newcastles and paint the fucking walls. My sort of lady calls me on her way home from the final Bronco Pre-Season game. Talk gets serious.* We hang out anyway, agreeing to avoid relationship conversation for the evening.
Saturday. My sort of lady wakes up early because she has stuff to do. I leave her house and walk home and we agree to meet up later as I need her to help me purchase new bedding and towels. She is the shopping queen and I hate shopping (read: I am willing to pay $80 for a set of sheets at one store as opposed to shopping at many stores and finding the same sheets for $40.) I paint the fucking walls. In between painting the fucking walls, my sort of lady takes me to numerous linens and bedding stores. I purchase new linens and bedding. My sort of lady and I head downtown to meet friends for birthday drinks. We consume numerous whiskeys, vodka tonics and eat $9 steaks. The birthday girl informs us she wants to go to the Diamond Cabaret. We comply with her request where my sort of lady and I consume many beers and I smoke a $10 cigar that tastes like filthy assholes. We stuff dollar bills into stripper’s panties.
Sunday. My sort of lady wakes up early again. After she leaves and I spend twenty minutes staring out my bedroom window at the rain as I told the boys I play hockey with that I would meet them for practice at an outdoor rink at nine o’clock. I roll over and go back to bed. My brother-in-law picks me up and we proceed to our fantasy football draft. I have been competing in the same fantasy football league for ten years. Every year, we sit in the same basement, tell the same jokes, drink assorted Coors products and draft fourth string NFL players thinking we got a “sleeper.” I get home and paint the fucking walls half drunk.
Monday. I sleep in. I work out. I buy groceries. I eat a pork chop for dinner. My sort of lady and I rent a movie. Talk gets serious* again. We laugh at ourselves and go to bed.
* My sort of lady and I are currently “hanging out.” The relationship dynamic has progressed into something neither one of us expected. I like my sort of lady. My sort of lady likes me. I am interested in pursuing things further. Taking risks, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, is something I am willing to do. I figure it is best to try it and realize it does not work, then not try it at all. Relationship situations are like combat; you either get out of your foxhole alive and return home the conquering hero grateful for every day thereafter or you wind up getting shredded by machine gun bullets, laying on a field of battle with your intestines in your hands being comforted by a fat soldier named Murph telling him things like “I am so cold” and “I wanna go home now” before you die. Thankfully, my sort of lady does not use war analogies like me to describe her feelings.
The Weekend That Was
Friday. Work late to complete a corporate Flash presentation that nobody will pay attention to. After work, I play in a coed softball game where my team wins 26-4 and the opposing team’s third baseman catches a ground ball with her face and breaks her nose. Immediately following the game a torrential downpour ensues and I sprint to my car leaving my glove on the field. I roll to Tyler’s house and play College Football with the Slushy Gutter Crew. At one point in the evening Tyler pours me either a glass of bourbon, scotch, or whiskey. I drink it and proceed to kick his ass with Virginia Tech 30-14. On the way home I realize that I left my mitt on the softball field.
Saturday. I attend my company picnic and run the corporate Flash presentation I put in long hours over. Surprisingly, people pay attention, laugh and tell me good job. After the presentation the picnic continues at a nearby park with a luau theme and a pig roasting. I eat heaping platefuls of swine and mingle with coworkers. Jake, Gay Joe and I make fun of some pasty kid trying to play football. We call him “Mary” and giggle like the dickheads we are. Joe tells us about his homosexual encounters the previous evening. Hula dancers many years past their prime shake their asses for our amusement. I volunteer to dance with them, throwing my inhibitions into the wind like Kevin Bacon in Footloose. I perform a dance with pom-poms and hip gyrations. I win the grand prize in the company raffle (a $200 gift certificate to the Flagstaff House). After the picnic, I attend a lesbian wedding with Monica, Kaye, Aaron, Nels and Kerry. We quickly become the obnoxious drunk table at the reception. A plant is passed around and the recipient of said plant gives a toast. A diverse blend of people wishes the couple well including a militant lesbian with an attitude problem and a sexual predator with disheveled hair holding a kid that liked to hit people in the face. I share my toast with the happy couple, lifting my glass and saying, “Here’s to eating pussy.” They laugh hysterically. I love the lesbians and wish them the best. We roll to Monica’s crib for a nightcap. I discover Kaye does not like playing drinking games with me. Monica informs me she picked up my softball glove up after our game. This makes me happy.
Sunday. I wake up at noon with a screaming hangover. I pour a glass of water and take ibuprofen. I watch Panic Room on digital cable. I drink a glass of water. I make a trip to Home Depot to buy some sandpaper and steel wool. I drink a glass of water. I strip paint for four hours. I drink three glasses of water. My Mom calls and invites me to dinner. I drink a glass of water. I drive to my parents house and eat spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. We discuss home improvement. I go home to play a game of College Football. Colorado State beats Wyoming 21-3. Nels picks me up for our hockey game. I tally a hat trick and an assist. I drink seven glasses of water. Mark throws a shoe at Nels’s face. I come home and take a shower. I go to sleep. If anyone asks me what I did this weekend, I will say, “Nothing.”
HOW Conference New Orleans: Epilogue
It is my first day back in the office after the HOW Design Conference in New Orleans and I have over 100 emails to sift through. While I was gone, I missed a party at CH‘s house. This morning he shot me an email describing what went down:
Here’s a funny story from the party on Saturday.
Juck took on the role of class drunk as we were wrapping up the trivia game. I had a tiebreaker where people had to hula-hoop and do shots at the same time. After the two teams failed at it (neither were Juck’s team) he decided to try it, although he wasn’t supposed to or required to. He failed miserably, and as the rather small hoop consistently fell, he tried picking it up and jumping through it like performing dogs do. That failed too. No one was amused, rather, they were scared. I was convinced his weight of jumping on my wood floor was going to knock some art off the walls. Finally, tired of trying, he returned towards his seat. He appeared to trip over a Coors Light box another team was using as a trash can. Full on like Chevy Chase, he fell into our table that was covered with plates of snacks, beers, chips, dips, etc. He landed against the edge of the table breaking the fall with his forearms. All of the aforementioned food went flying everywhere, people’s beers spilled into their laps, and the dip onto our white rug. After that, everyone was cracking on him unmercifully. Keep in mind; this was the same Juck whose Pakistani roommate broke my coffee table at a party last year.
As the night wore on, he drank more. I found him on the back deck later in the night in a deep discussion with Spotty and a couple other guys about “If you could suck your own dick, would you?” Not surprisingly, he was very vulgar. Guys he had just met that night were very uncomfortable. He was also loud. Very loud. My new neighborhood has a lot of little kids (2-6 years old) in it. So I asked him to keep it down, and he yells at me, “Hey, it’s not my fault you moved to fucking suburbia!”