Looking back – Chapter 15

Every now and then I remember something from my life that I feel the need to write about, put on the web and embarrass myself about in front of the world. This would be one of those times.

With Halloween right around the corner and we are decorating the offices some co-workers and I were discussing what to dress up as that goes with our theme. I don’t know if I have ADD or something but I started to laugh a little bit to myself. And if you read here you will see that sometimes I get the giggles at the wrong time.

Of course people wanted to know what I was laughing about and I told them that it just reminded me of something and that it wasn’t really related. Well these people work with me so they know I got stories, so I had to tell this one. Although it doesn’t relate to Halloween, Christmas actually, it does relate to dressing up.

Several years ago I lived in Virginia and I met and ran with a pretty crazy bunch, read about it HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE. This time was no different.

Let me set the scene for you, four guys (myself, Drew, Winters and Phil) who can’t get home for Christmas who decided to meet at Winters house in VERY rural Virginia. The reason we were not able to get to our home towns was mostly money. Since we had saved money but didn’t save enough, you have four young adult guys with a decent load of cash and nothing to do, so yeah we got pretty drunk. Now we are drunk and bored, not good, not good at all.

We decided that we would go spread some Christmas cheer to the other townspeople. But not without the proper attire, so we raided Winters moms closet. (Side note, Winters family is all in California, which is where his mom was at this time) I don’t recall exactly who had what on but between the four of us there was a rain hat like the Morton salt guy, someone else had on the rain coat, a big cotton bath robe, some wild hats and various other items. I do remember that I had on some sort of silky robe and a beret or something like that. Oh and Phil had on some sort of house shoes shaped like ducks. Big ass yellow rubber ducks.

So we all loaded into my car, MY CAR, MY DAMN CAR, and head off to a neighboring town. As we are rolling down one street Drew yells out “STOP!” Now I have no idea what for so I stopped pretty quickly. Genius boy hops out of the car and runs into someone’s front yard toward a string of lights which were adorning the top of a fence. About half way through the sprint, Drew does an about face and DIVES back in the car yelling, “GO GO GO!!!” So I stood on the gas to get out of there. We all asked as the same time, “what happened?!” He tells us that he wanted to see if it was true that if you pulled one light out the whole string would go out, so that’s why he hoped out but he said he heard a man say “Oh no you don’t!” followed by the sound of a pump shotgun cock.

Once we are safely away we all got a chuckle out of it and we are still riding through town. It would be just about the time that our blood pressure had gotten back to normal levels that we pass THE ONLY FUCKING SHERRIF CAR ON DUTY that night when one of the guys says it looked like it was on the CB and pointing at our car. We joked that he was saying, “Hey, there goes a (my color and make of car) right there”. Well I will be dammed if that isn’t what he was saying because he bird-dogged our asses so quick we had no idea what was going on. It had to look like someone was getting it on as we are shedding our incognito attire and cramming beers any and everywhere we could find. Just about the time that we pull off our “costumes” we hear the sheriff over his PA system say, “You two in the front seats, get out of the car” so Drew and I get out and they separate us and ask us what was going on.

I am with the sheriff and he doesn’t look real happy while Drew is with a deputy. The only thing that kept going through my mind was “don’t get a DUI on Christmas in this godforsaken town out in the middle of nowhere”. I am sure that the dueling banjos scene from “Deliverance” was playing too. The sheriff asked me what we were up to and I told him everything, hell I would have given him a reach around if I thought it would keep me from going to jail that night. So I tell my story and then they open the back doors of their car and tell us to get in, OH FUCK ME! So there we are in the back seat when the sheriff asks Drew what we were up to and he starts to lay on some BS about one of the guys in the back seat farted and how it was making him sick, which is why he jumped out of the car. In about a half second I had to decide if I was going to choke this asshole in the back seat of a sheriff’s car or if I was going to have to set the story straight. Fortunately, I chose the second one. The whole time making promises to God if he would keep me out of jail. So Drew and I are exchanging dirty looks while the sheriff and the deputy are taking down our information.

Shortly there after, they get out of the car and opened the doors to the back seat and told us to step out. After we got out they told us to stay there and the sheriff gets on the PA again and tells the two in the back seat to get out.

Now you would have thought that in the SEVERAL minutes that had passed while Drew and I were being questioned that the two jackasses in the backseat would have gotten their collective shit together, WRONG!

I am standing next to the sheriff by the drives door and Drew is standing next to the deputy on the passenger door of their cruiser. Winters and Phil get out of the car and Phil is still wearing the duck slippers. I look over and the cops have saucer eyes and raised eyebrows. It was at this time that I had an involuntary reaction, I blurted out, “OH FUCK ME!” I thought that I was home free and then dildo Phil, Phildo, is wearing the damn duck slippers still.

The sheriff motions them over and the six of us have a little pow-wow, where at one point the sheriff says, “It appears to me that you boys might have been doing a little drinking tonight” which Phildo follows up with, “no shit”. Thanks jack ass, I hope Bubba picks you to be his Christmas bitch while we are in jail. After a lecture in the freezing we had a conversation that went like this.

Sheriff – “Why don’t you boys go ahead and follow the sun out of town.”

Phildo – “But it is night time”

Me – “Shut the fuck up Phil!”

Phildo – “Well it is!”

Me – “PHIL, SHUT UP!”

Phildo – “But dude, it is dark out, see (pointing to the sky)”

Me – “Get in the fucking car. I will explain it to you later”

Sherrif – “Good idea”

So we walk off towards my car when Phil says, “Hey, I think we just got kicked out of this town!” which was followed by a collective “SHUT UP PHIL!”

I will have to save what happened on Christmas day until a little closer to Christmas.

Don’t get dead

Just some observations

I do not go shopping very often. Other than the fact that malls and department stores seem to cause people to loose all sense of rational thinking, I have no idea why I hate to go to them. But I do.

But a few days before Christmas I went to this little import boutique called Super Target (pronounced Tar'shay, I think it's French!). So we needed to pick up a couple of things, one of which was diapers. So I go to the Baby section of the store, where they had strollers, high-chairs, bottles, pacifiers, and so on. But no diapers. So I double check the area. There are bibs, baby lotion, bottle liners, and wash clothes. But yet again, no diapers. I finally find them, guess where. In the food section. Why in the hell are they there? So I get to thinking about it, I guess it makes sense. I mean babies will need them after you eat, convenient I guess.

Then I noticed something else that may be set up for our connivance, but funny regardless. The Lingerie section leads right into the baby section. Ironic don't you think? Pretty sure that some lingerie has lead to babies.

But why is everyone pissed off? I mean you are the slack-jawed, mouth-breathing idiots who wanted until the last minute to shop for the biggest gift giving holiday of the year. Not like they sprung it on you. Surprise! We decided to have Christmas on December 25th this year! It's always on the same day.

Oh and one other thing. In this politically correct world that we live in, we are supposed to say "Happy Holidays" and not "Merry Christmas" so that we don't offend anyone. But everything associated with the holiday season ramps up to and ends on December 25th. Hell, Hanukkah, which last for 8 days, started on December 5th this year. And Kwanzaa doesn't even start until December 26th. So why do we try to fool ourselves into believing that we (and by we I mean the media) are being universal and not playing any favorites? Just say Merry Christmas. If it offends someone, big deal, get over yourself. Someone was just trying to be nice to you.

Hell, even my old, "atheist" roommate in Virginia went to see his parents' house on Christmas. I asked him why he did it when he claims to be atheist. To which he replied "Hey man, I want free stuff too". Maybe the message is lost but we all celebrate it the same way.

The four year anniversary of my attempted homicide

Ok, so maybe the title is a bit of a stretch but I did almost die.

Let me give you a little back ground on me. I am stupid. Well, not really stupid, but I have a soft spot in my heart for senior animals, senior citizens, children and the handicapped. Since I have this soft spot, I tend to stretch myself a bit thin to help out when I can.

Four years ago around this time of year, I was asked if I wouldn't mind helping an animal rescue that I work with help raise some money. Of course I said that I would before I even heard what they wanted me to do. Yeah, talk about taking a rocket sled on rails to the top of your all time biggest mistakes list. They wanted me to play Santa Clause for photos of your pets with Santa at a pet store fund raiser. Told you that I am stupid.

So let's get it over with.

I know this is all for non-profit but someone please spend a couple of bucks and wash that damn suit. Or at least air it out or something.

So here is the situation, there I am in the suit and another volunteer with a camera. And that's pretty much it. Someone didn't put a lot of effort into coordinating it.

The first several minutes of this was no big deal at all. Not really much of anyone coming by, not even really many people in the store. Then the flood gates opened. But it was nothing great, except for this one yip-yap dog. I really don't know why people think that their pets like this sort of ordeal but they don't. This dog was FREAKED out and wanted to take refuge … in the beard, you know the one that I was wearing. So here is this little kicking ball of joy with very sharp claws trying to climb its way into my chest via a polyester beard. And it's not like you can smack it, its owner is right there. Oh, and the high pitch cutesy voice, they don't like that either.

That's not where I was almost killed. No, no, not at all. If when this slack jawed mouth breathing imbeciles with two rottweilers came in. Of course since these dogs are pretty much just pissed off eating machines, these smucks had to give them cutesy names, Tiny and Jingles. Are you effing kidding me? Does anyone really think that is still funny? So these dogs who have teeth all the way to their tails, who really don't want to be there, don't want to pose for a picture even more than they don't want to be there. So they get them near me and they are trying to go in different directions. It is at this point that the owners think it is a good idea to remove the leashes and just have me hold the dogs around the shoulder area, right where the fucking teeth are. Please god, don't let them think that I am a small child. So one of the monsters is sitting on my foot, at this point I could care less if this dog took a steaming dump on my brand new pair of Bruno Maglis. Just take the damn picture. Just before the picture is snapped one dog realizes that a stranger is holding it and lunges up to try to get into my lap. Yeah, sure, why not. So the other dog gets jealous and it wants to jump into my lap as well. Then they decide to get territorial. Snarls, growls, and teeth being shown while two rotties are in my lap. Well, Merry Mauled Christmas to me. While this is going on the owners think it's funny. "You better come get these damn dogs before I set them free". So the owners get the dogs and yell some commands in a foreign language to get them to settle down. They settle down, we get them fairly close to each other and then take a picture. "Next!" as in this is all you get, no do-overs. I usher the baby eaters off and motion for the next people to bring their dog over. Several dogs pass and this couple bring their Beagle in. Their FLATULANT Beagle I might add. Apparently this dog farts when it gets nervous. Well he must have thought he was going to be on the naughty list or something because there was methane gas flowing like it was going out of style. I get poopy puppy in my arms, we take the picture and I hold him for the owners to come get him. The wife apologies and thanks me when the husband says "Hey at least I didn't bring my python" it's your snake, get it cut into pieces if you want asshole. Of course I just smile and say "yeah".

But that's not even the worst of it. Some old, apparently senile, lady brought in her cats, as in plural. Remember the yip-yap dog mentioned earlier? These cats made that dog look like a godsend. You want to know what it is like to try to hold two cats in a Santa suit and trying to get them to look in the same direction at the same time? Picture trying to hold an octopus that has razors on each tentacle while high on speed. That is sort of close.

One cat is clinched onto my hand with its claws deep into my hand and wrist. The other lovely feline is burrowing into the beard at an accelerated manor. I believe this little fellow might not be enjoying this. So much so that I was about to turn it into some sort of abstract art.

There I am holding my left hand in the air at about a 45 degree angle with this cat digging into my hand and wrist looking like a living pompom, while trying to hold the other cat in my right hand as it is trying to find a way into my rib cage. Just before I release some very choice words, I look up at the line of people watching with this somber look on their face and I remember that this is all for charity.

Someone knock some sense into me before I volunteer for something like this again, please.