Wednesday, October 27, 2010

When Tradition Can Get You Arrested

Tradition is a huge part of society today. But it can also lead to trouble if the people around you are uptight pricks with no sense of humor. Those were the types of traditions my friends and I had. I spent a while in my early years of college playing rugby, so I had a pretty solid background in doing things just because the veterans and older players said so. It's pretty much hazing, but since we do it to the rookies every year, we can call it tradition. We weren't the only team doing these things either, so we were never singled out for any trouble. But when you've stripped naked in a crowded bar on the busiest night of the week in a huge college town and run around the bar taking shots at different points like a streaker relay race, you have a good sense of just how great and ridiculous traditions can be. My friends and I didn't have quite as many as the rugby team, but one in particular that we took down to the beach with us almost landed a few of us in prison.
It was a few days after Christmas, about the time that people who aren't slackers start taking down their decorations, and right about the time that the members of our group who had gone home for the holidays were starting to trickle back into the beach house for the last few weeks of freedom before school started back up. I chose to milk my vacation for every last second I could, so I stayed at the beach over the holidays along with Joe and Derek while Sean and Blake and the girls went home to see their families. Everyone ended up back together on December 30th, New Year's Eve.....eve. We threw ourselves a little get-together and all got hammered, as was customary for friday nights at the house. It was only after the majority of us were wasted that the topic of our tradition came up. The first part was already taken care of, which included getting hammered, driving around picking up discarded Christmas trees and bringing them back for a bonfire later. Imagine the sight of 5 guys piled into a pickup truck, hanging off the back and out the windows dragging no less than 3 trees down the middle of the road while the truck was swerving, trying to keep control. We usually did it in our own neighborhoods back home, so we knew we weren't gonna be in any trouble, but this wasn't our neighborhood. We did this around 1 or so in the morning, and a few people saw us and cheered us on. We finally got back to the house and dropped off our firewood and that's when the darker side of the traidition began. None of us remembers how it started, but sometime in the past few years, on one of the runs to grab the trees from the curb, one of us had grabbed a wreath, and then another grabbed a candy cane, until we had all grabbed a souvenir Christmas decoration from someone's front yard. This year started as soon as we made our next run. Joe leaned out of the passenger side to grab a light up candy cane, and to his surprise ended up with an entire thirty foot length of interconnected candy canes popping out of the ground on after another, dragging behind the truck until he had time to reel them in with his arms and shut the door. At a stop sign, Blake hopped out and grabbed a light up reindeer. Sean was driving, but still got a prize when he instructed Joe to grab another reindeer a few moments later. For his part, Lee hopped out of the back without us even noticing he was gone and took a plastic snowman from RIGHT NEXT to someone's front door. Not to be outdone, I took a plastic Santa and we tore off down the street with our new decorations.
After getting back to the house to compare our loot, everyone got the itch and decided on what our next run would bring. It looked like a bounty hunter's hit list. Joe wanted a wreath. Lee and Blake both wanted giant tree ornaments that they had seen earlier. Sean was freelancing, looking for a target of opportunity that would beat all other takes for the night. My prize was possibly the most ambitious, and also reserved my cabin in hell. I wanted a baby Jesus from a manger scene. We split up into two cars, Sean and I in one, and the rest in the other. We passed them only about a half mile down the street, two of the three bounties already found, but we kept going right past. Sean and I weren't satisfied with this pussy shit. We wanted to go bigger. We ended up driving around looking for our bounties for so long that the other car found what they'd wanted and headed back to the house to close out the night.
By the time we found the perfect house to collect BOTH of our rare prizes, it was late and we were so drunk anything was a good excuse to head back home for the night. We had decided we weren't going back home empty handed, and that proved to be our downfall. We should have been back at the house, asleep and safe, hours ago. The house was absolutely perfect except for one small problem: the resident. It belonged to a prominent politician (whom I will not name, of course) which meant 24/7 police presence in the driveway, and a twelve foot wrought iron fence surrounding the entire property. But aside from those two things, it had everything. Sean set his sights on a six foot inflatable light up bear that looked a lot like a CocaCola bear, and I saw a manger scene with an even better prize, a little black baby Jesus. Now Sean was used to free-running and climbing shit, apparently that's what they did all day every day growing up in California, and I wasn't in BAD shape, but neither one of us was in any condition to be climbing a fence, much less holding our bounties. But we were determined. We parked down the street and headed toward the darkest corner of the yard.
When we got to the fence, it looked even taller than it had when we'd driven by. The only way we were gonna get into the yard was to use the trees that were growing next to the fence. Sean first and then me; We climbed up the tree and hoisted ourselves over the fence and dropped into the shadows. Twelve feet might not seem like much, but when you've been drinking for a few hours, it is a hellacious distance to free fall and land awkwardly. It took me a minute of regaining my composure and massaging out my now possibly shattered ankle before I got my bearings and got back to the mission at hand.
We were just inside the fence, about 100 yards from Sean's bear. My manger scene was a little more than halfway between us and the bear, so we decided that would be our first stopping point. We kept our heads low and basically crawled to the manger. I snagged my baby Jesus and hid behind the scene while Sean crawled in the shadows to his bear. It looked like it was hollow and light, but it was also huge and obviously awkward to carry. Sean tried several times to get a good grip and lift it, all while keeping low and out of sight and not drawing attention from the cop sitting in his car just about 50 yards away from the bear. Eventually he decided the best choice was to just drag the bear and he got about halfway to where I was hiding when all hell broke loose.
I was crouched behind the manger with the baby Jesus in my arm like a football when I saw the spotlight from the cop car start to sweep across the yard. I immediately dropped flat on my belly as low to the ground as I could get behind the manger scene. The light passed over me without slowing down, and continued sweeping toward where Sean was dragging the bear. I whistled to Sean and when he turned and saw the light coming toward him he did the absolute worst thing possible, he froze. As soon as the spotlight landed on him, his senses came back to him and he took off like an olympic sprinter dragging an inflatable bear behind him the whole way. Figuring our cover had been blown, I popped up and took off toward the corner of the fence where we had climbed in. My baby Jesus was much easier to carry and I passed Sean just about 20 yards in front of the fence. I didn't bother to look back as I hurled the plastic baby over the fence and vaulted myself up onto it as far as I could get. It became instantly clear to me that we hadn't planned very well, and that the trees we'd used to get into the yard weren't reachable to use to get back out. I started scrambling up the fence and felt it shake as Sean slammed into it from a full sprint and began climbing next to me. He was almost at the top when I saw him wrench violently backward and fall off the fence. I looked back just as the cop grabbed my ankle and jerked me free of the iron bars and I fell. I hit the ground hard and the air was knocked out of my lungs. As I was gasping for breath and writhing on the ground trying to stretch my diaphragm back out so I could get some air into my lungs, I saw the cop put his knee into Sean's back and start to handcuff him. I thought about getting up and running away but the cop must have seen the look in my eyes and pulled his tazer and pointed it directly at me.
"Do not FUCKING move!" he yelled at me. Being tased once sucks, and I didn't want to find out if it felt the same the second time around. I rolled back onto my stomach and just as I felt my air coming back, a set of rough hands pulled my arms behind my back and I felt a plastic zip tie close around my wrists.
He sat us up, searched us and found nothing, took our IDs and found no warrants, and just as he began yelling at us and calling us stupid, a porch light of the house turned on, and a man came walking down the stairs toward us wearing a robe and house slippers.
"Well goddamn! I never seen you run so fast in your life, Murph!" he joked with the cop, who's name tag said Sergeant Murphy, "I'd have never guessed you could outrun the long-haired, skinny one." He meant Sean. He turned to us.
"You boys been drinking?"
"Yes, sir" Sean told him.
"Haha, I like honesty, boy. Well if you haven't figured out by now, this is my house. I'm the [political office] of this state and Murph here is assigned to guard my house from criminals and intruders," he told us. The man was a born politician. Here we were probably going to jail for trespassing on what was possibly the worst house in the entire southeast to trespass, and I still felt like the guy was talking to me like we were fishing buddies.
"I guess what I want to know is, what the hell are you dipshits doing running around my lawn at 4am?" he asked. We explained that we were just drunk and doing a prank involving stealing the bear from his lawn when he started laughing, hard.
"You mean to tell me the only thing you came for was that God awful bear my wife makes the landscaper put up every year?" We both nodded. "Well, shit, take the damn thing! I hate it." He turned to Sergeant Murphy and told him to cut us loose and write it up as a harmless prank. Murphy didn't seem very happy but he obliged the politician and took off our cuffs and zip tie. The politician offered to get someone to drive us home but we lied and said we had a driver waiting by the car. We were 'escorted' out the front gate and made the quarter mile walk around the premises to get back to where we were parked. The baby Jesus was lying on the ground next to the tree we'd climbed to get in, and I quickly picked it up and stuffed it into the backseat under a few beach towels. Murphy wouldn't let Sean keep the bear, but we didn't end up going to jail and nothing was ever mentioned in the newspapers or on TV about the incident. I'm not sure if they even noticed the baby Jesus was missing, but they surely would when it was time to take down the Christmas decorations when the season was over. Lucky for us, the politician had a sense of humor about the whole thing, no doubt from a mischeivous past of his own that lent us a little leniency in his eyes. I made up my mind that night that if I ever end up living in an area where I'm eligible, I will vote for that man in any election he enters without question. Unless he asks for my baby Jesus back.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Halloween

*A few years ago. Names and minor details changed*

So I had been dating this girl for a while and things were going pretty well. She was stupid hot; the kind you can't leave in a bar by herself. She was also the kind you knew would eventually leave, but while she was around....goddamn it was a wild ride. She was 5'9, dark hair, green eyes that I love, and tattoos in all the right places. In fact, her newest tattoo at the time was a design that i'd drawn up myself and she put it on her body in permanent ink! So of course I was all about her like a lost fucking puppy. It didn't help my situation at all that she was a complete freak in the sack. She like being spanked and choked and tied up and all sorts of wild shit that I knew nothing about at the time. Shit, we were both young, but this girl was years ahead of me in sexual experience (a thought that I didn't like to dwell on much but did enjoy when she broke out the advanced moves). We met playing poker and hit it off immediately. Within a few days of hanging out we were texting obscene shit across the poker table to each other, and sneaking off during tournaments to fuck in the parking lot. When we weren't together we were texting or talking on the phone. We did all of the dumb cute shit that couples do. I can admit it fully now, this chick had me all fucked up and wrapped around her finger. She had me so brainwashed and unaware that I didn't see any of the classic red flag "get the fuck out" warning signs.
It started with a few cancelled dates. We'd have plans to go to a party or go to dinner and she'd bail to hang out with her dad, or say that her best friend needed to talk about something important. There was always another excuse and they were all way too perfect. At the time I believed that she was innocent and that she was telling the truth. But honestly who leaves the house at 1am to drive her best friend to court at 6am and doesn't turn her phone on the entire night. She said she spent the night with her best friend to make sure they both woke up on time, and then left her phone off because she was in the court room. Like I said, an excuse that was TOO perfect. It made sense, but things like that don't pop up with no warning, and I had heard nothing about it until she was walking out the door. Another example: who plays pool until closing time at a late night dive bar, supposedly with their father, and can't manage to answer a text or return a call? Huge red flags, but I was smitten and stupid. It didn't happen all the time. Hell, it wasn't even very often. I still got to hang out with her and get my alone time when I wanted, so I didn't think anything of it. She was a dirty, dirty girl, but in my whipped state of mind I actually believed it was just for me. I should have known when we were out and she wouldn't ever actually claim me as more than a friend. It was subtle, but had I been paying attention I would have noticed she never introduced me as her boyfriend. Shit, after a while, she all but ignored me at poker unless she wanted a drink or it was time to leave. I conned myself into believing that it didn't matter, because she was coming home with me. Well all of the bullshit came to a big, explosive, obnoxious shitstorm one night when I caught her.
I had seen her earlier that day. We had made plans to go to a Halloween party with some friends from her school. The party was about a block off campus and a lot of my friends lived in the same area. Of course, she cancelled. Something about her dad having playoff baseball tickets or a girls' night at her friend's house. Who knows? I couldn't keep all of her bullshit straight anyway, so oh well. Whatever the reason was, I told her I was gonna head to our local bar and spend Halloween there, getting belligerent drunk and acting ridiculous. Lee and I ended up meeting up with Sean at a bar across the street from our local spot. It was a place we'd never been before, depsite how close it was to where we were almost every other night of the week. I was in a shitty mood from being stood up for the third Friday in a row so I was drinking Rusty Nails, nothing but Scotch and Drambouie, with no mix. A terrible drink, but one that will fuck you up with a quickness. Just about everyone else had already been drinking so I had some catching up to do. I pounded the first two Nails like they were Gatorade after a marathon and then took God knows how many shots while waiting for my next one to arrive. Within an hour, I had run my tab up to almost a hundred bucks. Everyone was dreading the direction this level of intoxication was taking me at such an early hour except Sean. He was encouraging my drinking and was the main evil sonofabitch buying me shots. He hated Brittany because he saw through the bullshit that was clouding my vision the entire time we were together.
"I think we should go to that party," he said between tequila shots. I was in no state to make any type of decision or argument, so we paid our tabs and I hopped into his car. We headed out to the party and the closer we got, the more the alcohol began kicking my ass and sending me deeper into my belligerent state. My biggest problem when I drink is that I can handle my alcohol. That might not sound too bad, but it was for me. I could drink like a fucking sailor, and would never throw up, never stumble or slur my words, but my brain would shut off and turn me into a half-retarded five year old until I got some food in me and sobered up. I was almost at that level when we got to the house. Sean knew it and so did everyone else on the front lawn as soon as the car parked in front of the house.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WEARING YOU ASSHOLES?" I was yelling at nobody and everybody at the same time. It was a halloween party, they were wearing costumes. I seemed to have forgotten that I was wearing a huge set of fake tits over my normal clothes. Simplicity in costumes had been one of my main principles that year. I pulled a bottle of what looked like orange soda, but was actually at least half rum, out of my back pocket and continued drinking. Sean turned off the car and hurried after me, already chuckling at the thought of the scene I was going to make at this party. As I rounded the corner to head into the garage, I nearly choked on my drink. There sitting in the driveway was Brittany's stupid Scion. NO. FUCKING. WAY. This could not be happening. I was entirely too drunk to handle this shit. There was no mistaking the stupid car club sticker on the back window, or the shitty rims that she thought made the car look cool. It was hers, and I was not happy. Sean walked up behind me and recognized her car a few seconds after I did.
"Ho-ho-holy shit," he chuckled. I stormed into the house and Sean followed a few steps behind. He stopped in the front hallway as I made an angry lap around and found nothing. As I got back around to the front door, Sean had gone outside and was calling for me.
"Here she is! I found her!" He was enjoying himself way too much. But he hated the girl and wanted nothing more than for me to never speak to her again. I looked to where he was pointing and saw her standing next to a guy I recognized as a cheerleader for the local college. What happened next was not one of my proudest moments, but it was pretty funny and the people who were there still remember exactly how it happened. As it registered in my head that Brittany was standing arm-in-arm with another dude, I lost my shit.
"WELL WELL WELL, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON OVER HERE IN WHOREVILLE?" Brittany looked up and when she saw me staring back at her the color dropped out of her face and she knew she was caught. I saw her mouth a silent 'Oh fuck'. For his part, the dude saw that I was talking to Brittany and bolted. He didn't run, but he let go of her arm, turned, and started speed walking down the street. Brittany turned back to me, and walked over to diffuse the situation.
"Please don't make a scene, I know these people."
"Don't make a- DON'T MAKE A FUCKING SCENE?" She tried to shush me, but I brushed her off, "Here's a scene you lying fucking whore." I spun the cap off of my liter bottle, which was about half full of my rum-orange concoction and hurled it across the front yard of the house. I should have played in the goddamn NFL the way that thing flew. It landed perfectly on the roof of Brittany's shitty car and exploded orange sticky alcoholic mixture everywhere. Brittany was yelling but I ignored her. "Let's go talk to her friend," I said to Sean. I took off down the street after the dude. Brittany was on my heels trying to apologize and explain that the guy was just a friend, but I was on a warpath.
"Lose my number, I'll drop your shit off at your dad's house," I said without losing a step. I yelled down the street, "Come here! I just want to talk!"
Sean joined it behind me. "Hey CHEERBOY!" We watched him walk into a house on the corner of the street and I figured we had him cornered. The door was locked and I tried to kick it in, but nothing happened. A window opened on the second floor and Cheerboy leaned out.
"The cops are on the way. Get away from my house!"
"Fuck you!" I yelled back, "It's rented and its a shithole!"
The window shut and Sean turned to leave but I had one last present for Cheerboy. I pushed open his in-door mailslot, whipped out my dick, and started pissing into the front hallway of his house. I unleashed what felt like a gallon of nothing but liquor and beer from the entire night's drinking. I stood up, zipped my fly, and turned around. Sean was standing in the driveway with a stunned look on his face. As I walked toward him he exploded with laughter. We walked back to the party where Brittany was sitting in her car, crying. She tried to tell me again that Cheerboy was just a friend and that nothing had happened between them. She may have been telling the truth, but at that point I didn't give a shit. We were asked to leave the party; we were already on our way out anyway. We got back into Sean's car and went back to the bar to finish partying for Halloween. The whole experience had sobered me up a bit and I needed more to drink. Brittany texted me and called me a few times that night still trying to apologize. I answered none of it. I tried to call her a few months later to see how she was doing and see if I could hook up a booty call, but apparently she had found out about the mailslot incident and to this day, we've never spoken again. It's a real shame that she was so batshit crazy and such a lying whore; I was gonna miss the freak in her. Guess you really can't have it all.

Monday, October 18, 2010

The Greatest Breakfast Burrito of All Time

**Names have been changed**


I woke up barely hungover. Suprising, considering how much I'd drank the previous night. Truth is, I was probably still drunk and hadn't had time to move into the hangover stage yet. Either way, a breakfast screwdriver was obviously the best idea, because fuck it, I was on vacation. It was 3 in the afternoon anyway, so it wasn't that big of a lush move. I walked out onto the balcony to check out the beach scene for the day. Joe was playing volleyball, and Sean was taking a nap under an umbrella. No doubt still sleeping off the uncountable number of beer pong rounds we'd played the night before and the victory shots that came along with every game we'd won. Derek was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared the night before with a chick he met at the bar. Last I saw of him, he was trying to convince the girl to fuck him. She was playing innocent and it wasn't looking good for our hero.
I was jolted out of my thought process by my stomach growling, LOUD. Apparently two pieces of toast wasn't enough to soothe the beast so I stepped back inside and went to the kitchen. A breakfast burrito sounded good, and I got started on cheffing one up. About the time I had all of the ingredients laid out, Sean came walking in the front door. "How does it feel to be a champion?" he asked. We had gone ape shit in beer pong last night and destroyed all challengers. It felt damn good. I could tell by the look on his face that he was just as hungry as I was, so I wrapped up another burrito and tossed it on a paper plate for him.
The burritos were pretty fucking good, and did a good job of coating our stomachs. Sean mixed a drink and we stood in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette, and got our plans for the day straightened out. We had planned on taking a tour of a haunted area of town. It was a pretty ridiculous tourist trap, but it was cheap and we got to ride around on Segways, so I was down.
We were just mixing our second drinks when Adam came stumbling out of his room, wearing nothing but his boxers and one sock. He walked into the kitchen with a huge smile on his face and we both knew he had finally succeeded in getting into the girl's pants. He snatched my drink out of my hand thinking it was orange juice. He gulped down a mouthful and barely had time to hand back my cup before his body rejected the potent mix that was nearly half vodka and sent it straight back up from his stomach. He gagged and threw up into the sink and then looked at me like I had just killed his dog.
"What the hell is wrong with you," he whined at me.
"Nothing, don't snatch my shit without asking."
He mumbled a 'Fuck you' and poured himself a cup of juice, no vodka. We heard the shower in his room turn on and both looked to him with the same question.
"She's still here?"
"Yeah," he explained, "it took me all night to get her naked. I just finished before I came out here."
"Well, congrats I guess. Now get rid of her; we got shit to do today." Sean said.
It sounds coldhearted and unreasonable, but we DID have plans and any girl you take home from a bar isn't really the type to keep around for very long, especially not if you were going on a fucking haunted tour.
He took his OJ and walked back into his room to cut the unfortunate girl loose. Sean and I sat down in the living room and fired up the PS3 to play some Call of Duty. The shower turned off, and there was the sound of rustling and talking, presumably as the girl got dressed and packed up her shit. Adam came back out into the living room and told us the girl would be leaving shortly. She walked out of his room and for the first time we saw her in the light. She was pretty, even without makeup, and I made a mental note to congratulate Adam on a job well done.
"Adam, we need to talk," she whispered.
She walked into the kitchen and Adam flashed us the finger behind her back as he followed with a retarded grin on his face. We turned back to our game and thought everything was going fine until we heard yelling from the kitchen.
"I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU! I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU GAVE ME HERPES I WILL FUCKING BURY YOU IN A DITCH!"
Sean spit a mouthful of his screwdriver all over the screen. My mouth dropped open and I paused the game. We sat completely silent, hearing only more talking, the girl's apologetic tone and Adam's terrified voice. After what seemed like an hour, but was only about ten minutes, the girl came stomping out of the kitchen and made straight for the door and left. Adam came sulking back into the living room, obviously pale and upset.
"The reason she didn't wanna fuck last night is that she has herpes," he said quietly, "But she said this morning she thought I didn't care because I kept trying." He went back into his room and locked the door. Sean and I laughed so hard we almost cried. We didn't see Adam for the rest of the weekend, but heard a few days later his test had come back clean. We decided to do the haunted tour without him, and leave Joe on the beach as well. But first we had to pregame.