Memoir Monday: Tequila

I know some of you have seen this picture several times before. I've used it on forums boards for my avatar, I've used it on social sites, I've even thrown it around just for shits and giggles.

This picture was taken in grad school, during my first semester, before I had entered a lab to do my research, and before I had even met my wife. In those halcyon days before my life was dominated by "research" and "reaction mechanisms" and "14 hour days" and "chemistry 24 hours a day" and "fevered dreams of cyclopropanes and benzene rings", and even before an angry God or panoply of angered deities saddled me with a powerful allergy to hops, I was able to drink.

And, boy, did I.

However, in all that time, I hadn't really "experimented" with alcohol. I knew what was out there, and I knew what I liked (and that vodka did not like me). I knew the slow burn of scotch as it crawled down my gullet, I knew the fiery burn of Jameson, and the slow warming of bourbon.

And before you go all smartass on me, I know that they're all types of whisk(e)y.

I like whisk(e)y. Which is why it was my sipping liquor of choice.

Rum, however, was my "get drunk and hit on my undergrad students" liquor of choice.

I had, however, managed to avoid the creature known as "tequila". I knew of tequila, but had never imbibed. Mostly because my friend, the guy who woke me up shaking the bed when we roomed together in college, got drunk off tequila once. I remember it distinctly.

*ring*ring* went my telephone.

Whoever could this be? I thought, idly picking up the phone.

"Lock up yer daughters and sisters and wives, lubbers, 'cause Captain Rummy is coming ashore!" drunkenly drawled screamed a crude imitation of a pirate's brogue into my ear.

"[name redacted], is that you?" I asked, innocent as a schoolboy.

"There is no [name redacted]; there is only Captain Rummy, and he's comin' ashore, lubber!"

And then the phone disconnected.

"[name redacted]? [name redacted], are you still there?" I asked into the phone.

The response I got was the front door to the dorm (I lived one room away from it) flying open and smashing against the brick facade of the building.

"Captain Rummy, has boarded yer vessel!" I heard, bellowed in the hall. "Avast ye, and say yer prayers!" And, still holding the phone to my ear, I looked out in the hallway as my former room mate went tearing down the hall, screaming about how Captain Rummy was here, and he was there was rapin' and pillagin' to be done. Curious, I stepped out into the hallway for a better look, and all I saw was the north end of a south-bound former room mate. I saw him go around the corner, at full tilt, and I heard the back door of the dorm fly open, bang, and then slowly shut.


And silence.

This, my friends, was the result of tequila. Or so it was revealed to me later. And, if tequila could lambaste a hardened drunk like my former room mate in such a manner, then it was not something I wanted to mess around with.

"Try it," insisted my Bulgarian friend, while I was hanging out in his apartment on campus at Notre Dame. "It's a very good drink, baby. I'm sure you'll like it." He offered me the shot glass filled with the clear, slightly green beverage.

"Just make sure Captain Rummy doesn't go looking for some rapin' and pillagin'," I said. And then I took the shot.

Holy wow. It burnt, it cleared my sinuses, but damn, I didn't feel even slightly drunk--you know, that feeling like you just threw down a bunch of alcohol? Yeah, I didn't have that sensation at all.

"Would you like a margarita, baby?" my Bulgarian friend asked.

"Set me up, baby," I said. So he did.

And he did again.

And then again.

Let me take a moment here to pause and encourage you that, if you ever get the chance to drink a margarita made by a Bulgarian, go for it. They like to put a lot of alcohol into their drinks.

So it was with these margaritas. Aside from the shot, I think I had three, maybe four margaritas, with at least one more shot thrown in, to boot. Tequila and I were getting along famously. I was snuggling down in her bosom and getting comfortable. It was so warm and muzzy in there, and her breasts were so pillowy soft and full of alcohol.

Unfortunately, while I was getting sleepy, I was also getting hungry.

Fortunately, Dr. Assy had a bucket of cheeseballs sitting in the living room (he shared an apartment with my Bulgarian friend), so I grabbed the bucket, tore the lid off, slid my hand in to feast myself. After the initial couple of handfuls, I slipped my hand back in there, and then I succumbed to the warm, pillowy bosom of tequila.

My friends, who love me oh so much, decided it was picture time. And, honestly, I can't blame them. Plus, I'll always have this lasting memento of the night I first encountered tequila.

Well, to go along with the cirrhosis, that is.


Memoir Monday is a wholly-owned subsidiary of I Like to Fish... and as such is the brainchild of Travis. I would have used the bookish button that he normally furnishes to go along with Memoir Monday, but as he claims that today he will be showcasing a new button to the blogging world, I'm just writing up this somewhat parodical disclaimer with inclusive links so that he won't sue me. The stories therein cannot be rebroadcast, retransmitted, or announced without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball."

I Love Drinking!

Like I said yesterday, my wife and I have decided to start playing a drinking game anytime we're around her sister. She's a spectacular piece of work. As I alluded to yesterday, her greatest joy in life in making others feel bad. She carries an air of superiority about her that is nauseating, at best, if it doesn't make you want to rip her throat out with your bare teeth. That is, if you want to get that close to her.

Anyway, I was on my best behavior during the 48 hours or so that I was around her. Still, I had to seek refuge in the basement, away from her, on several occasions. It just got to be too much.

For starters, she brought a gallon of organic whole milk for her kids to drink. They drank nothing but. Because her kids drink organic whole milk, they don't get sick. *ahem* Oh, I'm sorry. I had a little tickle in my throat. I think I picked up a cold from my nieces as they were dribbling their runny, snotty noses all over me and my kids.

She also canceled most of her cable, which means that her kids don't watch cartoons. Their first priority is to play outside. They don't play video games. However, they both climbed all over my daughter to watch her play her hand-held gaming device. Coincidentally, my daughter also caught a cold from the children that never get sick.

She also went apoplectic about my kids really enjoying their pie from the post-dinner catastrophe that still has my OCD flinching and squirming like a bug that's just smashed against your windshield. I mean, they both had one piece of pie after dinner and one more piece of pie before bed as a treat. My sister-in-law kept going on, "I just don't understand your kids and their obsession with pie. My girls don't like pie. They'd much rather have tomatoes."

Well, here. Here's a shit pie. Serve yourself a big slice. My kids get pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas and occasionally during the spring when I remember what day Pi day is (March 14). So, fuck you very much when it comes to your kids not liking pie. Besides, I have theory as to why they don't like pie, but it's kind of mean. I'll just say...do any of you remember on Family Guy when they cut to the scene at John Goodman's Thanksgiving table? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

I'd say that she has a "my shit doesn't stink" attitude, but her attitude is more of a "I don't poop at all, and I only fart rainbows and fairy dust." Can you imagine what would happen if she took a tour through this joint on a Thursday? Heh. I think I might go to Blog2Print, publish a copy of my finest, shittiest TMI posts, and send it to her for Christmas.

Anyway, remember how I mentioned she was religious. Well, Wednesday night, we all met at a restaurant for a pre-Thanksgiving gluttony fest wherein we destroyed some chicken wings. As the evening wore on, my children were getting bored, as were my nieces. So, my daughter got up and played with my youngest niece, and they were dancing around in circles together. This upset my older niece and, because she was upset, she turned and faced the brick wall behind the table and, I shit you not, started praying. Like, sign of the cross, folded hands, forehead against the wall praying. For a second, I thought I was at Knoxville's version of the Wailing Wall. My mother-in-law asked my niece what she was doing, because my mother-in-law saw that my niece was clearly upset that she wasn't playing with my daughter and my other niece. My older niece then turned to my mother-in-law and said, "I'm saying a prayer." Rather emphatically at that. She then turned back to the wall and restarted the prayer!, sign of the cross and everything.

This was a sign of things to come (no pun intended). For nearly 48 straight hours, my sister-in-law told us about what was going on at the church, about the new priest, the shut-ins, the Hispanic population--oh, no, wait, I'm sorry, the Mexicans, said with just enough disdain to let you know clearly what she thinks of them. She talked about counseling, about holy sacraments, about various pieces of church equipment that had been purchased, about retreats and about the "nun run".

You know what a nun run is? It's where the diocese charters a bus and hauls your ass around to all of the convents, seeing if you get a good feeling about joining any of them.

I'm not sure what the capper was, though. It was either when she was complaining to my father-in-law for not finishing the kneeler she requested he make her last Christmas, or the "love retreat". The love retreat was particularly awesome because, if you go on the love retreat, you're not allowed to say anything all weekend long, unless it's inspired by love. I'm going to guess I'd get kicked out when, during circle time, I'd pipe up with "Boy, I love masturbating. And cheese fries."

And if she wasn't yammering something about the church, she was talking about her friend Lisa, whom she met at church and is pretty much the same as my sister-in-law.

This is what caused my wife and I to come up with the following drinking game:

1) Every time she talks about church, that's a sip.
2) Every time she talks about Lisa, that's a sip.
3) Every time she says "Let your joy out" (or whatever the Virtue of the day is), that's a sip.
4) Every time she mentions retreats, counseling, or any other Holy Rite, that's a sip.
5) Every time she mentions Lisa AND church in the same story, that's two sips.
6) Every time one of her children spontaneously burst into prayer, finish the drink.
7) Every time she makes some backhanded insult as to the way we're raising our children, finish the drink and bash her fucking skull in with the bottle.

I see this game catching on very well with my wife's family.

Odds and Ends

Try Not to Breathe: Remember that little story I told you last Thursday? You know, the one where I puked almost on a girl I was having a wonderful first date with?

Well, last Thursday night, I re-enacted what happened to my wife. Apparently, everyone who told me that I should have called her back didn't get the full feel for what I had just done to this poor girl.

So, let me re-describe it. Imagine, someone has puckered up and has moved in to kiss you. Your lips touch. Just as they touch, you hear a horrible noise like a backed-up sink gurgling, and then the person whose lips are touching yours has his cheeks inflate like a pufferfish as vomit pours into his mouth. That's what it was like.

My wife screamed. She visibly shuddered. "Oh my God," she said, "that poor girl. No wonder she was so traumatized. That was awful."

And she had this reaction even without me actually puking into my mouth and then bringing it up in a wastebasket.

The One I Love: Everyone who told me that I should have called her back when we got back to school for the spring semester...we can only say what if.

If I had called her back...maybe we would have gone out again. I mean, yeah, she was really nice and seemed to really like me. I mean, she was kissing on me and holding my hand and snuggling up and all, right? Maybe we would have felt a spark, dated for the remainder of her undergraduate career, and then after she graduated, we could have gotten married. I don't know where she went to law school, but maybe it was ND. We could have finished our respective degrees at the same time, and then moved off to some fabulous location.

If that would have happened, maybe we'd have a couple of kids. Maybe I wouldn't have my evenings free. Maybe I wouldn't have started blogging. Maybe you would have no idea who the fuck I was. You'd walk down the street and think "Was that Tom Green? He's put on some weight."

If all of that had happened, I wouldn't have met my wife three months later. I wouldn't have gotten married. I wouldn't have moved to North By God Carolina and I wouldn't have worked for that biotech wherein I started my blogging career. By telling me that I should have called Margaret back up and asked her out again, you would be denying yourselves this little slice o' the internet and all the shit good times we've had together.

If I had done all those things, I wouldn't be married to the woman I am now, with the two wonderful kids that we've had together and the happy, if humble, abode in which we dwell. Besides, if I had called her back and we had dated, fallen in love, and married, I wouldn't get to have the sex with a redhead with fabulously large breasts.

Unless, of course, she dyed her hair and got implants.

Crush with Eyeliner: Possibly the most amusing footnote to that whole story about me nearly puking on Margaret was that, I'm certain, my students would have gotten back to campus and asked her how things went. And, I'm certain, that Margaret told them that I puked and probably the other gory details. So, they would have heard about everything that happened that night.

Despite all this, Sheridan, the girl who lured me into tutoring her and her room mates, wanted to set me up with another one of her room mates. This girl's name was Kristine (if I remember correctly). She was tall, had red hair, and had a decent rack. Problem was, she wore a lot of eyeliner, so I wasn't really all that interested.

In a bit of an ironic twist, the night I met my wife, Kristine was there, too. They were working together on something for a campus charity. Apparently, Kristine was kind of interested in me (despite my pukiness on my date with Margaret), because she recognized me at the event and told her room mates that I was there. Much later, after I had married my wife, she saw me again and reported back to Sheridan et. al. that I was now wearing a ring, and what was up with that?

My question: you know I almost puked in your friend's face and still you wanted to date me? What was up with that?

What if We Give It Away?: My wife has found this site called Zazzle.com, and she fucking loves it.

The Lord of the Rings movies came out while we were still at Notre Dame, and we, of course, went to go and see all three of them in the theatres because we love us some Lord of the Rings. We also both love us some Notre Dame.

What do these two things have in common? Sean Astin. In case you need your memory jogged, Sean Astin was the titular Rudy in the movie of the same name. Naturally, this is a must watch for anyone who went to or is a fan of Notre Dame. In fact, in the old bookstore on campus, Rudy was on a continual 24-hour loop. That's a lot of Sean Astin and the dude who played Roc from the ill-fated Fox show from the early 90s (Charles S. Dutton, in case you care).

Astin, of course, also played Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's love interest friend and moral support as he carried the Ring to the fires of Mount Doom. Whenever the camera focused on Sam, especially during The Fellowship of the Ring and his little soliloquy at the end of The Two Towers, I would giggle and then say to my wife "I want to play football at Notre Dame, Mr. Frodo!"

Well, my wife took this happy little sentence and made herself a button over at Zazzle.com. It is, appropriately, cheesy. It is, also, a must-have for the mixed Notre Dame/LotR fan on your Christmas list.

Let Me In: When I was a freshman in college, I lived alone my first semester. There's a back story there that I don't want to get into (it involved me dressing like a garden gnome because ours was stolen...like I said, I don't want to get into it).

My friend, the Brewing Optometrist, decided to come and visit me once when he was home on break and I was still slogging away doing that learning bullshit. The joy of the Brewing Optometrist was that his dad worked for a beer distributorship, so he brought some booze for us to enjoy while watching Bevis and Butthead. He decided we needed some 40s, and what better drink to enjoy in a 40 ounce bottle than malt liquor?

Really, this story has no point. I just wanted to repost the picture of the OE Girl. If it helps, the Brewing Optometrist brought me a 40 of Olde English 800.

Yeah, that totally justifies it.

TMI Thursday: Car Jacking

If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

Yesterday, I told you of the girl I dated briefly my senior year of college, Carrie Nation. I call her that because she was a violent teetotaler. Which is understandable. She had a friend in high school die in a drunk driving accident. Well, actually, there was a drunk driving accident, and her friend drove by it. He was rubber necking and the road was icy and then her friend, while not paying attention to the road, ended up in a ditch and was killed from the accident. So, it's not really understandable at all.

This was at a point in my life (my senior year in college) where I would make trips to Illinois with a $20 bill in my pocket and swoop down into Scotchman's East and Scotchman's West liquor stores. Therein, I would promptly buy up all of their 32 ounce Old Milwaukee beers. 32 ounces of beer for $1.09? I'm sold. I would come home with cases of the shit. Will dubbed me "Beer Tsar".

So, here I am, freshly broken up with the Ex- (again), when Carrie Nation "befriends" me. And by that, I mean that she invited me to see one of the on campus movies with her. See, we were sort of friends before. The previous semester, I had met Carrie Nation because some friends of mine had invited me to come and watch a movie with them. The movie was in Carrie Nation's room. When I knocked on her door, I saw a little picture of Sports Voldemort hanging on the door. Someone yelled "come in" from the interior of the room and I swung the door open, struck a dramatic pose, and asked "are you a Packers fan?" Carrie Nation said she was. Jokingly, I said, "Oh, I think I'm in love."

Apparently, this was enough to convey to her that I was proper dating material. So, the fall semester of my senior year, she invited me to come and watch a movie with her and the rest of her friends. I ended up sitting next to her and we watched...Scream, I think? You can see how memorable our time was together. Anyway, during the movie, I sort of held her hand a little. A couple of nights later, she shows up at my room and asks me if I liked her. The only thing it was missing what a "circle yes or no" on a note. It was so junior high. I circled yes, and we started dating that night.

The great thing about that night? I was watching some nature documentary on bugs, because there wasn't shit else on and because I have a strange fascination with Praying Mantises. So, Carrie Nation shows up and we talk until after visitation hours are over (visitation hours were until 11 pm on week nights...remember, Catholic college). She was all worried about getting caught after visitation hours were over, despite the fact that I was friends with all of my RAs. I mean, hell, the RA on my floor was Sweet Mic Mancuso, the most melodic voiced RA in history--there was no way she was getting in trouble.

Anyway, we ended up talking until midnight and I finally was like, "Well, I'm going to bed. You can stay if you want--I don't want to throw you out or anything. You can even have the bed. I'll sleep on the couch." It ended up, she slept on the couch, I in my bed, and at 6:00 am, when I had to get up and get ready for class, I escorted her out of the building. Fortunately, she lived in Halas hall, which was next door (and named for former Chicago Bears owner, George Halas) to Gallagher, so her Walk of Shame wasn't so terrible.

This went on for about six weeks. She'd come over, we'd chat or watch a movie, she'd invariably end up staying the night, and then walk home in the morning. Ah, the luxuriant life of a senior with a single room. The plus side of all this was that I kept my room clean and smelling good. I mean, I made my bed nearly every day--and I was in college!. Shit, you'd only make your bed if you were getting a visit from your parents.

I digress. So, there we are, Carry Nation and the Beer Tsar. And, you know, something had to give at some point. Now, at this point in my life, I watched NASCAR. I was quite the fan. Carry Nation? Not so much. She detested NASCAR, and for all the right reasons--there were cars who were sponsored by beer companies. I do not lie when I tell you this.

And so...on that fateful night when Sam was stinking up my joint, Carrie Nation came over to watch the football game for our normal Monday night affair. Except, there was a replay of the NASCAR race being shown on ESPN2, so I would flip over during the time outs on the football game to see what I could of the race (despite already knowing who had won). This infuriated Carrie Nation. She stole the remote from me and shoved it down her shirt. So, I did what came natural--I went after it. This infuriated her more. She made a reference to how nice Sports Voldemort's butt looked in his tight football pants (as luck would have it, the Packers were playing that night). I made a reference to wanting to bang one of her friends. Something else happened, and I sat on the bed, and then sat in the hallway (the door was open). This really cheesed her.

Needless to say, she didn't stay the night that night.

The next night, she had to work until 10:00 pm at Wal-Mart across the street, so I didn't see her. The night after that, she got off work early, so I told her to come by the computer lab and we could hang out. I worked in the computer lab as a lab monitor. It was awesome. I always signed up for the less popular lab, so all I would have to do is sit there, do my homework, and occasionally restock the printer with paper or--on particularly tough nights--I'd have to put a new toner cartridge in. And all of this for a sweet $6.00 an hour, which really helped fuel the Beer Tsar trips--literally and figuratively.

Anyway, Carrie Nation comes shuffling in, says high in a clipped, curt fashion, and sits down two rows away to check her email. I'm quiet while I'm sitting there, reading about the nervous system in vertebrates (I was working on filling out my biology minor and was taking Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy...which was one of my favorite classes of all time). She gets up, and I thought she was coming over to see me, and I look up and say "Did you know that you shrink an inch during the day because the disks between your vertebrae compress while you're walking upright?"

I've always had a knack for knowing what to say to a woman to turn her on...

She kind of gives me a look and says, "That's fascinating." She then throws a folded up piece of paper at me. "That's for you." I stare at it for a second, without opening it, and I look back up at her.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked. "You're breaking up with me? And worse, you're breaking up with me in a note? What the fuck, is this Junior High school?"

She didn't respond and, instead, shuffled out of the lab and, out of my life. In response to the note (which was, indeed, a break up note), I wrote a very long, and very carefully constructed email in which I told her that I wanted to talk to with her and we could sort this out and that I really didn't want to break it off with her and blahblahblahblahblah. She didn't respond. Two days later, I had moved on. On the third day, after I had said something about dating someone else to one of my friends during dinner, she must have overheard me. She stood outside of the cafeteria and lit into me when I was finished (she usually sat at the next table over from ours during meals) about how I didn't want to work things out after all and some other such shit. I countered that I had written a long letter to her, extolling her virtues and the greatness of our relationship, but when she hadn't written back, I got over it. Fast. I suggested she should, too.

And, that was pretty much the end of the story of Carrie Nation...or is it?

I graduated the following spring. The following fall, for Homecoming, I arrived with a cooler full of beer that I was planning on drinking with my buds still at St. Joe, Will and Giles. At this point, I'm well over Carrie Nation. I'm back with the Ex-, and we finally decided we loved each other more than cheese, and that we should get married. I had asked her over the summer, and oh we were happy together. Spinning around in a circle holding hands with flowers falling from the sky and cheesy montage music playing in the background happy. Is that a flugelhorn I hear?

So, for Homecoming, I'm celebrating the fact that I've got a job, a fiancee, and a future. I had already been accepted to two different graduate programs, and I was waiting for word from two others, so this book store bullshit job wasn't going to last forever. It's time to drink.

When Homecoming hit that year, it was time for the baseball playoffs. The Cubs, by all manner of miracles, had actually won the wild card in the central and were playing the Braves. And badly. This led to a series of events that are cloudy in my mind, but involved me and some Freshman girl sitting on the couch in my friend Derek's room watching one of the final games of the Cubs series. Since I had a shit ton of beer at my disposal, I was pretty well toastified. I kept giving her beers, too, because, hell, I could. Plus, she was cute. Ish.

Sadly, I don't remember her name, but I do remember that she wore an orange shirt. Briefly.

As things progressed, we got more and more toastified. Apparently, this was a girl who "got hot" when she got drunk, and as we were sitting there, she took her shirt off. And then her pants. And then she put her hand on my knee. And suddenly, I found myself at a moral crossroads.

I had been engaged for a couple of months by this point, to a woman I truly and genuinely loved. Here was a cute...ish...drunk college chick taking her clothes off and making amorous advances toward me. Did I want to? Fuck yeah. Did I want to NOT cheat on my fiancee? Fuck yeah. So, I carefully explained the situation to this young lady and kindly excused myself and ended up back in Will's room. Or Giles'. Or someones. Fuck, I don't remember. I just know it wasn't her room.

Anyway, I spent the whole weekend pretty much in a drunken stupor. But, after having a young woman essentially give me a private strip dance, I was on a slow burn. Come Monday morning, I gathered up whatever soldiers had not fallen over the weekend, packed them into my car, and prepared to drive back across the lonely expanse of North Centeral Indiana so that I could get to work by 2:00 that afternoon. When I describe it as lonely, I do truly mean that. It was corn and soy bean fields as far as the eye could see, dotted occasionally with tiny towns that no one's ever really heard of--Royal Center, Lucerne, Twelve Mile (which was fourteen miles from Logansport), just to name three.

As I was pulling out of campus, I saw the girl who had stripped for me a couple of nights earlier. I waved, because I'm chivalrous like that. I then pull out onto US-231 south and head down to turn onto Indiana-16 east and head for home. The stretch between US-231 and Monon, IN on 16 was one of the most desolately boring and lonely places on the face of the earth. And I was horny after having had a private show and then seeing her again on my way out.

So, I pulled it out. While I was driving. The glorious things about roads in North Central Indiana is that they are fucking arrow straight, and the alignment in my car had recently been fixed, so I could get away with not really paying attention to the road. All I had to do was make sure I didn't hit any deer. So, there I was, in the throes of autoerotic ecstasy, thinking about this young lady who had shown me the Holy of Holies just two nights before. Finally, I finish myself off as I pull up to a stop light. There's another car at the stoplight, which turns and heads west on Indiana-16.

It's Carrie Nation, coming back to campus after finishing her student teaching assignment that morning.

So, I honked my horn and waved at her with my cum-streaked hand, a big smile on my face. She looked over as she was turning, saw me, screwed her face up into a scowl (moreso than normal) and sped off into the west.

I cleaned myself up with a handkerchief, laughed triumphantly, and continued on down the lonely road, wondering where I could find a good cup of coffee.

TMI Thursday: Me and Mr. Wodka Don't Hang around Where We're Not Wanted

Let's head back in time to that magical era I called my sophomore year of college. It was early spring of 1996, and for some reason, I had not been involved in the theatre production that had just wrapped up. I think it had something to do with my work schedule.

Despite having missed the show, I was invited to one of the cast parties because I was a regular. Being that I felt like throwing caution to the wind and actually having a little fun, I decided to head on down to the party. Accompanying me was the other two legs of my Unholy Triangle, Scooter and Young Bob. You might remember them from the infamous "White Chair Incident". And Young Bob was the camera operator for Sparkle Belly. Rub my nipples.

We finally roll into the shindig there on second Justin West, and immediately I grab a beer and start drinking. What fun is college with alcohol-fueled shenanigans? Alright, alright, it can be fun without the booze, I know. But, seriously, I'm not one to pass up free booze. This could be downfall, as we'll soon see.

Foreshadowing aside, I down the first beer rather quickly. Not feeling anything, I get a second. Again, it's gone painfully fast. Time for a third. What the hell is this I'm drinking? Water? Oh, Miller Lite. Same fucking thing. But, it's college. I give myself a pass. Plus, hello, free beer = good beer. Not always true, but in college, it's a 90% win rate.

When it comes time for my kids to go to college, I'm going to teach them a few rules. The first one will be "Liquor before beer, in the clear; beer before liquor, sicker quicker." This is a talk I wish my father had had with me, but since my mother threatened me with bodily harm if I even so much as touched alcohol in college, I left for Rensselaer, IN with a wide, innocent-eyed view of my future. You have to remember that in high school, I was a much different person than I am now. Alcohol? Me? Never!

Back to the party. Not only did I head off to this party with my good friends Scooter and Young Bob, I also arrived with a healthy lust for a Croatian honey that we'll call Amy. We'll call her Amy because she's in the army now and I'm pretty sure she could kill me with a look if I used her real name. So, Amy it is!

Anyway, Amy was this beautiful first-generation Croatian girl that I had been sprouting wood for since we both arrived at St. Joe in fall of 1994. As I was in one of the "off again" periods with the Ex-, I felt that anything and everything was fair game. Did I ever mention that I have a thing for Slavic people? They are a beautiful race of individuals, in my opinion. Amy had dark hair, gorgeous, big, round brown eyes, and a singing voice that would make the gods themselves weep. Plus, she had big tits.

Amy showed up at the party, but didn't stay long. She came in, got a drink, and mingled for a moment or two and then left. I had waded about four or five beers deep into the Sea of Debauchery when I saw Amy show up. I sauntered over to the bar, struck up a feeble attempt at conversation, and then asked what she was drinking. It was a college party, so it wasn't like I was going to go all captain smooth here and try to buy her a drink. She was having a screwdriver, medium vodka.

'Fuck,' I thought--though hazy my mind may have been--'if she can handle a medium vodka screwdriver, I can handle a heavy vodka screwdriver.'

"Can I get one, too?" I asked the lovely Mandy, who was manning the bar and hosting the party. "Heavy on the vodka."

I'm pretty sure that the lovely Mandy upended the bottle of vodka into my cup and whispered the words "orange juice" over the top of it. When this young woman made a drink heavy on the vodka, the stock price of Smirnoff shot through the roof. Like an idiot, I drank it.

Up to this point, I was largely a vodka virgin. I knew what it was, that it made an excellent drink, and that it largely had no flavor. I also knew that it was a bit tricksy when it came to you feeling drunk. You drink it, and then you don't feel all that drunk. However, suddenly--WHAM-O!--you're fucking blotto and quoting lines from Crime and Punishment. What? I love me some Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

So, here I am, stumbling mingling about the party with my half-consumed bucket of vodka and I'm not feeling drunk. In hindsight, I'm acting drunk, but not feeling it. Case in point. Remember, I came to the party with Scooter and Young Bob. Now, Young Bob was not one to drink. He didn't like the flavor of alcohol and he was one of those who enjoyed staying sober and laughing at the stupid antics of us drunk motherfuckers. Scooter was a bit more of a casual drinker. He got a drink, nursed it through most of the night, and usually left a party feeling buzzed but not drunk.

Me? I'm Barney Gumble.

Early on, we had met this cat named Robert. He was a friend of the lovely Mandy's (host of the party), and Scooter was chatting him up all night long. Robert was pretty cool. I came over and asked them, "Hey, how you guys doing?" and Scooter responds with "We're good. We're talking about comics." I think he was trying to lure me into the conversation, maybe to play wingman. I dunno. Things have gotten a little hazy at this point.

I stare at Scooter and Robert with a very serious look on my face. "Awesome," I say, "Comics RULE!" *insert requisite fist pump to accentuate the word 'RULE'*

Having finished the screwdriver, I decided I wasn't nearly drunk enough. So, I head back up to the bar. Now my friend Kurt is manning the bar.

"What can I do you for, my good man?" Kurt asked.

"I think I need something to drink. I'm not nearly drunk enough," I respond.

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"I think we're getting there." I say. I put my arm around a talking zebra that I befriended somewhere between the second and third shot and we stagger away from the bar.

(In case you couldn't tell, there was no zebra.)

I find Young Bob.

"You're drunk," Young Bob says. He has a mastery of the obvious.

"Yesh," I slur. At this moment, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. is queued into the stereo.

"Oh my God," I say, wide-eyed. "Thish ish the besht shong! I know all the wordsh." I try to sing along, muttering and mumbling everything except for Leonard Bernstein (naturally).

Young Bob shakes his head. "Bitch, you couldn't do that sober. You're just embarrassing yourself, drunky."

"I got 'em all," I insist. "I jusht shang too fasht for you to hear."

What happened after this, I'm unsure. However, I know that Amy the Croatian Honey had left the party. At this point, I'm drunk AND horny. I start hitting on something close by. Now, when I say I'm drunk, I mean really fucking drunk. People, I started hitting on one of the Stankus girls. Swear to anything and everything I know that's holy, Stankus was their last name. I'm pretty sure Stankus is Latin for "disease-ridden sulfurous pit". Yes, I'm referring to that particular pit.

Finally, I end up out in the hallway. It's well past midnight, but it's before quiet hours (which started at 2 am), and I'm beginning to feel the copious amounts of vodka that are now coursing through my veins. As the Bolshevik Revolution was playing out in my liver, I felt the need to escape the pounding music and the close quarters. The hallway was a great place to do this.

Young Bob accompanied me. We were standing there, talking. Well, he was talking, I was slurring shit together into incohesive incoherency. There was a lull in the conversation, and as the Russian army continued pounding through my vasculature, my stomach suddenly turned into the Romanovs. They needed to get out of the country, and they needed to get out NOW!

Being that I'm a polite drunk, I simply walk away from Young Bob. He turns to tell me something, and I'm gone. I'm down the hall. A trashcan is in my sites. I walk over to it, stare at it, and then I fountain into it. And by fountain, I mean a raging torrent of alcohol-tinged vomit comes rushing out of my piehole, splattering noisily against the back of the trashcan, and landing in the bottom. I can identify dinner. I think I can identify lunch. It was brown. It was chunky. I remember it tasted like pasta sauce and vodka. The flavor clings to my palate to this day.

Not all of it went into the trash can. When I puke this violently, it comes out my nose, too, and so there was some left-overs on my upper lip. I needed help. I looked up. The only person around me was my nemesis: Vanzetti. Yes, he was related to that Vanzetti. For some reason, we strongly disliked each other.

But, I was desperate.

"Oh my God, Vanzetti, could you get me some paper towels?" I asked in my most pathetic voice. Vanzetti's girlfriend at the time lived on the same floor as the party, and he had walked down the hall to use the bathroom. I saw him as he was headed into the toilets. A few seconds later, he re-emerged, carrying some paper towels. I thanked him, wiped up, and proceeded to puke some more.

I heard Young Bob at the end of the hallway ask Vanzetti, "Is he throwing up." Later, Young Bob related to me that Vanzetti paused and then said with a look of horror on his face: "Oh. God. Yes."

Having emptied my stomach of everything, I was feeling better, but still drunk. I return to standing in the hall with Young Bob. The world is spinning. It's almost 2 am.

"We should get going," Young Bob says. I think he's more worried about the fact that I just puked up my internal organs than it being late.

"Just a sec," I said. I stopped the Stankus girl in the hallway. "315 Gallagher. It's almost 2 am. Come by before they lock the doors."

Young Bob and I wander back across the quad. Together, we mount the stairs to the third floor. All is silent. I pour myself into my room and strip because, hey, there's a Stankus on her way, right? I'm still powerfully drunk. I lay down in just a pair of red Indiana shorts. Sleep claims me immediately.

If there was a knock at the door, I'll never know. However, I do know that the fucking fire alarm went off at 3:15 am. And there I was, wearing only a pair of Indiana shorts that are indecently too short. I pull myself from the alcohol-fueled reveries and fall down the three flights of stairs to the safety of the outside. It is fucking freezing outside. I am wearing just a short pair of shorts. I am still drunk.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, we are allowed back in. I am cold. I am drunk. I am so cold and drunk, I cannot sleep. Finally, after an hour, I fall asleep. The next morning, I woke up sick. And hungover. And with a healthy distaste for vodka.


If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

TMI Thursday: The Late Night Catch

Someone--I think it might have been Fancy Schmancy--asked a few weeks ago "how many semen stories do you have?" Um...I'm a guy. I produce the stuff. Chances are, I have a ton of them.

To that end, here's another.

When I graduated from undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to go to grad school, but I didn't go right away. I thought I'd do the mature thing and find a job and pay off some debt and get myself settled in before I went back to school. Sounds good, right? Well, me and my fancy new degree in chemistry couldn't find anything right away--there's a definite paucity of chemistry-oriented jobs in the greater Fort Wayne, IN area. And, every time I found one, someone with a MASTER'S degree would swoop in and secure it. Curse you, post-graduate education!

Running low on funds, feeling the pressure of just having gone through four years of rather expensive Catholic Education, and with creditors sniffing around my bushes like Jehovah's Witnesses, I went the desperate route: I found the first damned thing that would hire me.

This happened to be the now-defunct Little Professor Book Company on the south side of Fort Wayne. "South Side" sounds so menacing, but it was in an area filled with would-be affluent people--you know the kind who think they're wealthy and important. This, of course, led to many, many entertaining moments dealing with the snobs, like the woman who scoffed once and said, "What would you know about chemistry?"

Anyway, I spent the interim between graduation in 1998 and the start of classes at Notre Dame in 1999 working at Little Professor Book Company. Sometime during that winter, after Christmas so that things were mostly dead, the Ex- had moved to DC for her job. Because we would inevitably fuck like dogs in heat when we were around one another, we had to find ways to rid ourselves of unwanted bodily fluids. This meant that we had a lot--and I do mean a lot--of phone and cyber sex.

Through attrition, I had worked my way up the corporate ladder from lowly bookseller to assistant manager, which gave me free reign (in my mind) to constantly proclaim that there were "a bunch of savages in this town." It also gave me the chance to pretty much pick my hours, and I chose the night shift. Being the trustworthy and honest Boy Scout that I am (not to mention clean, reverent and all those other fucking traits the Boy Scouts follow), the owners had no problem with me counting the money, locking up the store, and shutting it down at night. This meant that, many a night, I was there, all alone.

Another fortuitous turn was that the store had a 1-800 number, accessible from anywhere in these United States of America. Remember, this was before VOiP was popular, so long distance calling could rack up the charges. This provided me with the excellent opportunity to have some phone sex with the Ex-, and then I could recover afterwards through idle conversation and then we could go again. Or, I'd go home and--since the drive was just long enough--dial into the internet, and we could have ourselves some lovely netsex.

While I was at the book store, I befriended this weird kid named Shane. I say "kid" because, like me, he was about as mature as an eight-year-old. Shane and I did a lot of stuff together...usually involving alcohol. He was the other assistant manager at the store, and when I wasn't working at night, he was.

So, here we are, back in January or February or something like that. I closed up the store, counted the money, took the call from the owners, and bid the last of the closing personnel good night. I locked the door, turned off the front lights, and picked up on line 2 where the Ex- was already going at herself hot and heavy. Instantly, I was aroused, so I unzipped and joined in the sharing of autoerotic pleasures.

Finished, I leaned back in the chair, looking down at my messy pants. I hadn't had time to properly find some paper towels or something to release into prior to joining in the fun, so I messed myself. Badly. It was everywhere. It looked like a boiled milk factory had exploded. I was in the cool-down stage and my dick had limped its way back inside my still unzipped pants when the back door suddenly banged open.

"Aha!" Shane screamed! "I caught you!"

Now, it was 200 feet from the office to the back door. When the door banged open, I sat up in the chair and looked through the window of the office to see what was going on. As luck would have it, my shirt fell over the creamy mess on my pants, hiding the evidence.

"Still on the phone, I see!" Shane said, busting into the office.

"Yeah, she called here after the store closed. Since I'm done and clocked out, I don't give two fucks what [the owners] think," I replied, willing my shirt to stay in place and to not have any unfortunate drips occur.

"You're a dirty, dirty man. I love it," Shane responded. It was at this point that I realized he'd already had a couple of Popov and Cranberries. Shane was a connoisseur of cheap vodkas.

"I do what I can to please," I said. The Ex- laughed.

"Well, mother fucker, you'd better say good night, because you and I have to go visit Matt." Matt--this, uh, other Matt--was the bartender at the bar behind the bookstore, a very common stopover for us after work. Or during work, if things were going swimmingly. "I need to go sign something out, and then we're drinking, buddy!"

Shane disappeared, and the Ex-, having heard everything, said, "Um...did he see anything?"

"No, I'm covered up," I responded, hastily zipping my pants and looking for a mop or a towel or anything to clean up with. Finally, I got some napkins from someone's dinner and wiped everything up, wrapped it up inside some other napkins, and tucked them into my sleeve. Shane returned.

"You ready, bitch! Hi, Ex-!" he shouted.

"Hey, Shane!" she shouted back. This was not an uncommon conversation while I was at the Little Professor Book Company. "You better go, honey. I'll talk to you later."

So, we proclaimed our undying love for one another, and then I hung up.

"Ready?" Shane asked, impatient like a puppy.

"Let me hit the head," I said. I went in, flushed my towels, washed my hands, and dabbed at my pants some more (I was wearing black pants). Satisfied that I was clean enough to appear in a dark, smoke-filled bar, I emerged from the bathroom. Without further ado, we walked over to the bar, where we proceeded to drink and to chat away with people.

At one point, I was talking to this girl who worked in the same shopping plaza as the book store. She looked down at my pants, and said, "Oh, what happened here?" She pointed. Aghast, I looked down, looked back up and said, "Shit. I sneezed earlier. I must have...gotten some on me. I'm so embarrassed." She laughed.

"Oh, don't be embarrassed. I've had that happen, too. I'll just look down and find out I've got some strange liquid on me."

Yes. Yes, I'm sure you have.

Does this not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories? Then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

Happy Saint Bernard de Menthon Day!

Among the many benefactors celebrated on May 28th by the Catholic Church is Bernard of Menthon (or Bernard of Mountjoux, if you so desire, you saucy little minx, you).

Bernard was the son of a rather prosperous nobleman who had set up a sweet deal of a marriage for him. Bernard, however, balked at the proposition, declaring that he did not like her, that the woman he wanted to marry needed to have a special...something. His father was confused, as the girl he had selected to be his daughter-in-law was beautiful, rich, and had huge...tracts of lands. Apparently, they lived in a swamp and needed all the land they could get.

Undaunted, Bernard's father went ahead with the wedding. Bernard, deciding he'd rather live the rich and prosperous life of a monk, jumped out of his bedroom window, was caught by a pack of angels, and delivered safely on the ground below. Did I mention that he did this a mere handful of hours before he was set to walk down the aisle? Bernard of Menthon is the Patron Saint of Cold Feet.

He grew up in Savoy, which is a region down in the southeast of France near the Italian border. Apparently, Bernard was a man much to my own liking for, when faced with the choice of heading toward the beach or the mountains, he chose the latter and fled toward Italy. There, he joined up with the Benedictine monks. His heart remained in the mountains, however, as he heard that the peoples of the Alps were still largely suffering under the blissful ignorance of Paganism, so he dedicated the remainder of his days to preaching the gospel to those crazy Helveticans.

However, Bernard wasn't done there. A pass through the Alps leading from the area of Switzerland called Valais to the Aosta Valley in northern Italy was a frequently used highway for pilgrims from Germany, France and other points north on the pilgrims' way to and from Rome. The pass is, to say the least, a bit treacherous. Allow me to digress for a moment and remind you that Hannibal's armies were dealt more damage by the weather in the Alps than they ever were by the Roman Legions. Hannibal's route through the mountains weakened the forces from Carthage enough that it probably led to the eventual outcome of the Punic Wars, wherein Rome defeated Carthage, and also for that reason why we have a Friday Morning Latin Lesson and not a Friday Morning Carthaginian Watered-Down Phoenician Dialect Lesson.

Seeing that travel through this particular pass has a history of sucking donkey balls, Bernard oversaw the building of a hospice and monastery at the highest point in the pass so that travelers would have somewhere safe to stop over on their ways to and from Rome. Once he received the blessings from the Pope, Bernard populated the monastery with Augustinian monks and...the local herding dogs, which were much accustomed to the snowy climate. The pass, to this day, still bears his name--Great St. Bernard's Pass. If there's a great, then there must be a little, right? Well, in fact, there is. In another pass--cleverly named Little St. Bernard's Pass--St. Bernard established yet another hospice and monastery, and again gave it over to the Augustinians and their dogs, as well.

St. Bernard of Menthon is symbolized by the mountains and by the herding dogs that also bear his name. He is considered the Patron Saint of Mountaineers, the Alps, and Skiers (see, I wasn't really joking when I said he was the Patron Saint of Cold Feet, per se) as well as big, lovable dogs that dig you out of the snow, pour themselves a drink, and then return to the monastery.

Now, before some asshole points out a fallacy in the story here, I'll add that the St. Bernard breed of dog was never used to transport casks of brandy through the mountains, though they have been used as rescue dogs in a region prone to avalanches (and still, they do not carry brandy with them then, either). However, the monasteries keep small flasks of brandy around so that tourists can take pictures of the dogs with the booze fantasy intact.

So, let's all celebrate St. Bernard of Menthon or Mountjoux or Mount-Joux or wherever the fuck. I think it's only appropriate that you drink brandy today, or fuck a girl named Brandy. Or, hell, get Brandy drunk on brandy before bedding her, though you might want to leave the Meriadoc Brandybuck references at home if you're looking to get laid tonight.