"I knew this guy who.."
Volume 2: Mailbox Menace
Volume 2: Mailbox Menace
OK I have to preface this blog with the following disclaime:. As I grew up, on many many MANY occasions I was a complete idiot. As I recall some of the things I did, I feel it necessary to advise, nay to BEG with any readers: DO NOT BE AS DUMB AS I WAS. Really. There are ways to have fun and be an idiot and not risk your life. You'll know what I mean when you read about the "secret passing game."
So back in the day I knew this guy who liked to be absurd just to have fun. He was a notorious slob and he cranked things up a notch or 7 to make it fun for everyone to "enjoy." His room was a pit. And he never did the dishes. It got to the point where I changed my way of life. I would put all the dirty dishes glasses and silverware away in the cupboards and wash them before I would use them. Why? This way I only washed what I used and didn't have to wash them once, use them, then wash them a second time and put them away. Because this guy would use up all the clean dishes. And counter space. So my solution was... clear the dirty dishes off of tables, chairs, floors, counters, sink.. put them away in the cupboards and drawers. It worked too, because no one wanted to get out stuff and wash it before they used it, cept for me.
His response? He used paper plates or tops of old pizza boxes as plates. and drank out of the bottle of whatever he had. Fingers worked as silverware. So he won, and I won, and our other two roomies lost. Caught in a war of filth.
Funny story (hey how convenient, I'm here telling a funny story anyways. this can be a bonus story inside a story. How Jebbspearean of me), when we all moved out of the apartment we lived in (rumor has it this was during my college years) , we packed all his dishes up into boxes for him and of course they were still dirty. I drew a wacky face in ketchup on one of the plates to be goofy. He moved to a different apt, we moved, over the years he bounced around to different apartments.
Flash forward to when he buys his first house. Me and the droogs are out there to see it, and helping him unpack boxes. Some of the boxes were, he said "from a few moves back." I open one, and sure enough, I pull out the plate I drew the ketchup face on.. about 4 years ago. So now he had all his dirty nasty flith encrusted dishes back! I think he may have just thrown all those plates and glasses out soon after that actually, he had since purchased a new set. Seeing all the dirt encrusted on them was probably enough motivation to just put that stuff out to the curb.
Somewhere in a junkyard there could be a plate in a box with a "vintage 1990 jebby ketchup drawing" in it. For reference, it was a dude sticking his tongue out with his fingers in his ears. The ketchup has turned a shade of Dorian Gray by now. Do not clean it or I shall vanish foreverrrr...
This guy is legendary, the stories go on and on. One summer he stayed up at school and was so lazy he didn't go to any of his classes, like.. he didn't even show up ONCE. He didn't flunk them, he got Xs in them. How do you get an X? You don't even show up once. He stayed home and lay on the couch. He never left the apt! He ordered pizzas to be delivered. And he ran out of soap and shampoo for the shower so he used dish soap. He ran out of TP too, and I think he was using .. napkins? probably from the pizza deliveries. Nasty.
He was a great guy actually, and only got this messy during that one summer, and no one else experienced it, as he was alone at college and never left his room. So I never had to deal with more than the "dirty dishes" thing. Which I will admit was fucking annoying.
Anyways he loved to drink! God help us, we all did. He used to order up lemon drops at the bar and hit on anything that moved and was female. Well, I'll spare you the stories of who he hooked up with. Suffice it to say that he has an embarrassing photo of me passed out under a bathroom sink in just my BVDs, but he will never show it because I have a picture of him at a party with ..well, it had a girl's name.. but I am not sure what form of life it actually was/is. So my blackmail trumps his by a thousand-fold.
Anyhow the point of this blog.. on the way home from the bar, this guy would go Poncho Villa on us. We would be walking and approach a corner with a mailbox on it. He would suddenly yell, and drop to a football stance. He would say something derogatory about it. Then he would charge the mailbox and slam his shoulder into it with all his might and careen off the mailbox, laughing.
The next day he'd be in a lot of pain and ask us why he did that. We'd just laugh. How the fuck did we know why he did that? To make us laugh I guess. And laugh we did, when he did it and the day after when the dumb ass could barely move his arms.
Some of the stuff he did, I got roped into as well. Stupidity is contagious! One time we drove down the road with a case of bottles of beer and would drink half a bottle and then throw it up in the air as high as we could (he had a convertible) and listen to it smash on the road behind us. And laugh like maniacs. Yea that was real nice wasn't it?
Another time we were racing down I94 after midnight and we would play a "secret passing game." One of us would turn off his headlights and then pass the other guy.. it was pitch black so when the lights went off.. you didn't know where the other guy's car was then suddenly it would fly by you on the right or the left, depending on what lane you were in. OK so that was stupid enough, especially considering we were both drunk. And we were going quite fast. But he ultimately outdid me, he passed me like that on the freaking shoulder! I'm cruising along and his headlights behind me extinguish and I wait for it.. to see him pass me on the right and suddenly I hear a honk and he's passing me on the left.. on the shoulder! I can just make out his white smile and his eyes as he laughed and floored it and sped by me. A mental image I will never forget.
Nothing like driving over 85mph in pitch blackness while drunk.. on the shoulder of a highway.
I passed him and pulled into the rest stop up ahead and he did too, laughing his ass off. I was laughing but then I told him he could have died.. what if a car was parked on the side of the road. That sobered us both up fast. We decided to take it easy on the rest of the trip and as soon as we pulled out of the rest stop and got back on 94 we passed some state troopers sitting on the side of the road.
Yikes.
Mulling this over, now I'm wondering.. why am I still alive? I guess a lot can be said for the power of luck to overcome stupidity.
I didn't even mention the time we got cops to let us in the closed parking garage by Bourbon Street (in Kalamazoo, not New Orleans). We had parked in there, not seeing the "closes for night at 11" sign. Apparently many people missed that sign so we asked the cops on the corner what to do and they actually had the keys to open it up. So we went in to get our cars. I got into my car and backed into a parked car and CRASH.. and the other car's car alarm went off, broken tail light and headlight glass was all over. I just kept going acting like nothing had happened, after all I was drunk. His car went out first, I went out second, thanked the cops for helping us. Later my friend said he and the cop head the CRASH and the alarm but didn't think anything of it.
Still, I didn't ever tackle any mailboxes.
So back in the day I knew this guy who liked to be absurd just to have fun. He was a notorious slob and he cranked things up a notch or 7 to make it fun for everyone to "enjoy." His room was a pit. And he never did the dishes. It got to the point where I changed my way of life. I would put all the dirty dishes glasses and silverware away in the cupboards and wash them before I would use them. Why? This way I only washed what I used and didn't have to wash them once, use them, then wash them a second time and put them away. Because this guy would use up all the clean dishes. And counter space. So my solution was... clear the dirty dishes off of tables, chairs, floors, counters, sink.. put them away in the cupboards and drawers. It worked too, because no one wanted to get out stuff and wash it before they used it, cept for me.
His response? He used paper plates or tops of old pizza boxes as plates. and drank out of the bottle of whatever he had. Fingers worked as silverware. So he won, and I won, and our other two roomies lost. Caught in a war of filth.
Funny story (hey how convenient, I'm here telling a funny story anyways. this can be a bonus story inside a story. How Jebbspearean of me), when we all moved out of the apartment we lived in (rumor has it this was during my college years) , we packed all his dishes up into boxes for him and of course they were still dirty. I drew a wacky face in ketchup on one of the plates to be goofy. He moved to a different apt, we moved, over the years he bounced around to different apartments.
Flash forward to when he buys his first house. Me and the droogs are out there to see it, and helping him unpack boxes. Some of the boxes were, he said "from a few moves back." I open one, and sure enough, I pull out the plate I drew the ketchup face on.. about 4 years ago. So now he had all his dirty nasty flith encrusted dishes back! I think he may have just thrown all those plates and glasses out soon after that actually, he had since purchased a new set. Seeing all the dirt encrusted on them was probably enough motivation to just put that stuff out to the curb.
Somewhere in a junkyard there could be a plate in a box with a "vintage 1990 jebby ketchup drawing" in it. For reference, it was a dude sticking his tongue out with his fingers in his ears. The ketchup has turned a shade of Dorian Gray by now. Do not clean it or I shall vanish foreverrrr...
This guy is legendary, the stories go on and on. One summer he stayed up at school and was so lazy he didn't go to any of his classes, like.. he didn't even show up ONCE. He didn't flunk them, he got Xs in them. How do you get an X? You don't even show up once. He stayed home and lay on the couch. He never left the apt! He ordered pizzas to be delivered. And he ran out of soap and shampoo for the shower so he used dish soap. He ran out of TP too, and I think he was using .. napkins? probably from the pizza deliveries. Nasty.
He was a great guy actually, and only got this messy during that one summer, and no one else experienced it, as he was alone at college and never left his room. So I never had to deal with more than the "dirty dishes" thing. Which I will admit was fucking annoying.
Anyways he loved to drink! God help us, we all did. He used to order up lemon drops at the bar and hit on anything that moved and was female. Well, I'll spare you the stories of who he hooked up with. Suffice it to say that he has an embarrassing photo of me passed out under a bathroom sink in just my BVDs, but he will never show it because I have a picture of him at a party with ..well, it had a girl's name.. but I am not sure what form of life it actually was/is. So my blackmail trumps his by a thousand-fold.
Anyhow the point of this blog.. on the way home from the bar, this guy would go Poncho Villa on us. We would be walking and approach a corner with a mailbox on it. He would suddenly yell, and drop to a football stance. He would say something derogatory about it. Then he would charge the mailbox and slam his shoulder into it with all his might and careen off the mailbox, laughing.
The next day he'd be in a lot of pain and ask us why he did that. We'd just laugh. How the fuck did we know why he did that? To make us laugh I guess. And laugh we did, when he did it and the day after when the dumb ass could barely move his arms.
Some of the stuff he did, I got roped into as well. Stupidity is contagious! One time we drove down the road with a case of bottles of beer and would drink half a bottle and then throw it up in the air as high as we could (he had a convertible) and listen to it smash on the road behind us. And laugh like maniacs. Yea that was real nice wasn't it?
Another time we were racing down I94 after midnight and we would play a "secret passing game." One of us would turn off his headlights and then pass the other guy.. it was pitch black so when the lights went off.. you didn't know where the other guy's car was then suddenly it would fly by you on the right or the left, depending on what lane you were in. OK so that was stupid enough, especially considering we were both drunk. And we were going quite fast. But he ultimately outdid me, he passed me like that on the freaking shoulder! I'm cruising along and his headlights behind me extinguish and I wait for it.. to see him pass me on the right and suddenly I hear a honk and he's passing me on the left.. on the shoulder! I can just make out his white smile and his eyes as he laughed and floored it and sped by me. A mental image I will never forget.
Nothing like driving over 85mph in pitch blackness while drunk.. on the shoulder of a highway.
I passed him and pulled into the rest stop up ahead and he did too, laughing his ass off. I was laughing but then I told him he could have died.. what if a car was parked on the side of the road. That sobered us both up fast. We decided to take it easy on the rest of the trip and as soon as we pulled out of the rest stop and got back on 94 we passed some state troopers sitting on the side of the road.
Yikes.
Mulling this over, now I'm wondering.. why am I still alive? I guess a lot can be said for the power of luck to overcome stupidity.
I didn't even mention the time we got cops to let us in the closed parking garage by Bourbon Street (in Kalamazoo, not New Orleans). We had parked in there, not seeing the "closes for night at 11" sign. Apparently many people missed that sign so we asked the cops on the corner what to do and they actually had the keys to open it up. So we went in to get our cars. I got into my car and backed into a parked car and CRASH.. and the other car's car alarm went off, broken tail light and headlight glass was all over. I just kept going acting like nothing had happened, after all I was drunk. His car went out first, I went out second, thanked the cops for helping us. Later my friend said he and the cop head the CRASH and the alarm but didn't think anything of it.
Still, I didn't ever tackle any mailboxes.
