The Battle of Dairy Queen

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

OK, using a Sun Tzu quote might be overdoing it a little bit...but this is how we felt in the late summer of 1998.  We being, of course, the towns of Foxboro and Mansfield.  It all started on the football field, (where else.)  During our summer passing league my Foxboro Warrior high school football team played against the Mansfield Hornets.  They were the biggest pains in our asses all through high school.  We played them every Thanksgiving.  We hated them.  So we talked shit, and they talked shit back...and at some point it was suggested that we square off in the local Dairy Queen parking lot. 

Surely that was just kids being kids and nothing would come of that.

We went that night, to the parking lot, just to be safe....nobody from Mansfield showed up.  Just as we thought, nothing would come from these shenanigans.  Except I was hanging out with a few of my friends the next night.  Back in the day I was about the only one who had a cell phone, so when I got a call from a strange number, I answered.  It was a frantic dude from my school, not even a football player, just another senior.  Now the friends I was with were all girls, but I was summoned.  "Vin, you gotta get your ass to Dairy Queen, they're here!"  And so we went.

"We gotta go!"  Now the girls were obviously in no mood to fight, but I wasn't about to let that get in the way of my pride.  We drove strait there.  Took us 5 minutes, and when we got there, it was like a fucking hornet's nest, no pun intended.  I jumped out of the car and immediately looked for answers. "What the fuck happened, I thought this was supposed to go down last night?"  I learned that a bunch of 'them' had shown up, phone calls were made for reinforcements on both sides, and next thing you knew, it was a standoff.  There were even kids there that had graduated last year, two years ago....maybe even three....There was no Eisenhower-like, Operation Overlord military strategy...it was us on one side, shoulder to shoulder...them on the other side of the parking lot.  I believe one of them had a small dog...

The dog actually set the whole thing off.  It barked, onc of us yelled that he'd kick that fucking dog across the street, and we charged.  The adrenaline took over and I don't remember the next minute or two.  I just know that I swung a few times, hit a kid, and then I was getting my head slammed against the side of the vehicle.  One of my fellow brawl buddies ripped the kid off me.  I was up, and blindly swinging again.  There was anarchy everywhere.  Apparently those pussies brought weapons, cause a couple of our big guns got hit with some home-made, medieval type devices that were later learned to cause some pretty bad damage.  Anyways, after what seemed like half a second, I was the only one left in the parking lot...well, and my girlfriends.  Next thing I knew, a cop slammed my face against the hood of his cruiser, which actually fucked me up more than the actual fight.  I forget what the fuck he asked me, I was concussed, so the girls talked to him, made up some bullshit about me being a victim of circumstance, and we were out of there.

My friend Lola bought a pint of ice cream and held it to my jug while I tried to shake the cobwebs.  They dropped me off and made me promise not to go to sleep.  (Apparently they had read on Webmd.com that you weren't supposed to sleep with a concussion....hold on a second, was the Internet around back then?  Shit I don't remember....either way, they told me not to sleep.)  My friend Lola even called me in the middle of the night to make sure I was awake.  I lied and told her that I was, but I slept like a baby that night. 

I woke up the next day and felt like a train hit me, but I felt awesome at the same time.  A good old fashioned ass kicking fest in a parking lot.  Ahhh....high school.  I remember that Monday morning and the stories that were passed all around the school.  Kids were in with busted up faces and bruised knuckles.  The whole fight probably lasted a minute, maybe two, before the cops scattered everyone, (except me.)  Everyone had a story.  "Dude, did you see me smash that dude against the Dairy Queen Window!"  "That was sick, did you see me smash that kids face into the pavement?"  "I saved Vinny from getting his head smashed into a car!"

Of course, now that we're in our 30's, and even for a long time since high school ended...many of us have mended ways with our fiercest rivals and the two towns get along and we're all friends with each other....except on Thanksgiving.  Great times!

Somebody That I Used to Know

I know it's the name of a Gotye song, and I shamelessly stole it for the title of this post, but hang in there.

My youngest sister turns 25 this month.  She's almost 7 years younger than me, and you would think that siblings, especially of the opposite sex, so many years apart, would not get along whatsoever.  For a long time, that's exactly how it was.  I didn't even know her. 

To begin to describe how somebody has matured over the years, I think it's prudent to first describe how that person used to be.  To say that my sister was a complete bitch when she was a teenager is more of an understatement than saying O.J. had a bit of a temper.  She was a C-word.  In any other post, I would spell it out for you, but you all know the meaning. 

It's a tough thing to say you hate a sibling, but damn it was pretty close to it.  From the time I was about 18 and she was just becoming a teenager, we couldn't be further apart in every aspect.  I was no hero when I was a teenager, but I played sports, got whatever grades I felt like getting, ( I underachieved), I had a good amount of friends, etc.  Sissa was like any other 13 year old, rebellious, teenage girl, except multiply that by about a million.  She was downright nasty.  She treated my mom like garbage.  She told the rest of my siblings and myself to shut the fuck up and stay out of it when they fought.  She did whatever she wanted.  She was spoiled.  She went out for the night and didn't come home. 

Some of it I'll blame on my mom, and my mom will say the same thing.  She just couldn't battle with my Sissa.  It was too exhausting, and my mom had no choice but to just give up.  So I tried to get her to turn it around, and I couldn't either.  I was the oldest, and like any other teenager, I had my battles with my mom too, but I couldn't stand the way Sissa treated her. It made me sick.  There was a screaming match just about every day for 5 years or so.  She hung out with shitty people, she dropped out of high school and moved to South Carolina with my mom.  She leached off of her.  She got a hillbilly piece of white trash boyfriend who stole from my mother and then she defended him.   She moved back to Massachusetts to live with my father, but got kicked out, so she moved into a hotel room with the white trash kid.  *Side note, if the piece of shit white trash kid lived any closer to Massachusetts, my brother and I would have saw to it that he would be a corpse by now.*   She smoked weed, she smoked cigarettes.  She moved home and stole cars from both parents and a step-parent, crashing one of them, and not giving one shit.  She got other boyfriends, (who subsequently got beat up by my brother and I.)  She couldn't get a job, not that she tried that hard, if at all.  I could go on about more specifics, but this is supposed to be a positive story, and I don't want to embarrass her any more than I already have.  I will say that she was the worst person I knew on the entire planet.  Those who know the McRoberts family and have for a long time know what I'm talking about.

Something happened to Sissa in her early 20's.  She got pregnant.  I know...downhill from there, right?  It was right around the same time my then wife got pregnant with my first son.  I thought that I had it all figured out.  A wife, a kid on the way.  I was resentful that I had "done things right" and now my thunder would be stolen by my least favorite person because she got knocked up.  I was sure it would be a disaster.  I believe I even threw an office chair through my drywall because I was so pissed.  Anyone else with the personality of Sissa would have probably went into a downward spiral.  I just pictured her overdosing on meth while she was 7 months pregnant or something.  I was literally terrified of how this would turn out.  I figured it would surely destroy our family.  I hoped she would have an abortion.  What an awful thing to think, looking back. 

I could not have been more wrong.  If anyone really knows me...you KNOW how difficult it is for me to admit being wrong, because it literally has only happened like 2 or 3 times in my life.  I was SO wrong.  I still don't know what happened exactly.  Maybe some kind of super mutated mom gene kicked in or something, but she took her pregnancy every bit as serious as my wife and I took ours.  She moved in with my mom, who had become pretty sick.  She did all the right things to get the help she needed.  She got a job.  She worked so hard to get her G.E.D.  She helped my mom pay the bills that she couldn't pay for by herself any more.  She started talking to me and my brother.  (Trid had become closer to her before this time.)  Her demeanor changed.  She was a different person.  She was somebody that I used to know, but was now completely different.  She stopped swearing.  She quit smoking.  She was excited to be a mom.  She was excited to be an aunt.  She was stoked that our kids were going to be born around the same time. 

I remember a heart to heart that my Sissa and I had on the phone maybe half-way or more through the pregnancies.  I thought I was going to be the stern older brother and talk to her like I had it all figured out and she would HAVE to listen to me or she wouldn't survive. I'll never forget that phone call, because she changed my whole perception of who she was as a person.  I got off the phone and was so happy I think I might have even cried.

In the summer of 2009, my son was born.  Sissa might have been the happiest person aside from my wife and I.  It was hard to explain.  I think it made her that much more excited to be a mom.  Exactly 4 weeks later to the day, her daughter was born.  She took on motherhood like it was in her the whole time...like it was no big deal.  She was a single mom.  Yeah, the father helped, when he could...but they weren't destined to stay together.  I'm pretty sure Sissa knew that from the beginning.  It didn't matter.  She stayed living with my mom, and in addition to taking care of her newborn daughter, she took care of my mom.  I think if the Hunger Games was real, she might have even volunteered to be one of the girls in the battle...that's how strong she had become.

I can't decide if it happened gradually or if it was like a switch.  My sister and I had a common bond now.  Since our kids were born, we've been closer than ever before.  It was like I had a new sister that I never knew I had before, and it was great.  It was special to me.  She called me...all the time.  She came and visited me. Sissa...the girl I hated as a teenager.   She came to visit me when nobody else would.  She would call me when nobody else would.  My family was there for me when I got divorced, but nobody more so than Sissa.  I thought all along that I had it all figured out, that I would have the big family and the happy marriage and the house.  I couldn't have had it more wrong.  While my sister went through one of the greatest transformations one could go through, it made her tougher than granite.  And I was the one who fucked up...not her.  I was so smart and did things right and she was a fuckup who would surely be a shitty mom.  There is no right way to do things.  I know that now and I didn't know it then.  My sister knew something, somehow, that I didn't.  How could this have happened?  I still have no idea.

I get along great with my whole family.  My brother has been my best friend since he got out of high school.  Trid and I are only a couple years apart and have been close since high school.  I was captain of the boys track team, she was captain of the girls track team.  We partied together, we had a lot of the same friends.  My parents have always been there for me.  I'd like to think that even though I'm not perfect, I've made them both proud over the years.  My uncles and aunts and cousins have always been close to me, (save for a couple...different story, different day.)  My grandmother might be my favorite person in the world, and I am openly her favorite grandchild. 

Despite all that, Sissa has become my closest ally.  She's the one I call when I'm having a bad day, and I've had plenty of bad days.  She calls me to see how I'm doing.  One day, when I had no money and my son was sick, she bought medicine and a thermometer to my apartment for me.  I couldn't buy medicine for my son, and my little sister, who I didn't even know when we were growing up, was there for me when nobody else was.  She helped me more than anyone with my son's 3rd birthday, knowing how important it was to me.  The cousins get along great.  Her daugher wants to "marry" my son when they grow up.  They're so damn adorable together.  We help each other take care of my mom.

I don't know if it's fair to say that my neice saved my sister's life.  I think it might be fair to say that they saved mine.  By becoming close to me, someone I can rely on whenever I need her, she's reminded me how important family is.  I love my sister who I barely knew existed when we were kids...who I despised as a teenager, and who I would take a bullet for now as an adult.

I love my sister, but what makes me feel even better, is how happy she's made her older brother.  Thank you for showing me the real way...not the way that I thought it should be.  I love ya so much, and I'm so happy that we've become the siblings that we always should have been.  I can't wait for so many more happy times we'll have together, and with our kids growing up together. 

I can say with no trepidation that teenage Sissa is just somebody that I used to know.  Now....I'm so very proud of you.  Happy birthday.

P.S. consider this my birthday card. Ha!

The Evolution of Date Rape

I roofied my girlfriend one time just to see what all the fuss was about.  (OK, it was a dangerously high dose of Klonopin, which chemically is about the same exact thing....look it up.)  First of all, it was a consensual science experiment, before you go calling the cops on me. 

I was unimpressed.  If I wanted my girl to pass out on me after her not wanting to have sex despite my repeated pleas and attempts, I'd marry her.  ZING!!  Hahahahah!!  Seriously though, she just acted really drunk and fell asleep.  Then I just felt creepy.  What's the point of date raping someone who you regularly have sex with anyways?  The thing it did make me realize about this particular narcotic is that you have to be a desperate motherfucker to spike a chick's drink just for the possibility of her staggering back to your place to have sex with her lifeless, passed out body.  Is that really fun for people?  Are there REALLY guys still out there that do this?  Seriously, go fuck a fat chick if you really need it that bad.

Let's get this out of the way...I'm not making light of rape.  I think it's the most horrible, disgusting thing that can be done to someone.  I think that even in some cases, it can be WORSE than murder.  OK?  Everyone on the same page?  I'm not making jokes about rape, got it?  Great, thanks.  It's sad that I even had to type this paragraph, but fuck me if I'm not politically correct or whatever.  The last thing I need are the P.C. police knocking on my door...(that's P.C. as in Political Correctness Police, not Providence College Police...which is a story for a whole other day, but I digress.)

So now that everyone knows Vinny is not a fan of rape, let's move on.  What kind of desperate homo needs to drug a girl to get sex?  How impetuous does one have to be to make the conscience decision to say, "Ya know what...I like that girl, I think I'll drug her Appletini and drag her stumbling ass to my car and bring her home to Mom's basement for an epic 30 second romp!"

Say there is a girl hot enough out at a bar who is worth taking the chance to go to prison for date rape.  Do you really think she would be the slightest bit interested in talking to some limp dick whack job chump who needs a hot girl to be unconscious if he wants to fuck said hot girl?  So in this scenario, limp dick whack job wouldn't even get the chance to drug her drink, because she wouldn't allow him close enough to it to even give him an opportunity.  If by some miracle, this dude even had the stones to talk to a 10 anyways, she would use her super hot, level 10 hot chick superpowers to immediately know that he had a 4 inch pecker, and immediately shut him down.  Let's take it a step further, and say that Ms. 10 is alone.  (She's not, of course...as I've blogged before, 10's do not travel alone, they travel with a herd of 6's to make themselves appear even hotter....this is a fact to which there is no argument against.)  The limp dick whack job would be better off kidnapping her in the alley and going the old fashioned rape route...which of course doesn't make any sense, because limp dick whack job is not looking for a power trip, which if you go by the profile, is what legit rapists are really after.  This guy is such a pussy, that he's willing to sneak a benzo into a drink just to have sex....he is clearly not looking to outright rape anyone. 

My point is this...go on the Internet you dumb fuck.  There's plenty of free porn out there.  There's some nasty shit too!  Pretty much whatever your perverted mind can think of....just go pick whatever you want to watch or read about and fire off some knuckle children, as Peter Griffin would say.  Either that, or hit up a free dating website.  If you can't get laid hitting some ladies up on plentyoffish.com, you either have your standards set way to high for your own pathetic ass, or you should just go kill yourself, because you will never have sex.

By the way, ugly girls out there, can you chime in on how this works going the other way?  If a girl really needs to get some, but she's a totally busted swamp-donkey and is out of AA batteries and can't afford to buy more because she just spent the last of her change at the laundromat washing all of her extra huge clothes, what does she do?  See, in my opinion, it's different, because ugly girls don't usually KNOW that they're ugly, so they have more confidence and can usually snag up a dude at last call who has given up and is just looking for a cozy place to put his pecker for the night, in which case, everybody wins.  Even in the morning...the girl goes home, still thinking she's hot because some drunk dude settled for her, and the guy has a funny story about boning a fat chick.  Winning!

When it's a guy, who is all together ugly, timid, AND creepy, he's got no chance....unless he's got a script of Xanax and he's not afraid to use it.

Negligent Homicide of a Feline

When I dropped my 3 year old cat off in the woods on a cold, November evening several years ago, essentially leaving her to die, would it be considered 1st degree murder, or negligent homicide?  No shelter would take her, and I had no choice. 

Forget for a minute that she is a cat, and as we all know, cats have no souls.  Pretend it was a human and I was actually sick enough to do such a thing.  Let's also, hypothetically, of course, say that I left a handful of cat food on the side of the road where I kicked her out of the cat carrier and sped off.  I almost expected her to find her way back to my home, but she certainly either froze to death, or was eaten by a coyote, well before she would be able to make the long journey home to my condo.  Still, I found myself looking out the window or occasionally checking the front door...thinking that maybe...just maybe, it was not her time to go. 

I like to think that a nice family took her in and gave her a nice home; but unless she actually made it out in the wilderness long enough to face starvation, I'm thinking she probably would not have approached another residence.

I'm continuously haunted by the image of my cat, who had never been outside before, never mind left to fend for herself.  Maybe that's why I'm reluctant to care for another pet.  A little bit of me died that day, I think...the day I left my poor cat to die.

The question; however, remains.  1st degree murder, negligent homicide, or neither?  After all, her body was never found, and I never actually committed the direct act that ended her life.  I always wondered  that to myself, and now it's out there.  I mean, who would bring up the fact that I left another living creature alone to suffer a horrifying existence, leading inevitably to a death that I can't imagine was quick and/or pleasant in any way, shape, or form.  I can't say that I feel like a weight is off my chest.  I'm sure I'll burn in hell for many things, and this is just one of those things.  I'm beyond redemption.

I'm sorry Kiwi, I hope wherever you are....you stop fucking showing up in my dreams.  Seriously.  If I'm forced to kill you all over again in my nightmares, I'm not sure if I could live with myself.  That being said...rest well my friend.

Partying Like a Three-Year-Old

I'm a bad father.  Terrible, actually.  I guess I just can't help myself.   Case in point:  Last Saturday night when Vinny Jr. was over, we partied like fucking rock stars.  His idea, not mine.  He's about to turn 3 years old, (where does the time go?)  So with no job and no responsibilities, my son came up with the idea for a guys night.  That was the thought, anyways.  He showed me how old I really am, but at the same time brought me back to my glory days.  Here is a running diary of the night:

6:24 p.m.   "Hey Dad, since Mom already thinks you're a shitty father, why don't we really go overboard tonight?  It will be a guys night...ya know, you, me, and a few friends over the apartment.  We ARE bachelors, after all." 

"OK bud, but you're cleaning up in the morning.  You know the song, right?  Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere, clean up, clean up, everybody do their share!"

"Dad, that shit is gay, I'm almost 3 for chrissakes."

"Sorry."

6:31 p.m.   I strapped my kid into his car seat and we headed to the local packy (That's liquor store for those of you who live outside New England and say things like "pop" instead of Coke or soda.)

6:59 p.m.  We returned to my shag palace with a 30 pack of Natty Lights, a gallon jug of Poland Springs vodka, some Southern Comfort, plenty of mixers, and a bottle of Patron.  (Yeah right, I'm fucking poor and my son has no money...it was Jose Cuervo.)

7:14 p.m.   Vinny Jr. was burning up the phone lines, getting people together for our party.  I was putting the alcohol on ice and overheard some questionable phone calls.  "Dude, don't be doing anything stupid...that's my cell phone. The last thing I need is for that shit to get subpoenaed if things get out of hand."

7:21 p.m.   We each cracked a beer and did a shot of Cuervo.  "Shot for shot, old man?" he asked me.  "Fuck it."  We did 4 each in the next 20 minutes, but I had to stop if I wanted to make it past 9:00 p.m.  "Pussy...."

7:51 p.m.   Some random people showed up, no doubt friends of my boy.  He was the most popular kid in daycare, after all.  I thought it was weird that they were all in their 20's, but what the hell, I didn't ask any questions.  Jr. introduced me, even though I didn't care who they were, and then they busted out the crack rocks.  "Dad, you gotta hit this shit!"  I rolled my eyes, but proceeded to hit the crack pipe.  Whatever, it was a party.  I've never smoked crack before, but apparently Jr. had, because he took it look a champ.

8:04 p.m.   Three girls waltzed in with very little clothing.  I knew right away that one of Jr.'s calls was to an "escort company."  "Dude!"  I looked at him.  He just shrugged.  The music started cranking and the girls started doing shots and dancing around like they owned the place.  Someone put up a foldable card table in the kitchen.  Me and Jr. continued drinking beer and doing shots, like most everyone else that was there.

8:22 p.m.   I was pretty sauced, and on top of that, high on crack.  Jr. seemed to be taking it pretty well considering he's only about 35 pounds.  The little shit could hold his booze.  People were getting pretty fucked up, and the girls were losing more and more clothing.  Jr. got in on a hand of poker. 

8:33 p.m.   After a few hands at the card table.  Someone took out a revolver and put it down on the card table.  "Let's make this interesting..."  He looked like a stand-up dude, so I completely trusted him with a gun in my home and at the same table as my young son.  "Russian roulette you bitches."  Jr. picked that shit up, and I don't know if it was the crack, but he put it right to his temple and pulled the trigger.  He didn't even flinch.  It clicked, no bullet came out, and he slammed it down on the table without saying a word.  Victory.  The guy to his right spun the chamber around, (I think that's what it's called, right?  I don't know guns.)  He hesitated, but pulled the trigger and sprayed his brains all over my fridge.  "Holy fuck!"  someone shouted.  I immediately sprung into action to get control of the situation. "I'll pass it off as a fire cracker if anyone asks, just get that body into the basement.  Wrap him in something first."  One of the girls puked everywhere.  Luckily,  a few of the guys there cleaned up both messes and the party went on.  We weren't gonna let a little "suicide" take away the fun of the night, it was still early.

9:18 p.m.   The party was rocking again.  Drinks, shots, now completely naked chicks doing weird shit.  Let's just say at one time it involved a bottle of mustard, several AA batteries, a wrist watch, and an emptied out McDonalds drink cup.  A band showed up and set up shop in the living room.  They were clearly all on heroin...at least that was my guess until they all shot up right in my bathroom with the door open, negating any doubt that I previously had.  For being amazingly high and barely able to keep their eyes open, they rocked it. 

9:26 p.m.   As expected, my bitch neighbor showed up to complain about the noise.  Jr. answered the door and punched her in the stomach before she even got a word out, doubling her over so that her face reached down towards his.  He grabbed her by the hair and pulled out his pocket knife.  Holding it to her jugular, he whispered calmly in her ear.  "Listen you nosy bitch.  You're gonna go back home, turn your t.v. up, and pretend like you don't even know we're here.  If the cops show up, I'm going to immediately assume it was you.  They're never gonna bring me to the clink, I'm fucking 3 years old.  Guess where my first stop is gonna be?  Your house.  So move it on down the line."  She backed out of the doorway, white as a ghost and trembling like the prostitute with the weak stomach was about an hour ago.  "Atta girl...get on now."  We didn't hear from that old whore for the rest of the night.  I give little Vinny some knuckles and thanked him for handling her.  "She's always busting my balls...thanks buddy!"

9:58 p.m.   Vinny Jr. threw up, but only to make room for more alcohol.

10:19 p.m.  I threw up for the same reason.

10:25 p.m.  One of the hookers puked on another one of the hookers...but I think it was on purpose.  I was too fucked up to figure it out.  On the other end of the room, one of Jr.'s friends punched one of the hookers in the ear and yelled something to her, but the music was too loud for me to hear.

10:58 p.m.  Vinny Jr. walked up to me, so I bent down to hear what he had to say.  "Pretty sweet party old man...hopefully nobody's rocking their iPhone as a camera, haha!  Shots?"  I nodded.  "Let's do it, bust out the Poland Springs vodka in it's plastic jug.  Clearly must be the good shit."  We each proceeded with three shots in a row, and passed a bunch more out to random people.

11:26 p.m.  We popped the iTunes back on as the band ran out of songs to play.  Plus, I was pretty sure the bass player had overdosed.  "Hey!!"  Jr. yelled.  "Get that guy the fuck outta here, Pulp Fiction style!"  Good move Jr.  It was gonna be hard enough to get one body the hell outta the place.  The band carried him out and took off. 

11:57 a.m.   A fight broke out in the kitchen and everyone converged on the scene.  It was a bigger guy vs. a small dude.  The little guy held his own for a few seconds before he started to get pummelled.  This went on for another couple of seconds until the big guy's knees buckled, and he crumbled to the ground.  Vinny Jr. was standing behind him with my 8 iron.  "No fighting."  He slurred.  Everybody laughed and the big guy was dragged out into the parking lot, where he would surely drive home drunk and embarrassed from being cheap-shotted by a toddler.

12:34 a.m.   The hard alcohol was running out, but luckily, most people brought beer, so we had plenty of that.  A few people left, but most of us were going pretty strong.  "You know it's way past your bed time, right?"  Jr. smashed a beer bottle against a wall and held the now-deadly weapon up to my face.  "Are you fucking kidding me Pops?"  "I'm just saying, chill out!"  He laughed and threw his arm around his shoulder.  "Thanks for being cool with this party Old Man!"  I laughed for a minute.  "No worries little guy, but I'm not getting you shit for your 3rd birthday."  Jr. now laughed.  "Ahhh, you son of a bitch, don't worry about it!"

1:04 a.m.   I sat my tired ass down on the couch.  People were starting to get to the point of no return.  Then someone poured what seemed like a bag of sugar on my coffee table.  Once people started snorting the shit up their noses, I figured it out.  15 minutes later, I miraculously caught a second wind...and a runny nose. 

1:09 a.m.   Jr. and one of the hookers waltzed out of the bathroom together.  I thought for a split second about how the logistics of that might have worked, but I quickly decided not to try.

1:58 a.m.  More people filtered out.  My son and I continued to drink beers.  The night had become pretty foggy at this point.  I remember one of the hookers looking for money.  Jr. took a $20 out of my wallet and gave it to one of them.  "Here's some cash for the 3 of you to get home and stop at Wendy's." 

"What the fuck!" One of them yelled. 

"Do you really want to argue with me here?  Do you even have the slightest idea of how many felonies were committed here already tonight?  Do you want to add 3 to the total?  Get the fuck outta here."  The sluts left.  I looked at my son, puzzled.  "Why did you give them my last $20?"  He just shrugged.

I don't remember anything after that. 

6:02 a.m.   I woke up on the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own vomit.  I had pissed my pants and the place stunk to high hell.  Vinny Jr. was putting the finishing touches on cleaning the place up.  "Dad, let me borrow your keys, I gotta get rid of that package in the basement."  I nodded towards the kitchen table.  "Back in a couple hours."

"OK, but hurry up, your mother will be here to pick you up at noon." 

6:09 a.m.  I made my way to my bed, where I found a chubby chick with a decent face sprawled out on top of the covers.  I got her just conscience enough to where it wouldn't be rape, and had at it with her.  I then politely donkey punched her and kicked her out.  "I don't have a ride!"  she whined.  "Well if you were up 10 minutes ago, you could have caught one with my son...but you might have ended up like the passenger in the trunk."  She was confused, but hastily exited.
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I woke up and found Vinny Jr. on the couch watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  "Morning Daddy.  I have a fruit bar a beafest....pleeeeaaasssse Daddy?" 

"I just had the most messed up dream...did you have a good sleep buddy."

"Yeah."

"What do you want to do today?"

"Go a the park!"

"You got it pal....I love you!"

"Lub you too Dada."

"I'm not drinking Mountain Dew before bed any more, especially on a day where your mother yelled at me from giving you Reese's Puffs and juice for breakfast."

A bad father?  Me?  C'mon!  A little sugar for breakfast doesn't make me a bad father, in reality.  In the dream world though?  Maybe....

People I Hate-Part 1

At least I'm pretty sure I would hate them if I knew them personally, which most people on this list, I don't.  Also, you can assume that I hate all Muslim extremists, rapists, and child molestors.  This list would be longer if it included people who were already dead.

Jimmy Fallon
Ernie Boch Jr.
Paul O'Neil
John Brussard
Bob from Bob's Discount Furniture
Claude Lemieux
George Lopez
Carrott Top
Captian Elliot Neese
Hank Steinbrenner
People who let their dogs shit in public areas and don't clean up after them
Ulf Samuelsson








Samuelson

Mike Felger
Miss Wanda from daycare
Barry Bonds
Ray Lewis
People who take golf so seriously at a public course that they bitch at me if I don't use proper etiquitte
LeBron James
Sergio Garcia
People who sit right next to me on public transportation or movie theaters even though their are empty seats elsewhere
Maria Carey
Kim Jong Il
Jerry Sandusky
Ugly babies
Chris Berman
People who make stupid lists
Traffic cops who give me a ticket despite how awesome my excuse is
Peter McNeely

John Lackey

Lackey










Alex Rodriguez

Jerry Jones

Divorce lawyers

People with underbites

Joe Morgan

Jessie Jackson

My aunt Kathy

Bernard Francis Law

Kanye West

Fidel Castro

The Dugger Family

John Mayer

Mitt Romney

Bill collectors

Stuart Scott

People with yellow teeth

Flo from the Progressive commercials

Guys on steroids that walk around flexing their lats who try to start shit if you glance in their direction, or in the direction of the girl they're with, (who obviously like guys who have a complex about their tiny dicks) but when it comes right down to it, won't do anything about it.

In Between Insane and Insecure-Part 3

Part 3- The Origin of Penguin Face

Day 1,  ??? p.m.

As the evening wore on, the hard liquor began to catch up with me, and the night began to become fuzzy.  Images in my head include my friends around the campfire, eating snackies, and getting ever-more wasted.  Being a new dad, my schedule was completely haywire.  I was the first to fade, and stumbled into my tent, somehow knowing that tomorrow would be worse.  I was told that my sister drank more or less the entire handle of Captain Morgan's that she so dearly loved.

The next thing I remember, or don't remember but was told later, were Nails and Slatz trying to get me up by shining headlamps inside my tent, but I was finished, and nothing short of dry-humping me was going to wake me up. Well, my friends thought of that also, and proceeded to try just that.  I was told the next day that Nails was very gentle.  That's me there, all snuggled up in my sleeping bag.

 

In the morning, I woke up early, (another side effect of being a new dad.  As I said previously, I slept on the far left of the tent, Vixen was next to me, then Nails, then Kelley.  Nails, half asleep and surely hungover, was down to spoon.  "Vixen, your hair smells so good."  He unconsiously blurted out.  "That's actually me."  Kelley corrected.  "Same difference."  Was Rob's reply, without missing a beat.

Seemingly out of nowhere.  Slatz groaned, clearly just awoken, but still ready to take a dig.  "Smoothe move Ex-lax."  I thought this was about the funniest thing in the world, so I started laughing, and it was contagious, especially with Nails.  He is the easiest dude to get to laugh.  Most of the time, just looking at him with the slightest smirk will send him on a bender of a giggle fest that will last several minutes.  This was just such an occasion.  So much for anyone sleeping in.  Vixen and I headed for the bathroom building and we walked past Lynne's car.  We peeked inside and there she was, asleep in the car.  I knocked on the window to make sure she was up, cause I'm an asshole like that.

Day 2, 8:34 a.m.

Trid and her friend departed the area on a quest to replace the baggo board that I had destroyed on the previous day.  Nails cooked up some delicious breakfast.  I went through my routine with Fuzzynuts, who was pretty much appearing at every meal by this time.  The rest of us congregated around the campfire as Slatz and I started the blaze.  The ridiculous conversations picked up right where they left off.  We turned on the music, and it was a beautiful day.  Time for Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers.  And it began.  Nails cooked up some delicious breakfast and we feasted.  We had to coat our bellies for what would sure to be an even longer day of drinking.

After a not so long time, Trid and her friend returned from their trip.  "We found a Wal-Mart."  My sister placed a "wet floor" sign, that was obviously stolen, on top of the rock that we had all been tripping over all weekend and nearly killing ourselves.  "One problem solved." She said calmly, the rest of us just kind of accepting what had happened.  "And, we got a replacement for baggo!"  "Nice!" I thought, I was off the hook.  The game formerly known as baggo was forever renamed Penguin Face, by yours truly.  Strangely, it fit.  The boards looked like gian penguins, with the holes where the bags go directly over the penguin's face, thus, the origin of Penguin Face.  We promptly began a tournament, and game 1 was not a friendly competetion.  It was a no-holds-bar, drag 'em out, beat 'em down brawl.  It pitted Slatz and Emma vs. Trid and her friend.  Trid's team quickly shot out to a 12-0 lead.  Instead of fading off into the night, Slatz and Emma would not be denied.  They came back slowly but surely.  12-6, 13-8, 16- 12, 18-18! I was judging the contenst, and of course drinking my face off, which led to this pronouncement.  "THIS IS THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN THE HISTORY OF PENGUIN FACE!!!"  Well no shit dude, it's the first ever game of Penguin Face.  My Al Michaels impression would not be deterred; however.  The game was to 21, but of course, needed to be won by two points.  Standard drinking game procedure.  It went well into overtime.  Sweat poured from the competitor's faces, though it was mostly comprised of booze seeping from their pores.  The spectators were on the edge of their seats.  The competitor's nerves were like steel.  It was the greatest game in Penguin Face history.  The score ballooned to 29-28, Slatz team ahead.  Trid hit a Penguin face on her first throw of the round.  The pressure was on Slatz.  If he scored no points, my sisters team would win.  Slatz, however, channeled his inner David Ortiz.  He nailed a Penguin Face, negating my sister's clutch shot.  Trid put both her next bags on the Penguin, and Slatz missed his next shot.  If Slatz missed his last shot, Trid would be up 30-29.  Ice water in his veins...Slatz drilled a Penguin Face, setting off a celebration, beginning with me jumping up from my chair, spitting my mouthful of beer all over the place and exclaiming, "DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES!!! YES!!"  It was epic, and may never be duplicated.

Day 2, 12:57 p.m.

After lunch and a celebration filled with Captain Morgan's, we elected to hike up the nearby hill, leading up a 2.3 mile trail.  Luckily, Nails had traversed this treacherous journey once before, so we knew we would be ok.  After what seemed like a 4 hour trek, we began to ask Nails if we were almost there. 

He continued to assure us that the top was "right around the corner."  After what seemed like an additional 4 hours, we finally reached the summit.  Victory was ours.  Was it reckless to climb a mountain and peer over the ledge while completely shitfaced, with one mis-step leading to our untimely death?  Of course, but that was part of the fun.  The feel of triumph far outweighed the danger.

 

We climbed back down the mountain, after taking in some truly breathtaking views.  It was truly a place between the insecurity of man and the insanity of nature, and we made sure we appreciated it.  The rest of the trip went as expected.  We drank well into the night. Ran around with headlamps on, and woke up in the morning, ready to make the trip home.  We cleaned up our site and made our way home.  I was pulled over by a Vermont State Police trooper, who asked me why I was speeding.  "Trust me officer, you want me out of this state as soon as possible."

"Just right."  He said, and let me go.  What the hell was with these hippies in Vermont?