Just a Random Night (Guest Blog Entry)

Here's a wacky post that a friend wrote in response to my party crasher tale (The Wangstas). I like a break from writing and therefore welcome guest entries. Don't come complaining if there's any spelling or grammar errors, you vultures. I proofread her work, but I'm tired and may have missed something here or there. I took some liberties in the writing to improve the flow of the story, and added some witty nicknames, but the material is all hers! Take it away, Lynda!

Last fall I went to Regina to visit a friend (who we’ll call K). K wanted to go out. There was a lot going on, as it was a long weekend and there was a CFL game that day, so I said I would be the designated driver. K said she wanted to go to a few different places, but soon after we left she got a phone call from a friend telling her to come to this friend’s place for pre-bar drinks.  K told her that she had a friend visiting (me) and said we would stop by. The friend K was talking to told her she could only bring me if I wasn’t a “big weirdo.” After K got off the phone, she told me what this friend had said. I am instantly annoyed. Who are these people? First of all, I didn’t even want to be going to someone else’s house party (as I believe my free time is extremely valuable and am really particular about who I spend it with).  But we went anyway. We arrived there and it was a few jersey-wearing Riders fans in lawn chairs, who K didn’t even know. The girl we went to see was not my type at all; she told me “she needed to get her smoke on and her drink on.” Who the fuck says that? From this point on, I will refer K’s friend as WT (for white trash).  WT decided we would go to a bar at which there was a special event going on - the Budweiser Big Rig was in town! Wooooooooooooooo…it’s a semi that had a fold-out bar and dance floor (yes, the woo was sarcasm).

So WT decided that she, K, and two random guys were going to cram into my little VW Golf but first I was going to drive WT home so she could change out of her sweats and rider t-shirt into…well I can’t remember, but it wasn’t much better. WT also made a point of yelling at me from the back seat to put some music on for her…I was beyond annoyed as I was born with absolutely zero ability to be fake. Zero! It’s really bad. So I started to get more and more hostile toward WT.

We arrived at the bar and there was a massive line up, but one of the randoms that WT insisted come along was able to get us in. We were a bunch of assholes who marched to the front of the line, taking shoves and insults as we pushed up to the front. Once we were in the bar, WT took off somewhere…likely to get her “drink on.” WT’s disappearance improved my mood as there were hundreds of people there for me to hide within and therefore I didn’t have to see her again! Sadly, I was kind of bored as K and I seemed to be the oldest people there. When I get bored, I start asking random people questions just to see their responses. So imagine my shock when I asked a random guy walking by if he ever tucked his penis between his legs and took pictures. He proceeded to drop his pants and skivvies to the ground, grabbed his penis, and tucked it back between his legs! OMG! I love off the wall reactions, but this shocked me.

I can’t remember what happened next…I think K screamed and we moved away from Tucker (this clever nickname courtesy of Dave, owner of this blog), or maybe Tucker’s friends moved him away from us. However, I ran into Tucker later in the evening. I was still laughing about what happened with Tucker. I asked his name and it turned out we shared the same last name, which I am frequently told is very “Mennonite.” I asked him if he was Mennonite.  He said he was adopted and raised by Mennonite parents. Ugh!

K suggested we go next door to another bar, and I agreed. Anything to get out of a bar where we were at least ten years older than 99% of the people there. We went to the next bar and we ran into some friends of mine that I hung out with years ago but had not seen in a long time. Seeing my old friends made the night so much better. K and I ended up hanging out with my old friends, and I took a strong liking to one of these friends’ girlfriends. At the end of the night, one friend (let’s call him J) said we should all go back to his house (which was technically his girlfriend’s house who he mooched off of). J’s girlfriend was in France with her mom on a holiday at the time. On our way there, J asked me to stop at a bar to get an off-sale. We pulled up and J went in. He was in there for what seemed like forever. I drove up closer to the window and looked in. J was talking to a really nice looking First Nations guy. Not to sound judgmental, but from the guy’s mannerisms, he appeared to be gay.  J, being a hipster, could easily be labeled as homosexual as well, so K and I were giggling that the guy J was talking to thought he was picking up J. J finally returned to the car and asked me to stop at 7-11.  We pulled up and J went in for cigarettes. While waiting, K and I looked in the car beside us and there was a strange looking couple who we thought was a pimp and his ho. J came back out with his highly coveted cigs and we finally headed to his girlfriend’s house.

Upon arrival at J’s girlfriend’s home, we all went in. A short time passed. There were about eight of us are sitting around the living room when the door opened and in walked the nice looking First Nations guy! That would have been okay, but OMFG…behind him were about ten of the roughest looking individuals I had ever seen! In the group of walking demotivational posters were the pimp and ho we saw at 7-11…ick. As they piled into the small house, they could tell by our expressions that they weren’t welcome and that we were terrified. One member of Team Crackhouse (all Team * nicknames courtesy of Dave) even announced “We’re at a fucking white party.” In response, one of my friends quickly corrected her by saying “No you’re not, I’m black.” One of the girls who was at the party already went over to talk to some of Team HighAsFuck so that they wouldn’t get more rowdy than they were…this girl thought she thought also represent as she was one half Filipino.

Team AcidDrop ended up staying a while despite not being welcome. About a half hour later, someone began banging on the door. I looked outside to see THREE police cars parked out front. Since I was the only sober person there, I went outside to speak to the police. I told the cops that I was good friends with J’s girlfriend who was out of town. The police asked me if I was sober and when I said yes they recommend that I get in my car and leave as fast as I could. The cops said that the crashers were not the type of people I wanted to be partying with. I couldn’t leave my friends and my friend’s house to the mercy of Team Cokehead so I made a plan with the officers. The plan was simple…my friends and I would all lie to Team HeroinandVodka and say we were leaving. Once Team MaryJane was gone, we’d turn off the lights and lock all the doors and continue the party uninterrupted. The plan started off well. We got Team TrackMarks out of the house. However, while we were sitting there discussing how it was great that we were rid of Team OD, two of them came down the stairs! They’d either been looting or doing something in the bathroom the whole time. They sat down and began hanging out with us and drinking our beer like nothing was wrong. To make matters worse, for reasons inexplicable, J went to the front door and let the rest of them back in! WTF?

The police came back and I went to talk to them. The police told me that since J has invited Team SnortNBlow into the house, there was nothing the police could do. The police also stated that if they get called again, J would face a fine. We hadn’t called the cops in the first place, by the way. Team Nickelbag had initially gone to the wrong house and those people had called the police.

I went upstairs with K. I was really scared by now. A couple of my other friends joined us and we tried to decide what we were going to do. Everyone but me went back downstairs while I stayed in the laundry room and called a mutual friend to tell him the story of what J had done. I could hear a ruckus downstairs, which a friend told me later was the result of one of the girls accusing a guy she was sitting with of talking about her dad, so she punched the guy in the face. We’ll call this guy “Bleeding Guy” now. After the beating, J finally got the nards to tell Team CocaineNoseBleed to leave.  Team Juicy all left the home without incident and we once again locked the doors. We then all sat around de-briefing and laughing about what had happened and how we miraculously survived without getting shot or stabbed (this was Regina, after all). While we were talking, we heard a knock at the back door. It was Bleeding Guy and he wanted to come back in the house. As if! Obviously, we left him out there to bleed. Unfortunately, I was parked in the back so we had to wait a while for him to leave before we could get to my car. When we finally did get to leave, we drove a few blocks and saw Bleeding Guy staggering down the street.

To this day, none of us have told J’s girlfriend what went on in her house that night...we’re all just glad we escaped that evening unscathed.

The Twelve Days of Festivus: Day Eleven

THE TWELVE DAYS OF FESTIVUS

Day Eleven: Grade Ten and Eleven

Grade ten and eleven were a blur for me. As a result, I'm often uncertain as to what things happened when. Since there's twelve days in The Twelve Days of Festivus and thirteen grades (if you include kindergarten), I figured it a good idea to talk about random crap that happened to me in grades ten and eleven together. 

The White Shoes

In grade ten, Doc Martin shoes were the big fashion deal. Every guy wore a pair. Every guy except me. One day after school, my mum decided to take me for some new shoes. We shopped and shopped and shopped and I found a pair I liked. The next day I wore them to school, and a friend noticed that my Docs had buckles instead of laces. While in hindsight it really didn't matter, to me at the time it was a big deal. Within minutes, my friends were calling me "buckle boy," and it bothered me. I went home at lunch and put the shoes back into the box. I asked my mum if we could return them for a different pair but she said they couldn't be returned and she would not buy me a second pair. What was I going to do? I couldn't wear the buckles!
Digging through the closet, I found a pair of running shoes that were originally purchased as gym shoes but I ended up not needing. They weren't Docs, but they would be better than buckles!
I slapped on the runners and headed back to school. I noticed, upon arrival at the school, that everyone was staring. I looked down and noticed that in the artificial fluorescent lights of the school, my shoes were almost glowing. They were so bright! Blindingly bright, one might even describe. In science class, everyone seemed to be staring at my shoes. Even Mr. Liebel made a comment about how they were so brightly coloured. I was so embarrassed.
After school, as I was walking home, some dude named Jamie came up and mentioned that my shoes were funny, but that all white shoes were bright at first. I guess I felt better to know that once they dirtied, they wouldn't be so awful. Jamie and I walked together until I reached my house. Jamie made some sort of jab at me about my shoes, which seemed to contradict everything he'd said before. Since I didn't like to lose, I retorted with a comment about his pink button-up shirt. I said that it was "gay in the happy way," but he knew what I was getting at.
Jamie was a big guy and a good two years older than me. I should have thought before I opened my mouth. He took a swipe at me to try and grab me and I bolted! With Jamie hot on my heels, I ran up onto my balcony and whipped open the patio door. I pushed the door shut again but Jamie got his fingers in and started to pull the door open. What the hell? Was he going to enter my home uninvited to kick my ass? We struggled with the door for several moments until Jamie just let go of the door. Since I had been pushing the door shut with all my might, when he let go the door slammed shut. Right on my thumb. Ouch.
Jamie immediately noticed the blood gushing from my wound, and he ran like hell. My mum came downstairs to see what all the bother was about. I told her what happened and she looked outside to see Jamie running down the alley. Did she get mad? No. Did she attempt to get him? No. Did she say "poor poor pitiful you" to me? No. My mum looked at me and said "any boy who can wear a pink shirt is brave and comfortable with himself." She then walked away.
??????? WHAT THE HELL, MUM? I tended to my own wound and grumbled down to my bedroom. Oh well, at least the drops of blood on my shoes might have helped to dull the brightness down.




Landstalker

It was around grade ten that I first received my own video game system; a Sega Genesis. Damn I loved that thing. I must have played Sonic the Hedgehog for easily half the week that followed Christmas. I just couldn't get enough. It wasn't the first time I ever used a video game system; I used Jeremy for his Nintendo many times and my dad rented me a Nintendo to play once or twice. But you wouldn't have known considering just how much I played video games when I got my Genesis. 

Down the street from my house, there was a mom & pop video game store called Game Dudes. That place had become my home away from home even before I got a Genesis. Game Dudes had what was cleverly called a "game room" in the back half of the store. In this room, there were several televisions hooked up to several video game systems (Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis). Customers paid a fee and got to play any game that was currently not rented for increments of thirty minutes. I used the game room frequently before I got my Sega. After I got the Sega, I became a regular renter of games from Game Dudes. 

Perhaps the most memorable video game I ever rented was called Landstalker. Landstalker was a quest game after the heart of Legend of Zelda. I don't recall the plot of the game whatsoever. What I do recall, however, was the fact that it was a frustrating effing game! Landstalker was a 16-bit game in 2D, but using isometric design (I believe it was isometric...correct me if I'm wrong) to "fake" 3D. While it did make for a prettier game, it made some parts of the adventure incredibly annoying. There were many points where you had to get your character to jump from platform to platform. But the platforms were at weird angles and when you jumped toward the platform, you would often miss the mark because of the confusing design. If you could overlook the isometric nightmare, there were also some traditionally difficult parts to the game. 

These issues, paired with my impatience, created a perfect storm. I had a love-hate relationship with that game, and anyone within earshot knew about it. Whenever my parents weren't home and I played Landstalker, when I died, I would SCREAM at the television. I would scream and curse and fuss and carry on. I would throw my controller violently down to the ground and onto the nearest chair. Oh the controllers I busted from doing that. My sister often complained that she could hear me spazzing at my game from all the way upstairs in her bedroom. My friend Curt ended up leaving my house multiple times because I was flipping out and being taking it out on him. Basically, I was this guy!
Ah, I loved that game. I think I might play it tonight. Be sure to keep away from the downtown area...just to be safe!

Revenge on Reynolds
If you recall King Tit and the Eraser That Saved My Ass, you know that I received the strap in grade three. I had drawn a collection of naked stick people in my notebooks earlier in the year and was forced to erase every single one of them from every single notebook. It sucked, but I guess it was important I do that to learn a lesson that it's wrong to be curious about human sexuality...
Anyway, later that year, before class with Mr. Simmons was set to begin, several of us were playing tag in the classroom. Electric tag to be specific. Electric tag different from regular tag in that when you tagged a person, you had to make a pulse motion with your hand (like squeezing something) to simulate electricity going into the tagged person. While we were playing, I was tagged from behind and accidentally fell down. People were rushing all about me and I wasn't really paying attention. I threw up my hand to tag the first body that went by. Whoops. I tagged some girl who wasn't even playing the game AND I had groped her junk. I know it sounds like I'm making excuses and I actually did intend to touch her inappropriately, but hand to gawd it was an accident. She was appropriately upset and told me that she was telling on me.
Mr. Simmons entered the room a moment later and began the class. I was terrified that she would tell him. Every minute felt like hours. About half way through the class, Mr. Simmons gave us a test. While I was still writing the test, the girl I sexually assaulted took her test to the front. She then began to whisper something to Simmons and I knew I was pooched.
At the end of the class, Mr. Simmons asked me to stay behind. I did and he asked me what happened. I told Mr. Simmons the truth and he said that he had no choice but to report it to the office. I left the room very scared.
At the end of the week, I was called down to the office. The acting principal while Mr. Turner was away was in his office and asked me to come in. Mr. Reynolds was his name. A thin, balding little twat with glasses, who looked a lot like David Hyde Pierce. He briefly explained that what I had done was wrong and that because I had already been in trouble about something similar, my punishment would have to be the strap.
I remember him taking my hand and folding my thumb into my palm.
"Leave your thumb tucked in. It will hurt less," he instructed. He then began to lash my hand with the leather strap. Three times, and for each lash he said why I had received the particular strike. One for the stick characters, one for the groping, and one so I remember why it's important that I not do either again. Yeah, it seemed somewhat sadistic to me back then and still does now.
I didn't learn a lesson. I just learned to hate Mr. Reynolds. And man could I hold a grudge!
Fast forward to grade eleven. Mr. Reynolds was now assistant principal at my high school. I recognized him in a heartbeat. I told my friends about him and what he'd done and the consensus was that Mr. Reynolds was a douche. Though to be fair, Reynolds had already been firmly established as a douche by the students at the school.
A few days later, I noticed Reynolds pulling into the parking lot in the morning before school. I waited for him to enter the school and then I carefully approached his car. There were cars on either side of his which provided a little cover. Using my house key, I carefully removed the caps from the stems on his tires and proceeded to let the air out of each tire. After a few minutes, I had successfully deflated all four of his tires. I snuck away unnoticed. I didn't return to the scene of the crime at lunch or after school to watch Mr. Reynolds' reaction to finding that his tires were flat as it was too risky. But I like to imagine that he saw the flat tires and in a fit of rage he gave himself the strap three times. Ah, a boy can dream.

There you are. Random shit from grade ten and eleven. I won't lie that these stories lack the same oomph of my usual tales, but high school was pretty boring in regard to weird stuff happening to me. But each of these stories provides a valuable lesson. Don't wear white shoes when you care what people think, don't give a kid with A.D.D. video games, and don't piss me off or I'll deflate your tires! See? When you come to my blog, you not only get entertaining stories...you also get important life lessons.

See you tomorrow for the last entry; Day Twelve!

The Twelve Days of Festivus: Day Six

THE TWELVE DAYS OF FESTIVUS

Day Six: Grade Five

Grade five was one of the best grades of my life, topped only by grade twelve (as twelve was the swan song to an educational system I did not like). While it was an odd change of pace for me to now have to walk to the different classrooms rather than having the teachers all walk to our classroom, I had some cool new teachers, my school was now much less of a walk from home, and I befriended some cool new kids.
The problem with grade five is that it was, for the most part, uneventful. After some brainstorming, I couldn't recall any funny, sad, or touching experiences that I had during the grade. Unfortunately, that makes for a pretty lame day six entry. Therefore, I've decided to just share a few odd events that occurred during grade five. Random, unrelated, and short. Enjoy.

1. Bartmania. Late 1989 saw the beginning of a legendary television show. You may have heard of it; The Simpsons. When that show first came out, I was OBSESSED with it. Yeah, I was obsessed with several things during grade five...when Batman came out, I constantly tried to be a superhero. I tried to invent a billy club with grapple like Daredevil had and I'm sure you've read Dave Wayne...aka Batboy! I also was obsessed with Ninja Turtles to the point of having dangerous rebar fights in homes under construction (awesome!).
But Simpsons was likely the biggest "fad" of grade five. What was interesting is that during the first year or two of The Simpsons run, Homer was not the most popular character as he is now. It was Bart. And man did I ever love Bart. I imitated him whenever possible, which saw me no end of trouble in school. If you are old enough to recall, when The Simpsons first came out, it was abhorred by parents. So much so, that many parents forbade their children from even watching it. My parents weren't crazy and so they let me watch it. The problem was that I took what I saw to school with me, which pissed off the school to no end (after all, the school had to ensure that the children of crazy censoring parents didn't hear such horrible phrases as "eat my shorts" or "don't have a cow, man"). I was sent to the principle's office at least a half dozen times because I quoted Bart. One time I was marched down to the office AND THEN sent home. Why? Because I had a shirt with Bart Simpsons on it that said "Eat My Shorts." Yeah.
I refused to be censored, which is why I kept getting into trouble. All in all, it was such a stupid thing for the school to have a cow about. Eat my shorts, Meadowbrook School. Eat my shorts.


2. The Duck Award. At the end of grade five, Mr. Greyson, my homeroom teacher (and he also taught me math I think) handed out some cute laminated awards to his students. They were themed like diplomas only they had silly names. He printed them out on his Commodore 64 or something. They were cool.
I received The Duck Award. I know what you're thinking. "That makes no sense." But Greyson had gone somewhere with it. The award said "The Duck Award: Because David Always Quacks Up In Front of the Class." I admit I quacked up when he handed it to me. I still have it too. It's that awesome.


3.The swimming pool. Speaking of obsessions, there has been one constant favourite of mine since I was a few years old. Doctor Who. Sometimes in my childhood, I took that interest a few steps too far. I took Nick for a trip through time in Port-O-Potty Time Machine.I had a large cardboard box with a door cut out as a makeshift TARDIS. I taped the episodes every Saturday night and watched them first thing Sunday morning. And alas, sometimes I dressed the part as well.
On a trip to the Airdrie swimming pool with my school, it was a bit of a nippy day. What better opportunity to wear a scarf. I had a colourful knitted scarf that my mum had given me a few years before as it was (very slightly) similar to The Fourth Doctor's scarf. I wrapped it around my neck with pride. I also stuffed my pockets with random crap...the Doctor always had things in his pockets and I did the same. I had a yo-yo, bouncy rubber balls, elastic bands, magnifying glass, flashlights, jacks, thimble, 5 1/4" floppy disk, pens, pencils, folded paper, napkins, small metal plates, a tire gauge (made for a great sonic screwdriver), and so much more. My pockets bulged as I walked with friends to the pool. When we got to the pool, we had to all wait in the lobby for the geriatrics to finish their flabby flaps. In the lobby, I began to pull out item after item. It amused many people, including some much younger children who were also waiting to get in the pool. Some peers looked at me like I was a lunatic. It was great. For a while there, I really felt like The Doctor.

4. Carrie Anne Cundiff. When I began thinking about my fifth grade times, she was the first thing to come to my mind. What can I say about Carrie Anne? She was the epitome of brown-nosing goody goody two-shoes. She was always the one to toss her hand up to answer questions, always the one to sweet-talk the teachers, and always the one that we wanted to throw head-first into a dumpster. She had no friends...and was that any wonder? She was ANNOYING.
One day in class, I asked her a question. I don't recall the question, but I do recall that she replied with a mumble. I asked her to repeat herself and she said to me "Nope, I never eat my cabbage twice."
WHAT THE FUCK? I repeatedly asked her to repeat what she said because I just didn't hear her the first time, but she would only respond with "I never eat my cabbage twice, I never eat my cabbage twice, I never eat my cabbage twice." Well perhaps you would like to eat my foot, you butt-kissing little freak!
Speaking of freak, during Halloween in grade five, we all got some treats from one of our teachers. When she was handed a sucker, she said to the teacher (and in front of the entire class) that she had to refuse the sucker. It was purple, and her mother did not allow her to have dark-coloured suckers. She exchanged for an orange one and seemed content. But why? WHY would her mother not allow dark-coloured suckers but the light-coloured ones were acceptable? Was it some sort of uneducated belief that somehow the lighter-coloured variety had less sugar? Or was it the food colouring that the mother was concerned would stain Carrie Anne's teeth? Or was this simply a lineage of insanity? I must know!


There, a few snippets from grade five. Like it, don't like it. I don't care. It's not like you're paying to read these stories!
See you tomorrow for Day Seven (a double feature of grade six stories)!