rhianna

St. Patrick’s Day Part Two: I thought I knew it all until I took a fall, I went chin to the tin and made a disgrace of my face! It wasn’t a rave, hitting into the pave(ment)

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You’ve heard one example of my version of March Madness and now here’s another reason why St. Patrick’s Day sometimes hurts – literally. I don’t mind the crowds and all the tacky lime green clothing, but the real truth is that I keep getting injured on St. Patrick’s Day. I am clumsy normally, but my dilapidated sense of coordination is heightened on that day more than others for some reason and I always end up face down – ass up covered in bruises.

I will tell you the event that actually was the tipping point of why I can’t go out on St. Patrick’s Day anymore. My wife was pregnant and had no interest in hanging out with a bunch of drunk fools (i.e. me) so she went out for the day without me. If you think this is leading towards me blaming her, it isn’t.  I have tried blaming her and just cannot find a single soul to back me up; what happened next was my fault – whether I like it or not. Stupidity cannot be blamed on anyone other than the fool himself!

I went out and met up with some of my friends from work to watch the parade and then headed to the bar that we frequented almost every night. We didn’t even make it three steps into the bar before Darren saw us and already had the beer out on the bar for us. Not five minutes went by before we were finished with number two. Did I mention that it was before 11 AM and we hadn’t eaten anything yet? That’s never a good way to start the day or it’s actually the perfect way to start depending on who you ask.

So the parade was a blur and the aftermath was just getting uglier as time went by. Darren announced that my wife had just called and insisted that we do shots and it never occurred to me that it might not be the truth. It didn’t occur to me the first time he said it that it might not be true, nor did it faze me the fourth time he lined them up. It was then that I had the brilliant thought that I should probably eat something before I blacked out.

We laughed like crazy and apparently, I have never been funnier. That could be because a) I’m hysterical when other people are really intoxicated or b) I’m a stupid ass when I drink heavily. I’m inclined to go with b) here since we aren’t talking about looks (which is the funniest thing about me.)

Looking back, I guess it is kind of obvious why everyone thought that I was so funny...

 After multiple drinks, a terrible lunch, and many laughs it took me spitting on a client (for telling me that he had chosen to go with a competitor) to realize that I needed to go home. Don’t judge me, who brings work talk into the bar? It was a ptthhh kind of spit – I’m Italian, that’s what we do. There was no phlegm involved, it wasn’t spit spit. Also, it’s not so bad because I didn’t fully remember it until I called him the following Tuesday morning not realizing that we had spoken on St. Patrick’s Day at all until he mentioned it. Good thing he’s a high-functioning alcoholic too and thought it was really funny…

I bid adieu and waited outside the bar for my cab to come. I finally got sick and tired of waiting and started to walk home. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had never actually called. They aren’t psychic and I was standing there forever thinking they were on the way to get me when, in fact, I had never even called for the cab. I only lived up the street, but it took forever in my drunken state. Did I mention that I also stumbled past and stopped to rest at that Popo Station on the corner? (The Popo Station is a Police Station for those of you that aren’t street like me.)

At the time, we lived in a townhouse in a gated community. It may sound obvious, but that means the development is surrounded by a gate. The front gate was a long wall of gates connected by brick pillars. If you see where this is going, you’re doing much better than I was that night. As you get to the entrance of the development, there is a gatehouse that is manned 24 hours a day. The “guards” in the gatehouse are the kind that refuses to accept a package for you if they have to leave the gatehouse in the rain and get wet or the type that will let anyone enter no matter what they say their name is. My sister actually used to drive up, push the buttons and answer Al Qaeda when he asked who she was and they would always let her in. No, we didn’t pay more for the high end security, don’t be a smart-ass!

Anyway, as I was stumbling up to the entrance, it was like something out of a cartoon. I lost my footing and smashed face first right into the brick pillar and then collapsed face first into a heap on the ground.  As I was on the ground crumbled in a heap, assuming the gatehouse “guard” would come to my aid since he had just seen what had happened, my cell phone started to ring. It was my wife and she actually thought that I was kidding when the answer to her “Where are you?” was met with my “On the ground covered in blood.”

I thought my teeth had been forced out of my mouth and that my nose was broken for sure due to the sheer amount of pain and the massive amount of blood that I was covered in. My eye felt like it had a pencil sticking out of it and I didn’t realize how scraped up my hands and knuckles were until I actually tried to use them to answer the phone. I was in a bad way and she said to stay where I was as she was only around the corner and she truly thought that I was exaggerating. Since it was raining, I couldn’t really stay put and I finally managed to get myself off the ground. Would you believe that as I stumbled past the gatehouse, the guard actually waved at me? Here I was mangled, nose, mouth, and hands gushing blood and that asshole waves at me. Guess who was off my list and didn’t receive my wife’s homemade cookies in his Kwanzaa basket that year!

I finally made it to our front steps yet didn’t have the strength or dexterity to open the front door. My wife approached slowly and she was shocked with how badly I was hurt. She took me in and cleaned me up. As unbelievable as my cuts, abrasions, brick wall road rash, and swollen face was – all of the injuries were only on one side of my face. I actually looked like Harvey Two-Face from Batman. It was a like someone had drawn a line down the center of my face to spilt it in tow and then proceeded to beat the shit out of one side of it. 

As I sat at the Hospital intake room with the admitting nurse to gather my information, she actually swung around on her stool and accidentally (or so she said) hit me in my mangled face with her fist. I screamed so loud, that they took me to x-ray immediately. I swear that if I had any sense of co-ordination left, I would have knocked her out. As she rolled my wheelchair down the hall, my wife said “Don’t you want to know how this happened?’ she looked right at her and smirked “Honey, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, I’m Irish and I have three older brothers – I know exactly how this happened!”  

By some grace of luck that I’ll never comprehend, I didn’t break anything. I went to bed and slept forever only to wake up to voices.  The doctor did give me painkillers, but these weren’t the usual voices in my head so I trudged down the steps to our Living Room. As I entered, there was a room full of my wife’s family and they all got quiet and just stared at me with looks of pity and some of actual disgust -due to the discoloration and severe bruising. No one said a word at all, nothing but stares.

“Oh my God, is this an intervention?” I muttered and felt nauseous. That apparently broke the ice to make them laugh. I had forgotten that they had previously planned to come over and spend some time with my wife and since they just got there she hadn’t fully filled them in about my face. I guess they didn’t expect me to come down the steps looking like Rhianna did after Chris Brown was finished with her.

I had to cancel all my appointments that week because there was no way that I could go into work and see people looking like that. I also couldn’t shave half of my face due to the road rash I got from the brick wall so I actually called my boss from the parking lot and said “Come outside and look at my face – if you want me to work I will.” He took one look at me and said “Oh God, Please go home” and I was in too much pain to even be offended.     

I know what you’re thinking right now: At least he’s learned something from this. No, what I learned from this is that Darren is a liar. When he offers me a drink, forget about me because I have no self-control. I need to start hanging out with people that will say no for me and make sure I really do call a cab to go home. I don’t think the drinking was the problem, I think the problem was that I didn’t eat anything before it. Thank God I’m this overweight and my body was able to absorb all that alcohol or I would have fallen even before I left the bar and been more hurt than I was.

So, as you stumble down the bar for a refill this week, think of me safely in my house drinking nothing but Diet Pepsi and watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to satisfy my bar fix wearing this:

Does this snuggie make my hips look big?

Rhianna says “Please Don’t Stop the Music” – yet proceeds to kill my IPOD

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I constantly chastise my wife because she leaves tissues or loose change or dollar bills scrunched up in the pockets of her clothing all the time; she never checks them before putting them into the laundry basket. I know, I know, it could be worse – I could have a wife that hits me or has bad hair or runs up credit card debt, but this is serious. Every time that she does it, I take it as an opportunity to get on my soapbox and tell her how it is irresponsible and that she needs to check each and every time. “It’s not that hard to check the pockets” I’m prone to saying. I don’t feel good while doing this to her, but I hate, hate, hate, to have torn up tissues mixed in with the clothes. It gets all over and annoys me to no end. Or worse than that is if I stick my hand into her pants pocket to check and grab a disgusting snot rag – GROSS and that is exactly how my last fist fight started.  I don’t bring this up to rat her out or make her feel bad; I bring this up because what goes around came around for me.  Don’t tell her, but I accidentally left my IPOD in the pocket of my bathrobe and put it through the Washer AND the Dryer which destroyed it.  

I keep my IPOD set up in the bathroom with speakers.  I need it there in order to time myself when I shower so that I will know how long to stay in there. It regulates me and keeps me on track. Some might say that it is enabling my compulsions and rituals (yes – I’m talking to you Turtle Lady!) She thinks that I need to evict it from the bathroom immediately, but how else will I know how long my son should be in the bath if I don’t play the specific number of songs? Don’t even waste your time trying to understand my cleanliness rituals – they will just confuse, frustrate, and annoy you. 

My IPOD died in vain folks. It all happened because I had gotten some new music on ITunes and Damn you Rhianna! You asked me to make you feel like you’re The Only Girl in the World and you had to make that song so God Damn catchy, Didn’t you! I’m dancing around like a fool and can’t get that song out of my head and my poor innocent IPOD paid the price for it. I took my shower, finished my routine, and put the IPOD into my bathrobe pocket so that I could go downstairs to my office and download that song onto my IPOD. Unfortunately, as I’m often prone to do – I got distracted with my usual nonsense and forgot that it was in my pocket. I removed my robe, got dressed, threw it into the hamper to wash and the rest is history.

As a rule, I never check the pockets in my clothes because I never need to. I always empty my pockets when I take off my clothes. Multiple times. I am a neurotic individual who has to do things many times in a row so you know that I always check the pockets again and again in case I left my keys or the winning Powerball ticket in there. My wife never checks her pockets, so I always make sure to check hers again and again. (Once again with the multiples.) I got paid back in spades for lecturing her over and over when I threw my bathrobe into the washing machine. One can debate the frequency with which I clean said bathrobe and how if I didn’t wash it as much this might not have happened – but it’s easier for me to blame Rhianna on this one.          

As I opened the dryer door, there it was. My poor little green Nano looking up at me helpless and wondering why…just…why…I immediately picked it up and started blowing into the bottom of it to see if I could dry it off in some way – but nothing. (It’s funny because I would never attempt CPR on a human because of my fear of other people’s filthy mouths, bad breath, and, most of all I‘m lazy – but an electric music device brings out the hero in me.) Of course I was cursing myself profusely and being reminded of how stupid I really am to have done that, but I was still hoping above all hope that it just might flicker on. I cradled that poor mint-colored baby and spoke gently with encouraging words, hoping for some miracle resuscitation like when Jack and Kate found Charlie and brought him back to life after Ethan had hung him in those vines on Lost. (Another time that beloved saga made me tear up like a little school girl that missed the bus– don’t even get me started about when Jin and Sun died together on that sub in Season Six because I’m still not over that!)

I then realized what an idiot I must look like trying to give CPR to my dead IPOD on the laundry room counter. Imagine the looks I would get if my wife walked in on me shouting into that dead IPOD’s face “Whitney , come on Whitney – are you still in there Baby?” I really felt like – all of a sudden –  Ms. Houston was gonna just flash on that display screen and maybe I was hallucinating, but I could almost swear that she looked me in the eyes and purred softly “Didn’t we almost have it all…”

Needless to say, my shower the next morning was not OK and I was all out of whack. I did not pass go and went immediately to Best Buy to get a replacement at lunchtime. (This is a big deal for me to admit because me and Best Buy have a long and sordid, love/hate relationship dating back to a certain incident a few years ago that I still cannot talk about without getting irate. Long story short, it had to do with a McDonald’s Monopoly game piece and a piss-poor online ordering experience which led to me to their hotline screaming and threatening to call Ask Asa! The operator finally shut me up and got me off the phone when I told her that I had their address and I was on my way over to the call center. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t know that and credited me back to get me off the phone.) I left Best Buy without incident (this time) with my new IPOD in hand and all was right with my shower today.

Lesson learned here: If Rhianna ever tries to Disturbia my bathroom routine again, that bitch is off my IPOD and out of my shower forever!!! And little green nano in whatever dump site you end up at – “Call me Rude Boy” but I had to get a new model…I had to go on. I really wanted to be like Rose telling Jack in the end of Titanic: “I’ll never let go Jack” but your name wasn’t Jack and I needs me some music for my shower…

AS A POSTSCRIPT TO THIS POST:
I asked my wife to read this and see what she thought of it before I posted it. As she was reading it, she looked over at me, laughed to herself, then looked back at the laptop screen, and then she looked back at me and laughed again. I was thinking how clever she must have thought I was with my Rhianna Song title play-on-words in the post, but no – she wasn’t laughing at that. She proceeded to then reach into her front pants pocket and pull out my Banana Republic Credit Card! She looked up at me and said “Oh, that reminds me…I forgot to give you this back after I ordered that stuff…” I rest my case people!

Like I’ve heard so many times before “Wow, That’s a long one!”

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“Are you ready?…” I could hear her as she stomped into the building and headed up the front staircase to our second floor apartment like Godzilla rolling through Tokyo. “Why is this door locked?…Let me in!…I know you’re in there…Can you hear me?…Come on,  we need to leave – Oh my God – are you still sleeping? Get up; we’re going to be late! Don’t do this to me. Open this door right now!!…Do I need to kick it in again!!! Don’t piss me off…”

That’s exactly how I was rudely woken up by my friend Weezie screaming and kicking at the front door of my apartment. Both of my roommates went to Albany for the weekend so there was no one else to let her in. I tried my best to ignore her, but she was relentless. “Get up, its 4:45 and you know it starts at 5 O’ Clock!” she implored.

I slowly peeled off my Navy Blue Tempur blinders and tried to steady myself. (Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me – those blinders are so comfortable and so soft that it’s actually as if you took your head and shoved it right up a sheep’s ass – seriously, they’re that soft!) As I tried to get my bearings, I knew that I should be in my own bedroom and should be sleeping in my own bed, but nothing seemed familiar at all. It felt like I had been turned upside down and was looking straight into a hall of mirrors. I knew that I should just lie back down and ignore her, but the truth is that she really would have kicked that door in again if I didn’t get up. Ignoring her would only lead to an assault!

“I’m coming” I groaned as I slowly lifted myself out of bed “Stop screaming before I smack you again.”

“Try it Bitch, and you’ll see what happens” she growled through the door.

I don’t think I can accurately describe my friend Weezie. She’s the type of person who feels that it’s more important to scream every word as opposed to speaking like a normal human being. I thought I had gotten used to it after five years, but when you’re hung over and the equilibrium is far from steady, being anywhere near Weezie is never the right choice. She was one of the toughest players on the girls Rugby team, but she was freaking hysterical and one minute with her would have you laughing your ass off. She’s a lot of fun and one of my closest friends, but that girl is legitimately crazy. When she says she’ll kick in a door – she means it.

As I opened the door, her glance told me that she wasn’t amused. There she was: one arm strategically placed on the left hip of her sparkly black formal dress and on her face a look of disgust that I can’t even begin to describe. She was ready to go out for her big night and here I was screwing that up. For some unknown reason, I had thought it was a good idea to stay out the night before until 7 AM and then sleep the day away. This would normally be her routine as well on a Saturday, but offer up free booze and she’d scale a wall for it.

Her Formal for the Girl’s Rugby Team started in less than fifteen minutes and she was not amused that I had just opened the door in grey Calvin Klein boxer briefs and a ripped T-shirt – obviously not dressed and ready to go unless by the word Formal they meant that trailer park chic was the dress code. I didn’t even want to go because I was hung over and felt like crap, but the prospect of a top-shelf open bar for five hours really enticed me. My girlfriend didn’t mind me going with Weezie and most of our friends were going, and did I mention that it was open bar so, I thought, why not.

Weezie pushed past me and went straight for a Coors Light as she started playing with my dog. When I say that, I don’t mean to beat around the bush and try to sneak in a sexual innuendo – I mean that she was actually playing with my dog, Smokey. I tried to sit on the couch and make small talk by saying that she looked nice and that I would like a beer too, but it did no good. She gave me a look and then offered me ten minutes before it was going to start getting physical, so I got moving. Once again, when I say that I don’t mean to beat around the bush and try to sneak in a sexual innuendo – I mean that she would literally smack the shit out of me! I tried to pull myself together because I knew she wasn’t above using a slap or an elbow to the gut to motivate. She said she’d walk Smokey, to speed things along, and I asked if she would make me a sandwich since I was starving.  

“Are you kidding me? Did you just ask me to make you a sandwich?”

“You make it like I asked you to clean the toilet – it’ll keep you busy while I get ready. Come on, I’m starving.”

“You can eat when we get there – We’re gonna be late.” 

“Weezie, when you’re worth it they’ll wait.” Picture her unamused.

About fifteen minutes later, I was ready. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I was under duress to be ready in fifteen minutes. I locked the front door behind us as we headed down the steps. (This is important – I normally never carried keys or bothered to lock the door but my roommates made me swear to do it before they left for the weekend because of people coming in and taking stuff. It was a safe town and they didn’t think twice about anyone stealing the TV or DVD Player – the crime they were talking about was beer theft. Lisa used to sneak in (sometimes through the keyhole and sometimes through the front window – she is a small girl) and take the beer. She’d then blame Weezie who my roommates would scream at and accuse of lying when she tried to deny it. I knew it was Lisa but didn’t care because it was hysterical how crazy Unibrow would get. Unibrow was one of my roommates and we called him that because he was from New Jersey. I’m kidding, we called him that because he had the bushiest strip of felt impersonating two eyebrows that I have ever seen on a man’s forehead. It was as if Bert on Sesame Street had a baby with Peter Gallagher.    

As we were leaving the front porch I said “Weezie, will you put my keys in your bag? My pants are tight and I don’t want to have two distracting bulges.” She put my keys in her bag and cracked a smile so I could tell that she was loosening up a bit.

“I’m really hungry – what are they having for dinner?” I gently asked.
“Hooka, I told you they’re not having dinner – it’s passed food” She rudely responded back with.
“What? Who doesn’t serve dinner? It’s five hours long.”

“It was cheaper this way so the planning committee thought people would eat first to keep costs down”

When she said cost-effective, she really meant it. Their idea of offering something to nosh on was nachos, potato chips, and pretzels. I thought they might be putting the real food out later since this must obviously be a joke, so I started drinking to fill my stomach with something. I was going through my vodka phase and just took a tiny bit of orange juice to gently color the vodka a bit. Little did I know what a dangerous game that would be to play on an empty stomach…
“Weezie, when are they putting out the other food?”

“They have nachos right there – eat those.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t eat with my hands remember…”

“You and that OCD bullshit again…”

“They don’t have any silverware or napkins either, how am I supposed to eat anything here?”

By seven, I was drinking heavily and dancing violently. I apparently thought it was my job when Michael Jackson’s Beat It came on, to get in the center of the dance floor screaming the words and busting out a few karate kicks. I looked good, but I’m clumsy normally so a kickin’ beat and all that alcohol did nothing to stop me from bumping into almost everyone on the dance floor.

That’s actually the last thing I remember of the Formal. I don’t have any recollection of the events for the rest of the night following that dance. My recollection is that I had a lot of rhythm and looked really hot, but some pictures have surfaced that drastically contradict that idea.

I have heard many stories of my activities from those missing hours, but since I can only hope that they are exaggerated, I refuse to accept them as fact. What I do recall is being surprised that a December night with so much snow could feel so hot. I was sweating like rice pudding left out in the sun all day.

The next thing I remember is walking down Main Street towards my apartment. It was just about five AM on the Savings Bank digital clock. I had absolutely no idea where I had been since the bars closed at two or where Weezie was. I also had no idea where my shirt and tie were for that matter as I was now only wearing my white undershirt. For some reason it also wasn’t as warm as it had been earlier. Did I mention that it was December in Upstate NY?  

When I got to my building, I tried to open the front door but it was locked and I didn’t have the key – Weezie did. Right about then having two distracting bulges didn’t seem like such a big deal after all.  

That’s when I remembered about the back fire escape that led into my bedroom. I had never actually used the fire escape before, mostly because I’m terrified of heights and partly because the slumlord that rented it to us actually said never to use the fire escape. It wasn’t really attached to the house and actually banged into the house on windy days. (The building was being torn down after the Spring Semester and was actually condemned). There was also a lip in the doorway leading into my bedroom from the fire escape about five inches high where a plate had been laid down, leaving an opening under the door so snow came into the room. It didn’t just come into my room, it accumulated. The gap was so big I was always afraid Smokey would crawl out through it.

As I mounted that frozen monstrosity that they were calling a fire escape, I somehow knew in the back of my mind that this wasn’t such a good idea but there was no other way for me to get in. It was snowing lightly, my hands were frozen, and as I forged ahead, I just couldn’t look down. As I got to the top of the ladder, I tried to steady myself and climb onto the landing but it was very slippery. Just as I thought I was on steady footing and stepped towards the door, I slipped on a patch of ice and fell off the back of the fire escape toward the snow-covered ground two stories below. Everything went black.

I have no idea how long I was out for, but there I was in the snow looking up at the fire escape and my first thought was that this was exactly the reason why the slumlord had told me never to go on that fire escape.

My second thought was that my head was pounding and something was wrong with my left shoulder. Every part of my body was fighting to let me know who was in the most pain. I think the back of my head won out, but then came the worst pain of all: I realized that I was still locked out.

Believe it or not, that second climb up the fire escape was a lot easier than the first. In addition to being drunk, now I was dizzy and in horrendous pain, but I made it up there. Slowly, I found my footing on the landing. I held onto the railing very tightly as I opened the door and rushed into the room.

Remember that lip on the door I told you about? Yep, it got me. I tripped on the lip of the door and fell forward with no time to react. I closed my eyes as the desk got closer to my face because I just couldn’t do anything else. The corner of my desk ripped through my forehead like a knife through cheese and I forgot all about the pain in my shoulder or the back of my head. Blood was gushing everywhere and Smokey was going nuts.

I couldn’t get myself off the floor partly because the pain was too intense and partly because of all the blood that was now in my eyes. I tried but I just couldn’t lift myself and Smokey’s barking and jumping around like a lunatic were not helping the situation. It was barely light outside, and I had to squint to see anything at all. I knew I should call my girlfriend because I needed to go to the hospital, but the phone was all the way through the bedroom, through the long hallway past the bathroom and then in the corner of the living room. I dragged myself through the house leaving blood everywhere as I crept to the phone and finally dialed her number.  

“You’re not gonna believe this, I’m bleeding. I fell off the fire escape, and..”

(Cutting me off) “Oh my God Is Smokey OK?”
“I’m fucking bleeding, he’s jumping all over me, HE’S FINE – I’m not OK!”

“Are you drunk?”

“Of course I’m drunk, what would I be doing on that fire escape if I was sober? It’s not even attached to the house! I need help over here. I can’t get off the floor”

“Go to bed and call me tomorrow – you’re so dramatic” and she hung up.

I think that’s the exact moment I knew that I would marry that girl.

I got Weezie’s answering machine next (she told me later that she was in bed hysterical laughing listening to me leave the message because all she could understand was me slurring “Hooka…Hooka…it’s not right…I fell off the fire escape…you have my keys…”

I finally got a friend to come over and take me to the hospital and a few hours later I was back in my bed with torn ligaments and a slight concussion after a good “talking to” from the doctor in the Emergency Room about drinking. I was so out of it that I was agreeing to his points and nodding to everything he said and didn’t realize that he was talking about me. I stupidly thought he was just making small talk about the way people drink when they’re in college.

I had just fallen asleep when I woke up to Weezie hysterical laughing as she stood above me dangling my keys. I tried to explain what happened, but she just kept laughing. She thought it was poetic justice for me leaving her alone at the Formal last night.

When my girlfriend came over, she couldn’t believe how seriously I was hurt. She thought I was just drunk and rambling on when I called her. I immediately forgave her because I was in love with her. I also immediately forgave her because no one else would take care of me and clean up my apartment and I was starving. I was heavily medicated that day but still made it out to the bars two nights later.

I wish I could say that night was a wakeup call for me and that I never got that drunk again, but that would be a lie. I had to leave school early and get an incomplete in all my classes and I looked like Mikhail Gorbachev with that big gash that went from my hairline to the top of my nose. I made scars trendy way before Harry Potter did but it didn’t go away for over two months and I had trouble with my left shoulder for much longer than that. I was in a sling and it was impossible to do anything for myself. I wish I could also say that was the last time that I got hurt while I was drunk (see broken ankle number one, broken ankle number two, St. Patrick’s Day 2009 when I fell face first into a brick wall and looked like Rhianna, etc.) As the saying goes: if you fall off the horse, you get right back on and I‘m pretty sure that applies to fire escapes too.