smokey

Tony No Here?

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The first time I broke my ankle; I had surgery and was laid up for a few weeks. Normally, when one is incapacitated, their wife comes to the rescue and plays Florence Nightingale. It involves a lot of spoiling and a little sympathy, but not this time. Apparently, when you’re clumsy and constantly getting hurt in alcohol-related injuries, it gets old real fast.

Forget the crutches, I was a sore sight to begin with!

 

After the surgery, I couldn’t walk at all and was laid up. My wife went back to work and little old me was kinda stranded. I am a yenta that talks non-stop 24/7 and now here I was without anyone at all. Even poor Smokey, the super Shih-Tzu, had enough and was avoiding me. I tried calling my wife at work, but she was busy. I tried calling my people at work, but they were too busy for me as well. I started ordering stuff online just so the UPS guy would come and I could have someone to talk to…

I put myself on liquid restriction to keep from having to go to the bathroom and I was starting to get dehydrated. I was so thirsty, but wouldn’t drink anything because I didn’t want to keep getting up and down to pee. When it came to eating, my wife left me a few snacks on the coffee table. I figured I would call the local pizza place for lunch and since I couldn’t move off the couch, I had my wife leave the front door slightly ajar for the delivery guy when she left for work.

My Fancy Footwear for a while…

I called the pizza place and lo and behold, they didn’t open during the week until 3 PM. Here I am starving and no pizza…I called all around town and the only other option was to order Chinese food – which I don’t eat. Since I don’t eat chopped cats, I ordered white rice, steamed vegetables, and steamed chicken with no sauce on it. No sauce whatsoever. Plain, Plain, Plain and everything in separate containers. I actually can’t eat Chinese food at a restaurant because when I order stuff plain and steamed with no sauce without fail they always say “Oh, you try lose weight” or “Oh, you on diet?” I always have to be like “No, I don’t eat spices or cats, so I need plain white rice and no sauce whatsoever!” which usually gets them to laugh in my face again – always a crowd-pleaser, I am.

So I called the Chinese place which was open and willing to deliver, but once I ordered my white rice, steamed chicken and steamed vegetables – my order didn’t meet the fifteen dollar minimum required for delivery. I said “OK, send double white rice – you can never have enough white rice” but that still didn’t do it. Come on, how cheap is Chinese food – I mean, what does a guy have to do here? “For God’s sake – just charge me the delivery fee anyway or buy lunch for the driver or do whatever you want, but please deliver the food – I’m stranded here and I’m starving.” He laughed at me and then relented to which I was all grin on my chin.

Everything’s nice when you have White Rice!

 

A little time goes by, and the delivery guy starts knock knock knockin on heaven’s door. I yelled from my perch “Come in” and he nudged open the door. Once he saw me looking like a poor sap sprawled out with my foot up on pillows, he gasped “What happen you foot?” Oh snap, not only did I get a lunch delivery, but I also got someone to talk to! What started there with those four little words can only be described as a beautiful and pure friendship built equally on desperation for white rice and any sort of human contact whatsoever.

Needless to say about thirty minutes goes by with me and my new friend talking up a storm. He got me silverware and napkins from the kitchen, and was the best listener ever. We agreed that since I would be laid up for a couple of weeks at least and had no other lunch options…that he would bring the usual every day and since I couldn’t meet the delivery minimum – he would bring lunch for himself as well. Everybody wins.

He would bring the food, walk Smokey, and then throw the garbage in the dumpster whenever he had to leave for another delivery. Thank god not that many people were getting lunch orders, because I was in heaven. We talked about my study abroad, my dog Smokey’s adventures, his family and extensively about how competitive the Chinese food industry was. I’m not even kidding – it’s hard out here for a Chinese pimp! Did you know that there are more Chinese food places than fast food places in the United States? Those bitches get cutthroat!

 

The best part of my recovery was that right before surgery, I’d received a shipment from Ebay of the absolute best thing in the world: I’d gotten all nine seasons of Dynasty (Need I remind you that it’s the best show ever?) I was immediately drawn back in and obsessed once again. Guess who else was sucked right in with watching Alexis and her exploits? My new friend Lee. He left for a delivery one day and he just couldn’t believe what Sammy Jo was up to. “Just you wait until season six with the Moldavian Massacre” I promised as he closed the door behind him…It was the perfect friendship.

I didn’t want to rush my recovery  because I was living high on the hog, but I was able to get up and around on my crutches so the doctor cleared me to go back to work. I was sad to see my new friendship lapsing, but we’d still be ordering from that same place and we’d still see each other…

A week or two later, my wife and I ordered Chinese food and I was in the shower when it arrived. She opened the door (to my delivery friend) and he started to walk in with the food like usual. She was caught off-guard and shut the door over so it was open only a bit. He was obviously shocked and offended by this brazed act of rudeness, but she had no idea why he was trying to come in. He poked his head through the crack in the door like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and said “Tony no here??? You want me walk Smokey?” I’m not sure if she was more shocked at me or him, but she was flabbergasted, She paid him, put the food down, and then yanked open the bathroom door as I was coming out of the shower. “What’s going on with you and the Chinese delivery guy? He just tried to come in the house.”

“You didn’t let him in? What’s wrong with you?” At that point I realized that I probably should have told her about my daytime company before now but I somehow knew she wouldn’t approve…

“What’s wrong with me? He tried to come in the house!”

“He’s been in this house more than your mother has.”

“Why was he in the house and when did he walk Smokey?”

“Honey, how was the dog gonna get walked, I can’t take him. It never occurred to you that while I was bedridden there weren’t piles of shit mounting up around the house? He’s my friend; he hangs out with me when he brings our lunch…”

“What are you talking about? He eats here too? Now I can’t even order from there anymore…”

“Honey, what are you talking about? He’s gonna think we’re mad at him now if we don’t order from there anymore…”

“There’s something really wrong with you …”

The lesson I learned is not to tell my wife when I make new friend and have them over during the day, but to make sure that I am not in the
shower when they’re coming back over again…To my delivery friend I say “We’ll always have season five of Dynasty my friend…They can’t take that away from us…”

We’ll always have Season Five my friend…

I hobbled on and off those crutches and in and out of that boot for close to two years when I broke the ankle again, but we’ll save that for another time…

Warning: The Post below contains Graphic Photos!

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I posted a piece on Associated Content  that I thought I’d share here…Like a gigantic elm, I’m branching out kids – I’m branching out!

Click Here:

You can read all about how handy I am (not!), hear about how I developed Stigmata a few weeks ago, and see how I will take absolutely any opportunity that I can get to namedrop the greatest television show ever made:

Before you snicker or for those of you who were raised by animals that didn’t let you watch Dynasty when you were younger (No judgements, it’s just a statement!) look at the proof:

Exhibit A: Pamela Sue Martin played Fallon! That Nancy Drew certainly made me a Hardy Boy if you know what I mean. As a young teen I had raging hormones, the lithe muscle tone and awkwardness of a newborn giraffe, and a squeaky high-pitched voice. Well, who am I kidding? My voice is still that way. Her seductive eyes and lusty voice really showed me the impact TV can have…She left the show and was replaced by Emma Samms (Who was also hot which seemed to really help me through the transition!) That was dificult, but it taught me about depression and loss, and gave me a new-found appreciation for Heather Locklear. Heather was always on the show, but she really burned brighter when PSM left me…  

This Nancy Drew made me a Hardy Boy if you know what I mean.

 

Exhibit B) The many valuable everyday life lessons that I learned. Seriously, do you know why I don’t light candles? Hello – Season Six Cliff-hanger when crazy Claudia Blaisdel was all torn up about her well running dry (no pun intended – her oil well really did run dry.) In her devastating depression, she filled her hotel room at La Mirage with lit candles and promptly burned that mother to the ground! Also, I learned about the danger of horses – look at what happened when Krystle got dragged by that horse in Season two and lost her baby… And never tell your siblings anything incriminating! Remember when Caress got out of that prison in Caracas and tried to publish a tell-all book about Alexis?  Or Ben coming back after all of those years trying to pin their mother’s death on Blake? Siblings should be blackmailed, not blackmailing you!

Exhibit C) Of the many, many, many lessons that I learned from devouring episodes of Dynasty, the most valuable was this: Life will Screw with you! Picture a 12 year old lad in May of 1985 wishing he had the power to fast forward through the next three months. Not to get back to school and not to get to my birthday quicker; I desperately needed it to be September 25, 1985. I remember it like it was yesterday because that’s when the premiere of Dynasty Season 6 was airing. Typically, you’d watch a show and when you got to the end of the season in May you knew that no matter what happened or what they went through – it would really all be OK in September. They’d work it out and call off the divorce, the baby would get out of the well, he’d still be choking her – but he hadn’t killed her, or like Nelly said it was all just a dream (Don’t even get me started about Dallas. I loved it as much as the next pre-teen boy, but it certainly was no Dynasty!) No, that summer I learned what anticipation and anxiety really were which probably laid the foundation for the neurotic mess that I have become in later years.

When those revolutionaries stormed Prince Michael and Amanda’s wedding that dark night in May, those guns went a blazing and I was screaming louder than Lady Ashley for someone to cover Krystle. I could take something happening to anyone else, but not to her. If Dominique got shot, OK. If it was Steven, I could probably get through it; but not my fragile little, chocolate covered raisin, Krystle. I knew Sammy Jo was safely back at home, Fallon was presumed dead with amnesia in Los Angeles, and in my soul I just knew nothing could happened to Alexis; but Krystle was in the thick of it all. I needed that summer to be over and it just crawled by like a snail in a garden.

To make it worse, Off-screen Joan Collins (who played Alexis) threatened to leave the show over the summer while they were negotiating with her because she wanted more money and and I just couldn’t take it. She was worth every penny she asked for and then some, but if Alexis died, I wasn’t only worried about me. I just didn’t see how Dex could make it through that and what would happen to Colbyco or those South China Sea Oil leases? It was too much for me to process, yet I could talk or think about little else. It really taught me that when someone you love is hurt or in danger, you can’t think of anything else and you’d do absolutely anything for them if you could. That was me in my depression because my beloved Carrington family was covered in blood on the floor of that Moldavian chapel.

It's all coming back...It still hurts to think back on that day...

September finally arrived and there was a distinct spring in my step again, but it was very short lived. My dreams were then pounced upon and life was very cruel to me; even crueler than giving me the genetic makeup of a shorter Dom Deluise. My dear innocent soul was thrashed in an instant – quicker than when that old lady shit on the floor after she tripped over her IV cord in Good Samaritan Hospital. And just like her, I was a real mess and needed a nurse. 

As a young man, I didn’t ask for much. Sure, it would have been nice if I had some friends that weren’t imaginary or stuffed, but I always had the Carringtons to get me through. I could count on them and they could always count on me. At least until September 25, 1985 when a little bitch named Hurricane Gloria came rolling into my life. As the power went out, we were playing Manhunt in the pitch black house and it was great – I didn’t give it a second thought. Who cared that we had no power – it would surely come back on tomorrow, right? Little did I know that we would be without power for days – forcing me to miss the most important day of my life thus far: The season premiere of Dynasty. Do not roll your eyes – we didn’t have TiVo back then! They didn’t repeat those shows! If you missed it, it was gone forever…No Hulu, No ITunes, No renting the season on DVD!       

I was a wreck. I was throwing myself to the floor and screaming and carrying on with that scrunched up, snot dripping, and ugly crying like Halle Berry when she won the Oscar for Monster’s Ball. She might be hot, but she was still a real mess.

She might be hot, but she was still a real mess.

I kept begging and telling my mother that if she really loved me, she would find a way for me to see it but she kept telling me that if I loved her I would get out of her face and stop crying. I kept thinking that she would snap to her senses and get her priorities straight, but it was to no avail. I was left to my fester in my pain like a deer shot in the woods. No one cared and even my sister Marlene wasn’t as fazed by this disaster as she should have been. Obviously, none of them seemed to grasp just how dire the situation was. Needless to say I missed the episode…

(It still hurts to talk about it, so give me a second…)

If that summer seemed like an eternity, imagine how it felt waiting ANOTHER week to see the recap and the follow-up episode. I read in the paper that Krystle was OK (Thank God) but Alexis was missing, and I couldn’t sleep or eat…I needed to know. Finally, next week’s episode came on and we had found out that Alexis was OK too, (Phewww) but I always felt that I let them down just a little bit. Sure, I guess it couldn’t be helped, but I still felt like if the roles were reversed and I had been shot up in a wedding massacre by revolutionaries in a foreign country – Krystle would have found a way to make sure I was OK. Such is the cross I bear.  

As I said earlier, they didn’t rerun the episodes back then and I had tried to forget and move on, but I always thought about it and wondered what if…until one day something happened that made me believe in miracles again: EBAY. By some random act of luck – I found a woman selling complete seasons of Dynasty on EBay and I ordered it immediately and paid extra for expedited shipping. I tried not to get myself too worked up and just play it cool, but when that brown box arrived at my front door, I almost dry humped the UPS guy holding it! I was bouncing around like a little girl with a jump rope. I signed for it as fast as I could, thanked him, and ran inside. I furiously ripped that box open as if there was a bomb inside, put the tape into the VCR, and pressed Play.

Then I heard it: that old familiar theme song came on and my heart started racing…All the emotion came rushing back and I just knew there was good in the world again. I watched through the credits and it felt like I was looking back at an old photo album. When I tell you that I sat back in my papasan chair transfixed and sporadically pausing to explain to my dog Smokey who was who and what he had missed. (He was raised right, but he wasn’t even alive when Dynasty was on so he had an excuse for never having seen it.) As I sat there watching, I was transported back in time and the tears just started rolling down my face. As my wife will tell you, I am not an emotional person and am more prone to sarcasm than actual emotion, but a wave came rushing through me like never before: it was one of the best days of my life.

The downside of getting all the episodes on EBay was that I once again got sucked into their world all over again and was staying up until four AM watching. I had seen all the episodes and remembered like it was yesterday, but there were no commercials and I just couldn’t stop. I found myself calling in sick and staying home to watch…I was like a coke-whore: I needed my fix and I couldn’t get enough. My wife finally had enough with me consumed by it and said “It’s me or Dynasty” and so I stopped watching it to make her happy. Or at least, that’s what I told her. Don’t tell her, but I was already through the last Season and the Reunion Movie by the time she was fed up…

As a side note: I was told that I was too young to be watching Dynasty by my elementary school teacher when she heard me call someone a Bitch and asked where I had heard that bad word. I told her that it obviously wasn’t a curse if they were allowed to say it on Dynasty and you can just picture my mother unamused at that little nugget. If I was too young for it, then Marlene who is three years younger than me, certainly was too. Her and I would sneak into my mother’s bedroom and turn on the TV with the sound so low that you literally had to put your ear and face right up against the screen to hear anything. Every time Krystle and Alexis fought, you felt every slap. It’s no wonder my eyesight is so poor now – but it was worth it. Marlene would be standing in back of me holding a towel up around the back of us to keep the light of the TV from creeping out under the door and into the hallway which might give us away. I would have to repeat most things to her because she couldn’t hear a word standing behind me with the towel. Sometimes with great joy comes sacrifice. Or at least that’s what I told her to get her to hold the towel. Oh the good old days…. 

So go and check out my post and let me know what you think about it – Like the old saying goes “What’s the (Stig) mata with you?”

Dog Day Afternoon

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I will share something here that I bore witness to that shocked even me – and I’m not one that’s easily shocked – so, as Sophia Petrillo said “Picture it: Fat Camp – Winter Season.

Besides the Fat Camp, my aunt also owned a diner and the Manager she had working there was this bumbling Frenchman George (Think Inspector Clouseau in a nicer suit) that made even my mostly good-intentioned, but half-retarded cousin, Lon, seem like a scientist. George and his wife, Maddie, used to come to the Fat Camp to torture (or visit, depending on who you ask) with us. I’m not sure how or why this was started, but it didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t a good idea.

One day as we were hard at work (sitting by the pool drinking of course) they arrived. We had started out with intentions of painting the fence, but that quickly turned south when I brought out the alcohol. Truth be told, I never had any intentions of painting that fence and was drinking by the pool when they came up to paint it. One drink led to another and another and then they realized the fence could wait. As George and Maddie pulled into the driveway along with my aunt, they opened the car door and their two mini-Dobermans got out and followed my aunt and Maddie over to the pool while George went into the house.

As a pet owner, I’m always interested to see how other dogs act with their owners. My Shih-Tzu Smokey likes to be held on your lap and to have you pet him while driving in the car, but once you arrive wherever you’re going he can’t wait to see who else is around to play with and get away from me. One night when I was in college and Smokey was still a puppy, I got all up in his grill when we came back from the bar and was raising him into the air like Simba in The Lion King and then bring him face to face and I would slur “SSSS SSSS Smokey, SSSS SSSS Smokey, SSSS SSSS Smokey” until he finally had enough of my nonsense and bit down on the tip of my nose in retaliation. It might not have been so bad if he had just nipped and released to prove his point, but his pincers got caught in my nostrils. Every time I screamed out in pain he got scared and bit down harder and clamped onto my nose like it was a rawhide. I was running around screaming with this five pound dog biting down harder as he was glued to my face and it looked like he was T-bagging my nostril, but not one person helped me. Everyone just laughed their asses off. He could have bitten the tip of my nose off and swallowed it for all they cared. Smokey finally released but he left indentations in my nose on both sides where he chomped down – talk about a conversation starter, “When Shih-Tzu’s Attack!” (Not like the time when my father actually did get attacked by Marlene’s killer Shih-Tzu (Brutus) and had to get stitches in his face – at least I can blame my bite on drunken stupidity; He was sober. My father I mean – not Brutus).

So, as we made small talk with Maddie and offered them a drink, those two dogs fought for affection on her lap. As we were talking and I was just starting to really enjoy my Vodka, those dogs started pushing each other to try and get better placement. They’re very cute dogs, but it was odd because they never left Maddie’s side. Literally never. (Foreshadowing alert)

Next thing I know, here comes George strutting out of the house like a peacock in a bright blue Speedo. A fucking, bright blue Speedo. He was calling out in his little French accent “Allo, Allo” to everyone and then came over and full-body hugged my cousin, and then full-body hugged her boyfriend, and then came right at me arms outstretched. It was like slow motion and Thank God I have reflexes like a cat. I almost jumped over the fence as he tried to hug me and everyone looked at me like I was the crazy one when I put the bottle of Vodka as a buffer between us and offered him a drink. I jammed a cup into his open hand – anything to avoid contact with him and the little blue teacup he was wearing. He looked at me for a second, confused, and then proceeded to make his way around the table shaking everyone else’s hands. My aunt gave me a quizzical look that said “What’s wrong with you?”as if she couldn’t tell or didn’t see anything odd here. Right, I’m the crazy one – George just bump and grinded his bright blue Speedo against my teen-age cousin and then against her boyfriend and I’m the bad guy because I refuse to let him dry hump me next.

That situation wouldn’t have been OK even if George was in shape, if George wasn’t over fifty, or if George wasn’t wearing his knee length black dress socks and slip on black loafers with that Speedo, but for God sakes none of us were even swimming or wearing bathing suits. Who walks up to a group of fully clothed people wearing a bathing suit smaller than a do-rag and starts hugging them? It was a Fat Camp, not a swingers colony!

I gathered my friends and headed out to the local bar for the rest of the afternoon to try and burn that image out of my memory forever, and my aunt said to make sure I was back for our “Family Dinner” and then gave me a dirty looked when I asked her if there was going to be a dress code. George never did go swimming – he just hung out (literally) all day by the pool.  (As a side note, whenever questioned about George and Maddie saying or doing something weird, my aunt would always shrug and say “He’s French” or “She’s French, that’s what they do” as if that explained it.)

There were so many lunatics that I will tell you about at another time, but in the center of the assorted arsenal of players that worked at that camp was UFO Joe. We called him that because, obviously, his name was Joe. What wasn’t as obvious about him at first glance was that he had been abducted more than once. I’m not talking Liam Neeson’s daughter in Taken kind of abduction, I’m talking full-blown, alien poking, possibly impregnating, but definitely fucking-with abduction! (Please re-read that last sentence again and really see what I have had to overcome in my life. I am a neurotic putz with a host of my very own issues which I heartily admit, but I am constantly faced with fucking crazy people that make me seem like the normal one.) There is not enough room on the internet to capture all of UFO Joe’s exploits, but I promise to revisit them another time.

Dinner went without incident and while her two dogs sat on Maddie’s lap the whole time – my dog, Smokey, and my aunt’s two Yorkies were suspiciously avoiding her like the plague. I thought it odd that they weren’t begging, but didn’t think too much about it because at that moment, our maid Happy (The African/Crazy/slothlike/sexy in a certain leather yellow moomoo-wearing kind of way) hit me with her breast as she leaned over me and started to clear the table. George went to smoke cigars with the “Men” so I went to smoke a fattie with the “Real Men” and try to burn the thought of Happy’s middle-aged, bra-less breast swinging against me (like a pendulum on a grandfather clock) out of my mind.

As I headed back to the Dining Room for cake to satisfy my munchies, my aunt and Happy were in the kitchen getting the coffee and dessert together. As I walked back into the Dining Room, only UFO Joe and Maddie (and of course the two dogs) were sitting at the table as everyone hadn’t come back in yet. I walked in on their conversation and sat down as I opened a fresh beer:

Maddie (in her French accent): It must be beautiful here in zee fall when Zee trees drop Zee leaves…

UFO Joe: It is – Do you think you’ll come back when the weather changes?

Maddie (in her French accent):  It depends on Zese babies and what Zhey want to do…(she directed this comment at Zee dogs as she started nuzzling their noses against hers)

UFO Joe: Maddie, I meant to mention earlier that I can’t help but notice that you keep masturbating the dogs…

It was like slow motion as I started to choke and spit my beer out all over the table covering everything while they looked at me as if I were the crazy one. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I looked at him, speechless, waiting for her to either slap his face or, God forbid, answer him…

Maddie (in her French accent): Oh, Zhat. (Like it was nothing!!!)  It’s all about ZEE pleasure Joe…I love Zee dogs and I want them to be happy…Zhey like it…

UFO Joe: I would too…

With that, I jumped up and ran out of the room like the mature adult that I am…I was first off looking for Smokey to keep him off her lap and the hell away from her (now I understood why he and my aunt’s two dogs were staying away from Maddie the Masturbator) and then I burst into the kitchen to find my aunt.

“Oh my God – Maddie is masturbating the dogs! Hello, she’s fucking masturbating the dogs!”

To which Happy responded (in her heavy African accent) – “At the table?”

My aunt put the stack of dessert plates she was carrying down on the counter and slowly turned glaring at me and growled at me: “You know what? You’re a very sick person – something is really very wrong with you? Why would a sixty year old woman masturbate her dogs?

“Because she’s French? Remember, that’s what they do” I replied with the only answer that would possibly make sense. I thought it was a very clever comeback as it was her goto line about anything odd they did, but she found it as humorous as her last pap smear.

 

Before she could slap me or worse, UFO Joe entered the kitchen with some dirty plates and as he passed by, he matter-of-factly said “I knew she was jerking those dogs off. These eyes don’t lie. Lucky dogs, huh” he said as he bumped my shoulder and then headed back into the Dining Room. I then proceeded to help my aunt lift her jaw off the kitchen floor as Happy walked out of the room shaking her head and muttering to herself (in her heavy African accent) “At the table? I don’t understand.” A woman right off the boat from Africa understands what masturbating means, understands what masturbating dogs means, but the part that she found disturbing about that whole situation is that Maddie did it at the table? At the table! There must be some crazy shit going on in Africa!

 

Needless to say I was not allowed to go back to the Dining Room table for dessert because the general consensus was that I wouldn’t be able to control myself (probably a good guess.) Forget about how I was gonna act – I was afraid to walk back into that room and see UFO Joe jump up on Maddie’s lap next!”  I went and locked Smokey in the back bedroom – at that point it was every dog for himself!!! Suspiciously enough, they never visited us again and I, for one, didn’t miss them. UFO Joe on the other hand was constantly hoping that they’d drop by again as that was the only party he’s ever attended when he wasn’t the craziest person on the guest list.

 

As a postscript, I am really disturbed. That statement could obviously describe my mental state most times, but it’s so odd.  That is the second instance where a person has admitted to me that they had masturbated their pet. Also, they both offered it up to me without provocation or instigation. I don’t know why they’re doing it or what it is about me that invokes feelings in these lunatics to share it with me, but if one more person tells me they’re getting their pets off – I’m making a citizen’s arrest right there! I see myself as a fun-loving guy with all sorts of crazy shit going on but people are getting a little too comfortable around me for my liking. This shit’s gotta stop.

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.