The Napkin Diaries

We all have that accident-prone friend. He's the one that gets hurt at the most asinine times in the damn weirdest places. Bad luck just follows him around and sometimes, if you're standing too close, some of that bad luck rubs off on you.

Our favorite bad luck buddy happens to be Bill. Bill happens to be Husband's best friend. Therefore we happen to have the (mis)fortune of witnessing Bill... in all his glory.

One of the most unfortunate situations ever could have very well been the opening night of the season for the Charleston Stingrays hockey team. Bill brought Rachel out (on what was considered their "first date") with us to go to the hockey game. You may or may not have gathered that Husband and I pretty much look for any excuse to get all wastey face and scream at strangers, so sporting events rank high on our fun-shit-to-do list. The four of us got seats in the "risers" which are just foldy chairs down close to the ice/giant wall o' Plexiglas made for your protection from flying hockey pucks. Or so we're made to believe...

Before we could even get to our close-to-the-action seats, we had to actually buy tickets for them. And ticket buying occurs inside a giant coliseum conveniently located 15 minutes from home. Key word: inside. Husband and I start run-walking to the beer line after we buy our tickets, but we notice that Bill is rather far behind us. And standing in a weird hunched/contorted "oww" stance. With Rachel grabbing him by the ear. WTF? I'm all like "Why is she grabbing his ear? What did he say? What did he do?! Did he try to grab her boob and she does that whole grab-by-the-ear thing like Grandma does when little kids have too much sass?!" (Note: my grandma does not ear-grab, but yours might, so you get the point.)

So Bill and Rachel finally meet us in the beer line (we have priorities, people) and we see that Bill's ear is scarlet red (and if you squint, you could see a little heart beat) and has a perfect little pin-prick on the outside edge. What the hell happened?

Bill got stung by a fucking bee. Inside INSIDE, not outside, a giant coliseum. In October.

What.the.fuck.

Rachel wasn't scolding Bill for getting fresh. Oh no no. Rachel was PULLING THE STINGER out of Bill's ear. Inside the giant coliseum. INSIDE.

Only Bill.

So you'd presume that his bad luck for the evening would be over since you know, he got stung in the head by a fucking hornet. But no. Not Bill. Not with that kind of bad luck.

Remember how I mentioned that we had seats in the risers? And they're supposed to be all safe and shit because you're behind that giant wall of unbreakable glass stuff that is supposed to protect you from flying hockey pucks that come zooming at your face? Right. Well, that giant wall of unbreakable glass stuff can't protect you when the hockey puck somehow manages to come zooming OVER it (at WARP SPEED nonetheless) and nearly takes off your friend's face.

Bill seriously almost landed himself in the obituaries. Death by hockey puck. It came flying at like 4000 miles per hour straight toward him and zipped passed his head. It grazed the knee of the dude next to Bill. Bill was so totally thisclose to getting skull-pucked (bahaha, I crack myself up).

Someone give that kid a helmet. Jesus.

What do you get when you mix the Blues Brothers, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, a French maid, a black cat, an Ipod, a girlscout, a Catholic school girl, a guy that refuses to dress up,and a wrestler? The 102 F Halloween Bash, that's what! Ha. So hmm, imagine that, we found an excuse to drink ourselves through another Friday night. I got to the boys' apartment at 7:00 and started hanging decorations. Mistake. See, my little maid costume doesn't exactly allow for extensive movement, or any movement for that matter. Like seriously, I couldn't drink my fruity concoction without showing my ass. So hanging spider webs was a slight disaster... once the apartment was decorated, we were just sitting around drinking and waiting for our Beezers to get here. (Beezers is ridiculously good cheap drunk food in the form of 8 inch subs for those of you unfortunate enough to have never expereinced the Beezer.) We had the door open because the apartment was so hot. I was prancing around with my feather duster, Michael was doing the Bee dance, Joe was howling and Dave and Shawn, aka: Ace and Gary, were patting each other on the ass just as the Beezers delivery dude showed up. Awkward. Yet really amusing. We all kind of mumbled sorry and took our food and shut the door. Oh yeah and speaking of Bee Dancing, Michael had said that if he couldn't find a costume he was just going to come has Dave... with a bee dangling in front of his face and a nail taped to his forehead. And that is funny... After we finished eating, Shawn was going to make some Ecto Cooler, which is some ridiculous vodka/kool-aid mixture. Well, there was no sugar in the apartment, which meant Ace and Gary had their first mission of the evening: find sugar! The two left the apartment with a measuring cup and were dertermined to only return once the cup was full. Keep in mind they were fully dressed (like this) when searching for the sugar. Well, the got it, along with some really strange looks from passers-by they said. Ha. So, we drank a lot. Shawn and Michael finished off the Ecto Cooler pitcher that had a whole bottle of vodka in it, mind you. I had Malibu with a splash of pineapple all night, and Dave and Joe drank the usual Evan and Coke. We were waste cases. Dave and Shawn had attempted to make orange and black jello shots. The black turned out to be a kind of shit brown color instead. Both tasted like children's medicine. Both got us drunk. Okay, so can I just tell you that I cannot even begin to count the number of sexual inuendos made between Dave and Shawn. Everytime I turned around they were patting each other on the ass, making suggestive comments or just being gay. It was really funny because they are both such not gay guys (unlike some of the guys I've like in the past...) Yay for Dave being not gay... so anyway, we got bored later in the night and I really don't even know whose idea it was, but someone suggested we play Spin the Bottle. WTF? So basically we reverted back to 7th grade and kissed everyone in the room - like stupid peck kisses too. Lame, yet really funny. We eventually all passed out. Dustin,Shawns 16 year old drunk brother, wins the award for weirdest night. He had fallen asleep on the futon in the sun room and at some point he got up and went into Robby's room. Robby is the roommate that no one really knows at all. Like the kid could die and I don't think Dave, Shawn or Joe would notice for weeks. So Dustin ends up in his bed and Robby has to kick him out when he eventually came home. Well, the next morning, Robby tells Joe and Michael, "Ummm, I think that kid pissed on my clothes." Michael asked him why he thought that. Robby was like, "Well, they are damp and they smell like pee..." Michael and Joe cracked up. They said Robby took it really well though. Poor guy. It was a really fun night. We didn't do anything really crazy, but it was cool just to sit around and get ridiculous. Yay for Halloween.

This past weekend was Fall Break. [Insert joyous music here.] The maniac group of people that I associate with decided it was absolutely necessary to go play in the woods for this occasion. We actually decided like 2 months ago that we wanted to go camping, but it took that long to get a damn weekend that we all could. So we did. And I even made a soundtrack, featuring songs such as Black Betty, Free Bird, Take Me Home Tonight, King Of Wishful Thinking, Badd, and Yeah Toast! Just to name a few. (Yes, Yeah Toast is a song. You should download it. It's by Bob and Thom and it is the funniest shit you will ever hear. The End.)
So we ventured to the woods (i.e. Devil's Fork, with full bath facilites and concrete.) Whatever. We brought with us $84 worth of liquor, 6 cases of beer, a handle of moonshine and a cauldron full of sugary treats.
Keep in mind that the Camping Crew consisted of: Joe Long (the president of the drinkers), Nicole Cononie, Michael Cononie, David Kuhlman, Candle Fogle, Opie Gilbert, Erin Daniel and Corey Gibson. Aka: Raging Alcoholics. We only came back with 2 cases, a little bit of Evan Williams and some of the shine. Our activities consisted of drinking, eating, sleeping, wrestling, and falling out of chairs.
In that order.
We got there Friday night and before we even set up the tent, each of us had a drink in our hands in one of our very own personalized alcohol cups that came out of our specialized camping cooler all decorated by me. Yay. We brought like 50 hot dogs and tore into them the instant we even felt a slight buzz. Two at a time was the way to do it. So, we're all just chillin, listening to the Ready Set Camp Tunes, when we hear some rustling. It was Nibbles. Nibbles the Squirrel. Somehow, Nibbles became a recurring theme throughout the camping weekend. Anytime something happened, it was Nibbles' fault. Damnit Nibbles, you ate all the laffy taffy. Damnit, Nibbles, where'd you put moonshine. Quit dropping acorns and other forest debris onto our heads, Nibbles. And the such. You get it. We enjoy overdoing it, can't you tell? So basically our first night consisted of us sitting around a wimpy fire, cracking up and getting wasted.
Okay, so when Erin's gets tipsy, she also gets insanely amusing. The night before we left to go camping, her, Corey and myself went to Walmart to buy all the supplies. Apparently, giant balls are a staple within the camping world. Well, at least under our terms. Erin decided to do a dance with the giant ball. Our other ball was blue. We had one giant blue ball. Corey wouldn't let us get two blue balls. Ha. Yeah, so we sometimes revert to the perverted humor had by 14 year olds. Deal with it.
Drunkeness continued to rise, and things started to get funnier. You know the drill. Well, a bee decided to start harassing Dave. He is "highly allergic," as he so informed us. Instead of getting out of his chair or perhaps swatting at the insect, Dave chose to force his back as far back into the chair as possible, throw his arms into the air with his elbows back and his hands in fists close to his face and rock from side to side while grunting. The Bee Dance was born. Michael found this particularly funny and would do the Bee Dance whenever the mood struck him for the rest of the trip.
We all started eating boiled peanuts and I made some comment about how the peanuts tasted like the ocean. I was attempting to make the correlation that peanuts were indeed salty just as the ocean is. Michael found this a prime opportunity to make absolute fun of me. He was lile, "oooh it takes like the ocean; I wonder if I hold it to my ear I could hear the ocean too?!" And he put the peanut to his ear and cheered like he was a little 5 year old girl. Ass. It was funny though.
The next funny thing that happened, I am not quite certain as to the reasoning behind it, but suddenly Michael completely fell out of his chair. No one asked him to move. He just fell over. Must have been Nibbles. Well because I made so much fun of him and even required a picture to be taken, I too fell out of my chair the following night. I didn't land gracefully whatsoever, but I'll be damned if I didn't save my whole drink. That bitch was full and just one splash got away. That's alcoholism for you: when you will sacrifice your assbone to save your precious Evan and Coke. Mmmm.
We all drank ourselves retarded, probably from doing things like The Cononie Shake around the camp fire, gorging on marshmellows, making Joe faces, and harassing each other, and eventually packed into the tent. As you might recall, the same 8-person (*World's Largest Dutch Over, as we called it) tent. Luckily Opie and Candle brought an extra tent. We would have killed each other had all 8 of us slept in that thing. So okay, we're sleeping, and I woke up because Dave had completely taken over my pillow and was shaking. I looked at him, only to find him curled in a teeny ball with his knees tucked under his stomach, completely perpendicular to me, and completely on top of his sleepingbag. Dumbass. I was like, Dave! Get in your bag and move over! Jesus. It took me like 10 minutes to move his shivering ass around and get him into his designated sleeping sack. You're lucky you're so cute. Then, in a fit of rage while nightmaring, Corey does this strange snort, gasp, grunt noise followed by what would have been a long strand of obscenities had he anunciated in the least. I laughed. Erin had to pin him down and tell him to wake up. I laughed again. Just when we thought all was quiet in the tent, Michael starts... snoring. And I mean snoring. The boy is ungodly. So between Dave's weird positions, Corey's outbursts and Michael's unnecessary breathing, it's safe to say no one had a good night's sleep. Except for maybe Candle and Opie.
The next day, Dave was still shaking. You can bet he slept correctly that night. So, Corey and Opie decided to go on some exploration adventure. The rest of us stayed behind to sit around the fire pit and watch for Nibbles. Dave couldn't have gone anyway since he and Joe decided to tackle each other onto some rocks last night. Oh, the things alcohol makes you do. Well, another fine purchase from Walmart was wax lips. I dunno. Something just came over us and told us we needed waxy objects to bite on. Whatever. They were funny as hell. It also takes little to amuse us, however.
I decided that I was pretty gross and wanted to go take a shower. Well, when I got to the shower, I debated on the possibilty that I might actually feel grosser when I came out. So I at least tried. Well, behind curtain number one, I turned the shower on and tried to adjust the head... well, in that process, the whole thing came off the wall, flew into the other wall, leaving only a vicious stream of water spatting from where the shower head should have been. Oops. So I tried curtain number two. It was two for a reason -- there were two humongous daddy long legs looking at me from the wall; like face level. Ewwwww. I actually did ewwww at the spiders. And then I quickly left the foul shower facilities. I chose dirtiness over grossness.
Then I passed out for 4 hours. Others joined me -- Erin for an hour, Dave for 2, but I accidentally slept for the whole afternoon. Which meant all I had to do was wake up and drink. Yessss. I don't even mean to be smart - it just happens. Ha. In the process of my afternoon sleep (not nap) Erin, Joe and Michael went fishing. They didn't come back with any fish, but Candle did come back with a heap of walking, poking, and killing sticks. The size determined the intensity of the stick, mind you. Thanks for the weapons, Candle.
A game of Circle of Death was necessary around the camp fire that night. However, being the lazyasses we are, we chose to sit in a semi-circle of death and just pass the cards to each other and take the top card off. Lazy, but fun none the less. While playing the game of doom, I looked at Candle in all seriousness, gave her a concerned look, then proceeded to ask, "Candle, can you close your eyes?!" She looked at me puzzled. "Because I caaaaan't!" Momentarily, Candle thought there could actually be something wrong with me, then it occurred to her that I was simply drunk and couldn't close my eyes because it caused me to spin uncontrollably. I made Dave stay up with me until eye closing was possible.
We got up the next morning and drove home as fast as possible and ran to the nearest shower. I took 3 showers in one. Eww, camping. So I'd have to say the camping excursion was a success. Minor injuries were had, many drinks were consumed, and we even came up with a new dance move. Yay, camping.

Saturday was the first game of the season for us crazy Tigers and maaaan was it nuts at the Esso. The entire staff had to be there at 7:00 am. For those of you that don't know, it is still dark outside then. Gross. So Lindsey picked up me, Candle, Jenny and Kate at like 6 motherfreakin 30. We were all delirious and in serious need of food. So we were all screaming for Hardee's and Lindsey had no choice but to take our asses there. We ordered food by the masses along with "two strong coffees." Kate was in the back seat exaggerating the strongness that was needed in these strong coffees in order for her to actually live through the day. We ate so furiously that there were biscuit remnants strewn about the car -- that I am certain Lindsey will continue to find for a good 3 weeks. We happened to be sitting at a redlight when this crazy car pulls up beside us and starts blowing the horn like a maniac and making a scene. We all turned to look, and it is Candice, our manager, flipping us two birds while sticking her tongue out, shaking her head and screaming. There's one way to go about waking up.
So we are there at 7:00 am. Uuuggghh. It physically hurt to be awake. I chose to pop caffeine pills, eat a donut and drink Mr. Pibb all while doing my dork dance. You know, the one where I kinda crouch down, make fists, and then swivel my hips in a clockwise manner. Yeah, that one. This black dude was watching me and he was like, "Something's missing. You need some twirk." I was like, "Oh don't worry honey, I got twirk." and I walked away. When I came back, he was like, "Damn right you got twirk." Apparently my homemade Walmart cutoff khakis did the trick. Yes, you read that correctly. I owned no real shorts to my name Friday night, so spur of the moment and a lack of options drove me to go to Walmart and find some pants and act like I was in the 90s and create my own shorts. Hey, whatever, they qualified me for twirkness, so that's fine by me.
I went outside to help set up tables when I was unfortunately greeted by a nasty bee. And the asshole stung me! Bastard. And on top of that, he stung me in my armpit! How do you even do that? I screamed and ran inside. Candice was like, damnit, if you can't breathe, you find me! Luckily I had no breathing problems... well at least they weren't caused by the bee - drunk men were a different story.
We had this temporary tattoo tent set up in the parking lot and the dude told us that he would give all the Esso Girls one for free if we put it somewhere visible on ourselves. Most of the girls got tiger paws or cute things... I opted for a different route. You know how big 18 wheelers have those mud flaps on the tires? And they usually have that girl on them? Well yeah, I got the mud flap girl branded on to my left shoulder blade in an obnoxious blue color. Can we say tacky? That thing sure did get me some attention throughout the day. Here are a few comments received from various drunk men in regards to the mud flap girl:
1. Damnit! I knew I should have put that ring in my pocket when I left my house today because I would ask you to marry me right now.
2. Ohmygod, I wish my wife would do that.
3. I love you.
The list went on, but I chose to stop listening to the drunken fools. Little miss mud flap helped me rack up some good tips though, so I can't really complain.
Early afternoon sometime I ended with a table of 6 or 7 Texas guys who were really cool. And they thought it was exceptionally cool that I was from Texas, so we bonded. Well, the boys ran up a $200 tab and then decided that they also wanted to get a gigantic order of mini bottles -- $280 worth, to be exact. 36 bottles of Absolute and 20 bottles of Jim Beam. I had to carry it in a grocery bag and guard it with my life as I pushed my way through the drunken masses of tailgaters. The bar eventually got so crowded that I couldn't physically force myself through the clusters of people inside. I actually had to go outside and weave through people out there and come in the other door to make it to my tables in the back. Madness. I did get really good at yelling "'scuse me!" and you better believe that people get out of your way when you have 3 drinks in your hands, 2 beers in your pockets and an Esso tank top on. I felt kinda powerful. And of couse the drunk guys would be like, "of course we'll move babydoll, anything for you darlin." Hey whatever, at least they weren't cussing me out. Though I did have to argue with two dicks that day. But two in 19 hours isn't too terrible. One guy was like "I need two gin and cokes." I repeated it back to him to make sure I heard him correctly (because keep in mind you shouldn't mix those two together) and when I came back he was like "what the fuck is this? I ordered gin and juice" I was like, "nope, I repeated it back to you that you said gin and coke so that is what you got. You can order another one if you want." He did. Moron. Then this other doof was like "l told one of the girls to get me a bucket and she didn't" so I told him I would but he had to give me a few minutes because I had other orders. Well, he ends up stopping me and yelling at me that he could have gone to the bar already and gotten his bucket. I was like, "well then go to the bar! Otherwise give me about 10 minutes because we are really really busy..." he shut up and I got his stupid bucket of beer to him and then he gave me nice tips after giving me hell.
We had a 20 foot screen in our parking lot with the game on -- I managed to not see a single play of the entire thing, but damn, I knew when something good or bad was happening because the Esso went absolutely insane. And holy crap, when that interruption happened with 3 minutes left in the game, I was afraid a riot was going to break out. I have never heard strands of cuss words that long or that vulgar in my life. And I thought I had a foul mouth... Goood gah, don't mess with those football fans. They'll kill someone. Speaking of that, Candle about knocked out this one moron. He called her a stupid bitch for not being fast enough waiting on him and she flipped out. Like, pounded her fist on the bar, about flew over the bar, and was like "can you not see that there are 500 other motherfuckers trying to do the same thing you are?! Don't be an asshole!" Ha! And for those of you who know Candle, know that the girl can make you laugh so hard you can't breathe, which was a very nice relief after such a ridiculous day.
We got to leave around 2:00 am, and can I just tell you that I looked like a lunatic just attempting to walk normally. I managed to fuck up my neck, hurt my back and get a massive blister on one of my toes, and my feet hurt so bad that I actually had random convulsions. So basically, if you can imagine this, I was limping, holding my arms bent in front of me with my head cocked to the side, hair all frazzled, mascara to my ears and bar smeared all over my body. I kinda looked like a deranged Quazzi Motto. You know, the hunchback guy? Gah. I was a sight. It was worth it -- her is where I brag a little -- all of the other girls on the floor made about $900 in sales. I made $1715 in sales! And I am the new girl! Go me :) I was proud. Which means, I got the best tips out of the girls on the floor too. Yaaay.
So I managed to successfully live though the first game. And we won! So yay for me for living, yay for Esso for kicking ass and yay for the Tigers for winning their first game!

This weekend I was in Raleigh for my cousin Katie's wedding. Her and Wade were getting married on Saturday. My family got to the Hilton hotel Friday night around 7:30, where we immediately began drinking. Something about traveling just makes us crazy. So me, Michael, Jen and Pete (the newlyweds), and Dave and Loren got hammered. Ha. We ended up at Denny's at midnight and we stuffed ourselves retarded just about. I ended up having creepy crazy dreams about this weird midget ugly ass guy in a green and white striped collared shirt with acid wash jeans on. He was standing in the middle of mine and Michael's beds in our hotel room just lookin at me. And he had insanely huge teeth. Ewwww. And I woke up, but it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust so like I could still see the image of the creepy midget man at the end of the bed. Gave me the heebee jeebees.
Saturday at 2:00, Wade and Katie became Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick. Pretty wedding. Katie looked gorgeous. We all made a mad dash for the reception back at the Hilton. It took Katie all of 47 minutes to get plastered. Aunt Sharon apparently had refused to feed Katie all day, and she's a little girl, so basically she got loaded and then got completely out of control. At first, the DJ was horrid. He played "No More I Love Yous" as the bridal party was walking in... because that makes sense. Way to set the scene for the next 50 years of their lives. Moron. He kinda looked like a fat Ben Stein. And was a complete cornball. Then he started playing his crazy violin and attempted to turn the place into some kind of ho-down. We finally told him, after about the 5th Boys II Men song, that he better change the song line up or we might have to kick his doofus ass. He did... but he ended up playing Real McCoy, Quad City DJs, and Ace of Base. I shit you not. And we actually did the train around the entire room while "Come on Ride the Train" was on. I was slightly uncomfortable because I was sort of supposed to latch onto Wade's dad, who used to/is some crazy CIA man. And plus, its just weird to touch any Dad's waist. Even though it was goofy 90s pop music, it allowed for the Cononie Shake however, so all were satisfied. I had to call Joe after "I Saw the Sign" was played. I couldn't take it anymore. Someone had to know just how ridiuculous this night really was.
So okay, we were all dancing, singing, sloshing our Coronas around, when we all kind of backed off and just watched in horror/shock as Katie went buck wild. You know what people look like when they are swatting bees above their heads? Yeah, Katie looked like that, but add that in with some weird hip swivelling and a big poofy wedding gown, a glass of wine in hand with the deathgrip to ensure it stays in place, and some "wooooooos" for vocal effect. Holygod it was too funny. Then after flailing her arms for a few moments, she'd bend herself in half, touch the floor, and pull her dress up on the way back to her upright position. Then she'd run around and rub her dress on the nearest 3 people, put it back down, flail about, then do some kicks, like the Russian Dance kicks.... in a wedding dress. Then she would add in a split or two, but always threw her hands in the air for someone to help stand her up. Repeat this 86 times for full effect.
Then came time for the throwing of the bouquet and garter. Jesus. First, her gay friend Jarred stood with the girls while she threw her flowers, then he also stood with the guys as Wade threw the garter. Let me first tell you about the garter removal experience. I actually had to look away it was so umm, tacky. Like really, Katie hiked her skirt up so high that we basically got a peepshow of her downstairs, she flailed around while sitting in the chair, then Wade used his teeth to pull the bitch off. He like licked her leg all the way down. I looked away around the time his tongue reached her kneecap.
Then Jarred had to put the garter on Stephanie who had caught the bouquet. Jarred also used his little gay teeth to apply the tainted garter to her leg. And um, her legs aren't exactly cute and small and dainty. We basically got to see Stephanie's downstairs too, since Jarred shoved the damn thing up as far as it would fit. Oh joy.
So needless to say, it was actually a hell of a good time for what started off as a lame reception. Around 9:30, me, Michael, Jen, Pete, Dave and Loren went swimming with about 22 beers (18 beers that each of us probably consumed at the wedding, plus a good 4 more for each while in the pool). Smart, I know. Really ridiculously fun though. We would sit in the hot tub, get grossly hot and then cannon ball into the pool and throw the life raft to each other or use the big stick to scoop each other out. It was only a 5 foot pool, but there were a few times I swore there was a bottomless pit beneath me. My ribs and abs actually hurt from running around and doing relay races in the frickin pool last night. Yeah, we acted like a bunch of 11 year olds and it was damn fun damnit.
So yay for really fun drunk weddings and the fun drunk events that follow.