Celebration Shenanigans

It seems like college, for most people, is a great achievement. Some kind of crucible that must be traversed in order to emerge from the follies of high school and be welcomed into adulthood. Like most things in life, I tend to disagree with the general population. The crucible isn't college, it's a real job. I've been working full-time as a 9-1-1 dispatcher for over three years now, and I feel like I've learned a lot more about the world from that work than I ever even tried to learn in college. Perhaps that's because college really is useless. Perhaps it's because after working forty hours a week, then taking eighteen college credits, college just hasn't been any kind of enjoyable for me. Correction, I hated my most recent college, my alma mater - The University of Arkansas. Fuck that place. I appreciated my time at the community college from which I graduated with an Associate of Arts. And despite the complete lack of freedom from the military college I attended, I learned a lot there and wouldn't trade that experience for anything - nor the people I met there. They're amazing and I'm lucky to have gotten to know each and every one of them. Even the private liberal arts college I attended in Pennsylvania was a wonderful experience. The University of Arkansas was like a hell I was required to suffer through. Having traversed the six year trail of mental endurance and successfully regurgitated useless information time and time again, I decided that after finishing my final final on Tuesday, this photo was not only appropriate, but completely necessary.

Me flipping off Old Main - the Uni's oldest building

Tuesday was my final final of undergrad, and Wednesday was my 23rd birthday. Naturally, a party was in order. Nothing big and fancy, just myself and several friends heading to the bar to get white girl wasted. Actually, allow me to rephrase. I got white girl wasted. I'm not sure how drunk everyone else got, but to be honest, that's not the only thing I don't really remember from that night. I remember my best friend Juli and I deciding before we left that we were going to go as lumbersexuals. We arrived at the bar around 9, and before the clock hit 10, I'd had at least seven different drinks, to include an Irish car bomb. I was able to convince my gracious brother that a bear fight was not something I could handle. I was barely able to handle the Irish car bomb. I'm a lightweight. Judge away.

Me as a lumbersexual

Juli and I as lumbersexuals

Typically, my hand-eye coordination is miserable at best. When I throw a Frisbee, baseball, football, or basketball, I look like a retarded kid trying to hump a goat. Sober. When I've been drinking I magically transform into some kind of super star like Kobe Bryant or Tom Brady. That's why, when Juli challenged my drunk ass to play foosball, she was wrong in thinking it would be an easy win for her. After beating her by a meager seven points, I decided to celebrate my victory with a nap. On the foosball table. This signaled the beginning of the end for me. I vaguely remember throwing up in the toilet, and my big brother Evan (thank God for him) carrying my drunk ass out to the car. I also remember trying to puke in the rock garden by our front door on the way in the house. I was probably unconscious by the time they got my into bed, because I don't really remember how I got there either. My family takes good care of me though. I woke up at 730 the next morning with three bottles of water, a sandwich, and a bottle of ibuprofen on my night stand. I promptly skipped the ibuprofen, chugged a bottle of water, and scarfed the sandwich before I went searching for more food. I've never really gotten a hangover, and Thursday was no different. Juli and I eventually went out for Waffle House for lunch, and I started on a new art project. That's right, I've graduated college and I've decided to immediately revert back to kindergarten and do some art. I've been drawing, painting, distressing and writing for the last several days. It already feels like college was a lifetime ago, but I'm glad that's not true. Mostly because, if I'm still living in my parents house a year after graduation, I think I'll just forfeit. I'm honestly not 100% sure what my next career move will be. There are a few options available to me, but I haven't been able to decide which one to pursue. I'm not in a huge hurry though. After working full-time and being a full-time college student for the last several years, I'm going to take the next month or two to just relax. So here's to the next six years! May they be filled with more adventures and less stress!

Thanks for Drinking, Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving. It's supposed to be a time to give thanks and be with family and all that other bullshit they try to sell you in the hallmark commercials. How adorable. Fuck that Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But that whole, "Let's all sit around and eat and look happy" thing is kind of boring. We're not that boring. I mean, we sit around and eat and look happy, but it's probably because some of us (at least, me and my brother Evan) are hiding alcohol in our cups while playing Cards Against Humanity. That's the tame version (because my brother-in-law is a preacher and there were kids about). The not so clean version... I don't even remember what night of the week it happened on..

My brothers wanted to have a sibling night out and go to the bar. Of course, I agreed to join them and their girlfriends. The other sisters couldn't make it, but it turned out to be a good time. After I got off work, I met up with them at the bar, and was watching them play pool when this guy, probably in his late 40s or early 50s asks me to dance. There is no dance floor, and pops is already hammered. Also, I was way too sober for that. So fuck no. That didn't stop him from asking me to dance about 30 more times though.

We ate and hung out for a bit, and then one of my brothers announce that it's time to leave. I just finished eating and had only had half of my drink, so I was a little bummed, thinking the night was over. Boy was I wrong. I chugged my drink and headed out the door. Interestingly enough, pops that had been wanting to dance came with us. Apparently, this guy is friends with my brother Aaron. Fucking great. We all piled in our cars, hit the liquor store, and headed to my brother's house out in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. He's lived there for a few years now and I think I've only been there twice. Normally, if I go somewhere once in the dark blindfolded, I can get back to that same place a year later with no issues. Not his house. I have no idea why, but I just haven't been able to figure it out. Thankfully, I was the last car in the pack, and I keep up well.

Once we made it to my brother's house, we found someone already there, passed out on the couch. He had his phone in his hand, on his face, passed out asleep. I think his name was Granger, but I don't really remember. We'll still call him Granger though. My brother Aaron (whose house we were at), walks over there and slaps this Granger in the face. He doesn't move or make a sound. The guy is dead to the world. So naturally, Aaron slaps him again. Still nothing. So he slaps him in the balls. This time, Granger adjusts his leg, but that's about it. Then, Proctor (pops who wanted to dance), starts undoing Granger's pants. To put a racoon trap on his balls. What the honest fuck? Now, Proctor is so trashed he barely gets the thing open (it looks like a bear trap, only much smaller and it doesn't have teeth, it's just smooth), and when he's trying to ever so lightly place it on Granger's crotch, it snaps closed on his hand, sending him flailing to the floor. Aaron walks towards Granger just as he wakes up to Proctor's screams, and kicks Aaron right in the face and bloodies his nose. Throughout the rest of the night, I'm constantly in fear of Aaron killing Granger. There's this look he gets when he's pissed that's similar to what a lion would give it's prey just before ripping its throat out. Only throw in a little more Satan. Perhaps give him some horns.

The night goes on for a while and we all continue our drinking. There's arm wrestling and things of the like going on, when suddenly, Proctor comes up with a grand idea. We should shoot something. Evan (my other brother) doesn't currently have any deer in his freezer, so we should go shoot one of those. Naturally, this is a grand idea. Aaron grabs 3 rifles and ammo while the rest of us refill our drinks and we all piled in Aaron's truck. Now, let's not all get carried away here. Aaron lives in the middle of fucking nowhere. We got on no commercial roads or anything of that sort, we went to Proctor's house (Proctor is also Aaron's neighbor) and went driving around in his cow pastures looking for deer. All seven of us. Aaron and Evan's girlfriends sat up front holding one of the rifles, Aaron drove with a rifle, and in the back was Evan, Me, Granger and Proctor. Evan and Proctor also both had rifles. Now, Evan, Granger, and Proctor are not small men, and while Aaron's truck is pretty roomy, it's not that roomy. So Evan rolled down the window and sat out the window with his rifle on top of the truck, looking for deer while the girls up front worked the spotlight. Aaron, Granger and I continued to drink, while Proctor passed out against the window. Every time we said his name, he started speaking something that resembled Chinese. His English vocabulary is pretty small as it is, so I'm quite certain he wasn't speaking another language. So we just continued to fuck with him throughout out quest for some venison.

We didn't see a single fucking deer. But, what we did see was an armadillo. And a cat. Both of which made for good target practice for Aaron and Evan. Because our escapade was going so poorly, Aaron decided we should go to where the deer are at night. The woods. In a truck. I remember it registering that we were going into the woods, but I don't remember how we got so deep into the woods, or how long it took. I do, however, remember Aaron saying, "alright, let's get out of here" and gunning it down the hill, towards the field. I also remember Ashton (Aaron's GF) yelling "STOP! THERE'S A - " Boom! The truck goes from its upright position and almost flips onto the drivers side. Evan bashes his head on the roof of the truck and drops his rifle, which I somehow caught, and we wind up back on all four wheels and fly down the rest of the hill. Once we got to the bottom, we all get out to for a minute. Mostly because Aaron and Evan both have to pee. I should have needed to pee, since Granger's drink had effectively soaked me, but for some reason I didn't. Yet. I was an entire 6 pack of cider, some moonshine, a margarita, and only God knows what else into the night, but I still didn't need to go. Ashton informed Aaron that he ran over a tree stump in the middle of the woods. Imagine that. Aaron looked at the front of his truck and decided it was still drivable, so we all piled back in and headed back to the house. Now, I'm no mechanic, but if your truck makes funny noises every time you hit the brakes, turn the wheel, or touch the accelerator, it's probably fucking broken. Also, if you hit a tree stump with one wheel going fast enough to almost tip your truck over, you probably need an alignment. That's none of my business though.

We all made it back to the house in one piece and headed for bed. At least, most of us... I wish I still had the pictures from that night, but my phone broke, so sadly, they've been lost. Even the one of me wearing a Big Foot costume which I found in Aaron's guest bathroom. I have no idea why it was there, what Aaron did to get it (he doesn't purchase such things. He wins them in bets or steals them), or what kind of diseases were crawling around in it, but I put it on anyway. I seriously need to start backing that shit up somewhere.. Aaron fell asleep sitting upright on a sub-woofer next to the TV. I don't typically sleep much or well when I drink, and wound up drunk calling a friend and talking to him for the following three and a half hours until I was sober enough to sleep for a mere two hours. When I woke up, despite having slept by myself that night, I woke up wearing someone else's pants. I later remembered that they were Ashtons and she had given them to me since my jeans were soaked in Granger's green apple crown and sprite mixture. I found my clothes and resisted the urge not to push Aaron off the sub-woofer and headed out while everyone else was still passed out. Somehow, someway, I eventually found my way back home.

That's how Thanksgiving is supposed to happen.