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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
Is it worse to be ignorant or apathetic? I don't know and I don't care.
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If
you took all my partying from
college and compressed it, you
would probably be hard-pressed to
fill a month. (Even February.)
I've always felt guilty about
this for some indescribable
reason, probably because, for
comparison's sake, if you took
the time I have spent musing on
exactly what Victoria's secret
is, you could easily fill a year
or two. This
is especially worrisome
since one or two of my
brothers appear to be
such experts that they
are in jeopardy of
getting called in as
expert witnesses in
lawsuits against
fraternities. Inevitably
family get-togethers are
peppered with
reminiscences about the
time some misguided
friend puked on the
drive-thru speaker at
Taco Bell. How can you
live up to
that? So
I was convinced that, with
responsibility looming like a
horny convict in a prison shower,
I had to cut loose and make up
for lost time. Fortunately, a
friend from high school proposed
the perfect the perfect outlet:
Halloween in Iowa
City. First
of all, you would be hard-pressed
to find more bars per square mile
this side of Munich. And,
fortunately, Iowa City women are
more likely to shave and less
likely to spit while they
talk. Besides,
what could be a better
time than Halloween, if
only because it's the
one time a year when
it's perfectly
acceptable for women to
publicly dress up in
fetish garb? This
year saw the emergence
of one of the best
trends, in my opinion,
since the brief but
entertaining Wonder
Woman craze in the late
seventies. I am
referring to, of course,
Britney Spears frenzy,
which has all sorts of
girls lining up to dress
like naughty Catholic
school girls. (For the
record, none of them
could sing
either...) Actually,
this year, I gave the costume
thing some forethought, but I was
foiled by my own imagination. I
wanted to go as a human lava lamp
but I didn't have have enough
money for that kind of thing. So
I went as a dirty hippie, which
cost about as much as a
McDonald's happy meal. My father
had a gag wig with a pony tail, I
bought a beard, and threw on a
Pink Floyd t-shirt and some Army
fatigues from the time I played
Col. Blake in M*A*S*H. I ended up
looking like the fourth member of
ZZ Top, but that's all right.
Mainly I just didn't want to go
out as Unemployed Former College
Student Guy, which isn't much of
a costume and makes a lousy
conversation starter. Unfortunately,
we made three fatal errors in our
quest for the Halloween party of
the century. First, we peaked too
early. It was supposed to be a
warm-up, but the night before we
had gone through more alcohol
than Hemingway, leaving most of
us too weary of spirits to take
the edge off of appearing in
public looking like complete
morons. Second, we didn't end up
going out until after midnight,
the magic time when most of the
available (read: drunker than we
were) females have already picked
out their prospective suitors for
the evening. The
third mistake was going to the
Union. For
those unaware, the Union
is the biggest bar in
the Big 10, which is
saying something. If you
get much bigger, you
start to find smaller
bars in orbit around
you. There are actually
three separate bars in
the Union, each with its
own flavor, though
perhaps "scent" would be
a more appropriate term.
And on this particular
Halloween, the
3000-capacity bar was
violating fire codes,
legal precedents, and
enough commandments to
risk direct intervention
by the
Vatican. The
Union is like the
Hook-Up Lottery. The big
winners walk away with a
brand new, completely
sane and attractive
boyfriends or
girlfriends. Most
people wind up getting a grind on
the dance floor, the equivalent
of winning a free scratch ticket:
just enough to lead you into
thinking the odds are in your
favor, and make you consider
returning to the scene of the
crime. Occasionally, you might
get (or give) digits, which I
guess is like picking three of
the five numbers and winning $50.
It's nice, but nothing to write
home about. I
went through a phase where I got
close to a dozen phone numbers in
a month. (I'm not bragging. I
haven't finished the story yet.)
Somehow, through bad luck or just
plain stupidity, I failed to turn
a single one of those numbers
into a date. The
metaphor breaks down here,
because I can't seem to figure
out what to equate the occasional
"go home with the less than
perfect partner" with. It
happened to me more often than
I'd like to admit. As nice as it
was to have some sort of bragging
rights, inevitably, it turned out
far more trouble than it was
worth. This
night, my luck could have used a
pep talk. The thing was, I wasn't
really interested in trying. For
once, I was distracted by the
sheer joy of being around my old
friends again that picking up
women became a distant second.
Besides, I didn't even live there
anymore. There just wasn't much
of a point. That
didn't stop some of us
from trying and even
succeeding (sort of).
One friend, who shall
remain nameless to
protect his loved ones
from further
embarrassment, emerged
from the Union in his
"Satan Goes Disco"
costume giving some PYT
(emphasis on the "Y")
dressed as Catwoman a
good tongue bath.
Unbeknownst to He Who
Rules the Ultimate Disco
Inferno, he was doing
this in front of all of
his friends, who
proceeded to give him
the biggest standing
ovation this side of
Rent when he turned
around. It
made me realize something:
partying and having fun don't end
when you get a job. It just gets
more meaningful when you can't do
it every day. Though
I'm just guessing at that. And
there's really only one way to
find out: Ask
my brother. Patrick
Keller would like to remind you
not to drink and drive. You'll
spill your beer. This article is
© 1999 Patrick Keller, Gern
Blansten Productions. You may
redistribute this piece, provided
the text is unaltered and it
contains this notice. As always,
if you know someone sick and
twisted who might like this
stuff, let me know. Blah blah
blah e-mail me at
blansten@iname.com
blah blah blah
Also
featured in the not-so
latest: All
contents of this web site -- even the
periods -- are TM & © Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so
don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful
distribution, copying or non-educational
use is highly frowned upon, and will be
prosecuted when I get enough money to hire
a lawyer. Violators will be spanked.
Shoplifters will be persecuted.
Prosecutors will be violated. |
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