BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Part 6 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Goin’ To The Chapel…

So, in the previous installment we established that Tom Hanks wasn’t available for my bachelor party. Neither were Tawny Kitaen nor Adrian Zmed. I’ve never forgiven any of them for that, and it is largely why you will never see us together in public, or private, for that matter. Well, that and the fact that we don’t know one another, but that’s just one of those small details… On with being “mobile”…

As all men are born knowing, there is a certain code that must be followed with regard to bachelor parties… really… it’s built right into our genetic makeup. But, anyway, all men know if you are tapped to be your buddy’s best man when he takes the plunge you have been telling him not to take ever since you were old enough to understand the ramifications… (Whew… that was a mouthful… Deep breath…) You know, inherently and without any outside influence, it is a moral imperative that you take your buddy out and get him completely and totally f*cked up. Preferably, the night immediately before the wedding.

Now, women have caught on to this in recent years. No doubt because they are generally a whole lot smarter than men give them credit for… (yeah, I know, ending in a preposition… it’s a blog… cut me some slack)… To be honest, women are generally a damn sight more intelligent than men, period. But let us not digress into a discussion about my submissive side and E K’s collection of handcuffs, leather items, and stiletto he… Err… umm…

Just ignore that last part, okay?

So, anyway, since you ladies know what’s up with that crap, you have had a tendency to put the brakes on the time honored tradition, insisting instead that the bachelor party be held a week or so prior to the event so as to allow for recovery time.

Well, Kathy didn’t do that. It’s not that she was oblivious to anything. I mean, after all, she’s friggin’ brilliant and it’s virtually impossible to get anything over on her. It requires an entire government conspiracy, unmarked helicopters, tranquilizer darts, and James Bond to pull even a shred of wool over her eyes. (Although, if the 007 in question happened to be the Pierce Brosnan incarnation, E K would probably be going by some “Bond Girl” name like Kitten McSharpclaws, and I would most likely be finding myself suddenly single and crying in my beer… Yeah, E K is all about that guy. I have no idea what she sees in him… I mean, it’s not like he’s insanely handsome, intelligent, philanthropic, faithful to a fault…Oh wait… he is… never mind.)

So, anyway, E K didn’t put her foot down on anyone’s neck. Not right then anyway. She’s definitely stepped on her share since, but not without just cause, believe me. Even though she has nicknames that seem as though they belong to some kind of psycho woman, they are really and truly all in fun. She is one of the most even tempered people I know, and I’m not just saying that to score points with her. Trust me, scoring points with E K requires a hell of a lot more than a handful of pretty words…

And, speaking of points, (like how I did that?) the point here being, she allowed Scott to plan the bachelor party for the night immediately before the wedding. October 31 was falling on a Saturday that year, so Friday night was on for the festivities. Kat was going out with her Matron of Honor, (remember Erin?), and some other ladies for a nice dinner, and whatever women do at Bachelorette parties… yeah, I know, I’ve seen some home videos… But, as it turned out E K and her friends didn’t go that route. She was exhausted and after dinner and a couple of drinks she came home and went to bed. Or so she maintains…

Me however… well, that was a different story. Scott arrived in a rented 12 passenger van. He had already picked up a few of the guys, and we made the rounds to pick up the rest. In the back of this van was a cooler… In the cooler was beer… something on the order of 48,000 beers… No kidding. The damn thing never became empty and, at Scott’s direction, neither did my hand. What I mean is the moment I would finish a beer, someone would reload my hand. If I wasn’t drinking fast enough, they found a way to get me to slam whatever brew I was holding so they could… Yeah, you guessed it.  Reload.

Once everyone was on board, we made the rounds of several bars in the Saint Louis area. As would be expected, these bars all featured scantily clad, young, busty, leggy, flirtatious waitresses. And, at each stop the mantra became, B-52!

Nope, not the Love Shack,  Rock Lobster, Channel Z folks… I’m talking about the drink. A triple layered shot of Bailey’s, Grand Marnier and Kahlua… sometimes set on fire. AKA a Flaming B-52…

So, at each and every bar we would begin the stay with a round of B-52’s… Although, to be honest, I think it was less of a round and more of a pair… I was always presented with one, and whoever else in the group got tapped to drink with me that “round” to make me think everyone was getting trashed, and not just me.

Now, so you understand, Scott is a responsible guy. After all, a year later he officially became a cop and is probably one of the best cops around… So, he wasn’t drinking booze. He was staying sober so that he could drive, and watch out for everyone else, in particular me, as you will see later…

And so, the B-52 chant continued… with help from the outside. You see, these characters were not at all shy about telling everyone in the bar that I was a “dead man walking,” so to speak. Therefore, I became the object of much fawning by waitresses. (Believe me, I know they were well tipped. I saw the dollar bills flying.) And, there were extra drinks, courtesy of other patrons in the establishment: usually a B-52… Or 3… Or 4… Yeah. Go figure. Although, I must admit, I do vaguely remember something about Kamikaze’s and Purple Hooters. Thinking back, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up in a hospital detox ward…

By this time it was relatively late, and I had not yet had anything to eat for dinner. But, they had a plan there too… On the way to our next stop on the “get drunk in St. Lou” tour, we swung into the drive-thru of White Castle. Now, I know they don’t have White Castle everywhere, but they have equivalents I believe… For instance, in the south the closest you would find would be Krystal’s… However, if you have no equivalent, and no idea what I am talking about, White Castle, (and the equivalents,) serve these little, square, steam grilled with onions burgers. They have a unique taste, and are a staple for drunken binges. Since they are small, a grown man will generally eat around 4 to 6 of them. Sometimes more, if he’s really hungry. If he’s drunk, usually quite a few more. You have probably heard these burgers referred to as Sliders, or the ever popular Saint Louis moniker, Belly Bombers.

Well, they get the nicknames honestly… You see, they have a lingering effect on one’s digestive system. Especially if one has been drinking heavily. The thing is however, said effect usually doesn’t roll around for about 6 to 12 hours after consumption… See where I’m headed with this?

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many of those things I ate that night…

So, anyway… Eventually, as all Saint Louis based bachelor parties tend to do, we ended up across the river in Illinois, smack in the middle of what is called the “East Side”. This is where you find the bars where the waitresses are not scantily clad. Well, actually, the waitresses are scantily clad… but, the other women who work there are mostly naked and swinging around shiny poles… Or wiggling around on your lap… Or sticking your face in their cleavage… Or… Well, you get the picture.

Guess what? We didn’t go into one of those bars. No kidding. I remember it had to do with one of the guys in the group not wanting to go in, and I was so drunk at that point that I backed him up, slurring my way through, “If he ain’t goin’, I ain’t goin’…” He didn’t make any friends of the other guys that night, trust me… Fortunately, they didn’t hold it against me that I backed him up, because they knew I was so trashed that I had no clue what I was saying. Besides, they also knew that it was all their fault that I was out of my head drunk in the first place… Well, not all their fault I don’t guess, but that they had been the primary contributors, that’s for sure…

Instead, we grabbed a table at one of the big dance club type bars and sat  there drinking beer. At least, that’s what I think I was doing. Everything was kind of moving in slow motion, including the music and sound around me. It was much like that part in the original Terminator movie when Arnie comes into the techno dance club on a mission to off Sarah Connor…

I do remember that at one point I hauled myself off to the restroom to unload some of the drink my kidneys had finally managed to process, and while becoming acquainted with the urinal someone stuck something in my back and demanded my wallet. Being trashed I just replied, “Yeah right. Very funny.” (Although, I suspect it probably came out more like, “Nyabnigh, furrvffblee nubby.”) Still, in response to my slurred words, whatever it was in my back went away, and that was the end of it.  However, I later found out that some fool had watched me bob and weave to the restroom and decided I’d make a good target, and that unbeknownst to me I was actually being mugged. However, unbeknownst to my mugger, Scott,  (remember him, the 6 foot 6 cop?) had followed him. So, when the whatever in my back disappeared and life went on without incident for me, what had actually happened was that Scott yanked the idiot up and bounced him off a wall.  All without a word. Kind of like Chuin rescuing Remo at the statue of liberty… Yeah, more obscure movie references… I just can’t help myself…

But, see, I told you he was looking out for me…

By now, it was oh-dark-thirty… really… I have no friggin’ clue what time it  actually was. All I know is we left the bar, dropped off some of the guys, then went back to Scott’s place with the crew that was left, and had Pizza. Yeah… Pizza. Don’t ask me. It was there and I ate it. Oh, and there was more beer involved. Yeah… a lot more beer.

At some point in the wee hours of Saturday morning… well, I think they were actually beyond “wee,” because we weren’t all that far from sunrise… Scott drove me home.

Now, here is something I didn’t mention earlier: All I had in my pocket was my ID. No wallet, no keys, no cash, no nothing. Scott knew this.

He helped me out of the van, dragged me up to the front door of the house, propped me against the porch railing, then rang the doorbell and ran just like a kid who had just set fire to a sack of dog-poo.

However, he didn’t go far… He stood in the front yard to watch the show.

A few moments later a very sleepy E K pulled open the door and just stared at me with one eye. Without a word, she turned and headed back to the bedroom while I literally crawled into the house…

No matter how many years have passed… And I do mean to this very day… I can still hear Scott laughing his ass off out in the front yard…

At a later date, E K made it perfectly clear to Scott how she felt about my condition upon being returned, and moreover, the method by which I was deposited upon the doorstep. She takes a very dim view of her possessions being mistreated whenever someone borrows them. I think it hearkens back to her high school years… Something about her Drill Team Uniform never being returned by the girl who borrowed it… (And believe me, I’m not real excited with that girl either… I mean just imagine, E K in a drill team  / cheerleader uniform… But, I digress…)

It was after the evil one had delivered her cold and calculated admonition that Scott fessed up, and told her the original plan had been to wait until I passed out,  strip me down to my skivvies, tape a quarter to my forehead, write his number on the back of my hand, and put me on a Greyhound Bus bound for Chicago… Of course, part of his plan also involved driving to Chicago so he could be there to watch me get off the bus and wander about aimlessly, before he finally loaded me up and hightailed it back to Saint Louis, arriving just in time to deliver me to the wedding…

Good thing I never actually passed out, until arriving home that is, because there were some unforeseen events in our very near future, one of which was only a few points shy of being catastrophic in relation to the upcoming festivities.

Besides, 6 foot 6 or no, E K would have killed him and fed his carcass to her cats. Guaranteed…

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT: Mahwage: The Wedding Suit…

I need one of these BBC’s…

Well, not really. They’d probably just censor me left and right, and we can’t have that.  It would make for some blog posts that look like a government document released under the Freedom of Information Act. 27 conjunctions, 12 verbs, and 1 pronoun spread out across 53 pages and situated in between long, black marks blocking out everything else in the whole document.

Oh yeah… downright riveting…

No, I think what I need is a bureau full of content to put in my blogs. Yeah… That would be helpful. Provided it has some good stuff in there, not just underwear and socks…And, by bureaus in this case, obviously I am talking about a chest of drawers.

Speaking of bureaus filled with good stuff, sometimes the good stuff is sitting on top of them instead of in them… Or, so it seems.

I suppose it is all a matter of perspective. To adults, the top of a bureau can be a catch all. A place for combs, brushes, your wallet, your watch. Maybe a plant that you forget to water. 58 cents in change. A stick of chewing gum you’ve been carrying around for 2 years. A monkey… wait… not a monkey… Well, you get the idea.

To a married couple it’s a bit different. It becomes a no-man’s land…in my case anyway… And, by no-man’s land I mean there’s no room at all for me to put anything there because it is covered with my wife’s stuff…And, y’all know how EK is. You don’t mess with her stuff or she goes all redhead on you, and well… it ain’t pretty. She is… Pretty, I mean. In fact, she’s downright hot, even when she’s pissed off… but, she can be just plain evil, which is why we call her Satan in high heels… Hence why you don’t mess with her stuff. You following me on that one? Good.

But see, now you’ve gone and gotten me off track again. Shame on you…

Back to that matter of perspective thing. To children, the top of a bureau isn’t as much a no-man’s land, as it is a treasure trove of all things sparkly and out of reach. Probably because they are so short. (that last part is just a guess on my part.) The first part of the statement, however, I know to be fact… How? That’s easy, from experience.

You see, when I was but a wee author type person – 3 1/2 years old in fact – I stood before a four drawer bureau, staring up at the trinket covered summit, and in that moment it became my Mount Everest. My K2. My mountain to conquer.

Literally…

Yeah, I climbed the damn thing. And, to prove how tough I was, I scaled the face of this mountain by free-climbing. No pitons, carabiners, or ropes, and definitely without the benefit of Sherpas or even base camps. I’m telling you, I was a regular action hero…

…right up until the damn thing toppled over on top of me.

The edge of the top put a crease in my forehead, and who knows, I may have actually lost consciousness. Like most folks nearing the half century mark, for me most of those memories are a blur, and the blurs are surrounded by huge gaps of absolutely nothing. The remaining vivid recollections I have from that incident are few…in fact, really only two. One is the fact that my father was working the night shift at McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and we only had one car, so my mother and I waited for a cab to take us to the hospital. I remember that because we sat by the open door of our ground floor apartment, watching out the window for it to arrive. The other was the X-Ray technician wheeling me in to “take a picture of my head”…

Hmmm… A chest of drawers fell on my head, then they beamed radiation at it… Maybe that’s why I turned out all “whimsical in the brainpan.”

Anyhow, I was okay. No fracture, no major problems. Just a very minor concussion. Good thing little kids have elastic skulls. I heard stories for most of my life about how my father rushed home from work and fussed over me. I always heard that from my mother, because my father was a man of few words and it wasn’t like him to be overly forthcoming with his emotions. I suspect his reaction might have embarrassed him a bit, or maybe he was simply trying to be an example of a “man” so that I would know how to act when I grew up. (He was a bit old-school… I suppose I am too in many ways, as since his death in 2003, I find myself virtually channeling him on a regular basis…)

Anyhow, back to bureaus – doesn’t matter what kind really. You see, it seems my most popular blogs are the one’s where I tell stories about the ridiculous  – and sometimes humorous – things that happen in my life. So, my guess is this recent clacking of dominos in my head is just my subconscious telling me what should be leaking out of my brainpan, so to speak.

All good… I’m listening.

Now, this is not to say there won’t be other types of things popping up here. I’m sure there will. In fact, there are a few of us author types right in the middle of planning a “blog tour” whereby we guest post on one another’s blogs. They’ll probably kick me out of the tour after a couple of my posts… won’t THEIR readers be surprised, eh?

But, the long and short of it is this: The stories of silliness in my life will continue. Just like Dave Barry, the late Erma Bombeck, and a whole host of other writers… Who knows? Maybe someday I will get a column somewhere too… It’ll probably on the back of an envelope, written in pencil,  and discarded in the recycle bin, but hey… A column is a column.

Won’t my journalism teachers be so proud.

More to come…

Murv