Ok, you might want to prepare yourself for this entry as I suspect it will be a long one. Yesterday was quite a day.
First off, Esteban and I awoke and two hours later we got out of bed. No, stop thinking dirty thoughts! The breeze was coming in through the windows and it was that warm/cool kind of breeze that makes you love summer, so we just stayed in bed and talked about what we had to do that day.
The plan was that we would go out to breakfast (as I was craving a cheese and something omelet) then come home. Esteban was then going to mow the lawn (because the neighbors have been losing their toddlers in our lawn currently and it is gaining momentum on becoming the most hated lawn in the neighborhood, the title of which is owned by the “For Sale” garage-turned-house 600 sq. foot piece of shit up the street. Then Esteban was going to do the dishes. On his own motivation. Seriously. I know. This was turning out to be a great day.
I, on the other hand, was playing with getting a manicure, but I for sure needed to do some laundry, wash out the cooler for the later BirthWeek Spectacular’s drinking enjoyment of Wapatui, stop at the store and pick up my asthma inhaler, a volleyball pump, and some sunscreen (because the current “fucking red face” medicine makes me extremely sensitive to the sun) and also run over to Esteban’s parents and set up the volleyball net and make the Wap starter.
Phew. And we were going to do all of this in four and a half hours.
So we drove across town to my favorite breakfast place, where I promptly ordered the lunch special of roast beef (I know I was hungry for an omelet earlier, but this looked better. This is why I drive Esteban crazy, though).
We ate and then began to drive home, but then we thought we’d take the short detour drive near the bay, which would take us 15 minutes out of our way, but would be a lovely drive. I suspect that this could have been a procrastination measure, but I’m not sure. You decide.
It was at the beginning of this detour that I made a statement that I felt like sticking my bare legs out the window. Esteban says “Go ahead”. Now I would never do that. It just seems so juvenile, so tacky. It’s the wack kind of thing you see low-class people doing. And then my grandmother stopped talking inside my brain and I said “Why the hell not?”, so I stuck my legs out the window and laid across the bench seat, with my head in Esteban’s lap, bare legs hanging out the window.
It was a beautiful thing.
And when I declared that the window weatherstripping was hurting my legs, Esteban dug through the garbage in his car and found a cushioned FedEx mailer for me to put under my legs. He’s such a fabulous recycler.
It was looking to be the highpoint of my day. I seriously recommend driving in the country with your legs hanging out the window. I know understand the “Golden Retriever” mentality much better now.
Of course, Esteban needed to ruin the purity of the moment by making a suggestion that I face down instead, facing into his lap. You knew that was coming.
Then a truck full of three guys passed by. I only have this from Esteban’s account because all I could see was the tree canopy and up Esteban’s nostrils, but he said that all three of their heads turned in unison and they scoped my legs hanging out the window. And apparently tried to see if they could see up my shorts.
Yep. The highpoint of my day.
We continue to drive, forgetting our many responsibilities, and I sit up for awhile because the blood is starting to cut off in my legs from pressing on the window so long. Plus, a big nasty bug hit me in the ankle and when you’re going 55 miles per hour, not only is it disgusting, it hurts like hell.
Then we pass a biker bar on the highway. We see they have a live band there, playing to an open field with two teenage boys in it. Esteban remarkes “Wow, concert for two.” and I notice that the harmonica player is waving frantically at us as we drive by, so I said “Look, they’re trying to flag people down off the highway!” And the light bulb then went off for Esteban. You see, we KNEW that harmonica player, so let’s go stop and have a beer and watch him for a little while, shall we?
Um. Ok.
We stop and then find out that it’s $10 a person to sit in this field and watch Phil’s band play. But you get all the free tepid and foamy beer you can drink! Esteban does not think that paying $20 to stop and say ‘hi’ to someone is all that unreasonable, so we do. We walk around to the field and that’s when we realize that there are no seats. No chairs. No benches. We stand there for awhile, both of us in our shorts and sandals, and then I notice that this is no ordinary field that we are standing in. No, we are standing on what is possibly the Largest Anthill in Wisconsin. Who knew that biker bars were such fans of bugs? Was it some kind of karmic balance for all the insects they wiped off their teeth and sunglasses? Who knows.
I bust over to a lonely picnic table I notice and plop my ass on it. Then I realize that picnic table was held together with exactly two bolts. So I sit cautiously, but Esteban is afraid to sit because of the shakiness of the table. However, a barfly from the bar comes out and she plops her ass on the table and proceeds to groove to the music. Shaking the table as she did her strange table dancing. I tried to explain that she could dance amongst the ants on the ground and show her appreciation more fully, but she could only tell me some long story about how her “baby’s daddy is in jail for robbery” and how her “other baby’s daddy is in prison for a long time” and she’s not going to waste her freedom being repressed or something. Plus, she explained that someone had dared her to drink most of a bottle of Apple Pucker so she was feeling a bit under the weather. She explained this as she sipped on her glass of foam. I couldn’t exactly understand most of her drunken slurs, but I nodded politely, because that’s how my drunken mama raised me. Drunks like polite listeners.
Our appearance in the field has actually doubled the audience of the band. They were playing on a “stage” that was constructed by lining a flatbed trailer up next to a semi trailer with a hole cut in the side of it. Very classy. To exit the stage, the performers had to walk down the loading ramp of one of the trailers. I’m not making this up.
Phil’s band was very good. Not $20 good, but very good. We had conversations with Phil, he over the microphone, us shouting from the field. He welcomed the other members of the audience (the sons of the lead guitar player, we later learned) to wish me a happy birthday. After one song, I found I was the only one clapping and the drummer yelled “Thanks Weetabix. Patron of the Arts!”
By this time, we could actually drink our beer. It was so foamy when you tapped it that you had to let it sit and defoam. However, I look at it as a cultural thing. We were privvy to the wicked underbelly of the Ant Farming community. We were one with them.
In between sets (like how I threw in a little industry talk for you there?), we talked to Phil off the stage. He introduced me to the band. The lead guitar guy said “How old are you? 22? 23?” and when I said “30”, he did this weird scope manuever and I think he checked out my booty. In a very obvious kind of way. It was a little disturbing. But it put my “scope” count to four at that point, so it was all good.
Does anyone else ever notice that they get scoped out more when they look like hell? I looked like hell. Esteban told me that it looked like I hadn’t brushed my hair when I got up. My shirt had a spot on it. I had a big fly schmear on my ankle. It always happens though. I met one of my college boyfriends when I was sweaty, with greasy hair and no makeup. I got hit on regularly in England where I had no curling iron (my hair at that time required a curling iron) and no makeup. Does it make you look more approachable? Is it more of a natural look? Could someone explain that to me? Because I’m clueless.
Then we busted out of there, because now we were screwed. Our timeframe was seriously diminishing. Now, we barely had time to do the essentials like showering and stuff.
So we head home. I whip out the ironing board to iron my shirt and then find that my favorite shirt has turned grey in the laundry. Basement funk strikes again! Instead, I pull out one of my rhinestoney shirts and iron it. Ok, so I looked like an inbred. But it was my party, so I’ll look as inbred as I want to.
Oh great. Now I’ve got Leslie Gore running through my head.
Anywhoo, we scurry over to Ward and June’s house and prep for the party. We get there and find that June has severely wounded herself attempting to remove the wax paper off a frozen hamburger patty and must be taken to the hospital. Don’t ask me how this happened. I later had to ply her with several glasses of alcohol before she would admit to this much.
I made the Wap starter, which is easy but very messy. Here’s a Weetabix value-added extra:
How to make Wap starter: take a large cooler (we use a red one… it makes life simpler) Dump in four pounds of sugar, six packets of red Kool-Aid mix (the little packets without sugar added) and 10 2-liter bottles of white soda (such as 7-up or cheap stuff). For ice, freeze several half-gallon ice cream pails with water and fruit slices. This way it stays colder longer and doesn’t water it down. Then mix in white grain alcohols of your choice (this party threw in Tequila, rum, vodka, whiskey, and Malibu). Our rule is that if you bring a bottle of “ingredient”, you get that bottle back, filled with leftover wap. Aged wap has been known to cure herpes, grow hair on a billiard ball, and remove unsightly moles.
So Ward and June left to go to the hospital and leave us to attend to the party. Which was fine because everyone decided that they would be fashionably late. We received the first guest at 4:30 (invitations said 4:00 pm) and the second guest at 5:00. The bulk of the guests began arriving at the 5:15-5:30 mark, so word to the wise: schedule your party an hour and half earlier than when you’d like people to arrive.
Unless maybe all your friends aren’t rude bastards, like mine.
June’s finger turned out to be bruised but unbroken. The party was great fun. I received some great gifts as well as some “funny” gifts. Yes. They were a riot.
The funniest thing was that someone gave me a blinking “I’m 30” button and when they gave it to me to put on, I accidentally dropped it on the cement and it broke into a million pieces. They taped it back together, though, and I was forced to wear it and it almost gave me epilepsy. I still have a headache.
The only yucky part of the whole thing is that my mother came and BROUGHT MY 11-YEAR-OLD BROTHER. Yes. That’s right. After Weetabix makes this big stink about not bringing children to this ADULT party, her own mother shoots her in the ass by bringing an 11-year-old. I asked her about it and she said “Well, we’ll only stay until you open presents.” her eyes lingering on the 30-gallon cooler of wappy goodness. Um, right Mom. She then proceeded to drink two gallons of wap. My brother was cool about it though. For the most part, he parked himself in front of Ward and June’s jumongous television and watched porn and the Crocodile Hunter. My mother was busying herself by hitting on every cute guy at the party. That’s my mom. She’s Mrs. Roper sans Stanley and the funky hairdo.
The problem with my mom is that she’s very pretty. She’s often compared to Cher. Not that that’s a problem, but things really affect her strangely and she’s always trying to prove something. For instance, Ann-Margret is coming to town in September and I offered to take her to see the show. My mom would like to see the show, but she doesn’t like Ann-Margret because she’s 60 years old and looks better than she does at 50. I said “hey, she’s 60 and she looks better than me at 30!” “Well, doesn’t that make you mad?” she said. “No, why would it?” “I don’t know… it bother’s me,” she said.
Whatever.
Needless to say, my mother and little brother were there until the end of the party. So now the COUPLESWITHCHILDREN are undoubtedly cheesed off because I’m a big double-standard girl. No. I’m not. I wasn’t happy about it either. But then, doesn’t everyone’s family find some way to embarrass you?
So, the party ended around 9ish, because some of us were supposed to go and sing at this bar at 10. I packaged up the remaining wap with Scott, who is this stereotypical computer geek guy, with big glasses and tiny build. But Scott’s very sweet. For instance, after our wedding, my wedding dress got stepped on by a drunken reveler and some of the bustle latches broke. Scott carried my train for me until I left, making little self-conscious jokes about it like “Great, does this mean I’m like a bridesmaid now?”. He always acts embarassed about it, but I just adore him for that.
Bottling the wap is a very hands-on process. One must submerge the empty bottles in the drink, then stand them up and tap them off by pouring the drink in. Scott, engineer that he is, rigged up a funnel out of a cup, which made the process much faster. When we were almost done, it occurred to me that the way I was bending over the cooler, he could totally see down my shirt. Yep, the girls were there, beckoning seductively to all to see.
So I asked him, “Scott, can you completely see down my shirt right now?”. I think I was getting a little drunk from the wap which was entering my bloodstream through my hands, because I KNOW that any guy who is asked that question will respond in the negative. Because if he’s stupid and says “Yes”, the boobies might be then taken away or obscured from view. It’s a dumb question to ask.
But Scott, in his honesty, says “I’m trying not to look but I appreciate your attempt to flash me.” And I get the feeling that he meant that. From the bottom of his heart.
Scope count: 5.
We bottled up the rest of the booze and then Scott took them out to the yard and hosed them off so that they wouldn’t be sticky. I went and washed my hands and amazingly, after all of the red splashing wap, I did not even get a single spot on my white outfit. Can you believe it? I know. I can’t either. However, my hands look as though I’ve been playing the Lady Macbeth part in summer stock for months. Or eating a lot of pistachios.
Off to the bar, where we find that there’s been a mix up and they already had a DJ there. No singing. Which was fine, because I had this red-finger thing going on. But the DJ makes fun of me showing up to perform even though he’s there already. And this pisses Scott off. He shouts at the DJ “Hey, leave her alone!” and proceeds to shout obscenities to the DJ.
You’ve got to give it to Scott. He’s like a little Bantam Rooster who will peck you to death if you piss him off. And now that he had a glimpse of the fun twins, he’s willing to protect my honor with his life. By any means necessary.
Apparently, to appease Bantam Scott, the DJ then announces to the crowd that it’s my birthday and that everyone in the bar should buy me a shot. Oh my. In case anyone’s keeping track, I don’t really drink. The whole day, I had a half a glass of wap to test the mix and that was it. But that’s how we party in Wisconsin. Ooh, it’s your birthday, drink some alcohol. Oh, getting married? Have a shot! Oh, getting divorced? Shot on me! Does anyone wonder why we have the highest per capita number of alcoholics in the country? Oh, yeah, we are number one in the country! Let me buy you a shot!
So yet again, we were at peace with the “friends in low places” crowd. I had this tremendous urge to sell our home, buy a trailer, put our Pontiac 6000 up on cement blocks and start watching Nascar. Maybe put a big “#3” decal in the back window of my Monte. Maybe a “Calvin Peeing” sticker in the window of Esteban’s truck.
The black Nascar t-shirt is the Metallica t-shirt of the new millenium.
Remember Markus, he of flowering trees and camping quips? He brought me a pack of double stuffed Oreos and three trays of Sushi.
Can you believe how sweet he is?
I have the greatest guy friends. Really.
