Bring Your Own Bottle, Haunt Your Own Toilet, Piss Your Own Pants
It was an eventful weekend. I think this is going
to be a long post. Also, Clancy has requested I use a larger
font. So I'm assuming this will be one massive entry when it's
done.
We're going to start with Wednesday because it was definitely a day worthy of blog mention. It started off with a wake-up from my father. Many of you have heard me complain of my father's annoying habit of coming into my room while I'm still asleep and just starting a conversation with me as if I were actually fully awake. Think about it as having an alarm clock that sounds like the middle of a very boring conversation with a very longwinded middle aged man who loves the sound of his own voice above anything else. Well his rant that day included something about wild cherry trees he found while he was out riding his bike along the back roads in Rosenhayn. He suggested that we pick some cherries and make wine out of them. He had been doing this rather successfully with wild blackberries for several years now, and wanted to try something new. He started talking about how much he loved wild cherries when he was a kid. His rant twisted and turned. He must have spoken for about ten minutes without so much a half a breath before I actually opened my eyes. I just stared at him thinking, "Who is this crazy old man sitting in my room?" I sat up in bed and he ended his rant with one of the most hilarious lines of dialogue I've ever heard. He looks out the window, and then back at me without so much as a grin or a smirk, and he says in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, "It's about 95 degrees outside. We'd have to be crazy to pick cherries in this weather. But then again, I'm a fucking lunatic."
So we picked the cherries. It was hot, but we had a good time. A little kid rode up to us on his bike and asked us what we were doing. We explained and he looked at us as if we were, in fact, fucking lunatics. He ate a few cherries though, and we made a bit of conversation with the boy. We began to ask him questions about school, seeing if we could get any dirt on some of the teachers. My father and I get a kick out of tricking little kids into saying nasty things about teachers since most of the teachers at Deerfield Elementary are very close friends of my mother. We held back the laughter as the boy described how mean Mrs. Petronglo--a close family friend and a wonderful teacher--was. We asked the boy if he lived around here. He said, "No. I'm from Rosenhayn." We were no more than a quarter of a mile outside the city limits of Rosenhayn, but to an 8-year-old boy, that's far from home. We then said goodbye to our new friend and headed home with our less than stellar cherry harvest.
Later that day, Maria and we decided to go out for a fancy dinner in Philly. Now one of the pleasures of fine dining is enjoying your favorite alcoholic beverage alongside your meal. Seeing as though Maria has only just turned twenty, I suggested we find a classy BYOB restaurant. After some Internet research I came up with a list of about ten decent BYOB places and let Maria select from them. Now Maria seemed convinced that BYOB meant Bring Your Own Beer. I think that she was playing dumb because she really just wanted beer instead of the wine I had selected. But it's okay because she wanted to drink good beer, and I never turn down GOOD beer. (My definition of good beer: If it's light enough to be confused for urine, I don't want it.) So we decided to buy the beer when we got to Philly--bad idea. We found the restaurant with no problem, despite the fact that the dirty lying Internet gave us really bad directions. Thankfully I am a good city driver with a good eye for address numbers. Finding the beer would prove to be less easy a task. We poked our head into the restaurant, called Pesto. (www.ristorantepesto.com) We wondered aimlessly around South Philly looking for a liquor store or a bar, but we found nothing in the first thirty minute on the street. Both of us starving, and increasingly more desperate for a beer, we began to ask people randomly where we could get beer. One odd little fellow seemed very eager to help, but I think he thought we were looking for beer of a...well...lesser quality. He gave us directions to a place that sells "any kind of forty we wanted." For a moment I paused to wonder if Bass came in forties, but then quickly dismissed the notion. (Bass = my favorite beer...for anyone keeping score.) We walked around a bit more before being directed to a charming little bar that sold a variety of six packs. Maria insisted at this point that she might need about twelve for herself, but I hope she was joking. We got our six pack of Bass and went back to Pesto, brown bag in hand.
Being new to the fancy BYOB scene, we made a rookie mistake. We used our water glasses for our beer before we realized that the waiter was bringing us new glasses that were to be designated as "beer glasses." We were a tad ashamed, but no one saw our error as anything more than a couple of enthusiastic young beer lovers jumping the gun on their favorite beverage. The menu was impressive. My choice was made difficult when the waiter ran down an almost endless list of specials. That's something that always makes me feel bad. I hate when a waiter takes so much time and effort to recite the specials, and I end up ordering something on the regular menu anyway. Maria and I agreed that we would try at least one thing on the special menu to make the waiter feel good about himself. We went all out on the dinner. They brought out bread with cold carrots and potatoes in a balsamic vinegar. Odd, but delicious. We started with clams casino. Then we had a warm radicchio and crabmeat salad, tossed in a creamy balsamic vinegarette--one of the specials. We both had the shrimp scampi over linguine in a cognac cream sauce. It was the most amazing thing I've ever tasted. For dessert Maria had creme brulee, and I had this nifty lemon sorbet stuff--another of the specials. We took our time, enjoying the atmosphere, the food, and the beer. The beer lead us to some very interesting conversation, and some even more interesting jokes. One rather humorous moment got us both laughing way too loudly. I would try to relate the joke to written form, but it loses something in translation, but here's the set up: The staff was so friendly, and they kept asking us how everything was. We kept saying, "Delicious, thank you!" I suggested that it would be funny if I said "Delicious, thank you," and Maria said something equally complimentary yet completely vulgar and inappropriate. We'll gladly reenact the moment for you in person, but I wouldn't be able to do it justice here. It was an amazing meal and an amazing time; well worth the oodles of money we ended up spending.
We headed back to Maria's apartment to read my new play, The King of Infinite Space. We decided to open that bottle of wine I had brought out earlier. Sadly the cork was rotted, and we had a hell of a time getting it open. Ultimately I ended up stabbing at the cork with so much vigor that I pushed the cork down into the bottle and sprayed myself in the face with wine. In case you were ever wondering, wine in your eyes burns. A lot. After she got over her violent fit of laughter at my misfortune, Maria composed herself and we set about reading the play. It was helpful for me to hear it out loud for the first time. I know where I have to clear a few things up and tighten some monologues. I also caught about a thousand typos. Yikes. Anyway, Sue came home to the apartment and we all ended up having a quite a bit of fun. We played cards with her upstairs neighbor, who might be the most annoying life form to walk the earth. She drunkenly knocked on the door to ask where her keys were. When Sue pointed out that her keys were in her hand, the girl laughed and invited herself inside. It was worth a laugh at the very least. By the time we got rid of her it was so late that I just spent the night there.
Thursday night we went to a bar in Washington Township called PJ Whelihans for Matt Ruggieri's 21st birthday. Our waitress was a real bitch. She insisted on carding Nina even though we were all carded at the door. She took forever to get our drinks. Bryan, Clancy, and I came up with an amazing idea. We decided to throw each other fake bachelor parties, despite that none of us has any plans to get married in the near future. Is that a great idea? We just keep on throwing bachelor parties and we take turns pretending to be the groom. It can't fail!
Friday I went to see No Joy in Muddville compete at the World Cafe Live Philly's Rising Stars series. The band was playing a serious disadvantage with Kevin losing his voice and John still in Florida. They didn't win, but they showed more heart than any of the other contestants. Kevin's voice gave out completely midway through the set and they had to change everything. They handled it like champs. We cheered and sang our hearts out for them. They played my favorite song so I was happy. The act that ended up winning had a very ethnic sound. While most of the comments we made that night are too racist for public display, I will say that I sent Josh a text message just before the winning act finished it's set. It read, "Go back to India and take your jungle horn with you." If that's the least offensive thing we said, you can probably imagine how horrible we got that night.
That takes us to Saturday. All we had on tap for Saturday was a birthday surprise for Pete Comperatore at the Landmark. While we were afraid that people were bailing on Pete, most everybody showed up, and we had a great time, as expected. I wore my new salmon striped shirt and my new blazer. I looked hot. Trust me. No surprises there.
We ended up moving things to Normal after we wrapped up at Landmark. No we weren't expected to throw our first real Normal party until the end of the month, but we ended up with a full blown Normal extravaganza on our hands anyway. The O'Brien boys came, and Joe brought a few of friends. Sue and Nicky stopped by. Aubrey, Pete, Nicole, Shahna, Joshes (T and K) and Debbie all came from Landmark. Alison and Adam came. Sean came. I know I'll forget people if I try to name them all so I'll just stop. Point is, lots of people came.
Now here's something pretty funny. When I got back to Normal, Janine said to me, "I heard two girls talking in the bathroom." This was before anyone had arrived and the house was completely empty. Janine is very taken with things supernatural, and I have to believe that since no one was in the house when we went back in, that the things she heard in the bathroom must have been from the beyond. It was a mystery, but I was sure it could be solved. I'm such a Dana Scully when it comes to these things. Sure enough, two girls at the party confided in me that they arrived at the party before everyone else, but they really had to poop. So they went in, pooped, and got out before anyone noticed. Anyone except Janine, that is. I won't tell you which two girls, but it's not who you think it is. It's neither Sue nor Maria. That's all I'm saying.
So the party started to pick up a head of steam. Things didn't start to get really interesting until after two am, as is often the case. One of Joe's friends brought his girlfriend. Now I had been informed that he didn't really want her to come with him so he planned on ignoring her the whole night. This went okay until she got hammered and couldn't get his attention to save her life. Now perhaps I'm saying too much here, but I doubt that she or her boyfriend will ever read this. I won't use their names, just in case. The story gets too good to not tell. So the girl keeps on drinking. She's wasted. She goes into the bathroom and locks herself in. This is standard for a lot of people. Being the most senior roommate at 11 Normal(I'm on my fourth semester in the place), I've seen many people get drunk in that house. I know all the tricks. But nothing could have prepared me for the strange series of events that were about to unfold. The girl came out of the bathroom and ran upstairs. Alison went up after her to check on her. The girl's boyfriend was still playing beer pong and couldn't be bothered with the welfare of his girlfriend. At this point, Leah stumbles into the house in desperate need of a toilet. Leah and Angela locked themselves in the bathroom and took care of whatever business they had there. In the meantime, a young man appeared at the door. He seemed pretty shaken up about Leah's health. I told him that she was in the bathroom and that she was being taken care of. We talked for a moment. He told me his name was Kevin and that he was a mechanical engineering major from Bucknell. He seemed a little odd, but our house has seen a lot of odd people. No cause for concern. I assumed he came with Joe or Angela, seeing as though he was concerned about Leah. He looked at me and said, "Yeah. I hope Jen is okay in there." I knew full well that there was no one named Jen in that bathroom. Again, stranger people have said stranger things in that house. (Anyone remember the guy from Hollywood Video who showed up at Rory's birthday party and told us all about a very incompetent store manager named Robert?) I figured he made a drunken error, and I went on about my business. I found Alison who seemed a little shaken up about the girl whose boyfriend was ignoring her. She rattled something about needed lots and lots of paper towels, but I didn't get the full story. I stepped out to the garage to check on the pong situation. When I came back I witnessed an interesting sight. Kevin from Bucknell was sitting by our front door staring absent-mindedly at the wall. In the other living room, I saw Leah huddled in the corner looking petrified. I went to Leah to ask her what was wrong. Why wasn't she talking to her friend Kevin? Why did she seem so frazzled? What the hell was going on? I went up to her and asked he what was wrong. She said, "I was just in your bathroom. There's piss all over the place in there. And see that guy sitting by the door. He's really creeping me out." I asked her if she knew him. She said, "I've never seen him before in my life."
Okay. So there was a strange man sitting in my living room, and the evidence was pointing to the fact that he had somehow wandered into the house and started drinking, despite the fact that he knew no one at the party. In addition to this, I had been informed that our good friend who was trying to get some attention from her boyfriend, had just peed all over our bathroom floor. Two things I could have done without. While Alison went into damage control with Little Miss Bladder Control, I started asking around to see if I could figure out if Kevin from Bucknell came with anyone. He didn't. Joe, Bryan, and I escorted him out onto the lawn. He explained that he was with a Theta Chi (Why is it always a Theta Chi? We had one wander into a cast party back in 2003. Don't you people ever throw your own damn parties?). They were on their way home from Landmark and somehow Kevin from Bucknell ended abandoned on Normal Blvd. I began to formulate a diplomatic solution to the problem, but by the time I had a clue as to what to do, Bryan had already told him to leave the property, in no uncertain terms. For a moment I thought we were going to have a brawl on our hands, but Kevin from Bucknell retreated peacefully from Bryan and left. He was last seen stumbling North on Midway.
With that taken care of, I went to assess the damage in the bathroom. We never had a dog in the house growing up, so the sight of an indoor puddle of urine is totally foreign to me. The poor girl dropped about a pint of fluid in there. Alison went in with mops and paper towels and cleaning products and Lysol. When she was done, it was like no one had ever pissed on the floor. Except that very wet rug. Rory promised to clean it. If not, I'll buy a new one.
Well the night continued in traditional 11 Normal fashion. I sent the other roomies to bed and stayed up as the last roommate on duty until the beer pong game was wrapped up. I had a few words with the last of the beer pong players who didn't seem to realize that 4am in a tight residential neighborhood wasn't the best time to sing at the tops of their lungs. There was a little more drama as the asshole boyfriend accused us all of going to Wawa and abandoning Scott--who had spent the entire evening with his own personal bottle of Southern Comfort. Maria took the opportunity to remind him that he abandoned his girlfriend and let her piss all over the house. That shut the boyfriend up for a bit. He is no longer welcome at 11 Normal Blvd. His girlfriend can come, but only if she wears some sort of protective undergarment.
After we got everything settled down, Maria and I sat out on the porch and watched the sunrise. Yes, it was about five o'clock by the time we got everyone else to bed. We had a very lengthy talk about various delightful and/or serious subjects until we went to bed around 7:30. We talked about both of our mothers' battles with cancer. We talked about cancer jokes and if we thought it was okay to make/laugh at them. We talked about how terrifying life can be. We also talked about how hilarious life can be.
I know it's been a while since I've ended with a deep thought, but here's something worth thinking about. Several times throughout the night, we had some close calls with some very scary things. A depressed girl doing something suspicious in the bathroom. A stranger in my very own house. A couple of ghosts in the bathroom. In the moment, it was all eerie and a bit frightening. When the details were unknown, we were afraid. The unknown can be absolutely terrifying. But there's something true on the opposite side of that coin as well. If Janine knew that her ghosts were actually just sneaky poopers, she would have never been afraid. If we knew that Kevin from Bucknell was just a drunken fool who wandered away from his friends, we would have never been afraid. I think the next time we're afraid of something, we need to stop and think about it for a minute. There are a lot of scary things in this world. Some real. Some not. But if you can laugh at what scares you, you'll never be afraid for long.
Maria and I decided we are okay with laughing at cancer. It's real. It's bad. But it doesn't have to be scary. Hope this makes sense to you people. I makes a lot to me.
Until next week...thanks for reading!
We're going to start with Wednesday because it was definitely a day worthy of blog mention. It started off with a wake-up from my father. Many of you have heard me complain of my father's annoying habit of coming into my room while I'm still asleep and just starting a conversation with me as if I were actually fully awake. Think about it as having an alarm clock that sounds like the middle of a very boring conversation with a very longwinded middle aged man who loves the sound of his own voice above anything else. Well his rant that day included something about wild cherry trees he found while he was out riding his bike along the back roads in Rosenhayn. He suggested that we pick some cherries and make wine out of them. He had been doing this rather successfully with wild blackberries for several years now, and wanted to try something new. He started talking about how much he loved wild cherries when he was a kid. His rant twisted and turned. He must have spoken for about ten minutes without so much a half a breath before I actually opened my eyes. I just stared at him thinking, "Who is this crazy old man sitting in my room?" I sat up in bed and he ended his rant with one of the most hilarious lines of dialogue I've ever heard. He looks out the window, and then back at me without so much as a grin or a smirk, and he says in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone, "It's about 95 degrees outside. We'd have to be crazy to pick cherries in this weather. But then again, I'm a fucking lunatic."
So we picked the cherries. It was hot, but we had a good time. A little kid rode up to us on his bike and asked us what we were doing. We explained and he looked at us as if we were, in fact, fucking lunatics. He ate a few cherries though, and we made a bit of conversation with the boy. We began to ask him questions about school, seeing if we could get any dirt on some of the teachers. My father and I get a kick out of tricking little kids into saying nasty things about teachers since most of the teachers at Deerfield Elementary are very close friends of my mother. We held back the laughter as the boy described how mean Mrs. Petronglo--a close family friend and a wonderful teacher--was. We asked the boy if he lived around here. He said, "No. I'm from Rosenhayn." We were no more than a quarter of a mile outside the city limits of Rosenhayn, but to an 8-year-old boy, that's far from home. We then said goodbye to our new friend and headed home with our less than stellar cherry harvest.
Later that day, Maria and we decided to go out for a fancy dinner in Philly. Now one of the pleasures of fine dining is enjoying your favorite alcoholic beverage alongside your meal. Seeing as though Maria has only just turned twenty, I suggested we find a classy BYOB restaurant. After some Internet research I came up with a list of about ten decent BYOB places and let Maria select from them. Now Maria seemed convinced that BYOB meant Bring Your Own Beer. I think that she was playing dumb because she really just wanted beer instead of the wine I had selected. But it's okay because she wanted to drink good beer, and I never turn down GOOD beer. (My definition of good beer: If it's light enough to be confused for urine, I don't want it.) So we decided to buy the beer when we got to Philly--bad idea. We found the restaurant with no problem, despite the fact that the dirty lying Internet gave us really bad directions. Thankfully I am a good city driver with a good eye for address numbers. Finding the beer would prove to be less easy a task. We poked our head into the restaurant, called Pesto. (www.ristorantepesto.com) We wondered aimlessly around South Philly looking for a liquor store or a bar, but we found nothing in the first thirty minute on the street. Both of us starving, and increasingly more desperate for a beer, we began to ask people randomly where we could get beer. One odd little fellow seemed very eager to help, but I think he thought we were looking for beer of a...well...lesser quality. He gave us directions to a place that sells "any kind of forty we wanted." For a moment I paused to wonder if Bass came in forties, but then quickly dismissed the notion. (Bass = my favorite beer...for anyone keeping score.) We walked around a bit more before being directed to a charming little bar that sold a variety of six packs. Maria insisted at this point that she might need about twelve for herself, but I hope she was joking. We got our six pack of Bass and went back to Pesto, brown bag in hand.
Being new to the fancy BYOB scene, we made a rookie mistake. We used our water glasses for our beer before we realized that the waiter was bringing us new glasses that were to be designated as "beer glasses." We were a tad ashamed, but no one saw our error as anything more than a couple of enthusiastic young beer lovers jumping the gun on their favorite beverage. The menu was impressive. My choice was made difficult when the waiter ran down an almost endless list of specials. That's something that always makes me feel bad. I hate when a waiter takes so much time and effort to recite the specials, and I end up ordering something on the regular menu anyway. Maria and I agreed that we would try at least one thing on the special menu to make the waiter feel good about himself. We went all out on the dinner. They brought out bread with cold carrots and potatoes in a balsamic vinegar. Odd, but delicious. We started with clams casino. Then we had a warm radicchio and crabmeat salad, tossed in a creamy balsamic vinegarette--one of the specials. We both had the shrimp scampi over linguine in a cognac cream sauce. It was the most amazing thing I've ever tasted. For dessert Maria had creme brulee, and I had this nifty lemon sorbet stuff--another of the specials. We took our time, enjoying the atmosphere, the food, and the beer. The beer lead us to some very interesting conversation, and some even more interesting jokes. One rather humorous moment got us both laughing way too loudly. I would try to relate the joke to written form, but it loses something in translation, but here's the set up: The staff was so friendly, and they kept asking us how everything was. We kept saying, "Delicious, thank you!" I suggested that it would be funny if I said "Delicious, thank you," and Maria said something equally complimentary yet completely vulgar and inappropriate. We'll gladly reenact the moment for you in person, but I wouldn't be able to do it justice here. It was an amazing meal and an amazing time; well worth the oodles of money we ended up spending.
We headed back to Maria's apartment to read my new play, The King of Infinite Space. We decided to open that bottle of wine I had brought out earlier. Sadly the cork was rotted, and we had a hell of a time getting it open. Ultimately I ended up stabbing at the cork with so much vigor that I pushed the cork down into the bottle and sprayed myself in the face with wine. In case you were ever wondering, wine in your eyes burns. A lot. After she got over her violent fit of laughter at my misfortune, Maria composed herself and we set about reading the play. It was helpful for me to hear it out loud for the first time. I know where I have to clear a few things up and tighten some monologues. I also caught about a thousand typos. Yikes. Anyway, Sue came home to the apartment and we all ended up having a quite a bit of fun. We played cards with her upstairs neighbor, who might be the most annoying life form to walk the earth. She drunkenly knocked on the door to ask where her keys were. When Sue pointed out that her keys were in her hand, the girl laughed and invited herself inside. It was worth a laugh at the very least. By the time we got rid of her it was so late that I just spent the night there.
Thursday night we went to a bar in Washington Township called PJ Whelihans for Matt Ruggieri's 21st birthday. Our waitress was a real bitch. She insisted on carding Nina even though we were all carded at the door. She took forever to get our drinks. Bryan, Clancy, and I came up with an amazing idea. We decided to throw each other fake bachelor parties, despite that none of us has any plans to get married in the near future. Is that a great idea? We just keep on throwing bachelor parties and we take turns pretending to be the groom. It can't fail!
Friday I went to see No Joy in Muddville compete at the World Cafe Live Philly's Rising Stars series. The band was playing a serious disadvantage with Kevin losing his voice and John still in Florida. They didn't win, but they showed more heart than any of the other contestants. Kevin's voice gave out completely midway through the set and they had to change everything. They handled it like champs. We cheered and sang our hearts out for them. They played my favorite song so I was happy. The act that ended up winning had a very ethnic sound. While most of the comments we made that night are too racist for public display, I will say that I sent Josh a text message just before the winning act finished it's set. It read, "Go back to India and take your jungle horn with you." If that's the least offensive thing we said, you can probably imagine how horrible we got that night.
That takes us to Saturday. All we had on tap for Saturday was a birthday surprise for Pete Comperatore at the Landmark. While we were afraid that people were bailing on Pete, most everybody showed up, and we had a great time, as expected. I wore my new salmon striped shirt and my new blazer. I looked hot. Trust me. No surprises there.
We ended up moving things to Normal after we wrapped up at Landmark. No we weren't expected to throw our first real Normal party until the end of the month, but we ended up with a full blown Normal extravaganza on our hands anyway. The O'Brien boys came, and Joe brought a few of friends. Sue and Nicky stopped by. Aubrey, Pete, Nicole, Shahna, Joshes (T and K) and Debbie all came from Landmark. Alison and Adam came. Sean came. I know I'll forget people if I try to name them all so I'll just stop. Point is, lots of people came.
Now here's something pretty funny. When I got back to Normal, Janine said to me, "I heard two girls talking in the bathroom." This was before anyone had arrived and the house was completely empty. Janine is very taken with things supernatural, and I have to believe that since no one was in the house when we went back in, that the things she heard in the bathroom must have been from the beyond. It was a mystery, but I was sure it could be solved. I'm such a Dana Scully when it comes to these things. Sure enough, two girls at the party confided in me that they arrived at the party before everyone else, but they really had to poop. So they went in, pooped, and got out before anyone noticed. Anyone except Janine, that is. I won't tell you which two girls, but it's not who you think it is. It's neither Sue nor Maria. That's all I'm saying.
So the party started to pick up a head of steam. Things didn't start to get really interesting until after two am, as is often the case. One of Joe's friends brought his girlfriend. Now I had been informed that he didn't really want her to come with him so he planned on ignoring her the whole night. This went okay until she got hammered and couldn't get his attention to save her life. Now perhaps I'm saying too much here, but I doubt that she or her boyfriend will ever read this. I won't use their names, just in case. The story gets too good to not tell. So the girl keeps on drinking. She's wasted. She goes into the bathroom and locks herself in. This is standard for a lot of people. Being the most senior roommate at 11 Normal(I'm on my fourth semester in the place), I've seen many people get drunk in that house. I know all the tricks. But nothing could have prepared me for the strange series of events that were about to unfold. The girl came out of the bathroom and ran upstairs. Alison went up after her to check on her. The girl's boyfriend was still playing beer pong and couldn't be bothered with the welfare of his girlfriend. At this point, Leah stumbles into the house in desperate need of a toilet. Leah and Angela locked themselves in the bathroom and took care of whatever business they had there. In the meantime, a young man appeared at the door. He seemed pretty shaken up about Leah's health. I told him that she was in the bathroom and that she was being taken care of. We talked for a moment. He told me his name was Kevin and that he was a mechanical engineering major from Bucknell. He seemed a little odd, but our house has seen a lot of odd people. No cause for concern. I assumed he came with Joe or Angela, seeing as though he was concerned about Leah. He looked at me and said, "Yeah. I hope Jen is okay in there." I knew full well that there was no one named Jen in that bathroom. Again, stranger people have said stranger things in that house. (Anyone remember the guy from Hollywood Video who showed up at Rory's birthday party and told us all about a very incompetent store manager named Robert?) I figured he made a drunken error, and I went on about my business. I found Alison who seemed a little shaken up about the girl whose boyfriend was ignoring her. She rattled something about needed lots and lots of paper towels, but I didn't get the full story. I stepped out to the garage to check on the pong situation. When I came back I witnessed an interesting sight. Kevin from Bucknell was sitting by our front door staring absent-mindedly at the wall. In the other living room, I saw Leah huddled in the corner looking petrified. I went to Leah to ask her what was wrong. Why wasn't she talking to her friend Kevin? Why did she seem so frazzled? What the hell was going on? I went up to her and asked he what was wrong. She said, "I was just in your bathroom. There's piss all over the place in there. And see that guy sitting by the door. He's really creeping me out." I asked her if she knew him. She said, "I've never seen him before in my life."
Okay. So there was a strange man sitting in my living room, and the evidence was pointing to the fact that he had somehow wandered into the house and started drinking, despite the fact that he knew no one at the party. In addition to this, I had been informed that our good friend who was trying to get some attention from her boyfriend, had just peed all over our bathroom floor. Two things I could have done without. While Alison went into damage control with Little Miss Bladder Control, I started asking around to see if I could figure out if Kevin from Bucknell came with anyone. He didn't. Joe, Bryan, and I escorted him out onto the lawn. He explained that he was with a Theta Chi (Why is it always a Theta Chi? We had one wander into a cast party back in 2003. Don't you people ever throw your own damn parties?). They were on their way home from Landmark and somehow Kevin from Bucknell ended abandoned on Normal Blvd. I began to formulate a diplomatic solution to the problem, but by the time I had a clue as to what to do, Bryan had already told him to leave the property, in no uncertain terms. For a moment I thought we were going to have a brawl on our hands, but Kevin from Bucknell retreated peacefully from Bryan and left. He was last seen stumbling North on Midway.
With that taken care of, I went to assess the damage in the bathroom. We never had a dog in the house growing up, so the sight of an indoor puddle of urine is totally foreign to me. The poor girl dropped about a pint of fluid in there. Alison went in with mops and paper towels and cleaning products and Lysol. When she was done, it was like no one had ever pissed on the floor. Except that very wet rug. Rory promised to clean it. If not, I'll buy a new one.
Well the night continued in traditional 11 Normal fashion. I sent the other roomies to bed and stayed up as the last roommate on duty until the beer pong game was wrapped up. I had a few words with the last of the beer pong players who didn't seem to realize that 4am in a tight residential neighborhood wasn't the best time to sing at the tops of their lungs. There was a little more drama as the asshole boyfriend accused us all of going to Wawa and abandoning Scott--who had spent the entire evening with his own personal bottle of Southern Comfort. Maria took the opportunity to remind him that he abandoned his girlfriend and let her piss all over the house. That shut the boyfriend up for a bit. He is no longer welcome at 11 Normal Blvd. His girlfriend can come, but only if she wears some sort of protective undergarment.
After we got everything settled down, Maria and I sat out on the porch and watched the sunrise. Yes, it was about five o'clock by the time we got everyone else to bed. We had a very lengthy talk about various delightful and/or serious subjects until we went to bed around 7:30. We talked about both of our mothers' battles with cancer. We talked about cancer jokes and if we thought it was okay to make/laugh at them. We talked about how terrifying life can be. We also talked about how hilarious life can be.
I know it's been a while since I've ended with a deep thought, but here's something worth thinking about. Several times throughout the night, we had some close calls with some very scary things. A depressed girl doing something suspicious in the bathroom. A stranger in my very own house. A couple of ghosts in the bathroom. In the moment, it was all eerie and a bit frightening. When the details were unknown, we were afraid. The unknown can be absolutely terrifying. But there's something true on the opposite side of that coin as well. If Janine knew that her ghosts were actually just sneaky poopers, she would have never been afraid. If we knew that Kevin from Bucknell was just a drunken fool who wandered away from his friends, we would have never been afraid. I think the next time we're afraid of something, we need to stop and think about it for a minute. There are a lot of scary things in this world. Some real. Some not. But if you can laugh at what scares you, you'll never be afraid for long.
Maria and I decided we are okay with laughing at cancer. It's real. It's bad. But it doesn't have to be scary. Hope this makes sense to you people. I makes a lot to me.
Until next week...thanks for reading!