And puberty is now complete
I really wanted to post this story the day after it happened, but I was in the midst of my livejournal funk at that time, so laziness got the best of me. However, I think it is a fairly interesting anecdote, so I have dredged it from the recesses of my memory to share it with you (yes, the event found its way to my brain’s recesses in only two months).
After Thanksgiving weekend football, most everyone went over to Stefan’s to hang out and eat grilled meats. Alcohol was also purchased, because the only thing Stefan had in the house was some Dr. McGillicuddy’s Mentholmint Schnapps, which apparently didn’t suit anybody. All I really remember is that a lot of people were making fun of the Dr. McGillicuddy’s, especially because of the advertising phrases on the bottle. If PJ is reading this, he can probably recite these for you, but the main one was something like: Dr. McGillicuddy searched the world far and wide to find the formula for his special mentholmint schnapps.
Anyway, I’m not sure if anyone even tried the McGillicuddy’s, or if everyone just decided to make fun of it instead. What I do know is that as PJ was leaving for the night with what remained of the stranglers (leaving only me, Andy, Stef, and Stef’s brother), he brought it over to me and told me to have some. I figured there was nothing wrong with it and since I generally like hard alcohol I took a very long and extended swig of it. It had kind of a disgusting flavor to it, but altogether wasn’t that bad, and I had no regrets for having dabbled in the McGillicuddy’s.
However, just a short time after that I started losing my voice and I found it difficult to maintain the regular tone and volume in my conversations. A little while later and it elevated beyond mere annoyance and started becoming uncomfortable. About an hour after the initial contact with the McGillicuddy’s, my throat was extremely sore and I basically could not talk without sounding like an idiot. I figured the whole thing would go away as time passed, but it just kept seeming to get worse and worse until eventually I just decided to only speak in whispers to save myself the pain and embarrassment of speaking normally.
Meanwhile, I can only postulate what Stef and Andy were thinking about my crazy condition; it was quite late (around 3-4 in the morning) at this point, so my mind was also starting to go. Eventually I just downward spiraled into whispering “Vellllaaaaaaa!” over and over again in my best whispering impersonation of the famous line from A Street Car Named Desire. It was only a little bit after this point that I decided to leave, because it was so late and my throat/voice was only getting worse by the minute. I was hoping that a good night’s sleep would cure my ills.
Boy was I wrong. I woke up in essentially the exact same condition as when I went to sleep, only now the rest of my body was also gimped up from having played football the day before. And of course, to make this whole situation even more amusingly terrible, I needed to pack up all of my possessions into my car that day for the next morning’s departure to California. I was in no position to be moving at all, let along lifting heavy objects, so basically I had to force my brother to do everything for me. Wah wah.
So it was pretty sweet that I got out of loading up my car, but the next day (the day of departure) I was still just as sore as ever, and my voice was still all screwed up. What the heck? Since when did losing your voice last for 2 days? Way to totally mangle me Dr. McGillicuddy. Regardless of my condition, I was on a pretty tight schedule to get to California so I left as is, and ended up having to drive the 30+ hours to California with extremely sore/stiff muscles and with the most terrible sounding voice ever.
Thankfully, things slowly but surely cleared themselves up as the trip progressed, and when I arrived in California 2.5 days later I was all around feeling pretty good. However, I did notice that when I tried to hit the high notes when I was signing along to the stereo along the way, I was completely unable to emit any sound. It was like my voice just refused to work. I figured at the time that it might clear up as more time passed, but to this day I still cannot speak/sing in a high pitch, which I definitely was able to do beforehand.
So the conclusion of the story is that my muscles fully recovered from playing a bruising game of football that day, but my voice will never be the same after its short stint with Dr. McGillicuddy. Curse you McGillicuddy!
After Thanksgiving weekend football, most everyone went over to Stefan’s to hang out and eat grilled meats. Alcohol was also purchased, because the only thing Stefan had in the house was some Dr. McGillicuddy’s Mentholmint Schnapps, which apparently didn’t suit anybody. All I really remember is that a lot of people were making fun of the Dr. McGillicuddy’s, especially because of the advertising phrases on the bottle. If PJ is reading this, he can probably recite these for you, but the main one was something like: Dr. McGillicuddy searched the world far and wide to find the formula for his special mentholmint schnapps.
Anyway, I’m not sure if anyone even tried the McGillicuddy’s, or if everyone just decided to make fun of it instead. What I do know is that as PJ was leaving for the night with what remained of the stranglers (leaving only me, Andy, Stef, and Stef’s brother), he brought it over to me and told me to have some. I figured there was nothing wrong with it and since I generally like hard alcohol I took a very long and extended swig of it. It had kind of a disgusting flavor to it, but altogether wasn’t that bad, and I had no regrets for having dabbled in the McGillicuddy’s.
However, just a short time after that I started losing my voice and I found it difficult to maintain the regular tone and volume in my conversations. A little while later and it elevated beyond mere annoyance and started becoming uncomfortable. About an hour after the initial contact with the McGillicuddy’s, my throat was extremely sore and I basically could not talk without sounding like an idiot. I figured the whole thing would go away as time passed, but it just kept seeming to get worse and worse until eventually I just decided to only speak in whispers to save myself the pain and embarrassment of speaking normally.
Meanwhile, I can only postulate what Stef and Andy were thinking about my crazy condition; it was quite late (around 3-4 in the morning) at this point, so my mind was also starting to go. Eventually I just downward spiraled into whispering “Vellllaaaaaaa!” over and over again in my best whispering impersonation of the famous line from A Street Car Named Desire. It was only a little bit after this point that I decided to leave, because it was so late and my throat/voice was only getting worse by the minute. I was hoping that a good night’s sleep would cure my ills.
Boy was I wrong. I woke up in essentially the exact same condition as when I went to sleep, only now the rest of my body was also gimped up from having played football the day before. And of course, to make this whole situation even more amusingly terrible, I needed to pack up all of my possessions into my car that day for the next morning’s departure to California. I was in no position to be moving at all, let along lifting heavy objects, so basically I had to force my brother to do everything for me. Wah wah.
So it was pretty sweet that I got out of loading up my car, but the next day (the day of departure) I was still just as sore as ever, and my voice was still all screwed up. What the heck? Since when did losing your voice last for 2 days? Way to totally mangle me Dr. McGillicuddy. Regardless of my condition, I was on a pretty tight schedule to get to California so I left as is, and ended up having to drive the 30+ hours to California with extremely sore/stiff muscles and with the most terrible sounding voice ever.
Thankfully, things slowly but surely cleared themselves up as the trip progressed, and when I arrived in California 2.5 days later I was all around feeling pretty good. However, I did notice that when I tried to hit the high notes when I was signing along to the stereo along the way, I was completely unable to emit any sound. It was like my voice just refused to work. I figured at the time that it might clear up as more time passed, but to this day I still cannot speak/sing in a high pitch, which I definitely was able to do beforehand.
So the conclusion of the story is that my muscles fully recovered from playing a bruising game of football that day, but my voice will never be the same after its short stint with Dr. McGillicuddy. Curse you McGillicuddy!