Sunday. Work. This sucks worse

Yep, it's Sunday night and I'm back at it again. Truly sucks to be a M-F/ 9-6'er and then have to blow your weekend out with more time in the office. But I guess that's why they pay me "the big bucks." Umm, yeah, suuuure. Let's just put it this way - I'm a computer programmer/analyst with scads of database and OS and systems experience. I have a friend who is a public high school teacher. I have more experience at my job. That should theoretically automatically put me in fat, dumb, and happy-land, right? Not in this case. Nope. She makes almost as much money as I do... AND has 3 months total vacation, being a school teacher. Now, tell me there's not something wrong with this picture.

But I'm not bitching. Nope.

Okay, maybe I am. But I guess that's what this thing is for.

To top this fine weekend off? I've come down with a nasty upper respiratory infection - the modern day term for a chest cold. I should be in a bed - my new big comfy bed - resting, but here I am at work. Yeah, yeah, go ahead and play me your finger-fiddles now. It's okay, cause I can't see that from here.

But I did manage to have some coffee today, so all is well.
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Saturday. Work. This sucks.

Why in the world am I here at work on a Saturday? I'm a salaried employee, which means, in general (and specifically in this case), no overtime pay. I won't get any "comp" time for spending my time off here. I won't earn any kudos for a job well done because I spent my free time here. I doubt it will even get noticed - at least, it won't unless I screw up somehow - perhaps by leaving some lights orthe coffee machine on (the nerve!) ... Then the notice I get will be unpleasant.

So why am I here?

Hmm...

Must have something to do with wanting a continued paycheck. That's probably the biggest factor.

On the plus side, my new bed arrived today. And they set it all up for me... well, almost all up. It seems the bolts that held my headboard on my old double bed only work for connecting to a double bed frame. Apparently, I need to get some longer bolts to hook up to the new queen frame. But it's a sweet mattress - nice and firm with a pillowtop. It's an extra deep mattress, so that's nice too. Of course, now it feels like I need a stepladder just to get in the bed - it sits so much higher than the old one. And God forbid if I ever fall out of THIS bed. That's a long drop. Might need to get some extra cushions just in case. Hmmm.

You know what would be great, though? Actually having some deep-pocket queen sized sheets that will fit on the bed! That would be nice, yeah? Cause then I could actually sleep on the bed, which is basically the purpose of the bed, right? All other uses aside, and including most other uses, sheets are a nice and welcome accessory, yes? Guess I should have thought of that before having the bed delivered and sending the old one away, right? Ahh well, such is the life of the spontaneous soul...
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Part 4: Redneck Drama, Tarantino style...

It turns out that the guy on the couch was her brother-in-law - her husband's brother. Ahh, I have been remiss in my duties in properly introducing this story... damn, if I had done this all at once, I could have used an editor to reorganize this disjointed, unfortunate tale. Ahh well, let's just call it a FLASHBACK scene then, shall we?

// fade out

// fade in - the scene? The bar, where yours truly, the Recently Appointed Beefcake, will arrive to drive one Drunk Girl home. Drunk Girl is sitting at a table with S***** and 'splainin what happened.

"Yeah, can you believe that summa bitch?" slurred Drunk Girl. "I caught his ass right over there with some other chick grindin' all up on his shit."

Persons of interest:
Drunk Girl........... a.k.a. pre-drunk Redneck Girl
Hubbie................. Drunk Girl's husband
Brother-in-law... Hubbie's brother, a.k.a. Drunk Redneck Dude #1
Sister-in-law....... Brother-in-law's wife, not related to Drunk Girl
Me ....................... Newly appointed beefcake and "hero" of this sad little story
S*****................. My Friend that called me into these proceedings

"Ahh, that's right, " I thought to myself as I recollected the scene. Drunk Girl's whole evening had started out as a quest, a noble quest, even. It seems her sister-in-law (in-law) was pretty sure that her husband, the brother-in-law, was screwing around on her but she was too scared to confront him about it. Naturally, this pissed off lil' ol' Drunk Girl, who at the time this all started, was simply pre-drunk Redneck Girl.

So what does a pre-drunk Redneck Girl do when put into a situation like this?

That's right. She goes out and tries to catch the "summa bitch" in the act. So she went to a few of the bars she knew her husband and brother-in-law frequented to do just that.

And of course she did. I mean, let's be honest here. We're talking about redneck drama here. This is what is SUPPOSED to happen. You can take the trash out the trailer park, but ya can't take that trailer trash out the girl/guy.

And what do you think happened then? Well, her hubbie, not exactly being the winner of the 2004 Oxygen award for Outstanding Spouse, actually supported his brother's sleazy activities.

He said, "You don't know what in the hell yer talkin' bout. They won't doin' nothin'!" Of course, the "nothing" to which he referred was the other girl grinding her crotch all over his brother's, right there in the bar, in front of everyone; you know, the sort of behavior that many of us would say "GET A ROOM!" to? And the brother-in-law, naturally, musta turned italian, cause hands were all Roman, and roamin' all over her while she did it. But, of course, pre-Drunk Girl is female and redneck, therefore she is simply too stupid to understand what it was that she was seeing... at least, that's how redneck men like to treat their women.

But we all know this, it's so cliche' that it hardly bears repeating... except that it's REAL. Call this a reality blog then! Hey, you think it could sell? All things reality seems to be the Hollywood hot spot... of course, likely this is due to the fact that there are very few, if any, people in Hollywood that can actually think of an original idea anymore. But let's not digress to sequel-mania just now... So...

<>He then proceeded to get all over pre-Drunk Girl's ass about being out running around when there is a child at home (of course, he can be out and about simply because he's a MAN, right?) He took it one final step (or 12) and told her, basically, that she was history - gone - adios - bye bye - game over - pack up yer shit and go... This was, in fact, the trigger that pulled the switch labelled "Get Drunk" for her.... which is how I eventually got sucked up into this sad lil story.

// Have a great weekend, peoples...
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Alice's Restaurant it ain't

So I unleashed, for the 3rd performance in a row, my epic-length musical saga (otherwise known as "The Nympho Song") last night. And for the first time, I managed to feel mostly comfortable throughout the performance -> adding sounds effects and breaks as necessary to highlight moments and break up the monotony. I suppose I should really take the time to learn the song and ALL the lyrics, but it seems like an awful lot of effort learning a song that has 7 (as in SEVEN, not a typo there) single-spaced pages full of lyrics and notes in the margin, especially without knowing if the crowd is going to actually enjoy it enough to make it worth the while. Sure, I WROTE the song, but that doesn't mean I already memorized it. It's a lot of work.

But I could be wrong. It HAS happened before, at least two, well three, times before - but those are different stories for another time. What an ego, yeah?

Still, I did manage to squeeze a number of laughs out of the audience members that were actually listening, and that was nice. I suppose, at some point, if ever I actually manage to have a "following", then that song will be appreciated more; as it stands, it seems far too long a song to grab and hold the average listener's attention span. I mean, it took me about 10 minutes to get through the beast, and that was with me on hyperdrive going at "ludicrous speed" in an attempt to lose fewer listeners. I was really going plaid there for a while. Well, if anyone has any suggestions, just pass them along...

FYI , here is a portion of the one of the early verses:

I know you say you've got no limit, but that ain't true,
You claim that if it's been 3 hours, your balls turn blue

The song goes on from there... it works well enough when it falls into "the trilogy" of Tenacious D's "F*ck Her Gently" followed by "Vaseline" (a spin off parody I wrote using Bush's "Glycerine") and closed with "the Nympho Song". The first 2 usually get them warmed up and listening...

Perhaps I am stepping well ahead of myself.
Perhaps I am being far too ambitious.
I suppose that's possible.

Ahh well.

For now, the few people who have actually listened to it in whole have given me high praise... so perhaps that will be one of those "old school" things down the road, when only those who really paid attention for all those years, will actually recognize it.

Ever notice that about bands that have been around for a while? There are always some things that only the "old school" and very persistent fans can "get". Like the whole Jimmy Buffett parrot thing... or Phish's old "Language Lessons"...

and, YES, I know Phish is NOT around anymore as a group...
Honestly...

I'm just waiting for the reunion tours to commence.....
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Open Mike Night

Hey, it is definitely not karaoke... not that there's anything WRONG with that. But it's a lot more work and you are put under a microscope... takes a lot more nerve, methinks. You get up there with just yourself and probably a guitar... maybe some other instrument, but let's not go overboard with details... then you play. And there are no backup singers or other musicians there to cover up for your suck-ass. Yep. You screw up and EVERYONE knows it.

Karaoke - half the time, people get sent up there just for the fact that they WILL screw up and sound like a laughing hyena's fart... cause it doesn't matter - it's all in good, generally drunk, fun. Open Mike... a beast of a different breed.

Of course, a paying gig would be a lot more fun.....

One more benefit of the open mike thing - you really are being a musician up there, and that certainly scores you more points than singing "Eye of the Tiger" to some cheezy sounding copy of a rendition of that old Survivor hit.

Damn, did I just give away my age or what?
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Part 3: Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter...

So, as I was saying... I went in through the door.

Let me describe the outside of the house I was entering. It was a smallish 2 story house... a colonial I would guess is the proper word to describe it. I know it wasn't a cape cod, having suffered in, excuse me, lived in one for many long years prior, and it wasn't a ... how do you say... okay, brain fart - I cannot recall... AHHH, contemporary - it wasn't a contemporary - it was much more cookie-cutter, white-bread, low-end, just-barely-out-of-the-urbia suburbia than that. It was mostly a faded white color, though signs of mildew or mold growing on various parts of the siding and under the windows broke up the unity in such... "artistic" fashion. The gravel driveway curved a bit around to the side of the house where the aforementioned SUV was parked. The yard was just fine however… if, by fine, you mean mostly hard-packed dirt with a few sections of very hardy weeds growing in clumps about the place. I believe there was just as much green plant life growing in the gravel walkway to the porch as there was in the yard. And to this fine habitat we approached.

Stepping up to the porch was a less than pleasant experience. The best I can say about it is that it was MOSTLY level, aside from the noticeable dip right in front of the door, and the steps leading up to the porch had that nice, peeled paint/warped wood look to them that seems to be so popular these days – I’ve seen the very same look on various reality shows that depict the activities of local law enforcement in a community near you.
As I approached the front door, I got to take a “nice”, close look at the screen door, which seemed to be hanging on for dear life. This may have been due to the unusually high number of clods and clumps of strange and varied organic material and, for lack of a better word, crud that had collected and entwined itself into the grid of the screen itself, weighing the door down considerably.

Drunk Girl went storming past us and in the door and up the steps within, and my friend followed right behind, her pressing need made apparent by the anxious way she walked into the house. And so into the breach did I venture…

Sometimes I am amazed by my own sheer stupidity and/or arrogance.

In and through the door I went, entering a dingy little foyer and turned left, following her through what must have been called a family room. There were interesting brown “curtains” (they may have been sheets) and NASCAR décor lining the walls, dull brown and apparently stained carpet covering the floor. In the corner, on top of a somewhat leaning VCR-cart a la K-mart sat a dust-covered television, on which something from the Discovery Channel was playing. To the right of me was a mini-sofa, a love seat if you will, upon which a man in what appeared to be his mid-twenties lay in some form of disarray – possibly asleep, more likely passed out, shirtless and in blue jeans.

"The only thing missing from this picture is a stained wife-beater," I thought to myself as I carefully traversed the minefield of empty beer cans that lay on the floor. (Hey, on the plus side, at least they were Budweiser cans, and not PBR!) I assumed, mistakenly, that this was her supposedly-soon-to-be-ex-husband on the couch. My friend and I scooted by and into the kitchen in the back – I gave a short wave and a simple “Hey” as I passed by. No response from redneck dude #1.

Drunk girl had gone upstairs to get some things and check on her daughter, I assume, while my friend found the bathroom near the kitchen and made her necessary visitation... and that's when the fireworks started….

Now, can you guess just what sort of fireworks those might be?
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Part 2: what do you calla redneck with an actual house AND a running car that has no primer on it...

A redneck, that's what. Now, back to the tale at hand...
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So there I was... driving down Midlothian Turnpike with a drunk redneck chick in the passenger seat. Now, normally I wouldn't use the word 'chick' to describe a woman, but in this case, I have to make the exception - it was simply fitting... and also much kinder than many other words I later learned were likely more appropriate...

She began talking... a lot... mostly simple yet disjointed sentences... well, really fragments of sentences, as she went through what seemed her entire CD collection, putting in one cd after another, playing 10-20 seconds of any given song at a time, all the while asking me, "Do you like this one?" I would merely respond with a "whatever you want to hear is fine..." or "that's cool" or "sure"... this eventually degraded as I got onto Chippenham, southbound, to more of a pleading response... I tacked on a "please, just pick something... ANYTHING." to each "that's cool" or "sure" response.

She then went on to tell me just how good looking I was... I believe her statement was actually a "fine-looking piece of man"... or something of the sort. Now, in order to avoid further discussion or argument, I didn't laugh out loud at that - I merely accepted this remark as something driven by the multiple factors on hand - 1. hubbie dumped her 2. she was drunk, 3. I have long hair... that right there is almost an aphrodisiac to some redneck women... and I have a lot of hair, so... I, the newly appointed beefcake, simply drove on... and noted that the car was almost out of gas...

<>
Of course, it took me a while and several attempts at giving her this important little fuel related tidbit for her to catch on to the simple fact that I was actually talking to her... and that the fact that we were in a not-so-gas-efficient vehicle that was running on fumes was important. Finally, however, I got her to take notice. She suggested a gas station down on Hopkins road, just a little ways away... and I found the first one and started to turn in... and she almost freaked out.

Apparently, this particular station was in a neighborhood with a lot of (shhh) ... black people. Oh.. Okay fine.

So I went on down the road, gas fumes quickly depleting all the while...
one mile...
two miles...
three... and finally, thankfully, we managed to get to the next gas station down the road to fill up.

And now Drunk Girl was unsure of where to go between her parents and her home... where her children, I might add, were. S*****, who had been kind enough to drag me into this unfortunate situation, discussed with her and they seemed to arrive at the decision that we would take her to herparents house and later she could go home and get the kids in the am. Probably safer for her not to see/speak with/physically assault her husband in her current condition was the mode of thought we were following.

And so we headed on down the road... We finally got within to the neighborhood of the area of her neighborhood and Drunkie started pondering, fumbling with a mysterious dilemna. On questioning her, I discovered that her her parents apparently live in the same subdivision as her theoretically-soon-to-be-ex-hubby and she was struggling to reach a decision as to which house to go to. Finally, her decision made (and noticed I did not mention to which house she had chosen) she told me to turn right... too late, of course, having already passed the street. So I had to turn around... and here it was, well after 2am and I was turning into a complete strangers driveway to turn around in a red mustang with a drunk redneck girl gibbering away in the passenger seat.

"Wow. Could it get any more fun than this?" I thought to myself.

Having turned about and taken the turn described, we took another turn and then into a driveway. The lights were on and there was an SUV parked there.

"Hmm, " I wondered to myself, "are her parents home?"

Oh, hell no... not her parents I soon learned... "Damn. I guess my husband DID come home," she quipped.

S*****, who had basically been tailgating us all the way to this point got out of her car and questioned out loud, "When did Kevin (Drunkie's father) buy a new house?" She also obviously thought we were at Drunkie's parents' house. Well, S***** had to use the facilities so she followed Drunk Girl right in... and so did I... wow, I made a multitude of mistakes that night, didn't I?

More to come in the next chapter...
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Part 1: Sometimes, it really just doesn't pay to be nice...

You wouldn't believe the weirdness I had to encounter just because I chose to be "Mr. Nice Guy". It all started during a telephone conversation I was having with some friends late one night - they were in the process of inviting me to a party... something told me I should have just gone; HOWEVER, as luck would have it, another friend of mine sent me a number of text messages on my cell - they started with a "You gotta meet this friend of mine - haven't seen her in 12 years" and rambled on till they crash-landed with "her husband just left her and she's drunk... can you help me get her home?"

So, naturally, fulfilling my role as the unfortunate "Mr Nice Guy", I obliged.

I guess I should have known at this point that my hopeful plans of enjoying the company of some lovely ladies and having a nice little drink or two, making some fair attempts at making the ladies swoon to my the tunes I would play on my fine guitar were going to go astray - very far astray. I suppose when I arrived at the bar to help pick this girl up off the bar and drive her car home for her that I should have noticed that, well, there are no other words, this scene had redneck written all over it.

Now let me explain even further the details of this incident. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan (yes, I know, much to the chagrin of my many friends and family members). I am also what would have to be called "a GM man" - I have a pretty blue Chevy Camaro with fine brushed aluminum (silver) rims in my stable of cars - yes, that would be Cowboy colors (honestly, this was purely by chance, but it is really a very pretty and NON-standard blue color). I also know that I am simply and absolutely cursed with Fords - it seems that every time I drive one, bad things happen... and this time was going to prove to be no different.

Allow me to elaborate....

Once, years ago, I drove my brother's children home for them in their car, a Ford Escort wagon. I had problems with the manual transmission, not because I can't drive one cause I can with no problems... normally - but something about the way Ford does things with their tranny really irks me. I wasn't a real anti-Ford guy at the time, but this drive certainly added one more nail to the Ford coffin for me. Well, as I cruised up Chippenham Turnpike to go get my brother Michael's kids, *BAWHUMP*... a loud noise, the car lurched upwards... and then I noticed just how loud the car had gotten.

<>Now, most of you would perhaps guess at this point that the muffler had fallen off... and, yes, it had... but that's not all that fell off. Oh no! Not with my Ford "luck"... no... on this instance? The ENTIRE EXHAUST SYSTEM FROM THE MANIFOLD TO THE TAILPIPE FELL OFF THE CAR. And of course, I got blamed for it - my brother never said anything out loud, of course... but I'm thinking he or his wife somehow felt it was my fault. Ahh well... (and it's sad to say that this wasn't the only time an exhaust has fallen off of a Ford while I was behind the wheel) So, that's just one instance where my Ford luck held true. There are a few others, but I won't bore you with those details.

So back to the near present... and to tie all of this seemingly useless information together:
the so-called ultimate archrival for the Dallas Cowboys are the Washington Redskins. (That whole Cowboys vs Indians theme, I guess.) The Redskins colors are red and gold. And the Ford "equivalent" (for lack of a better word) of a Chevy Camaro is the Ford Mustang.

So just what sort of car do you think this drunk redneck chick was driving?
That's right, a Red Ford Mustang with gold aftermarket rims... and it was sporting redskins helmet stickers in each of the rear side windows.

Now was this not an obvious sign that I should have said, "NO!"??

Well, my friend, S***** , that had asked me to help her, does not know how to drive a manual transmission car, which is what this Mustang had... so there was no real choice for it but for me to get behind the wheel of this hellish car. Yes, my skin began to itch as soon as I got in the car.

Well, Drunk Girl rode with me... and she was babbling on and on... it started raining... and her windshield wipers looked like they had NEVER been changed - which made it fun trying to see down the road known as Midlothian Turnpike.

And the story only gets worse...