Books of Revelation

You know you’ve successfully shaved years off your life with the carving knife known as alcohol when you’re too tired (not too hungover, mind you; not too broke or too embarrassed; no—too tired) to go out the following night.

Friday I went out with the intention of blowing off a little steam. By the time my head hit the pillow that night, I’d sounded off like an old locomotive pulling a train full of boiling teapots. Pakistanimal and I joined Mitch Canada and Jay Swag at their Mt. Washington residence to pregame, along with Swag’s new *wink* friend *wink*, “Faze”. Faze, ironically, isn’t fazed by much; she’s the type of girl to tell you exactly what’s on her mind. Basically, she’s one of the guys…but with much better and prettier parts than an actual guy. When a rendezvous with Swag a few Saturdays ago led to her showing up at her mom’s house on Mother’s Day with a hickey on her neck, she insisted that Swag tell all of his friends so that he could suffer our verbal wrath—as punishment for the similar series of jokes she was inspiring in her family members. [Note: As a result, TJ, Dupa, and I are still debating Swag’s new official nickname within the crew; my two suggestions were “Twilight” and “Scarlet Necker” (ironic, considering what you’ll read shortly).]

From Mt. Washington we moved to The Basement at Charlie Murdoch’s in the South Side, where we met up with our buddy Ruby and his friend “Small Shake”. Rapid rounds of drinks and shots meant that things quickly got blurry for me in the basement of that former church; before I knew it, we were in Carson City Saloon. Here, Small Shake was feeling protected by being in the presence of three guys of considerable size, and therefore decided to push her own brand of shock comedy. As a particular group of guys and gals passed by us at the bar, she announced, “That’s right—I’m taking all THREE dicks tonight!” [Note: She did not take any dicks that night—to the best of our collective knowledge.]

Pak and I soon left Ruby and Shake at CC Saloon (I’m not sure where Canada, Swag, and Faze had gone; we were separated from them shortly after leaving Charlie Murdoch’s), and headed to Station Square to find Dupa, Shan, Entertainer, and Dr. Kelly. We found 3 of the 4 at Zen (Dr. Kelly had a…house call…to make); but, shortly after arriving, I knew I wouldn’t be there for long. I was having a bad case of “ex-on-the-mind,” and quickly exited. I went straight for the long climb up Mt. Washington; however, in my drunken state, I decided to mislead Pak as to my whereabouts. Unfortunately for him, this led to my boy sitting by himself on a couch at Zen, well after Dupa and the others had departed, waiting for me to appear from my hiding spot. Meanwhile, I was stumbling my way back to Jay Swag and Mitch Canada’s house. I’m starting to realize that our friendship is just one big tennis match of insolent acts; each weekend seems to end with one of us saying to the other, “You’re a dick of a friend.”

When I arrived at my destination, my hosts were getting out of a cab—with a pizza. Timing is everything. The four of us traded tales and vanquished 3/4s of the pie, and then retired to our respective fall-down spots for the night.

I awoke Saturday morning to my cell phone screaming at me (yes, it felt familiar). I reached around the immediate vicinity, but found nothing but a mattress, a sheet, and a carpeted floor. No phone. I stood up, and was confronted with a new question: “Where the hell am I?” (…shut up) Again, I checked the mattress and box frame located on the floor in the middle of the room. No phone. I looked on the floor and saw my shoes next to the box springs. I reached inside of each shoe. No phone. I looked at the bookshelf on the far wall, which was fully-stocked—except for the top ledge. On this highest shelf sat my phone…and one of my socks. I looked around, incredulous that my socks, of all of the previous night’s participants, had been the ones that had failed to find each other by sunrise. After several surreal seconds of searching, I spotted my missing footwear sitting on the floor near the door, on the other side of the room. Via Twitter:

8:31 AM May 22nd: My sock is on the shelf, my pants are on the floor...where am I?

I sat down on the edge of the bed and collected myself. By now, the end of the night had started to come back to me, and I realized that I was at Swag & Canada’s. I casually glanced to my right, and saw something peculiar tucked away at the bottom left corner of the bookshelf (right).

Yes, you’re seeing that correctly: a set of Twilight books.

I went downstairs and sat on a chair in the living room, as I fired off the picture to TJ and Dupa. Swag and Faze came downstairs, and I immediately questioned my friend about the crimes against literature that I had just found on “your bookshelf.” He quickly countered, “Hey, hey—that’s not our bookshelf; it’s Mitch’s bookshelf! I don’t read.” He added that when he had first found out some time ago that Canada had read Twilight, his reaction was, “I don’t think I want to live with you anymore.”

I told them about my sock mystery, which led to the following exchange:

Faze: “See, he takes his socks off. He’s normal.”
Me: [to Swag] “You don’t like taking your socks off?”
Swag: “No.”
Me: “Why?”
Swag: “I don’t know. Just don’t like it.”
Me: “You leave them on during sex, too?”
Faze: “Yes, he does!”

Before I left for home, Faze managed to produce one last bombshell. With the conversation hovering around things of a sexual nature, she followed a brief moment of contemplation with a sudden outburst of genuine revelation. “You know,” she said to Swag, “truth be told, your dick’s a lot bigger than I expected it to be.”

I think she’s going to fit in with the crew just fine.