Moonshine, y'all
FRIDAY
Before getting on the train to Baltimore for my annual visit my brother Timmy(
) I had to have dinner with some relatives. There was nothing vegetarian on the menu, and I didn't want to be a pain so I begrudingly ordered Fish. This will be important later, trust me
So I get on midnight train headed down South, and I get all cozied into my seat. I breathe in deep. Gee, I love trains. I take out my liter of Rum and start mixing it with my coke bottle.
Damn, trains are great, I think. I should be a conducter when I grow up. Shortly after the train begins its route I am distracted from my visions of yelling "all aboard assholes!!!" into the loudspeaker by my...surroundings. I realize that I am the only white girl on a train full of very large and loud black people. (Note: I am not a racist. I am saying "black people" because black people are both black and people, and I don't feel like writing "African-Americans" over and over.) You know you are on the train to Baltimore when the woman's hair weave in front of you extends 4 inches above the seat and the man to your left says "oh Lordy be" every 10 seconds. There was an especially talkative couple behind me. The man was wearing a feather in his hat and had a leather jacket that said "one love" on the back. Over the course of the trip I learned
-his name was Cletus but his friends call him Bubba
-that he liked to collect menus and has been thrown out of several establishments
-that one time in jail he was embarressed that he had poop streaks on his boxer shorts.
They were eating a lot of chicken, licking their fingers and smacking and talking about things that are "off the hook" for a better part of 2 hours. Trust me, for 2 hours, there are a lot of things that are off the hook. Pooping your boxers in jail is not off the hook though. They were very entertaining and I felt like I was having dinner with the klumps.
Also, if you fall asleep next to me, I *WILL* take a picture of you and post in on the internet:
Towards the end of my ride I was getting really bored and antsy. As I waited near the doors for us to pull into the station I looked around. Why in God's name does Amtrak BEG YOU to fuck with them? Right in my face was the emergency brake and a control pad that I'm sure, when messed with, could do a lot of cool yet fucked up shit. I felt like I had a devil on each shoulder. Luckily, we pulled into the station.
At this point I'm pretty drunk because I've had to spend the last couple of hours listening to Bubba lay farts and laughing about it, and my only escape came via cheap liquor. I open my arms to the city of Baltimore.
I get the first cab I see. The cab driver immediately asks me if I have been drinking because I smell like booze and am stumbling. I say no, never touched the stuff. Anyway, this cab is being driven by a very friendly man name Ayoola. How do I know his name? Only because we became like BEST FRIENDS EVER. Yeah that's right. He started telling me how he went to Oxford and was from Nigeria and his father was a diplomat but somehow he just drives this cab, yeah. And I was telling him how I was a waitress and how the middle class is getting their balls squished and he was like "SING IT SISTA". He then insisted on showing me all of his IDs, which he pulled out of his wallet while driving. All his IDs had different names on them but I didn't say anything because with best friends, you let that shit slide. Later on I will sober up and realize that volunteering so much information about myself to a complete stranger with multiple identities was probably not a good idea, but things happen.
When I get to Tim's dorm I get to know 4 of his roomies. I will break it down for you:
MARK-Very southern. Wears cowboy boots and a belt with a ram's head on it. Tucks his shirts in. Pants are actually at his waist. Likes hunting and dentistry. Considerably good-looking, but will later disappoint by spending all night with a girl who weighs about 70 lbs and declines hooking up with him because she needs to "go home and brush her teeth
GRAEME-(pronounced 'graham') Of Scottish descent. Favorite meal is Haggis (sheep intestines). Sits infront of the TV roughly 25 hours a day and has confessed to not leaving the dorm room for entire 48 hour stretches. I will make his team lose in beer pong more than once.
TIM- Stole my brother's name. Is about 8 feet tall and wears yellow shorts that will bring back fond memories of Big Bird. Wears old man slippers. Drunkenly asked a female Loyola gymnast if she could "do a back flip on to his dick". Will probably be kicked out of Australia when he goes to study there in the summer.
JOSH- Looks exactly like Russel Crowe but doesn't punch mass amounts of people for no reason. One time drunkenly pissed his bed and somehow it got on his pillow, one can only deduce that the piss hit his face and tasted tangy. I will change his away message while he is gone to inform the world of this. Is dating a religious girl who has been slutty enough to hold his hand after 2 weeks of dating. Likes cheese. (Ok so I added in the cheese part, but he probably does).
And ofcourse, the telltale sign that you are in an aparment full of men would have to be the bathroom decor:
I have spared you the gigantic, threatening pubes sprawled through the washroom.
Anyway, even though its 2 in the morning, me and Timmy decide we should still try to salvage what's left of the night. Word on the street is that there's a rager a few dorms over. The only thing is, it's basically the entire Loyola basketball team (read: 10 foot tall intimidating African-American dudes who probably would not welcome a beligerantly drunk 5 foot 1 girl with a digital camera). I must say, there was an effort made in the dorms for Black History Month:
At the room where the party was, the music was so loud you couldn't hear us ringing the doorbell. Though I was being a bit of a douche:
which is probably why they wouldn't open up. I decided that instead of going to a party I would rather break into someone's sweet pad:
My immediate thought was "what can I steal". I found a wealth of cigarettes and was so happy.
I had never heard of this brand before, and opened the package to realize they were freaking chocolate cigarettes. Who buys a wealth of chocolate cigarettes?
I was displeased, so I threw them everywhere.
My brother was not happy because there are cameras in the dorm. I told him to go screw himself and that we should drink more. So he took me to meet one of the best people who ever graced Loyola with their presence, and his name was Trevor. This is Trevor making a sweet catch in beer pong:
Trevor is a spitting image of "the dude from 'Road Trip'". In fact, should Brecking Meyer ever do an action movie and need a stunt double to jump off of a plane, through glass and into a moving dumptruck, Trevor could probably do it:
We will play beer pong until almost 6 in the morning:
I have to add here that any alum who has gone back to visit college will feel bittersweet about the whole thing. You will feel just how much your glory days are over. You will reminisce, outloud, like a grandpa that nobody listens to anymore. Nothing says "I graduated college 3 years ago" like a sick lack in beer pong skills and ten extra pounds.
There were a few awkward social moments, like when it was made clear to me that my brother has hooked up with about 50% of the females on campus. We went to go visit some of his "friends" which were basically chicks who were really drunk, stuffing their face with nachos and falling on eachother. I felt like a "grownup".When I took pictures of them acting like vaginas they were like "yaaay pictuuuures!":
When I get back to Tim's room, there is all this commotion at the window. Josh is fighting with the Po Po.
And now I'm going to introduce to you 2 very special people. They came over to continue, and subsequently RUIN,beer pong. These are two people who have somehow managed to worm their way into my brother's quality of life.
The first is Meg:
This is hands down the dumbest girl I've ever met in my life. She is Polish and mentions it every 5 minutes, which doesn't entirely help her case. Listen, I've said a lot of stupid things out loud in front of many people, OK? We've all had our Jessica Simpson moments. When I was warned about how dumb she was, I said I bet she's just one of those girls that fakes being dumb to get laughs/attention. I was sinfully wrong. To give you an idea of how dumb she is, here's a list of things this girl actually said in all seriousness:
1) "There are no smart Polish people left because all the smart Polish people died in World War 2"
2) "I've met people with brown hair before."
3) "Is Alaska a country or a city"
She also continued to make jokes that me and my brother were incest, which is the most disturbing thing I've had to listen to thus far in my life, and I really wanted to smack her in the face with a nail-studded dildo.As I said at Loyola, listening to this girl speak is on par with watching a baby die.
Then there is Phil. Phil is one of those guys that thinks he's the best thing since Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. He will hit on girls just so he can hear himself talk. He thinks that he is the Big Man On Campus despite his rapidly receding hairline. I have adjusted his photo to create a more vivid embodiment of his persona:
In his defense, he drank enough beer that he could pass for a lady who is 9 months pregnant, and ofcourse he bragged about it:
He also used it as a distraction when it was time to throw the ball:
While I was taking pictures, Dumb Meg (that will be her moniker moving forward) was like "IS THAT A CAMERA!" and proceeded to stick out HER beer belly:
Anyway, Phil continued to make asshole comments throughout the rest of beer pong. I got on edge about it because he just reminded me of all the assholes from college that you hated, but that you knew would end up being successful just because life is unfair. So I threw beers all over him.
He was so angry he looked like he was about to cry. I felt bad, so I handed him a beer and told him to take his best shot. Meg was like "YAY!" and slammed a beer in my face. Whore.
As revenge, I took a blurred picture of her:
Tim then told her that because her face came out blurred, she had 3 days to live just like in "The Ring". He didn't even need to convince her. She got really upset and was like "REALLY? OH NO!!!!! BUT I DON'T WANT TO DIE". Tim said it was too late, the picture was already taken and that she should enjoy her last three days with a few cheesesteaks and some church time.
Then I tried not to pass out while Timmy brought me water which I promptly spilled all over myself, my mattress and my pillow. Then I said I felt like I was sleeping in the Atlantic ocean and officially passed out.
SATURDAY
You know, I'd love to post a bunch of cute pictures of me and my brother going to the zoo and eating frozen yogurt. That'd be nice. Instead, I woke up and started vomiting so hard I thought my eyeballs were going to fall into the toilet.
This is strange, because while I was drunk the night before I had definitely been drunker in my life without throwing up afterwords. Eight hours later and 20 bouts of puking harder than a bulimic with morning sickness, it was evident that I had acquired FOOD POISONING. This is where that fish I had the night before comes into play. Lucky for me I had no health insurance and had to rule out going to the hospital. After 3 calls home crying to daddy asking him to make it stop like a little whiny bitch, I was assured that food poisoning only lasted 24 hours and that it should pass soon
As usual, pops was on target. Around 8 p.m. I stopped having mini-seizures and playing the porcelain trombone and felt well enough to stand up and walk around. And by walk around, I mean make a quick trip HERE:
After the hell I just went through it was as if I almost had no choice but to booze it hardcore. I bought only the finest...a "champagne" from New Jersey called 'Barefoot Bubbly' for a whopping $7.99. I never felt more like Donald Trump in my life.
I imagined a commercial where instead of "Leggo my Eggo" it would be "Leggo my Barefoot Bubbly."
When I inquired about the champagne the manager asked me if I wanted it cold or at room temperature. My response was something like "I don't care give me some fucking booze now." He said he could tell I was a real conneisseur. As soon as I left, the manager went over to my brother's friend and said "she has a tongue ring, I would rail that." Which is strange that he would still consider me railable when one of the first things I said to him was that I had spent the whole day with my face in the potty.
Going to the bars was the obvious agenda, but it had started to snow so we knew it wouldn't be glamorous as we had hoped.
What I had forgotten about college life was that most of the students are under 21. We went from bar to bar, with Dumb Meg being rejected. She would let one of her sleeves fall off her shoulder to look sexy, and then coo to the bouncer that her ID was "real I swear!" when he laughed upon looking at it. I was tempted to ask her if she had ever read a book or that when she read "Cosmopolitan" did she know that the magazine had been upside down. When the bouncers saw my ID, they would be so utterly confused. It was a REAL ID...it was REALLY ME...it was almost as if they had never seen this combo before and would spontaneously combust. At the second to last resort for bars, Trevor, who was ACTUALLY 21 got rejected. It was because he had grown his hair out and they couldn't fathom that it was him. Glory shot:
Let's see that ID close up:
Finally we find a bar that will accept our rag tag gang. The drinking commences:
As those pictures reveal, I just lost in a chugging contest with someone who didn't want to have one in the first place and who "hates carbonation". Cue me talking about the good old days when I could drink Ghengis Khan under the table.
As for our present company: one of the side effects of bringing along the stupidest human beings on the planet is having to listen to her talk, which Dumb Meg did plenty of. When she asked me how tall I was and I said "5'1" she goes "wow it must suck to be you." Then when she realized I had my tongue pierced, she nervously giggled and said "hey guys lets all get our tongue pierced. yay!"
If you look closely you will see that the left tit part of her bra is riding up way above her shirt. It was like this the entire night. Nobody said anything.
A great part of being at that bar was the live music. The guy was a blues dude playing the electric guitar and working his way through the audience. At one point he stopped right in front of Graeme and started ad libbing a song.
<---LOOK AT THAT MONSTER'S FACE! (and also how uncomfortable Graeme feels)
The song was so amazingly awesome that I have remembered one of the stanzas and bring them to you:
"my doctor said I had the diabetes cause I had blubber on my hips
I said I dont care cause I love my choco chips
oh gimme some of that Oreo cream filled chocolate covered ice cream sandwiiiiiich baby yeah.."
When he was finished he was like "Man, I need a something to keep me going!" hinting that he wanted a shot. instead I loudly offered him heroin, as that can keep him going, and from the way some of the locals looked at me, I was pretty sure they used heroin and wanted some. Hungry dogs, like.
Dumb Meg continued to talk about how puppies are cute and that she is really good in Spanish class. People in her Spanish class confirmed that this is not true. Trevor laughed at her in a sad clown kind of way everytime she had a "thought/"
Meg wanted to hear some Britney Spears. We told her to go to the gigantic cracked out blues man and request a Brtiney song. She did.
<--requesting "Oops I did it again"
When he said he doesn't play Britney Spears songs, she then said "Ok how about Christina Aguillera." He played Blues Brothers instead. We told her it was kind of like Britney Spears because they both begin with "B". Apparently this fact was news to her.
It was last call at the bar for the night. My brother owed Graeme a drink, so Graeme said to get him a rum and coke while he ran to the men's room. Well, he was in there for quite some time and this drink was just sitting there staring at us. So we started taking sips. and then more sips. And then there was nothing left. We were like, Shit, Graeme will be pissed. So we took the remainder of ALL the drinks on the table (beer, water, limes, cranberry vodka remains..anything we could muster) and poured it into Graeme's glass.
Graeme came back and downed it all in one go, while we remained deathly silent and looked at the floor. He said "wow that was cold, brain freeze!". Yes, Graeme, brain freeze. Brain freeze, buddy. We love ya.
We stopped at a place to get food, where we stood by the doorway, laughing hysterically as person after person fell and wiped out hardcore in the snow. On the METERED cab ride home, somehow we let Dumb Meg sit infront. She was trying to convince the cab driver to lower the $5.40 bill down to $3.00. He said "Why??" she said "WHY NOT??" TOUCHE, DUMB MEG!
<----Please note that the cab driver has about 7 air fresheners on his dashboard.
The only thing to do after becoming a Dumb Meg's company martyr is to drink more.
<--if you like his shirt that is because I bought it.
When dad called our cell's and found out I had gone binge drinking immediately after a horrible round of food poisoning, he said "that's the fighting Irish spirit!"
Then Phil came in, wearing a garbage bag because he was too afraid I'd throw beer on him again. Seriously.
His friends had said that all he would talk about all day is how Tim Callahan's sister doused him in beer. I said the room began to smell overwhelmingly like fish, and then I realized it was Phil being a giant pussy. My brother said to Phil:
"You know, if you're still upset about last night I have a cure for that. What you do is, you get in the shower and you hold your arm up so that your hand touches the shower head. You let the water go straight down your arm..and then down to your stomach and then it WILL WASH THE SAND OUT OF YOUR VAGINA now get over it!"
Josh comes home after spending the day with his girlfriend, sits down and says "You know guys, the worst part about having a girlfriend is that you can't fart. I was holding one in ALL DAY. My stomach started to make noises."
Then, my brother's room mate Tim engaged himself in a freestyle rap contest with my brother's friend Conor. Conor was really good. Tim kept drunkenly "rapping" that Conor had a small penis and was probably adopted. I never heard the words "balls" and "adopted" thrown together so many times. One of Tim's finer lines was "Your balls are...curly.
It was a veritable circus. As I had mentioned earlier, the noticeably attractive room mate Mark was hitting on some nasty skank. They had gone into his bedroom together and closed the door. If you remember college, then you'll remember that in an apartment full of guys who've been drinking for 6 hours there is NO WAY you can get away with that. SO, we all burst into the room, turn on the lights, and start blasting "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love". You've got 5 drunks dancing like idiots to itunes, Tim is jumping on the bed, moons Mark and his "date" and asks them if they want to buy crack, and that it's fresh. We do this for a few minutes and then leave when Mark rolls over.
My brother goes drunken sledding, and I admit defeat to the battle I had gone through all day, and fall asleep.
(Before I went to bed I took an internet survey someone sent me called "Do You Have A Drinking Problem?" The gist of the results were something like "fuck yes you do." I think it is sweet poetry to take a test about being an alcoholic while wasted.)
SUNDAY
All that happened Sunday was that when I arrived at the Baltimore train station to go home, everything was either delayed or cancelled.
I spent hours milling around the station, drinking shitty coffee and catching up on my celebrity gossip. When I finally did get on the train, we were packed like sardines and it was standing room only. I was squished next to some guy in a turtle neck who was avidly reading Oprah's magazine and giving me the once-over. I once saw a photo of a train in India that I felt could rival this train:
The doors of the train were frozen shut, and then a tree fell on a power line which then fell on the tracks. The guy reading the Oprah magazine farted and pretended he didn't and tried not look at me as I gave him the look of death.
I didn't get into NYC until 2 a.m. A 2 1/2 hour ride had become a 7 hour ride. When I came out of the station, I saw that New York had been bent over and spanked by father winter.
I mentally ran through my weekend while I waited for the subway. I realized that someone had taken a picture of their pubes with my camera when I wasn't looking. Pubes: 1, Jane: 0.
I guess if I had to sum up Loyola in a photo, it would be encapsulated in Trevor's welcome mat:
Last time I visited my brother, I took the Greyhound bus home and it broke down in the middle of nowhere. This year I got food poisoning and fought a blizzard head-on. When I busted through the door at 2 a.m., dad came down in his slippers with his hair sticking up and said "next time you visit Timmy it's going to be Bubonic Plague and an earthquake."
And people were worried how we'd turn out. psh.
Copyright Jane Callahan 2006