They Stole My House

The best thing about going to Tech for a Thursday game is getting home on Saturday. Not only have I not worked for the past three days, but I don't have to work tomorrow either. And next week is only three days. Booya.

Butter, M-Pizzle and I shoved off from my house around 11 on Thursday morning. This was shortly after Butter gave his two-weeks to his current employer, then said he had the flu and was going home. He had a fever....and the only perscripton was a weekend of drinking and gay innuendo with two of the best 'gents ever to play the game.

After a rather unremarkable drive, we arrived at Chuck's around 3:00. We set up our base of operations for the next two days, then Chuck dropped us off downtown (in his minivan, which is clearly from the future). The original "plan" (if you can call it that) was for us to call Tommy on his cell phone, and meet up for drinking and fried fowl in the parking lot. By the time we got downtown, I had left at least 4 messages for Tommy. Things are looking grim.

We decided to walk over to Litton Reeves (from the 7-11 on Draper Road) because that's where Ben's parking space was last year for the games, so clearly that's where they must be. Buster and Mikey reminisced about days passed while we all lived on campus, while I did my best to find an alternate method of contacting Tom. I called pretty much anyone I could think of who might be able to get me a cell number for Ben. My mother, Tom's Mother, Justin Fabeny, Information. I even called Koon's Chevrolet, because that's where Ben's brother works. Of course, Ben's brother was at Tech, with Ben and Tom, and therefore impossible to reach.

We wandered aimlessly around Litton Reeves for a while, even finding a rather good "Tommy Trap" (guys throwing a football and listening to Metallica) but none of our friends. Buster alerted us to the fact that we had somehow managed to get all the way there WITHOUT any alcohol, and the prospects of us getting any in the parking lot were not good. We decided to walk BACK to the 7-11 where we started. If all else failed, we could sit in the street and drink, or just go to a bar.

We got all the way off Campus on Washington street. My phone rang. The name said "Tom." So, I answered with a resounding "TOMMY!!!" Looking back on it, I'm glad I didn't answer the phone by saying something like "Where the fuck have YOU been??" as it was Tom's MOTHER on the other end. She was able to give me several numbers for the Benone family, the first of which successfully put me in touch with Ben's mom...whom I've not spoken with in probably 8 years. Suprisingly enough, she remembered who i was and gave me Ben's number. I called him, and found out that he was about half a block from where we were standing. Which was at Chuck's car. Where we had started. So we walked two miles all over Tech without a drop of alcohol, all because Tommy's phone turned itself off.

As we finally arrived at our destination, Tommy was doing everything he could to keep from falling on the ground laughing while listening to my messages. They ranged in severity from "Hey, Tommy. We're in town. Give me a call." to "Tommy. It's John. Next time I see you, I'm going to fucking kill you." Tommy's a wise one, so he put beers in both my hands before I had a chance to secure them to his neck. Crisis averted.

We stood around out back (and on the roof of the shed) for a while and drank. There was an impressive pile of empty beers just hanging out in the yard, which was rather amusing. Eventually we headed for the game, where I was able to secure a ticket for the low-low price of twenty bucks. Mikey was kind enough to shelf half the cost himself, since Ben gave him an extra ticket. So I paid 10 bucks to get in. Fantastic.

We watched the Terps get whooped up on for the first half and decided to head out. It was starting to rain, and not many teams come back from a 48-3 deficit. We walked to PK's in hopes of Tijuana Toss, but settled for a pizza, a pitcher, and watching the second half indoors. 55-6 was the final. Go Hokies.

After drinking enough beer to feel like I was going to throw up from being so full, yet not quite enough to be all that drunk, we headed back to Chuck's, listened to some G&D and called it a night. After a four hour nap on the floor, I moved to Missy's (unoccupied) bed. It is much more comfortable than Chuck's floor. At some point during the night, Buster and Mike managed to switch couches. That was weird.

Day two of my most recent Tech adventure did not disappoint. It started off with the viewing of Star Trek: Nemesis, which I had not seen before. The movie was pretty much what I expected. Predictable story, poor acting, and plot holes the size of Canada. All in all, it was hilarious, and I hope to one day watch it again with Mikey and Ed. After the movie, we went to BW3's for wangs and pink-flavored water. Then it was back to Chuck's to say goodbye to him and Missy, since they were going home for break. They wouldn't have left if they knew what we did next.

The clear highlight of the weekend was the three solid commercial-free hours of Nickelodeon game shows we wasted our afternoon with. For now, I'll just say that we got to see Double Dare, Finders Keepers, Guts, some crap with a stone guy named Olmec and a lot of disappointed kids, and Figure it Out. Mike O'Malley was featured prominently. The whole thing was a pedophile's wet dream, involving slime, soy sauce, cooked pasta, toe-jam and spanning two decades. When I've had a little more time to digest it, I'll go ahead and write an entire post on the whole Nickelodeon game show phenomenon. The only thing that could have made it better was if we'd gotten to see Nick Arcade. But I'm not bitter, because if we hadn't keep forcing ourselves through 15 minute block after 15 minute block of horrible game shows with even more horribly dressed children I wouldn't have such an interesting story to tell now.

The rest of our time there was pretty textbook. I bought a sweatshirt, we went to the liquor store, Wal-Mart, and had dinner at Macado's. I got my ruffles/ranch dressing fix and had a pretty tasty sandwich. We went back to Chuck's, sat in front of the TV, and eventually went to bed. Got up this morning, watched a solid hour of coverage of the Pistons/Pacers debacle on ESPN, and drove home. Saw a pretty good accident about 40 feet behind us on 81, and did my good deed for the year by calling the cops.

We were all upset that the Bojangles at the Shell station on Route 11 is no more, so I couldn't get my chicken biscuit fix. Buster pointed out that the time we saved by not getting chicken biscuits probably kept us from being in the aforementioned accident on the interstate. I guess I can live with that.

As my life pretty much revolves around interesting and elusive fast food, Mikey had the brilliant moment of clarity only two days of heavy drinking can bring and suggested Taco Bell in Harrisonburg for lunch. Why? They still have Chillitos. Mine's not quite done wreaking havoc with my GI tract. So tasty. Mikey gets the MVP award on this trip for remembering that little gem.

I got back to my house, burned Buster a copy of Windows XP, and went to Ski Chalet to pick up my new skis. Now I'm sitting here, writing this entirely-too-long update which I'm too lazy to spell check, and which will no doubt be destroyed by Blogger as soon as I publish it. For what promises to be a much more interesting/well written account of the past three days, head on over to Mikey's blog. I'm sure he'll have it up there before too long.

That's all for now. Time to go wave a final goodbye to that Chillito.