Champagne Wishes and Smalltown Dreams

If you've strayed over to this blog periodically, you might know that I love, love, love champagne. LOVE. IT. Now, this is not your passing romance with a beverage. It ranks up there with Diet Coke and dirty martinis. However, it is a wonder that I ever developed such a love for the bubbly considering my first experience with it. Let's go back in time, shall we? Back to a time where the innocent were still innocent....

It's the late '80s, and I had pictures of U2 up in my locker. I wanted to be Madonna. I felt she and I were kindred spirits. Picture a small, country-type, BFE town  in the bible belt and a young, fresh-faced, curly-haired,  high school Sassy. A blonde with a yearning for greener pastures than Podunk, USA. In the small town where I went to high school, the big event was to go out to someone's daddy's pasture with a keg in the back of a pickup truck and drink beer and smoke for 4 hours...or cow tippin'. But not me, I had bigger dreams! 

Sassy had a best friend in high school named Kathy. (We're not friends now, so I can use her name) The Kathy-Sassy mix always tended to lead to some kind of incident that neither one of us would tell our parental units. Oddly enough, they never suspected that we were doing anything untoward. Huh. Anywho, when we were 17, Kathy worked at this pizza place with all of these older guys that we thought were just oh-so-dangerous. They often invited us to party with them after hours, and we thought we were the shit. Now please understand that we were very naive compared to them. I didn't even have a drink until I was 15, and even then it wasn't something I did regularly. One night (was it New Year's? I forget) we went to a house party with a couple of the guys (ok, it was a date but at 17, a guy that was 23 was way over my head). At the house, there was any assortment of liquor, beer, wine.... and then they brought out the bubbly. The chick that owned the house thought it would be a fucking great idea to serve champagne and strawberries to minors who weren't, shall we say, experienced with drinking much of anything. After the first glass, I thought to myself, "Self, this shit is fucking fantastic! Get that guy to pour another!" About 4 glasses in, I decided that I would sample the strawberries, and besides, the idiot cradle robber I was with was more than happy to push more liquor on me. Piece of shit high school dropout pizza delivery boy...oh yeah, SEXY.   But I digress. So after about the 6th glass, I lost count of how much champagne (and yes, it was rather inexpensive at that) I actually imbibed, and I'm pretty sure I had strawberry seeds in my teeth. (And hey, the bubbly-strawberry union really tasted fanfuckingtastic!) Plus, the fuckwad I came with was practically giving me a tongue bath that he mistakenly called "kissing". 

Note: Fellas, you really need to control your spittle and tongue. There's a right way to kiss, and then there's what I refer to as the leaky spigot. Eww. Just ewwww. 

So around about 1:30 am, I'm completely loaded and want to go home. Guess what? That's right! The "gentleman" told me, "Hey babe, you can sleep with me. I won't touch you. Hehehe" Yeah. Right on, shitbag. Not wanting to be the next statistic that would ultimately become a Lifetime "Moment of Truth" movie on date rape, I went in search of my "best friend" Kathy. I found her in short order...having sex with the other guy we came with. (Did I fail to mention that Kathy was a bit of slut? No?) Since she obviously wasn't going to be getting a ride home, I called up a friend who graciously came to get me and drop me at home. (Her mom was our lesbian pharmacist in town.) Now at this time, my sister and I shared a room because my loser pothead brother got a room to himself. My father was away working a lot, so we pretty much took care of ourselves. Anywho, I got home and managed to get myself (somehow) into some pajamas and decided to call my friend Steph (we're still friends, but I have several friends named Stephanie, so no one will be able to really know which one I'm talking about) for a play by play of my evening with the shitbag. I started babbling away about my night, and my poor baby sister, Derk, was trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. Then it happened. I got this terrible stabbing pain in my gut, and I said, "Uh, Steph, hold on a minute!" and then I leaned over the far side of my bed and promptly threw up all over the carpet. Projectile-style. Strawberries and champagne, my friends. I don't even know if the pinkish tinge ever really came out of that spot on the carpet. Derk jumped out of bed and started freaking out (she's a freaker outer type), and so I got up and ran to the barfroom, uh bathroom, to finish what I had so casually started. Now I don't remember much after lying on the floor next to the toilet once my dry heaves had passed. The next day, however, the evening's events flooded back to me along with the absolute worst hangover I have ever had to this day in my life. Derk was kind enough to bring me some water, but there was a funny smell in the air in our bedroom. No dumbass, not vomit smell. Gross. It was a clean smell. Turns out, my 11 yr. old sister went the extra mile and CLEANED UP MY VOMIT. Yes, we're THAT close. She was worried (and apparently I had indicated my own worry that night...for quite a long stretch) that I would get an ass whoopin' deluxe from dear ole Dad if he found out. Especially since I was supposed to be home with Derk. 

So, apart from the 3-day hangover, the projectile vomiting, the tongue bath from a fuckwad, Derk freaking out, and the pink tinge to a 3 x 3 area of the carpet on the far side of my bed, it was quite an entertaining evening. It would be quite a few years before I even thought about trying champagne again. But alas, change was inevitable in smalltown Podunk. Steph graduated (she was a year ahead), Kathy dropped out and ended up a couple of years later having to dry out and detox in a "center", and I eventually went on to college and moved out. Derk, however, never let me forget that night. But that's okay....she cleaned up my vomit. Of course, she got me back by coming out to stay with me for a few weeks when I was in college and having sex with her skanky boyfriend on my livingroom floor. I'd say we're even...

*Seriously, Derk! Did you think I didn't know?? XOXO

**Kathy is now happily married with two kids and lives in the same area where we went to high school. WTF? The bitch goes to rehab and still comes out ahead?? God is giving me the finger!

 

Hit and Miss

So I went for this job interview out in the Carolinas. It was unexpected, and they flew me out and put me up for a few days so that they could send me to various groups of people who asked me the same questions over and over. Seriously, answering the same questions from 9am-6pm nonstop is exhausting...and I know that they must think I had canned answers. But seriously, ask me a new line of fucking questions then! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!  Anywho, long story short, I didn't get the job but another invitation to come back to go through another round of interviews in the fall. Huh? WTF??! Turns out, they did a quickie search for the position, got my file from my recruiter and thought they'd only interview me. Now, this could be rather disturbing, eh? I mean, I'm the only person they interview, yet they don't like me enough to give me the goddamn job? I was a bit upset...okay, I threw shit and cursed their names...I really wanted this particular job, and they had thwarted my ambitions! But my recruiter called to talk me off the ledge with an explanation that made much more sense.  And he also said that I have the edge when I go back for a second round of interviews since I've met some people and they "know" me in a way. Of course, then he followed it up with "if you are still available when they finally decide to pull the trigger." I heart my recruiter. He thinks I'm the shit..for real. The trip was generally a good one except that I got stuck overnight at an airport (will the dark cloud of travel always follow me??) on my way back home. The bright spot there is that I got to enjoy the company of several officers in our fine military. Cute boys in uniform? Who am I to complain? These poor guys had just spent 30 hours coming back from Iraq! Seems sandstorms delay flights there. Who knew? 

Next on my agenda is a move to a new place. I'm leaving my current shit hole money pit and moving into a tiny rental near work. It might as well be a dollhouse, but it has a fenced yard and the lady loves my dogs. Finding somewhere to live when you have 4 dogs is not as easy as one might imagine. I'll have to store A LOT of my stuff in a storage unit, but the rent is dirt cheap, and my credit cards are screaming in agony for some relief. Maybe some sucker will buy this pit of hell along with its bastard demons..um HOA. I'm going to let them know I'm number one when I drive away from here! The only thing I'll miss terribly is the pool. I do love to float around and work on my skin cancer. *And I'll live kinda more in the boondocks, but being 10 minutes from my work is a good thing in terms of time and gasoline since we are being bent over by the oil companies. 

So sorry folks, I got nothing funny going on right now. Perhaps a childhood trauma...I mean story soon. 

*My friend out in Lost Angeles says gas has officially hit $5/gallon. Holy shit! I'd have to walk everywhere or hitch a ride with the day laborers to get to work around there!

Fat Dads in Minivans

I fucking hate minivans! HATE THEM! First, they are really ugly. They just are. Second, please don't try to say it's an "all purpose vehicle"...just another name for a minivan. Lastly, people who drive them seem to think they can drive however they want and no one will care because they might contain small children on board. They pull out in front of you on a 45 mph busy street. They change lanes without using a signal. It's like they think we are saying to ourselves, "Oh no! I better wreck my own vehicle before I plow into the dumbass minivan that just pulled out of that parking lot in front of me as I'm going 45-50 mph. They might have kids in there!" Chaps my ass! Now it's been a while, and you may have forgotten that I have quite a lengthy commute to work. The positive in my commute is that it's all mostly interstate driving...four interstates to be exact. Now aside from the county sheriffs that are now acting as traffic cops (which is a whole different issue that chaps my ass) and ruining my pedal to the metal, there are couple of other things that really piss me off on my drive to work. One of these things: Fat assholes in goddamn minivans that drive as if they are on the Indy circuit! Do you know who I'm talking about here? The slightly pudgy, middle-aged balding guy who is driving a maroon or green (do they only make minivans in those colors??) minivan like he's being chased by the demons of hell? Ring any bells?

So anywho, it's THAT guy that tries to kill me at least 3 out of 5 mornings. He's pushing 95 mph, weaving in and out of the four lanes, tail gating, ignoring construction and signs that warn him that traffic fines double in work zones (Where the fuck is that county sheriff when THIS slapdick is on the road??), and he's cutting in on cars with barely an inch to spare between bumpers. And when someone has the audacity to honk at him, he gives them the social finger! WTF? Any given day, he's going to be the reason that I sit in bumper to bumper traffic due to an accident caused by a minivan driver who cut off an 18-wheeler, who lost control of his rig (because jeez, the poor man can't seem to stop on a dime), and now they've shut down 3 of the 4 lanes on my interstate! I can't TAKE IT ANYMORE!! Get that shit under control, man!

Listen Pops, I know the old lady carries your berries in a box in her pocketbook, but this idea that you can grow new ones by driving like a complete bastard maniac in the minivan that was meant for your wife is not the best. I can get behind a little speeding, and granted, you do have much more to make up for than I since you're driving that vessel of emasculation, but the weaving in and out at excessively high rates of speed, the tail gating, the bird shooting...it's got to cease and desist. I still have some things I'd like to do in this life, and you are precariously close to killing my dreams with your fucking mini van and checkered flag mentality. I mean, YOU married her. Don't make the rest of us pay for your mistake. I'm just sayin'....And dude, the spoiler is just pathetic.

*No offense to you gentlemen who give the newer car to your wife and kids for safety reasons...unless you are driving like an asshole. In that case, I hope I offended you deeply.

**School's out, but I'm still working and counting the days until I can just float on my floatie at the pool and work on my skin cancer.