Cleanliness is Next To Godliness

Let's take a trip in the way-back machine (my memory) and talk about my college days for a bit. I want to let you all know that I was a ladies man and I had myself quite a bit of fun-ication (like fornication, but fun!). And I think I have just the story to display my magnificent skills as a closer. I've often been called the "Mariano Rivera of taking ladies to pleasure town." Well, maybe I've never been called that, but I just came up with it now, so that counts for something.

The time is winter of 2005/2006 and I'm fully engorged in my senior year of college. I've got life by the balls and I'm not afraid to flaunt that. I had it all: a crappy apartment with 3 other guys, crippling student loans building up, 3/4 of a philosophy degree, and a '91 Honda Accord with 185,000 miles on it. Yup, living the dream.

A friend from High School (let's call her Steph because that's her name) asks me if I wanted to go to a party with her because she doesn't know anyone there. As fate would have it, I had been invited to the same party because I was the most popular guy on campus and everyone wanted me at their shindigs. See, I called it a shindig, how awesome is that? After several cancellation calls I had to make for prior engagements, I was able to free my night up for Steph and we decided to head out to the party together. I have to remember where I came from and it's friends like Steph that got me to where I am today. See how amazing I am?

As we rolled up to the party, I made my entrance with much fanfare and no fewer than 3 confetti cannons. Everyone was amazed and I made sure to introduce Steph to everyone I could. Okay, maybe that was a bit of an embellishment: there were only two confetti cannons. I was on a college budget, I couldn't go totally overboard.

After a few beers and some mingling, I managed to catch the attention of a fellow partygoer. As it turns out, I had met her a few times before and it was her house we were partying at. I knew one roommate quite well from our times in the dorms together, so I was glad to meet a lovely lady that could keep up with my type of people. After several suave conversations, things were clear that this young lady was into yours truly and I was suddenly very aware that the party had started to die down and guests were leaving.

Being that I knew one of the residents, I offered to help clean up and keep drinking as I did it. At this point, Steph said she wanted to take off home and asked if I needed anything. I knew that love was in the air, so I politely asked if she could get home by herself (we lived in the same apartment building), to which she replied she could. That, or I slurred at her that I needed to stay at the house for what I liked to call "a little p in v action". Subtlety is not always my strong point.

As I cleaned up, my new infatuation started to talk to me and asked me if I could help her get to her room. I knew what that meant and I was very excited... until I realized that they had taken one of their couches out of the living room and propped it in the hallway to block unwanted guests from entering the bedrooms. She literally needed my help to move the couch to get to her room. Great, now I had misread the situation and I was going to walk home alone. But wait, as I move the couch, she grabs me by the hand and leads me into her room! I knew all along that this was the plan because I'm amazing at picking up signals from women.

As we entered her room, she closed the door behind us and wrapped her arms around me. Being that I'm about 6'3" and she was no more than 5'5", I enveloped her in my lanky embrace. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes (or maybe they were green... or blue. I have no idea), smiled, and said to me, "What are you thinking about?"

A million things flooded my head and at least 950,000 of them were sexual in nature. I glanced around her room and contemplated for a moment what to say. I wasn't going to ruin this moment and I was going to have the best response ever to this question. I'm a philosophy major and a witty motherfucker, so obviously I can slay this. I thought for a moment, looked down at her, smiled, and said:

"Your room is really clean."

Now, if that isn't the smoothest thing you've ever heard, you've probably literally heard most anything else said ever because that was terrible. To make matters worse, all the booze I had been very intelligently drinking in moderation (25 beers in about 4 hours plus countless shots) started to hit me and I got staggeringly tired in that exact moment. I released my embrace, walked out the door, and promptly passed out on a couch in their living room.

And that is how I never once talked to that fine young lady again. Lady killer right here.

I guess I am lucky...

During one of my summers home, I was working on the farm again and most of my time was spent there. But every so often, I would get a night off early and be able to go out with friends to see a movie. One particular night I was driving a few friends up to Madison to see a movie and we were about 30 minutes early for the movie. We decided to get some ice cream from a Dairy Queen, but that required me to drive a couple minutes from the movie theater. This would be the wonderful drama for the night.

As I crossed a highway with a median dividing four lanes of traffic, there happened to be a pedestrian crossing. I didn't really notice the woman, but my friends did and I easily avoided the woman and was never really in any danger of hitting. We all laughed and then went right on into the DQ to get our ice cream.

As we came walking out to enjoy our frozen treats (it was a beautiful summer day so we sat outside), there was a woman leaning against a car a few feet behind my car. I thought nothing of it, though it was a bit odd to see her just sitting there. As we all finished up our food items, the four of us started to get back in my car. The woman then spoke up:

"I wouldn't go anywhere if I were you, those police cars are coming for you."

At this point, I noticed two squad cars coming through the parking lot towards us and a female officer exited each car. One officer approached me, while the other went to the woman there. I asked the officer what this was about and the office responded, "This woman says you nearly hit her on the road." I nearly hit her.

Take that in for a moment. She was saying that I almost did something illegal, but actually didn't do anything illegal. I understand maybe that woman was mad and I may have been a bit close to her, but to call the police?

In any event, I explained to the officer what happened. At one point I said I may have gotten a bit close, to which the woman replied, "HE ALMOST RAN OVER MY FOOT!" I said to the officer I didn't know what to do, and she rolled her eyes, telling me I should probably apologize.

At this point I got the distinct impression the officers didn't want to be there either. So, I approached the woman, ready to apologize. I said I was sorry if I had scared her, I didn't mean to almost hit her, I will try to be more careful, and all that type of stuff. She then said the words I will never forget:

"You're just lucky I'm a reasonable person."

I very nearly responded to this with some smart ass comment, but the officer made eye contact with me and shook her head. I simply replied, "I am" and turned and walked away.

We made it to the movie on time as this whole exchange only took about 10 minutes. I was livid, but I got to see whatever the hell I was seeing that night. But I will forever remember those words. I guess I am very lucky.

Bowling Adventures

Back in my college days, I was in a bowling league on Thursday nights. I loved this league. It provided a fun activity to build camaraderie. It helped me make social connections. It allowed me to improve my bowling skills. It also gave us a socially acceptable reason to be drunk at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night.

See, our league started at 5 PM. There are 5 people on a team in this particular league and you bowl against a different team every week. My team wasn't all that great at bowling. In fact, aside from one guy who had about a 190 average, we all pretty much sucked. We had one goal for this activity: put down 10 pitchers before the games were done.

That's right, our sole purpose was to have everyone on the team drink the equivalent of two pitchers of beer per person in around 3 hours. This resulted in some great memories (and many lost memories). Also a lot of eyewitness accounts the next morning. It was a ton of fun and looking back on it, my liver starts to hurt.

The infamous night I will be speaking about now occurred on a 13 pitcher night (not our record, but a good night nonetheless). I broke away from my bowling team to meet some friends out for a birthday celebration. I met the group at a bar that is famous for serving fishbowls full of booze (cleverly named "Fishbowls"). As I ascended the stairs to the second floor of the bar, I was greeted with about 6 tables of people, each with a Fishbowl on it. There were 4-6 people at each table except for one with my friends Eli and Jim sitting there. It was a Fishbowl race, with each team consisting of 2 more people than ours did. I shrugged and drunkenly psyched myself up for the race (which involved drinking more). The sprint was won by the three of us, much to the chagrin of the other teams. After the feat of strength, our crowd was restless. We polished off the other drinks that were ordered (I finished a friend's whiskey and coke) and we decided to trek on to a new location.

Well, after that many drinks, anyone is going to be affected. My motor skills were lacking, speech center impeded, and my stomach uneasy from the mixture of beer and liquor (and extraordinarily sweet Fishbowl drink). As we came into our new libation station, my memory fails me. From here on out is all eyewitness account, but has been confirmed by several people as the truth. The bar we were at, it should be noted, is famous for two things: it has a goddamn tree in it and smells of puke, even after having all the carpet replaced. To a lesser extent, it is also known for having really bad customer service unless the bartenders know you. But that's neither here nor there.

As I came into the bar I should not have been let into in the first place (apparently I can appear sober if need be), I was offered drinks. I wisely refused, saying I should take it easy. At this point, I realized I needed to throw up, but instead of going somewhere more private, I stealthily threw up in the middle of the bar. Realizing that I should try to cover up the fact I regurgitated in public, I came up with a plan. Like a ninja, I disguised my transgression... by standing in a puddle of my own vomit. A bartender saw through my clever rouse and came around to inform me that I needed to leave. But first, I was handed a towel and told to clean up what I had done.

Before I tell you what happened next, I would like to say that having worked in bars after this occurrence makes me feel bad for what happened to the bartender. My work experience also makes me have less sympathy as it was a stupid, short-sighted act the bartender should never have done. Hindsight is 20/20 though, and I can't change what happened.

I took the towel and drunkenly bent over to clean up the puke. I lost my balance a bit, and almost fell into the puddle. However, I did manage to paw at the pile of bile enough to get a handful of it contained in the bar rag. I then managed to hurl the pukey mess into the face of the bartender who told me to clean it up.

Let this be a lesson to all you bartenders out there: just kick the person who threw up out. Suck it up, clean the mess up yourself. They may throw up again if they stay, or maybe the will pull one of the all-time douchiest moves and hurl a bar rag back at you.

In any event, the bartender wasn't happy and thanks to my amazing (drunk) people reading skills, I was able to deduce this. I ran out the door as my friends distracted the bouncer. Apparently no one gave chase, but I do vaguely recall running most of the 2 miles home (and I think throwing up several more times). I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know that no fewer than 10 people posted comments on my Facebook wall the next day to congratulate me on a job well done.