Poop Shute

Blast From The Past Again!

Part I

In my March 7th, 2004 post I mentioned a legendary party I threw when I was 16.

The other night it came up in the course of conversation, as it often does. My good friend Brian and I began reminiscing about it, and he pointed out that I should sit down and write out the chain of events of that night before we all start to forget them.

Bully for you Brian. Good show, gold star and all that rot.

So, here goes... oh, and by the way, the order of these events are a tad fuzzy, so if anyone who was there has any revisions, please put them in the comments, and I will adjust accordingly.

Sometime in mid-September 1996 my parents decided to go out of town for a weekend trip. They decided that they didn't trust my brother and sister and I in the house alone, so they made us agree to go sleep at friends' houses.

Bad idea on there part. I wonder if they've ever realized in the time since that day that if they hadn't made it such a big deal, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

Then again... I was a crazy little SOB, so who knows.

Anyway. As soon as they left early Friday evening my friends and I swooped in. We took all the breakables and everything in my parents liquor cabinet and locked it all inside my parents' room, while at the same time rearranging furniture and bringing in our own copious amounts of liquor and beer.

I had taken a collection from all the people I knew were coming for a pre-party booze run, and we had amassed nearly $200. Seventy of it alone was mine, but I wasn't worried about it.

At this point, I should mention that in planning this party I had circulated hand-drawn flyers ALL OVER CAMPUS. To get an idea of just how big my school was; my graduating class was over 800 people. Over the course of this evening I would say most of them, and then some of the other classes were there too. It was this constantly fluctuating population of about 200 or so. A handful would leave, but then a new handful would arrive any second.

Here's where the order of things gets fuzzy. In fact, ignore the order of events. Just think of this as an episodic tale.

At the start of the night Brian (the same Brian mentioned above) told me not to worry, because he wasn't going to drink, so he'd make sure things didn't get out of hand. Sweet. Joey got a Get Drunk Free Card.

Early on a guy we used to hang with back then, Mike Center, decided to cut loose a little. Mike was your typical clean cut guy. Good grades, didn't drink, didn't smoke. Nothing. That night he pulled a Mickey's 40 out of the fridge and took a swig. Surprisingly he liked it, and offered me a drink too. I took a little pull, and handed it back. Not more than a half hour later he staggered back up to me with the empty bottle. Minus my swig he had pounded 40 ounces of beer in around 30 minutes. HAVING NEVER DRANK BEFORE. I told him he was cutoff, and he laughed and staggered away. Don't worry, we'll hear from him again by the end of the story.

Soon after working up a good buzz of my own, I was sitting on the couch chatting with my girlfriend at the time, Erin Shannon. Nick G comes running over, throws himself onto the couch, whacking his head into the wall. HARD. Still grinning, he leans over me and Erin and says "What's up?"

"Holy shit, dude! Did that hurt?"

"What do you mean?" he laughed.

"You just bashed your head on the wall."

"No, I didn't."

"How many beers have you had."

"Um.. like one and a half." Like Mike, Nick was not a regular drinker, but Nick also had an extremely low body weight. I think he weighed like 95 lbs. Meaning, one and a half gets him pretty well toasted.

Around this time another old friend, Brian Oprendeck, got himself SO wasted SO fast that early in the night he was throwing up... IN MY BED. Not just in my bed, but also right on a thirty dollar, crushed velvet beret. We made sure he was going to live, and left him to sleep in his own vomit. Heartless of us, I know, but he made it through.

The night went on and I got pretty drunk. The time came for me to break the seal. That first piss of the drinking man's night that opens the flood-gate for MANY more.

I staggered into the bathroom to do my business. As I reached for my zipper I noticed I was swaying back and forth from the effort of trying to stand still while wasted. I took a deep breath, waited until I was steady, and unzipped.

My focus was broken just long enough to sway waaaaaay back and slam into the wall behind me. Damn. My fall was broken by the towel rod, which bent and fell out of it's bracket. Damn Damn. What the hell was I supposed to do? I'm too drunk for this.

Okay, okay. Focus. Brian is sober. Brian can fix this. I threw open the bathroom door and bellowed Brian's name to be heard over the blasting music. Luckily, he was actually three feet from the door anyway.

I handed him the thin plastic tube, told him why it was bent and asked him to fix it. He calmly took the pipe in his hands, held it on either side of the bend and snapped it neatly in two. We both looked up at each other shocked for a second.

Beat.

We both burst out laughing. Through tears of mirth I asked "You're drunk aren't you?" I don't remember his exact phrasing, but it was an affirmative.


There's a lot more, but I'll finish it tomorrow.