Cripples Galore

After the planning heavy weekend last weekend, this one was shaping up to be so extremely plan free that even I wondered what would go on. All I knew was that my buddy D.P. would be returning to Clemson with his girlfriend L.C. They had planned to come the weekend before but had to cancel because L.C. was in a nasty car wreck that left her with a broken wrist, foot, and a collarbone that was cracked and then subsequently broke when I'm told she was startled by a spider. But despite all the craziness of that week, she was apparently a "hardcore" trooper and was down for another trip to Clemson with D.P.

I was getting my stuff together around 4:30 Friday when I got a call from the Jebster asking if I could pick up BMS at her work and bring her down to Clemson with me when I came down. I figured her car (a Saturn, we've nicknamed The Clemson Lambo) was in the shop and since it was easily on my way I agreed to go get her. So I kicked my getting ready into high gear and drove on down to her work. I was greeted by a fairly attractive woman who acted like they didn't get many visitors to the company, which I believe makes polymers, and after walking back to check with BMS that I wasn't some psycho that was trying to pick up polymer chicks by throwing out fairly specific names, I was allowed to walk back to her cubicle. When I got there I found her chillin with her foot/ankle all wrapped up.

"You tripped over one of those dogs," I said, causing her coworker to start giggling. She went on to tell me about how, that morning, she had gone to step over the dog gate that keeps their dogs from leaving the bedroom area during the night and had caught her foot on the top of it. This apparently caused her to tumble down a flight of stairs into the wall on the landing between the second and third floors of their condo. This also apparently caused her to let out a scream that was loud enough to wake Jeb from a deep sleep (which is not an easy thing to do, I've kicked him trying to wake him up before with little success). After wrapping her ankle which was apparently pretty swollen she had driven to work with far more difficulty then she was accustomed to and felt it would be a good idea not to have a repeat performance on the drive home.

So I picked her up and we drove to Clemson, stopping first at C.P. and the Katie's place to drop off a birthday present for C.P. that had come in two days after his birthday last week. They were of course even late to meeting me at their own house and C.P. came blazing in with the Jag and almost took my driver's side door off if he hadn't swerved at the last minute. He seemed to really enjoy the Swedish book that I got him (which came with audio CD's to allow even Benjamin's who can't read to get something out of it) and we continued on to the condo to meet Jeb. When we got there BMS wanted crutches before she would go anywhere else and Jeb fished a pair out of the basement for her. After several semi-comical lessons on going up and down stairs with them and the usual warning about making them so that arm pits don't rest on the top of them (which everyone who has ever had crutches is apparently obligated to be told at least five times) we decided to hit up the new Mexican place that had just opened up for dinner.

This Mexican place had opened in the old Explorer's bar, which had claimed to have wings so hot that if you finished six of them you got your picture on the wall. From the outside it looked almost exactly the same as it always had, but inside it was totally different. It gave up the typical Mexican restaurant atmosphere for one that was more along the lines of if you would picture someones basement that they remodeled into a living room with a bar. Complete with bland carpet and wall colors and packed with seemingly half the Greek underclassmen, we should have been tipped off already on what was to come. But we happily waited anyway for a table to open up. When one did we were escorted over to it by a Mexican guy who's English was so bad that he couldn't even take drink orders and was soon replaced by a sorority girl, who I referred to as Pierced Juno. Sporting a chili pepper apron and studs through each of her cheeks, she looked exactly like Ellen Page if Juno had decided to go slightly goth instead of getting knocked up for kicks and giggles. Soon we had our drinks and the usual chips and salsa to munch on while we waited for our food. And wait we did. We arrived at the restaurant around 7:30 and after several confused looks from Pierced Juno later (seemingly saying "Oh are you still here") we received our food around 9. Never in my life had I threatened to leave a restaurant as much as I did with this one. At one point it was all but decided that if Juno showed up again asking if everything was alright without our food we would just leave. Even after we got our food, we contemplated skipping out on the check to teach the retarded staff a lesson, but with BMS's heavy limp, we figured a speedy get away was out of the question. Hell I even thought about breaking things to get someones attention to get our bills. After leaving a sizable zero as my tip, we skedaddled on out of there and back to Jeb's to drop BMS off before heading downtown.

We started at Nick's as usual and put down a couple beers hoping to dull the memory of the horrendous meal we just had. Sundance (who was in town again for the game and tailgating, but without Butch who apparently had to work) met us there and we were called over to TTT's to meet C.P., the Katie, D.P. and L.C. (way too many initials, its starting to get comical) for more drinks. We talked and joked around for a while. C.P. and D.P. compared iPhone features to see which one had the bigger iWang while L.C. talked about hooking me up with her friend, which I encouraged her to do so as often as she liked. For the horrendous accident she had been a part of, L.C. actually didn't look that beat up, but sported a huge slash across her collarbone where they had gone in and bolted her back together with more stitches then I had ever seen in my life. She also had her one hand heavily bandaged up and sported a boot on her one foot that she complained had a thicker sole then her normal shoe which caused her walk to be uneven. I barely drank anything there, hoping to move on to Griffin's and get off the smokey patio of TTT's (which curiously had the Jose Cuervo girls and a girl that was having guys give her spankings for her birthday, which I passed because I figured that ass had been places that I didn't want my hand to be infected by). We headed out and up the street.

Entering Griffin's we found it Meggles-less again (finding out that the goddess had asked for Fridays off to handle the school work). But we started knockin them back and a ton of pictures were taken in just about every combination we could think of. One of the funny things about writing this blog is that all my friends read it and will talk about it regularly while we're out, since us being out is a normal topic for the blog. D.P. was apologizing profusely for being so spazzed out the last time and said that he had been working on it with L.C., which actually showed, because he was back to being the fun D.P. that I remembered. Him and L.C. seem like a very good match as she is crazy enough to appeal to that side of him but at the same time, messes with him enough to keep him from taking things too seriously.

Close to last call we decided to head out back to Jeb's and was almost at my car which he was going to drive when we got a call from our friend Shewhocantbenamedbutnomatterwhatiwouldcallhereveryoneknowswhosheis (or SWCBNMWIWCHEKWSI for short). Apparently her boyfriend had been an uber douche like usual and had actually left her in Anderson, which is 15 minutes away from Clemson. So without thinking about it, we told her to stay put and we would come to pick her up. We hopped in the car and drove on down to Anderson. Just as we were driving across the bridge to get her, we get a call saying that the uber douche had come back to take her home and we were no longer needed. A little disappointed in our friend, we turned around and headed back to the condo. Everyone had made it back in one piece and were gathered in the kitchen waiting for us. After a little bit I was tired and headed back to the couch where I passed out on the couch for the night, apparently missing a pizza delivery.

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The next morning I awoke early. In my head I was really seriously thinking about skipping tailgating and football festivities to crash on the couch but didn't really voice my idea to anyone and soon got over it and got ready to go to the tailgate. We were supposed to get there by 8:30 and Sundance was up and raring to go. Unfortunately everyone else in the house was moving at a snail's pace to get ready so he left. By 10:30 we were all ready to go. BMS had originally said she was going to pass on the festivities because of the bum ankle but had apparently changed her mind and while we were waiting for D.P. and L.C. to get ready she had started crutching down the street. Despite leaving fifteen minutes later, we caught up with her a block and a half later and joined in the slowest fifteen minute walk ever. Anyone that knows me, knows that I usually walk at a fairly casual Southern pace, and even at this pace I found myself waiting for my friends to catch up. Jeb was just getting over a sinus infection and was speaking like the Godfather the whole weekend and was hacking up a lung while he walked. Together the three of us must have been a sad sight making our way to the tailgate.

We finally made it and were greeted with some of the best tailgate breakfast food ever. There were little muffins in the shape of tiger paws, and egg sandwiches with bacon. Apparently Louis's wife is quite the cook. Soon D.P. and L.C. showed up and joined us along with Steve and Christine, who had driven down from a trip to Jersey to be there. C.P. and the Katie showed up right as we had packed up and started walking toward the game, which I had graciously been given a ticket to. Tim was forced to stow a six pack of beer in a bush for safe keeping as we all walked to the game. The seats were upper deck but were awesome as we could easily see the whole field. Clemson decimated South Carolina Community College but we stayed til the end. I had been getting several text messages during the game telling me that most of the group had headed out early and were sitting downtown. So after walking back to the tailgate for a little I decided to go down there and join them. The whole group of C.P., the Katie, D.P., L.C., and the Harclerodes were heavily invested in many pitchers of Long Island Ice Tea and were fairly intoxicated. The Katie tried to say that, despite having six cups of tea, was not drunk at all, but mumbled part of it, causing me to joke around and make fun of her a little. Out of the blue, she tries to knock my hat off my head and instead backhands me in the face. The blow is so surprising that I'm dazed for a couple seconds as she starts apologizing and everyone else at the table is shocked that the Katie just punched me in the face. I laugh it off and after finishing up their drinks, we headed back to the tailgate which was still going strong.

We lounged around, blocking off the fairly busy sidewalk. D.P. and BMS got into a quantum physics discussion while everyone else poked fun in Mystery Science Theater fashion of goofy comments to what was being said. With a strong 90's soundtrack pumping in the background we chilled there the rest of the day. People were even sent to resupply the tailgate with food and booze and we soon found ourselves as the only tailgate left in the whole parking lot. People would walk by or through the tailgate, sort of shocked that people were still there. Finally people started to leave and it was soon down to a dedicated half dozen who ate a fourth meal of the day at the tailgate and packed up to head home. It was a near perfect Saturday and we passed on downtown in favor of crashing out after what ended up being a very long day.