Long Distance Taunting and an Abundance of Jelly

I knew this weekend was going to be fun.I could have bet money on it. I was going to make sure it happened. Heck it started on Thursday.

I get a message late Wednesday or early Thursday with Katie asking if I wanted to hit up Downtown Live in Greenville that night. What she really was asking was for help in picking up Captain Pretentious's Jag from the dealer, and if I was good I would be rewarded with some fun times in Greenville. The Jag dealer had found that the only way to fix burnt out circuits in the door was to replace basically the whole thing and charge C.P. far more than they needed to. Seeing how I doubt C.P. knows much about his car (as shown by the time where he took 45 minutes to find the battery to jump his boat) they could have told him that the windows were out of magic Jag dust and he would have happily paid the bill. Oh and now that he's back I can finally put up the pictures of the little surprise I made for him.

An inside joke between our group of friends. But it should definitely warrant an angry phone call vowing my imminent death. But its the little things that make me smile, especially taking a Jag to the dealer with that sticker on it.

So anyway we get it back to my place and Katie decides that she has far too much work to spend time downtown laughing her ass off with us. You see I had called Jeb and his girlfriend and invited them along to the Blue Ridge Brewery for some fairly good food and drinks. Jeb and I have the exact same sense of humor and practically spend the whole time when we hang out trying to get the other to spit their drink out through their nose. With his pint sized girlfriend along for the ride, nursing broken fingers in a cup of ice water, we discussed tons of hilarious topics, from the logistics of filling C.P.'s trunk with dildos to reason's why I should if at all possible get married out of the state of South Carolina. It was so humorous that the two Blue Ridge employees selling beer to the Downtown Live crowds were cracking up standing beside us. After we finished up there, Jeb and I went to the Irish pub down the street for "one more drink" with his rather attractive paralegal-lawn maintenance-bartender friend. We also started a trend that would carry over the entire weekend of sending vulgar text messages to C.P. at 4:30am Swedish time.

After getting out of work Friday I was tasked by Katie to go to this bar and get C.P. another pony keg for his amateur beer operation. So I head into Blue Ridge which is where I thought she said to go. After several minutes with the owner looking at me like I was crazy and insisting that he didn't sell his kegs empty, I headed out. Apparently Katie had told me another place to go which explained the confusion. I head down to Clemson and wait outside C.P.'s for Katie to get out of a meeting and pick up a magazine to read. I have to say that Details magazine is a horrible piece of garbage, which shows the filthy rich which accessories they need to show that they are better and apparently more homophobic than their peers. I swear that if I am thrust into extreme wealth I will never dress like the people in that magazine, where dressing in extremely tight, ugly clothing is the fad. But anyway back to Friday. Katie got back and while she was very hungry, refused to make a decision on where to eat. So I chose Super Taco, which she had amazingly never been to. Flash forward to going downtown later. Katie and I head downtown with a friend Susan. Susan has a problem that while she says that shes having a good time, she looks like we're taking her to a funeral. But she asked if she could come along, so we were happy to invite her along. Also Jeb has said that after he finishes packing for a camping trip he has planned for Saturday he'll join us downtown. Katie gets a hold of my cell phone and changes her name to "I Don't Even Like Jelly!" which she uses to fake call me several times during the night. We start the night at Nick's, a bar known for a good beer selection but non-existent liquor. They are actually playing Ace of Base, which warrants the first text of the evening to C.P. in Sweden. Katie and Susan are talking about who knows what and I'm relieved when Jeb finally shows up with his friend Kyle. We have a good time joking around and head across the street to Tiger Town Tavern. When we get there we decide to mess with Kyle and call him Steve for the rest of the evening. The first round of the name change goes less then well with him shooting it down fairly quickly. But I stick with it. We bounce to a couple more bars and finally call it a night, dropping Susan off and getting some Taco Bell on the way back to Hart's Cove. Good night with a good day planned for the next day.

To be continued.......

Thank You For Fucking Me Big Time

So I get this call from a robot yesterday saying that I should check my phone bill balance. Now I signed up for this phone in April so I was sort of expecting to actually receive a bill sometime before the due date so I don't have to use ESP to write them a check. So instead of calling them I figure I'll go in so I can maybe look at a bill instead of hearing a number. The guy that I talked to when I started my plan was fairly knowledgeable and had won the employee of the month like two months in a row.

Apparently it really falls off after him.

I was helped by seriously two of the least intelligent people I've ever met before.
The conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Hey I got a phone call that there was a problem with my bill, which is strange because I haven't gotten one yet
Dumb: Let me have fifty seven pieces of information to verify your identity.
(Like I'm going to steal someone's phone and then go enquire about my billing status)
Dumb: It says here that it was due on the 16th of May, did you not get a bill?
Me: No I haven't received anything yet
Dumb: So you didn't pay because you haven't received a bill?
Me: I thought it was a better plan then coming up with a number in my head.
Dumb: Well do you live.....(my address)
Me: Yeah apartment 932
Dumb: Oh it doesn't say that here, that could be the problem
Me: Yeahhhhhhh
Dumb: Well it says that you owe $147.
Me: That seems fairly high.
Dumb: Well you owe this for the phone plan, this for texting, this for activation fees...
Me: I was told they were dropping those when I signed up
Dumb: Oh really, you also owe pro-rates for the rest of April
Me: What exactly is that?
Dumb: Well since you didn't sign up on this certain day of the month, we decided you needed to pay $1-$2 a day in April until you got to that day.
Dumb: But it says here that you owe the same amount next month....
Me: Yeah I don't think so
(By this time I am getting woozy from the abundance of stupidity, and the other employee joins her behind the counter)
Dumber: Yeah it says here that you owe $147, did you want to pay that today?
Me: I wasn't planning to pay that much
(He starts breaking down the $147 again, exactly as his counterpart just had)
Me: Philip said that he was dropping the activation fee
Dumber: When did you sign up for this?
Me: April
Dumber: Well it became company policy in May not to do that
Me: Well you have Phil call me tomorrow
(I start walking toward the door)
Dumber: You know you can check your balance on your phone.
Dumber: Have a nice day.

SLAM

On the way home I get a cell phone call saying that Dumber had called Customer Service and they thought they could drop the activation fee for me. I say "good" and hang up the phone. They call me back a minute later and say that they need the last four digits of my social security number to put that through. I have to tell him twice for him to type it correctly and finally I say "Are we done?", hes halfway through yes and I slap my phone closed immediately. Never before have I felt so much that I was just getting screwed terribly. I wont pay the bill without seeing a hard copy of the fees. Hopefully I can be persistent enough tomorrow to have them drop any late fees also. But god this is a pain in the ass.

Obama Bowling

I wasn't going to write about this weekend after last weekend's took so long to post but I have a funny story to tell.

Katie comes up today to drop C.P.'s car off at the Jag dealer to get the window fixed so I agree to go along and then drive her back to Clemson. But we get over there and the blue laws apparently clearly state that Jesus will not service Jaguars on Sunday so they were closed. So my dad, who came down this weekend to hang out with his favorite (only) son, talked about going bowling when I got back so I invite her back to come along with us. So we go to this place and it is seriously the smallest bowling alley I've ever seen, next to Clemson's. Twelve lanes and they are real wood and barely have automatic scoring. So we're bowling and really bowling terrible. The ball breaks all over the place and my usual strategy of using the heaviest ball I can and throwing it at the middle of the pins is working terribly. We get to the second game and we're talking about how Obama bowled a 38 when he was trying to look like the common man. Katie is really struggling, but we're joking around and having a fun time, but she ends up throwing a 27. She's super frustrated but we're doing our best to give her some tips on what she could try. My dad is a fairly good bowler, and apparently his tips were really helping as we started the third game. Katie is on fire and I am trailing early. I don't have a problem with a girl beating me but it would sorta be embarrassing a little to have someone who just threw a 27, come back and kick your ass the next game. So we get through 9 frames and I'm losing by 2 pins. 10th frame for all the marbles. I'm up first. As I get up to bowl, Katie leans in and whispers, "Just so you know, I don't even like jelly" I get my usual smirk on my face and step up to take my turn.

Strike!

I walk back to the chairs and Katie is yelling "Where did that come from?", to which I respond "GET THE JELLY"(leaving out twat, because Katie is not a twat and this was a family bowling establishment). I follow it up with a spare and Katie is laughing too hard to really concentrate on bowling and I end up beating her by a dozen pins. Fun times.

Irish People and the Sun: Chapter 3

I awake to whispers (apparently I'm a cute sleeper) at a time far too early for a Sunday. D.P. and Mystery Girl have awoken slightly to the emergence of Attractive Girl from her room. They soon fall back to sleep on the couch and Attractive Girl plops down in front of me, looking no less fantastic than the night before, but slightly shivering despite having long pajama pants and a long sleeved tshirt on. She has her computer out and shes cruising through the usual time wasting sites and British news sites. I find out that she is super intelligent and well informed with the going ons of the world and I chat with her over a cup of some fruit juice. I ask if she wants to get some breakfast but remember that neither of us have a car there, and stealing D.P.'s to drive stick poorly seemed like a recipe for death. So we wait for everyone to wake up.

Noon rolls around and we all get ready and head to California Pizza for lunch. We stop to get Attractive Girl's car and D.P. starts giving me verbal and non verbal cues to ride along with her, like I'm going to charm her riding in the car. It didn't bother me because like I said above, she was a really cool chick and nice to talk to. Anyway the weather seems really bad so I suggest some mini golf afterwords. However after emerging from the pizza place, we realize that the weather prediction didn't hold up and we change our mind again for the beach. So D.P., Mystery, Attractive Girl and myself hop in the car and head down to the beach. I was already fairly red from Saturday afternoon's pool adventure and nobody seemed to have remembered any sunscreen. As a person who a majority of his heritage comes from Great Britain's various nations, I don't tan. I go from white to red, then red to white. If I use sunscreen I don't change color at all, and if I don't.......

We get to the beach and put our stuff down and head to the water. Attractive Girl was razzing me on the way up that I couldn't say that the water was cold because she is always cold and didn't think the water was cold the last time she was there. But the water was damn cold. The long trudge through the surf to deeper water was fairly terrible. But once you got to deeper water and got numb you were golden. The four of us were having a fun time splashing around when D.P. suggests that we chicken fight in the water. Apparently another attempt at increasing my chances with Attractive Girl. What he didn't realize however was that I have bad knees and balancing with a girl that is maybe 5'9, 5'10 sitting on my shoulders in shifting sand wasn't exactly super easy. I get her up and her and Mystery go at it and I'm sorta hoping that Attractive's advantage in upper body strength can make it a quick battle and push Mystery off of D.P.'s shoulders fairly quickly so I don't look lame. However D.P. works out much more than I do and had the vice grip on Mystery's legs so they weren't going anywhere. Slowly I feel myself fading into the surf until we finally lose horribly. Oh well. After that we all headed into the beach to bake. I could feel the sun roasting my flesh as I sat there. But it was also incredibly relaxing to just look into the ocean. So I did until everyone was ready to go. We stop by Attractive's place to clean up and head home, where I then noticed my laughably bad sunburn, which got me teased relentlessly all week by my coworkers. But here it is a week later and I'm practically all white again. But at least it was a darn good weekend, I had a blast.

Irish People and the Sun- Chapter 2

The next day I awoke fairly early for a Saturday and played some more Wii until D.P. rolled out of bed and was able to semi function. He had told me that his plan was to go to the beach for some party and it was my intention to change his mind into staying in Cola for the night, since Saturday's in Cola always seem to end up being the crazier of the two nights. He felt like crap but got a kick out of the stories I had of the night before, many of which he didn't remember occurring. I put my plan into action, suggesting we get lunch at Tokyo Grill and chill at the pool all day until it was time to go back downtown. He seemed to agree to the idea and we set off for lunch while he started texting seemingly everyone he knew to see what they were up to.



Tokyo Grill in Columbia is the most emo Chinese restaurant I've ever been too. They seem to only hire high school age emo kids who look like they're a chicken bowl away from ending it. I joked to D.P that they saved money this way by making it so emo that the meat and vegetables cut themselves. By the end of the meal it seemed to be all but decided that we were going to stay in Columbia so we headed back to go to the pool.



The pool in D.P.'s development was surrounded by hot women sunning themselves. With the exception of a few kids in the shallow end, the modest sized pool was vacant. This didn't stop me from bounding on in before realizing that the water temperature was cold enough to shoot my balls up to my my throat. I quickly exited the pool voicing how bad an idea it was. So I went to sunning with the ladies on a lounge chair. As I was laying there D.P. got more and more texts but didn't say anything. After an hour or so, without sunscreen, we decided it was time to go. Then out of nowhere D.P. asks if I would go along to the beach. Not just asks if I would be down for the idea, but basically telling me that he's going with or without me. I like the beach just fine, I wish I could live there, but its a long way to drive for one night, then I would be getting back to my place super late on Sunday. This made me really apprehensive to say yes. But after a shower and some texting I figure, what he hell, nothing great would happen if I went home. So we get ready and head out, stopping to get Mystery Girl, who informs us that she has told her boyfriend that she wants to take a break and see other people, which is good news, but she still seemed really torn up over it. What exactly does "taking a break" mean? I mean its not like people who say that have a set time table that they're going to be semi-single and then things go back to normal, and also "see other people" basically means "I'm seeing someone else already, it would be cool if I could see less of you". But anyway it seemed like a good step in the right direction for my buddy D.P.



So we drive forever and make it just in time for the Pelican's baseball game. Apparently at the Pelican's stadium, which has appeared out of no where since the last time I've been to the beach, they have a special section called the beach. In this section down the third base line they have made this sandy area with lines of really nice beach chairs. So for eight bucks or so you can sit in the lounge chair section (private bar) and watch the game. After the sun went behind the stadium it was a fairly good interesting game, even though I think I was the only one of the group that was paying attention. The attractive blond sitting beside me started chatting me up half way through the game, and while she didn't have a clue what was going on in the game, it was still nice to chat with her.



After the game the group headed across the street to Broadway and went to (be still my beating heart) Liberty Tap Room. Happily this Liberty was huge and the bar area was empty so we got to hang out there and drink a beer in relative comfort. One of my best friends Mikkel, happened to show up there also and I got to catch up with him a little and find out that our old friend who had never drunk before in his life was actually quite the bad drunk. He has apparently abandoned his newly acquired Mormon ways and has now given alcohol a try. This definitely makes me want to return to the beach sometime and see this anomaly in action. After the slowpoke drinkers were finished, we decided to head somewhere else.



Everyone seemed to really want to go to this martini bar in Broadway. I was less than pleased because I don't drink martini's, don't like olives, and would probably be overcharged for anything else I ordered, but followed faithfully along. On weekends I'm a huge follower, it makes things much easier and usually more fun if you go with the flow. So we're walking along and all of a sudden the person leading us ducks into this Irish Pub. I have Attractive Blond in front of me and we both give questioning looks at each other with our doubts that this bar would even know what a martini was, let alone have a bar dedicated to them. We pass by a rock concert going on with bikers surrounding it (it was bike week at Myrtle Beach) and I'm just about to ask our fearless leader if he knows where we're going when all of a sudden we duck around a corner and are staring directly at a set of stairs with a neon "Martini Bar" sign over them.



The Martini Bar reminded me of what I would picture a club in hell looking like. The walls were all an interesting red color, the lights were strange colors from displays on the walls of unusually shaped statues with the glow of colored light bathing their abstractness. But did they ever have martini's. Books of them, from dirty to martinis with half and half and chocolate syrup in them. So what did I choose? A Bud Light. I was made fun of by my peers but informed them that I had ordered the famous Bud-tini, which everyone got a kick out of. Sometimes I'm witty like that. I stood drinking my beer while I tried to check out Attractive Girl while at the same time ignoring D.P. and Mystery Girl's latest make out session. Finally we found room on a couch in the corner of the bar and all sat down and chit chatted and drank for a while. I switched from beer to mixed drinks after a little, which seemed to please the martini sipping group. I even tried some of a dirty martini which surprisingly was like drinking sea water. After a while we decided it was time to bounce to another bar.



So we headed to Senior Frogs. Senior Frogs seems like the bar in Myrtle Beach that they said "Let's gear a bar towards underage people, and act like we didn't try it" They have cartoon frogs on the walls, a huge dance floor, multiple bars and even hand signals for some of the drinks. Of course D.P and Mystery Girl wanted to go there to "dance" and apparently Attractive Girl and Bono were down with that idea as well, only in the more traditional definition of dancing. For a while I sorta danced then lost my nerve and retreated to the bar. On one trip I had a semi-hilarious run in with a random girl who asked for a shot of Tejuilla. I think to myself, why the heck not, so I start to order her the shot. In the middle of me trying to get the bartender's attention D.P. comes up and smashes me and Random Girl together and starts us sorta dancing. He leaves and we stop almost immediately and go back to ordering drinks. I get a couple beers and her shot, which she now somehow thinks is Vodka, and basically hand her the shot and leave. I hand out beers and go back to admiring the unbelievable hip action on Attractive Girl. I get almost done with my beer when Mystery Girl comes up to me and gets me to start dancing with her where she whispers that Attractive Girl really wonders what shes doing wrong that I'm not dancing with her. With suddenly renewed confidence I make a B-line across the dance floor and dance like I've never danced before. Bono on one side of Attractive Girl and me on the other. We dance like crazy for a couple hours, in which at one point Bono for some reason kept touching my shoulder while I was dancing and actually challenged a group of black kids to a dancing contest, which they declined. 2:00 rolled around and we all piled out to go home.



We had originally planned to go to someone's house to crash, but him and his girlfriend got far too drunk at the martini bar and headed home a while ago, so we figured we needed somewhere else to crash. Attractive Girl volunteered her place and we headed off toward the apartment. When we arrived she realized that she didn't have her keys and several knocks on the door weren't rousing her roommate from 2:30am sleep. So I get the idea to climb on the railing to the first floor apartment and try to pull myself up to their second floor balcony, because honestly who locks the balcony door. I don't really have the arm strength or coordination to make my way up there and was about to give up when Attractive Girl climbed up with me and I boosted her up onto the balcony.

Re-Written to Please the Blog Reading Gods: Of course the balcony door was securely locked, but Attractive Girl's new found proximity to her roommate finds success and shock from her roommate when she opens the door. Upon entering I get the short straw and miss out on cuddling on up to Attractive Girl and spend an uncomfortable night fitting my six foot, arthritic kneed frame onto a love seat. A long and interesting day.

To be continued....day 3

Irish People and the Sun: A Cautionary Tale

So this weekend I anti-planned my way to Columbia on Friday with the intent to make it an epic weekend. I always intend for every weekend I have, no matter where I am or who I'm with, for it to be an awesome time for everyone. So I head over Friday afternoon and call D.P. as I'm getting close and he says to give him another call when I'm even closer. I think that its sorta strange since I just said that I'm only ten to fifteen minutes away and drive on into Lexington to his apartment and knock once and then let myself in the unlocked door when no one answers. I don't see anyone around but hear murmurs from D.P.'s room. So I knock on his door and I get a friendly "Make yourself at home," and hear a feminine giggle. Oh great, interrupted business time for D.P. and his new girl. I switch on the Wii and start playing some Mario Cart, I win my first race (the game is somewhat easy) and out of D.P.'s room comes D.P and Mystery Girl. Mystery Girl looks very familiar but insists that she has never met me (it turned out she had back around St. Patrick's Day). Her and D.P. are fairly intoxicated and are all over each other on the couch next to me. D.P. senses the awkwardness of the situation and has Mystery Girl straddle my lap, which is somewhat hilarious because she sat there for the next fifteen minutes while we all chatted, like nothing was out of the ordinary. Finally they decide to shower and we head out to drop Mystery Girl off at her car and then go downtown. Apparently she has a long time boyfriend and so her and D.P. are trying to keep it secret until she makes the move to get out of the house and find a place of her own. The funny part however is that they are incredibly bad at coming up with stories to explain where she's been and why she has hickey's and wet hair from the shower. Mystery Girl claims that the hickey, on her nipple, was explained away as being caused by playing with her dog topless. And her boyfriend actually bought it. Now she is going home with wet hair and comes up with a story that both her and D.P. agree is a good plan:

"I had a shower and then went to get a donut"

When she said this I must have had a look on my face that was absolutely priceless. I responded that it was perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever heard and suggested she skip going home now and call her boyfriend that she went downtown to hang out with her friends, or anything else that any person with half a brain would believe. Now I am very against cheating and lying to a significant other, even if you are unhappy and your partner is dumb as a brick. But they insisted this plan would work and off she went and we headed down to surprise surprise, the Saucer. We meet up with Paul and get a table outside by the door. Two guys join us and I am informed they are a gay couple. I have no problem with gay guys as long as they don't try anything, which they don't, so they're generally nice guys to hang out with. Mystery Girl, after successfully duping her boyfriend and slipping out again, joins us at the table along with another guy, who I'm informed is also at least bi, if not full on gay. Would have never known, met him before, funny guy, no problem. So I'm sitting there with four gay guys and D.P. and Mystery girl, who are doing about as close to openly making out as you can. Finally Jennifer shows up, which was good because I had really been hoping to see her again during my visit and everyone is chatting and drinking and having a good time. Jennifer shows off her back tattoos that I had seen the last time I was there but she doesn't seem to remember. D.P. and Mystery Girl disappear from the table for a little while and finally return a little later informing us that they just got a small ovation after emerging from the Men's bathroom together. Mystery Girl is somewhat embarrassed about the whole ordeal but we continue drinking and talking and having a good time. Then they disappear again and this time return saying that the owner of the bar reprimanded them for being in the Men's bathroom again, which D.P. claims was to clean spilled beer off Mystery Girl's pants. He also informs us that its probably time to go to another bar. So we pay and head across the street to Liberty.

I really don't like Liberty, I don't know if I mentioned it before but they build Liberty Tap Room's in such a way that there is no room to sit or stand or do anything, and they have a dance floor taking up a quarter of the inside area. It is an ordeal to get any drinks and I end up spilling a little on the two girls at the bar that I reach across to grab the glasses from the bartender. D.P. and Mystery Girl wanted to go to this bar because they wanted to dance, or more accurately, walk to the middle of the dance floor and start making out. So I sit down with my table full of gay guys and scope the place out for women. Jennifer had to leave to go to some concert which she tells us will probably not be good, but her friends are playing so she has to go. I eventually get drug to the dance floor by Mystery Girl who for some reason really wanted to dance with me. By this time I am semi-sober and really not feeling like dancing. but I kinda fake it for a couple minutes doing my usual grab the hips and move around a little bit dance method that seems to work alright. Finally D.P wandered onto the dance floor and I was able to switch out by replacing myself with him. After we all got back to the table I entertained myself by putting as many sugar packets as i could into Mystery Girl's purse while she wasn't looking. D.P. ends up spilling his almost full Guinness on us and the three of us are pretty much covered in Guinness and we decide its time to go.

After a white knuckle drive back to D.P.'s (I can't drive his car), we get there in one piece. Mystery Girl is drunk and complaining that she wants to go home. Bryan is informing her that he won't drive her home. I say that I could, but the argument continues and I decide to step outside and text Jennifer and let them sort it out. Everything settled down by the time I got back and while I was getting myself some water I decided it would be nice to get my drunk friends a couple glasses as well. They seemed to appreciate it up until the point when Mystery Girl tried to drink and poured the entire glass of water on her face, drenching both of them and the couch I had planned to sleep on. Everyone goes to bed, I stretch out on the floor and drift off into a back wrenching night's sleep.

And this is just the beginning..... to be continued......

Epic Weekend

I will definitely have to write all about it tomorrow, another Columbia weekend with a spill over into Myrtle Beach. But I just got home at 10pm on Sunday so I don't have the time at the moment, but to wet your whistle a few key words if you will:

Shower and a Donut
Bud-tini
Hickey Causing Dogs
Co-ed Bathroom Issues
Oceanic Chicken Fighting

Check back tomorrow afternoon and I should have a big ass write up