Trudge Along Stag Party Wonder

I ride to work in a carpool and, on the mornings I don't drive, I open my fridge and have a thought:

'Can I have a beer?'

Maybe that makes me an alcoholic. I don't know. But if the idea of waking up, leisurely strolling into your kitchen, drinking a beer while watching a TiVoed episode of Voltron, then being chaffeured to work by someone from Marketing doesn't appeal to you, then I'm not entirely sure we share the same values. Enjoy the Sarah Palin Era, different thinker.

So far, I've managed to hold off on the beer, but we'll see how long that holds up. Anyhoo... this past weekend, I was driving my own car (sober) and had the following phone call with my brother.

Brother: "What's up?"

Me: "Hey - I had to call you. I'm driving behind a car right now and, you know that thing that goes around the license plate? Not the plate itself, but that thing people get so they can give free advertising to their ex-college or the car dealership they're paying 12% financing their car with?"

Brother: "Yeah, the license plate thingy."

Me: "Alright, well, this one says 'Party in your mouth' across the top and 'Can I cum?' across the bottom."

Brother: "Classy."

Me: "Here's the best part. Looking in the car, you expect the driver to be some backwards cap wearing dickbag, right? Some guy that calls his friends 'broseph', and wears a t-shirt that says 'Rophynol is a sport', right?"

Brother: "Me, essentially."

Me: "Yes, you. I expect the driver to be you. But get this... it's a 40-something year old woman. So, one of two things is going on here. Either she wants to sit on my face and nut in my mouth while calling me a fag..."

Brother: "I saw that on the internet once."

Me: "Or she's driving her kid's car - either unaware that she's propositioning the people behind her or generally apathetic toward her son's dickhead nature."

Brother: "Gotta love enablers."

Me: "So, what are you doing? Besides wearing a backward cap and being an asshole?"

Brother: "I'm on the other line with Uncle Richard. Hang on, let me conference him in."

Okay, technically, I should have started this conversation here because this is the part I wanted to blog about, but it's too late to start over now. A couple of comments before we bring our uncle on the line though.

1.) Who still has 3-way calling on their phone? What use is a party line unless you're a teenaged girl plotting revenge with her friends against fat Debbie from gym class?

2.) My uncle... he's an older gentleman from the deep south. You'll have to imagine the accent, slow speech and scent of home-brewed bourbon since I'm not entirely certain how to represent these things on the internet. Is there a commonly used typeface for a liquor drawl?

Uncle: "Hey there, young fella! What you been up to, huh?!"

3.) Also... he talks really, really loud. Technically, I didn't need to have him on the phone to hear him. I could have just cupped my hand over my ear and held it up toward the sky. Exclamation points cannot properly express the sheer volume this man puts out.

Me: "Not much.  Not much."

4.) 'Not much' is the standard answer you give relatives that you don't really want to have an in-depth conversation with. And this is the last aside - I promise.

Uncle: "Your brother says you're driving behind a car with a lady and a funny license plate! What does it say?"

Me: "Wow. I'm not having that conversation. Just wow."

Brother: "So, where are you going anyway?"

Me: "Band practice."

Uncle: "Yeah?! You still playing the recorder? I remember going with your mama to see you and the little boys in your school playing the recorder on stage at that school down there in, um... that school down there!  You still playing that recorder with them little boys!?"

Me: "No. It's not the recorder. It's 3 guys, guitars and beer. I stopped playing the recorder close to 20 years ago."

Uncle: "So, 3 guys playing the recorder! That's nice! You guys still play at the school down there in, um... you guys playing them recorders at some schools?!"

Brother: *giggling furiously*

Me: "Yeah. Yeah, we're playing the recorder at school. It's a lot of fun."

Uncle: "You guys were good! You played that Twinkle twinkle song and all that jive!  You guys had that school going on!"

Me: "Okay, I, um.. I gotta run. We're going to be playing When Johnny Comes Marching Home and I need to try and remember the notes."

Yeah, so that just happened.