2003-06-08 - 5:28 p.m.

What's this?! An entry?! Already?! So soon after the last one?! With lots of question marks and exclamation points?! Indeed friends. Indeed. And right here, before I forget, I must tell you all to check out the official Dillinger Improv website. Brett's the webmaster of it and he's also a client. I mean a member. And he'd be mighty glad if you signed up for the mailing list. And if he's glad then Monique is glad. And if Monique is glad than that means Ricky and I are allowed to live one more month. So you know - sign up for the mailing list. You'll be glad you did. And so will my mother. Because, you know, she doesn't want me to die.

You know what I like? I like when stupid punk-ass bitches from Northfield try to start shit with me on IM. Especially when they have names that sound like their parents were strung out on heroin on Christmas Eve when they decided to name their child. Well, you can take the trash out of Northfield, but . . . well, you know the rest.

So what did you do last night? I bet you didn't go to the Oxygen Bar! Or station. Or whatever the fuck it is. Let me back up though. Saturday morning was spent Airzookin' it up with the worst of 'em at the Wallakers. Jim spent the majority of the morning hiding in hidden perches and blasting little kids in the face with the Airzooka. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. It's rare that we get to hit kids in the store as much as we want, and this Airzooka has afforded us just such an ability. The Airzooka's kick ass. For about 5 minutes. And then you start to tire of it, or a piece falls off, or someone starts crying. I don't know. I know I put both downtown's and our airzookas together. Not an easy task. The Airzooka seems pretty easy to construct. I always get the bitch ass toys to build at work. The toy parking garages, airzookas, treehouses, etc. The girls will get a note with a task like, "please sort these Hello Kitty band-aids by color from prettiest to not-as-pretty." And then there'll be a little note that says, "And if Zach stops by, make sure you have him break down the train table, spit shine it, dust the air vents and slam his hand in the back door a few times." Notes. They get me every time. But as long as they don't ask me to be courteous I'm usually ok. If they ask me to be courteous I totally lose my cool and kill everyone in the town. Oh well. Why was I talking about Airzooka's anyway? Oh yeah. So Jim continued to Airzooka the shit of this gaggle of girl scouts that came in (each of them asking me, "How much is this water yo-yo?", "How much are these pretty Hello Kitty band-aids?", "What about the not-so-pretty ones?", "Do you know what a pap smear is?" etc, etc. - I was able to help them on 3 out of 4). So anyway, AlYson finally came in at 1:30 and she was feeling like shit and the sight of meatless Soft Batch cookies didn't even cheer her up as much as I'd thought they would. So I Airzooka'd her a few times in the face and oddly enough, that didn't seem to help her headache either. Oh well. I tried.

Yeah, so this here's the Airzooka. It's a pretty crappy picture of it. Do you know that in England, they consider the word "crap" a swear? But not "bitch" or "ass". Isn't that odd? Anyway, I could only find a picture of the Airzooka in baby-vomit split-pea green. Trust me, it's majesty is far more breathtaking in Cherry Mister Misty Freeze Red. Trust me.

So yeah. Ben left early in the day on Saturday for Nick's bachelor party. So he's exiting the entry here for a bit, but don't worry, he'll be back later. Besides, don't feel too bad for poor ol' Ben who got saddled with a bachelor party full of golfing, BBBQ-ing, drinking, sky-diving, strip-clubbing and bar-hopping. Moving on . . . so I'm at work with a sickly vegan and I finally hear back from Shannon about plans for that night. That's right. Shannon. I'm just as surprised. But Brooke had talked to her at KP's bridal shower earlier in the week and they had made tentative plans for us to hang out this weekend. Once I remembered the bachelor party, it looked like we wouldn't be getting together. But we still did. I left AlYson to continue reading such works as "Cry For The Panther" and "If You Eat Meat God Hates You" and met Brooke at my house after work (and for those of you keeping score at home - yes, she got lost - for the 17th time - don't forget, you can redeem your "How Many Times Can Brooke Get Lost On Her Way To Ben And Zach's Contest?!" points at your local Hardee's! Ha ha. Hardee's.) Anyway, so we planned to meet Shannon and Matt at the Brewery around 8. Apparently Shannon hasn't really been around Portsmouth since the days of Brooke working at Poco's and all of us getting kicked out of King Tiki for reasons too well known to get into yet again here. We were gonna check out what was going on downstairs at the Brewery, but it was reserved for a bachelorette party or something. Man, bridal, bachelor, and bachelorette parties sure are popular these days. Anyway, so after we made poor put-upon Tobias repeat the specials again, we ate lots of food and drank drinks. And of course, like every fucking restaurant I go to, I firmly and clearly request "NO MAYO" which the waiter then writes down as "slather this puppy with as much fucking white puss sauce as possible". I'm not fond of mayonaise. I don't know if I've ever shared that. Except I have. WITH EVERY WAITSTAFF IN NEW ENGLAND. Anyway, so we had fun and the two of them only live in Newmarket, with plans to move to Dover, so I am sure we will see them again soon. Especially with the Concrete Pouring Party getting closer and closer [more on that in a future entry.] So anyway, I had told Ben that if he and Aaron ended up in Portsmouth he should give us a call so we could give them rides back to Rollinsford. He did call, and he just missed us at the Brewery because we had left to go explore what the The Oxygen Station was all about. You heard me.

"You heard him!!!!" -

So yeah. The Oxygen Station. But first, I swaggered into Annabelle's and got me some complimentary Very Cherry Chip from none other than IAMSAM. Oh that IAM, always hooking me up with the V.C.C. (that's Very Cherry Chip for you simple simps, not some V.D.) [That's Venereal Disease for you dipwads, not Vulture Dung] So after I wolfed down my ice cream, Shannon, Brooke, Matt and I waited for the bachelorette party inside to finish with their oxygen session and . . . waitaminute. Another fucking bachelorette party?? What the cock fuck? Anyway, these girls finally wrapped it up, and led by the lead girl (you could tell, because she was wearing a veil) they filed out of the Oxygen Station. Little did I know that they were on their way to ask Ben Walden for his underwear. And there was a lost freakishly large golden retriever lollygagging around named Chester. You know, this is sounding more and more like some fucked up dream. But it's not. So we pick what typed of oxygen we want. Shannon got Lavender, Matt and Brooke got Blue Lavendar and I got Coconut. Each different type does something different. They had one called Pine. Ewww. If I want to get fucked up by something all piney and foul, I'll drink gin. Or Pine-Sol and tonic, which is far better than gin. At least in my book. A book that hates gin. So we get to sit in these really cool hanging rope bird cage like chairs and they put on some music and hooked us up to the oxygen with some tubes in our nose that latched around our ears. "Doc" Browher took to this the fastest as she's a medical professional. Brooke managed to plug hers in while Matt swung around dangerously in his chair threatening to knock some plant life over while I struggled in vain to wrap it around my ears. Great. I had 3 beers with dinner and was now doing god knows what and I was the driver. Did I mention they have those sweet massage chairs from Brookstone you can sit in too?! I knew Kate would have to try this baby out in the near future. But still, we had hangy bird chairs, we couldn't pass those up. The breathing through the nose took some getting used to, but once we did it was cool. I think the girls were trying too hard to get the oxygen into their brains, but Matt and I seemed to be enjoying it. We only paid for 10 minutes, but the employees went in the back room to make out or something and forgot about us. We scammed like 20 minutes of free oxygen! Dude sweet! Sweet dude! Blech. But yeah. Then we went outside and had to go back to breathing stupid free oxygen. I shook my fist wildly in the air. Or at the air. Or something. I made a mental note that Kate, Ben, Andrea and I would need to come back here when all 4 of our schedules matched up again. Which will be in 2007. Then I called Ben. Or maybe Ben called me. I don't remember. He said that they were going to a party in Durham and they weren't going to meet us for a ride. Fine by me. I mean, I am not Ruth Buzzi standing here.

So Brooke and I bid goodbye to Shannon and Matt and made our way back to Rollinsford. We were gonna stop and get more beer until we realized it was 11:46. That sucks ass. So I knew we had some rum at home, so we stopped and got soda too. Did I mention that at this point I felt damn oxygenated and alert? Well I did. And I returned Ben's copy of The Rules of Attraction to West Coast Video at 11:59, thus skirting a late fee by one full minute. Damn I'm good. But I shouldn't have felt too full of myself at this point because I'd be retracing these steps in about 4 hours. Yup. [Oh man, I don't know how I forgot to mention this in my last entry - when Ben and I were at West Coast Video last Sunday renting Rules of Attraction, which was an ok movie that used editing tricks to make it look cooler than it really was, Ben knocked over this huge movie display as I was walking towards him. He tried to stop it but movies spilled out everywhere on to the floor. Seriously. I can't handle it when shit like that happens. I just shoot 10 foot arcs of embarrassed pee. I laughed and laughed and hid in the corner. I loved it. Anyway . . . ] So yeah. We got home and found approximately enough rum to make 2 strong drinks and a weak drink. Which we did. And I finally got to watch Real World Paris. Finally. And I liked it. Let me devote a paragraph to it for a second.

I liked Real World Paris. Unlike other Real Worlds of late, I didn't hate every character by the credits of the first episode. And if you know me at all you'll know that I think Christina is hot. Adam looks like Gary from Howard Stern and his father was in The Commodores. One would think that someone who presumably had the presense of Lionel Ritchie in his life, he wouldn't be such an assmonkey. You'd be wrong. He's the only one I openly despise right now. The shit he pulls at the end of the episode is so foul that even I was offended. And I haven't been offended since the '80s. Chris/C.T. does the Boston accent proud, but that's been covered by RW:Seattle David. Ace is the pretty boy that all the girls swoon for (Brooke included) and Mallory does not live up to the beauty that her name implies. Leah is ok, as far as boozy blondes go, and Simon seems like the Irish Alan Cumming, which is fine. But if he thinks he can pull of Nightcrawler he is quite mistaken. And that leaves the charming Christina. She wears some fuzzy hats that I can't say I am crazy about. ["The hat. It's got to go." -Ben] But she is beautiful. She will be my summertime reality television crush for 2003. But she's already losing points for muckling on to Chris in the hot tub on the promo that MTV has been showing non-stop for the past 72 hours.

"I just wish I could meet someone who was really into comic books and canolis. And comic books about canolis." - Christina

So we watched Real World: Paris and it was grand. And we had some drinks in us and our brains were swirling with lots of fruity Oxygen. It was nice. Until the phone rang. It was Ben. It was also 3:25 in the morning. He was in Durham and he and Aaron needed someone to come get them, otherwise they were gonna just have to find some strange house to sleep in. Ummm, right. So I told him to meet me at Store 24. I swigged some mouthwash, gave Brooke a sweatshirt as it was much colder out at that point. There were cops EVERYWHERE. We found out later that the cops were looking for someone, but there were two cop cars acting a checkpoint at the top of Madbury Road, a K-9 Unit on Rt. 155 (I'm not making this up) and two police vans swirling around the frats. All very odd. Ben called me when I was passing New Meadows and said he was "checking up" on me. I told him I was fine. He said he had called Tim Curtis and Tim was sleeping and he couldn't believe it since Tim is in California and they're three hours behind and even though it was midnight Tim should really be awake and he thinks Tim was mad that he called or at least annoyed but he didn't know why since it's only midnight when he called because California is three hours behind us and consequently Tim lives in California . . . and on and on. If you've ever been with Ben when he's drunk you will soon realize that he abhors punctuation of any sort. It's fun.

So I drive into the Store 24 parking lot and Ben is on the phone with yet another one of our friends probably telling tales of strip clubs and a party he'd tell us later "that was like one of those party with Audra and her sister." Indeed. Aaron was not in as good as shape. You eagle eyed readers may recall Aaron got Ben's narcotics bequeathed to him. Aaron learned the hard way, just as I once did, that if you're taking those painkillers it only takes about 3 beers to knock you on your ass. And according to Ben, Aaron had been drinking all day. Grand. Aaron had his head in his hands and I told Ben I'd go inside and buy some water for them. He told me he thought Store 24 was closed. I'm not even going to retype that for the sake of the joke. It's sad/funny because it's true. We loaded Aaron into the back seat with the explicit instructions that if he should feel even the slightest twitch in his cheeks he only need alert us and stopped car and open door would happen instantaneously. Then, as we passed 17 cops on the way home, Ben decided to regale Brooke and I with the grand epic story about this time he called Tim in California and Tim was sleeping and . . . well, I think you know the one. As Ben was lulling us to sleep with that little anecdote and we were gingerly coasting down Silver Street in Dover in hopes not to upset Aaron's volcanic stomach we heard a slight gurgling noise. Ben said, "Um Zach . . ." and I quickly stopped the car (careful not to slam the breaks and get a fastball of puke in my hair) and Ben leaned over Aaron and threw the door open. And there we sat. In the middle of Silver Street. At 4 in the morning. While Aaron puked his guts all over the double yellow line. We passed the time talking about what we were gonna buy Kristen and Mike for their wedding. Which reminded Ben to tell us that they manage to weasel their way downstairs at the Brewery early that night while we were at the Oxygen Station and some girls from a bachelorette party asked him to give them his underwear. He refused, but they managed to get Nick's boxers. Good for them. And if I never have to type the word bachelorette again it'll be too soon. Aaron, having delivered unto the concrete everything but his right lung and parts of his spleen, shut the door and promptly passed out. I retold the story of Ben knocking over the videos as we passed West Coast Video and then we dropped Aaron off. I reminded Ben of the time that Tim and I had to drop a mammoth Ellen Castro off at her house when she was so tanked that she passed out, and was singing in her sleep. Keith was no help because we had to leave him at this sketchzoid cabin of Ellen's in the woods in Sanbornton because he was so fucked up that he would have only made the passage of our massive cargo that much more perilous by throwing down banana peels or something, I don't know. Seriously, laugh all you want, but the girl was so fucking heavy that Tim and I couldn't even budge her in our attempt to dislodge her from the car and deposit her on her porch like the sack full of bricks that she was. We had to WAKE her dad up and have him come help us deliver his drunken daughter inside. And about that whole "laugh all you want" thing, I'm serious. Laugh all you want. It's funny shit. Tim and I carrying a drunk and singing beached Castro? If that's not funny I don't know what is. Anyway. Then we went home. Chef Chen Kenichi didn't know what the fuck was going on, as usually 4 AM is his time to run around the house bat-shit insane and recreate plays of the 30's and 40's in a bikini on rollerblades. Oh well. It was almost time for the sunrise. Then I went to bed.

Then I woke up and Ben made Brooke and I cheeseburgers on the grill for breakfast. They were good, if only slightly more well done than I would have liked. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Besides, our neighbor to the right came out while Ben was cooking on the grill and she's as big as a house. She looks like a big bullfrog with teeth. Did I mention that I had a cheeseburger for breakfast?

"A cheeseburger!" - [<--- Zach and Ben's neighbor]

It's been real,

Archard

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