First off, let me explain my Halloween costume (I always have to explain my Halloween costumes for some reason). Back about a month or so when I first got invited to this party I got excited and thought about doing something grandiose. My first idea was that I would be “The Village People”. I have cowboy gear (boots, hat, vest, bandanna, etc.) and construction stuff (hard hat, vest) and figured if I just added random other stuff to my outfit (some indian feathers, a cop badge and nightstick/ handcuffs . . .) I could have an outfit that embodies ALL of the Village People at once. Well, of course that eventually just sounded like too much work and would be probably too cumbersome to wear anyway. Then later I decided that my brilliant costume could be Lady Gaga. I would be Meat Dress Lady Gaga and get an old dress and just staple a bunch of prints of various meat cuts to it. Just in case people weren’t familiar with Gaga’s last carnivorous incarnation I would also glue some playing cards to my face so I could have a Poker Face.
I didn’t look like this.
But here’s the thing. I’m better at coming up with ideas than actually implementing them. I did take the initiative of buying from the 99 cent store the world’s worst fake mustache, and a really, really, really cheap “tool belt” (this tool belt is not so much a tool belt but the world’s flimsiest piece of synthetic fabric with totally unusable pouches on it). So, my Construction Guy outfit, as I put it together, got gayer the more I played with it, so I just went all out and eventually decided I was The Construction Guy From The Village People. I didn’t want to lose any actual tools so I filled my tool belt with candy and beer cans.
I had to drive to Brea for this party. It’s about 40 miles from my house, I suppose. The invite said 7pm, so I figured I’d arrive around 8pm since the invite, I think, also mentioned something about grilling some steaks. I figured that would be good timing to hit the food when it’s done cooking but not be there early when there’s just a couple people standing around staring at each others’ shoes. When I got there, I could see some lights in the backyard so I walked down the sidewalk to the back and was kind of creeped out by the 6 or 7 people all sitting in chairs in a bit of a semi-circle on the patio. The patio had a low ceiling which I bumped my head on coming in, so I tried to parlay that into an ice breaker, “Whoa, good thing I got my helmet on, huh?” Deadly silence. I asked if Rafa was there and someone said he was in the house. He came out and we hugged and he confirmed my worst fears. The little table next to me WAS the food. There was a steam pot filled with wieners, a bag of cold hot dog buns, pots of chili and cheese. DOH!!! No barbecue in sight.
I put my bag of candy down (I’d bought about 5 lbs of various stuff) and made myself a hotdog. I also thought it weird that there wasn’t already candy at the party. It’s Halloween for crying out loud! My tool belt was great because I could hold up to three extra beers in it and not have to go back and forth to the cart where all the brews were. I could also slide back the one I was drinking in case I needed both hands for a chili dog or something.
Now, here’s the creepy thing about this party. There was eventually up to 25 people there but I figured they’d be random neighbors or people he knows from his work and so forth . . . . THEY WERE ALL FROM DISNEYLAND! Rafa worked at Disneyland like 15-20 years ago. And this wasn’t some ex-Disney reunion or something. They just all stayed together. How creepy is that? To make things worse for me, I had to technically include myself in that bunch (I worked there for one summer). But when I worked at Disney I didn’t make any friends. I hated everyone there. Rafa worked in another department. I’ve always looked at Disney as some creepy ass cult and now it was being shoved in my face once again. At one point I asked one of the guys, “So, how do you know Rafa?” and got the same answer as I got from everyone, “Oh, through working at Disneyland”. I asked him, “So what do you do now?”. I crap you not, but he STILL works in “Outdoor Vending”. Please, for the love of all that is sacred in this universe, if I ever take a job selling churros and frozen lemonade and 15 years later I’m STILL doing that, kill me. That’s not a suggestion. That is a bona fide command. Put a bullet in me, poison me, push me in front of a train. I don’t care. Just make sure that I die. There were a number of married couples as well (including Rafa and his wife). Even the couples are Disney couples who met while working together. It was enough to make me sick, but I tried to forget about all that as I still had a party to wreck.
At one point some dude said something about having a smoke and I remembered that I had cigars. I’d bought them earlier in the day when I was at the booze store. They have this really great walk-in humidor room and I bought three cigars at $1.49 each. HAHAHA!!! The cheapest ones. And I bought one of those little guillotine things for cutting the cigar ends. The guy agreed that we should have a cigar so I snipped them (he was impressed with my skilled snip, by the way) and we lit up off of the tiki torches. As we lit up he started blowing some hot wind about how he’s some cigar afficianado and is used to smoking the good stuff, blah blah blah (I think he was still hurt because I made fun of him earlier for drinking a faggy Blue Moon beer). So, I went into this long winded tale about how, on my travels I met this guy who had escaped the communists in Cuba and started a plantation in Nicaragua with the original Cuban tobacco seeds he had smuggled out and how he sends me a box of cigars every year on my birthday, even though these niche cigars sell for about $30 a piece in specialty shops. Suddenly, I had the best damn cigars in the whole damn world as far as he was concerned. To me they just tasted like every other cigar. Horrible. The worst thing about cigars is it permeates everything in your body and the next day the nasty taste is still in your mouth and throat and nose and the smell is caked on your clothes, hair, and skin (no, I’ve not yet showered).
I think “Quorum” is Nicaraguan for “Rolled up dogcrap”.
One thing that for me was a nice little running bit was using the restroom. There was this really great large round mirror where I could check myself and admire my awesomeness. I snapped a few shots of myself there.
But above the toilet I noticed something else.
The Poo Log. The Poo Log was this little gag gift I’m sure someone gave them which is to be like a journal where you can take notes on your various dumpings. Of course I checked it and it was empty. This didn’t seem right to me so I found a pen and everytime I’d go back I would write a new note, “Smelly poop. Diarrhea cha cha cha. Corn in my doo doo.” and so forth. It probably wasn’t my A material but it kept me amused throughout the night.
Outside there was a small TV set up with a Karaoke game on it and I saw a dude trying to sing Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”. How dare he? So I jumped in and helped him add some passion to Kenny’s classic and soon had a few fans enjoying my show. But I was pissed off because the microphone wasn’t really amplified. We decided the game (by “we decided” I mean I told this guy he needed to do this) should be set up inside on the large TV. That’s when I started upping my douche factor and showing people how to party properly. People were taking turns giving really lackluster performances so I showed them the proper way to throw down some awesome urban flavor with “Baby Got Back”. After “Gambler”, “Baby Got Back” and later “Pretty Woman” there weren’t any songs I knew really. Some of them, I can’t remember exactly would have choruses that everyone would know, but long verses that were just murder leading up to them. Oh, “Karma Chameleon” would be a good example. So when it would get to the long boring part I would jump in front of the TV and shake my fists and scream, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE DON’T KNOW THIS CRAP!!!” and “GET US TO THE CHORUS!!! THIS CRAP IS KILLING US!!” I think some people thought it was funny, but my perceptions of these things aren’t always the most accurate. Eventually, though, since Karaoke is totally gay and only gay dudes and chicks really do it, things worked out pretty well . . . me singing Karaoke with a small handful of hot chicks.
If you don’t know the words, just stand and look awkward.
These chicks are in love with me.
My backup singers.
Oh, some dude brought Absinthe. And he was all into the little chemistry ritual with the sugar and the fire and the everything else that I would never have the patience for. So he prepared me a shot. I looked at the bottle (I wish I’d taken a photo) and it looked like it was good stuff. It was definitely better than previous Absinthe tastings I’d had. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I liked it. I didn’t turn into a giant snake or see frogs come out of people’s eyeballs or anything, and I was mostly just drinking beer so I can’t really testify to what Absinthe “feels” like, and I’ve always thought most of that was bullcrap anyway.
I didn’t want to overstay my welcome and it seemed like I had a chance at leaving on an upnote with my karaoke devastation, so I excused myself and said some goodbyes. As I was leaving the neighborhood I passed a big orange construction cone and I thought to myself, “I should take that! I need a big orange construction cone!” (this is slightly true, actually, as I’ve meant to get a tall cone for my garage so I could mark how far to pull in my car as it is a tight fit.) I did a U-Turn and stopped next to it and opened the door and pulled the heavy monster into the car. I sat it on the passenger seat. I didn’t realize until after I’d already abducted it just how filthy this thing was. And then another thing dawned on me. How the heck am I supposed to explain this to my wife? “Hey, Honey! Yeah, I know it’s late, but on my way home from the party I found a 24 hour used cone stand and bought the dirtiest one I could find. Do you like it?”
Maybe if I put a hat on it I can use the carpool lane?
Man, these things are really reflective, aren’t they?
So I decided I needed to ditch it. I figured since it was already almost 2AM that traffic should be light and when I got to my freeway exit I would jettison it at the exit light. But, of course cars came behind me and my plan was foiled. My house is next to an outdoor mall so I went into the structure and drove to the top. There were a couple dudes getting to their vehicles at the top but I was sick of dealing with this so I rolled down my window and tossed 'ol Orangey out. We said our goodbyes and I left him there.
The End.
