mockable.org

Thanks for staying tuned and now the conclusion to the story as convoluted as it may be.

We parked the disabled insect off to the side of the road and loaded our pockets with refreshments and started hoofing it back to the main road.  It was soon discovered that we had no means of fire and that lighting a smoke would be out of the question until we made contact with civilization.  We did have one lit cigarette between us.  So we decided that we would keep at least one lit at all times.  Now if you think you’ve had morning breath.  Try that for about an hour.

After about 30 minutes of walking we had made it back to our original stopping point, across the river staring at the lovely fire that was just out of our reach.  Up to this point we had seen no other car for over three hours, and when headlights appeared we were giddy with relief, until we recognized the vehicle as belonging to a park ranger.  Looking up we happen to notice a sign that told us we were in the parking lot for a state park and in addition to identifying where we were it expressly prohibited possession of alcoholic beverages.  When the headlights hit us we each were holding a beer in each hand.  A feeble attempt was made to disguise what we were holding as the car pulled slowly in our direction.

No one said it but it was understood that our night was a fixin to get a whole lot worse.  The occupant of the car exited the vehicle and began to inquire as to our reason for being in the parking lot, with no car, at this late hour.  At this point I remembered Proverbs chapter 17 verse 28; in other words unless it appeared that speaking in my own defense was my only hope of avoiding a night in the hoosegow, shut up.  The roommate eloquently explained our last three hours and why were in the area.  The ranger chuckled out loud and indicated had we taken the second road to the left we would now be enjoying the warmth of the fire we could see across the river.

When asked if he could give us a ride he indicated that he could but that we would have to get rid of the beer first.  That seemed like a fair trade, but then he added he meant that we would have to pour it out.  That seemed a bit harsh, but given the situation, and our lack of a bargaining chip, we acquiesced and disposed of our fire brewed goodness, with much sadness I might add.  Then just as we had poured the last drop of liquid fun out on state property another set of headlights appeared in the parking lot.

A familiar voice called my name and I knew we were saved.  The ranger seemed a bit relieved that he wouldn’t to haul a bunch of shit faced teenagers across the river, and risk getting a floorboard full of recycled Strohs.  He bid us goodnight and reminded us that drinking was not allowed in state parks, but added that our campsite was not in the state park so we were free to consume to our hearts content.

I must say that he was extremely decent about the whole affair, as has been my experience with rangers in Tennessee state parks, and let me add that this was not my first encounter under similar circumstances, nor my last.  One would think that it would be difficult for anything else to happen that would measure up to the previous three or four hours that we had just lived through, but there was one more moment of excitement yet to come.  After our encounter with the park ranger, thank you kind sir for not taking us to jail, we proceeded to our final destination.  We made our way to the warmth of the fire, but not before stopping at the wounded bug and collecting the balance of the suds, which was considerable.

With that our story draws to a close.  Thank you gentlefolk for going along for the ride.

remember nuthins free, so send money

caveboy out

  I used to write a weekly “comedy” article called “And For No Apparent Reason” for a cool little website that is no longer with us.  I basically picked a topic almost at random, did a google search and mocked the results.  Since these don’t exist anywhere except the wayback machine anymore, and my real life is making it impossible for me to be “funny,” I thought I would share this little article that I wrote way back in 2005.  The google search term was “annoying neighbor” and my comments are in blue.  Hope you like it.  I also hope I am back next week with something new.  Love – metten 

 I recently relocated to quaint Emmitsburg, MD. Population: me, my fiancé at the time, my annoying neighbor with the mange kid, the town drunk,
the guy who backed into my car at the post office, my landlords who own the local liquor store, and a handful of other useless rednecks. That’s it.
http://www.sparechangemagazine.com/features/homes.html•        Depending on how many people constitute a ‘handful’, I am curious as to why such a place would have a post office.  Let’s talk about mange kids for a second:  My annoying neighbors have three kids – the boy is frequently home from school due to expulsion and once told me a story of his positive experiences doing community service at “a horse place”.  The older girl is somehow relatively smart but she is a victim of circumstance, she doesn’t bother us too much unless she is in cahoots with the other two.  There is no nice way to say this – the younger daughter is a retard.  I once came home from work to find her sitting in the front yard all by herself with her legs crossed, screaming the lyrics to the ‘Head Start’ theme song.  My neighbors don’t wear shoes.  They don’t care if it’s the middle of winter or if the pavement is 115 degrees.  They are dirty and they smell.  I don’t remember what age I happened to be when I started getting b.o. and had to don the deodorant, but these kids are way past whatever age it is.  The little shits have fashioned what was once our beautiful large cobblestone porch into nothing more than a prop – a platform of annoyance.  No matter what we are doing, if we try to do it on the front porch, the kids will run from their yard into ours and parade up the steps onto the porch and take part in whatever we’re doing, all the while peppering us with little factoids like, “If you swallow your gum, it will clog your lower liver.”  I know they are children and I know that the way adults treat them will affect the outcome of their lives, and I’m ashamed to admit this – but I hate them.  I often find myself looking forward to the day that they become problem adolescents and run away to the big city.  It’ll probably never happen – they’ll stay there, cook meth and blow up the whole damn block.

And apparently my annoying neighbor has given his door code to these high schoolers so he could no doubt molest them or something. So now I get these puck ass kids smoking in my stairwell and in the common area hanging around waiting for some overweight, ugly, leather skinned, too-old-to-be-wearing-those-clothes loser to get them their drugs.When did I become a bitter old senior citizen? (ed – this site is now gone, but it used to be the blog of a gay Filipino software engineer from San Diego)
http://www.akahaas.com/2004_11_01_archive.shtml•        Throughout my years, I have always found that the best source for reliable information on how to deal with just about any problem is the 23 year old gay Filipino software engineer.  I’ll tell you what, the matriarch next door is enough to make anyone move to San Diego…and become gay.  She has a voice designed for outdoor theater in the 1800’s.  She can often be heard wailing at her children from deep inside the  ouse.  Everyone knows that if your kids are juvenile delinquents, the only way to deal with them is to scream louder.  Her charm is completed by her incredible wardrobe.  She happens to be about 6 inches shorter than me and about the same weight (and I’m a fat guy).  Most of the time she can be seen wearing about a yard worth of fabric over her massive udders and lower torso.  I’ve always meant to snap a picture of her during one of her fat, naked attempts at installing ‘yard art’ to accompany this article, but I’ve always been too afraid that I would get caught in the act and she would get mad and dispatch her kids to come try and set my house on fire – AGAIN – so no pictures.  What a woman…I got married way too soon.

We had neighbors from hell for 3 years until we said fuck it and moved in July. It was pretty bad, barking dogs CONSTANLY, loud music, and the woman had a bad attitude that was so bad when I had to call the cops on her music she told me to “go ahead my husband is a cop, he will take care of it” which the cop on the phone heard so that was a interesting day.

We also had a second neighbor who loved his Harley and diesel tow truck and rebuilt Monte Carlo with extra loud muffler so much, he would let them idle in the drive way for hours at a time, and I swear to you, he let all 3 idle at the same time at times.  The Harley he loved so much he would let it idle in the drive way for an hour, then ride up and down the street 2 or 3 blocks and let it idle in the drive for 30 mins before he put it away….So I know what BS is when dealing with others…..

http://www.xnations.com/showthread.php?s=810c0747205d91add43bdec0596737a4&postid=76502•        The man of the house must’ve moved up here from Florida after forcing this guy out of his home.  He is a replacement.  Despite the fact  that he once gave me advice on how to defraud the city into buying me “a really nice deep freeze or something like that” the original dad was  actually kind of cool.  He worked nights so there wasn’t much noise during the night, and if the kids were too loud during the day and woke him up, there would be hell to pay.  This was a nice feature considering my wife also works nights.  Once Dad was tragically killed in a car accident, all bets were off.  After a few weeks of mourning, the new guy moved in.  This guy should be the pitchman for Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Skinny, wife-beater and do-rag wearer who constantly works on his truck and screams obscenities at this ‘family’ whenever they do anything.  I can see the relief on his face when my family tries to come out on the front porch because the kids come running to our place and leave him alone to bang
wrenches, cuss and dream about Jeff Foxworthy.  We gotta get out of there…

Okay the results are in and it’s official.  People hate their neighbors.  Thanks to the Internet, we all know about it – except the neighbors.  God forbid any of us should address the problem at its source.

And now back to our story.  In addition to this we could see across the river and had spied what appeared to be a group of folks gathered around a large fire.  That had to be them we all agreed.  We tried shouting, but to no avail.  I distinctly remember mentioning earlier in this tale of misadventure that it was early spring, but I failed to mention that the rains had come and the river was roaring like a run away freight train, so our shouting was of no use.  So we loaded up and proceeded to venture in the general direction of our comrades.  Less than a fourth of a mile we veered left across a bridge, which the next day would reveal itself to be a dam, this was a good sign we deduced as we were trending in the correct direction.  Once across the dam bridge we again veered left, another good sign.  After the second left it was determined that we should take the first road to the left that looked passable, which we did. 

Up to this point the trip had been relatively uneventful, and my navigation skills had gratefully not been proven wrong.  However, everything would change in the next 30 seconds.  The road we had taken had at first appeared to be a seemingly good choice, after the first 200 feet our opinions changed.  The incline increased to about what seemed to be a 45 degree angle and had narrowed to the point that tree limbs were seriously degrading the quality of the paint job.  Having no place to turn around and reverse course we precariously continued on.  The trip ended sooner than we had anticipated and we found ourselves at the bottom of this incredibly steep and narrow path.  We exited the vehicle to assess the situation and were greeted with the unmistakable sound of air escaping from a tire.  Now what do we do?  First we had to fix the flat tire.  This in itself was no small feat.  Less than optimum room in which to work, less than optimum lighting conditions, this combined with a severe lack of sobriety, made changing the tire a challenge of Olympic proportions. 

30 to 45 minutes later as we lowered the battered bug down of the jack all seemed to be improving.  Then as the bulk of the cars weight came to bear on the newly replaced tire the sickening pop and the sound of air escaping made us all groan in frustration.  The cars owner, my friends sister, was near tears, “How are we gonna get out of here?” she lamented.  Her roommate said “I’ll drive it out of here!”  “Won’t that tear it up?” the sister questioned.

This question started a bit of debate as to the best course of action.  Walk out and wait till morning and call a wrecker but walk out to where?  As mentioned earlier we had not yet reached our destination and had no idea how to get there.  One of us could go for help, that proposal was vetoed as quickly as it was made audible.  Then the roommate reiterated that she could drive it out.  It was agreed; drive it out, flat tire and all.  Praise the Lord that VW bugs were light.  By bouncing and pulling and much abuse of the transmission we managed to get the car pointed in the right direction.  We all three looked up the hill and agreed that there was no way in hell that the car would make it, but as the old saying goes nothing ventured, nothing lost, especially when it’s not your car.

With the engine sufficiently revved she popped the clutch and slammed the accelerator to floor, and wonder of wonders the little bug that could began to climb out of the woods.  It less than a minute the battered little bugger was once again setting on level ground.  When we had completed the climb to the top of the hill the VW’s performance became even more impressive to me, as it was a tortuous climb littered with large rocks and branches that would have give a real off road vehicle a severe challenge.  Our sense of accomplishment soon faded as reality set in. 

remember nuthins free, so send money

caveboy out