Okay Seriously: August 2008

You guys, there is a void in my life. An Olympics shaped void. It's been 3 days, and I am still sad that they are over. I'm not sure if it's my age or Michael Phelps or what, but I was more into these Olympics than I have been for years. I love what the Olympics represent, and I love that giant effing LCD screen they used in the opening ceremonies. Are you kidding me, China? No opening or closing ceremonies will ever compare to yours. Absolutely unreal. After the Memory Tower portion of the closing ceremonies where people were literally running up and down the tower and dancing on it to look like fire (which it totally did), I was like, "Good luck, London!" I'm just saying I wouldn't want to be the city that had to follow that.

Also the handoff to the UK was hilarious. Jimmy Page looks pretty young. And seriously-Leona Lewis? Really? She gets to perform at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics? How? How is that possible? I might as well have performed. At least she didn't sing that one song that's always on the radio. I think it's called "Bleeding Love" or "Bleeding Eardrums Because This Song is Terrible" or something. And also I love that David Beckham was just randomly there. It's like the UK said, "Hey David Beckham is a famous English guy-let's have him there." I told John they should've had Hugh Grant come out and be hilarious and then make out with a hot American actress. In fact, London, I think you should just go ahead and play "Notting Hill" as your opening ceremonies. Just an idea. Feel free to use it. I won't ask for credit, but I will expect to be invited to sing at the closing ceremonies. I will be singing "Every Heartbeat" by Amy Grant.

My favorite saying seen on a sign at a craft fair in Delaware, Ohio this weekend where I tried to take a picture of it and got yelled at by the store owner whose eyes looked in 2 different directions and I didn't know which one to look at so I just kept alternating looking at both of them: "Back door guests are best!"

My sister uploaded pictures of our night on Friday so before I get to Krusty's and the wedding, I need to tell you how awesome our Friday night was.

Real quick I need to say something: is Michael Phelps for real? Is he part fish or something? Hey, Michael, do you have any Olympic medals I can borrow? Oh 900 million? Jesus. I'm just saying has he ever met a world record he hasn't completely smashed? Unbelievable. You effing rock, Mikey! You actually make me jump out of my recliner and chant "U-S-A! U-S-A!" in my living room.

Talking about the Olympics actually dovetails nicely into what Steph, Diane and I did on Friday. We didn't have any plans and a lot of our friends were either busy or out of town so Steph being Steph made plans for us. Oh but not just any plans. We had Olympic plans.

Since it was the opening day of the Olympics, Steph came up with the idea of having an Olympics event of our own. The basic premise is that we would go to several different bars and compete in events. We each got to pick our country name. There would be a winner of each event and then an overall winner would be declared.

Steph sent out an itinerary beforehand with the bars we'd go to,which events we would participate in and some history behind each event. She tried to pick bars that represented different countries, and when she couldn't she just assigned random countries to random bars. Not only that, she wrote bios for us. Yeah. Once again, those of you without a Steph can go ahead and cry now. She wrote bios! Here they are:

Diane – Diane is an all-around competitor and one of the strongest in the competition. She was raised in the jungles of Iceland and crowned Prom Queen of her high school (Diane’s contract forces this mention in any activity in which she participates). Recently, Diane acquired a new coach, Drew, and when the salary costs became prohibitive to continue to employ her experienced mentor, she married him. Diane is always finding creative ways to save a dime. Under Drew’s influence, Diane has excelled in her drinking (though wouldn’t you, if you had to stay with Drew until the end of time?). Diane’s career has not been without controversy. Competitors are often charging that she doesn’t have the genetic makeup of a woman, and much like the East Germans of yore, Diane is constantly subjected to hormone testing to prove her gender. The competitors’ doubts have created a fire in her belly to prove them wrong and kick their ass. Diane is definitely one to watch.

Sarah – Sarah is another strong competitor to watch. Sarah was raised by a pack of kangaroos in the desert of Siberia. At the tender age of 10, she was discovered by a clown car in the pouch of a kangaroo and taken in by the circus folks. This explains why she is so funny (and her unusually large feet and interest in excessive makeup). Sarah competes for the country of Vachina so named by her drinking coach, John. Her tolerance for vodka-cranberries makes her one to watch. She also uses her impressive cleavage to her advantage at every opportunity, look for this to come to play when she leans in the shuffleboard game. Expect Sarah to make a strong showing in all the events she enters and use her “assets” to full advantage.

Steph – Steph is cool. REALLY, REALLY COOL. She is the other competitor to keep an eye on (but good luck, she is so short she is often difficult to see with the naked eye). Steph with her fair skin, red hair, and green eyes obviously is native to Zaire. Known for her short attention span (everything about her is short, you guys!), Steph is always thinking what’s next, which could prove to be a valuable asset in these variable and shifting games. However, she is also easily swayed by shiny objects and dancing music, so whether Steph has the stamina and attention span to actually finish the competition is the true question. If she can charge through, though, she is one that hates to lose and has been known for demonstrating true shameless in the plight to win something.

Our opening ceremonies were in a park where we wore the traditional Olympic garb-pretty dresses-and ate Chinese food since the Olympics are in Beijing. Eating Chinese food from a place called China Town II in a park is the same as being in China. The best part is that somehow Steph got Matt to drive her to the Chinese place and actually buy our food for us. How did she do that? Awesome.

As I mentioned before we got to pick our own country names and then we made flags for them. Seriously. Steph brought construction paper, scissors, markers and glue sticks to the park and we made flags. As you may have read in my bio, John picked my country name for me: Vachina. Is that not the most awesome country name ever? Here is the flag I created:

I just want to take this opportunity to apologize to my parents. I also want to remind everyone that I am actually a 31 year old adult woman and not, despite evidence to the contrary, a 13 year old boy.

Here is Steph's flag:

Obviously she named her country Stephland because she is a dictator. Her country even has this slogan: "Where Steph is the star!"

Diane couldn't think of a name so she just started cutting penises out of construction paper. You guys, I told you she had a problem. So we used her existing skills and came up with Republic of Peckeronia:

She is also an adult woman. But I mean we share the same DNA so her immaturity shouldn't surprise you. Also these are the worst penises she's ever made. They look like upside down wine glasses. We made her fix them a little bit later, and then Steph drew some "detail" on them to make them more realistic. And gross.

While we were making the flags, a group of people who were carrying posters that said "Zesty iPod Dance" walked by us. They stopped and asked us if we wanted to join them. We asked what they were doing, and they said, "Zesty iPod Dancing" as if that is an answer any human would understand. Apparently they literally just listened to their iPods and danced around the park. We politely declined and snickered as they walked away like, "Man what dorks! Hey Steph, can you pass the glue stick?" What-making fake flags out of construction paper in a park when you're 30 is way cooler than that.

After we ditched Matt and "forgot" to pay him back for dinner, we were off to our first bar. Our first event was darts. It was pretty close till the end when Peckeronia and Vachina choked and Stephland rallied for the gold. Peckeronia got the silver. Vachina, in a poor first showing, got the bronze. Then we forgot to return the darts, and we went out on the patio, and I did the dance from Pat Benetar's "Love is a Battlefield" video. Obviously.

Oh things I should mention:
1. I took notes the entire night for blog reasons. By the end of the night, my penmanship had degraded to the point that it looks like I was trying to write with my mouth while blindfolded.

2. At every bar we went to, we hung our flags up during the event. Then after it was over, we hung them up in the order of 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and took pictures. Like this:

3. After each event was completed, we went to the Olympic Village to celebrate. What that means is we just sat at the bar for a while and drank and talked to strangers.

Our second event was Rock, Paper, Scissors while we drank sangria. Not just sangria. The most delicious sangria I have ever had. We had to be holding the sangria in one hand while we played with the other. We spent about 20 minutes coming up with rules for Rock, Paper, Scissors. It was pathetic. This event was truly exciting as we had a 3 way tie all the way to the last match. It was Vachina versus Stephland, and whoever won got the gold. Whoever lost got the bronze. At the buzzer Vachina pulled out the Paper while Stephland went with Rock and the crowd went nuts. By crowd I mean this one lady who walked by us and was laughing really hard that we were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Steph was very disappointed in her country, and showed it by disrespecting Peckeronia's flag by putting her drink on it. Also at this bar, I almost set the entire place on fire by laying my paper on top of a candle:

I should mention here that my country name really lent itself to a lot of awesome jokes. Examples:

- Steph told me she could see up my dress, and I said, "Hey-I'm from Vachina." and she said, "So that's like, what, your handshake or something?"

- Steph: Do you allow men in Vachina?
Me: Only men. I'm the only woman in Vachina.

- Christy's text message: I sent you a message that was supposed to go to someone else. I was distracted by your country's flag.
My reply text message: I understand. You totally got sucked into my Vachina.

Etc., etc.

The third event was shuffleboard at this old German dive bar none of us had ever been to. Let's just say they probably don't get a lot of girls in pretty dresses coming in to play shuffleboard. But they couldn't have been nicer and more welcoming to us. And this hippie guy was awesome:

That's Rick, and he is clearly crazy. Crazy awesome. He was so nice and friendly and had awesome hair. And he said, "Well as the three wiseman said, 'Why soitenly!'" Yeah-he said the Three Stooges were the three wisemen. Fantastic.

During shuffleboard, Steph continued to play mind games by putting her drink on everyone's flags. Vachina had to send in their alternate because our starting player was out with an injury. By that I mean I have never played shuffleboard before and totally effing sucked. See the scores:

The note I have next to the Vachinese score on my paper is "Horseshit".

At the next bar as we were already pretty drunk, we decided to take it easy and just order Grey Goose martinis. You know how those have no alcohol in them at all. It was the best martini I have ever had by the way. We took a short break before diving into our next event and sat at the bar and talked to the guy sitting next to us. We explained what we were doing, and he said, "That's pretty cool. I mean I would never do that, but it's cute." Diane refused to let this go and she said, "I think you would. When you came in I heard you complaining that the Pac Man machine was broken." And he said, "Yeah I'm 35. That is sad." Diane continued to explain our Olympics to him and then he said, "That's rad. I'm so old I say 'rad' and mean it." Then I said, "Seriously. It's gnarly." Only right as I said what I thought, at the time, was maybe the funniest thing ever, he turned to talk to his girlfriend who had just walked in. Diane laughed really hard, but I was mad that my awesome joke was ruined. Now that I'm writing out this story, it's hitting me that that joke isn't really funny. It's hard for me to cry about the injustice when really all I did was rip off Corey Feldman in "Goonies" when he sees the skeleton organ.

After we were halfway through our martinis we started our next event: business card bop. We each had to collect 3 business cards. There was also a bonus point opportunity for the most interesting business card. I asked a whole bunch of people inside the bar and all I got was one drunk Irish guy singing me a weird song. Not exactly a business card. Outside I went up to a table and asked if anyone had a business card. The guy who's back was to me reached for his wallet. His friends pointed at him and said, "Oh boy do you even know who this guy is?" I laughed and said, "Oh is he famous? Is this a famous business card?" As we all laughed, I looked the guy and said, "Rob?" Yeah. I knew him. His friends totally freaked out. A few minutes later his younger brother and a couple other guys-other friends of ours-showed up. This was unexpected. We then explained what we were doing to our friend Lardiss and this is how the conversation went:

Lardiss: You guys are pretty bold starting out with martinis.
Us: We've been out for 3 hours.
Lardiss: Holy shit. So where is everyone else?
Us: It's just the 3 of us.
Lardiss: Just the 3 of you? Oh. I mean...that's cool that you still decided to do this even though there's only 3 of you.
Us: :(

Steph won the business card bop by getting 3. Diane and I each got 1, but I got silver thanks to my friend Rob who's business card was the coolest thereby earning me the bonus point.

Right here is where I would insert the picture of Steph molesting the statue that was sitting on the patio of the bar if I could.

We then headed over to the last bar for the final event. I'm going to just copy Steph's description of this event: "One of the evening’s most anticipated events…rhythmic gymnastics. Players will need to find a competitor from the crowd to compete and create a rhythmic gymnastic performance. Toilet paper is encouraged to serve as a substitute for the ribbon."

Yeah. We had to find someone to dance with toilet paper. At this point, I couldn't believe we were even still doing all the events. I figured we'd have lost interest hours ago because we were so drunk. But despite being completely loaded, we did not give up. I was positive Steph was going to win this last event. And I was positive I would get the bronze. Here's what happened:

Steph took the early lead by finding a guy who did a pretty good job. He interacted with Diane and I a little bit, threw the TP over my neck and seemed to be having fun. Steph had to buy him a drink. Then Diane found someone. While he did dance, he didn't seem too into it. Although he was cute. She had to buy him a drink, too. Then Diane handed me the TP and said, "Okay. Go find someone. Be brave." I was about to give up when an older gentlemen with an awesome mustache walked in. He looked drunk and funny. As he walked by our table, I gathered up my courage and walked up to him and said, "Hi! I'm hoping you can help me out. My friends and I are playing a game. If you danced with this toilet paper, I could totally win a medal." He looked at me for a second, then tried to dance with me. "No no-not with me. With this toilet paper." Without hesitation he grabbed the toilet paper and put it in between his legs and did this:

Diane and Steph jumped to their feet and applauded. He then took the TP and held it up and did a waltz with it. Diane and Steph told me that I had the gold so I gave the guy a hug and said, "You won me the gold medal!" He hugged me, wrapped the TP around his neck and walked away. Want to know the best part? He was the owner of the bar. And 2 other area bars. Holy eff. I got the owner of the bar to dance with toilet paper, and I didn't even have to buy him a drink.

After that we went to the final bar for the closing ceremonies. Steph won the gold, I got silver and Diane got bronze. We played Connect Four and Boggle, but not as part of the Olympics even though Diane wanted to count them to try and move up a medal. It wouldn't have helped as Diane sucks at both games. Steph made each of us medals out of construction paper and ribbon:

We wore them and took a picture holding up our flags on our homemade podium. Note: homemade podium means Steph up on a step, me to her right on the lower step and Diane on the lower step crouching down. We got some hipster dude to take our picture, and his hatred for us was palpable. Luckily while we were taking this picture, nobody who I work with screamed my name across the bar. Oh wait...

We then went inside and played on the bowling machine. Shortly after that, we got roped into dancing by two weirdo ladies who were pretending like they liked the DJ's music even though it was horrible. I don't want to brag, but I swear once we started dancing, tons more people started to dance too. We just scream fun. Also Diane almost became a lesbian when this chick who was obviously using her boyfriend has a ruse to cover up the fact that she was gay started dancing with Diane and wouldn't stop. It was hilariously awesome. Steph was dancing with the boyfriend. Here are the last notes I took that night that took me 10 minutes to decipher: "He was calloused. She had B.O. They used Steph and D to make each other mad." That was my official take on the situation.

Once we left that final bar, we called Drew and said, "Okay are you ready to come pick us up now?" after having made no plans for him to do so. I'll be honest I'm not clear on what happened next. Diane and Steph made me walk around what seemed like the entire greater Cleveland area as I tried to call a cab for us. When I finally got a hold of one, we were at a corner that maybe wasn't the greatest part of the neighborhood. Here's a clue. I told the guy at the cab company what corner we were at and he said, "Wait-are you at a business or are you just standing on the corner?" I said, "We're just standing on the corner." And in a slightly panicky voice he said, "I will get someone to you as soon as possible."

We decided it would be much safer if we crossed the street because that makes a lot of sense. But at least there was a bus stop with a bench there. Diane told us the glass was bulletproof and that she would protect us from muggers and bullets. When the cab finally came, we jumped in and Steph said, "Oh my God, Mr. Cab Driver, we just almost died!" After we dropped Steph off, Diane and I both immediately fell asleep in the cab. I woke up a few minutes later with no idea where we were. I woke Diane up, she hit my hand and fell back asleep. Somehow we got to her house, and Drew brought us Taco Bell. The next morning I got a text from Steph that said, "Remember when Diane almost became a lesbian at the Olympic Village?"

I just want to say: best night ever!