After spending a few days in the greater Philly area, we hop in the rental car and take the turnpike west to Johnstown. It was actually a very pretty drive. Green hillsides, that typical dense Appalachian (or I guess in this case Allegheny?) foliage, and tons of dairy farms. I'd forgotten how much they smell like shit, which is ironic considering the daily reminders my own gas produces.

We check in to the hotel, kick it with the family for a little while, and get ready to go to the wedding. It was a sort of long ceremony, because it was a wedding mass; but it was fairly interesting. As we exit the chapel, the entire wedding party is lined up; and you're supposed to walk down the line shaking hands and what not. At the very end of the line is my uncle, father of the groom. This dude is probably 6'5, maybe 500lbs: he's a big.mother.fucker. I remember as a kid he scared me just by bellowing at me. I respect the hell out of him now, and even enjoy trading stories and a good laugh over beers. I look down the line and he's looking straight at me, and he's not smiling.

I'm frantically thinking if I did something bad in church, or maybe if my fly is down or something. I can't figure it out. I'm getting closer and closer, and I'm certain he's inside my head saying "I'm going to rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody stump." We get up to him, and before I can stammer a pathetic plea for mercy, he wraps his giant hand around mine, pulls me close and growls, "I paid a lot of money for this open bar, and I expect you and your brother to make sure these people don't make a profit." He releases me and I nearly pass out from terror.

We hop in the car with The Wife, my brother, his wife, and their baby; and I approach my brother.
"Dude, Tony says we have to put a serious dent in the bar tonight."
"Yeah, and I don't want to be roasted on a spit tomorrow for not following through on direct orders."
We converse with The Wives about our situation, mainly to make them aware that we are, in no uncertain terms, under strict directive to get retarded drunk.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling like 80 different kinds of ass. We get to the reception at this exclusive golf club, and it's gorgeous. For some reason, it's all I can do to keep my head off the table. I'm propped up in my seat like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. At The Wife's suggestion, I go grab some appetizers. It's at this point that I realize I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast, and that was nearly 8 hours ago. I grab a few small items, a glass of juice, and head back to the table. I'm hoping the food will deliver a pick me up.

Dinner comes around, and I'm only feeling slightly better. I've had probably a beer and a half, and they were in tiny 10oz glasses. My brother is looking at me like I'm a bitch, and I glance over at my Uncle's table and he's staring straight back at me sharpening a combat knife. God this is going to suck. I choke down the rest of the food, and pass on dessert. I just can't eat anymore. The cake is cut, and my brother grabs me by the collar and drags me up to the bar.
"Listen fuckstick, you need to get all your shit in one sock and start sucking back booze. I am not dying on this hill for you today."
"Dude, I am exhausted man. I seriously fe-"
"Yes, we'd like a beer and a bloody mary for my friend Shirley here," he says to the bartender. End of discussion. I'm feeling a little better, I guess because I'm no longer hypoglycemic, and I decide a bloody mary is a good starting point.
"Extra spicy, please," I add.

I love bloody's. Salsa that gets you drunk, a stroke of genius! I walk back to the table sipping my bloody and thinking that maybe my brother is right. I mean, free drinks all night? Sack up buddy!

After I have my first bloody I'm feeling normal. I hit the bar, order another spicy bloody, a beer for The Wife, and figure I'll throw a beer in for my brother too. Things are going good.

Forgive me the lack of details, as things come in and out of focus, but somewhere around bloody #6 I switch to doubles of whiskey with a beer back. We're running around the reception hall, in a god-forsaken conga line (which equates to failure of a field sobriety test in most states south of the Mason-Dixon), with our neckties hanging out of our back pockets. We take periodic bar breaks, and I continue with the double and a beer combo. I'm not even sure if my brother is drinking anymore. I guess he is.

On my fourth or fifth round of whiskey and beer at the bar, I slam my drinks and bring back The Wife's order. As soon as I drop her drink off to her, I know exactly what I must do. I must vomit. I think I actually jogged past her, handing her the beer, and sprinted the rest of the way to the mens room.

Keep in mind here that this is a private golf club.

I slam right through the bathroom door passing the stalls; for some reason that I do not know. Maybe it was because the bathroom door opened in, and in my highly inebriated state, I couldn't shut the door, then open the stall door behind it.

Before I'm within arms length of the urinal, I'm projectile vomiting into it. My momentum is so great, my drunkedness so clumsy, and the second heave is so hard that I hit my head on the urinal. I'm flushing and heaving at the same time, and I hear a familiar voice.
"Hey man! It's okay, you're going to be alright!"

I look up and I see my brother, who happens to be taking a leak in the urinal next to me. My world brightens; my brother! "Dude, I'm so glad you're here- GAHAAAHAHAAHAGAGGAGGGGG!" I have never been so happy to see my big brother in my entire life. What a great guy. Meanwhile, there's the Shank Brothers, one with his dick in one hand and the other on his brother's back, while Shank the Younger yacks gallons of vomit into the urinal. Well, that's sort of an exaggeration. It wasn't really going into the urinal at this point; I was making a Pollock out of the place.

I have this thing, I guess it's guilt, that makes me want to clean up my own puke. I don't throw up really at all, but ever since I was a kid I've always felt really bad about puking, and I always try to clean it up.

When my brother notices that I've grabbed some paper towels and I'm about to start cleaning up my puke, he grabs me and drags me out of the bathroom. And straight to the bar. He orders us both a beer, and says "Dude, that's sick! I can't believe you were about to clean that up. They've got people for that." I slam my beer and order another. There's nothing worse than that after barf mouthfeel.

We go back into the reception, and I simply continue the evening like I didn't just destroy the bathroom. I don't realize it at this point, but there's an ever so nuanced spattering of barf on my shoes and the bottom of my pant leg. Apparently no one else noticed either, because no one said shit to me all night. I see my cousin's (brother of the bride) girlfriend drinking scotch. I laugh and say, "That's awesome! Wanna trade?" "Well actually-," he says; but I walk off to do something else that I think is funny. I hit the bar, and rejoin the group. My cousin comes up to me and says "About that trade thing, heh." I look at him and say "Hey man, you're going to have to talk to my agent."
"Who's that?"
"The wife!" I yell as I laugh and change the subject. It's only funny once dude, I'm thinking to myself.

As we're getting ready to leave, my cousin comes up again and says "About that trade thing-". Thinking that he's kind of beating a dead joke, I ignore it and say "Well bro, looks like we're heading out. See you tomorrow?"
"Nah, we're flying out early in the morning."
"Ah damn. Well, we should do this more often," I say as I hop into my brother's rental and shut the door. I finally realize that my cousin is being a little creepy. I mean, I like the guy a lot, but not enough to let him take a swing at The Wife, sweet baby Jesus!

We get in the car, and everyone but the baby is drunk. Dad is buzzing hard and has become ornery, but subdued. My brother is drunk and happy, but not obliterated. That role was left entirely up to myself. The girls are drunk but since they're not morons, they look dead sober travelling with the three of us.

My brother hops behind the wheel, and Dad takes shotgun with his Blackberry GPS. He commences to shout the directions at my brother that his GPS is speaking.
"Turn right...onto...highway 211."
"TURN RIGHT ONTO 211!"
"Merge onto-"
"MERGE!!" he screams, frantically waving his hand in a rightward motion.
"Dad, I can hear the GPS," my brother says, speaking over him.
"Bullshit, ooo dunno where're goin," Dad slurs. He's like this when he's had four or so.
"I drove here, I can get us back."
"Betchu can't, feggin liar," he retorts.
"Actually. I can," he says, rather tersely.
"Fine. Buck a mile, but'n ooo get los, you owe ME buck."
"Deal."
"An I ain't sayin' shit." Dad emphasizes this last word by leaning over and giving my brother one of those big-eyed stares that parents do. My brother smiles, because he got what he wanted out of the deal; for dad to shut the hell up.

We get back to our hotel, and he and I are still ready to have some fun. I mean, it's only 9pm. We hit the bar right next door for a sixer, and decide that now is a perfect time to take my rental car (a Ford Focus) and test the limits of American engineering.

There was a big grassy vacant lot behind our hotel, and we decide that's an ideal location. We scout it out in his rental, an SUV, to make sure there aren't any hidden hazards in the undergrowth. The grass was about knee high, and the lot was bordered on two sides by a hedge, and one by a chainlink fence about four feet high that bordered a drainage gully about six feet deep. The lot checks out, so we grab the Focus.

This is a tradition that my brother and I have. We showed up to my wedding in a PT Cruiser that was covered from bumper to bumper in mud and foliage. Did you know those things can take a parking block at 20mph?

Anyways, I had purchased the extra insurance policy on my car for this exact purpose. We have a standard game that we play. One man takes the driver's seat, and the other is navigator. The driver, of course, pilots the vehicle at appropriately reckless speeds; while the navigator is in charge of. . . well, only the e-brake. Basically, he just pulls it when he decides it's a good time. So we end up going around this field in a large circle, doing powerslides and generally looking like two midgets trying to fuck a football. It's great fun.

We do maybe ten laps, and pull off to survey the damage. Well hell, all the mud is on one side of the car; so we jump back in and begin doing laps in the opposite direction. I stomp the gas and we tear off into the field. At about 40mph, my brother screams, yanks the e-brake, and I instinctively spin the wheel. The car comes to a complete halt.
"Dude, what's with the brake? I wasn't even turning!"
"Look to your left asshole!" I do as he says and realize that we're about two and a half feet from the chain link fence. If he hadn't grabbed that brake handle, we'd be planted firmly at the bottom of the gully. "Oooh, yeah. Thanks for that buddy." We tear off and continue our laps, this time minding the fence.

After a few more minutes of this, I decide to show off my road racing skills. We go into an empty parking lot, and begin doing a figure eight track around two light poles. We also take turns seeing who can do the longest power slide. Then on our way back to the parking space, I decide I might as well test the 5mph bumpers, and glide right into the corner of the hotel building. Everything checks out.

Satisfied with our road test of the 2006 Ford Focus, we slam the rest of the six pack and go up to bed.

This would be the last time in my life that I consume more than 10 drinks in one night.

Okay, so we were staying at the house my father-in-law and his girlfriend share in PA, right outside Philly. As I said before, it's all nicely outfitted with various antiques and such. Well, dear old dad decides that he doesn't like the way this clock is hanging on the wall.

I had noticed the clock earlier, it was fairly hard not to. It had a giant face on it, probably 12 inches or more, with a huge pendulum hanging from it. I mean, the pendulum alone was a good four feet long; about four inches across at the top, widening down to a bulb at the bottom that was nearly as big as the clock face. The clockface had a metal box on the backside, that I assume held the various gears, that was probably 5 or 6 inches on each side. It looked quite odd hanging on the wall, because there was no housing or design to the clock itself. It consisted simply of these three components and absolutely nothing else.

Apparently, the G/F and her teenage son had hung it on the wall, and Father-In-Law decided he thought it looked like crap. I don't generally agree with anything he says, but he was right. It was held onto the wall by two screws at the top corners of the box behind the clock face; anchored into the plaster or concrete or whatever the walls were. It hadn't been tightened down, so the clock hung at a down-facing angle, which meant the pendulum wouldn't swing right. So here's this disgusting clock barely hanging on the wall, and it doesn't even work.

So he asks me for help. I was cornered, I had no excuses (I was on vacation), so I was enlisted into service. He wants to take the screws out, rework the anchors, and screw it back in; so I agreed to hold the monstrosity while he was doing that. This was a mistake. I didn't realize it; but picture this thing, it's all fucking brass, and it's hanging about six feet high. I stand under it and try to maintain it's position while he starts removing the screws. The weight isn't that bad, maybe 45 or 50 pounds.

A couple minutes later, he's got the screws out, and I'm the only thing supporting the clock. I'm beginning to second guess my estimate, maybe this bastard weighs 60. As I'm standing next to it, holding it about shoulder height, I realize the ultimate stupidity of what we're doing. This clock looks stupid because it's a fucking grandfather clock without the giant wood cabinet. No wonder it's all hanging off balance, grandfather clocks don't hang, they're perched inside the cabinet so that the pendulum swings from a level platform.

"Hey, um. This thing looks like a grandfather clock without the box."
"Yeah, that's exactly what it is." Father in Law says this with a bit of pride, and I realize that I'm dealing with a dumbass. This clock will never work right in it's current state.
"So...maybe what you should do is build a housing for it, so that it doesn't hang, so much as it's supported by a shelf or...I don't know, a cabinet?" I try not to let the sarcasm come through, but the clock assembly is beginning to feel very heavy. I start to get mad. I'm sitting here trying to 'fix' something that is 1)not going to work because 2)what we're doing is not going to solve the problem and 3)this fucking thing is ugly anyways. Not to mention it's 4) fucking heavy, which makes this stupid solution not even worth the effort. It will not improve functionality or appearance, it will simply return the clock to its currently Ridiculous Clock status. The solution here is to put the goddamned grandfather clock into a fucking grandfather cabinet like it's supposed to motherfucking be. Why in the fuck would you remove such a heavy peice of shit from a functional design, only to hang it on your wall so that it looks like shit and works like shit and might as well be a big fucking 60lb peice of brass shit hanging on your living room wall? SHIT!

I tell him to unscrew the pendulum from the clock body itself, because it's really heavy. He does that and it's so heavy he almost drops it on the ground. We set the two peices down on the couch and I try to explain to him without slapping him around and calling him names that we probably need a more functional solution. I'm actually very good at this, as I routinely find myself diplomatically telling people at work that their ideas are stupid and wrong. He wants to stick to the Two Stupid Fucking Screws Idea, and I decide I don't give a shit about this Ridiculous Clock anyways. It's just not worth it.

I hope that damn thing falls off the wall and crushes him while he's home alone some day; and he bleeds out. What a fucking Ridiculous Clock.

The Wife and I flew up to PA for a family wedding. Since we were up that way, we decided to stay with her father and his girlfriend, who share a home right outside of Philadelphia. Neither of us had ever been to Philly, so we figured this would be a good opportunity to see the sights.

The city itself is actually quite nice. Lots of famous landmarks and interesteing architecture. Oh, and they give away free shit for no reason. They just give it the hell away. I guess it's for product review or brand recognition, but they'll drop these huge crates on the street corner, and people will get in line to take whatever they're giving out. When we were there, it was those Handi-Vac vaccuum sealers and they were handing them out by the twos. I was like "Sweet! Now I don't have to buy a wedding gift!"

We drove out of the city to this place called West Goshen Township. Apparently, PA is a commonweatlh, which means they do some pretty odd things like call towns townships, and make access to alcohol about as clumsy as possible. You can't buy beer anywhere except a bar or a beer warehouse. And you have to go to state-run liquor stores for wine and the hard stuff. Whatever. So this town where the girlfriend lives is really upper crust. The schools are expensive and manor-like, with fenced in manicured pastures around them. I've never seen so many private schools in such a small town.

Her house is very nice. It's small, but it's been tastefully maintained and updated. You know, they kept the cool stuff (original doors, floors, etc) and updated things like ladnscaping, added an A/V setup in the basement and a hot tub on the patio. Well, one of the things that they decided to keep 'period' were the plumbing fixtures. Don't get me wrong, these still looked nice, but the reason plumbing fixtures have changed is because the old shit is just not very user friendly.

She made this great dinner, and I had two portions. Needless to say, after that much beef tips and rice, any normal person has a serious poop on deck. So I go upstairs to the bathroom and briefly survey the scene. Toilet paper? Check. Clean toilet? Check. Then I step closer. The hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl is about as big as the hole in the middle of a Lifesaver. This antique peice is not going to be able to handle the 21st-Century assault that is about to come charging out of my ass. I decide to hold off. We're only here for one more night, and if I can hold my poo for another 24 or 36 hours, then I'll be good.

Seriously, there wasn't even a plunger handy. I go back downstairs and sit on the patio with everyone else, but all I can think about is this Impossible Toilet. I mean, how do they take a shit int his house? There isn't a reasonably sized toilet? Do they shit outside? I guess, maybe. As The Wife and I are sitting in bed, I decide to consult with her.

"Babe, I seriously have to take a dump; and this woman's toilets are a joke."
"What are you, stupid?"
"Seriously. Go look at her toilets, and come back and tell me how I'm supposed to shit 7 pounds of beef and rice into that thing without some serious power tools." I shove her out of bed and make her go check this out. She comes back, get's into bed and says, "Dude, I don't know what to tell you."
Well shit. I thought she would actually have an idea. She says, "Maybe you should go a little, and do multiple flushes?"
This does not satisfy me. I can tell that what I have inside me is a giant log, and I won't be able to cleave it with my sphincter. It's just too massive, too solidly organized.

I wake up in the morning, and the urge to shit is so intense it carves a look of obvious discomfort on my face. The Wife sees me and tells me I need to go take a shit before I hurt myself. I figure if I go now while everyone's still asleep, at least I can clean up any overflow without anyone noticing. I decide that I have to do what I have to do, and hike off to meet my fate.

I make another more thorough plunger check that is completely fruitless. These people must have turds like robin's eggs. I decide that my only option is to try and break this giant dump into peices, so there I am: hovering over a toilet, looking down through my legs and hoping I don't end up shitting all down the back of the toilet. I am completely disgusted at the sight of shit coming out of my own ass, but I have no choice.

The first barrage comes out the bomb bay with such force that I push so hard to pinch it off that my knees buckle and I damn near end up falling over. I look down in the bowl and see that my dump is practically choking the worlds tiniest crapper. My shit is actually laughing at me.

I hit the flusher and watch as the toilet begins to work it's ass off. The bowl is filling, and the higher it gets the wider my eyes become. Oh Lord, my shit water is going to be coming through the floor into the room below isn't it? The bowl is now just over half full and rising, and I'm pretty sure at this point we'll be leaving a day early. This bitch is not going to want me in her house after I get my poo all over it. At three quarters full, I'm already hobbling around the bathroom with my pants around my ankles, grabbing towels off their racks in preparation for a shit flood of biblical proportions.

Then it happens. There is a deep thunking noise like a bass drum, and my shit disappears down the hole. Success! Sweet God yes! The weight of the water must have squished it through the head of the needle. I repeat this process several times over, probably flushing three or four payloads down the toilet. About thirty minutes later I come out of the bathroom and The Wife is laughing at me. "What were you doing in there? Beating a drum?"

That was ridiculous. Speaking of which, remind me to tell you about the Ridiculous Clock. These people were all about frustrating housewares.

I am somewhere in the vicinity of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I have been drinking all day, and I feel like a champion.

I am staying at The Wife's Father's Girlfriend's house (which is friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend awkward for me); and it is way too nicely outfitted for a person of my drunkedness.

Remind me to ask you about the Impossible Toilet.

I have a rental car. I bought the retarded $20 insurance policy. Enterprise is going to cry when they see what I bring home next week.

Until then? Crickets...

Leaving in the morning for a prolonged (and past due) vacation; so blogging will be light.

Which of course is a retardedly redundant statement.

I just wish there was someone else I could share this blog with. Maybe even two someone else's would be nice.

Yeah, two. So i;ll be taking applications when I get back. You can post them in the comments, or just send them to the two emails on the sidebar over there that don't belong to me.

More importantly than a co-blogger, I need a co-spammer. Seriously, I'm despamming 20 or thirty comments a day on this bad biotch; and that shit is monotonous and sucky beyond belief. I'd punch a baby if it would keep spam away for a day, and then I would continue to punch that unfortunate little fucker every day just for ransom. I'd pay serious dough to hire someone to find spammers, fucking break into their houses, rip their nuts off, eat them, and shit them down their throats.

Oh fuck me, the goddamn local dumbass news channel has these 'meteorologists', and they just interrupted my fucking TV program to tell me there's a thunderstorm three counties away. Right at the good part of the show too.

You know what?

Fuck three counties away, alright! I'm watching my fucking nationally broadcast, live TV show; and I don't give a fuck what's going on out there in western bumfuck flyover country! They can kiss my ass!