04/22/2005 - 5:29 p.m. | i ain't no rolla back girl

Seems like whenever something happens involving Ducky, it takes me forever and a half just to get the damn thing down on paper. He's coming in, though, for the party, and I definitely don't want to be two insanely long entries behind, so I'm going to try and cover our spring break trip to Rolla, Missouri, right quick.

I started off in a right pissy mood, as I had been ready since like noon of that day, but everyone else had shit to do, so we didn't get out the door until 4:30. Then immediately back in the door at 4:45 because Kyle forgot his book or something. Then to the scary hardware store to pay the power bill, then finally in the end-of-work traffic to get on the way. I just hate waiting sometimes, is all.

Drove to nearly St. Louis or so, the one town with the one gas station with the one strangely-attractive girl working there. Since I was the driver and since I had also decided that this gave me decision-making power over everyone, we stopped at McDonald's for dinner. Kyle had these coupons for buy one get one free Chicken Selects, which we stealthily passed between us for maximum amount of chicken asshole. I ate so god damned much horrible food. And there were these like 15 year old twins there, so we had to sort of watch them, you know how it goes.

As we waited for Kyle to pee or whatever:
Me: Shelly, why are you bringing that BBQ sauce along?
Shelly: We can always use more sauce.
Me: Yeah, but that sauce isn't going to last in the backseat with you guys all weekend. It's going to get smashed on the floor before we get to Rolla.
Shelly: No, it won't.

That said, we all sat in the car for several minutes and waited for everyone to prepare their drinks, because we sure as fuck are not driving to god damn horrible Missouri with a car full of sober roommates, laws be damned. They all started getting a nice buzz on, and Kyle started dialing random numbers for our entertainment - first hilarious things we spelled out (1-800-GOATRAP, for instance) and then random numbers on billboards. Most of the time Kyle would say he was "Yousaf Niggerface Malhance Jewlover," specifically giving them Yousaf's phone number and address and making some truly awful attempts at a Pakastani accent (with flashes of German??) We stopped at a 7-11, where I purchased Kyle nearly two gallons of Mt. Dew (The Mega Big Gulp!) for him to mix more drinks with. He was sad. "No more Dew, no more Dew..." He was mistaken.

We got to Rolla around 10, but neither Ducky nor Kyle's friend DannyR were answering their phones, so we headed to Rape Central (some gas station) and sent Shelly in to flirt and ask for directions. Clearly, it might have been unwise to drive my particular ribbon-adorned vehicle around right in the middle of the bible belt. Big trucks everywhere, people eating Slim Jims and glaring at us.

Found our way to Ducky's, but it was a little more difficult finding Ducky himself. Around here, he's always the big one and easy to spot, but there, he is a big one among many, and they were all wearing the same damn green sweatshirt. This was the weekend following St. Patrick's Day, see, and "St. Pat's" is a very huge deal on this particular campus. St. Patrick is their patron saint of engineering; I thought he mostly drive the snakes out of Dublin or whatever. Anyway, they stretch the celebration out for over a week, and most of the time is spent with their dear official green sweatshirts. With a large horrible strip of elastic at the base to accentuate the beer guts as much as structurally possible. I could speak more on them and their awful designs, but Shelly had a monopoly on it, really, and I've deprived her too much as it is.

Ducky showed us around the frat, which was a hell of a lot cleaner and better-maintained than any of the shitheaps I've seen on our campus. Still, same old frat guys, though, and we instantly became a set of four sore thumbs. Where were our Hollister striped polos and Sigma Pi baseball hats? I left them in the car, I swear. These were the type of people that actually would mock Kyle for drinking a girl drink instead of that old manly standard, the beer. "Dude, is he holding that for his girlfriend or something?" What a strange area to be close-minded in.

Ducky, gracious host that he is, immediately tried to fill us up with booze, but we still had to find a place to stay for the night. I had been looking forward to sleeping in this awful, awful place (possibly in a pool of someone's vomit), but Spritz wanted a hotel and who knows what they would have done to Shelly, so we had Ducky try and find us a place, hopefully within reasonable walking distance. The Ho-Jo was sucked back into the pits of hell apparently, as there was none where Mapquest said there was one, so we traveled on to the American Motor Inn. Spritz checked in, fibbing a little and saying there were only 2 of us, while we all hid in the car.

Walked in, and clearly this was not the Ritz. It smelled like cats, the beds were hard as hell, and the sink had big bite marks in it or something. And right next to the thing was a shopping bag with poop in it. Yeah, no sweat. Spritz took the poop bag to the lobby in an effort to get a discount or an apology or something, and they said, and I quote, "Don't worry about it." Good advice. We walked down Rape Alley past the dogs and corpses or whatever and back to Ducky's frat. I sucked down a large portion of Kyle's Mega Gulp to try and catch up. It's frat time, boys!

The basement part was crowded as hell, but we were still a little too intimidated (read "sober") to function in that. Once we got our grape sodas for mixing, we ran upstairs. Ducky lives on the top floor with a varying amount of people, I can't really say. They have secret passages in walls and whatnot, so there might have been migrant workers chilling, I have no idea. We sat around in the couch room with a bunch of randoms, most of the girls reading copies of "Hustler" and commenting on the grossness of the vaginas. I was still highly resistent to the idea of actually being in a frat and sit there disassembling a Rubicks cube so as to reassemle it correctly and look smart, waiting for the juice to kick in. Eventually, it did.

I started talking to this one girl, Renee was her name, I guess. Jury's still out on her. From what I've been told, she may have had a gap between her front teeth, but I may also have drunkenly admitted that "it works on her." Anyway, it seemed like she was pretty, maybe even unattainable Champaign person pretty, and for some reason my charms were working on her. What a strange package I must present, with my homemade t-shirt, bellybutton ring, and complete willingness to yell high-speed Ludacris lyrics at a moment's notice. Anyway, she sort of brushed up next to me on her way out and told me she'd look for me at the party across the street. It's on! Clearly, she must have been coked out of her mind.

Oh wait - I think Shelly has a picture. Hold on...

Yeah, that's her in the middle, see? She's not so bad. On the right, we have Ducky, in the aforementioned sweatshirt, and on the left we have his roommate Carter, the drunkest man alive. He was gone beyond reason from the second I saw him, still reeling from this night the next one. He stumbled around and showed off his ass and asked for Shelly's name like 20, 30 times. His girlfriend (Not pictured - I don't know who the cretin he is headlocking is) was a junior in high school named Nikki (Nick Carter, see? It's a mnemonic device! That's how I remember these things); she had big old boobies. Apparently that night Carter fucked Nikki in the bed right underneath Ducky's (I am fairly impressed he could get it up, let alone aim the damn thing). He then pissed the bed. Classy fellow.

Across the street was DannyR's frat and the big party for the evening, so we weaved our way over there. Ran into Renee on the way, and we smiled. SINNER YOU ARE A SINNER I am well aware. It would seem one disadvantage these frats have to our is that they are not actually allowed to serve alcohol. If you know somebody, you can get beer or whatever, but the parties are essentially dry. Weak, Missouri. Weak. Kyle and Shelly tried to find DannyR by sneaking inside the frat, with a brief stop in some random guy's room to hardcore dry hump or whatever. Unfortunately, the guy was still there, and despite being a good deal shorter than Kyle, started challenging him to a fight. Ah, that's the kind of love I came here looking for. They got away and found Danny, though, and we all had a pissing contest on some wall. Danny was pretty far smashed, and he and Kyle and Spritz went off to talk, leaving me and Shelly alone with Danny's rat-faced girlfriend (She looked a lot better in the picture I have of her covered only in green paint).

There were almost enough people dancing inside to make things worthwhile, so most of the evening was spent doing that. I don't know what had gotten into me (Oh yes I do), but I was dancing all elaborate as hell, pantomiming shit all crazy. You know I'm far gone when I'm actually dancing with girls, and there I was, all up in some people's business. A weird, grinding conga line had formed, and Renee came from out of nowhere and dragged me into it behind her. I grabbed at her own navel piercing (a barbell), which I must admit was fucking hot as hell. The line collapsed, and we were both suddenly taken by awful partners, me with some nugget and her with some giant ogre. We danced with our backs to them, however, facing each other and smiling because we knew we were not attracted to them, and they did not know this. I was having a pretty great time (as stroking my ego tends to do), but I guess her friends wanted to leave, so she asked me "smilin hard suggesting and" if I wanted to go back to her friend's place and "drink or whatever." Clearly, I did, but I'm apparently no adulterer, so I had to give her the old heave-ho.

Still, that put me in a good mood for the rest of the night, so I wandered around with Ducky for a while. It's sort of funny how insanely popular he is there. I mean, he is the perfect man and all, but it's like every person we ran into all weekend knew him and wanted to talk to him. The party started to die down a little, so I held Spritz's cigarette while he and Ducky played pool outside on the lawn table. Kyle and Shelly caught a ride back to the hotel while the rest of us looked around for something to do - we hit the party up a little more, but it was turning suck, and it seemed like most everyone was getting ready to pass out. Finally, Spritz and I said our goodbyes to Ducky and started our way back.

When we had been walking on the way there, Ducky gave us the lame tour, pointing out what he said was this old ice factory that looked about as creepy as any place fucking could. So, I made a promise with Jesus that I would try and see inside this place, and there just happened to be a floating door that some poor migrant worker had left unlocked. Oh my God, was it the creepiest place ever! I think it was for doing industrial laundry or something, but it was all dark and filled with these big threatening machines and it was so quiet and forboding. Have you guys seen the movie Saw? Because it was totally the type of place Saw-man would have lived at. It was awesome. We ran out.

Back at the hotel, Spritz had a smoke and this old cheeseburger I gave him, and we hung around outside. I wasn't tired at all. All of a sudden, though, the people in the lobby start waving us over, so we come in and talk to them. It would appear they are on to our little game. "How many people are staying in your room?" "2 - me and him," says Spritz. He calls sleeping Kyle and Shelly, however, and asks them the same question. "4." God damn it. So all of a sudden he's incoherently explaining something, and he pulls out two keys for 2 new rooms, and he's asking Spritz for $60. Wait, what the fuck just happened?!

So, we stand outside and discuss for a little and then go in to talk with Kyle and Shelly and decide what to do. Clearly, what they did was not fucking fair at all; I mean, fine, charge us more for the one room if you must, but this extra 2 room shit is ridiculous. We should go and yell at them, but some worry that the police might get called, and we are underaged and drunk. I am not clever enough to know what to say, but I just keep arguing that we have to say something. Finally, we get our shit together and head on over.

We end up having at least a half an hour shouting match with the Indian guy, his wife who can only speak Spanish, and the daughter who we had brought the poop bag to. I stood in the background, saying nothing, and doing my best to look menacing. We'll just assume I failed. Shelly was getting as upset as hell, yelling and (God forbid!) even swearing a little bit. They were just not being reasonable. We even said that we werent going to use the two rooms they gave us, so take the keys back and give us our money, but they wouldn't do that shit. No refunds or something. And it was just back and forth over and over, and the f-bomb was dropped more than a few times, and everyone was so indignant, and we had to start threatening them about the poop bag, saying we'd,I dunno, sue or go to the health board or whatever, but they still wouldn't budge. I think it was finally Shelly who got to them, asking them if they really needed the money that badly (haha, all insulting-like). They ended up giving us a refund on one of the rooms, which meant we paid about what we should have for our room in the first place. We still weren't going to sleep in that murder zone, though, so we decided to crash together anyway.

But first! We ran over to Denny's across he street. None of us were hungry besides Kyle, I think, but we had to relish in our victory for a bit. Rolla's so weird and small that I recognized half of the people there from the party that night. Our waitress was a bag lady, I think - not that I was so lucid by this point myself. I got all philosophical, talking about how I was like a movie camera and how I just recorded all of these events. Everyone nodded politely.

Spritz kept stealing the covers, and I apparently yelled out gibberish in my sleep.

I was up early the next day and decided to take a shower. Now there was a big fucking mistake. The water started off tepid and only got colder as time went on. I could hardly keep myself from screaming and/or laughing the whole time, it was so awful. In the end, I found it was warmer to fill up the tub some and splash handfuls of water. On my genitals and whatnot. That'll kickstart the senses!

We eventually got out the door and to the Chinese place across the street. My Mt. Dew tasted like fucking lead, I swear to God, but the food wasn't bad. Ducky had a rugby match that day, and we wanted to watch, so called another of Kyle's friends and asked for directions. They were misguided as hell, however, ending with us out by some damn mountains and plains, so then we went from gas station to gas station trying to find Frat Gardens or whatever it was. Some sorority girl offered to lead us there, and we followed, stinking of cured meats (Well, not me, those other gross fucks).

Rugby is maybe the best sport there is, even if I don't understand what the fuck is going on. It's like they took football, though, and improved on every terrible part of it. Much more grunting and weird gridlocking and holding guys up in the air to intercept the ball. And lots of big guys in shorts! YES!

We gave Ducky a ride back to the frat and then hit up a new hotel, a nice, safe Drury Inn. Everyone took turns showering while we watched some special on "A&E" about religious cults. It was fairly awesome. From there, we got Ducky again and hit up some horrible, horrible pizza buffet place. Yet another Mt. Dew was consumed. I did not even bother trying the pizza since it looked so frozen and blobby, but I did chow down on lots of flavorless mac and cheese and stupid hot wings (which Shelly kept taking, although clearly she should not have been having them, having ordered only the salad bar and not the full buffet - we live in a society of rules!!) Stopped at the store for drink mixers and then back to the hotel to get back on the clock.

Did we watch basketball? Well, they did. Shelly slept, and I couldn't stop doing terrible beatboxing over and over again. Annoying Nate! When she woke up, I kept poking her in the tummy and making raspberries. In hindsight, this may have been vaguely insulting.

Good and ready, we had Ducky call up one of his bitches to give us a ride. In the meantime, I tried leaping onto his shoulders so that I could ride around and yell stuff, but we didn't exactly have our system worked out, so I ended up falling on my spine from about five feet up. lol, it hurt so damn much I couldn't breathe. I could still laugh, though! It made my eyes go all slanted.

We were in a PT Cruiser.

We hit DannyR's frat first. Danny showed us this drink he made. Called a paintcan, you take, uh, well, an empty can of paint and fill it up with ice. You then add a fifth of vodka, 2 packets of Kool-Aid (he used pink lemonade), and Squirt until it is full. It was strong as hell, and though our perceptions might have been off, it tasted pretty awesome. Definitely on our to-do list. Then Kyle, who had been determined from the outset to get Danny to break up with his rat-faced girlfriend (in that she is a complete psycho), started in on him, leaving the rest of us to these strangers. I thought this one really pretty girl was giving me the eye, but it turns out she was DannyR's older brother's fiance, so somehow I don't think so. DannyR's brother, now graduated from Rolla, was apparently as close to big man on campus as anyone will ever get. Christ, people kept calling him "Zeus." Here's a weird thing: Once you're in a frat, you're never really hazed again. Unless an alum from your frat comes. Then they can make you do whatever they frat. Some of these alumni were there, wearing scary leather half-gloves (The better to smash your face in with - if you don't chug that beer now! NO!)

Anyway, through Kyle's repeated proddings and DannyR constantly calling his girlfriend a whore and telling her to stay the fuck there, we eventually got out the door without her and to the big party of the evening. It's funny - this is supposed to be their super huge, crazy event, and this big party was like the size of a normal one here on campus. Poor kids. Ducky went off to talk to the old people (Tons and tons of middle-aged people who had graduated were hanging out at this party), DannyR and Kyle went to scream drunkenly back and forth at one another on the porch, and Shelly went back again and again for more cups of beer and "tea" (which was stupid because it was clearly not tea - it was lemonade with shit in it - so why did everyone fucking call it tea?), leaving me and Spritz to fend for ourselves. Spritz was still in bad shape from the previous night, so he didn't want much to do with anybody, so we stood in a corner and made fun of people. And tried to convince others we weren't gay. But mostly the making fun of. And what a crowd we had. There were all these guys in kilts, but one was so drunk or so foreign that it just sound like he was yelling growls at people. "RRRAASTGARRRAARRRGGAAATTTTRRRSTTTAAN!" There was some woman who had just gotten married and was parading around in her huge dress. Lots of artfaggy kids and this one with hair like a lion. This Asian nugget walked by, and Spritz asked a little too loud, "Is she a midget?" She overheard him (as had most of the party... and Missouri, perhaps) and yelled back that she was not, in fact, a midget, and one of her friends said we were awful people something something something. The cops might have come by to bust some people, so all of a sudden everyone crowded in the house. Kyle and Danny, of course, were oblivious and just kept yelling and drinking and pissing off the edge of the balcony. Shelly, with her typical propensity for attracting the old, creepy, and mentally... down-trodden, got this terrible old fellow on her back right away. Maybe he wasn't retarded but only drunk to the point where he seemed like it, but mostly he went around whining for beer and when Shelly gave him some of hers, he kept touching her on the bare back with his horrible, horrible hands (It was probably the drugs or whatever, but I swear he only had 4 fingers). But that's what basic human decency will get you.

Here is what made the tiny pin I bought from PETA worth the $2:

Girl (reading drunkenly, slowly): "I am not a nugget..."
Me: I beg to differ (exit).

Spritz decided the scene was getting old, and so began the horrible process of trying to drag everyone up. Ducky didn't want to leave, I don't think, but he was ever the gracious host and downed his huge cup of "tea." I thought the plan was to go to other parties, but we ended up back at Danny's frat, where he started throwing chairs around in the shower. And then Kyle started throwing chairs around. And then dropped Shelly's camera. And then Danny went and started kicking this one car over and over, so its alarm would go off. They all decided to go back to the hotel room, where Danny started unscrewing the legs off chairs. When his girlfriend called, Kyle answered and explained "he jizzin' on a black chick." She continued to prattle on, some lie about family problems or something, and Kyle passed the phone to Spritz, who indeed confirmed "he jizzin' on a black chick." He was not actually doing that. It also turned out Kyle had never been more flacid in all his life. I'm so mad I missed out.

See, I decided to stay with Ducky, since I never, ever get to see his ass, and since I still wasn't tired at all. If possible I would always follow him around as he did frat things, and I thought maybe we were going to some more parties, but apparently that last cup of "tea" hit him hard because all of a sudden he could hardly move. We stood around talking to some guys from the rugby house, and I made up elaborate lies so that it would seem like I lived there, talking about the official frat dog or something. Then we retired upstairs to watch Datsun commericals from the mid-70s and eventually pass out. Good thing I ended up paying for that hotel room - I slept on the hard as hell floor using one of Piss Pant's shirts for a pillow. I woke up once to piss in a Pepsio bottle in the dark and to toss it into the adjacent couch room where I was fairly sure I could hear two people going at it. Gross. Best night's sleep I ever had.

We drove back to the hotel the next day and got our shit together. We planned on having one last meal together at some really good Asian place, so it was fucking SHONEY'S for a buffet instead. Yums. I really love those, uh, beef fingers. And the gross pile of dirty plates for us to choose from. Really, it could not have gone better. We tried to take a dramatic picture under the Shoney's sign, but it was not meant to be. We'll miss you, Ducky.

From there, we drove to Waterloo, IL, to see Shelly's family. They were clearly happy to see us, especially me and my super-patriot ride. We sat watching "Family Feud" for a while, and I started digging through their burned DVDs to see if there was anything worth copying. Underneath all of the Jesus DVDs at the bottle was a single CD-R that read "Movie Files" on it in a drunken scrawl. Clearly, this was porn, and someone ran to go and confirm this. Right you are. "Jenna Haze doggie style.mpg," etc. You rule, Shelly's dad! Some of her family came over - her grandma and her fat cousins - and I don't know if I kept the disgust off of my face adequately. Shelly's sister and her boyfriend returned, the latter with this ridiculous little motorcycle scooter he had recently purchased. It is the silliest thing I have ever seen; it's so small that to sit on it you have to put your knees out all crazy chicken style. Shelly rode it around as did her dad. Stop with the insipid details, Nate.

We drove back to St. Louis to go to The King & I, this really good Thai place Shelly and Kyle had been raving about. Like everyone we go, it was filled with uggos and cretins, but the food was good, and the broken English drink descriptions were hilarious. "Rum for Years, you will learn all Night long!" Oh. I shall one of those. Back to Waterloo to pick up Shelly's friend Abby and drive her back to SIU. The plan was to go out and hit some wild parties, but town was dead and no one there wanted to do anything, so we stayed in and played Scattegories instead. Good Burger was on. Oh, those wild college nights.

I'm not sure if Abby hates me or not. It's weird. In some ways, she's so completely like Shelly that it's scary. The Walmart fetish and the same sense of style and the insane bitchy competitive nature. In other respects, though... I dunno. She seemed distasteful of me. Her dorm certain has the most stringent policies in the world, though. Each person is only allowed two guests at a time, so we had to have her roommate sign us in, and they take all this information down, and you have to do it each time you come in, even if it's just to get your bag or something. Fuck them. Burn it down.

Oh. We visited a puppy. I don't care about any damn puppy.

Spritz and I shared this crazy teeter-totter futon. When ever he rolled to the one side, mine would shoot up and roll me to his boxer-clad ass. We don't do these trips for the slumberland bliss, though.

Started the drive home the next day, stopped at Cracker Barrel for too much damn food (fried okra!) and this awesome label maker thing for Bubble Tape (Finally! I can have gum that says "CUNT" on it over and over), spent way too much on gas, and got home just in time for Missy to have only waited an hour with Leonard. Oh, Leonard :( I hear birds chirping sometimes, and I think it's you for a second.

Oh - and that damn BBQ sauce got smashed like I said and got all over my damn coat. I hate being right so often.