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� 08/18/2005 - 11:23 a.m. | now i'm on wounded knee, and we're at waterloo In our ever-expanding series of �Nate Never Fucking Updates This Shit,� we now present: Waterloo Journey: A Tale in Several Acts. ACT I: The job gets worse (or better, depending on how you look at it). The Thursday in question I had come in to work very early, as rumor had it The Boss would be visiting, and I wanted to make it seem like I was an enterprising young upstart. After 5 plus hours, however, I was about damn sick of being enterprising, so I got my shit together to head out the door. As I was walking out, the second my hand was on the door handle to freedom, guess who popped in with a computer dork and about 17 hours worth of information to pump into my head? You guessed it, Big Nose. I mean, Brian Van Holm. I ended up working like 7 hours that day and 6 the next, and I was none too pleased about that progression of events. Part-time job, I emphasize. PART TIME. Not ALL TIME. The good news is that we were converting to a computerized system for my job, meaning a lot less work for me in the long run. The bad news was that it was a lot lot lot more work in the short run, learning a new system, entering data, blah blah blah. My guides through this valley of despair were Brian, who made uneducated suggestions as if computers were magic (�Could we make it spray fire out the floppy drive when he is being unproductive?�) and Jason, the computer guy, who I guess used to work in the video game industry but gave it all up for this exciting lifestyle. �Descent II? Fuck Descent II! I want to deal with poor people! All day long!� I�m sure he gets paid an astronomical amount, but I don�t know if it�s all that worth it. Anyway, as is mostly likely the case with all old people, I was instantly reminded of Harve, especially in the suggestions regarding my wardrobe: �Did you get the shirts we sent you?� And, in an eerie flashblack to Snake King, I was advised not to wear �thongs,� as we are trying to create a fa�ade of professionalism. Only people from the 1920s call them that, sir. But, more to the point, I am not going to wear those fucking shirts for one day, let alone every day. Will I get fired for this? Yes, sure. I don�t care about your �professionalism� � I don�t know if you noticed, but this is the fucking shittiest enterprise anywhere. Big stacks of paper, lost files, the worst looking letters ever, errors constantly. I doubt that beige shirt is going to trick anyone � even poor people. You know me � I can�t stand it when the boss is around, and this was two days full of it. Plus, I was a fairly quick study at the computer stuff (Something I don�t expect they were used to), so there was a lot of time with all of us just sitting there, like, �What do we do???� I had paperwork and about 35 phone calls to sort through, but I guess that would have been rude. I think Jason would have just let me go, as he seemed like an OK guy, especially once he realized I wasn�t an idiot, but Brian is just like Harve, always puttering around over your shoulder, looking for something to do (and I mean criticize). I can�t stand old people, I think. Which is why I will take myself out before I ever get there. I�ve upped the limit to 45, though, as that generally seems to be the age when your world starts spiraling down the shitter. My ageism aside, it was a pretty awkward couple of days, especially when Brian invited me out to lunch on Friday. I still don�t know how to ask grownups questions, so I focused on myself and choked down my Ruby Tuesdays as fast as I could. Ladies: I promise I am typically a better date than that, although it is likely I will swear much, much more. They had me dragging along, doing nothing for a few hours, until I finally snapped and asked if I could leave. I might have lied about a sick family member. Oh � and here�s a good one! Apparently they were firing the old inspector after however long he had been there, and I made sure to send him off right by inadvertently giving him the shittiest day ever. See, I rescheduled a bunch of inspections from morning to afternoon, but I guess I forgot to send out notice to these people letting them know this, so most of the afternoon was spent with him either dealing with absent people or very irate present people, who were pissed they have to wait like 6 hours for their inspection. Uh, my bad, man. I thought I was dead in the parking lot, too, when I saw like half the ribbons on the driver side of the car were missing. It sparked my imagination such that when the lanky wiry-haired giant knocked on my window, I assumed he was out for revenge. Nope. �Do you think you could trade me one of these �Support Our Troops� ribbons for your �These Colors Don�t Run?�� Um, sure. I am the National Bank for magnetic ribbons, aren�t I? But as I�m giving him the ribbon, he goes, �Thanks a lot, man. Someone took the one I had off my truck. Who would do a thing like that?� �I have no idea, sir, but they are sick, I�ll tell you that. I have to go right now.� ACT II: Last stand at� Came home, grabbed Kyle, got our shit together, and we took off for Waterloo, in an entirely involuntary trip to visit Shelly and her family. She tells him, he goes; he tells me, I go. I don�t tell anyone. Our main entertainment for the trip is a true story about a furry convention, which I read aloud as Patrick Stewart. For dinner, we stop at a Long John Silvers in Vandalia. I get something called a �Treasure Chest,� which is essentially the same pile of fried asshole, only in much larger quantities. I ate a surprising amount of it as we drove along, wearing our pirate hats and screaming 90s hits. I had a goblet of makeshift lemonade, made with about 80 lemon juice packets stolen from the same, that I kept saluting everyone with. We looked quite mad, you know. Doesn�t it just drive you crazy how I switch tenses pretty much at random? lol, good luck with that one, editors! If you touch my prose, I�ll break you. We pulled up in style, and Shelly and Kyle made out like they were long lost lovers. What�s it been, guys? 36 hours? Tops? I don�t know how you put up with the pain there. You were both born with brave souls, I guess. Perhaps I am merely jealous I am not allowed access to the gene pool. Damn you, Jessie Wetzler, and your perfect body and razor-sharp mind. She just conveniently left her professionally-done senior pictures lying around on the table downstairs (The only table I would happen to ever examine, incidentally), and they make me feel very dirty indeed. All these little poses in a cheerleader outfit with the wind in her hair and shit. Out, lustful thoughts, out! It didn�t help that her boyfriend (the pro-BMX racer???) was out of town for the weekend, so she spent quite a bit of time with us, with me, next to me in the backseat of Shelly�s car. Where are you now, shotgun skills? It was on purpose, wasn�t it, subconscious? Damn you. Act III: �Did I do that?� Our main entertainment for the weekend, our entire reason for being there apparently, was the Mon-roe County Fair (Waterloo is a county seat! Good for you!), and the redneck activities contained therein. Friday night was the big demolition derby, and you could imagine how excited I was to be there. �We need booze. Now.� Still, it�s good to be back in the real world for a little while. I�ve been sort of cut off this summer, and I keep forgetting how gigantic the world�s boobs tend to be. High school girls all bouncing around � hell, coulda been middle school girls maybe. All I know is I didn�t have those girls in my fucking high school. I remain intimidated. Smart girls I can deal with, but me and the beautiful exist on two different planes, and I can�t even imagine how to communicate with them. I stick with my covert stares then. Shelly forced us to sit and watch the events for a little while, and they were not even as exciting as my lowered expectations. Apparently the nerds drive their cars on mud, so they can�t get too much traction and build up speed. Man, fuck that. When Kyle and I are rich, we�re going to get rental cars and ram into each other in the middle of the Wal-mart parking lot. �Good thing I paid that ten dollar insurance fee, huh, Kyle?� �*coma*� We met up with Abby (a.k.a. Dark Shelly) and her friend JWebb, who bears a striking resemblance to drunken Head Goober Jimmy, and sat through the first heat, pestering Shelly until she would let us go to Wal-mart and get something, anything, to make this more tolerable. I was not in a downright foul mood, but nor was I in the jolly mood substances can put me in. I�ll be smiling at your idiocy then, town! We hit the store for some shit. Kyle stuck with his usual root beer and brandy. He did opt for something a bit classier than Christian Brothers. The old E&J, my friend. I do not have a clever acronym for what those letters stood for, but the �J� might be �jaundiced.� We drove back to the fair, and everyone rushed back to the stands but for me and Kyle who sat in the car doing Jaleels and talking. Kyle, going on about ACT scores and the fetal energy expenditure theory of evolution, unwittingly drank about 2/3 of the whole bottle before we finally got out of the car. Standing up was the first of many mistakes made that evening. The second would be me questioning his nearly immediate mutation from lucid Kyle into dopey grinning drunk Kyle, forcing him to demonstrate his trump-all sobriety test � multiple clapping push-ups. How surprising that this only made things worse. Suddenly, he was entirely unwilling to follow even the simplest of commands. For example, �Don�t dive into random cars.� This he did, with impunity, scoring a bottle of oil, a phone number, and several picture CDs before I could tempt him onward (The only reward that got him moving was the promise of the rest of my bottle of root beer and brandy when we�d crossed the street). We had an impromptu chugging contest, which went like this: Kyle: Chugging contest! Once we got inside the carnival (sneaking in the cracks between two of the rides), my ultimate goal was to get Kyle to Shelly where he could be successfully passed off onto her, and I would be free to enjoy my buzz. Kyle�s goals were twofold: He had spotted some hacky sack people around earlier and wanted to play with them now. He also wanted some weed. He�s never smoked before, and we didn�t even have the proper equipment to do so, but the boy wanted weed. His plan for success was to go up to any group of people (Three people constituted a group), grab the most attractive girl of said group, and ask them if they had either of these things. It was my job as guardian to make sure I got him away from the group when either they looked too afraid or there were cops standing nearby. And cops were everywhere. Maybe Kyle�s behavior was not as standout as I might have thought. But anyway, as you might suspect, Kyle�s insistence on speaking to everyone slowed our progress to a crawl. He kept coming up to groups of people, asking about the drugs, and fuck, they were asking us to buy cigarettes for them. Too young to buy smokes equals way too young to be legal for much else. For instance, he was hardcore hitting on this one Avril Lavigne chick in this one group. �Wait,� I said. �How old are you guys?� Girl goes, �Thirteen.� Oh, fuck me. Let�s get out of here, Kyle. The demo derby let out between heats (Time lost meaning during this period � Were we there hours? Days?), and Shelly started calling. �Come to the beer garden. I want Kyle to meet some of my friends.� �No you don�t, Shelly.� Enough prodding eventually convinced her to come over and help me pull him away from the prepubes. She still had the foolish notion he could be properly introduced to her acquaintances. �Ask sober, Kyle. For me.� Silly girl. She�d learn not to repeat this mistake. Speaking of which, I�ve decided that mistake zero (as in �patient zero,� the first carrier of a disease) was Shelly nagging Kyle that, while he could drink in Waterloo, he couldn�t get shithoused. Sounds like a challenge to me, right? Oh, I can�t, can I? So, we approach a couple of Shelly�s friends, and they�re sort of busy chatting. Kyle gets antsy. �Which one is Melissa again?� �Her.� Loudly: �The one behind the mountain there?!� The mountain being another girl in the group. I think he also pointed out the huge zit on Melissa�s face, again pretty loudly. Somehow everyone failed to notice or politely ignored him or something because introductions went off civilly. Maybe I was the slightest bit jealous here, as Kyle�s drunken antics were stealing the show, and I don�t think anyone noticed I existed. �ARGLE BARGLE I AM KYLE WILD KING OF UNIBALL!� �What?� �UNIBALL IS AN ONLINE COMPETITIVE GAME OF WHICH I AM THE CHAMPION� �I�m Nate, by the way.� �I CAN TELL EVEN THE BEST PLAYERS WHAT THEY NEED TO IMPROVE UPON.� No one introduced me. At this point, Kyle is what I would still call �normal drunk.� He was still drunk � very drunk � but it was within normal limits I had seen. Maybe I should have been a little more suspicious that he fell over in the dirt twice � once nearly crushing a small handicapped child Shelly used to babysit for � that bad things were to come, but I was sort of cruising myself. Shelly hurried us away from her friends, and we started to walk towards the stands. Somehow Kyle managed to elude both of us and disappear for five minutes. He reappeared, pissing on a tractor on display. He then sent me on laps around the tractor while he tried to make out with Shelly and tell her all his usual drunken lovey bullshit. �Four laps, Nate!� I�d keep count. �Two more!� Fuck off. We made it to our spot (I was frankly a little concerned as navigating the stands had been a little unwieldy while sober; I couldn�t imagine him keeping balance this time around) and sat and watched the end of the derby. Kyle was relatively calm at this point � we call that the calm before the storm. He would stand up and yell sometimes, occasionally forgetting to sit back down, and he would talk dangerously close to everyone's ear (Abby: �You�re kind of freaking me out��), and he was still drinking (some beer Shelly had smuggled in), but this was all tolerable. He even had my back, introducing me to Shelly�s one megahot friend that had been sort of awkwardly sitting there the whole time. �This is Nate,� he slurs and then gives me an obnoxious wink. Thanks, dude. It was at about this point that Kyle went into a whole new stage. Maybe sitting for a while revitalized him, I don�t know, but he got up, and instantly he goes from mightily drunk to the brand new autistic four year old drunk. He gets out of the stands and starts doing fucking pullups on the bars in the front of them, screaming, �Take it to the� MAX! Take it to the� MAX!� the �MAX� falling on each time he was seriously exerting himself. I�m not even sure what imagined slight led to this feat of strength, but it was a fan favorite, I can assure you. Then, for the first time since I can remember, he took off running. The only person familiar enough with this form of Kyle, I took off after him and caught him by the next set of bleachers. �Let�s go under the bleachers and take a piss.� He was right. Kyle took a piss under some bleachers. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Anyway, after mumbling some insane bullshit about how it�d be like Star Trek (�How so?� �It�s like an away team,� and then he just starts naming cast members), he darts under the stands to do his business. I follow, carefully, to make sure everything goes off smoothly, which of course, it does not. In the process of peeing, he had entirely forgotten that he was under the rafters of some metal bleachers and stood up quickly, cramming a rather large piece of metal into his spine. He runs out, crying, and starts complaining to Shelly (who has since caught up). �Let me see it,� she says. Another mistake, for he rips off his shirt and is quite unwilling to put it back on thereafter. The wound was a nasty one, though, like a foot long gash right by his left shoulder. From what I�ve heard, it still hasn�t healed, but that could be due in part to the fact that he picks his scabs compulsively. Everything is a massive effort at this point, and Kyle refuses to follow any command, almost as if it�s out of spite. We finally get him to put his shirt back on and start lumbering towards the beer garden. His standards dropping by the second, he stumbles into a crowd of middle-aged women and starts telling them how lovely they are. They�ve been there before, I can tell, as they are fairly understanding in regards to his madness. We keep plugging along, nearer and nearer every second, but Kyle is still trying to find those damn hacky sackers (and possibly that damn weed). Frustrated, I eventually grab his face in my hands. �Kyle! Listen! As your best friend and roommate, I need you to do a favor for me. Just walk forward 20 yards without interruption. Can you do that for me?� He is stoic and agrees to it but is sidetracked mere moments later by the possibility of carnival food. He takes his time deciding but eventually goes with the chili cheese fries, which he starts devouring like a wild beast in the middle of a roaring crowd. We lead him towards a nearly open bench, which becomes an open bench in a matter of seconds, when the mother sitting there with his small son spots him. Apparently his reputation is starting to proceed him, as mothers are starting to pull their small children from whatever direction he is facing. Considering the ratio of his time spent walking to tumbling over on the ground, I can see why. In the ensuing madness of getting seated, however, Kyle knocks his cheese fries to the ground upside down. He starts pawing at them on the ground, like some sort of craven zombie, and is about to cram them into his mouth, all dirty and covered in gravel, when Shelly swats them away from him. Such rage I have never seen. �WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO ME!� It was the most sorrow I have ever seen in a living being, and I took this as my cue to start maybe wandering away. The people at the chili cheese fry stand took this outburst as a sign that Kyle was an abusive boyfriend and, in an effort to quell any domestic violence, gave him another order of fries for free. When he learned of his suspected abuse, however, this only sent him in another fit, of crying and moaning about the inequities of the world. And cramming of cheese fries into his face, dripping all over himself. �How could they think that, Shelly? I love you so much, beautiful girl CHOMP CHOMP GARGLE� I, meanwhile, got briefly involved in the world of the carnies, chatting with this guy Frog and learning all of the sweet success that is his life. Ran away from home to do this shit, apparently, but it�s now his last few days before he goes back home to find his lady love. How many teeth she has, I don�t know, but I�m sure it will all work out, Frog. He sends me to get a smoke for him from yet another carnie, who I also speak to briefly and learn more horrifying details about how entirely depressing their lives our and how the carnival boss is a cunning tyrant named Jeff. Well, you don�t have to worry, Mom and Dad. I�ve now taken �carnie� off my potential list of career options. Kyle has finished his fries now and is fairly well satisfied, so we are able to get him off the fairgrounds without further difficult. He tumbles into the front seat, and we get in the line of cars leaving the lot. He starts whining about various things � how much he has to piss (�It hurts so bad, Shelly!�) or take a dump � but clever Shelly is able to distract him by reminding him of the wound on his shoulder. �Don�t worry, Kyle; you�ll pee when we get home, and then we�ll clean up your cut, too.� �OWWW!� he moans, grabbing at a random part of his body. He didn�t even know where that shit was it. Finally, Shelly lets him out of the car to piss (�Just go hide behind a car and be quick, Kyle� � Mistake Number 12 now, is it?) where he spots one of the people he spoke with while weed hunting. They begin a shouting match, which completely distracts Kyle until he gets back into the car. �It hurts so bad!!� We get home and Kyle takes a five minute piss against the side of the Wetzler home (I guess he really did have to go bad). Shelly warns us to be quiet, and we do our best to oblige, immediately ignoring her. Jessie is still awake and comes to observe. Somehow she decides that I am the drunk one, even as Kyle is tumbling down the stairs. All evening, Kyle had been talking about getting some when we came home, so when the rest of us come to join him downstairs, his shirt and pants are off, and he is collapsed on the floor in a heap. Shelly starts cleaning his wounds (which reminded me of some scene from a superhero movie) with alcohol, telling him not to be loud, so of course he is acting like a pussy bitch, squeezing my hand with all his might, gritting his teeth, and moaning. I let him know what a girl he is, so he tries to prove his worth with more clapping push-ups, instead smashing his face full on into the ground. Able-bodied, the boy is. They went to the bathroom for a while, and I guess Kyle whipped his cock out. I stood against the door frame and fell asleep standing up, which turns out is an ability I have. Shelly and I stayed up for a while like two veteran parents, trying to stay silent long enough for our obnoxious child to fall asleep. I was plenty fucked up, I must admit, so I sat there doing gymnastics and playing golf while Shelly did homework at 2 in the morning. When she dropped off, I started watching music videos, going to bed around 5, maybe 6 in the morning. Act 17: THIS WILL BE SATURDAY He�s right; it will. Most of the day was spent recovering and watching that hot British chick on the Discovery Channel nip out as she was subjected to various extremes in temperature. We went with Abby and Shelly to some auction, but Kyle had no patience for that and sauce stains on his pants, so we hit Rural King for some new supplies � and fetching hats to boot. He got a relatively simple baseball hat, but after long searching, I had finally found my ridiculous black felt cowboy hat, which I purchased with little prodding from anybody. Yes, I look stupid, but finally a hat that works, right? A lot of the day was spent sleeping and gathering forces, but eventually we were ready to go to St. Louis and the King & I Thai restaurant� with Shelly�s sister again, who I assume was playing the role of my date for the evening. The food was fine, and we spent a fair amount of the evening trying to find our way in and out of the city, during which we battled a grasshopper on the dashboard and screamed the �Good Times� theme at random passerby (including the one hobo and his awesome makeshift wagon). I was fairly impressed that that Irish man somehow knew the word �Hangin� in a chow line.� Nobody knows that shit. Also, �Manah Manah.� I finally claimed my throne as radio Jesus when Tal Bachman�s �She�s So High�came on, and I was like, �You know, Tal Bachman is the son of the guy from the Canadian megagroup Bachman Turner Overdrive, whose song �Takin� Care of Business� I pretty much scan the airwaves for nonstop?� And then, well fuck, that fucking song came on next!! We tried our best to recreate the phenomenon, but it was not to be, and neither was that nasty custard at the one place. At Shelly�s, we sat and contemplated what to do, finally decided to go back to the fair and see the tractor pulls and the mediocre cover band Dr. No stone cold sober. There was a good idea if ever I�ve heard one. Bouncing tractors and unenthusiastic Whitesnake covers are not what gets me through my day, all right? We were not invited to any parties, and as Kyle spun Shelly around in the dirt pit, her tit fell out, marking the second or possibly third time I have seen the damn thing. I tried to go out and dance with some chicks at the concert, but I was not ready for that sort of thing at all, and it was embarrassing for all around. My bad. Wrong crowd to play Weezer to, by the way. Idiots. We got the fuck out of town. Shelly had been garage-sailing the last few days and had picked up some sweet purchases, including the Wizards & Warriors Adventure Playset and the Clue VCR Mystery Board Game. If you�ve never seen this shit, I suggest you get on eBay because it is fucking amazing watching community college actors do shitty accents and try and act all clever with a horrible script. Not a single person in the game has been in anything of note� except for the VCR sequel game!! Everyone else eventually passed out, and I was sort of fucked up and sat and watched the whole disjointed thing all the way through, just to get the full effect. Once everyone tumbled downstairs, I decided I could not sleep and prowled around the house, eventually writing all these notes in the dark. They are mostly illegible, and even if they weren�t, I don�t think you�d want to read them, as they sound like Chicken Soup for the Soul but roughly the summary as such: I have decided there are two paths my life could take, and each path is exemplified by a girl. The normal life is Missy � marriage, boring job, kids, blah blah blah. The crazy life is Julie Downs (the girl we met as extras, who I can�t even imagine would ever like me) filled with drugs and girls and success and probably insane downfall and death. And which one of those am I supposed to choose? The difference between accomplishments and experience, apparently, and the quest for greatness and blah blah blah� I get so pseudodeep sometimes it makes me sick. I�ll just hide this junk with my old diaries all filled with sexual content and such. On Sunday, we drove home (I drove home). I had bad allergies and worked frenetically on the D&D campaign. Quincy Jones was involved somehow.
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