*Subtitle: Wow, it only took me a month to finish talking about a week-long vacation!

The last day of my vacation was really anti-climactic, so I'm going to get that out of the way first. On Sunday, we did even more nothing. Maybe even less than nothing. We all slept late and spent the entire day in our pajamas. We watched some DVDs, snacked instead of eating actual meals, and spent hours playing video games. Mostly Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure and Tak 2: Staff of Dreams for GameCube. And that's really about it. Like I said, we just might have done less than nothing. This was the end of the vacation. The next day was back to work. Blech.

The real adventure of the weekend was Sister and Annie's housewarming party on Saturday. Late in the afternoon we loaded up the car with our beverages (mostly beer), the food (a tray of brownies and Girlfriend's superb taco dip), and our gifts for the girls.

We brought two gifts. Unfortunately, neither of them was a giant can of nacho cheese sauce. The "real" gift was something girly. Candles and lotions or some crap like that. I was just as surprised as the girls were. I forgot what it was immediately after they opened it.

The other gift was a giant box of liquor. Girlfriend and I cleaned out our cupboard and decided to give them the vast quantity of half-drunk booze bottles we'd accumulated over the years. Schnapps, gin, vodka, whiskey… we had a bottle of just about everything. And we were never going to use it. All we kept was my Jack Daniels and my Cuervo. I'll drink those. Everything else was just sitting around getting dusty. Anyway, our gift of inebriation was very well received. There were "oohs" and "ahhs," a few "holy shits," and I suspect a few erect nipples as well.

Not long after arriving, Sister casually slipped in something about The Grade School Teacher and her husband coming to the party. She always does that to me and, foolishly, I never see it coming. Grade School Teacher is one of my least favorite people. It never occurs to me that she'll be at any particular gathering, and Sister always "forgets" to mention it until after I'm already there.

As with most parties, there wasn't really any structured series of events. Nearly the entire party was everyone sitting around, slowly getting drunk, and laughing at each other. All total, there were fifteen or twenty people there. Among the guests were a few blogstars, including Sister of course, Giggs and husband, the inestimable Keeks, and even Meow. Meow is a third-shifter right now, so she looked a bit startled at having been dragged out into the light.

Highlights of the party, in no particular order, included:

• Sister's friend "S" making an ass out of himself by attempting to describe how racially-oriented humor is only funny when it's offensive and genuinely racist

• Giggs dog clawing up her brand new tent. Serves her right for owning a dirty, dirty dog.

• Keeks arriving with a unique alcoholic treat - liquor soaked gummy bears. Leave it to Keeks to come up with something intoxicating that needs to be sucked to be appreciated.

• The "little boy" who was hitting on Keeks. And doing so rather badly.

• When Keeks' cellphone rang, I may have answered. I may have told the gentleman caller on the line that she couldn't talk at the moment because her mouth was full.

• On a possibly related note, somebody or other placed Keeks in charge of pleasuring me. It wrote this down to make sure I wouldn't forget, but I forgot to write down any context. So feel free to make that as dirty as you want.

• Somebody or other, probably Keeks, was appointed Official Whipped Cream Girl. (She wasn't the only one at this party, honest.)

• The two strangers who walked in the front door and into the bathroom without saying a word.

• Me twice sneaking over to the corner of the living room to remove all the country songs from Sister's iTunes playlist.

• The bathroom door stays closed nicely on its own, but there is no latch. So every time I walked by, I opened the door and left it open. I was very entertained by this. Several other people were not so entertained.

There are probably many other entertaining things that happened, but that was a month ago, and I don't remember anything else. We ate, we drank, we laughed. We all had a great time, but I've been to better parties. After all, no one ended up naked. But then, this was my little sister's party, so it's not like I would've wanted that anyway.

Award-winning comments

Best Comment Trail (tie), September 2005

*Subtitle: No way! He actually did that?

Friday began exactly the same as nearly every other day in my vacation: with a lot of sitting around. The day didn't really begin in earnest until after lunch time when I went to pick up my paycheck.

At my office, Pointy Bearded Boss was just gearing up to involve me in what would likely have been a drawn out political discussion with The Landlord. I listened politely for a moment before using Girlfriend and The Kid waiting in the car as an excuse to slip away.

Off at the bank with my check, Sister informed me that Giggs and husband were in town and the three of them were going out drinking that night. I was all over that. Plans were made, and the family and I were off to what would be one of the highlights of my day: the gas station! (I know, my life is so much more fabulous than yours!)

Just like lots of other people, it's part of my routine to fill the gas tank on payday. A pocket full of money always seems to lessen the impact of three dollars a gallon gasoline.

So I was standing there, pumping gas, when I saw a guy I went to high school with. Let's call him Wolfman. Wolfman and I hung out with the same crowd, but we were never really close. He always seemed nice enough, but he also seemed a little… off. Wolfman never really socialized well. He was always the guy hovering at the edge of things with no idea how to really get involved.

And frankly, Wolfman is really goofy looking.

My strongest memories of him are from gym class. My high school had a pool, and there were co-ed swimming classes required for underclassmen. Wolfman had a problem with swimming classes. Almost every single day, he would get an erection in the pool.

The first time it happened the coach noticed and very discretely told Wolfman he could sit at the edge of the pool until the problem went away. But the problem rarely went away. Almost every single class, Wolfman would sit quietly at the edge of the pool with a hard on pushing against his trunks.

Everybody knew about it. Everyone noticed. But I don't think anyone ever said a word about it. We all just pretended we didn't notice. The girls were probably a bit repulsed by it (after all, Wolfman is really goofy looking) and the boys were all sympathetic. I mean really sympathetic. I still remember that pink and white suit that one girl would wear. Damn. The coach is lucky all of us weren't sitting at the edge of the pool.

But anyway… we all knew. And even though no one ever said a thing, Wolfman knew that we knew. I cannot even imagine the embarrassment he must have felt every single day. And I can't help but wonder the impact it had on him.

Like I said, Wolfman and I were never close. I never knew what to say to him. Greetings were always awkward. They are even more so now. Wolfman is a convicted sex offender. He's registered in the state database and everything. Third degree sexual assault, active supervision until 2025.

Now I really don't know what to say to him. I'll always wonder, did high school gym class mess him up that bad, or would he have turned out exactly the same? Fortunately, we didn't talk that day. We just waved at each other from across the lot as he drove away.

Girlfriend, The Kid, and I did some half-hearted shopping, mostly just killing time until we went to the movies that night. At around six, we dropped The Kid off at Girlfriend's sister's house and went to see 40 Year-Old Virgin. The movie was so-so. It had its moments, but it was mostly forgettable.

We picked up The Kid and I dropped him and Girlfriend off at home while I went out to drink myself stupid with Sister, MrsGiggles, and husband. For the record, it takes very little drinking for me to become stupid. Also for the record, the drunk girl from the McDonald's drive through the week before was out drinking again.

At first we passed the time with darts. I almost nailed The Candyman in the head with one of them, but it really wasn't my fault. Some genius decided it would be a really good idea to put the ATM right next to the dartboard, and Candyman turned into my throw. The dart didn't come within a foot of him, but the look on his face was truly a Kodak moment.

There are two other things worth noting about playing darts. First, my bullseye dance always makes people laugh. Always. And second, MrsGiggles' breasts make excellent bongos. From now on, MrsGiggles' breasts are officially known as "beer bongos." That really has nothing to do with darts, but there you have it.

After darts we moved on to a new game: Boobie Hunt. Given that I have spent my entire adult life and the lion's share of my adolescence chasing after breasts, you'd think I would be pretty good at this game. Well, that's where you'd be wrong. I am only a mediocre boobie hunter. How depressing. MrsGiggles, on the other hand, is a superb boobie hunter. So now you know a little something extra about her.

The whole evening was crammed with drinks and laughs. There wasn't a single dull spot. But there was one very big bright spot.

Because I'm a good good person, when a guy dropped some of his cash I got his attention and pointed it out to him. He was more than a little wasted, so it took me a few tries to get him to see what I was pointing it.

He picked up his dropped money and tried to hand it to me. I left my hands at my sides and tried explaining that it had fallen out of his pocket. He set the cash on the table in front of me. And then I noticed it wasn't cash.

It was play money.

I gave him a confused look. He reached into his pocket and offered up the fat wad of cash that had spawned the runaway bill. His bankroll was one twenty dollar bill, about a half dozen ones, and about an inch of play money.

Amazing. I had no idea people actually did that. I'd heard of this, but never seen anyone actually do it. It was like seeing the Loch Ness Monster. I wanted to say, "Wow! I thought you were a myth!"

I was really entertained by all of this. I just could not contain my laughter. A big grin on my face, I told him, "That is the coolest thing I have ever seen… and it's… really pathetic."

Hanging out in a bar and calling drunken strangers "pathetic" is often a risky proposition, but instead of getting angry he just gave me a really dopey drunk grin. I tried to convince him to hang out by the ATM so I could get away with throwing darts at him, but he just wasn't having any of that.

*Subtitle: I know, my life is so much more fabulous than Lilith's!

I woke on Thursday around 8 to find The Kid watching Cartoon Network and Girlfriend watching Return of The King on the portable DVD player. The very instant I woke, they both started talking at once. The Kid was desperate for more of the waterpark and Girlfriend would've killed for a latte. As you might imagine, Girlfriend won that particular contest. Because she actually threatened to kill me if I made her wait any longer. Yeah… The Kid just can't trump that.

But after the lattes, we were back down at the waterpark. There were considerably fewer soccermoms running around at nine in the morning. Sucks to be me. But because the place was less a zoo than the previous afternoon, I felt comfortable enough leaving The Kid unattended on dry ground long enough to give one of the waterslides a try.

The one I chose was a pipe that emptied into a gigantic bowl, spun the rider around a few times, then dumped into "the lagoon." The slide wasn't really an unpleasant experience, but the pressure going down the first pipe was immense. I felt like my head was going to fly off. And then that swirling around in the bowl part? I can now say I know exactly what it would feel like to be flushed down the toilet. Apparently, people ride these things for fun. The slide was menacingly named "Timber Rattler" or something silly like that. I think a more fitting, and more fun, name would be "Chocolate Swirlie." Maybe "Flush-o-Matic?" I'll get back to you on that. And by "get back to you on that," I really mean "immediately forget about it."

After the waterpark, The Kid asked the question I'd been expecting all morning. "Dad, can we go to the arcade?"

"No, Kid, we can't."

"But I want to spend the rest of my money!"

"And you can do that. You can spend the rest of your money anyway you want."

"I want to spend it in the arcade!"

"Do you know how much money you have left?"

"No."

"You have eleven cents. Do you know how many games you can play with eleven cents?"

"How many?!"

"None."

"Dad, that wasn't very nice!"

"What? Besides, maybe you'll want to save the rest of your money for shopping."

"Oh yeah! I want to buy stuff!"

Was I mean? Yes, almost certainly. Did he learn a lesson? I hope, but probably not.

As expected, The Kid went careening through every store in the city with his eleven cents burning a hole in his pocket. Every six feet was a new "Dad, can I buy this?" I patiently and methodically explained that, "No, Kid, that costs twenty-four dollars. You have eleven cents." Every time there was a little pout, and every time I tried to drive home my point about trying to budget his money. He ended up buying a ten cent gum ball and returning home with a single penny in his wallet.

We spent the afternoon shopping, but bought very little. We returned home with a few books and not much else.

Back home again, we sat on the couch with drinks to watch the end of Return of The King. I was pleasantly surprised that Girlfriend watched the entire six disc epic in only five days. I thought for certain it was going to take her weeks to get through the whole thing. When it was all finished, she turned to me and said, "Wow, that movie was incredible. That's… wow. Just… wow. That was so good." Pause, pause. "But I am never watching that again."

Afterward (To this chapter only, there are more chapters to come)

You may have noticed that our two day mini-getaway didn't really have a downside. Well, unless you count… all of it. But I had soccermoms to look at and chocolate martinis to drink, so I consider the experience a net gain. Given that my junk had been uninjured for several days now, you might assume I'd survived The Curse of Riddick, but this was not yet the case.

Several days after coming home, I learned that I brought more home with me than I knew. I also picked up some lovely tinea pedis at the waterpark. Athlete's foot. Sweet. Riddick strikes again. That bastard.

*Subtitle: I knew you were messing with me. Finally, something happens!

Wednesday began the same as every other day so far. We slept in, then attempted to do absolutely nothing for as long as possible. Amazingly, The Kid actually slept late that morning. He didn't get up until nearly 10. Girlfriend and I passed the time watching more Lord of The Rings. It was even her idea this time. Like I'd hoped, she was actually getting involved in the story. We finished all of The Two Towers that morning.

Around noon, we packed our bags for the only vacation-like event in our whole vacation. We were off to a hotel and family waterpark place about an hour south of here. Check-in time wasn't until 4 p.m., so we killed time wandering aimlessly around a mall near the hotel.

At a discount bookstore, I finally got around to buying that copy of Christopher Hitchens' "Why Orwell Matters." I'll probably never read it, but it looks nice on my bookshelf.

When finally we arrived at the hotel, The Kid saw the waterpark through the giant lobby window and begin doing his best impression of a meth-addled chihuahua with a bladder problem. It simply was not possible to move fast enough in his quest to get into his swim trunks and start playing.

We checked-in, got our wrist bands, and found our room. ("Dad, can we go yet?") Then we found the nearest entrance to our room and moved the car closer to that door. ("Hurry, Dad!") Because, of course, we guessed wrong and parked all the way on the other side of the complex. ("Dad, come on!")

We got our bags back to our room and changed into our suits. ("Is it time yet, Dad?") We made the trek down to the water park, and The Kid nearly passed out from the excitement. It was one of those "kid in a candy store" moments. He had no idea what to do first. He ran around like a fool for nearly ten minutes ("Hey, no running! You're gonna fall on your head!"), unable to decide what to do first.

Girlfriend wasn't too thrilled about any of it. She's one of those women who thinks she looks terrible in a swimsuit, i.e., she is a woman. I've tried convincing her she's wrong, but that's just not going to happen. Ever. So she spent most of her time submerged to her neck in the whirlpool off in the corner.

Which left me to follow The Kid as he gleefully zoomed from one play area to another. The whole thing would have been excruciatingly dull for me if not for one thing: soccermoms. Oh, sweet Jesus, the soccermoms. They were everywhere, and in various states of undress.

"Ooh, look at that one. She's workin' that bikini. Yeah, that's right, jump up and down with the kids. You know how I like it. What's that noise? Is someone coughing?"   "Whoa, sorry Kid. Didn't see you drowning there. Try to be more careful, ok little man?"   "Now where was I? Hey, check out that one over there. Oh my God, she's playing with one of the pull chain shower thingies…"

After a few hours of frolicking, we went back to our room to dry off and dress for dinner. Nearly everyone else would do the same thing: walk back to their rooms fresh from the water. So seeing all those soccermoms wrapped in towels walking through the hallways made me think of a lot of alternate definitions for the term "room service."

Anyway… we dried, dressed, and went to a ribs restaurant. I was so disappointed that we couldn't get The Kid to order ribs. I was all atwitter at the thought of seeing him with BBQ sauce hanging everyplace from his ears to his eyebrows. But unfortunately, he just wasn't playing my game. He chose a mini cheese pizza. Bummer.

After dessert it was back to the hotel. This time The Kid was all charged up about the wallet-draining arcade the fine people at the hotel saw fit to place right next to the only entrance to the waterpark.

Being even less interested in video games than waterslides, Girlfriend stayed in our room to curl up with a book while I took The Kid to waste vast amounts of money. (I've you've never read The Hot Librarian, now is an excellent time to check out her Chuck E. Cheese vs. The Hot Librarian post. It's a similar experience, only hers has liquor, Eriq La Salle, and is generally much funnier.)

Before leaving home, we stopped by the bank to cash in The Kid's piggy bank. He had a whopping $17.11 in his pocket. We started out by getting five dollars in tokens: $3 of his money and $2 of mine. Again, he ran around like a fool trying to decide which game he'd play first. He burned through the five dollars in minutes and was back to begging for more money. We played a bit of a game with this whole thing, one I knew he'd end up losing.

"Kid, you can spend as much of your money as you want. It's your money."

"I want to spend it all, Dad!"

"You can do that if you want, but remember we're going shopping tomorrow. If you spend all your money now, you won't be able to buy anything tomorrow."

"Oh. I want to buy stuff tomorrow, too."

"So much money do you want to spend now?"

"I want to spend it all, Dad!"

We went back and forth like this, two and three dollars at a time, until he'd burned through all seventeen of his dollars and ten of mine too. These arcade machines are all fitted to dispense tickets at the end of a game, so when the money dried up we went to cash them all in and choose prizes.

The Kid had his eye on a 10-inch plush Lisa Simpson for 800 tickets. After 90 minutes and 27 dollars, we had 415 tickets. The Kid ended up settling for a hacky sack, a plastic matchbox car, an eraser, and a Tootsie Roll.

He took that particular disappointment better than I might have expected. He was probably still on something of a video game high. On the way back to our room to sleep he asked, "Can we go again tomorrow, Dad?"

"Sure… you can spend the rest of your money anyway you want."

"How much do I have left?"

"Eleven cents."

"How many games can I get with that?"

"None."

Pause. "Dad, that wasn't very nice."