Disappointment, the Real Meaning of Friendship, Fried Wontons, and 200 Miles of Iowa Roadways

Authors Note: I wrote this blog post for my own personal blog about a year ago when I had such a thing. No one read it because no one read my blog. That being said, I'd like to think the ranty audience might enjoy it or enjoy tweeting me to tell me it sucks. I love to write and if you like reading anything I put on this blog, I beg you to tell me. @drunkoncomedy

                                               At the very least, it will make a great story”-

 Some Idiot before Leaving For a Weekend in Des Moines

            This weekend was to be a well-deserved vacation from my adopted home of Cedar Falls and the dreary outlook that has been my life; three days in Des Moines in the company of cute Tinder date who I’ve chatted with for at least a year off and on. Before you say anything, I had her Christmas card on my fridge since last year so this falls into two people knowing each other for a long time and not a desperate booty call and hump fest. Dinner, seeing Doctor Strange on opening night, cuddling (Fun fact: I am a cuddler. Some women have called me a ‘giant teddy bear’ and a ‘dim witted hugger. These were the few women who would actually speak on record folks.) followed by bar hopping with friends and hangout recovery Sunday morning football to end a fun and young three day getaway. When my date said she wanted to spend the weekend together, I was overjoyed and made this my number one goal. Nothing would stop me from getting to Des Moines for expensive drinks and terrible traffic. I picked up extra hours at work to pay for my time away from work, begun chugging juice and chicken broth like booze on prom night in the hopes of killing what I suspected to be the beginning of flu. Nothing was going to ruin the romantic and adventurist weekend I had thought of day after day leading up to the event. Not all the roadblocks were bad ones as I won tickets to see the comedic woodsmen known as Nick Offerman in town. “You should go see him since you have free tickets!” my date said via text. “No way, I have tickets to see you! Besides, at the very least all of this will make for a great story” said the charming jackass. Oh how right I would be for all the wrong… and the right… reasons.

     Kissing and telling isn’t something I ever enjoyed doing so I’m not going to start now: what happens on a date or even just the casual conversations we have with the opposite sex doesn’t concern anyone else for the most part. I’d never try to drag someone through the mud so I won’t name names. After an affectionate night of a date and cuddling, I was told to head home. Adventure over. Apparently I had one thing in mind and she had another so my romantic gestures weren’t as well reserved. When you care about someone and you aren’t just thinking with your dick, you try to be sweet. Sometimes that’s a little too much if the other person doesn’t feel the same way. Much like asking the cute but shy girl to dance in 8^th grade, this ended quicker than it started. Good bye Des Moines, can’t say I’m as excited to see your Up Down and Zombie Burger as I was before.

     The drive home was depressing and enlightening at the same time; I couldn’t push myself into Netflix or doing shots off the bar, I had to digest the rejection and figure out what went wrong. Christ Stapleton sang about traveling and living your life while my mind rewound the moments during the two hour drive back into Blackhawk County. Maybe that’s healthy but much like flu shot to the left glute; it wasn’t pleasant what so ever. Scrambling over my phone to make some kind of plans for my night, it’s a miracle that I’m not using a long stick and keyboard to type this out via the highway accident. (Don’t text and drive) I had planned on spending money in Des Moines, so why not do it local and give back to the community? It’s a better slogan then “You got kicked out of Des Moines so you’re stuck in Cedar Falls.” My friends made the effort to come out even with original plans and early morning work looming and as much as I wanted to brood about rejection, it’s hard to do so when you find yourself demolishing Crab Rangoon nachos off a plate the size of a manhole cover. Also beer. Beer really helps when you’ve had a bad time and need to wash down tasty bits of crab smothered in fryer oil. The party moved home and others soon arrived without so much as a plea, just happy to hang out and play bad party games while drinking. Keep your Call of Duty, I’ll keep a game about terrible T shirts and slogans any day as long as I’m surrounded by the right people. The night progressively trailed off and the number of people dwindled down as the number of beverages consumed increased until the curtain fell and the stage lights came up. It was intermission and the next act was soon to begin but not with a bang but with a whimper. The whimper of cats.

     Hangovers suck. This is a fact, no one can dispute this and both political sides can find common ground in common issue. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to suffer these effects because when waking up at 7:30 in the morning you tend to still be under the influence. I didn’t have a single place to be, or any kind of responsibilities that required a morning wake up call. Cats don’t care though. They are cats. Cats are dicks. My wakeup call was the feeling of small paws prancing over my face and mouth to the bewilderment of my semi-conscious semi functioning brain. The two kittens we had received last weekend decided to say hello and in the process woke up a sleeping giant. Maybe in the grand scheme of things this was some kind of divine process of getting me ready for the upcoming night and being unable to complain about the night before due to cute cats being the first thing I saw. Then again, cats are dicks. I shuffled through the house like a ghost of “it’s not you, it’s me” past before settling in on the couch and turning my phone on. After a night of perverse debauchery and craziness the turn on of one’s phone can be the scariest thing since election night. Somehow I’d dodged a few bullets and kept my thoughts to myself and off social media. Sometimes I get it right and refrain from texting people at 2 in the morning and sometimes I don’t. 

Through the fog I begun to realize one of the people I had talked to last night had been an old college friend from southern Iowa. I had ranted to her about my woes and a game plan was set that would hopefully be better than the infamous “Des Moines Date.” Still recovering from the night before I couldn’t help but remember the mantra that started this whole fucking mess, “”Well at least it will make one hell of a story.”

     With renewed vigor, a roll of TUMS inside me and a fully charged IPod, I hit the road again only this time it was away from the big city and into the deep south I would go, darkened highways and side roads a plenty. Just a mile or two on the outskirts of Iowa lived my old college friend and her husband, both of which expressed interest in having a drink or two with me during this extended vacation. I had told them both about what happened through different means: the wife and I had a somewhat normal conversation while her husband got a lot of bro talk and sexual harassment. Beard on beard action is never not funny. Two hours of driving dark roads with only country music to provide the sound track finally led me to the apartment that in a previous life had been a school house. Children reserved an education in the same building that I now was about to consume scotch inside while playing a game that required me to come up with clever phrases usually revolving around sex acts. We were adults after all and this is what your tax dollars provided. I arrived with as much pom and circumstance as one could after his third multiple hour drive in one weekend could. The kids were at the grandparents and it was time for everyone to unwind. Another friend soon joined us, she being the one I was closest with over many years and with group of people I surrounded myself with took my mind off everything. 

     Can’t be mad, couldn’t be sad when friends and drinks are involved. We roared with laughter through the night that before we knew it the clock had struck three in the morning and no one could tell the difference. We were all older than our glory days and soon the steam begun to come out of our engines. All those laughs were soon replaces with something deeper, something only found with the ones closest to you. We all spoke from the heart about our struggles and tribulations that haunted us. Mine were nothing compared to the story our friend told us while struggling to hold back tears. She couldn’t hold them back and the dam broke, releasing a world of hurt that can only really come out with a bottle in one hand and an audience of the ones you love. The rest of us listened, only speaking when it was something that needed to be said. Stories can be sad and tragic but the setting can be beautiful; a wife in her husband’s arms surrounded by friends who traveled through the night just to be together. Things can’t be settled in one moment but sometimes knowing that you really aren’t alone in this moment can be the key in surviving the darker days that lie ahead. I slept at my friend’s house, enjoyed a nice brunch and said goodbye to everyone before the night sky road was once again the backdrop to my reflections of a weekend gone wrong and a weekend gone right.

     If nothing else from this story interests you or affects you, I’d like to hope it’s this. I’d even hope you keep these words and feelings with you long past we remember one funny weekend in November. The older I have become the more I’ve learned to love. Not just the people who share my blood but the ones who I can call my family without having to ever be related. Traveling from Des Moines there was no one I wanted to surround myself with in a depressing time then the odd collection of friends who have seen me at my best and worse; the assorted comedians and those in the mix who’ve listened to my jokes night after night, the copywriter who plays the part of mom/landlord more then I’d like to admit, a horror movie lover who only knows me due to her ex-boyfriend and a giant Florida man who loves all my shitty puns and pro wrestling references. I love all these people because of who they are and who they make me. I’d be more heartbroken by losing them then any surprise reverse one night stand could do to me. My old college friends have known me for years and even though we don’t see each other as much, our old friendship and close bonds still remain. Even when we are at our best or at our worse, family will be there. These people are my family. 

     Someday I’m not going to be here; whether it’s because of something serious as death or just moving away, we won’t have the same kinds of adventures and moments we do now. Even the little things like coming over to see your friend after he gets rejected might not happen in the future. Because of that, if your friends are truly like a family to you then let them know. Sometimes that means buying the first round, other times it means a simple “love you buddy” as you walk out the door. This weekend wasn’t what I thought it would be but it hasn’t been dull for a moment. I love them all for everything that has happened.

And as a semi famous comedian once said  “It’s been an adventure, both good and bad this weekend but hey, at least we will all have a story to tell. “