1241 Gross.

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I very much like the idea that after a rough start Carol and Ed became, friendly, if not friends. They respect each other for sure and Carol is allowing Ed in a little. Perhaps more than he would like at this point…

Now that the Teen is on summer break my ability to know what day it is has been totally ruined. It’s like a never ending weekend now. I was hoping that she would find a hobby, or something, to occupy herself so I could maybe catch up on… everything. So far she’s needed a lot of being driven to and from places and my hopes are beginning to fade away. She is an active, party seeking, child. If not for her social anxiety I fear we would never stop going places with intent to party. Even with said anxiety she’s willing to try an unknown party location, if only to call for pickup soon after. It’s quite exasperating for her cousin/chauffeur…

The planning for her 16th birthday has started already. It’s going to exceed anything my sister and I ever had, that’s for sure. Of course that’s not saying much, but still. A space has been booked, as well as a DJ. I’m glad everything is being taken care of in advance at least. I can scarcely imagine the disaster that would befall us all if this thing was being thrown together at the last minute.

I’ve never been to a good party. I’ve been to parties that could be described with many other adjectives, but good is not one I would apply to any of them. I find drunk people tedious and off putting, and getting to that state has always seemed to be the goal of every party I’ve ever attended. (This excludes family functions for all but 25% of my extended family.) All I ever want to do is talk about cool things and/or play games. I’ve never been able to gather enough like minded people for that to happen. The closest I’ve ever managed to come is playing Super Bomberman with very high friends and associates. Certainly not what most people would call a party, but much more fun in my opinion, and something I could genuinely say I enjoyed in spite of the surrounding inebriation.

The only kind of party I hate more than a drinking party is a Mario Party. Those games suck.

Anyway, I guess either Memorial Day took people out of the supernatural mood or, like me, your lives have been mostly unexplainable event free. Nearly all of my life has been explainable. I’ve actively sought unexplainability, but it has eluded me at nearly every turn. Since I’ve talked a lot about parties why don’t we make that the subject of not comic related talk? I will tell you about the most memorable thing I ever saw at a party.

This is a very abbreviated version of the story, but I don’t feel like typing out the entire saga. Anyway, some friends had a party that infected the surrounding apartments. Once things were on the cusp of truly getting out of hand a very drunk neighbor decided to show off his sword collection. It was very much a moment in my life where I thought “This will not end well…” Rather than try to reason people out of danger I just let the whole thing play out. I didn’t like any of them enough to potentially save them from losing an eye, or worse, at the cost of injury to myself. Eventually the swordmaster hit upon the idea of splitting a beer can in half. He was, as I said, quite drunk and not really capable of wielding his weapon in the way you are imagining it. He placed the can on a table and rather than swinging over his head he held the sword in front of himself and bent at his wrists. This resulted in the tip of his QVC samurai sword being jabbed in his eyebrow, just shy of his eye. At this point I knew things were going to get very bad, very fast, for everyone present. I casually made my way to my truck and drove into the night just as the police and ambulance arrived. One thing I know about parties is NEVER be the one sober guy there when the cops show up. They very much want to know why you didn’t stop the disaster that called them out from taking place. I found out later that the swordmaster lost the use of his eyebrow, so he always looked very casual on 50% of his face. I suppose that’s better than always looking surprised…

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I could rant, at length, about my hatred of Mario Party games, but I don’t think anyone would particularly care, so I’ll save you all the trouble.

I care. I care deeply.

Very well, if only to pass the time before I either hop back on pokemon or Earthbound (this time for sure! I’ma beaten that bloody SNES game!!). Even still, I’ll try to summarize.

Simply put, it is a mix of misfortunes. A vile combination of the following:
-[]- My friends do not giving me, who does not own any Mario Party games, time to read how a minigame is to be played (resulting in easy outs or common last-placeness) because they DO know how games are played, and are impatient, wanting to “gogogo”.

-[]- Those WRETCHED LOATHESOME Bonus Stars! When I cave and play the games with them, sometimes I can get lucky, and even start to win… and on a few occasions was in first place! But my friends insist that the Bonus Stars are fuuuun, and we should alllwaaays have them on, because they know what earns bonus stars and plan for them.. or are very lucky. They insist that the stars add a chaotic factor that I should love (see my username for details, “CHAOS”Sorceror; I do love some anarchy). But even when I “win” I lose! I’ve never once got a bonus star. Never! Many times my Mario-fanatic friend, Diontae typically gets all three on any given run!

-[]- Rage-quit on their parts. I will proudly admit that even when I am losing, and/or losing bad, I will never rage-quit. Quite proud of this. If I am starting to get bored of the game or of losing, I will wait til AFTER we finish a round before quitting. However, my friends are a different story (probably why I don’t…). One particular time, I was playing I think it was Mario Party 8.. 7 or 8, I forget which. And we were in some Toad Town map, where you circled the map, and had to pay a certain number of coins per round for up to 5 stars at a time. As luck would have it, round one of the map, it was 5 coins per star, and I got a triple dice shroom! I zipped up ahead and blew all my starter cash (I think it was 25/30 coins) and got myself 5 stars all at once! Then they immediately rage-quit. All 3 of my friends, bawwing and whinging that the map sucked and they were done, despite winning every game, and stealing every win out from under me via those infernal Bonus Stars in the last few maps we played. They *ALL* could have got stars for the EXACT SAME PRICE as I did, and they all could have reached Toad from the get-go! I was pretty miffed, especially considering I wanted to quit BEFORE that round and they talked me into one more game, only for THEM to quit the moment I got ahead.

This is just a few examples. Other simpler problems include that I’m just not as interested in a mario board game as I am a Mario Platformer (how I love Mario Galaxy), I’m pretty damn blind so some of the older “more preferred” ones that we play are hard for me to see unless I press my face against the TV, and I just hate constantly being in last, due to inexperience. I did enjoy that Fortune Street game, tho, that was kinda fun. Didn’t think I’d ever see the day where Monopoly would be fun AND understandable!

I guess I ranted anyway. Sad thing is, this *is* “short-winded” for me.

I missed getting to share my supernatural story as I got busy with a project. I used to work as a busboy at a place called “burgers and beer joint” on southbeach. There was a black haired woman at table I think it was 16, near the bathroom. I told a waitress 16 needed water, she walked out and told me no one was there, I looked out and told her there was, and to get the water, she looked and asked if I was feeling ok, I told her I was fine, then described the woman, and pointed, the waitress got the manager who also saw no one there. I got fed up and got the water, walked over and no one was there. It was kinda freaky.

And that’s just one of many. And before you say anything, the manager, waitress and I were looking at the same time she didn’t go to the bathroom. There was no evidence of her ever being there. I saw her they didn’t. It wasn’t them razzing the new guy or being lazy. It was legit weirdness.

Your teen sounds exhausting. Bless your abnormally patient heart.

The best parties are the ones when it’s you, a few friends, and Munchkins/ Magic The Gathering/ various other board games. Maybe a few drinks, but nothing crazy.

I was at a college Halloween party once where I ended up having to disarm a naked belligerent-drunk redhead who was menacing the other party-goers with my sword (not a QVC wall-hanger katana). Fortunately, I’m stupid-fast and had a longer reach, way more experience with swords, and way less to drink than she had. I probably shouldn’t have let her hold it to begin with, but for some reason I have difficulty turning down requests from hot naked women.

I don’t drink, for various reasons, but I find drunks entertaining (to a certain point, anyway), so I’m generally the designated making-sure-no-one-comes-home-with-a-tentacle guy. And then the next day I get to taunt them with all the dumbass things they did that I remember and they don’t.

Drunks are fun.

My hobby for a long while was waiting for people to get drunk and then designatedly drive them home. To the wrong homes. Too bad I couldn’t afford decent camera back then. Although I had to stop for two reasons. One, no car of my own meant walking back to the party after a brief moment of amusement… And two, it was explained to me that such an act could land me in jail as an accessory to breaking and entering f someone actually made it in the wrong house (or assaulted the homeowner or something equally stupid as drunks tend to do…)

More currently I’ve found in my current job that drunks have a fascinatingly high pain threshold as well. Handy-fun fact: Its illegal to sell intoxicants to someone who is intoxicated already? I’m not sure the exact limit, but if the alcohol they imbibe is beyond dangerous limits, and they bought it from you while intoxicated, you are liable.

That is scary. My best friends are a couple whose house looks like a medieval armory. He collects swords, broadaxes, pikes, maces and the like. She is fond of edged weapons of all kinds, large and small. Fortunately, neither of them drinks much — I’ve never seen either have more than one beer. That is a good thing!

Hmm, hot naked redhead huh? I never seem to get to go to the really fun parties. Good to hear that you successfully disarmed her. However, I have to ask, was she a real redhead?

I like the respect and how both Carol and Thomas seem to have found the hidden potential within young Edward. Those two are alike in so many ways. Weird that he is the only one out of the loop on all the current relationships though, excluding the troublemaking parties of course.

Seeing Ed next to Carol really puts his height into perspective.

I’m similarly plagued by social anxiety problems, but unlike your cousin I avoided parties. I just can’t get comfortable around so many people with so many disparate focuses. So I haven’t been to enough parties for anything to go catastrophic.

Carol is only an inch taller (at best), but she does outclass Ed in the girth department two-to-threefold. Which is neither necessarily something to brag about, nor to call an advantage, especially against a scrapper who’s fought an entire graduating class!

Think of all the taller and/or fatter people he has squared up against in the past…Carol is nothing but a Hershey’s Caramel Kiss when compared to the high school’s mobile refrigerators!

I can’t really see Ed fighting a female either way.

Reading this I can see Ed in a River City Ransom kinda game.

Yes, Ed is a scrapper…

…who fought an entire graduating class…

…All before getting *Glomped* by an amazing, track and field running, Harry Potter loving, crazy, blond-haired Amazonian with the ability to backhand slap the masculinity clean out of the vertically challenged by THE POWER OF GREYSKUUUUUUUUUULLLLLL!!!!!!

Gross, Carol. Gross.

I would very much like to give Carol the opportunity to be gross. My last birthday, I got a cake, a king size candy bar and a movie. It was one of the better ones, though it ranked far behind the adventure of the unconnected Studebaker one. That one was memorable.

For a largish lady, Carol is certainly nimble on her feet — so to speak. Usually, I can never think of a comeback like that when I need it, although I did quarterback an amusing exchange in a Chinese Take-out one night.

I bought a new Toyota Camry about a year-and-a-half ago. It’s no great shakes, but they discontinued the model I’d had before, so I bought its dowdy sister. I had just put in my order when a baby blue Toyota Prius hybrid pulled up and its wanna-be Mr. Cool driver came swinging into the restaurant. The headlights were still on, as most Toyotas’ lights stay lit for several minutes after you shut off the car. A silver Ford mini-van pulled up a few moments later, and Mr. Beefcake got out. He stood and stared at the Prius’ headlights for a minute, then came into the restaurant and accosted me. “What kinda car you drive?”

“A Camry, why?”

He snorted derisively, “That’s not a real macho car, izzit?”

“More macho than a mommie-van,” I said.

“Seriously, dude,” Mr. Cool laughed, “Ya gotta admit it’s pretty pee-destrian.”

“Right,” I retorted, :You know what kind of guy drives a hybrid? Only two kinds: the suckers for punishment who didn’t read the reviews on the Web, and the guys who are whipped. Which are you?” Mr. Beefcake guffawed, and that seemed to end the conversation.

All the parties I’ve been to are extremely tame and involve much less alcohol than most parties, I believe. The goal in every one of them for everyone there was to just have fun and enjoy the company. Some were less successful in my opinion, but that’s only relative to my way of thinking.

Every now and then I get together with some friends and we play Munchkin/the new Star Wars RPG/X-Wing Miniatures/something, anything that we will all enjoy. It’s always fun.

Don’t really have any crazy party stories. o_O

Is one of Carol’s eyes blue in panels 1&2 or am I just colorblind?

Her one eye does look blue from a distance, but if you look closely (like nose touching the screen close) its actually green.

Zoomed in super tight on my phone. They are the same shade of emerald green. The illusion is probably from the thicker black outline sandwiching the color. There is no such thing as true black. It’s always an extremely saturated blue or brown.

Hee hee hee!
Eddie set himself up for that “don’t talk about filling my hole” insult, didn’t he?
That’s hillarious! :D

On a, no pun intended, sober note:

Thanks, Jackie, for the tip that if a party starts getting bad, that you don’t want to be the only sober guy at the party. I’ve been to some drunk parties, but I never thought of the danger of someone getting hurt, + then the cops start bothering the sober guy.
That IS a good thig to know.
Cheers. TR

I would think filling Carol’s hole would be anything but gross.

More like a life goal: Climb Mount Everest, go skydiving, swim with dolphins (probably easier if you can swim), write a best seller, get Carol Graves to lower her standards beyond all reason.

I had to laugh out loud at this one. I’m one of the only guys in a medical office. For years I’ve heard the women around me schedule patients. I’ll hear a bell ring and a scheduler shout “I filled my hole!” Or on Friday hear the schedulers talk about having every hole filled for the weekend.

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