The Estes Boys on the Back Nine

Picking up the clubs where we left off the other day, we stroll out onto the tenth tee box for the Estes House Open. Hope you have a good caddy and have been working on your short game, cuz the back nine is where the course really gets challenging.

Hole #10: We start off the second half of our round with a challenging shot requiring accuracy and loft. The tenth hole used to be the gas meter on the side of the house, but Matt missed and broke the window going into Nick's bedroom, so the hole became the hole in the window. Nick patched the hole with a small piece of cardboard,but if you hit the chunk o' box just right it flips up and the ball sneaks through. Hit the ball wrong and we've got another window pane to pay for and Nick will wake up with glass in his bed. Again. Bonus points if you manage to land the ball inside anything weird, like a shoe, a glass of water, whatever it was Nick was drinking last night before he passed out. Jeff once got three bonus points for landing his ball in a taco Nick was about to eat.

Hole #11: This hole takes patience and care, because you have to chip out of Nick's room, putt across the dining room and down the hall, and drive it out the front door towards the volleyball net. (At some point in time Jeff and his ex set a Wal-Mart volleyball net up in far corner of the front yard. We don't know why.) Hole 11, a par seven, required putting the golf ball through one of the little squares in the net. If you hit a string and make the net vibrate, minus one point. A difficult hole because of the different turfs you're working with: Nick's bed, carpet, tile, cement, and grass, also tough because of the shrubbery dividing our yard and the neighbor's.

Hole #12: If you avoided the bushes on Hole 11 you're probably set up nice for Hole 12, otherwise you're in a world of hurt, because they're seven foot tall thorny bushes, and if you bleed you loose two strokes. If you finished up safely on the volleyball court it's simple, fifty feet to the mailbox. Our mailbox was cemented into a big green bucket that served as the hole, however, you could take a risk and go for the inside of the mailbox itself for two bonus strokes.

Hole #13: Now we take a 180 and head back towards the house. Please avoid the cars in our three hundred foot long - twenty five foot wide gravel driveway and get the ball into the garage. This par three calls for putting on oily cement skills, because once in the garage, your goal is to hit the ball under the dresser in the back corner, have it hit the concrete wall back there, and shoot back out. The further you pop the ball back out the better you're set up for 14, but if you go too far you'll be stuck in the eight foot pile of trash we were to lazy to take to the curb. I suggest breath holding.

Hole #14: Another 180 and out towards the street. In fact, Hole 14 is the street. Anywhere on it, any part. If you didn't set yourself up well after 13, you may get a bad angle and your ball will wind up skipping down Estes Drive, but if you have a straight shot, you can probably bounce it off the gravel driveway, into the street, and safely into the yard across the way. With no sidewalks in our neighborhood, there are drainage ditches on both sides of the road that make for some especially nasty water hazards. If the water is under two feet deep, there is no dropping, you have to hit it out.

Hole #15: We'd usually start in the neighbor's yard across the street, but an unlucky bounce or fifty had Matt a block and a half away in a church parking lot once. The "hole" here is a pile of head sized rocks that may or may not have been some sort of house pet burial ground in the middle of our front yard. The challenge here was not to hit the pile of stones, but to have the ball land and stay in there, not easy considering the density, trajectory, and other sciency words like bounciness.

Hole #16: Avoid the trees, sneak around the front corner of the house, and drop the ball into the bed of Matt's pick-up. Surprisingly, it was Matt who designed this particular hole. He must have figured a few dings and scratches would just blend into the dumpyness of that piece of junk, there was never any damage done to the car. However, Mark learned real quick to stop parking his Camero near Matt's truck.

Hole #17: Hole seventeen was a veritable free-for-all. Experienced Estes-golfers would scatter as soon as the sixteenth hole was finished. If Mark was playing, the rest of us would hide behind his car, because the "hole" in Hole 17 was your opponents. Yes, you actually had to strike one of the other golfers with your ball. This hole was fun even though I have some scars and my right ear still isn't quite right.

Hole #18: The classic ball in the clown's mouth kinda hole. Your goal here was to get the ball onto the roof of the house, into the rain gutter, and out the downspout. The day this hole was designed was the only time any one has ever wanted to clean out their gutters. Surprisingly, we got them done quickly and only two of us fell off the roof.

So, you've just completed your first round of Estes Golf, a true gentleman's game if there ever was one. Stick around and maybe someday you'll hear about the rest of the Esteslympics. Really, they were good, competive sporting events, and as a bonus, there was a lighting of the torch for the ages.

Tee Off With the Boys from Estes House

We'll call it the non-committal time. The gap between college and taking on the responsibilities of an actual adult. For some it's a minimal chunk, a week, a month, the summer, maybe only that one night of graduation day partying; for others it's a more considerable period, a few months backpacking around Europe, a year spent "trying"to find the perfect job...

For me it would have been easier to measure in decades. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but from that wonderful graduation day back in the 90's until just a few years ago, I wasn't what one would deem a rousing success, a contributing member of society, or making Mom and Pop proud, but man did we have some fun. The non-committal years, not a lot of memories I intend to share with my kids, but some good times.

I'm sure there are hundreds of stories from that time period that would make you pee your pants in a fit of giddy laughter, at the same time causing PlainOleMom to put her house for sale, relocate her life to an embarrassment free-zone, and probably cry, but the best of them all were the two years I spent living in Estes House. About a year after graduation I moved into the monstrosity, so creatively named because of it's location on Estes Drive.

Estes House was a big ole farm house on about three acres of land, where my roommates were a revolving door cast of characters that would have made the wildest fraternities cringe and slam their doors. The events that took place there would make Animal House look like a Sunday afternoon at the old folk's home. There was the kid we found passed out somehow between the floor and the carpet one morning, the anonymous kid who somehow managed to throw up on the back of his own head, and the drunk girl who threw her shirt in the garbage then yelled at us when she couldn't find it.

There was the unheated entryway into the house that quickly became a storage facility known as "the beer room." There was the time the basement stairs fell off, with about fifteen people standing on them. The night I almost brained my landlord with a baseball bat when he snuck in at 3 am to change the furnace filter. I recall the time we "shoveled" the driveway with a can of gas and an Aim & Flame. I still have the scars to show it's a bad idea to jump off the roof no matter how soft and fluffy the snow looks. The three car garage filled to the rafters with trash becausenone of us would stoop to buying garbage stickers, and the subsequent week full of pick-up truck trips to the dumpster behind theMcDonald's. There was my roommate's unusual collection of empty toilet paper tubes that decorated the bathroom, and a weird kid we called "the Catfish" who'd show up at our parties, take his shirt off, and dance all night long. And I can't forget the disaster that ensued when we decided to use the fireplace to cook Valentine's Day steaks.

Good memories, all of them, but the best days at Estes House were the sunny afternoons spent on our very own backyard eighteen hole golf course. Lack of steady employment and an unending flow of alcohol led to us creating the greatest golf course in the storied history of the gentleman's game. Our mission: a good time, a few laughs, and making every country club member in five counties cringe.

Hole #1: We'd start at the back corner of the garage, heading out towards the enormous back yard. Now, of course, we didn't have enough room to actually drive the ball with all our might, instead we chipped our way around, and hole number one was, well, not actually a hole. With the precision of a pro, we'd have to get the ball from the cornerof the garage and onto the roof of the shed about a hundred yards away. You had to play this hole just right, because if you got too close without actually making it, it became very difficult to loft the ball onto the roof. It was best to try for about seventy yards and make the "hole" on the second shot. Things became very dicey if you went over the shed. A bonus point (or negative point in golf) was given if you could sprint up to the shed and have the ball hit you on the head when it rolled off the angled roof.

Hole #2: Hole two moved us towards the middle of the yard. Starting from wherever your ball landed after the shed roof, the objective here was to hit the driver's seat of the riding lawnmower that had magically appeared back there. One of my roommate's claimed to have "found" it, but it died halfway through it's first mowing, and it's probably still laying there on it's side. Penalty strokes were added if you got the ball stuck in the engine, under the pedals, or if it went into the blades. A particularly adventurous round included us actually runningthe blades, but one unfortunate ricochet ended that. We tried to convince Jeff that the fun really starts when someone looses an eye, but he didn't buy it, and the EMTs encouraged us that that was a really bad motto.

Hole #3: For some reason there was a garden full of ceramic flowerpots in our back yard. This probably would have been nice if there were actually flowers in them, or even dirt, but nope, this was Estes House, so there was mostly trash, cigarette butts, empty beer cans, spiders, and an assortment of godknowswhat in there. The third hole was the center pot. Surrounded by about fifteen others of various sizes, it was a test of both skill and luck. The penalty for landing in the wrong pot: a competitor was allowed drive your ball as far as they could and you'd have to start over from there. However, since we weren't allowed (or were a wee bit afraid) to reach into the pots for these penelty shots, your opponent would have to smack the whole pot with the club, hoping to send the ball flying. The ball very rarely went far, and it wasn't long before the pots were just ceramic shards lying in the dirt and hole three wasn't as challenging.

Hole #4: This hole sent you back to the back end of the yard. The object here was to drive the ball about seventy yards and hit the clothes-line pole solidly enough that there was an audible click, tick, clank, or clack. Accuracy was the key to this hole and we often overshot the pole, which sent the ball rolling down a fifty foot hill, past a barbed wire fence, and into a soy bean field. We called this hole "The Pants Ripper," I think you know why, Matt and the doctor who administered the tetanus shot sure do.

Hole #5: The Y Hole, as we called it, zigged your zag all the way back across the backyard. This hole required a really good set upshot to get you ready for your objective, sending that little white ball right through the uprights of a small Y shaped tree. This field goalish hole was fairly simple, but required several strokes to play it safe. However, two bonus points were given if you made the field goal on the first stroke - the risk being that the angle from the clothesline usually made it more likely that your ball would wind up in the muck swamp that surrounded our septic tank (not easy or pleasant to get it out of there), a true test of weighing risk vs.reward.

Hole #6: I have no idea why, but there was a tire in the middle of our yard. I'm not talking about a bike tube or hollow plastic big wheel pieces, I'm talking a tire that would make the Bigfoot truck slightly jealous. Once we tried to ride inside it down that soy bean hill, but we kept falling out before any real speed was built up, so instead it became hole six. Merely landing a small ball inside a gigantic tire would have been too easy, so the goal here was to actually get it in the tire (not just inside the circle, but in the tire). Once the ball was in the inside of the tire, you had one stroke to tap the ball hard enough that it did two complete revolutions in there, but not so hard that it popped out. This became more challenging and more fun when we decided to stand the tire upright and make the ball do a roller coaster style loopty-loop in there, but then the tire fell on Nick and the MRI tech suggested we not do that anymore.

Hole #7: A trinity of oak trees made up the far corner of the yard, probably about two hundred feet from the tire. This treeangle was hole seven. The goal here, hit all three trees, if you hit it just right and got a lucky rebound, it could be done in one stroke. Hitting it hard enough for a good ricochet and missing meant climbing the fence and getting your ball from next door. That was not good considering the neighbor's yard contained the ultimate water hazard, a water filled pit that actually looked like the hippo habitat at the local zoo. There was a greenish something swimming around in there, I have no idea what, but I wouldn't have been surprised to see alligator offspring on the back of a milk carton. Three penalty strokes if you went in the water, a thousand bonus points if you wrestled the croc.

Hole #8: We were infested with squirrels. Squirrels were everywhere. Hole eight was to make a squirrel run away. Any squirrel, anywhere in the yard. The key was silence, any noise was a penalty stroke; it had to be the ball that made that little varmints scatter, each additional squirrel was a bonus point. The critters tended to congregate back towards the back of the yard, furthest away from Hole 9, so you could take a gamble on bonus points and shoot the ball way back there. Actually striking a squirrel was three bonus points, but I don't recall anyone ever accomplishing that feat. The best score on this hole was negative fourteen when Matt accidentally shattered an old bird feeder and squirrels came running for the goods like six year olds diving for butterscotch candies at a pinata beating party.

Hole #9: The front nine ended with the "Fruithole." Yeah, we realized later that it sounds like something guys in prison might wish upon a star for, but by the time we figured that out, the name had stuck. The mission here was less foreboding than the jailbreak references may imply, all you had to do was loft the ball up in the air and knock a weird piece of fruit out of the weird fruit tree in the side yard. Bonus points if you catch the weird fruit before it hits the ground. We once gave Matt's brother ten points for taking a bite of the weird fruit, but when we couldn't decided if it was weird fruit or the gallon of vodka that made him puke neon orange, we banned any future weird fruit biting.

So, there's the front nine of the greatest golf course ever created. Arnold Palmer ain't got nothin' on the boys from Estes House. Right now, we'll take a little break for a sandwich and a beer, but later this week we'll stride on out to the tenth tee-box and finish the round.

The Blue Lady 2: Paranormal Boogaloo

If I search through the newspapers in the old college library a few things happen: One, I can praise God, Allah, Bill Gates, and Al Gore for giving us the Internet. Two, I can smell that really old musty basement smell that reminds me of clothes left in the washing machine too long combined with damp cat. Three, I can learn stuff.

The last time I was there, that's exactly what I did, learn, not sniff stray cats. I went there seeking answers to the mysterious blue lady that chased me into the bathroom the last Halloween. (if you haven't read her story, it's probably better if you read it first). I wanted to find some sort of explanation for what I'd seen. Rumors about the theatre building being haunted were nothing new on campus, so I figured somewhere in the stacks and stacks of brittle yellow newspaper, I'd find some sort of answer.

After weeks of using whatever free time I had to search for an explanation to the things I'd seen, eventually, in a dusty pile of college newspapers from the mid-1920's, I found what I was looking for.

The theatre building was still fairly new back then, and the town was relatively small. Surrounded by farm communities, the college and the town pretty much marked the halfway point between the middle of nowhere and Chicago. A perfect spot for a railroad stop.
Folks looking for an exciting night out on the town no longer needed to travel all the way to the big city, the railroad now gave them closer and easier place to go. Businesses started to pop up around the college, restaurants, night clubs, shops... And things really got booming for the college theatre; folks could have an evening of culture and entertainment without the long journey into Chicago.

Philler Hall became a destination for all sorts of popular acts of the time. Big bands, vaudevillians, comics, and singers. The little town had hit the big time.

One month, a real live Broadway revue made it's way to Philler Hall.Folks from all around journeyed to the college to see New York's brightest stars right there in the middle of farm country. One woman in particular was so excited to see the show that she gathered up three generations of her clan into the family truckster and headed off towards the college.
Grandma, in her Sunday best, a long beautiful dress with a high collar and lovely faux pearl buttons, sat right in the middle of the audience, blown away by the bright lights, the ornate theatre decorations, and the anticipation she'd get before the show began.Next to her, Grandpa, not a lover of the arts, but along to make the Missus happy. On both sides of them, their four sons, their wives,and their children. The whole motley brood there for the show.
The curtain rose and Grandma's heart skipped a beat. She loved the theatre, completely fascinated by the actors, the sets, the music, the costumes, every single aspect of it. Grandpa, not so much with the fascinated, he took a nap. Throughout the first act his wife kept giving him the ole elbow in the ribs; one, to keep him awake, and two,to point out specific things about the show that she was enjoying.

Grandpa kept dozing back into lullaby land and eventually one of Grandma's nudges just wouldn't wake him. She tried again, digging the pointiest part of her elbow into the soft spot below his ribcage. He didn't budge. She kicked and pinched, all of it very discreetly, but Grandpa was dead to the world. Really.

Grandma wasn't terribly surprised, her hubby was an old dude and dying is what old dudes tend to do. She was upset more than anything, upset that he dared to die in the middle of the show and ruin an evening at the theatre for her. She wasn't going to let that happen though. She leaned to her left and informed her oldest son that Grandpa had passed. He took it well, because the look in his mother's eyes told him to remain calm, stay seated, and watch the show. She leaned over Grandpa to her right, and told her youngest boy that his father was gone. One look told him to wait until intermission to do anything, to just sit there and allow the nice folks around them to enjoy the performance.

That halfway break came and Grandmas smiled and clapped and stood and made small talk with the theatre goers around her as they shuffled up the aisle to the lobby and the restrooms. Grandma sent her four daughters-in-law and all the little ones away, out to get some refreshments. The auditorium sufficiently empty, she employed her sons to lift Grandpa out of his seat and walk him up the aisle"Weekend at Bernie's" style. All the while Grandma walked in front of them, swatting her deceased husband with her purse and admonishing him about the dangers of drinking too much. "I'll never take you out in public again, you embarrass me with that drinking of yours." Her boys caught on to the ruse and began to laugh and carry on about how much good ole pop drank.

There they stood, up in the lobby, encircling Grandpa and insulting added man who'd never tasted alcohol in his life for being a drop down drunk.

Grandma refused to let a little thing like death ruin a perfectly goodnight at the theatre, for herself, her family, and everyone else there. Knowing full well that notifying the authorities would probably wind up cancelling the show, she waited until the lobby lights flashed and people made their way back into the auditorium to make her move.

Once the lobby was clear, Grandma led her sons across the room, opened what she thought was a storage closet (it was actually the ticket booth), and gently tossed her dead husband on in. They went back inside and enjoyed the rest of what turned out to be a really good show.

There was only one problem with the dead guy in the closet. The dead guy, he wasn't dead. Yet.
After the show, Grandma and the boys waited around to deal with the proper authorities. When Grandpa was dragged out of the ticket booth,a young doctor discovered that he had not in fact died in his seat watching a Broadway show, he had died inside that closet, using his fingernails to try and claw his way out in the dark. Grandpa had suffered a heart attack brought on by fear. He'd woken up in a strange dark place and freaked out.

Grandma was heartbroken. She felt that she was responsible, and every doctor's reassurance that Grandpa would have died soon anyway was no consolation. She went into a great depression, distancing herself from everyone she knew and loved. She believed that she'd killed her husband and deserved no happiness, so after a few painful, difficult years, Grandma killed took her own life, hanging herself in the attic.

Legend has it that the woman I saw that Halloween night was Grandma,peeking into the ticket window to find the lost soul of her departed love. Whether or not Grandpa's spirit was in the closet at the time,I don't know, but I sure am glad that's not the room I decided to hide in.

Plain Ole Fright

Halloween night my senior year in college was the scariest of my young life. I don't mean the shadows startled me or I couldn't sleep because the Blair Witch was in my room kinda scary, I'm talking full on pee yourself, Fred Sanford clutching his chest kind of fear.

For years, I'd been hearing haunted house stories about the theatre that I worked at. For years, I'd listened as other students recounted far-fetched, unbelievable tales of phantom encounters in the building. For years, I sat on the stage on Halloween night as Jack, the theatre manager, told his own first hand stories about the ghosts of Philler Hall. All those years I kinda straddled the line between belief and skepticism, between acceptance and "hey, get me some sciencey stuff that proves it and I'll be on board." That night, that Halloween, I got shoved right over that line into full on "Amen brother, I believe" land.

That particular show, I was in charge of sound design. All the floor microphones that sat on the stage, all the body mics that were woven into the actor's costumes, all the music, and all the sound effects, that was all on me. It's a fun job, really, but it is an awful lot of work on show days. To test all my equipment and prepare for that evening's performance, was a long process that made a whole heck of a lot of noise. To be courteous to the other tech geeks, and I guess to the actors too, I'd usually get there about four hours before showtime.

My sound board was set up at the back of the theatre's main level, kinda tucked away in the corner. Most of the sound equipment was way upstairs, so I had cabling running up through the walls, three levels up, to the sound and lighting booth. My sound system took me months of planning and rehearsal to get just right. Dozens upon dozens of cables ran from the board to the speaker box, plugged into just the right spot to get what I needed to come out of the correct speakers. This cord inserted into this outlet made the alligator sound come from just where the alligator was supposed to be. That cord split off and plugged into this series of inserts made the choo choo sound like it was moving across the theatre. So on and so on... Each plug had its place to have the sound do what we needed it to do and sound the way we wanted it to sound, almost three months of work had made my set up near perfect, in fact, I'd finally just gotten it the way I wanted it about four o'clock that morning. But, when I got there that night, opening night, a mere four hours before curtain, all those cables were no longer stuck into their perfect spots, they were pulled out and lying on the ground.

I was livid. All of the theatre lights were off, except for the little green desk lamp I had sitting on my table, but I scanned the room anyhow, searching for signs of movement of the low sound of the perpetrator breathing. Convinced it was the vacuum cleaner lady who seemed to have no respect for our equipment, I swore that I'd kick her right in the pancreas if I saw her.

Pancreas kicking or no pancreas kicking, I had to put the anger aside and get this problem fixed. I was rushed anyway, but now, there was no way I'd be done before show time. The first thing I had to do was get the plugs back in place. For most shows, that would have been easy. We'd map which cable went where and label each and every plug. Time consuming, yes, but to fix a snafu like this one would be simple. That brings up problem number two. I didn't map and I didn't label. The director had me make so many changes and add so many last minute sound cues that I'd never found the time. I'd actually planned to do it during this evening's performance. Now, well... oops.

I did the best I could, using a rough draft map from a few weeks back and a scientific guessing game that involved tugging on tiger digits. Fifteen minutes later, I was somewhat satisfied. Now I had to run up to the sound booth, three flights of stairs up, and push the power button to turn on the speakers. I don't think I've ever run up so fast in my life. Steps really should be in the Olympics.

Throwing open the door, I dashed into the booth. Once I reached the power source, I held my breath and did one of those "Oh dear God, please make this work" sort of pseudo-prayers. I reached for the button and listened. Pressing it and hearing a little click followed by a soft hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm would mean I did a good job guessing which plug went where. Any sort of pop would mean I did bad, the louder the pop the worse I did. I pushed the button.

I waited.

I waited some more.

It seemed that I could have waited all day and nothing would have happened. That wasn't one of the options though. It had to make a noise. Good noise, bad noise, there had to be a noise. Any sort of noise. There wasn't. The only thing that could mean was that the cables downstairs weren't connected.

I flew out of the booth, down the stairs, around the corner, down the next flight, through the upper lobby, down next set of steps, around the last corner, down the final flight and into the fancy schmancy lobby. I dashed across the lobby, passing the front doors and the ticket booth, burst into the theatre and towards my sound table.

Those cords, you know, the ones that were unplugged and in a mad panic I plugged them back in, threatening pancreatic violence against any cleaning ladies that happened by, they were all out again, just lying there on the carpet.

At this point I figured I had to be the victim of some sort of practical joke. I sensed Dick Clark or Ed McMahon was lurking behind the stage curtain with all my classmates, laughing hysterically at the bulging vein on my forehead that had now begun pulsing.

Grabbing the diagram from the chair where I'd left it, I began plugging everything in again in a frantic daze. I never got to the tiger's toes this time, eenie and meenie ran the show.

Sprinting up the stairs winded me, so there were no deep breaths before I hit the button this time, heck, I was lucky I was breathing at all. I said my silent prayer and pushed "power." Nothing. No click, no pop, nohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

An angry demon had taken over my body at that point. Walls, windows, and banisters felt my wrath as I hurried back down the twisting, turning stairs, across the lobby, and into the theatre. There they were, all the cords, unplugged again.

That pulsating bulgey vein was just about doing a salsa dance by this point. Alan Funt was backstage having a coronary, dreaming how great Candid Camera ratings would be this week. The wheels were turning somewhere in the brain of a prepubescent Ashton Kutcher.

The plugging in of the cords was more of a random blind guy playing darts from a tilt a whirl kind of event this time. The trip up the steps more of a huffy puffy "I think I can" thing than a dash. The pre-button prayer more of a threat to the powers above that I just might hurl myself from the balcony. I pushed it. Held my breath. Then, there it was, a tiny little click and the sweetest hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I ever did hear.

The trip down the stairs this time became more of a stroll. A leisurely stroll spent with me calculating exactly how much time I'd have to get done, where to cut corners, where to delegate when my idiot helper got there... Lost in thought, I'd wound my way down to the upper lobby and was halfway down the next set of steps when I noticed the big stained glass window above the stair landing was rattling like crazy. It stuck out to me, because I remembered remarking to my roommate on my way out earlier, how nice a night it was. Nearly sixty degrees, no clouds, no sign of rain, no wind. Yet, that window was vibrating like the bed in a cheap motel when you've brought a pocket full of loose change.

I took the last few steps towards the window and reached out to touch it. Ice cold. The shaking stopped though. But, now I could hear the same sound coming from the other side of the pretty much symmetrical lobby. Feeling a strange need to investigate, I climbed back up to the upper lobby, walked across, and made my way to that stained glass window. Up in the lobby, there was a rattly stereo effect going on, I could hear the glass vibrating on both sides. I reached up and touched that window too. Freezing.

I pulled my hand away and watched the fog fill back in the hand print I'd left, all the while wondering how the windows were icing over when it's sixty outside and how in the world the wind was blowing at the building from both sides.

For whatever reason, instead of continuing down the set of steps I was on, I walked back up to and across the upper lobby and started down the West staircase. Each step I took down revealed more and more of the lobby to me, and I suddenly realized the carpet was bathed in a bluish light down there.

I slowed myself, the gears in my brain working overtime to figure out where and how my friends were hiding to pull this elaborate prank on me.

I took a step down, expecting Matt or Tony or Todd to pop out and scare the living poop outta me. Nothing.

I took another step and was able to see the very bottom of three sets of double doors that led into the atrium and then outside. That was down and to my left. Down and to my right were the five sets of double doors that led into the theatre. Shadows filled the corners, but the middle of the room was more and more blue the closer I got.

I took another step and realized that the front doors, the six glass doors with brass handles that led into the atrium, they were open. Now, I'm bright enough to put two and two together and get something that at least resembles four, so that ability worked its magic right there. I remembered that those doors don't have locks, so Jack would chain them each night, wrapping loop after loop after loop of heavy metal chain through the cold metal handles, then pad locking them. Jack himself was the only one with a key to those locks, (the rest of us used the back doors) and taking off those chains was an incredibly noisy process that made garbage trucks picking up other garbage trucks and dropping them into a third set of garbage trucks seem tranquil by comparison. I wasn't gone long enough for those chains to have been removed, and even if I had been I would have heard that racket all the way upstairs, but there they weren't.

I took another step, this time, turning my back to the wall and scooting down kinda sideways. Those old fancy doors also didn't stay open on their own. We used this big ornate ashtray things to prop them open when the audience was coming in. Yet, when I looked to the right, there were the ashtrays, far from the doors that were somehow holding themselves open.

I took another step, only a few from the bottom, only feet from the lobby floor now, I could see that the blue light that was spilling into the lobby was coming either from outside or from the far end of the atrium.

I took another step and another, each one bringing me closer and closer to that entryway where I was sure Greg or Barb or Erica were going to jump out with a "boo." No one jumped, so I pushed myself forward.

Scooting myself around the seemingly magical door, for some reason I now found myself about to peek into the foyer. That room was probably six feet across to the outside doors and maybe thirty feet wide from my end to the ticket window across the way, so there wasn't anywhere for a person to hide in there, or hide a blue-ish light bulb for that matter.

My muscles pretty tense, hoping I'd catch whoever it was off guard and scare them first, I side stepped into the atrium. What I saw there changed everything.

Looking across the room, I saw very clearly the source of the mystery. It was a figure, about five or six feet high made entirely out of blue light. I froze. My brain told my legs to move it out those doors a few feet away, but they didn't listen. I just stood there, kinda transfixed. I remember almost every detail. The figure looked like a woman. She had her hair up, rolled into a bun, she had a high collared dress that buttoned up the back, she was tall, frail looking... her back was to me.

I must have gulped too loud, or maybe my stomach growled, or maybe she heard the urine as it trickled down my leg, but whatever it was, something caught her attention. She started to slowly turn towards me. I could see the lines in her face, the sadness that she carried; I could feel her empty eyes on me.

My jaw dropped, but not in one of those cartoon character AAAooooooGaaa sort of ways, more like a slow steady my mouth kept opening wider and wider and wider. I stopped breathing and my eyes got really big. I started to almost hunch over, as if I was about to fall into the fetal position. I didn't want to lie down on the ground and suck my thumb, but somehow I couldn't seem to move. My brain went through all the options, six feet to the left - door to outside, fifty feet behind you - door to theatre, five steps back - the stairs. All of those seemed like viable options, but my feet didn't like them. My feet finally decided to run, and of all the directions they could have picked, they figured running closer to blue lady was a good idea.

I took one little half step out of the atrium and into the lobby and sprinted myself closer to her. Luckily, my feet, as stupid as they appeared to be, didn't much feel like stopping to have a chat, and I zoomed right past her.

I could have chosen any of seventeen doors; ten into the theatre or six that led to the sweet ghosty-woman-free realm of outside, but no, I chose door seventeen. I ran and hid in the handicap bathroom. I don't know why.

Flying through that door without even thinking about it, I slammed it shut behind me and pushed the little button to lock it, yeah, like little push button door locks are going to stop blue people from getting in there and doing whatever it is blue people made from light do to people who are completely solid and entirely devoid of blueness.

It took a good ten seconds for me to realize where I was, but only an instant to come to the conclusion that I was the stupidest person ever. What the holy heck was I doing in the handicap bathroom? The only door I could have gone through that did not lead to a sure-fire escape route. Trying to calm myself, I mentally listed my options.

There was a window. Windows rock. I can go out the window.

No, The window was seven feet off the ground and, for some inexplicable reason, it had bars on it. I don't know who, but apparently somewhere down the line, someone was concerned that handicap people were going to leap seven feet in the air and climb out the window, so they put bars on it.

I thought for a second, pretty seriously too, about attempting to flush myself down the toilet, even going so far a checking to see if my foot would even fit in the bowl. It didn't.

Under the cabinets, no, there were none. Up into the ceiling tiles. Nope, there were none. The only way out of that room was the way I'd come in.

I made two plans. Plan A. I'd throw open the door, the lady would be no where in sight, I'd make a hard left and spring through the door into the theatre, down the aisle, and out the back door. Plan B. I'd throw open the door, the lady would be there waiting for me, and I'd lay down on the floor and cry. I hoped plan A would work.

Working up the courage, I went for it. I turned the handle, the little lock button's click and my heavy breathing the only sounds. The adrenaline coursing through me made the door like a feather; I tossed it aside and quickly scanned to lobby for any side of psycho Smurfette. No one there. I cut hard, sliding a little on the carpet, but kept my footing and charged that door. I hit it as hard as I could, already envisioning myself sprinting down the street to hide under my bed. The problem... I pushed at full force, ordering that door to open, and it only accepted pull commands.

I'd built up a considerable amount of speed and power in that seven step sprint, so when I hit the door it was like a unstoppable force vs. unmovable object death match. I lost. I found myself falling backwards, but with a nifty ninjaish maneuver right after I hit the ground, I was right back on my feet. A little dizzy, but on my feet and charging right back at the door.
Dodging theatre seats, props, and the stage curtain, I fought my way all the way out the back door. Finally, I calmed down.

I waited for the other tech people to arrive, and praying for that whole safety in numbers thing, I went back inside. I didn't tell a soul about what had happened, I just went about my business and had a fantastic show. (Somehow, when I'd gotten back inside, all my wiring was hooked up perfectly.)

At the end of the night, Jack held his little post-show hooray type pep talk. As always, the Halloween tradition, Jack invited us all to stay and tell ghost stories up on the stage. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha," I blurted out, "Oh man, have I got a... a burning desire to go home. Have fun with the stories guys,"and I left. There was nothing, not even those big heavy chains that'd magically disappeared that was going to keep me in that theatre that night.

Jack and the Epilogue

This is the epilogue to Jack's story. I posted the story itself last Friday.

Jack didn't tell anyone about the little boy he'd seen. Figuring that anyone who heard about his ghostly encounter would probably either assume he was certifiable or having LSD flashbacks, he decided keeping his ordeal quiet would be best.

After a few years, though, Jack began hearing more and more inexplicable stories about the building and its inhabitants. Everytime someone else relayed a first or second hand paranormal event, Jack considered spilling his own guts. He didn't. He continued to keep his secret. For over ten years, Jack kept it quiet.

Finally, once he'd been working there long enough, and had the respect, authority, and credentials that made him confident enough that no one would strap him down and ship him to the looney bin or fire him, he decided to ask an older gentleman who'd been working at the college for decades if he'd ever heard or seen anything strange in the building. Jack was careful not to let too much information slip, he wanted to gauge the man's reaction, not tell him what he'd seen just yet.

Jack was still being very cautious. The gentleman Jack asked was the same custodian that said goodnight to him each night on his way out, including the night he had his little run in with Lil Casper. The same maintenance man that let Jack know he was the last one in the building that night ten years back.

If this story had been a cartoon, this is the part where Jack would peel a rubber mask off that crazy old Janitor Jenkins, and discover that he, in fact, was the little boy and an elaborate series of pullies and people covered in special glow-in-the-dark flour would have enabled this prank, but this was real life, so the old man just sat there in silence for what had to have been a full minute, but seemed like nine hours, pondering the question. Eventually he spoke. This is the story he told.

Oh, way back in the 30's, years before I was even working here, when this building was still fairly new, there was a young music professor. This kid was trying to make a name for himself, trying to impress the college big-wigs and the like, trying to do something great and important. He spent countless evenings locked in his office, an office that is right around the corner from yours Jack. The one right across from the water fountain. Not unlike you, he'd be here all night, til three, sometimes four o' clock in the morning before he'd decide that he should get home to his pretty young bride and their little son. Time always seemed to slip away from him, as it does for a lot of us.

One particular day, the professor's wife was heading out of town to visit relatives. She left the young son, probably around six or seven years old, in the care of his father. Now, just because he had the little tike to look after didn't mean that the prof didn't have work to do. No sir, he dragged junior along, sat the little guy down in his office, and got to work.

Junior got tired of drawing pictures on the chalkboard and lying on the office floor real quick. He begged and he begged and he begged, finally, the rascal disturbing his work enough, Dad relented. "Go, run around, just don't break anything," Dad warned, adding, "Just don't go down into the basement," as the boy dashed out of the room.

Freedom had its advantages. He ran up and down the steps. He did cartwheels on the stage. He sprinted up and down the theatre aisles. He tooted every horn, banged every drum, and punched every key up in the music room, but eventually he got bored. The only place in the whole Hall left for him to explore was the only place his daddy had told him was off limits. The basement.

Eventually, time, like it seems to do, slipped away from the professor and he headed home. It was late and shuffling out the door tired was his routine. Remembering to bring his son back home with him was not part of his regular routine, so he forgot.

The next morning, in a mad panic, the professor burst through the doors and frantically searched the building for his boy. He scanned the stage. He glanced down every row in the auditorium. He looked in each classroom, under every desk, and behind every piece of furniture. Finally, his gut churning and his heart in his mouth, he knew he had to look downstairs in the basement. That's where he found his son, crushed to death under a pile of lumber back in the far corner of the woodshop.

When the pieces were put together, it was found that the last person to see him alive was a friendly old maintenance man who was locking the building up for the night. He spotted junior up on his tippy toes getting a drink from the fountain. From the other end of the hall, that old broom jockey shouted goodnight and waved to the boy, getting a big smile and wave in return.

"I suppose, Jack," the old man said, "that you asked me because you'd seen something. By the shade of white your face turned there a second ago, I'm gonna go and say you saw that very boy."

"If I did?" Jack asked, amazed that the janitor's story so closely matched his own.

"Well, then you wouldn't be the only one whose thought they may have heard a little boy getting a drink late at night. Seems he comes back about once a year, every year, same time."

Jack marked his calender from that point on, making sure to skedaddle at a reasonable time at least one night a year.

In part one I promised that this would be a true story about something that happened to me. Hold tight, we're getting there. Parts three and four later this week.

Jack and the Ghost Stalk?

There are only two types of people in this world. Those who believe in ghosts and those who do not.

I happen to fall into the first category. Scoff, guffaw, and jest all you want, I understand. You see, I used to be like you, I used to be a non-believer, but I've seen things now that I just can't explain. I've witnessed events that no scientific, religious, or psychological explanation can satisfy. Not even a six foot talking dog and a pot-head in a van could get to the bottom of these mysteries.

Back in the day, when I was a young pup at college, I worked in the theatre department. While there, I did just about every job you can imagine being dished out to a student. I swept the floors, I tore the tickets, I carried the heavy set-pieces around, I built the sets. I ran the lighting, I designed the sound, I worked the spot, I controlled the sound board. Later in my theatrical career, I acted in, wrote, and sometimes directed the shows. A regular Renaissance man, I had myself a little chunk of each and every portion of "it all." Those were some great times.

Oh yeah, the theatre I worked at was haunted.

It seemed that just about every one that worked there, went to that school, or wandered by late at night and for reasons that still escape that person, decided to play drunken ghost in the graveyard inside the building at three in the morning had a ghost story to tell.

Lucky for all of them that ghost stories became a fall semester tradition. Even though the building we were sitting in was chock fullo' ghostly sorts, each and every Halloween night, Jack, the theatre manager, would sit us down on the stage with all the lights dimmed, and we'd tell our stories. Jack would always start.

He'd fill us in on Bertha, the ghost in the balcony. You could see her, sitting up there in a chair, looking down on the stage. She must have been a theatre lover in her past life, or should that just be life, because there she was, every night, just sitting there in the fourth row of the balcony, right on the aisle. She'd disappear if anyone happened to find their way up into the balcony, and same thing if the lights came on, but there she was, whenever the lights were low and the upper level empty. She sat and watched the show. Always from the same seat.

After Jack introduced Bertha to all that year's freshmen and transfers, we'd go around the circle and tell the stories we had. Most of them stunk, unbelievable tales of frightening phantoms and mischievous poltergeists. Some of them were rewritten versions of all the urban legends, reconfigured just enough so that they took place in or around the college. Most of them were pure make-believe. A lot of them were nonsense. Or so I thought.

Jack would always finish the evening with his own ghostly encounter. His story always had us on the edge of our seats, even when we'd heard it several times. His story, coming from a respected professor and award winning director, that story felt true.

Jack's story took place during one of the first years he was teaching at the college, way back in the early '70s. Late one night, hip deep in term papers, Jack was nodding off at his desk. He knew that he was the last one in the building, because the night janitor always said goodnight before he left. Even so, somewhere in between awake & alert and sleepytime, Jack recognized the sound of the water fountain out in the hallway when it suddenly went off.

Believe me, the is was an easily placed noise. That water fountain was, in all likelihood, the first water fountain ever assembled in North America. Some students theorized that it had actually been the Queen's favorite bubbler, but those crazy pilgrim folk snatched it and brought it over on the Mayflower. In other words, it was old.

That thing made some very un-water fountain like noises. It actually sounded more like a Harley Davidson/baby screaming underwater combo deal. Clank clank clankity clank clank rattle rattlerattattattatttattattle screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee is the sound that came out of that thing when anyone dared to press the button. Not many people did that twice, not only because of the migraine inducing sound effects, but also because somewhere in the past, perhaps back at Plymouth Rock or maybe when General Custer was using it, the spiggoty thing became all misaligned. Instead of a nice cool refreshing sip of icy H2O soothing your throat and moistening your lips, you'd get a room temperature spattering of yellowy liquid right in the eye. It didn't even matter how tall or short or close or far you were, it somehow knew, and it shot you in the eye.

You can probably understand why the Clank clank clankity clank clankrattle rattle rattattattatttattattlescreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee coming from the hallway outside his office startled Jack. He thought he was alone in that big old building and who in this world would be quenching their thirst from that thing?

Jack slowly rose to his feet, shaking off the sleep as he headed towards the door. He peeked out into the hallway and saw nothing. It was dark out there, nothing but the red light from the exit sign reflecting on the surface of the Kaiser (that's what we called the fountain) and the cold linoleum floor.

Chalking the whole thing up to a mish-mosh of lack of sleep, hardwork, end of term stress, and his over-active imagination, Jack went back into the office to pack up his stuff and head home.
He tossed some books and papers into his bag and reached for his coat. Mid-reach, Clank clank clankity clank clank rattle rattlerattattattatttattattle screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee came pouring into the room from the hall again. Already on his feet thistime, Jack stepped towards the door. It took a second for his eyes to adjust. No one was at the Kaiser, but in the shadows, Jack swore he saw a shape, an arm maybe, rounding the corner and heading down the stairs to the basement. Knowing full well that there was no reason for any students to be in the building this late, Jack got his "hey,you're not supposed to be here" face on and trudged down the corridor. When he reached the steps, he shouted down, "Hey! Hello? Is anyone down there?"

No answer came back.

Curious to see if maybe he'd inadvertently picked up an LSD habit, Jack wandered down to the basement to prove his hallucinations false. He took the first ten steps quickly, but turned the corner and slowedhis pace for the last ten. At the bottom, Jack found himself in an empty room. On one side was the door to the costume and make-up room, that door was bolted. Jack, himself, had the only key. He checked it anyway. Satisfied, he wandered to the other side and checked the other door - a super wide, ridiculously heavy metal door that weighed close to a hundred pounds. That door led to the woodshop and was pad-locked. Jack felt his pocket, finding the lone key to be right where it belonged.

Shrugging it all off as late nights and caffeine jitters, Jack strolled back to his office, more ready to go home than he'd ever been before.

Quickly, Jack organized the paper's he'd been working on, just to give himself a head start on the next morning. A morning Jack was startingto realize was going to come way too soon. With his coat in hand this time, he heard it again, the unmistakable colicky baby/biker gang noise that emits from the Kaiser. He darted out into the hall and turned towards the sound. What he saw there relieved him. A boy. A small boy, no more than six or seven years old standing up on his tippy toes to get a drink.

"Hey, kid? Kid?" Jack called.

The kid didn't respond, he was busy slurping the loudest water ever. "Kid, you're not supposed to be here. Where's your mom and dad?" Jack didn't recognize the boy as the son of any of his co-workers, but figured some sort of parent had to be nearby.

As he approached the kid, with the intention of ripping ole pops a new one when he was found, Jack explained to us that he started to feel cold. Like someone had turned the air conditioner onto super Arctic freeze setting and it was blowing just at him.

Jack was still a good fifty feet away when the kid stopped drinking, stood up straight, looked right at, almost right through is the way he described it, Jack, smiled a real big crazy little boy goony bird smile and waved.

"Yeah, that's it. Hello," Jack muttered under his breath. About to repeat his where in the living heck are your parents line of questioning, Jack moved closer. The boy, he didn't seem to really notice Jack. He just turned and marched down the basement steps.

"No!!! Kid, you can't go down there," Jack shouted, running after the lad. Skipping all but the really important stairs, Jack found himself in that big empty basement room in no time.

No kid.

He checked both doors. Locked. Keys, still in his pocket. Jack was dumbfounded. He's a rational guy. Down to Earth. Straight laced and conservative. There was nothing to explain these things he was seeing. Or rather, what he wasn't seeing.

Sure that some of those radical 1960's campus hippies had spiked his coffee, Jack muttered curse words under his breath the entire way backupstairs.

Back in the office once again, Jack grabbed his bag and pulled on his coat. As he walked out into the hall, he smiled to himself at his foolishness. How could a grown man let his imagination get the best of him like that? With one foot firmly planted on the hall tile and the other well on it's way, Jack made an effort not to see the Kaiser with his peripheral. "Please don't go make a peep," Jack thought.

It didn't listen.

Clank clank clankity clank clank rattle rattle rattattattatttattattlescreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly turned, swearing and cursing the mere existence of water fountains as he did so, and faced that end of the hall. There he was, gulping down nasty luke-warm, slightly eggy smelling water, the little boy.

His shoulders slumped and "why me-s" ran through his brain like hamsters on a wheel. "Kid?" Jack managed to spit out. "You're notsupposed to be here," came out next, trepidation replacing the irritation that was in his voice earlier.

Just like before, the boy stood up, turned real slow, smiled that bone chilling creepy little smile, and waved. Just like before, the boy turned and bounded down the stairs. Just like before, not wanting to, but no longer entirely in control, Jack headed after him.

Going full speed when he tried to make the worn out loafers on his feet make the turn around to corner to the steps, Jack slid on the tile and knocked into the wall. Stumbling uncontrollably down the first few steps, he hit the iron hand rail so hard that he actually chipped the bone in his elbow. Still, he didn't feel the pain, not yet, adrenaline kept him moving into the basement.

As he'd expected, that big empty room was just that, empty, so shoving his hand into his pocket, Jack grabbed his keys. Fumbling a little bit from all the nerves, Jack finally turned to dead-bolt and threw open the costume room door. He reached over and flipped on the lights, suddenly sending power to a room full of insanely bright make-up mirrors. That sort of brightness could probably melt your eyes, but Jack fought through the temporary blindness and the spots and the whiteness. When his vision started to clear he saw a fuzzy version of a room full shadowy figures. In the moment, he nearly wet himself,but he slowly realized what he was seeing was a room full of costume mannequins.

When his sense of sight returned, he searched under the tables, behind the dummies, in the wigs, within the props, and inside the cabinets, but there was no boy. That left only the wood shop.

Jack bolted across the room and sped towards the shop door. It took two hands and all his strength to pull the metal barricade open, and he had to prop it in place with his foot while he hooked the cable that held the door open around a bolt in the wall. Without that cable or that bolt, the door would slam violently shut, and I still have an ache in my once broken hand to prove the force that door closed with.

The fluorescent ceiling fixtures in the shop were easy on Jack's eyes, so when he hit the switch in that room the light actually made it easier to look around. He searched every inch of the shop, in the lumber room, behind scrap piles, under the work benches, around the table saw and air compressor. Finally, in the furthest corner of the room, near the giant drill press, Jack saw a pair of Keds sticking out.

"Hey, kid, I don't know how you got in here, but it's not hide and seek time. Get out here." Jack shouted.

The kid didn't budge. Jack crept closer.

"Hey. I said get out here. Where are your parents?" Jack mumbled.

Still, the kid didn't move a bit. Nearly right on top of him, Jack edged his way around the drill press. There he saw the kid, just laying there, a glassy look in his eyes, his chest, which should have been rising and falling with breath, still.

Jack, side-stepping panic, dashed the last few feet and reached out to the boy, boy scout CPR lessons swirling around in his brain.

As he went to touch the kid, to help him, to save him, Jack placed his hand on the little guy's chest. The boy vanished. Like smoke dissipating into the night air, he was gone.

Now Jack would tell us this story every Halloween night, with the stage lights low, and that very woodshop directly beneath the stage floor we were sitting on. With the freshman sufficiently freaked out, Jack would usually ask for a volunteer to run to his office, back behind the stage, to get something for him. Realizing they'd have to walk by the waterfountain and the stairs, no one ever offered their services. I did. I didn't believe. "Great story," I thought, "but just that, a story." That was my stance until three years later, when my own empty building encounter changed my mind.

Next week, the anniversary of my ghostly run-in, I'll tell that story. Until then, run home and hide under the bed when ever you hear Clank clank clankity clank clank rattle rattle rattattattatttattattlescreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Read the Scooby Doo style revelation that takes place at the end of Jack's story.

Nothing Says I Love You Like Flaming Meat Hurtling Through the Air

You've all seen them, you've all heard about them, heck, even the Grand-pappy of all sitcoms, Friends, featured one. Yes folks, I'm talking about the anti-Valentines Day parties. No "Holiday" (if you could see me, you'd be noting the sarcastic quote fingers there) inspires as much anger and ire as VDay. Perhaps some folks are bitter they didn't get a little cartoon He-Man on a frilly paper heart backin third grade. Maybe there's people that are still upset that their little candies always say, "just go ahead and eat the whole bag, you're alone and no one loves you." Or, it's always possible that some people are just really deep-down-in-there angry about being alone.

I fit into category three. Not now, not anymore, that's fit in the past tense, this is way back in the day. Fresh out of college and recently dumped with Valentine's Day fast approaching, I started to feel a bitterness usually reserved for David Letterman when someone takes a job he wants. I was alone, but fortunately I wasn't alone in my loneliness. My roommate Matt had also been recently dismissed by his lady. Like gin and tonic, cinnamon and raisen, pork chops and apple sauce, his angry made good company for my bitter.

In our house, we had two other roommates, a disgustingly happy couple that shared the bedroom upstairs. They played like good coupley couple and planned a night out on the town for February 14th. Thatl eft Matt and I home alone to throw the "We're Guys and We Want to Kick Cupid in the Sack (of Arrows, keepin' it clean here) Anti-Valentine's Day Extravaganza.
The guest list was huge. Every bitter, angry, love-lorn, heart-broken, lonely guy we knew. Somehow though, poopers of the party that they were, all of our brethren had dates that night. Mattand I it was. Just the two of us, emerced in some totally hetero-sexual male bonding that was to include eating meat, drinking heavily, and complaining about the fairer sex.

The day came. The other roomies left for their romantic evening of bliss, strolling hand in hand down the driveway, he opened the car door for her. Matt almost threw up they made him so sick. I did throw up, but just a little, in my mouth. It might have been because I'd already started into the Jack Daniels and was eating cocktail wienies by the fistful. Then again, it might have been the sugary sweetness of their love. Probably both now that I think about it.

The evening began with VHS viewings of the least romantic movies we could find in our collections; First Blood, Reservoir Dogs, ErnestGoes to Jail, combined with some hard core drinking. Jack, Jose, Jim,and Johnny were all invited to this party. Before too long, we got hungry.

Knowing full well that drinking and driving are two verbs that don't belong together, and knowing full well that drinking was going to be the action word of the day, Matt and I had planned ahead. We spent the morning at the grocery store finding the biggest juiciest steaks we could find. Unfortunately, we looked at the price tags of those succulently fine carnivore's delights and plan B became our new buddy. The back up was to find the biggest, juiciest steaks we could lay our hands on for a price that would allow us to continue eating for the rest of the week. It wasn't long before we settled on two less than prime pieces of meat. They were huge steaks, by huge, I mean they must have been ten inches across, that's meatapalooza right there my friends. So what if the thickness had to be measured in millimeters. So what if the fat to meat ratio looked like Chicago Cubs-ish Vegas odds. So what if there were funny little swirly rainbow looking things on the surface of the meat. Meat cooked on fire is meat cooked on fire.

Next stop produce. No, no, no, don't get the wrong idea, we knew that vegetables are not for angry bitter testosterone loaded men who would show the world the meaning of MAN that very evening. Women eat vegetables. Women eat green things. Rabbits eat green things. Men eat rabbits that are currently eating womanly green things. Men eat potatoes. We grabbed the four biggest potatoes the potato pile had ever seen and went to check out.

Problems quickly developed when we started to cook our meat. That little tank o' gas on the grill that allows us men to char our tasty flesh on an open flame, it was empty. Again, the need for a plan B popped up. Easy. We had a fireplace.

Stoves? Ovens? Broilers? Toasters? Scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff. Men cook meat with fire. Manly brains went to work. Hot dogs and marshmallows are easy too cook on sticks, you can do the luau pig on a spit, but how about steak? Really flimsy thin droopy steak?

Ding. (that's the sound of Matt's cartoon light bulb) Probably should be more of afizzzzzlefizzlefzzzzzzzlecrackle-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, like one ofthose blue bug zapping lights, but ding makes him seem smarter. After this he'll need a lot of help seeming smarter.

Matt decided to pull the wire rack out of the oven and wedge it into the fireplace. It actually fit. Sure, it stuck out a foot and a half into the living room and we had to use our other roommate's work boot to hold the end sticking out of the fire place up, but surely it would be safe, surely that wasn't something that would give both the fire marshall and our landlord strokes, and surely that boot was far enough from the flame that it'd be alright. It was a manly boot. Manly boots should be able to withstand a little fire.

Matt treated lighting a grill like most folks revere the torch at the Olympic games. It was a sacred moment. I left him to it, and while my Einstienie-ish roommate got started on the fire lighting, I moved to the kitchen for potato duty. Looking back, I realize that making a drinking game out of slicing spuds was a bad idea, but at the time, take a drink every time you almost chop off a digit seemed innovative and wacky. Hindsight brings such a different perspective, as does sobriety. Who'da thunk it?

Meanwhile, in the living room, the fire wasn't burning hot and fast enough for Matt's liking. His eyebrows found out that lighter fluid, like frisbees and footballs, is an outdoor toy. That fire got up and going right quick after that, but Matt was too busy stopping, dropping, and rolling to get the meat on.

Back in the kitchen, I had the brilliant culinary epiphany that vodka is made from potatoes, therefore potatoes sauteed in vodka would be especially tasty. Let's do a quick math problem. Open flame from the stove + free flowing vodka + a massive mound of carbohydrates = crispy spuds, an embarrassing lack of arm hair, and a desperate need for some sort of salve or ointment. (salve and ointment, both funny words, so I couldn't decide)

His face flame free, Matt now understood that lighter fluid burns off real quick. The fire dying, he tossed the steaks on. The consistency of the meat was not entirely unlike the skin you find on day old pudding, so it kinda started to slither through the spaces in the grill. Alert with the tongs, my pal was able to save it, but he knew those steak-like hunks of former cow had to be cooked right quick.

He reached for a pile of newspaper with his free hand and shoved it into the flame. It erupted almost as violently as my second go round with the vodka, which, I learned, is going to ignite no matter how low the flame is. I was beating the kitchen wallpaper with an oven mitt that resembled a chicken puppet. Matt was evading bits of red hot newspaper ash that were flying out of the fire every which way, most of them landing on Matt or the meat.

When one smoldering hunk of what was the sports page landed unexpectedly on the back of his neck, Matt freaked and knocked the now partially melted work boot out from under the grate. The grill, still wedged in solidly in the back, tipped violently forward, landing squarely on Matt's leg with a sizzling sound I heard all the way in the kitchen.

This was all probably about the time I finally knocked the smoke detector off the ceiling with a dust mop and came to the realization that like Chernobyl, these potatoes were in full on melt down mode.

I used the only option I could think of; I sacrificed the chicken puppet by grabbing the volcanic pan and making a run for the backdoor. I darted into the living room just in time to see Matt's reaction to molten steel searing his knee. He kicked like a ticked off mule, which catapulted the "steaks" and the oven rack across the room where they ricocheted off the wall onto our roommate's couch. This all coincided with me launching the potatoes, the pan, and the alcoholic ball of fire out the door into the snowy backyard.

My mission complete, I dove to the sofa to prevent yet another piece of our furniture from becoming infurnituro. (Like that word? I justcame up with that one.) Good ole chicken mitt snatched that rack off the cushion and deposited in the snow bank right next to the steaming sauce pan.

Hunks of newspaper ash still falling from, well, everywhere, like a swirling vortex of "The Flaming Times," Matt did a nifty rolling ninja-ey maneuver and snatched the fire extinguisher out of the front closet and put an end to any plans that flame had of taking over the universe.
The Rug Doctor, a buttload of Seaside Breeze scented Lysol, and an ingenious flip-the-cushion-and-hope-he-doesn't-notice maneuver took care of a good portion of the mess. The rest would have to wait, there were injuries to tend to.

In all of about three minutes, we'd managed to lose our dinner, our desire to party, and our security deposit. What a Valentine's Day.

On a happy note, our other male roommie came home about an hour later, sans girlfriend. Some sort of argument about oysters and clams led to a Valentine's break-up. Like a guy should, he never inquired why a good portion of the stove was in the backyard, why there were bits of meat stuck to the window, why his left boot was a melted glob in the middle of the floor, or why the Sunday paper was a charcoaly mess smeared into the carpet. He just sunk down into the slightly singed sofa, ordered us a meat-lover's pizza, poured us each another drink, and asked if we could watch a few more Ernest movies.

Luckily, for the safety of the free world, I met my wife a few years later and have never cooked on Valentine's again. Matt, on the other hand, he's still single ladies.

Come on people. Head over to humorbloggers.com and vote for the Humor Blogger of the Year. I currently have zero votes. This saddens me.