You Want Sympathy?

You'll find it between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary. - from Lucky You (2007)

Before I get into today's post I would like to say that the quote above makes me chuckle. I have no idea if it is literally true or not but it really does not matter. I like it. I like you too because you are reading what I am writing and for that you get an A+ in my books. I do not actually have any books or even know who is actually reading this to give you said A+ but just imagine that I am. Thank you.


The past two weeks for me have been quite hectic. Between playing baseball and work I have not had much time to myself or to even unwind... and on Sunday I did. For all those who may stumble across this who are not from Canada, up here in The Great White North, the third weekend in May is a long weekend for us. Monday being declared a holiday and the day of Celebration for Queen Victoria's birthday. It is deemed to be the unofficial start to the summer. Most people use this weekend as a chance to go camping for the first time but a few years ago a buddy of mine decided he would rather start staying home this weekend and throw a party instead. Lets face it, this is Canada and even though it is the end of May we sometimes do end up getting snow and camping in that is never fun. Anyway, four years ago marked the start of a new tradition.

First Annual was born!! Four years, Fourth Annual kept things going strong. Sadly we did not get the turn out we did last year but the weather was incredibly nice the second half of the weekend so it is understandable. Nonetheless it was a great fun filled time.

For me Sunday started with me getting up and going into work for 7:30AM, not a great start to the day but who does not like money? I ended up working for about three hours and came home where I proceeded to have a shower. Feel free to picture me wet and naked. I will give you a moment to gain your composure.
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So after my shower I decided to head up to the store to get myself some beer for the party since I did not have much left here. So I walked up there only to find out that the store didn't open for anther half an hour, just my luck of course. I decided to just keep walking and take the long way home and when I got back just started playing around on my computer for awhile. About an hour later my stomach was growling something fierce. It was angry at me for not giving it some food. Before I could feed it though I had to head back up to the store to go grab some beer, which I ended up buying some Bud Light Lime (mmm so tasty). A few minutes later I was back home and I started to prepare myself a nice pre-drinking meal. Pasta. If I am going to be drinking a lot I always fill my belly full of pasta. It stays heavy in my stomach soaking up the alcohol so I can drink more! I am a loser like that but whatever I do not care. It helps make sure I do not puke too so I keep it up. While I was cooking that though I kept thinking about what I could take to the barbeque I was not coming up with any ideas at all. Usually what I end up always having to take are deviled eggs but I did not think I had enough eggs until I found a whole carton at the back of the fridge so for the next couple hours I slaved away boiling all the eggs we had in the house.

Point of interest, my deviled eggs are the most delicious ones you will ever taste.

It was about 3:30PM when I got all the eggs so I put them into some containers and headed over to Chad's house where the festivities would be going down. It also just happens to be right around my house. I love small towns. I get there and took the eggs in the house to put in his fridge, I did not see him in there so I checked out back and saw him up at house behind his helping building a deck. So I grabbed a beer and headed on up. Mostly just watched them work on the deck since at the moment there was not really anything I could do to help. It was about half an hour later when other people started showing up at Chad's house so I pitched a hand to help them finish the floor joists and get it all ready for the floor boards tomorrow. We got that down in no time and headed down to Chad's and joined everybody down there. A few of course started up a game of testicle toss. Testicle toss by the way is a game where you have two racks set apart from each other in the ground with three bars on each one. You have two teams that try to throw these ropes that have a golf ball fastened on each end on to one of the bars on the rack. Bottom bar is worth one, middle two, and the top is worth three points. First team to get to twenty-one wins.

We finished that game up right when more people started to show up. We started berbequing some burgers and hot dogs, got the salads out that other people brought, my eggs of course and enjoyed some goodness in food form. Then after all that good stuff there was cake to be had! Sweet delicious cake, four different kinds. So good. After dinner more testicle toss and the lighting of the fire that nearly burned the fur off of the neighbour's dog that came over. Do not worry though no animals were harmed during the night. At this point in the night was when things started to pick up. There were a couple games of beer pong but mostly throughout the night we had continuous rounds of flip cup. Six on six and everybody got involved at some point at least a few times during the night. It was a great time.

Lets take a brief moment to talk about the fire. This fire was intense, especially for just a backyard behind a house in a small town. The old tire rim used for the fire pit was completely surrounded by wood, coals and flames that you could not even pick it out. The fire probably grew to be about five and a half feet by five and a half feet and at one point during the night the flames reached up about twelve feet up into the air. And it was incredibly hot, you had to sit back at least ten to fifteen feet from the fire and even then at times when more wood, or part of a couch, or a chair, or whatever else we had got thrown on. Needless to say it was a good fire.

Back to the ensuing events and where things really took a turn for the worse? For the better? I am not sure which one but it was funny as can be at the time. Now one of the guys there was Johnny, who normally ends up falling asleep when he is sitting at a fire, and he made a comment about this because when he falls asleep Elton runs over and tackles him in his chair. Always funny. And no sooner than when Johnny was finished saying this he was taken out by somebody. It was either Elton or Spencer, Spencer being the instigator of most of what happens at this point in the night. So Johnny was on his back, the chair he was in broke and everybody else was just laughing their butts off. After that it was just a free-for-all. Spencer started picking on Kirk and then Elton got in on that. Kirk got the most of it throughout the night mostly because he kept chirping and chirping making fun of people. And then he starts on me and I am sitting right next to him. He is giving me a hard time because I am drinking Bud Light Lime and saying how it was so last year and blah blah blah. Now normally I am the good, quiet person that does not really say much or contribute to what is going on but on this night much to the surprise of EVERYBODY I plowed right through Kirk and then walked to get myself another Bud Light Lime. It was all fun and nobody took any of it seriously and almost everybody got in on it. I got tackled once by Chad and then a couple times by Spencer. I got Spencer back a few times and scrapped with him a bit. By the end of the night there were beer cans all over from people losing them from being tackled, people covered in beer and there were at least half a dozen chairs broken.

Things started to calm down after a few hours of that and by about 2-3AM people started to call it a night and either stumbled home or stumbled into Chad's house to find a spot to sleep. I can say though that I was the first one there and I was the last one to leave. I take pride in that. Outlasting everybody else. Ok well not entirely everybody else, at the end it was Missy and I sitting around the dying fire until it started to get a little too chilly to sit outside anymore and we called it a night after that.

The Annual is easily hands down one of the highlights of the year and I can't wait until the Fifth Annual rolls around next year.