Monday, July 14, 2008

Did you have a good time? It depends...

My darling has but one weekend a year to forget that he is an uptight corporate slug. He trades in his starched button down shirts and neatly pressed khakis for old gnarly tee shirts, over sized cargo shorts, and turns into a drunken slob hippie for 3 straight days and nights. He rolls around a public park, drinks gallons of draft beer and smokes god knows what from various lit objects that get passed around by god knows who.

He lives for this shit, but it's not my scene.

It's one weekend a year, so I am able to ignore his disgusting smell and beastly behavior and know that the lovely, reliable, non-hippie type guy I married will come home to me. Meanwhile, Comfest has become my excuse to drive to Columbus and spend time with my friends - husband free. I drop him off at the park and head off to the suburbs.

The short version of my trip to Columbus can be described in two words - Laughing Jag. I don't think that I have laughed so much in the last 4 years as I did in the 2 days I spent hanging out with my friends. The long version is described in bullet points below.



Friday:


  • Met my friends Becky, Amy and Amy's daughter LBL for 2 hour lunch at a favorite old haunt, a Turkish restaurant in a local mall. If there is a better way to start off your Friday afternoon than with a little babaganoush, a lamb kebab and a lot of gabbing with old friends, I have yet to hear about it.

  • After lunch we did a little browsing around the shops, but mostly we just walked around and made fun of people.

  • Later that evening Frenchie and Nature Boy hosted a little soiree. I brought all the fixin's for guacamole and chopped up everything and made it on the spot, while standing in the middle of Frenchie's kitchen. Awesome. I love to make food while hanging around with my friends.

Saturday:

  • I drop kicked a hung over MDH out of bed, reminding him that he had made plans for us to have brunch at a greasy spoon with our friend S.

  • After brunch I rolled MDH out of the car in front of Comfest and drove straight to Amy's and hung out with her until it was time for us to meet Dan and Becky at the movies. We saw The Love Guru and were the only people in the theater. The movie wasn't that great, but we laughed our asses off anyway.

  • Dan, Becky and I headed back over to Amy's and spent the evening eating pizza and chicken wings and watching back to back episodes of Flight of the Conchords. Like I said, laughing jag.

Sunday (in the wee small hours of the morning):

  • MDH came crashing into our hotel room at around 2:30am, rudely awakening me from a blissful (sober) slumber.

  • He continued to talk to me at full drunken hippie volume about his wondrous day at Comfest, as if I had not moments before been soundly asleep.

  • As I became more aware of my surroundings and how much I hate hippies, I noticed that the previously pristine and perfect white hotel bed linens had become soiled and brown at the foot of his side of the bed.

  • Now fully alert, I could see that the source of the filth was MDH's giant sandled feet and that he had lain in our bed after apparently wallowing through a muddy cow pasture.

  • I screamed at him to go and wash his feet.

  • After some grumbling and cursing he washed his feet and I allowed him to come back to bed.

  • He fell immediately asleep while I lay fully awake, wild eyed and fuming.

  • I got up to go to the bathroom and when I returned a few moments later found him sleeping spread eagled, hogging up the entire king-sized bed and all the pillows. Even the decorative ones.

  • I shoved him all around until I was able to squeeze in back in, but that's about the time the drunken snoring began. Oh joy.

  • At around 3:15am I packed up my shit, and drove home.
Two clarifications (so you won't think I'm an economy sized asshole):


1. We were planning for me to leave on Sunday without him anyway, just not quite so early. He made other arrangements to get home because he likes to stay for the entire Comfest event. I, on the other hand, could give a shit and was hoping to get home early enough to do some laundry before work on Monday morning.



2. I woke him up and kissed him goodbye before I left.



One realization (about making rash decisions while tired and angry):
1. My decision to begin a 6 hour drive through mostly rural Ohio all by myself at 3:30am was probably not so smart. I realized this about 2 hours into my trip home when it was pitch black, there were no signs of civilization, no other vehicles on the road, and the urge to pee suddenly became excruciating. That crazy astronaut lady who wore the diaper on her attempted murder spree through Florida started to seem not so crazy as I pulled into a dark and empty roadside rest.



One more realization:


1. I probably shouldn't have gulped down a giant cup of gas station coffee on my way out of town.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am metal guy and do not care much for the whole "hippie experience". We metal guys don't care much for peace and love. You and churlita both posted hippie stuff today.

How do you hide money from a hippie?--a. put it in his shoes b. hide it behind the shampoo

That crazy atronut chick was my dream girl for a couple of months...she could have stalked me any time. As for her choice of undergarments: great idea

driving through rural Ohio sucks any time of day...hell, thirty minutes to the south for me and it all turns to trees and fields

The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch: said...

Evil - thanks for the hippie jokes!

I was much more a punk than a hippie, but my husband loves the hippie lettuce and is more easily swayed to barefootedness.

My excruciating rest stop experience occurred just outside of a vast and dismal stretch of cornfields otherwise known as Bucyrus. Scary.

Anonymous said...

Something about driving alone on the rode makes you have to pee. I think it's a medical condition or something.

Tricia said...

Yeah rural Ohio is not a fun drive, not at all! I used to do it all the time going to my parents in NY and then home to Cincinnati. From Cleveland to Columbus sucks, from Columbus to Cincinnati sucks even worse!

I'd rather drive it alone with no traffic than in bumper to bumper stuff but deserted rest areas are eery.

Glad you survived it all - when did hippie hubby roll in? And how bad did he smell? LOL

Renaissance Woman said...

Sounds like a great weekend for both you and MDH...maybe your weekend sounded a little more exciting than his drunken joy. Good for you...leaving at 3:30! And on next years trip you will remember to pack the diapers.

Claire said...

Still, you'd never have gotten back to sleep. My husband seldom drinks more than a couple of beers, but on the rare occasions upon which he does, his snoring forces me to sleep in another room...NO ONE can sleep next to him when he's passed out snoring.

Churlita said...

I'm more of a punk rock or metal girl, but I do love spectacle, so I find myself at those fests every once in a while - like this past weekend.

It was fun, but there is no sleep for two days, and apparently, I'm too old for that now.

SkylersDad said...

Glad you made it home after your trek across no mans land.

Anonymous said...

You know, at the beginning, I thought maybe ya'll were following the Grateful Dead!

paperback reader said...

I don't think I could ever love a hippie. Maybe a hippie on fire...

Linka72 said...

It's strange..we seem to have married the same man...I've had to come up with an invention called the "drunk pillow", It's one of those memory foam types that I prop up between me and the asshole..I mean my husband...because for some reason, he likes to face me when he drinks..yuck.

The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch: said...

Suze - You are correct. I make this drive at least a couple of times a year, sometimes by myself and believe that the condition is worsened by extreme darkness and isolation.

Tricia - he came home showered and smellin' like a rose, or more like Speedstick deodorant. All is well.

RenWoman - At least I am able to remember how much fun I had. MDH on the other hand, has only hazy memories and fuzzy out of focus pictures.

CDP - Exactly! At home I can retreat to my comfy guest room when the snoring is obnoxious, but in that hotel? I was trapped.

Churlita - His passion for a good time is one of the reasons why I like him so much, but Comfest weekend is a bit over the top for me. I'm not sure he'll ever be too old and kind of hope not. I want him to have fun.

Skydad - thanks! It was touch and go there for awhile, but then the sun came up and before I knew it I was home.

Stepping - He probably would, but I have to draw a line somewhere.

Pistols - Never say never. Besides, he's only a part-time hippie. Usually he's shaved, starched and pressed, just the way I like 'em.

Linka - yeah, I know - he gets all lovey and affectionate and I just want to punch him. Thankfully Comfest comes but once a year.