April 24th, 1513
My voyage from Spain has finally concluded and my travels have brought me to a peninsula I named “Florida.” The climate suits me and the beauty of this land is incomparable. In short, it kicks ass, big time. As a celebratory gesture, I invented a thing called a “keg stand.” All you need is a keg full of your favorite brew, and three of your best bros, and you’ve got a one-way ticket to getting blitzed out of your gourd. I hope that future generations of Floridians will continue this ritual.
May 5th, 1513
The job of a conquistador is to do just that; conquer. And there are few things your boy, Ponce, derives more pleasure from than conquering a big bowl of fettuccine alfredo from his new favorite restaurant, How Ya Doughin’ Pizza and Pasta.
The only problem is, the prices are outrageous. And the only deal they offer is a “Kids Eat Free on Wednesdays” special. I’m certainly not a child. I’m a man, and a humble one at that. I drink a full glass of salt water every morning to remind myself to be grateful for freshwater.
We conquistadors have an old saying; discovering a place makes you that place’s Mom/Dad. And why should Florida’s Dad have to pay fourteen dollars for his favorite meal, especially considering Florida’s Dad is well on his way to becoming a regular customer?
May 17th, 1513
Today I was assaulted with a fit of melancholy. The culprit? The fact that How Ya Doughin’ has the balls to charge fourteen dollars for a fettuccine alfredo. It’s not like I can’t afford it (I like to say “I’m of noble birth and I have noble girth” to imply that I am very wealthy from a financial standpoint and that I’m sorta rocking it when it comes to the “down there” department). It’s a matter of principle.
June 6th, 1513
Okay, the How Ya Doughin’ guys are fucking jerks. I walked in today and noticed they recently hung up pictures of Spanish conquistadors on the walls. And my photo was nowhere to be seen. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was on there, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, too. Even Hernán dipshit Cortés was up there!
I went to order my fettuccine anyway, and the dude behind the counter says, “Sixteen.” I was like, “Umm, I’m here all the time, and it’s always fourteen dollars.” And he said, “Prices went up,” and then he turned to his friend and they laughed. I felt like I was going to cry, but I kept it together just long enough to cancel my order and run out.
July 12th, 1513
I was chilling with my boys, Trey, Trevor, and Troy today, and we were all shit-talking How Ya Doughin’ for their prices. (We’re best friends. We lift weights together, use the word “we” when referring to our favorite sports teams even though we’re only fans, and never communicate how important we are to each other’s lives.) Trevor remembered he heard about something called “the Fountain of Youth.” It took the four of us about three hours of eyes closed, deep concentration to come to this conclusion, but we believe that if we bathed in this Fountain of Youth (and we don’t even feel weird about bathing in it together because we’re woke and progressive), we would all be able to become children with child-sized stomachs that could enjoy the “Kids Eat Free” special.
July 30th, 1513
Today, we set sail in search of the Fountain of Youth. One thing I am looking forward to when I become a small child is having tiny, deceitful hands. I will use these tiny hands to fit into small places, and steal things that I otherwise could not, like coins through a metal grate. I figure with all the money I save from the kids eat free special, along with all the coins I collect, I should be racking up millions pretty quickly.
I’m going to miss getting fucked up, though. Last night, we partied hard (we rounded up a whole mess of rattlesnakes and saw who could sustain the most bites before passing out). No way our lives will be able to sustain that kind of lifestyle when we’re children.
September 19th, 1513
Thought we found the fountain today, but it turned out to be a just a big puddle. This trip sucks.
November 15th, 1513
Trey fell in the ocean and sunk right to the bottom. His pores were so big, they must have filled with water and weighed him down. We’d been telling him to change up his skincare routine for months, but he wouldn’t listen. Poor bastard.
January 3rd, 1514
Are you serious…? Today we finally found the fountain, but it had been knocked down so How Ya Doughin’ could open a franchise location there. I guess I learned a valuable lesson in all of this; don’t trust the Italians.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is with a heavy heart that I say, due to his views on Italian people, we can now officially declare that Ponce de León is canceled.