When someone says “I'll never forget the time…” blah blah blah happened, I always want to take out a pencil and yell, “IF IT WEREN'T FOR MY MEMORY ERASER!!” then start prodding at them with it going “Get back! Get back!” Trust me, it's the perfect way to kill any story.
Which reminds me of this really weird story I have about the other night (better tell it before I forget). My girlfriend and I got drunk and went out with a good friend of ours named Lindsay, who was only visiting for the weekend. Well Lindsay wanted to make out with some guy she's randomly kept in touch with (by mouth) since 6th grade, so the three of us went over to his apartment around 2am after drinking at a bar.
Deer caught in headlights.Turns out he has two guy roommates. Kinda weird guys, and as we found out later, all three were ‘shrooming. Directly after 5-second introductions in the kitchen around a case of Bud Light cans, Lindsay and the guy go to his room (between the kitchen and the living room) and start making out on his bed. With the door open. So now, going between between the living room and the kitchen or bathroom involves a view of four legs, wrapping in and out of one another, but with the face-sucking heads just obscured from view.
So picture the awkwardness of this situation: two drunk people (me and my girlfriend) are drinking two random guys' beer (they had no idea we were coming over) at 2am while we all wait on two people (the only ones connecting the situation) to finish sucking face in an open room eight feet away. On top of that, the random guys are ‘shrooming, one of them looks and acts exactly like Vincent Gallo, and there's an elaborate, 3-foot high by 3-foot wide cubed structure made entirely of popsicle sticks sitting on the floor in between the four of us in the living room.
Naturally, the only thing I could think to talk about was this ridiculous popsicle stick structure, which looked like it could've taken months to build, and about 2 seconds to smash right back into 10,000 separate popsicle sticks. Vincent tells me he made it. I don't believe him, and even if he did, why would he do it? He says it's to test some kind of structural grid pattern for an architecture project, and I press him for some more answers, but he has a hard time explaining (only certain types of mushrooms are safe for human consumption).
“Fine, what is it made out of then?” I ask him.
I don't really know what made me decide on that particular question as a lie detector test, because even a moron could look at this thing and tell you it's just glue and 10,000 popsicle sticks, but even more surprising, this turned out to be the last straw for Mr. Gallo.
“Why do I feel like I'm on trial here??” he says (almost exclaims) with the utmost defensiveness and confused frustration.
Why he didn't go with “Glue and popsicle sticks” I'll never know for sure (hint: mushrooms), but it was obvious the popsicle stick structure was no longer a conversation piece, but more of a really boring best friend of his I had just offended.
“Well, you are on trial,” I say.
Oh god. What?! For the record, he wasn't on trial, we were still in his living room…but I didn't know he was ‘shrooming, I just thought he was a really weird, awkward guy, so I didn't feel too guilty employing this type of strong, figurative language.
“What? Wh.. Why, why do I have to sit here and explain my popsicle sticks to you? It's really strong, and it holds a lot of weight, okay?”
“Can I sit on it?”
“No. No you can't. Just leave it alone.”
And thus the popsicle stick structure became the pink elephant in the room. I believe we talked for another 20 minutes or so, mostly about the decline of poetic rappers (the other guy was starting to get really introspective), before Lindsay finished sucking face and the three of us left, but every few seconds I would stare at the popsicle stick structure and try to deconstruct it with my mind. Vincent could see this invisible effort (with the help of a certain fungus), and would stare back at me with those intensely blue eyes to try to weaken my power. I think in some strange way I would've considered it my greatest victory of all time had just one stick fallen off or come loose.
Unfortunately, the boring best friend held up.
But I still think this guy was Vincent Gallo, down to the haircut. I just don't know why he was making popsicle stick structures instead of more movies like Buffalo '66.
