Thursday, August 02, 2007

Welcome back, me!

So... long time no see, good reader.

Oh, I suppose I have my excuses, I mean we all do really. I was run over by a car (I really was!), work's been chaotic, and well, frankly, I hate you all. Its true. Hate, hate hate. That's all I am, one liquor soaked little ball of hate. A ball of hate that could really go some pancakes right about now. Hate filled pancakes topped with maraschino cherries and pools of syrup. Mmm, mmm!

I also experienced some trouble in deciding what to get back to you with. After all this time, would a mere whine about how much I truly hate four wheel drives suffice? As much as I truly loathe them, I doubt it. Would I make some scathing comments on our current, yet soon to dissipate clientele? Nah... I have to meter out those sorts of bitches, and frankly, it's still a little too fresh a scar to detail in any coherent manner. Could it be the painters? Those retarded little overall-clad elves who've managed to stretch the task of painting an ordinary suburban house well over a month now, simultaneously managing to flip a couch, stand on my seedlings, and tie every shrub in our front garden both together, and to the house.

But no. It's none of these. It's not even a running commentary of the god awful Law & Order episode currently running in the background (and trust me, there's a whole lot of bad in that one). No, you see, dear reader, I have a much better thing to detail you about. That's right. Vomit Girl - The Wedding*.

* guaranteed to be better than American Pie - The Wedding.

So. Once upon a time, there was a wedding. This wedding, while featuring my lovely wife (aka, vomit girl), was not our own, but instead that of my cousin's. This wedding, whilst in ceremony was of no particular importance to us (though it was lovely to see said cousin be happy and all that crap), was the first time Vomit Girl had the opportunity to meet most of my family. This was of particular importance, as we, ourselves, were to be wed just a month later.

It started off relatively well. We got there in good time, looked presentable, and stood off to the side being respectable and all that crap. Technically, we were probably being antisocial and shy, but the fact remains that we were being quiet, not obnoxious, and not looking nor sounding offensive. This is important to remember, because only a short while later, we were none of these things. Actually, no; Vomit Girl was none of these things. The rest of us were not exactly at our best, but we were trying our hardest to make it all go away.

It all started going downhill during the ceremony. Instead of focusing on the bride to be, a number of the party instead focused on Psyonide, Vomit Girl & myself. This was undoubtedly a combination of the 'oh! Lesbians?!' factor, with a considerable dose of 'my god, that enormous orange afro... it's amazing'. Either way, we were feeling less than comfortable about the whole situation. No sooner than you may kiss the bride and Psy & myself were well on our way towards the bar, outpacing other attendees considerably.

Now, it's about this point where I feel it's important to mention that this was an outdoors affair. The ceremony itself took place some place featuring a large lawn. The reception took place a small trek from the ceremonial lawn, in a marquee featuring around six separate chairs, and a floor with a significant lean to it. I distinctly recall the word 'disconcerting' springing to mind as we made this first venture to the in-marquee bar, and you can only imagine how it felt an hour or two later when a hundred or so liquored up family members with no food in their stomachs were attempting to dance. But back to the story. We marched - valiantly, some may say - towards the bar. We looked at the staff, and we saw - nay, felt - the terror in their eyes; for behind us, a crowd. A thousand (okay... maybe a hundred) thirsty, awkward family members, and football players with matching partners (and matching dolphin ankle tattoos) charged. But we were at the front, and we shared the bar staff's desperation. We quickly determined what was on offer - Melbourne Bitter, Yellowglen sparkling, and a fairly unspectacular red and white wine duo. We decided, with haste, that what we needed at that exact moment was a beer, and some wine for our cohort with which we would soon reconnoiter. The staff, struggling to gather adequate glassware for our request, let alone for the requests of the rapidly approaching horde behind us, weighed up their options. Making the correct decision, they provided us not with the glassed of the liquor we required, but instead an entire bottles of all we asked for. Duly, we thanked them immensely, and got the fuck out.

Now, I suppose the obvious problem with receiving your beverages by the bottle, and with limited glassware, is that you tend to go through it a lot quicker than downing a glass, queuing, downing another glass, and so on. But we found another problem in this approach, a half hour to an hour inside the event. The problem, was that while the bar staff were more than happy to continue providing Psy and myself whole bottles of booze, they were not happy to offer the same service to the rest of the good patrons. We found ourselves finishing our drinks hastily, and ferrying orders back and forth from increasingly pissed family members, who'd caught on to our little secret and were exploiting it for all they were worth.

Several trips in, we'd pretty much decided to run with the 'could I have 4 bottles of each please? Thankyou, thankyou so much, you're a fucking lifesaver ' approach. It was meant to save us time. We were meant to store it away and dispense it accordingly. It was meant to save us trouble. The bar staff happily obliged, safe in the knowledge that it would mean less people for them to deal with directly, and we reveled in our apparent cleverness. The kind of cleverness that can come only as a direct result of being a little bit pissed and surrounded in annoying familyites. We were so very, very wrong.

In retrospect, there were many beneficiaries of our labour. There was Psy's mother. There were other cousins. There was my mother. There was Psy's father (the latter two were both designated drivers for the evening... Psy has been the first to label their efforts as 'creative sobriety'. I think this term is rather apt.). Then, there were the major beneficiaries; There was our aunt, the woman most famous for stealing, and then promptly consuming a kilo of grated cheese. There was myself and Psy. But most impressively, there was Psy's brother, and my good wife Vomit Girl; Having kept each other company all evening (and I use the term 'evening' liberally - in reality, it was something like from 5pm on a summers eve til around 8pm), issuing the occasional order of 'More champagne! Now!', they managed to consume several litres of cheap sparkling. I was fairly unaware of this fact until Psy eventually succeeded in alerting me to the outside of the marquee, where 'I might want to come and check on Vomit Girl'.

I stumbled outside of the large tent, now filled with people attempting to speechify their once carefully crafted and now hideously slurred speeches, not to find my wife to be, but to find Psy's brother looking rather pleased with himself, wielding a bottle of Yellowglen (feet surrounded in several empties), a worried looking Psy, and an enormous queue of people waiting to use the toilet. An enormous queue of angry people waiting to use the toilet. The women bashed on the door ineffectively, and complained bitterly. Even as I wondered out loud as to wear Vomit Girl might be, the nagging suspicion at the back of my head prepared me for what was about to occur.

The toilet door finally opened. But it was to be brief.


WHY DON'T YOU FUCK OFF, YOU FUCKING SLAPPERS?!

*SLAM*


...And that's about the moment I worked out exactly where I might be able to find my dearest.

I walked to the toilet door, and after some negotiating, I was let into the large under-house concrete bathroom. The stench was amazing. Once I found the light switch, the sight was even more amazing. Vomit caked the walls, and pooled on the floor. It dripped off the handbasin, and adorned the toilet. I decided this was a good time to start yelling. As I reeled fistful after fistful of toilet paper off the reel and dabbed (rather ineffectually) at the masses of spew, I watched the angry little vomit girl pace back and forth, threatening to 'glass' the 'slappers' who were still bashing on the bathroom door. I told her to get her shit together. That did not work. I told her that I was very ashamed of her. That also, did not work. I told her that she was a foul little beast. Again, did not work. I told her that she was far too good for the likes of them, and yes, they are slappers, but they are slappers that should not receive the pleasure of being able to laugh at you. It worked. She cleaned herself up (also ineffectually), and prepared herself to walk out of the toilet with her head held high, and her dignity intact.

She made it about ten meters before collapsing into a stinking drunken heap on the wet grass, right beside the angry (and somewhat astounded at this point) line. In retrospect, it's pretty good that she made it out of there at all. None the less though, Psy fetched her a chair, and I gave her a stern talking to, as she fell off the chair for the third time in as many minutes. She giggled. I threatened to not marry her. She responded with something along the lines of:

Yargh yrrr fkn HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! slprrsss fkn cntssss. HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

I walked around, urgently looking for two things; a miracle solution to the whole sordid affair, and a drink. I found neither, but returned to find Psy's brother and my mother circling VG, and deciding how, exactly, they were going to get her to the car. Psy's brother was still grinning inanely and clutching a bottle, my mother was clutching VG & her car keys. I attempted to hold up the other side of the walking, giggling, incoherent embarrassment that was my wife to be, and was quickly shooed away, by the equally pissed Psy's bro, who in a sudden fit of gallantry had decided that he'd quite like to try and carry VG down the wet grassy slope to the car.

One horrendous car ride later, we were at Psy's bro's house. VG had set herself up in the only toilet of the house, and firmly entrenched herself there for the evening. Psy's bro and I came to the realisation that we were both rather hungry, but were disappointed to find that he'd removed all real food in his house, instead opting to replace it with a diet of Lite 'n Easy. Sadly, we picked at our miniature fruit salad tubs, and cracked open a bottle of wine and a pack of smokes. Set for the evening, we ignored the sounds of whimpering, vomiting and snoring emerging from the bathroom, and actually had quite a nice evening.

VG and myself returned home the next day, late in the afternoon, tired, hung over, and stinking of vomit. I had little sympathy for her. In fact, I think it would be safe to say I had no sympathy for her. Mortified, I demanded that she call key family members (My mother, Psy's bro, the married cousin's mother) and apologise. Around 24 hours later, feeling less sorry for herself and more apologetic for her own actions, she did just that. And the response? The response was abysmal. The bastards laughed off all of her discrepancies, and managed to slag me off in the process. Never mind! They said. They said. We all drink a bit too much from time to time! Oh! Rantolotl can't complain! She was hardly sober herself! They said.

Well, hardly sober or not, I composed myself in such a way that I didn't cover a new found family members' bathroom in vomit, nor did I call the bridesmaids slappers. I didn't accost family members while they were attempting to take a leak (I'm sure Psy will fill you in on that one), and I fetched drinks for those who requested them, and maintained a cheery manner as always. So, dear family, you can all fuck right off, you pack of disparaging cunts.

Bastards.


P.S. Please send all details of pancakes and subsequent delivery (preferably with maple syrup) to hanoverland@gmail.com

Danke.

14 comments:

The Devil Drink said...

And they say there's no dignity or tradition left in the institution of marriage.
Bah!
(My favourite wedding event: Bride's ex-boyfriend punching on with Groom's mates in a frank whisky-soaked exchange over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Camp David was never so much entertainment).

rws said...

You should change the name of your blog to rantorofl, srsly.

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed that you remember even less of the night than I do, though I suppose there was a lot to repress... =p

I think it reflects on us well that we were the only ones out of the group that managed to befriend the bar staff. Or, at least, managed to be less obnoxious than anyone else.

The Rantolotl said...

Really, I'm just recounting what I saw - I missed a great deal of VG's bad behavior because I was inside the tent trying to get the 8 year old (10 year old?) to drink beer.

And yes, I'm still pleased with our bar staff efforts. For some reason, bar staff everywhere (except The Laundry) love us.

Anonymous said...

I'd suggest that if the staff at The Laundry can't appreciate our beer-racing hi-jinx then they should bugger off to some other industry where caring about broken glasses is important. Or something. Those bastards.

The Devil Drink said...

No, even if they pretend to smile, in the lowest ventricles of their hearts, the bar staff despise you. It's not personal, it's a service-industry freemasonry of hate: they're just obeying the Eleventh Commandment (Thy Dealer Is Not Thy Friend). Don't worry, in turn all bar workers are despised by kegroom staff, and in turn they're both despised by cleaners.
Getting an eight-year old to drink beer? Bless you, my child.

The Rantolotl said...

Thankyou, Devil Drink.

The child in question is in serious danger of becoming an accountant when he grows up. Fandango Jones and myself consider it our honour bound duty to make him a more interesting person. We'll keep you posted on how that progresses.

In other news, while I understand that cleaners hate everyone (and with fairly good reason I would suggest), I believe there's a good number of bar staff who have developed an honest appreciation of us, and not just because of our witty repartee and tips. I can't explain why, but if the free drinks/joints/food/chats are anything to go by, we're alright by them. And that's alright by me.

Got any suggestions for the 8 year old?

Anonymous said...

I think we need to stage an intervention for him. No, wait... not an intervention... what do you call it when you pull a burlap sack over someone's head, tie them up, and then abandon them in the middle of Mexico with naught but a backpack full of cheap beer and tequila?

The Rantolotl said...

In the venerable words of Judy (may she rest in peace), I do believe you call that a 'beer hike'.

The Devil Drink said...

Well, it's always risky to ask an evil supernatural entity about surrogate parenting advice, but since you ask, yairs.
If I was in charge of mentoring children, they'd get to do regular organised educated activity under appropriate supervision by trained adults. In such an environment they'd be suitably introduced to important life skills, in a fun and safe manner.
I call it "Casino Scouts". If your cuz is tending towards accountancy, they'd be a shoo-in for the Blackjack Badge.

Anonymous said...

Oh how the rantolotl exaggerates - skilled is she in the art of hyperbole...No one can vomit that much...

Anonymous said...

Quit with the false modesty, we don't call you 'Vomit Girl' because of your tiny feets you know =P

Anonymous said...

Wow, This is really good. Seriously, I was laughing out loud for the entire thing (though that may be attributed to the fact that i've not really been sleeping. You're really talented, the way you write is really pacey and overall it's engaging. Your wife is an english teacher so she probs has way better ways of describing it than I do. Just saying that I think you should send some writing (though maybe something with a little less swearing and obscenity) to a magazine or something similar...

I'll see you at the horror that is Madden extravaganza tomorrow night

Anonymous said...

hahahahaha! I was never able to prise the full details of that story from anyone. I am duly impressed! Suddenly I can understand why VG's normally so loathe to drink much on our outings.

And rE: the 8 y.o.? Drop them off in Sunshine at 1am Saturday night, with "I HAVE AN 8BALL OF SPEED IN MY PANTS" painted on them. Oh, the stories he'll have for his grandchildren!