Everyone who reads this probably knows that I spent my New Year's in Minneapolis. But what happened up there? Don't you deserve some deeply personal posts? Fine.
A few significant things happened to me while on vacation. One involved a hamburger. The first night, I ate a Juicy Lucy. If you search around Tornado Slide a bit, you'll find a link explaining its origins - since I'm too lazy to look that up I'll give you the highlight - cheese cooked between 2 hamburger patties. Disturbingly cheap given the quality of the burger - something like $4 bought the best burger I've ever had. Moreover, that burger fortified my tum-tum for the rest of the night's drinking. Pre-Juicy Lucy, I had a large mug of Summit and a pint of Newcastle. Post-Juicy Lucy, I had a pint of Summit, a bottle of Moosehead, 3 white russians, and 3 shots. That's not too much liquor for the average gentleman, but it was probably the most I've ever consumed without making a puking, sleeping mess of myself. And no hangover the next day - no hangovers all vacation, actually.
The next thing was socks. There are perks to living in the Twin Cities and there are disadvantages. For me, a person that would consider surgery to permanently attach socks to my feet, the ice and snow present a larger problem compared to others. Once indoors, and you have to take your shoes off so that you don't trample snow or ice or salt or whatever semisolid garbage all over the carpet and rugs and tile. If someone before you did not do this, your sock comes into contact with it, and you've got some wet socks. Damn wet socks. Fucking cold feet. I want to die.
The other thing was Laura. I have no idea what we started talking about, but I know that different points of our conversation hit upon
a Point-Counterpoint from The Onion, the fact that she reads the
Skyway News, her ex-boyfriend that attended last year's party, the difference between Saint Olaf (the school, not the saint) and Gustavus, and how she likes to kiss her girlfriends, including Heather, our host. All this as she berated partygoers to vote for her wine -- "It has a mean looking black cat on it! It's the same as that other wine in the bottle shaped like a cat! That's cheating!"
All this talk went on for quite some time. I listened intently as she spoke; she asked me zero questions about myself. It became clear that she was not in love with me, but she was really drunk. Not the first time I have misinterpreted the two.
By my survey, the party was filled with a lot of attractive, available youths. I was puzzled when, at midnight, no one seemed to be interested in kissing any of the attractive, available youths. Laura was the exception - she dove into Heather, who struggled to avoid a prolonged, awkward-yet-sexy moment. Brushing off Heather's reluctance, she moved to me for a brief peck. I can only imagine what kind of amazing skills Heather had previously revealed to Laura that made her so hungry for Heather's embrace; I don't have to wonder about my own skills, as Laura mocked my effort moments later. If I recall correctly, Laura didn't think it was much of a kiss -- not long enough, I expect. She then sat on the radiator.
Minutes later, had Laura not passed out on the toilet, she may have experienced a more intense attempt.
The final thing was the flight home. At the gate, I spotted a woman that looked friendly and was the textbook definition of a normal female weight. She ended up sitting one row ahead and one seat to the right of myself, and the judgement I handed to her when I saw she the Reader's Digest in her hands was dealt a significant blow when she opened it to a story about the struggle among factions of Islam. Two people met her upon arrival in Kansas City -- the three together were very unlikely and did not belong.
