I don’t get lots of comments around here, but when I get folks contacting me in person to learn more about the story behind an entry, I am only too happy to oblige.
Yesterday, I told you about Scumby, the poster child for abstinence.
*pauses to thank God that Mom doesn’t read this page, or she’d kick my ass* Mikey, don’t tell Wobin or I’ll kick YOUR ass!
During the trip from hell that I descibed, let me mention that Scumby had sold the trip as “a week at my cabin in the woods. And we will go boating!”
OK, right on. Although I was mortified when he pulled up in his beat-up, rusty tomato-red van (my grandmother called it the “Tin Can”) with a camouflage-painted canoe attached to a hitch. A CANOE!!! The hell? No boat? No motor? No little fridge full of refreshments for a hot summer’s day?
And, as I mentioned earlier, NO CABIN. A tiny trailer clinging to shaky ground was more accurate. And no hot water. Cheap bastard. Never felt so icky in my entire life. Hello Matt Foley!
Oh, but wait — there’s more.
Like no seats in the VAN.
Oh, the humanity.
Now, I am a prissy girl. Don’t get me wrong — I drink and swear like the boys and, thus, have always had a harem of straight male friends because they liked my low bullshit tolerance and my appreciation of swinging brews, throwing darts and watching football, even if I don’t understand a minute of it but what girl can’t appreciate hot asses in tight pants?
Where was I? 😉
Oh, OK. Priss. Anyway, I like girly things. I appreciate what makes me different from my beloved boys and do my best to appreciate those parts of me and enhance them in any way I can.
Suffice to say, I was expected to flop out on the van floor for the ride. HAH! We ended up buying a bean bag chair for me on the way, and lemme tell you, if I ever end up with a guy with one of those chairs, I will set fire to it. And then kill him for good measure.
I tell you all of this to set the stage for the return trip. Mom was forced to drive the Tin Can twice, with equally abysmal results. First, she had to back the hitch into the water to get the boat canoe (no, we never got into it!) and it’s HARD to judge a piece of shit without sideview mirrors, so she almost annhilated the Scumbalicious one himself because she couldn’t SEE him. Oh, he was hopping mad — I was entertaned.
Let me explain something about Scumby — he was a skinny (ugh — we like big boys, thanks — what was she thinking?!?!) and tall thing who let his beard grow scraggly. I think it weighed more than he did. And remember I told you how he fell in the pond and decided to rot in his own filth? Well, the irony is that he LOVED to wear ballcaps — in particular, an orange cap advertising Surf detergent. So, I turned around to see this orange-cap-with-a-beard literally hopping up and down in the water, swearing. Drunken asshole.
Anyway, once we made the pilgrimage home (and I was completely seasick — I get carsick in backseats, oftentimes, and I get carsick when I’m the one driving, too. And shut up, it’s from the truck exhaust and not from my driving, thankyouverymuch), the adventure wasn’t ready to end.
Mom had to drop Scumby off somewhere (probably at the bar — that two-hour drive must’ve killed him). Although he did enjoy tormenting me by playing Tanya Tucker cassettes and cracking the same joke 40 times: “Tanya Tucker — I’d love to fuck her!”
Oh, you clever rhyming bastard you. Die.
All right, so Mom and I took the Tin Can on the highway. We were chugging along the interstate when …
… oh this is too fucking funny …
… the front seats collapsed!!!
ROFLMFAO
I shit you not, the seats came loose (they were probably lodged in place with chewing gum in the first place — I swear it wasn’t our asses that did it!) and I went SAILING into the murky depths of the Tin Can.
Mom is a goddamned miracle worker — she always has been and remains my heroine. I don’t know HOW she did it, but she clung to the steering wheel and managed to drive STANDING UP while I found the seats and tried to push them back into place.
We got to our destination as safely as humanly possible, and I called my grandfather to come pick us up.
And thus ended the Summer of Scumby.
On iTunes: Emiliana Torrini, “Ruby Tuesday”