| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 |
TEQUILACON '08 - Latest Updates
Design concept
and illustrations by kris dresen
RSS 1.0
« No Dummy | Main | Maythird »
Last weekend, Natasha, Farnsworth and I drove up to Wisconsin to have dinner at Dee-Dee’s restaurant in Elkhart Lake. Her parents’ house is only a few miles away from the restaurant so she said we could all stay there since her parents are in Florida for the winter.
I was thrilled at this prospect since the last time we went to her restaurant, we all slept on her sister’s living room floor, which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that our friend Seamus had some rare combination of asthma, allergies, sleep apnea, tonsillitis, and post nasal drip that evening that caused him to snore so loudly that my ears bled. Mainly because I stabbed pens in them to make it stop.
“Nat, you and Farnsworth can take this room. It used to be my brother’s. And Jenny, your room is at the end of the hall on the left. It’s a little… well, you’ll see.”
I pushed open the door and just stood there for a minute, taking it all in.
There were two white wicker beds.
There was a white wicker baby chair with Raggedy Ann and Andy sitting in it.
There was white wicker dresser with a shrunken apple head old lady on it.
There was a white wicker nightstand with a telephone that was either from 1973 or from the future.
And there was a child’s desk hosting what appeared to be a shrine to a tiny stuffed dog, complete with a bag of real tiny dog snacks.
“Yeah… so it’s a little intense, I know.”
“Okay, Dee… what's the story here? This is like something you see when people lose a child and they preserve their bedrooms for posterity. Do you have dead twin sisters that you never mentioned to me?”
“No. My mom just likes country stuff.”
“Why did you put me in the dead baby’s room? Make Nat and Farnsworth sleep here!”
“I can’t. The beds are too tiny. They’ll fall off. You should be careful of that, too. My sister and I fall off of these all the time.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
We all tossed our bags in our rooms and headed downstairs to watch TV.
“My dad has bootleg Canadian cable. He gets like, 2000 channels.”
And yet, we still ended up watching Meatballs.
I realized that even though I’m pushing 40, I still felt a sense of rebellion at running around Dee’s parents’ house unsupervised. The big difference this time, though, was that instead of sneaking crème de menthe and Peach Schnapps from parents’ liquor cabinets, we were drinking Bushmills and Bombay Sapphire.
After flipping through all 2000 channels about ten times, we decided it was time to water down the gin so no one would notice we drank it, and head up to bed. Before we all retired to our respective rooms, we followed Dee into the master bedroom where I saw some giant glasses sitting on the nightstand.
“Look at me! My name is Jim and I’m your father! Dee-Dee! You get down here for dinner right now! I don’t care who you’re talking to on your gigantic 1970’s telephone… your mother slaved over this gravy bread and you’ll eat it right now!”
“Take his glasses off now! Seriously!”
“You’re no fun, Dee.”
I gently placed his glasses back in the exact position I found them, and headed off to my room. As soon as I crawled into my dead twin bed, I immediately realized that the reason Dee always falls out is not because the beds are so small, but because they are arched in the middle. I had to lie on my stomach and straddle the bed spread eagle like a drunken cowboy in order to not roll off. I imagined Dee-Dee walking into my room the next morning only to find my lifeless body, head wedged tightly between a vice of white wicker.
I somehow made it through the night unscathed and immediately went downstairs to watch 2000 more channels of cable TV before we headed out to the restaurant again for brunch. I got sucked into this retched movie where Nicolas Cage was being hunted by Ellen Burstyn and her horde of crazed hippie beekeepers.
“God, this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“Oh, it’s a remake of a British movie. The original was much better.”
“What’s it called?”
Posted by runjenrun at November 14, 2007 06:30 AM
Oh Jenny, those glasses!! The phone!! The wicker!! I'm literally wiping tears from my face I laughed so hard. P.S. Tell Dee-Dee I'm sorry about her dead twin sisters. ;)
Posted by: shari at November 13, 2007 10:53 PM
What's a gravy bread?
Posted by: srah at November 13, 2007 10:55 PM
totally believable. in fact, just last week i was in missouri, and i heard that same line, "MY MOM JUST LIKES COUNTRY STUFF" and then...
well, then i blacked out and don't 'member. but i'm sure it was fine.
oh, you. it's not your fault. it's not your fault...
Posted by: brandon at November 13, 2007 11:50 PM
I really, really REALLLLLY want that phone!! Its so cool. You made me laugh so much I had to leave the office, as I was disturbing people. Standing out in the hallway laughing to yourself is really not a good look though.
Posted by: serap at November 14, 2007 04:36 AM
Love the phone. I think my dad and stepmom had one when I was a kid. Elkhart Lake, WI? I grew up in Elkhart, IN. A dear friend grew up in Elkhart, IL. Small world.
Posted by: Strode at November 14, 2007 07:01 AM
shari: dee-dee said that in lieu of flowers, you should send me scotch.
srah: gravy bread is what dee-dee's family ate when they were growing up country. here's the recipe: take a slice of white bread, pour gravy on it, eat.
brandon: amnesia is the mind's way of telling you to leave well enough alone.
serap: see - i totally should have stolen the phone! think of what i could have made on eBay!
strode: it is a small world... populated almost entirely by elk, apparently. :)
Posted by: jenny at November 14, 2007 07:12 AM
Oh, JENNNNNNNNNY....you know how cute your dad and I thought you looked in the big pink (I think) glasses you wore not so many years ago.
I *still* think you look adorable in big glasses...so there!
Posted by: Mom at November 14, 2007 07:54 AM
The only missing from that room was a marionette. It really would've brought everything together...IN HELL!!!
Posted by: You can call me, 'Sir' at November 14, 2007 08:21 AM
wicker man. ha! this made me lol, jenny. lolz, even.
Posted by: kat! at November 14, 2007 09:04 AM
mom: oh, you mean those saucer-sized peach sally jesse raphael glasses i had in junior high where the earpiece connected at the bottom of the frame so it looked like they were on upside down? yeah, those were totally hot. no wonder i was so popular. ;)
sir: seriously - it's like i can't escape evil dolls!
kat: wait - you lolz'ed?!? my work here is done. :)
Posted by: jenny at November 14, 2007 09:20 AM
"Why would you put me in the dead baby's room?" HA HA HA.
I totally remember those phones!
Posted by: sizzle at November 14, 2007 09:22 AM
Okay, you in those glasses? Is adorable. I bet your scary cat statue and giant rabbit head would feel right at home there.
Posted by: churlita at November 14, 2007 03:10 PM
Wow. You could craft quite a horror movie just using the contents of that room...
Totally feel ya on the SJR glasses - I had the same pair. I credit them for making me... well, I credit them for giving me the... ok, I guess they really were only responsible for ensuring that no boy talked to me for all of 8th grade...
Posted by: Laurel at November 14, 2007 06:26 PM
sizzle: are you serious? how come everyone remembers those phones but me?
churlita: hee hee. the one photo i neglected to take was a little ceramic shih tzu that was exactly the same size as pickles. it was like his soulmate.
laurel: no one gets us. unless you wore the SJR glasses, you just can't understand...
Posted by: jenny at November 14, 2007 09:25 PM
I was way too shy to talk to girls in 8th grade, but I'm sure if I wasn't, those glasses would have fixed me.
The original Wicker Man is one of my faves, I wrote a review here, I think I am fond of it mainly because my subconscious mind had to settle on SOMEthing from the 70s to be fond of.
Posted by: Don at November 15, 2007 06:51 PM
When I was little, me and my brother used to go down to Florida with my grandparents for a week every winter. The place we stayed was chock-full of wicker things and we never stopped delighting in finding new ones (i.e., the wicker toothbrush holder, wicker -- I shit you not -- towel rack, etc.). You should keep a list.
Posted by: sandra at November 15, 2007 07:04 PM
"Vice of wicker".....*snort*!
Posted by: Jessica at November 20, 2007 08:05 PM
I was laughing pretty hard at the premise alone, but I lost it on that pic of the mini (fake) dog with the mini (fake) treats. That is the shiznit. Nice photography work, too, toots.
I take exception to your description of the shrunken apple-head lady, however. That is clearly some old L'Eggs suntan pantyhose repurposed to stylish effect.
Ah, country crap. I miss those vacuum cleaner covers at the Kane County Flea Market...
Posted by: communicatrix at December 8, 2007 10:58 PM
