Island Living

Gator Does Galvatraz

Do you have any friends outside of your siblings that you literally grew up in diapers with?  Particulary the ones that you still enjoy keeping in touch with?  For these purposes cyber stalking via an online social networking site of your choice counts as 'keeping in touch.'  Well I sure as heck do!

Recently I invited myself down to a wee Texas island for a fast and furious girl’s weekend with my oldest friends on record.  Not “old” as in blue hair and wrinkles, but the very first friends I actually made in life…  (That’s if my faulty memory records serve me correctly and I choose to believe that they do.)  AND I also got to meet, face to face, one of my newest most favorite corrupting influences, Hurricane Josephine.

Hey!  Do you remember the time…?

… I threw a rock at your brother's head and he had to get stitches?  Do you think your parents knew that I did that? 
LS:  Nah.  The only time he had to get stitches was the time I stuck his finger in a bicycle chain.
G:  Really!?  I’ve been harboring guilt over that for like 20 effing years!

…I used to ask, "if I order a pizza will y'all help me eat it?”

…Or that time we paid the pizza man with a bag of nickels and it exploded on your front porch as I was making the exchange?  The poor pizza guy was super pissed!

…My Mom backed her brand new car into your Dad’s tree and broke her tail light?

…We swiped a couple of cigarettes and smoked them between our house and the neighbors?
G:  Your Dad’s?
MKT:  No.  He smoked menthols.  We grabbed some of your Mom’s Virginia Slim’s. 
G:  Oh, YEAH!

…We used to swim in that retention pond back in the woods or how about the time we left that gate open and all those cows got loose into the neighborhood?

…I would build a totally indestructible death trap of a jump for you and Confetti and point you toward it?  Off you’d go, no questions asked, and I was totally peaking threw my fingers to make sure you lived!

…We roved the neighborhood day and night completely unsupervised?  We were totally like little unfed migrants stopping in at the neighbors just to eat cookies and milk, or whatever was being served for dinner.

…Those crazy dance routines Big Sara choreographed and then forced us to dance to!?  Her poor Baby Kate didn’t stand a chance of escaping the bow head, did she?

…The time we took your Mom’s Volvo to Mc Donald’s and side swiped the yellow pole at the gas station!?
G:  And we shit ourselves trying to scrub the paint off her fender?

And I’ve forgotten at least a hundred more.

Recap of Island Shenanigans:

MKT:  You’re shitting me!?  You have a skeleton in your car?  Let’s take him to the bar with us!
G:  He does have a good set of wheels.
MKT:  Why the F do you have a skeleton in your car!?
G:  I just cleaned out my closet.

J:  I have to wear those Godforsaken boots every day; don’t give me shit about my hooker heels!


G:  (Belligerently sober) I’m sorry.  Can you possibly make me a drink that doesn’t involve the palm of your hand touching my ice?
Wee Bar Keep:  Your friend here needs to learn some bar etiquette.
G:  And your bar tender should work on his hygiene.


G:  (Still belligerently sober) Dude.  This conversation is exhausting me.
Dude:  Why?
G:  I’m carrying the whole effing conversation, and frankly I’m tired of hearing myself talk.
Dude:  Slowly makes his exit.


G:  (Much less sober) Josephine!  You’re gonna hafta kill that guy.
J:  Why?  What’d he do?
G:  Number one?  He’s wearing a burnt orange shirt.  Number two?  He’s inappropriately eyeballing me.

It took approximately 24 hours to get over my deep disappointment that I couldn’t convince JoJo ‘Killer’ to actually kill anyone…  And 48  (or maybe it was 72)  hours to get over my hangover.  2 weeks it took me to quit dreaming about bagel bites and only 3 weeks to find the time and energies to dig this story out of my rusty and dehydration compromised short term memory.

I do feel that I’m finally on to something here, though.  There seems to be a resounding theme, a moral so to speak, of my tale and more recent holiday experiences.  I am most belligerent while sober.  Perhaps all that is needed to mollify Gator and my horrible Tourette’s syndrome is regular imbibing.  Or more importantly, limit my exposure to any one group of people to less than 24 hours.  Most certainly there shall be further exploration of this hypothesis in the New Year.


*Much thanks to Little Sarah and D, Mary and John, Josephine and the US Army as well as all the beautiful chil'ren (doggy and the human kind) that made this weekend possible, drove sober, supplied the amazing couch, plied the obnoxious with munchies and offered to do it again ;)