When I still lived with my folks, I always hung out in the garage, which was covered in posters, cigarette butts, broken glass, and old furniture with liquid cheese grafted onto the upholstery. During those years, I had many wild parties in the dingy hole, and I'm going to tell you about one of my favorites right now.

My neighbor at the time, Shane, was a cool guy. He was recently married, had a pool table in his garage, and sold counterfeit watches and glass pipes out of his briefcase. One night he threw a party, and he asked me to DJ it. I brought my turntables, mixer, and record collection next door to his condo and set up the equipment in his living room. I'm not very good at mixing, so I played some techno and industrial records radio-DJ style, one after another, to save myself the embarrassment of one trainwreck mix after another.

Shane had a keg of MGD in his back yard, and a tank of nitrus in the bathtub upstairs. Sometime around 11:30 pm the police came because some teenage girl had told her parents exactly where she was going. She'd been denied permission, so she snuck out. Her parents called the cops, and they showed up the door to flush the girl out and check IDs and make sure everyone drinking was old enough. Of course, many were not.

This led to a bull run of people running out the back door, including my friend Dave. I grabbed him by the sleeve and told him to stay put, which he did. After everything settled down, I hauled my equipment back to my garage and broke out the cocaine. While Dave and I were touching our second or third line, Shane knocked at the garage door and asked if he could bring the tank into my garage. Sure! He'd already given me the keg, and the night looked to last a long time. I don't know if you've ever heard a nitrus cannister before, but they are very loud, like an elephant's mating call. I had about 15 people stuffed in there doing balloons, falling over into piles of nasty garbage full of pizza crusts and iguana shit.

Eventually they all left, sometime around 4 in the morning, right around when my dad wakes up. He drinks a fifth or two a night of Ten High bourbon, so he goes down at 8 or 9 and wakes early. My friend Darren was piss drunk and hitting on a girl named Tanya who had no interest whatsoever, and Darren was getting belligerent. I asked him, ever so kindly, to go inside and sleep on the couch. He went, but he had to urinate first, and he mistook the kitchen for the bathroom. With my dad hungover and watching groggily, Darren tapped his kidney right onto the kitchen floor. My fathert was upset, but I thought it was no big deal since dad himself had peed in the refrigerator a few times in the past, a worse offense in my opinion. Especially when he nails the meatkeeper where all the sandwich stuff is.

I was getting a friendly massage from Tanya when some jackass asked me when I was going to kiss her. My silence condemned me and she got mad and sulked at the other end of the garage for a while before going to sleep on my sister's floor. I was too damn drunk and fucked up, and I didn't like being put on the spot. The fact that I'm a prude doesn't help either.

When all was said and done, my front lawn was littered with plastic cups, balloons, bottlecaps, cigarette butts, and footprints. I slept until the afternoon. I think I drank more when I awoke, but I'm not sure. The passage of time makes memory hazy. Okay, the drugs don't help either.
10:53 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm