Recipe For Disaster

I don't know if this is technically correct to say, but this weekend was really cliched. It's like I did everything that I was expected to do. Don't get me wrong, it was totally kickass, but with very few surprises.

It started off with a sort of final at school, and while everyone was freaking out, I really wasn't that worried. It was multiple choice, which I've done too many times, so I looked over my notes a couple times the day before and I got a 91%. I was also the third person to finish. Not to brag, but that's how easy this test was, and you only needed a 50% to pass. No shit.

So it was obvious that we were all going to celebrate the end of the test, but it just so happened that Australia Day was the day after the test. Australia Day is basically St. Patrick's Day but for down here. On the one day, everyone in Australia becomes an Australian. So my friend Matt offered to drive Melisa and I up to Brisbane for the night so we could go to his friend's barbecue up there. We got there around noon, and there was a blistering heat. The second we sat down, we already had a beer to our lips to quench the mighty thirsts that we had, and we never really looked back. The heat even got bad enough that a make-shift slip-and-slide was built even though Australians can't use hoses because of the draught here, so we had to bucket in water every couple of minutes.

So the day continued like that. Eat, drink, slip, slide and when someone suggested we play wheel of goon, I started to get scared. Now there's two things you might need explaining here. "Goon" is Australian slang for boxed wine, which is the cheapest alcohol you can buy here. There isn't any PBR or Keystone Light. It's also interesting to know that goon contains fish, egg and soy products, which is one of the main reasons that I stick to my slightly more expensive beer. Then, "Wheel of Goon" is a game where you take the bag of wine out of the box that it comes in, and attach it to a clothes line that spins around in a circle, and whoever it lands on has to drink it straight out of the bag for 10 seconds. I jumped in, and when the bag never stopped on me, but they made me drink the last 4 seconds of someone elses turn because they couldn't finish. Right when I fisnished drinking, the only words that came to mind were "fish", "egg" and "soy". I immediately felt queezy, which might've just been the alcohol in it, but I went and laid down for five minutes, but I felt it coming back up so I ran and chucked it up in the grass. I got a cheer as the first person to throw up. Yay for me! Even though I felt better, I was really tired, so I went upstairs and told Melisa to wake me up in 10 minutes. That was about 5:30.

I woke up on my own at 7:00 or so. I felt good, even though everything was still a blur. I went downstairs and everyone was getting ready to head out to town. I really wasn't ready to pack it in for the night so early, so I put on my all-stars and went out with them. We found a really nice bar in the city with a good band and just hung out there for the night. Like I said before, there weren't really any surprises here. We talked and we drank. A gay guy hit on me. The band was pretty good. I guess the only real surprise here was that I actually danced. Even though the band was playing music which is pretty much impossible to dance to, we thought that swing dancing was the most appropriate, so we got out there and I tried my best to remember my couple of dancing lessons with Sara Petty back in the States, and I think I did a pretty damn good job. At least no girls turned me down for a dance.

So the night started wrapping up and we grabbed some KFC before we got home. We talked politics while we ate. We got a cab home because our legs were absolutely wrecked from the days activities, and we all went to bed quietly. Oh what a good sleep.

The next day, for some odd reason, we were awake at 8:00, and after some breakfast, the three of us amigos drove down to the Gold Coast where we spent the day looking at the ground and sitting on the beach in the sun. We were all so tired. We couldn't even wake up enough to truly have fun, so we just called it a day and drove home, vowing to go back some other weekend when we can have lots of fun with lots of stories to tell. Ooohh ooo! Wait a minute. One good story. I went into Red Rooster (which is like chick-fil-a) and the guy that took my order looked exactly like the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland. His hair was dyed black and blonde, and it was pouring out from underneath his work hat from all directions. He had wide crazy eyes and bucked teeth sticking out from underneath his lips. Uncanny, really.

So I hope everyone else enjoyed their Australia Day. I'll be waiting to hear all the great stories from up north.