Monthly Archives: November 2011

by | November 29, 2011 · 7:22 am

The Burdens of Internet Fame

Wooo! We just hit 1000 subscribers! In honor of this momentous readership event, and because everyone’s been so supportive, Sam and I would like to say thanks and take a look back at the Fresh Pressing that started this electrically unsafe daisy chain of fortune.

I’d always viewed the internet as a vast, unicorn-infested, cat-plagued, time-sucking mega-void that would chop up whatever creativity I was brave enough to offer it into tiny, troll-size bites, but I wasn’t about to let a few grammar-defying kittens stop me.

I knew damn well that I could be mildly, vaguely, intermittently amusing, not to mention the fact that Sam’s artwork is torn straight from the heavens. He declared that any representation of this truth would be self-serving, but luckily I have no such qualms.

And so, it was with a great sense of achievement that I wrote and published my first post, ate some microwavable mini-quiches, and promptly fell asleep.

I awoke to the sound of bells.

My first thought is that a bunch of angels, now armed with the bell-induced power of wings, are hunting us down for stealing their heavenly artwork, but it’s only the doorbell—the computer guy’s here to fix my internet.

I wriggle into pants (the last guy had filed an official complaint), boot up my computer, and briefly glance at my page views—WHAT THE GRAPH?! The number is so huge my atrophied English brain can barely comprehend it. I call Sam to make sure this is real life, but he’s either asleep or at the mercy of the battle seraphim and can offer no persuasive evidence. Before I can come to any conclusions, the doorbell rings again.

The plumbers! My apartment is soon filled with jostling servicemen, and the computer guy has shut off my internet. I have no idea what’s happening out there in the mega-void! The plumbers start sawing into my ceiling all over the place and suddenly it’s disgorging water in three spots with vindictive aplomb, and the now-soaked drywall is collapsing like the Soviet Union.

Long story short, after my internet was revived about an hour later, after the water-spewing pipes had been sealed off and the gaping holes in my ceiling were—well, those are still there. Anyway, after dealing with my assorted apartmental issues, I was able to resume my e-vestigation and found out I’d been freshly pressed…on my very first post!

Still in shock, I scoured my kitchen for smelling salts, only to realize that I live in the present day, so I gave up and proceeded to bask in the joy of one of the most exciting moments of my life. It was a singular experience, receiving ludicrously positive feedback from complete strangers. I still can’t figure out what they stand to gain! Since then, though view rates have naturally never come close to that chart-ruining outlier of a first day, the blog has grown as slowly and surely as a lesson-teaching tortoise, and for some reason, the people reading it seem to actually enjoy it.

And it’s all thanks to you! You, my readers and new favorite people ever, made this happen. You are the first wave of hope in a stormy sea of fear and slimy kelp, helping propel us forward on the journey toward the shores of moderate internet fame. And it doesn’t matter that I’ve already been offered dozens of jobs all over the tropics. I don’t care about the fact that scores of moon women have been throwing themselves at me, and so be it if the state of Rhode Island promised me a small herd of attack lions if I’d only drop everything and compose their official State Poem.

You know what? I don’t even care that Ex-Vice-President Al Gore offered me a position by his side saving baby albino whales from underwater greenhouse gases. I told him the world would have to wait, because by god, I’ve got readership now, and if he didn’t want me ignoring literally every other aspect of my life in the pursuit of becoming internet famous, then he damn well shouldn’t have invented the thing.

Now, it’s not all fun and games. Every week I’m filled to the brim with frothy, bubbling panic as I realize I’ve finally written the post that will prove I’m merely a fraud masquerading as a merry minstrel of the mega-void. Sleep has become such an unattainable fantasy that whenever I manage to snag an hour or two, I invariably dream of more sleeping. It’s like a boring, sedated version of Inception.

And now that I spend all my time alone in my room attempting to befriend the internet, my social skills are going the way of the red wolf—critically endangered in the wild, but thriving in World of Warcraft.

Yes, internet fame may require great sacrifice, but you’re worth it, readers, and you can bet your oversize bonnets I’ll be here for you this Tuesday, and barring serious injury or any non-fictional job offers, every Tuesday after that.

Like an abacus, you can count on me.

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by | November 24, 2011 · 3:30 am

My First Reunion – Part Deux: The Ex

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your outlook, there were only about 35 of us at the reunion that first night. That’s a lot of wine per person, but we were the Bishop’s Knights, champions of the Division 4, eight-man football league, and what we lack in numbers, we make up for in willingness to make bad choices. Everyone diligently downed their designated half bottle and trekked to the next destination. The bar we ended up at never knew what hit them, and college hookup stories were swapped with the same reckless gusto as the people involved in them. The night had reached a pinnacle of revelry and showed no signs of relenting until my aviators, stored carefully on the neck of my shirt, were crushed in a most glorious chest bump.

As the frames shattered, so too did my confidence. The only reason any of this was going so well, the only reason my former classmates had been inspired by my speech and were treating me with hitherto unheard of dignity, was my new look, and the aviators held the disguise together. They were the duct tape of my self-esteem, the superglue of my success, and without them, I was nothing. I was blitzkrieged, so I believed this.

I glanced around in panic, but luckily no one had yet noticed my apparel mishap. In desperation, I fled to the bathroom to contemplate my options and quickly determined there was only one possible course of action: I had to buy new glasses. With covert determination, I surreptitiously recruited Oli, the fashion prodigy, to come with me on my needless quest of little import, and we wandered into the heart of downtown to recomplete my outfit. After a great deal of searching, we happened upon some pharmacy that, like all pharmacies, for some reason had sunglasses, and I proceeded to try on literally every pair. The place was empty, so the employees all gathered around and started giving me advice, each bickering over which pair looked the best. I finally settled on one that was the least painful (I have a big head), and snuck back into the reunion, where, thanks to my once again complete outfit, I was welcomed with open arms, though this time I guarded my glasses whenever someone went in for the hug.

Though the rest of the evening is now nothing more than the haziest of memories, I do know that everyone was so absurdly messed up that an unheard of level of bonding was achieved.

The second night is a whole different animal. We’re all crammed into a tiny pub and there’s not even a whiff of free wine. Plus, we’re all just-out-of-school poor, so no one’s buying drinks. In the cogent misfortune of sobriety, everyone remembers their rightful place and sublimates back into cliques.

Then a chill settles on the crowd, the lights flicker with latent anticipation, and with mood-crushing finality, the ex thunders onto the scene. In tow is her lanky, doe-eyed, American Eagle Ad of a boyfriend, who proceeds to sit in a corner and not make conversation with anyone. In the rush of whispered rumor, I find out that not only was this guy the reason she left me, but that after spending 3 weeks together in Paris, they’d proceeded to date long distance from Nor Cal to Florida. This new guy may have lived 3,154 miles farther away than I did, but despite the odds and the geometry, they stuck it out.

That, my friends, is true love. Man, I really need to go to Paris, or even start speaking in a French accent, or maybe just watch Beauty and the Beast over and over while shoveling down tubs of French vanilla ice cream.

The reunion becomes increasingly awkward as we both go to lengths to neither speak to nor avoid one another, and all the while people are asking me whether it’s difficult to finally see Klaus again. I tell them it wouldn’t be if I weren’t so sober, but I only get a couple pity drinks—not nearly enough. I decide this is for the best; perhaps my lucidity will allow me to handle the situation with some ephemeral imitation of maturity. So though I’m now having way less fun, I take it in stride. Klaus on the other hand, decides the suitable way to deal with her crippling guilt is to get obliterated, and since she’s a millionaire, she pounds drink after drink, rubbing her overworked liver in the faces of those less fortunate.

The reunion wears on and eventually draws to a close, at which point what used to be (and probably still is) the popular crowd decides to extend the evening by going to a club. In the name of all the bonding we’d experienced the night before (see above), they invite us nerds to join, though they stop short of waiting for us to close our tabs. About fifteen minutes later, the less cool second wave, which somehow includes Klaus (why is this happening to me?) follows, but when we get to the club, there’s a $20 cover. Nobody wants to pay that, but everyone else is already in there, and because it’s the only first high school reunion we’ll ever attend, we cough up the dough.

Turns out the first group had quailed at the cover charge and had gone elsewhere without telling us. Popular kids—they never change.

We try to back out of this “paying” thing, but upon making no headway with the obstinate cash-register girl, Brian (the roommate) demands that a manager be summoned. His gangly charm apparently works this time, because said manager immediately appears with a puff of smoke. He removes his cigar long enough to tell us he can’t refund us—it’s against Policy. And Policy, as we all know, cannot be summoned to argue with. As recompense, he puts on a slimy smile and offers us free drinks. We decide to cut our losses and head inside, where Klaus, who’s managed to get blitzed beyond all reckoning, starts dancing up a drunkenly shameless storm.

She’s shakin’ her booty, backin’ it up, and grinding all over this guy, who, I forgot to mention, doesn’t drink. He looks supremely uncomfortable as he attempts to manage his girlfriend, but she’s having none of it and continues to dance the night away. The boyfriend is obviously woefully aware of our judging eyes, and Klaus is either completely oblivious or is actively feigning happiness in an attempt to  make me explode with jealousy. Either way, she’s moving with such rhythmic aggression that her dress keeps slipping off, revealing her gazongas for all to see. Didn’t think I’d ever be laying eyes on those again. The boyfriend obviously hates this, and the way the edge of my mouth is starting to twitch does little to improve his mood. He’d been trying to make a good impression on everyone from Klaus’s past, and here we were, casually observing his utter inanity and inability to either have fun with his girlfriend, or, if he’s not into the whole fun thing, to rein her in and keep her on his level.

I start to remember all the problems Klaus and I had, like the fact that she would call me five times a day or the amount of life I missed out on because I visited her so often, or how whenever we went out dancing her top would come off. Suddenly I can’t help but laugh. All this time I’d been bemoaning the loss of the girl of my dreams, never acknowledging that my dreams are usually about dinosaurs and video games. I had outgrown Klaus, and suddenly the night turned from painful to comical before my very eyes.

From that moment on, I was a free man.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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by | November 22, 2011 · 7:29 am

My First Reunion – Part 1: The Hail Mary

Five years had passed since the day that old man had given me a shiny diploma and I’d embarrassingly forgotten to shake his hand. Five years. Which meant it was time for my first reunion.

Not everyone gets a five year reunion, but I went to one of those fancy private high schools that hosts as many events as possible in an effort to squeeze, weasel, and squeezel every last nickel out of its alumni. And since we all wanted to prove to our former peers that we’d done something with ourselves, we fell for the trap.

As soon as I received the invitation, the Fear took me. I hadn’t seen these hyper-intelligent, upper-crust people in years, and now they were sure to be so massively successful and self-assured that they wouldn’t even need to rub it in my face—it would just be obvious. What did I have? An English degree? And now I was taking a year off…to write? That doesn’t sound very impressive. It sounds like I’m lying about not being able to get a job.

Sure that I would be the laughing stock of the reunion, I wallowed.

Once the self-pity was over with, I logged onto the school website to order my ticket, but the site was in digital shambles, and even simple actions like clicking buttons became a battle of my will vs. machine wont. Its flagrant disregard for the standards of web 2.0 infuriated me, at least, until I found a glitch that allowed me to sign up for free. I spread word to Brian (the roommate), and he proceeded to register for every reunion, from year 5 to 75, with me as his plus one.

I was just getting used to the idea of this now free reunion when my ex called to let me know she’d be bringing her new boyfriend, you know, in the spirit of giving advance warning. I thanked her for her courtesy, hung up the phone, and promptly spent the next two weeks agonizing over our upcoming interaction.

[Refer to wallowing pictures]

In the darkly ironic way of nice gestures, this was somehow much worse than if she’d said nothing at all—I would’ve been surprised and my reunion might’ve been ruined, but that would be that. Instead, she managed to steal two weeks from me like a watch thief who fell into some nuclear waste and upgraded to…TIME THIEF.

I dated this girl, let’s call her Klaus, starting in sophomore year of high school. Our relationship was marked by grandiose romantic gestures of sickening proportions, like spelling happy anniversary on the school lawn with hundreds of her favorite flowers. We were the homecoming king and queen, and in the yearbook, we had a shiny, full-page picture depicting us as the official “class couple.”

This lasted through most of college via a long-distance relationship in which we visited each other on alternating weekends. Then she went to France for a summer, fell in love in the City of Love, and in her benevolence, dumped me upon her return so as to save me the humiliation of being abandoned via Skype video chat, and coincidentally preventing me from hooking up with my summer tennis partner. And rather than bring up the fact that she’d found someone else, she used the dignity-saving pretense of “taking a break,” which led me to waste month after month, feebly nurturing an ember of hope until it sputtered to the post-ember coals of bitterness, then crumbled to the ashes of acceptance.

Anyway, the next thing I remember is awakening in a cold sweat the day before the reunion and knowing that I had to do something to make the whole event bearable. Apparently, in the course of my wallowing, I’d grown a beard, which helped compensate for the hair I’d been losing for a couple of years (another reason I was none too excited to see my classmates, what with their heads of hair always gloating at me). And then it dawned on me. It was time to go for a Hail Mary: the Shaved Head. I cranked up some Linkin Park, called my friend Tom to my side, took a shot, and handed him the razor.

The clumps of hair fell around me like the leaves of a dying evergreen, and the wind blew across my naked scalp with the icy sensation of loss, and of freedom.

But my alter-ego Scalpy was just beginning. As my friends will tell you, I wear nothing but shorts, flip flops, and shirts from the internet. But on that day, I donned jeans, a leather jacket, aviators, and shoes.

Suddenly, I was a badass.

The next day I drive down to San Diego and park around the corner from my parents’ house so they won’t see my car. I slip on the leather jacket and walk through the gate, where my mom’s bent over gardening. She senses my imposing presence, stands up, looks me straight in the aviators, and says “Can I help you?” But instead of answering, I just cross my arms, simultaneously enjoying myself and feeling like an increasingly terrible son as I watch my mother mentally prepare for her death at the hands of a tough biker that wandered into her garden. It’s the exact scenario she’s always dreaded.

Finally, I pull off the glasses, and she gasps, then screams “What have you done to yourself?!?!”

I’m pretty self-conscious about the new look and was hoping for a little more support, but I guess I’ll have to take what I can get. My dad’s reaction to the whole event was similarly fearful and enraged. So far, so good.

Given that my own family thinks I look like one of those murderous motorcycle gang member people, I’m feeling pretty set for this reunion. If I can just turn the reunion into a story, then I won’t feel the emotional pain, not really. It won’t be me experiencing the agony of the run-in with the ex for the first time; it’ll be Russ the character, and I need that guy to have experiences, good and bad, so I have things to write about.

My mom affixes me with a fake one of those manly earrings, and I dive headfirst into the past-relationship maelstrom.

At the check-in table, we give a lady our names, and immediately a look of recognition and resentment crosses her face. “Oh, I know you,” she says to Brian, scorn flying from her mouth like spittle from the elderly. “You’re the one who somehow ended up registered to every single reunion.”

Brian tries to be coy. “Whatever do you mean?”

But she sees right through it, and Brian is forced to shell out fifty bucks. Sucker.

A second, much kinder woman helps me out, but apparently I’m not registered at all, though she could’ve sworn she saw me on the list at some point. She’s sure of it, but the records show I haven’t paid. I turn on the charm and sympathize with her computer troubles, lamenting that I too have difficulty remembering when to click and when to right-click. We commiserate, and in the spirit out our camaraderie, she lets me into the reunion for free.

Inside, or rather, outside, since our unbearably affluent school is too cheap to actually let us use any of their buildings, I scout the scene and determine the best course of action is to catch my former classmates in small, gullible groups. I introduce myself as Jeff, that guy who was only there for a couple semesters then transferred. Nobody believes me, but Jeff’s official name badge clearly shows that he was part of their graduating class, and he knows everyone’s name, as well as frighteningly specific and often deeply embarrassing details from their experimental years.

Most people eventually swallow the lie and say it’s good to see me again, apologizing for not remembering me at first. Then I pull off the glasses, they look me up and down, and suddenly they’re as surprised as a turkey in November (though Sam argues that the turkeys would see it coming and accept their deaths with quiet dignity). Anyway, some people join the prank by introducing me as their +1, and soon enough, I’m the life of the party. Every time someone new arrives, everyone gets suspiciously quiet, waiting to see them meet me, then cracking up when they finally figure out the ruse. Or should I say RUSSe?

The evening wears on, until the school no longer wants us on its property, and the girl in charge of our reunion gets up on a pillar to make a speech about our imminent displacement. That’s when I notice there’s still about 20 bottles of wine that haven’t been drunk. The school already paid for them, and at that moment, I realize I hold the course of the rest of the night in the palm of my hand. The strength of my bald head surges through me and I leap up onto the pillar next to the girl, and, in one of those high school movie moments where the protagonist nerd stands up to the beauty queen, I declare “We’re not leaving until we’ve finished every last bottle of wine!”

A cheer goes up in the crowd.

Check back on Turkey Day for the exciting conclusion! And while Sam may have eased your guilt by anthropomorphising your dinner, I for one argue that the turkeys probably gobble like crazy with an utter and cacophonous lack of dignity and are generally displeased by the whole situation.

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by | November 17, 2011 · 10:45 pm

We’d Like to Have Award with You

As you’ll note, especially now that I’m about to point it out, today is a Thursday, which, according to the Mayan calendar, is not a Tuesday. It has been decided that Thursdays shall henceforth be known as the days upon which either, in the rare event that visionary and heartthrob Sam has enough free time, he’ll compose something of great insight and profundity concerning the human condition, or, barring that, I’ll write some sort of gibberish held to a far lower standard than my Tuesday posts. For example, that last sentence was extremely long and unintelligible.

Most likely, we won’t post anything at all. We’re trying to keep you on your toes in an effort to appear unpredictable in that suave, unpredictable-but-I-like-it sort of way.

The reason I’m posting today is because, drum roll, Reasonably Ludicrous got its first ever blog award! For those of you who don’t know, a blog award is like chain mail, only, because everyone in the blogosphere is supportive past the point of sanity, it’s fueled not by fear of being smitten (such a cute past participle) by unseen forces should you fail to perpetuate it, but rather by the common desire to pay it forward, or share the love, as it were.

The self-propagating award we received is known as the 7×7, which is, coincidentally, the hamburger I always order at In-N-Out. The lovely (at least in my dreams), cat-adoring, never-been-kissed, bad-guy-fixated Jess over at Love The Bad Guy has, in her beneficence, presented us this award all the way from down under. If I could tunnel her my gratitude in person, I would, but my arms are a little tired, so I’ll have to settle for simply posting my thanks.

An award! Do you believe it? No matter how intangible, no matter how many strings come attached, I’m ecstatic! Any sort of validation sets my buns ablaze. Thanks, Jess!

Now, as for the award itself, it looks a little something like this:

Ah, the delicious patties of praise, lettuce of laudation, tomatoes of tribute, and grease of glory! This particular commendation requires the receiver to answer 7 pre-determined non-questions and then pass the award on to up to 7 other deserving blogs, thus proving that blog awards, like viruses, meet at least 2 of high school biology’s requirements for life. And now, without further gibbering, I present to you the answers to those seemingly unanswerable questions.

  1. Most Beautiful Post. I’ll have to go with our most recent post, Rich People Are Scary, because that has a naked pic of me in it. It took a lot of cajoling, pleading, and bribery, but Sam eventually agreed to portray me much more beautifully than is strictly accurate.
  2. Most Popular Post. Well, I could say Oops, I Got an English Degree because it has so many comments that it now takes a long time to load on my slow computer, but since the non-question doesn’t specify, I’ll claim that the most popular post hasn’t happened yet. I’m an optimist at heart, and it wouldn’t be right to think we’d already reached our peak. The best is yet to come. Just you wait.
  3. Most Controversial Post. I don’t even want to bring this one up. It was so controversial that I took it down almost immediately, and I’m pretty sure I successfully forced everyone who’d seen it to sign non-disclosure agreements. That was a close call.
  4. Most Helpful Post. Hyper-Sam and the Infinite Potential, no question. Because of this post, I can now take solace in the fact that somewhere in the twisted multiverse we call home, there’s a version of me who’s done it all right. Great work, Hyper-Russ. And if you ever find a way to communicate with me, let me know how that three-way with Amber Heard and Olivia Wilde went.
  5. Most Surprisingly Successful Post. If I had to pick, I think it would be that time I started a brand-new blog with one of my best friends. We posted it online, went to bed, and when I woke up, we’d gotten thousands of hits and hundreds of comments. That was pretty surprising, I suppose.
  6. Most Underrated Post. Uh. You guys are all so awesome. You give us such great feedback all the time. I’m beyond happy. I never expected this blog to do so well, and our success thus far is beyond my wildest dreams. If anything, all the posts are overrated.
  7. Most Pride-Worthy Post. As a writer, I’m convinced that everything I create requires vast quantities of revision and am still utterly baffled as to why anyone pays any attention to the words I scratch into the surface of the blogosphere.

So there ya have it. Now it’s my turn, my turn to spread the joy and the burden, the excitement and the obligation. Here’s hoping the blogs I choose plaster that sexy burger on their pages and tell us a little bit about themselves.

  1. Peas & Cougars. Another blog whose banner cracks me up, Peas & Cougars never ceases to delight with its ceaselessly delightful drawings of simplicity and expressiveness. She’s got a great sense of humor and satirizes those things in life we all relate to…in picture form!
  2. Live. Nerd. Repeat. Home to a half-crazed madman who spends his time playing video games, casting spells, contemplating the end of humanity, and then writing about it, this blog will sate your desire to learn more about the rare and elusive were-beaver, and his artistic representations will send you into fits of giddiness.
  3. The Snarkist. Started just this month, The Snarkist is filled with sarcastic and amusing observations on the joys and terrors of society, from sock monkeys to vanity plates. Entertaining in its derision, it’s also written by a girl from one of my English classes, and I would have really liked to hook up with her, but right after we started hitting it off, she studied abroad in Oxford. What’s that all about? Anyway, maybe giving her an award will get me in her good graces in case we ever run into each other later.

Phew. I think that’s about it. This blog award stuff is tough. Did I do ok?

UPDATE: Live. Nerd. Repeat. was Freshly Pressed mere hours after receiving this prestigious award. Coincidence? I think not! Well actually, it’s almost certainly a coincidence, but I can take satisfaction in knowing that WordPress itself agrees with me when I say it’s a fantastic blog.

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by | November 15, 2011 · 7:02 am

Rich People Are Scary

Remember all those computer science friends I jealously mentioned back in the first post? Well now they’re working at startup companies with so much promise that venture capitalists are racing their yachts at ludicrous speed to arrive in time to be the first to invest. In fact, Brian (the roommate) was so tempted by the allure of nautical-themed, computer-science glory, that he hopped into his silicon-covered wagon and trekked to California’s gold rush 2.0, leaving me to my own devices in our apartment.

Not long ago, I used to work amongst those people, but when the company realized how unimportant writing is to the success of a video game, there was a bit of downsizing. They attempted to make it up to me, however, by granting me a one-weekend stay in their six-bedroom, three-yard, one-pool mansion.

Within minutes of my arrival, their productivity was reduced to a full-scale, mouse-pad-Frisbee war that soon devolved into a highly alcoholic game of Settlers of Catan. Sometimes I have the distinct feeling that nerds don’t know what to do with huge quantities of money.

We pulled ourselves together the next morning because the founders had an important social function on a yacht filled with potential investors and their absurdly hot girlfriends, who I found out later were united by a common affinity for wealth. Now, I was the black sheep of the company, but there was an extra spot in the car, so after a brief automotive nap, I found myself stepping onto a massive, fancy boat, attempting with all my strength to fight my hangover and make a good impression on the surrounding millionaires.

Initially, I tried my hand at small talk, only to receive looks of complete and utter disdain from  numerous beautiful women, a not entirely new experience. One deigned to talk to me long enough to regale me with the tale of her company’s camping trip, during which her coworker had slept without a tent and woken up all wet.

“She certainly didn’t know what she was dewing,” I said, and the girl literally moved one chair over just so she wouldn’t have to be next to me.

I wanted to save face but couldn’t think of anything that would help me recover from that abysmal foray into the world of conversation, so I just sat there, staring into the comforting endlessness of the ocean, trying my best not to be noticed. Luckily, I was soon summoned to meet the owner near the prow of the ship. I’d never met wealth-based pseudo-royalty before (though Christian Slater once told me he liked my shirt), and as I headed toward the bridge, my stomach fluttered with excitement.

The moment I laid eyes on him, however, I burst into hysterics, which is a suboptimal way to make a first impression. He was at least 50, the quintessential cliché of pompous opulence: reclined on a large, luxurious cushion of presumably exotic origin, a glass of fine wine in one hand and a small, fluffy dog yapping with ceaseless delight in the other.

As his 20-something girlfriend, also of exotic origin, sidles up a little closer to him, our group sits down on some tacky Astroturf amidst a circle of lowly peasants bequeathing gifts upon him in an attempt to curry favor. The moment he opens his mouth and greets us with his thick, Eastern-European accent, all I can think of are the countless Eurotrash villains Bruce Willis has dispensed with a vengeance.

I introduce myself, but it’s one of those moments when you can tell the person considers you to be as inconsequential as a speck of dust, which, I suspect, is the fate of most specks of dust. After responding with the minimum required number of hmms and hrms and not making the slightest attempt to mask his disinterest, Richy McWealtherson resumes his conversation with an attractive young woman and they start joking about Tetris, of all things. Apparently they’d watched a competitive Tetris tournament, and this experience had led the boat king to an epiphany: finally, the baron of all technology could understand how the masses might enjoy something as pedestrian and lowbrow as football. I chime in with “Yeah, Tetris is a lot easier to get into. You’ve only got like a half-dozen players to follow.” They both just stare at me. “You know,” I continue, trying my best to salvage the situation, “like L-block, the square one…”

“There were far more than six people competing in the tournament we observed,” Richy replies, peeved by my disgraceful ignorance. My friends are horrified that I’ve offended their potentially life-changing contact, but before things can get any worse, another worshipper arrives with a bottle of wine. The king points to Juan, one of my friends, and says “go open this,” fully expecting his command to be obeyed with haste and groveling, which it is.

I then have to hold my tongue while the pharaoh and the wine-giver transition to discussing the zombie apocalypse. Somehow, he manages to ruin even this topic, sucking all the joy out of it like a zombie-eating vampire. It’s as if he knows the conversation is widely considered to be pleasurable, but he has no conception of why. Like an alien in human skin, he imitates our species’ smiles and mannerisms to determine how best to conquer us, yet cannot grasp why we might engage in such frivolous endeavors as love, laughter, and debating hypothetical, world-ending scenarios.

Moments later, Juan scurries back and hands me the bottle—cork 80% of the way out—and some glasses, and tells me to start pouring while he gets more cups. I give the stopper a swift yank, only to have it completely disintegrate in my hands. All these tiny bits of cork are flooding into the bottle of wine, and I glance up, horrified that I’ve been exposed as a despicable, wine-ruining plebian. As luck would have it, the wine-giver still has the king’s attention, though the rest of the retinue is staring at me like I’d just murdered their first-born child.

I leap up and sprint into the heart of the boat, frantically searching for some tool that can help me remove the rest of the cork. I weave in and out of computer scientists and beautiful women until I reach the kitchen, but the only things on the table are some plastic cups, a carrot cake, and chopsticks. After briefly employing my lateral-thinking skills in an attempt to deduce the connection between the three, I simply grab a chopstick and start stabbing the cork until whatever parts still had a little bit of structural integrity give in to my brutality and fall into the wine, which is about ten percent cork at this point. I haphazardly siphon it into cups (thus utilizing 2 of the 3 tools available to me), fish out the cork with my fingers, and then pour it back into the bottle, doing my best not to spill it everywhere.

It’s actually sort of working; the only problem is it appears that some hideous, and likely poisonous, fungus has been growing inside the bottle ALL ALONG! I’m suddenly very worried that someone is attempting to bump off the non-terrestrial, millionaire vessel owner (probably to gain an inheritance/become the new overlord of his species) and place the blame on me, the unsuspecting and incompetent cork puller.

After all, why did I feel the need to sneak off with the bottle of wine? Why did I head down to the kitchen where I could tamper with it alone, unobserved? I’m about to hurl the bottle overboard in a frantic attempt to save myself, when in walks the king’s girlfriend. “Ah, there you are,” she says, and ominously explains that everyone’s been waiting for me. Too afraid to voice my concerns, I hand her the wine and follow her back to the prow. I cringe as she pours out a full dose of poison for all the guests, but before my friends can drink it, I surreptitiously point out the fungus, and we all watch in dismay as king and girlfriend quaff it with hearty abandon.

Luckily, nobody died, so maybe that guy’s immune to poison by now. Or maybe it was some kind of “cultured” wine, like the cheeses that are supposed to be old and disgusting.

After making a whole swath of faux pas and bad impressions, I escaped the royal party and ended up talking to one of the hot girlfriends who happened to be an English major turned author. It seemed that she had avoided the post-graduation English-major blues by being stunningly attractive and not entirely socially incompetent. I stuck with her the rest of the time.

When we got back to the mansion, I drank away the memories, and, in a moment of metaphor, climbed onto the roof and shed all the physical possessions that were weighing me down. I mean, what good is a boat if you never even leave the dock because there’s a chance it might get scuffed? I wanted to live in the moment, to be the kind of person who judges people not because of their status, but because judging them makes for good comedy. But mostly, I just wanted to jump off the roof of the mansion into the pool naked, because nobody’d done it before and there’d be the added benefit of burning a scarring mental image into everyone’s brain. Oddly, I haven’t been invited back since.

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