The BS 6 - The Parade

Damn, somehow I went from blogging bimonthly to just monthly. And it's already October, what the hell? Time, my nemesis, what malice you decree unto my bosom, what ominous shadows of foreboding you bestow upon my eyes! Will you not spare me your wroth? Lo! I beseech you, grant me reprieve of your lies.

Well that's my attempt at esoteric poetry.

Alright. This post is the continuation and culmination of The BS. Open your books to the final chapter of The BS: Chapter 6 - The Parade. Oh my dear sweet Lord, the parade.

I really need a scanner.

I've got to explain something about myself first: I am not a big drinker, at all, so when I drink, it's a riotously embarrassing time. For me, that is. Okay, so enter week 4 of my trip to Brazil. There I am one Saturday afternoon, brooding in my apartment because there is nothing to do in Middleofnowheresville, Brazil, when suddenly I decide "I need my BAC to be at least 0.20, right now". So I went to the store and got a 12 pack of cheap beer and a pizza, which is the most American thing I've ever done, and proceeded to spend my night watching movies and getting hammered. Alone. But don't worry, I made friends soon after.

That's supposed to be Brazil's flag, not a cheeseburger.

Some extra background: I'm from the American Midwest. It's very flat there. Middleofnowheresville, Brazil, on the other hand, is in the mountains. Mountains like Denver-style, not like Nepal or anything. So, not so high up, but for someone who has lived his life in a place that would make Dark Age Christians convinced that the world was irrefutably flat, this is a dramatic difference in altitude.

And what do we know about getting drunk, kids?

...

Yes! The higher in altitude you are, the quicker you get drunk. And what do we know about yours truly?

...

Did I hear, "You don't drink often"? Yes! I mean no! No I don't! Before I knew it, it was four in the morning and I was pants-pissingly wasted, stumbling wildly into my bed, which I left two seconds after collapsing into to puke what I thought was all the America beer and pizza my poor stomach could handle.

And that was the last smile I wore for a while.

"Okay," I thought, "I puked so tomorrow I'll be fine", and I passed out. And then I started having a dream about drums and thunder and riots and a parade... until I realized that I wasn't at all dreaming and that, verily, a parade was taking place right outside of my apartment. At 8:00am. My head was splitting and pounding and giving birth to Athena and I could scarcely believe that an actual factual parade was seriously happening at that moment. But it was, oh, how it was. And it was uproarious. Sleep mocked me as it fluttered away from my life. And then I threw up.

And then I threw up again.

And then I threw up a few more times.

And then I drank some water, which I threw up.

Then I brushed my teeth, and then I threw up again, mintily. 

I really got to know the toilet well that day.

I vomited about three times an hour until like five o'clock. I think I puked upwards of 20 times that day, like past the bile-puking point and into the dry-heaving point. Naturally, I was concerned, but I was too exhausted and hungover to care. All I wanted to do was sleep for eternity which was impossible because of the FUCKING PARADE WHICH NEVER SEEMED TO END.

Sometime between waiting for the cessation of Satan's symphony, embracing the toilet, and hating my life in my bed, I thought "I'm gonna see exactly how many beers I drank last night".

I went to the fridge and noticed "Oh that wasn't a 12-pack, it was an 18-pack. Huh. I didn't even know they made those. Oh shit, I should really eat that cheese soon. And let's see... there are... TWO BEERS LEFT?!" And at that moment, I could've sworn that the band crescendoed.

Now, I am not a big guy. For me to drink 16 beers and not die is nothing short of miraculous, regardless of how much greasy pizza I ingested. Clearly, I far surpassed my goal of a BAC of 0.20, that was for sure.

To try and calm my stomach, I thought that I should drink some 7-Up or Sprite or something lemon-limey like that. I went to a little corner store to ask if they had Sprite, which was an ordeal in and of itself. See, in Portuguese, you don't say it "Sprite", you say it "Shpraichee" (it makes more sense than you think), so the cashier had no fucking clue what I wanted or was talking about, with drums and trumpets clamoring in the background all the while, completely severing the means of communication. But finally, between my broken Portuguese and the cashier's patience, I got a Sprite.

She was very nice about it though. I mean, I was obviously the most hungover person she had seen all year.

I threw that up too, by the way. It tasted just as good coming up as it did going down, though, so that was a sort of vile solace.

Anyway, the parade finally ended around 5 or so, and I had stomached a banana smoothie, which served as the treaty that the warring factions in my stomach needed all along. I napped blissfully, then woke up to eat real food, now that my body was open to the idea. My day in hell was over, it seemed, and around 10pm, I laid my weary head down so I could wake up bright and early the next day to try and reach those kids I was teaching. And wouldn't you know it, the moment, literally, the exact moment that my head hit the pillow, there were fireworks. For real. Across the way from my apartment, some people were lighting fireworks. For like an hour.

Now at that point, I was just like "well if you can't beat 'em...", so I got up and snapped some photos of said fireworks. Here's one:

Perhaps in The BS - Reprise, I'll talk about that church you see there.

And then, finally, I slept. And I couldn't so much as think about alcohol again for months.

The BS 2 - "Americans Break Doors"

-A little background: I'm very awkward when I know I've done something bad/wrong/extremely stupid and I confront a person that will be really pissed when they find out I was the one who did the bad/wrong/extremely stupid thing. This is one of those situations.
-A little more background: In the town I was in, I taught English. Other Americans had been there before me to do the same thing. The last guy who was there was a"real American" blond, blue-eyed, and 6'4" and ate a lot of cheeseburgers. (according to the Brazilians, but I doubt this). 
-A final bit of background: I lived in an apartment building that had an entrance door you needed a key to open. Everyone who lived in the building used that door to get in. All of the previous Americans lived in the same apartment that I did.

I just so happened to be in Brazil on September 7th - its independence day. Just like us, they get wasted and cook out, and one of the teachers I worked with had invited me to a party to do just that. And I was like "hell yeah!".

The party mainly consisted of drinking, eating, drinking, and eating. Also lots of drunken discussions of politics and the turning point in my ability to speak Portuguese. (I'm really really good at Portuguese when I'm drunk.) And people trying to set me up with their daughters. But the party isn't the story. Being drunk, now that's the story. Well, the beginning of it.

After I got dropped off at my apartment building, I stumbled up to the door and shoved my key into it. Literally, into it. And I was like, "Oh, oops, I should probably put this in the keyhole." Only I was drunk, so my inner monologue went more like "KEY IN HOLE NOT IN DOOR DUH LOL." And so in went the key into the hole, way more forcefully than needed. Now, the thing about this door was that it was the kind of door where turning the key opens the door. And then... well, then this happened:

I'm trying to ween myself off notebook paper.

The good news was, the door opened. The bad news was, my key broke in the keyhole. And then the door closed. I was inside the building though, and my belligerent self could not have given two shits about the calamitous seed I had just planted. I waddled up to my apartment and collected my laptop so I could go use the internet for free somewhere. (There was no internet in the apartment.) And then I waddled right back down to the door I had recently defiled, pushed it open, and was about to step out when I realized "Ohhhhh... wait. I broke the key IN the keyhole, so if the door closes... it won't open. For anyone." Again, though, I was still drunk so my inner monologue went more like "LOL I BROKE THAT. I SHOULD PROB HIDE IN MY APT SO NO INTERNETS TONIGHT LOLOLOLOLOL."

And then I threw up and passed out until work the next morning.

Then...

I woke up with a start. Whereas the previous night my opinion of what I had done was "fuck the door", that morning my first thought was "FUCK, THE DOOR." I got ready for work, face aflush* already, thinking only "shit fuck shit balls dammit fuck shit damn" and scrambled downstairs. Here's how that went:

I was so shocked my nose disappeared.

The door was GONE. Someone had taken the door. It was no longer there. Poof. Magic. Abracadabra nomodoorzam. And it was all my fault. Fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

"Okay, be cool" I thought. "No one needs to know it was you." I saw a neighbor person and they were like "Yeah, some asshole broke his key in the door last night" and I was like "Aw man! What a dick" knowing full well that I was that asshole.

"Alright" I thought, "ask someone at work if they know about a spare key... Tell them you lost it."

No one did. They were like "Oh, you could go to the locksmith but you need a copy of the key." Well no shit. Finally my supervisor got there, and I told her my situation. Except I lied and I said that I lost my key. She told me to find the landlord who was probably working at the grocery store attached to the apartment building and to ask her if I could take her key to go copy it. And I was like "Heh... oookay. Yeah. I'll do that."

But the problem was, the landlord knew that some asshole broke their key in the keyhole. If I went and asked her, she'd know that I was that asshole. Which wouldn't be a problem if her face didn't look like this all the time:

Her name is Patricia.

So you can see where my trepidation stemmed from. But I had no other choice. As soon as they put the fixed door back, I had no way of getting in the building. "Maybe I can just go hide in my apartment for the rest of forever." But I couldn't. By the time I got off work, the new door had already been put in place. Out of desperation, I tried using the little stub of the key I had left to open it and obviously that didn't work.

So it was either talk to Patricia or live on the street with the stray dogs and this one drunk guy. And although that sounded more appealing to me, I had to go talk to her. All my shit was in that apartment. Stupidly, I thought "I'll just lie to her. I'll say I lost my key. That'll work. Worked on everyone else today." Except for my aforementioned awkwardness.

I went to the grocery store and found her, and she looked really pissed. She saw me and glared, like always, and glared even harder when she saw that I was walking up to her, very timidly. I swore I heard her think "If this mofo talks to me, I'mma gonna roast his bones and EAT HIM." So it was time for the confrontation:

I had to roll a will save.

Me: "Uhhhh h-hi P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-patricia... H-how are----"
Patricia: "WHAT DO YOU WANT."
Me: "Well, you see, I, uh, I lost my... I, umm... Well, I..."
Patricia: "YOU'RE THE ASSHOLE WHO BROKE HIS KEY IN THE KEYHOLE AREN'T YOU."
Me: "M-me? Umm... No? Yes. I would be that asshole, yup. I'm... I'm really s-s-sorry. I, uhh... Oh God please don't eat me."
Patricia: "HERE. TAKE THIS KEY. I DON'T EVEN CARE ANYMORE. YOU AMERICANS EAT TOO MANY CHEESEBURGERS AND YOU ALWAYS BREAK YOUR KEYS IN THE KEYHOLE. THE LAST STUPID AMERICAN DID THE SAME THING. DON'T DO IT AGAIN."
Me: "Wait he did?"
Patricia: "YOU COME HERE TO BRAZIL AND YOU THINK THAT THINGS ARE MADE TO WORK LIKE THEY DO IN THE U.S. BUT THEY DON'T. BE MORE GENTLE WITH THE KEY FROM NOW ON. OR ELSE."
Me: "Oh... okay. Yes sir MA'AM YES MA'AM BYE."

And I ran. I ran so far away. And from that point on, I was oh so gentle with the key. And I stopped eating cheeseburgers. And I learned that things in Brazil don't have the durability that I was used to them having in the U.S. Especially the washers. But the story of the washer is for another day.

The end.

--- --- ---

*I want to point out that spellcheck doesn't think that aflush is a word, but it totally is.