Part 3: A Collection of Short Stories
Let us begin with a brief story of how my roommates and I brewed our own beer one semester. Stud (James) and Christian had gotten the idea to make our own beer, bought a few books, and even bought a few supplies and kits so we could start it up. It was relatively simple: we needed to boil things on the stove, cook for a while, then put it into a big bucket, seal it, let it sit, when it was good to go we bottled it in large bottles, let it sit for a few weeks in our basement, then we bottled it in individual bottles for people to drink. Relatively simple. The first batch we made was from a recipe out of a book. We did it, put it in the bucket, and waited a few days for it to ferment. When it was ready, it was time to get it into some empty wine bottles we had gathered, from the Safe Harbor girls mostly. Well...it wasn't as smooth as we thought it would be, and we ended up with a lot of beer on the floor, and a bunch in a large pan that we thought would catch the drippings. But, all of us guys bottled them, put them in the basement, and waited. We unveiled our first batch, namelessly, on Super Bowl Sunday of 2010, and it was a huge success. We compared it to a slightly sweeter Newcastle, and all of the BatCave guys and Safe Harbor girls in our gang thoroughly enjoyed the beer (even Emily who usually will only drink PBR because she's weird like that). Our 2nd batch...was a big failure. It was like a Blue Moon beer: wheat beer, a hint of orange, delicious...except we made it too watery. It had the consistency of a Natty. It was terrible. Our 3rd, and last, batch was great. We started out making it, intending it to be a stout beer...until I read the directions for a typical stout. We were missing at least 2 ingredients, 1 piece of equipment, and we also would have to wait a lot longer for it to be ready. So, after a quick team talk, all of us guys decided to just improv this one. Surprisingly, it turned out good. Similar to the 1st batch, but a little heavier and thicker. Overall, we had a good run in our BatCave Brewery, and it was a ton of fun coming together as a house to create something we could all enjoy, in time.
Next, we discuss flies. I hate flies. I dislike bugs. If you ever want someone to kill flies for you, let me know. It is common knowledge in our gang that I am the king of killing flies. I am especially skilled in the art of killing them sans fly swatter. I prefer the artful form of a newspaper, or preferably an Old Navy flip flop. My record is approximately 500 kills out of 600 attempts. My record is 6 dead in one swat. That record is thanks to Christian and Doug leaving something rotting in the trash one summer, leaving me with a house of flies 2 days later. It was bad. There were literally dozens of flies in each room of the house. Yet...I killed them all.
(Em's mom on the skeeter, with our tailgate ending behind her)
Moving on...tailgating. We had the best tailgates for football games. Don't even try to say yours was better than ours...it wasn't. We tailgated in the small lot, 15 feet from the stadium, thanks to a friend having a handicapped pass, during our sophomore year. We had omelets, coffee, apples, bacon, fried potatoes, and more for the early games. For regular games we had grilled chicken, pork, hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, peppers/onions and sausage sandwiches, cheese steaks, salads, chips and dips, and tons more food. We tailgated at the BatCave house or the Safe Harbor house during our junior and senior years, then walked or got a ride to campus. Yet, the cherry on top, proving that our tailgates were (and are) better than yours is the location of our annual Parent's Weekend Tailgate. Sidenote: we were too cool to have Parent's Weekend on Parent's Weekend...we chose our own date and invited everyone's parents to come. Every family brought something, we had several huge long tables packed full of so much food, coolers filled with cold drinks and beers....and it was done, both years, on the patio outside of Taylor Hall. Suck it. We tailgated on campus, on the patio behind Taylor Hall, right outside of TDU, and had our awesome tailgates there...and Emily's mom even learned how to ride Jared's previously mentioned Skeeter there too. You got nothing on that, my friends. My friends are awesome.
(just some of the gang as Lumberjack/jills)
Proof my friends are awesome: our parties. I had a birthday party my junior year...and it was pretty lame. About 30 people showed up. Our house just isn't at a prime partying location...but we found ways around that for later parties! Anyways...a few of my friends came, which included a few of my OPA friends, who are still some of my closest friends, and of course...the BatCave and Safe Harbor gang. We blasted music, hung out and danced til 2am, and had wayyyyy too many drinks...thanks to less people showing up than anticipated....which just meant more for us! We even ended up eating handfuls of birthday cake and dunking our heads in icy cold water by the end of the night...just to make things interesting. We made it a great party.
Senior year was our toga party. It was awesome. Almost everyone came in togas, we had a good dance party in the basement, and some weird dude jumped into our group photo of our gang.
Our last party was by far the best, though. It was our Lumberjacks and Lumberjills party. And yes, a female treecutter IS in fact called a Lumberjill. Dress code was flannel/plaid, facial hair if possible, and either jhorts or khaki shorts. 99% of the crowd fit the dress code, thus making it a house full of flannel. It was great. We had enough drinks, and a variety, to last everyone until about 1:30am. We had at least 250 people in our house that night, with people in the basement, living room, hallway, kitchen, front porch, and yard outside. Why so many people? Because we threw the best party ever. I'm slightly biased, but I believe that was one of the best college parties I've ever been to. Great theme, great location (a house! not a lame apartment), lots of parking, lots of space, lots of drinks (a variety too!), great music, great dancing, jhorts, a good guy-to-girl ratio, and of course...our epic beer pong table (dozens of highlighter/neon-water-filled Corona bottles with a JMU logo in the middle) was running all night. Our basement was dedicated to the dance party. My good friend, Danny, came early to set up his DJ equipment which was a huge speaker in every corner, his own little booth/station in the back out of the way, and that was literally it. He's part of a DJ/mash-up duo, known as Cocaine Mortgage, and he agreed to do our party for a little money or something to drink. So I asked him what his favorite beers were. He named off Heineken and some other one I had never heard of. Heinie it was, for my man! I decided the best route to go for him was to get him his own mini-keg of it, so nobody else would touch it. At one point during the night, I saw him, he waved me over, said he wanted to dance for a minute so he wanted me to man his station and guard his gear. He goes to head out to dance, grabs the mini-keg, hoists it onto his shoulder, and runs out there to dance while squirting the beer down into his open mouth. Party. Animal. Danny's music was epic. It was unique mash-ups of music that went all night and kept people dancing non-stop. The BatCave threw one of the most epic college parties, in my experience, that night.
Lastly, we discuss the previously mentioned dead possum (referenced in the Igloo story). To make a long story short...a possum, for some reason, dragged itself into our backyard, settled down, and died. It was the summer of 2009, and Christian and I were the only ones around because we were working. I was working Orientation as the 1787 Coordinator, and biked to work every day that summer. It was a great job, in a great office, with a great partner (Chaney) ,and a great boss (Sarah O.)...and it was great thanks to my awesome friends in that office. Well...I run into Christian in the kitchen, and all he says is "You should see what's in our backyard." I'm thinking...what is it?! Is it cool?! Oh boy oh boy I'm excited! I walk into the backyard and look around. Right away, to my left, I spot a large gray lump. It's a dead possum. Great. How do you know your day has started out great? Did you find a smelly dead possum in the middle of your backyard? Yes. Then your day has started out great! So we look at it, laugh about it, and we both head off to work. Emily was around that summer too, working, and a few days later we actually almost got her to step in it, claiming we had a small pet in our backyard. She wasn't very happy with us. Anyways...I get back from work, make a few calls. Animal control will only pick up dead DOMESTICATED animals. VDOT will only pick up dead animals that are ON THE ROAD. After we heard that, Christian and I debated throwing it int the road and calling them back. I called an animal rescue place, just to try my luck, and they would only come if the animal was ALIVE. So, I finally called our landlord. He said the next time they came by to do yard work, they'd pick it up. It's been several days of phone calls now...several days of rotting possum. It's now covered in maggots, and stinks something fierce. Well...no landlord for a few more weeks. It's been a fun few weeks to check the body every day, see the process of decomposition as it went from bloated to fly-covered to maggoty to rotting to skinny to hair and bones to just bones. One time, during that process, they came to do yard work. Guess what they did. They cut the grass in the ENTIRE backyard...except around the possum. They didn't touch it. So we had one random patch of long grass, concealing a smelly dead marsupial. Thanks man. A few more weeks...and still the possum's there. It's all bones by now, as the summer draws to a close. Finally...one day...they come to do yard work. I look in the yard afterward and notice they cut the grass everywhere. Surely they must have picked up the possum! Oh wait...no....no they didn't. They forgot it was there, rode the lawnmower over the spot where it was, and instead of picking it up like we had asked several times...they decided to just chop up the bones with a lawnmower and shoot them around the yard...for decoration, perhaps. Thanks man. So, all of senior year...we had to make sure we were sure we never stepped on, or built our igloo on, or built our fires on...the scattered bones of the dead possum of The BatCave.
And all of these times, mentioned above, in this long blog post, were always more fun and adventurous and memorable...because of my awesome best friends. Tomorrow, we tell the tale of bathrobes on a cruise ship.
Next, we discuss flies. I hate flies. I dislike bugs. If you ever want someone to kill flies for you, let me know. It is common knowledge in our gang that I am the king of killing flies. I am especially skilled in the art of killing them sans fly swatter. I prefer the artful form of a newspaper, or preferably an Old Navy flip flop. My record is approximately 500 kills out of 600 attempts. My record is 6 dead in one swat. That record is thanks to Christian and Doug leaving something rotting in the trash one summer, leaving me with a house of flies 2 days later. It was bad. There were literally dozens of flies in each room of the house. Yet...I killed them all.
(Em's mom on the skeeter, with our tailgate ending behind her)
(just some of the gang as Lumberjack/jills)
Senior year was our toga party. It was awesome. Almost everyone came in togas, we had a good dance party in the basement, and some weird dude jumped into our group photo of our gang.
Our last party was by far the best, though. It was our Lumberjacks and Lumberjills party. And yes, a female treecutter IS in fact called a Lumberjill. Dress code was flannel/plaid, facial hair if possible, and either jhorts or khaki shorts. 99% of the crowd fit the dress code, thus making it a house full of flannel. It was great. We had enough drinks, and a variety, to last everyone until about 1:30am. We had at least 250 people in our house that night, with people in the basement, living room, hallway, kitchen, front porch, and yard outside. Why so many people? Because we threw the best party ever. I'm slightly biased, but I believe that was one of the best college parties I've ever been to. Great theme, great location (a house! not a lame apartment), lots of parking, lots of space, lots of drinks (a variety too!), great music, great dancing, jhorts, a good guy-to-girl ratio, and of course...our epic beer pong table (dozens of highlighter/neon-water-filled Corona bottles with a JMU logo in the middle) was running all night. Our basement was dedicated to the dance party. My good friend, Danny, came early to set up his DJ equipment which was a huge speaker in every corner, his own little booth/station in the back out of the way, and that was literally it. He's part of a DJ/mash-up duo, known as Cocaine Mortgage, and he agreed to do our party for a little money or something to drink. So I asked him what his favorite beers were. He named off Heineken and some other one I had never heard of. Heinie it was, for my man! I decided the best route to go for him was to get him his own mini-keg of it, so nobody else would touch it. At one point during the night, I saw him, he waved me over, said he wanted to dance for a minute so he wanted me to man his station and guard his gear. He goes to head out to dance, grabs the mini-keg, hoists it onto his shoulder, and runs out there to dance while squirting the beer down into his open mouth. Party. Animal. Danny's music was epic. It was unique mash-ups of music that went all night and kept people dancing non-stop. The BatCave threw one of the most epic college parties, in my experience, that night.
Lastly, we discuss the previously mentioned dead possum (referenced in the Igloo story). To make a long story short...a possum, for some reason, dragged itself into our backyard, settled down, and died. It was the summer of 2009, and Christian and I were the only ones around because we were working. I was working Orientation as the 1787 Coordinator, and biked to work every day that summer. It was a great job, in a great office, with a great partner (Chaney) ,and a great boss (Sarah O.)...and it was great thanks to my awesome friends in that office. Well...I run into Christian in the kitchen, and all he says is "You should see what's in our backyard." I'm thinking...what is it?! Is it cool?! Oh boy oh boy I'm excited! I walk into the backyard and look around. Right away, to my left, I spot a large gray lump. It's a dead possum. Great. How do you know your day has started out great? Did you find a smelly dead possum in the middle of your backyard? Yes. Then your day has started out great! So we look at it, laugh about it, and we both head off to work. Emily was around that summer too, working, and a few days later we actually almost got her to step in it, claiming we had a small pet in our backyard. She wasn't very happy with us. Anyways...I get back from work, make a few calls. Animal control will only pick up dead DOMESTICATED animals. VDOT will only pick up dead animals that are ON THE ROAD. After we heard that, Christian and I debated throwing it int the road and calling them back. I called an animal rescue place, just to try my luck, and they would only come if the animal was ALIVE. So, I finally called our landlord. He said the next time they came by to do yard work, they'd pick it up. It's been several days of phone calls now...several days of rotting possum. It's now covered in maggots, and stinks something fierce. Well...no landlord for a few more weeks. It's been a fun few weeks to check the body every day, see the process of decomposition as it went from bloated to fly-covered to maggoty to rotting to skinny to hair and bones to just bones. One time, during that process, they came to do yard work. Guess what they did. They cut the grass in the ENTIRE backyard...except around the possum. They didn't touch it. So we had one random patch of long grass, concealing a smelly dead marsupial. Thanks man. A few more weeks...and still the possum's there. It's all bones by now, as the summer draws to a close. Finally...one day...they come to do yard work. I look in the yard afterward and notice they cut the grass everywhere. Surely they must have picked up the possum! Oh wait...no....no they didn't. They forgot it was there, rode the lawnmower over the spot where it was, and instead of picking it up like we had asked several times...they decided to just chop up the bones with a lawnmower and shoot them around the yard...for decoration, perhaps. Thanks man. So, all of senior year...we had to make sure we were sure we never stepped on, or built our igloo on, or built our fires on...the scattered bones of the dead possum of The BatCave.
And all of these times, mentioned above, in this long blog post, were always more fun and adventurous and memorable...because of my awesome best friends. Tomorrow, we tell the tale of bathrobes on a cruise ship.
End of Part 3: A Collection of Short Stories
If you wish to leave comments or check out older posts: www.tylerconta.blogspot.com
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If you wish to leave comments or check out older posts: www.tylerconta.blogspot.com
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