I'm a man who recently became open to trying new things. I say "recently," because my life used to be a fortress of routine. Ages 12-17 were spent playing videogames and masturbating, though not at the same time-- I left that to the Japanese. Ages 18 to the present have been spent inebriated and/or plotting to murder Carlos Mencia. Lately, however, I've been hearing all this garbage about how there is "more to life," how I'm "wasting my youth," and that my parents are "disowning me." I've started branching out in an effort to prove my doubters wrong, so I can grab them by the bow tie and shout, "Hey buddy! I've tried everything, and the best part of life IS the ability to reference every Gob quote from 'Arrested Development!' And take off that bow tie! You look like an asshole!"
Anyhoo, last week I went with my strikingly gorgeous girlfriend Jamie to her hometown of Spencer, Iowa, and during this time I tried two (2!) new things.
Thing 1: I fired a gun! Boom! We shot clay pigeons, which was actually incredibly fun and invigorating. I never thought I'd shoot a gun, and I still would never go hunting because I never want to shoot anything that's alive, because I'm a hippy liberal my father can never feel pride for. But the use of a real gun did arouse a couple of very strong desires in me. First, I wanted to fire the gun in the air and sing the lyrics to Modest Mouse's "Cowboy Dan" ("Well, Cowboy Dan's a major player in the cowboy scene/He goes to the reservation, drinks and gets mean/He drove the desert, fired his rifle in the sky/And says 'God if I have to die you will have to die'"). I mean, how sweet would that be? Second, I wanted the dog from "Duck Hunt" to pop up everytime I missed a clay pigeon and do that cool little shoulder shrug thing. How can a dog shrug? I mean, it makes no sense. Overall-- great fun. Really liked it.
Thing 2: Drove a four-wheeler for the first time. Also, and I guess this is technically a third thing, or at least "Thing 2a," I drove a four-wheeler into a barbed wire fence for the first time. I don't really remember the accident, but I did learn that bleeding profusely is a great ice breaker when meeting a girlfriend's grandparents. Basically I met them, it was awkward, and then they field dressed my wounds while Jamie made fun of me, easing the tension. Remember, gentlemen! If you're nervous about meeting the family, just go to the bathroom and cut yourself like an emo freak. Not only will it, like, totally make you feel alive, you'll also have an hilarious anecdote to tell your therapist for years to come. The accident happened so quickly, I'm not sure how I got the bruise-- I think it was from yanking my leg out of the barbed wire too quickly and whacking it on the four-wheeler, but I'm not sure. Strangely, though, my leg never hurt. Neither did the assortment of other bruises and scrapes scatttered over my body. The worst pain came from my right arm, which was angry I used it to brace myself when we hit the fence, and took great umbrage whenever I tried to make a fist over the next two days. Overall, great fun. Never want to do it again. I don't think I'll even be able to watch a Mountain Dew commercial without suffering 'Nam-esque flashbacks.
However, I did have a great time in Spencer, and it's a very nice small town-- it doesn't have that sense of decay that a lot of small towns in Iowa have. The denizens keep up their hopes and appear to still want to live there, as opposed to some of the people I've driven by in, say, Evansdale, Iowa, who seem anxious for the sweet release of death. Oh, and Jamie showed a sweet and gentle restraint in not making sure the barbed wire finished me off after I crashed her grandparents four-wheeler. God bless her.
Some random Gob quotes, because you deserve them: "Michael, do the right thing here. String the blind woman along so Dad doesn't have to pay his debt to society."
Michael: You know, the feeling that you're feeling is just what many of us call... a "feeling".
Gob: It's not like envy, or even hungry.
Michael: Could it be love?
Gob: I know what an erection feels like, Michael. No, it's the opposite - it's like my heart is getting hard.
"I'm dating this Christian girl right now. She wants me to be honest and reconnect with my son. And I'm trying to get her to renounce God and fuck me, but I just want to prove to her that I'm worth it."
You're welcome.
