For the record, I have now been gainfully employed by the good people at Monetaire for 2 years now, which also is a personal record for my longest tenure at any one place. Both of these are “good things”, and I hope to continue this streak. These is good people to work for.

So I woke up this morning, a fact for which I would have given more thanks had it not been to the dull ache of unbelievable proportions I was suffering through. This was on top of the immense heat that had engulfed my room in the early hours of the morning, making it a good 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Ugh…I hate that feeling. “Might as well wake up”, I thought.

I turned off my clock radio that had been blaring doubleDrive at me for the last few minutes. I stared at the time: 10:37. What an ungodly hour for any good lazy weekend day to start. But sleep was not going to return for me, so I decided to run a cold bath and submerged myself into it’s depths, trying to shock my body and mind out of their catatonic states. I also had to start putting the pieces of what happened last night back together.

It’s all still somewhat of a blur, and I doubt a great deal of the details are already lost to the ether (or the alcohol, take your pick). Now being as it was a national holiday and all, I felt compelled to get out and do something, but what to do? I had certainly seen enough of my four walls for a while. Well, it just so happened that Sue and Pat had a party to attend down in Toms River and I was welcome to come along. It sounded like my best option, especially considering that my only other option would be to sit home and watch my life wither away in front of the TV.

Par-tay! Par-tay! Par-tay!

After a few quick stops for provisions and preparations, we showed up ready to enjoy an evening of beer and burgers, among other things. The event was being thrown by Pat’s friends girlfriend at her very nice house. Early on I felt like I was walking on eggshells, which is usual when I go into a situation where I know no-one at all. Well OK, so I knew Pat and Sue, but that’s only two. I decided that drastic measures were needed in order to get my social skills up to par.

Doctor’s orders were for 1 keg stand and 1 game of beer pong, where I once again proved that when it comes to this game I have none to speak of. Not only did this give me a chance to mingle with the guests, but the extra booze helped get quiet Andy to sit down and let party Andy come out and play for a while. Party Andy plans on getting quiet Andy a nice book to read sometime in the near future for this act of kindness.

As the evening progressed, I slowly started to lose track of Sue and Pat in the mix of things. I would see them every now and again, but they were having their fun and I was having mine. I had found myself drawn into some great conversations with interesting people, being pulled out into walks around the neighborhood, manning the grill…I was all over the place. And having a ball the entire time.

I even managed to take advantage of the available chlorinated swimming hole they had, after I took all my little tech toys and valuables from my pockets and put them someplace safe. Too many times have I had to replace every business card and scrap of unlaminated identification in my wallet because I rushed in swimming.

Eventually, things started to wind down and people started to leave, so it seemed like as good a time as any to find my ride home and start making our plans. Now here’s where the real fun of the night began. It seemed while I was making time to be a socialite, some kind of verbal altercation had broken out elsewhere on the estate and while the details are a mystery to me the result was quite apparent: Sue and Pat had been asked to leave the party, and they complied.

You could imagine my surprise to find that I had been left behind. While I can’t remember specifics, I’d like to think that I threw on my best sad face (complete with puppy-dog eyes) and stammered out somethign like “But, but…they forgot me.” After which I’m pretty sure I went into something of a tirade using many muttered profanities, but it didn’t last too long. This was really nothing more than an inconvenience. I’d just have to call a cab and pay for my ride home. Was I happy about it? Not really, but it’s something I could handle. I’d just have to get out my cell…phone. Which is…with my…wallet. And camera. And keys. All in Sue’s car. Which is not here. And I am.

Oh…fuck.

So there I was: stranded in Toms River. My biggest issue was no longer getting home. My biggest issue was how to get back into my house once I did. I started to run through scenarios in my head, trying to figure out how to manage this impossibility without breaking a window or playing Spider Man (which I’ve seen is clearly forbidden in my condo association by-laws). But somehow I was determined to sleep on my own damn property that night. Wether it meant sleeping on my lawn or in my futon was yet to be determined.

The drive home wound up solving itself. As a very intriguing young woman named Rachelle, who I had been talking to for the better part of the party, also happened to be a fugitive…I mean resident of Brick Township and offered to drive me home. We talked about lots of things and she played me a copy of the yet to be released Hail to the Thief, which shows her obvious good taste in music. And I should know, having had the chance to sample the album myself. But I digress. Back to the peril at hand.

Somewhere on the ride home I had started to form a plan. If I could somehow reach a hold of Sue, maybe she could get my keys and other assorted things (hereafter referred to as “my shit”) to me. I had Rachelle drop me off at a Krauser’s near my house where I knew there was a pay-phone to call Sue’s cell. It was just after I had picked up the receiver that my mind went completely blank and I couldn’t remember her number at all. Of course this pales to the fact that at this point of the story I’m still 20 minutes away from remembering that I don’t have change to make said call, and I would have to try and remember my credit card number from the top of my head if I wanted to call.

There was some bullshit with 1-800-Collect and making collect calls to cell phones. Shenanigans I say! ^_^

Contingency plan #2 was now on the table, much to my dismay. This involved my walking from my house to Sue’s house in Point Pleasant a few miles or so down the road where I might possibly run into Sue herself or a member of her family who could possibly get me in touch with her. Yes, I would probably be waking them up, but I had justified this to myself much earlier in my walk. I mean, I wasn’t the one who stranded myself, and I tend to find myself in these weird situations in her presence more often than not. I love Sue to death, but she seems to have trouble tacked to the hem of her dress.

The trip to Point went fairly quickly. I was walking through all my options at least twice every minute, how I would write about this once every five minutes, and the fact that I got Rachelle’s number once every 30 seconds. I walked up the front steps of a darkened house, noting the five cars parked about it: all of them belong to some member of the clan; none of them Sue’s. I resigned myself to knocking.

And knocking. And knocking. Throw in a doorbell ring for good measure. OK, let’s knock again. And again. Again. Again. Again. AGAIN! Doesn’t anyone here sleep lightly!!! C’MON!!!

I shrugged my shoulders and cleared plan #2 from my head. Plan C had to work. It was pure simplicity. It consisted of three steps: Walk all the way back home, pray that my sister had gotten back from day out at New Hope and I could get her to let me in, and if she wasn’t there, give up and sleep out of doors.

I can’t remember exactly how far down the road it was that my body started to have sit-down strikes with the planning commission. All the walking was taking it’s toll and the legs had just about had it. They were crying about equal rights to the decision making process, but that just forced my brain to declared martial law. Getting home was all that mattered. I could collapse then and only then.

That last corner I turned was a bit of a nerve wracking one. When I saw my sister’s Sunfire out in the parking spot in front of our condo, I knew I had a chance. The odds were that she was home, but then again she could have just dropped it off and went over to her boyfriend’s house. Still, my legs had a little more pep as I went around to the back of the row of units to get at her window.

The standard procedure to rouse someone from slumber in these kind of situations is to pelt the window of your intended target with rocks, but because of some geological fluke my backyard was rock free. I had to grope around until I found a suitable substitute: used charcoal briquettes from one of our busted grills.

My sister would later tell me that she was afraid to check the window at first, thinking I was her recently ex-ed ex-boyfriend, psychotically vying for her attention. I had to throw briquette after briquette, carefully aiming to make as much noise as possible without tossing it through the window. Not to mention trying to ride the very fine line between being loud enough for my sister to hear me and being loud enough to have my sister hear me AND wake my neighbors. After about five or six tosses, I was starting to lose hope and looking around for a soft moss bed to act as a suitable pillow, but finally my sister’s light went on and I could swear that somewhere in the distance I heard a quire of angels sing out “Hallelujah!”.

I didn’t bother to even look at the clock on this adventure. All I knew for certain is that I was in my room and most grateful for it. Sleep came fast, and so did the series of fucked up dreams that certain levels of exhaustion can bring about. Still, this certainly was a night for the books.

Oh, hold on a sec…got a phone call coming in. “Hello?” “Nah, I don’t have any plans for tonight.” “Sure, I’d love to hang out….” ^_^

So I was wondering…is there anyone still out there? Just a little check to make sure I have an audience left to write to. Tales of my death may have been greatly exagerated, but my vacation did have a few of those hairy moments when I might have believed that it actually was in any kind of danger.

I’m compiling all the tales and visuals, but at last count I had over 700 pictures and and and hour and fifty minutes worth of crummy quality digital video, and trying to figure out how best to present it all is gonna take time. I will probably be breakinng it all into smaller parts and releasing them as I finish, so a trip that took me nearly three weeks to make could take nearly three months to retell.

Maybe I should coin the term “crap-o-vision” now, eh? ^_^