From Justin Gawel: Eccentric Dirtbag
Fellow graduates in the class of 2012, I stand before you today to look back while we look forward toward tomorrow. From science fairs, to homecoming pregnancy scandals and resulting cover-ups, to the annual tontine, boy, we’ve seen it all and I don’t think I could have asked for a better chucklehort of chuckleheads to be there with me each step of the way.
I know it’s cliché, and I’m as cliché an adult baby as they come, but I can’t believe it’s Graduation Day. Here we are, the Class of 2012, in our gowns and mortarboards ready to walk across that stage in all of our pompous circumstance. We’ve become so close and I feel like I know some of you as well as I know my own siblings. It’s hard to believe that six weeks ago when this court-appointed alcohol class started that I said I didn’t deserve to be lumped in with you degenerate problem drinkers.
Whew, I am on pins and needles! No, it’s not just because I’m giving a speech. No, it’s not because I ran out of underwear this morning and am wearing a diaper made out of newspaper now. And, no, it’s not even because I had my first beer yesterday since my arrest and then couldn’t stop drinking, no, right now I’m worried about tripping when I walk across the stage, right, guys, right?
Today’s also bittersweet. We’re at the end of a golden age and as soon as Marcy P., the substance abuse coordinator here, tells us to move our tassels from right to left we’ll no longer be classmates, we’ll no longer be brothers in booze, we’ll just be adults in silly outfits complying with the terms of our respective probations.
Now, as you should know, you’re all invited to my open house tomorrow. Yeah, I know, Erickson; you scheduled yours on the same day. I’m sorry, but here goes: Erickson, you’re a poseur and I know I’m more popular than you. I’m not as popular as Chad or the Moose, but come on; I know I’m more popular than the weiner who tries too hard to make friends. In fact, Erickson, I think we’re all beginning to suspect you didn’t actually get a drunk-and-disorderly for vomiting in a magician’s hat at Sea World like you said, but rather that you just signed up for this class in a failed attempt to meet people and network.
Really, guys, I know I’m taking up the middle of my commencement speech talking about how you should come to my party and not Erickson’s. Seriously though, come to mine; we’re going to have the barbecue going, we might rent a cotton candy machine. It’s going to be awesome, everyone’s going to get their genitals touched and we’re seriously going to get so drunk, har har, just kidding—or maybe I’m not, wink! Anywho, you all should come out, it’ll be fun. Plus, I still need a couple of you to sign my yearbook. Sensitive Sally Simpson, I’m looking at you!
Now that we’ve all got our suspended licenses back, we’ve all really started to live again. It didn’t matter if it was a school night, we were always going to the movies, the twenty-four hour shoe repair shop, Make-Out Creek, you name it and we can be there; living it up as only the Class of 2012 could.
Jocks, geeks, foreigners with weird socks, we never let cliques get in the way of being friends. The camaraderie between all of us was amazing; we all would come out to cheer for our beloved football team, we all pitched in to help with the homecoming dance, and we all came together to put on Oklahoma! for a group of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Boy, that evening was a hoot to say the least!
I’m proud so say I’m part of this cohesive bunch; a cohesive bunch that includes everyone except Erickson. I know we’ll be able to stay in touch as we return to our lives as alcoholic mailmen, alcoholic snake charmers, and alcoholic students, like Buglesson, who is applying to further his education right now, mostly because the court thinks he needs more education about learning about how it’s not cool to get drunk and threaten to throw your wife down the stairs just because the Giants lost.
I’ll miss you all. You all are amazing people and I can’t want for our camping trip in a few weeks!
And I’m flattered that you all voted for me for “Best Sense of Humor” in the mock elections, solely based on that one time when I farted real loud during that movie about car accidents.
Once again, graduates, congrats; I’m proud to be a part Class of 2012!
The notion that homosexuality and wine were both founded in Ancient Greece makes perfect sense to anyone that’s ever witnessed the results of me drinking wine.
Fermented grape juice, I don’t know how you do it, but every time I drink my fill of you I end up with my shirt off and asking people, “Why don’t we hug more?”
It really doesn’t matter what people I’m with. Once I put on that snuggly, internal sweater from drinking a bunch of wine I’m going to get that itch. Not an itch from the sweater mind you, but rather a need to feel other people’s body heat against me; not necessarily in a sexual way, more in an exploratory sense. I’m like Lewis and Clark in the sense that I want to blaze one happy trail across that uncharted wilderness of any willing participant’s body hair.
Liquor and beer, you may try to get me riled up the way wine does, but, inevitably, when I have had my fill of either of you the only thing I want to caress with my fingers at the end of the night is a large mound of McNuggets. With wine though, it’s a love-fest at the end of the night—a love-fest where food and reservations about boundaries between heterosexual male friends are abandoned in favor of tickle-fights, massage circles, and snuggle forts. Like any morning after, I’m usually quick to do what I can to get rid of any physical or emotional reminders of the folly we engaged in. That may take the form of repressing uncomfortable memories, or just by using extra mouthwash, or maybe just by simply cleaning off the massive amounts of glitter that’s collected in my bathing-suit area.
Fat bottomed girls, you may make the rockin’ world go round, but, wine, you keep my therapist on her toes. Yeah, in our sessions we never have any “breakthroughs” or any of that bullshit-feel-goodery. Just when she thinks she has me figured out I whip out a story about that time we all were pretty tipsy from wine and we had a contest to see who could blow the gentlest on my nipples, or the time we ruined a wine tasting by playing a game of Truth or Dare in which we required every truth to be sensually whispered into the each other’s ears and every dare revolved around thigh stroking and smelling one another. Your move, Dr. Waterfield; I know you’re a therapist, but it’s going to be tough for you to unlearn some of my irrepressible stories, and only then, when you say you’ve had enough and tap out, will I be able to call myself the winner.
Overall, I’m not mad at you, wine. You make me learn more about myself each time I get drunk off of you and that always keeps me on my toes—well, except when a friend who’s wine drunk is sucking on them.
Uncle Ralph, was it me or was it you? Wait, now I’m remembering; it was definitely you.
It was definitely you since I was just six and you were thirty-seven when you ruined my birthday party at Major Magic’s. I recall sobbing a tad when I received a shirt from Grandma instead of the Creepy Crawlers accessories I asked for, but that was nothing compared to the meltdown you had when you realized that Major Magic’s did not serve alcohol. You claimed to remember drinking at this Major Magic’s, but later I heard my dad clarify that statement as, “No, Ralph, the police found you here one morning badgering the terrified janitor if they had made the pizzas yet.” Six in one hand, a half dozen in the other. Regardless, the lack of adult beverages at this child-themed restaurant meant that you had to trudge across the parking lot to the liquor store just to be able to tolerate being at your six-year-old nephew’s birthday for a few hours.
You staggered back from the liquor store a bit later and tried, unsuccessfully, to buy cigarettes from the prize counter. Out of either pity or hilarity the attendant behind the counter agreed to trade you a pack of candy cigarettes for your watch. Upon opening the box you immediately put the attendant on the defensive and ever so eloquently inquired if he thought you were “sum cocksuckin’ sum’a bitch” for trading you what you claimed were Virginia Slims. Speechless, the attendant offered to trade you back to which you retorted with a snort and a grunt before turning away and trying to spark your first cigarette in the corner next to the Skee Ball machine. Predictably, candy didn’t ignite and you demanded that the attendant let you speak to his manager for “hustling” you. Noting your state, the attendant pulled another such “hustle” and pointed you in the direction of the animatronic Major Magic robot performing on stage.
There was fire in your eyes at this point. I wish that the most intimidating individual I ever witnessed was doing something epic, like defeating a dragon or eating a gigantic sandwich to win a t-shirt, but no, sadly, the most intimidating game-face I have observed was on you: a sloppy and staggering bowling alley technician looking to yell at a giant singing robot in front of children.
A beeline right to the forefront of the performance area and you launch into a tirade. You’d forgotten about the candy cigarettes, your watch, or the (in your words) “fascist” anti-drinking policy of this Major Magic’s. The robot, oblivious to your inquiries, continued with the show. This set you off. You launched into a full-fledged rant about how you despised Mr. Magic for leering at your pretty wife and that you doubted that he could ever rise to the rank of Major in the U.S. Army the way you had. In reality, you had been divorced for five years at this point and had never actually served in the army.
In fact, I’m almost certain your delusion of being in the army stems from that time when you had punched the Arabic guy at the gas station and accused him of being a sleeper cell. I don’t know what was the saddest part of that story: your notion that all Arabic people were America’s enemies, thinking that you are helping the troops win a war that has been over since 1993, or demanding that the police award you a Purple Heart before they arrested you. Either way, the whole incident screamed prejudice, delusion, and restraining order.
Your argument petered out at that point and after what appeared to be a brief epiphany you decided to throw your arm about the mechanical major and unite in song with him. After ten minutes you told the robot that he was your best friend and that you wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet or shrapnel for him. At this point the manager, the actual human manager, asked our family to take our party elsewhere. Ipso facto, I blew out the candles on my sixth birthday cake in the parking lot of a grocery store.
So, yeah, when you asked why there was a rift between us, I assure you, Uncle Ralph, it not me; it’s definitely you.
