ya can't spell disfunction without fun

When I learned that Gena, Damon and the kids were pulling up stakes and heading to Florida to establish a new residence, it made perfect sense. It stood to reason that we should party for one last time before their imminent departure and this was a celebration we weren't going to miss.

Everything was in place for a night to remember. Mac and cheese, noodle salad, Budweiser, rock 'n roll, old trucks, lawnmowers, babes, redneck machines, and a bottle of Yukon Jack hidden away in an old fridge in the shed. The reason the Jack was out of sight was obvious to all. Beer was enough to get these guys a buzz but anything harder would only lead to testosterone driven machismo. Add a few frisky babes and ex-honeys and you'll get an unbridled chorus of drunkenese babble followed by fat lips and stitches in a mud, blood and beer free-for-all.
When the beer started to run low, I momentarily considered offering my spare half gallon of rum, which I keep in the car for emergencies, but quickly perished the thought. Seeing how this crowd annihilated the 2 pizzas we brought made me wonder what they'd do with a large bottle of rum. Images of raw hamburger in a tank of piranhas immediately came to mind. Thank god this town has a few dozen beer distributors.

I met many people I haven't seen for decades and all of them went on about things we did and where we lived and who was there and details that were lost in the mists of time. I find it amazing how all these people have changed so much physically but remember so much mundane detail, and how all these details were lost for me but I managed to remain the same physically. Hey, 250 years takes up a lot of brain cells. I can't be expected to remember everything!

One guy was telling me about the time his wife got him so upset while on a beer binge that he managed to kick the door on his stove so hard it ended up inside the oven. Then he threw a fork at her and stuck her in the leg just as the cops walked in his house. I asked what she did to piss him off and she said she must've not put his food on the table fast enough, or something. Later, Donny told me a similar story about attacking a stove, only he smashed the top down to the insides. I later found out one of their weight benches were used to make the redneck motorcycle. Between both these guys they had four weight benches and one of them was outside near a bunch of lawn tractors in various states of decomposition.

The redneck motorcycle is a collection of unusable parts assembled to produce a machine capable of laying a hurt on anyone who dared to ride it. The throttle was on the left handlebar, the shifter was to the right of the seat, it had no brakes to speak of, and the front wheel was off a wheelbarrow to give you the absolute minimum control possible. The icing on the cake is the throttle would stick wide open when you least expect it and the only way to stop is to stall it or crash it. This pic was taken shortly after it crashed into a truck.

Eventually, word got out that there was a bottle of liquor and hiding it was futile. Like zombies on the scent of living brains, the revelers gravitated to the amber fluid with outstretched arms and open mouths for a taste of sweet pop skull. As the Yukon level dropped, so did the I.Q.s and before too long, inebriation set in.

I can't help thinking the next time I party with these guys we'll be in a hot, humid, sweaty place down south they call home.

Miss ya already.