A Car honks out on the street. A moment in thought, what is going on out there? It's near 3AM and Marty just dropped off Maddy and I at home. We''d spent the last almost 4 hours watching 30 Rock back to back, before that "Ru-Paul's Drag Race", before that a trip to Giant Tiger where Maddy discovered her food stamps had not been replenished for the month and where I ate my usual sour cream donut without purchase. That's right. I flat out did not apply Free D with P. But <addy bought Morning Star biscuits and before that were jumping around in a Pete and Pete dumpster outside an upscale apartment building near "Cleveland Gray's Armory" looking for records and milk crates. Actually I don't think we were really looking for any of those things, the door to the dump was just open, becoming reason enough to investigate what was inside a mostly clean looking large dumpster. Boxes & trash bags of clothes, mattress and box spring. Marty and Carl were jumping all over so I hope they don't end up with bed bugs or anything. Carl found a Luther Vandross record, but as he heard what sounded like a pack of bros heading down the street, he force-ably flung it up and out into the air. It seemed like we were all frozen in time, looking into each others eyes, waiting for it to touch down somewhere. I thought it would be broken glass or a car alarm. But just a thud, and a moment later a confused "WHOA!" It was hard to stay so quiet. Then a lady's voice "What are yall doing in there?" as we booked it down the street, Marty milk crate in hand I found out it was a woman in an upstairs window. Good we left before cops were called or something, or before Maddy decided to keep that Mesh-fish-net-ty shirt. We could have been there a long time.
And before that we were at a Lake Erie Monsters "AHL" ice hockey game at the Q, Gund Arena. I've certainly never been to a hockey game in Cleveland. It took us a bit to get in actually. MArty had 2 free tickets but we discovered regular ticket prices were 25 each. 12.50 a piece that'd be. And everybody knows me as Mr. cheap skate right now so I couldn't do that. We walked about and found some scalpers who tried to sell us tickets for 20 a piece. Saying they're gonna charge for oxygen soon, that's scalper's language. In a passionate craze, Marty and Carl started trying to scalp tickets for cheaper to compete. We ended crossing the street feeling defeated, but one of the dudes chased us down and all of the sudden, we have tickets and we're booking it for the arena enterence. It takes me eons to get them to admit they paid 10 each. Guilty about it I split cost on a 6 dollar endless bucket of popcorn. One that mad my teeth aching by the end of the game. We grabbed seats and stuck ourselves in the path of a spilt beer/ They had dudes dressed as the Hanson brothers from "Slapshot" scooping/cleaning up the ice. Taped glasses and mullets. Marty gets a kick making fun of number 15 for the Charlotte Checkets team who falls standing in one place for no reason. "You fell for no reason!" "Hey number 15, why don't you fall again?!" It's called a "Flop" we are informed. During the Monsters few scores we're up on our feet screaming, throwing popcorn in the air, the two teenage boys behind us are cheering hysterically trying to catch our popcorn. Marty snatches the bucket and throws a huge handful i the air. In front of us sits some suburban family. 2 young sons just having a good time, their mom, artificially tanned, dark, flat ironed hair with a muffin top. They're all in Brown's jerseys. Dad, bad buzzed-ish hair we learn is a car salesman. He looked like one. But this guy is just giving us this death-stare as if we'd been shoving popcorn down his precious kids's throat. Marty leans behind Maddy telling me he can't look at him with this smile on his face, tail between his legs. It's a great us against them moment. And this ridiculous buzzed dad just keeps on starring it's intense, he's not even watching the game. But our defining moment arrives when the first shot in a jumbotron audience montage gets Carl, Marty and Mervin the puppet. I see it immediately and start screaming, it's great. And that ain't all. The kids behind us are so excited as Carl screams and hugs them both. "WE DID IT!"High fives and happiness. But again, this time a close shot of Mervin with those teen boys in the back and we're going Ape-shit! Tonic water is flying, Marty and Carl aren't even in the shot, but Marty pops up in the screen as some kind of elevator and sticks his head right in Mervin's mouth. Total "kiss-kam"! Everyone's cheering and I want to kiss somebody, I feel like I'm in an Adam Sandler movie. At the very end everyone's hugging. I'm high-five-ing the teen boys with their dad. IT's beautiful amongst all of this popcorn-throwing-angsty-chaos-drinking sips of tonic water that tastes like your used dental floss, or ... a homeless man's breath. WOOF! I have a crush on my friends! I love these guys!
No comments:
Post a Comment