Sooner or later

So a couple days ago, I'm skipping my hungover ass across the burning hot white sands of the beautiful island paradise of "None of your Business, Thanks" arms full of recovery supplies, when I hear something I haven't heard in years.  It's the sound of my voice coming through the open window of my little beach house.  I hear my voice every day.  But almost always while I'm talking. 

Having blown out my flip-flop a few nights ago, my right foot is getting scalded with every other uneven step across the blistering sands of P. Dice as I hobble toward my front door.

"Haha - got you!"  I hear me say from inside my house as I drop the bag of "groceries" to the doorstep, digging into my pocket for my imaginary keys.  The right pocket of my one and only pair of shorts is, like my keys, pretty much non-existent.  I reach in and scratch my thigh for a moment and pantomime pulling out a set of keys.  I then hurriedly rattle the clutch of air and scramble to the place where the lock would be if I had one.  With a deft twist I throw the door into a jar (whatever that means) and leap for the phone.  Just as I hear my voice saying "Anyways - leave a message, douche!"  I see the Caller I.D. and stop my hand, mid-grab.  Yeah, "Douchy Downer" can leave a message.  I can't handle talking to that guy before at least 4 or 5 recovery Bloody Marys.  I'll call him back after "lunch".

I can hear you asking, "Keel-man.  What's with the the pretend key thing?" 

Good question.  The answer may surprise you:  Marine Mammals.  They're watching.  But not too close.  Enough said.

Sliding back out to gather my V8 and stuff from the door step, I hear the beep sound indicating it's time for cousin Cube to whine on about whatever depressing shit he's gotta lay on me.

"Nate.  Cube.  Listen, give me a call back A.S.A.P.  I am done.  I'll explain after you have your 'lunch.'  Call me back.  Seriously."

What a dick.  The way he put those quotes around the word "lunch" like that.  Don't judge me Cubey.  Or I'll scrape up some cash and get you a plane ticket down here so's I can kick your ass.

~~

Nate's World Famous Recovery Bloody Marys (that I got off the Internet):

You can be the hit of any morning after party with this little delight -

• Celery salt
• Lemon wedges
• Lime wedges
• 32 oz Albertson's Vodka
• 40 oz V8
• Tabasco Sauce
• Prepared horseradish
• Winchestertonfieldvilleshire sauce
• Celery salt
• Ground black pepper
• Smoked paprika

Garnish:Celery stalk and lime wedge

Pour some celery salt onto a small plate. Rub the juicy side of the lemon or lime wedge along the lip of a pitcher. Roll the outer edge of the pitcher in celery salt until fully coated. Fill with ice and set aside. Squeeze the lemon and lime wedges into a shaker and drop them in. Add the remaining ingredients and fill with ice. Shake gently and strain into the prepared pitcher. Garnish with a celery stalk and a lime wedge.  Set pitcher aside, grab bottle of rum and head down to the beach for some sunny recovery. 


The Recovery

I got about 30 minutes left to finish recovering.  I needa send a note to TJ.  It's about the pig roast in a couple of weeks.  My feet have started to dry.  That means the tide's going out and it'd be a good time to chuck the invite into the ocean.  Otherwise TJ won't have enough notice to get to the party.  He'll have to take a shower, probably.  He needs notice.  Trust me.   

Problem is, I still have a little bit of recovery drink in the bottle.  I'd rather TJ show up to the party all smelly than waste good rum.  Just sayin'

But hell.  I can do this.  I'm already more than completely recovered from last night, but this is TJ were talking about.  I take one for the team, guzzle down the rest of the rum and heave the bottle into the ocean and on it's way to TJ some 5 or 6 days hence.

Watching the golden sunset glisten off that bottle as it bobs slowly to TJ reminds me why I came here in the first place.  The scene is incredible.  Life is simple.  Happy.  We don't need no technology.  We can do what needs to be done by the simplest of means.  Once TJ sees the message in the ...

Oh holy fuckpaste!  The message is still in my shirt pocket.  Well, no problem.  I can fix this.  I'll just text TJ to give me a call when the empty bottle washes ashore.  Or if it doesn't get there at all.  It rarely actually makes it to him anyway.

Whew.  I'm beat.  That basking in the sun can really take it out of you.  Especially the newly burned skin where my flip-flop strap used to be.  Time to head over to the bar and unwind a bit.  Maybe get into some fisticuffs!  I'm mad at somebody from last night, but I don't remember who or why.

So's I haul it back up to the pad.  It's dark out already and I see an eerie flashing red light coming through the same open window my voice was coming from earlier.  Aw shit.  I was supposed to call Cube.  I guess that fistfight will have to wait a couple/few minutes.


Five minutes later, I'm getting the bedtime story of my life as Cube goes on in detail about stuff nobody cares about.  "Oh I'm sick of it.  I'm not going to do it anymore.  I'm not blogging anymore, either.  Nobody likes me, everybody hate [sic] me.  Boo-hoo-hoo" or some shit.  Whatever Cube.  Or should I say, Whatever, Wee Girl.  Haha that rhymes.

Anyway - he's upset, but I can't figure out what it's about or more importantly, why I, Nathan W.J. Keeler, should give one flying, leapfrogging fark about any of this.  At all.  We're not in New Mexico anymore Cubey.  Farmington is a vague memory.  I don't owe you shit.

Of course, I don't say any of that.

So I've listened to this guy cry about this and that for years.  I've been sick of it for approximately years minus 2 seconds.  I figure it's time to tell this pussy once and for all what I think. 

"You know what I think," I ask.

"What's that W?,"  comes his childish grating sniveling reply.  Sometimes he calls the Keel-man, 'W'.  I'm sure there's a reason (he's insane), but I don't know what it is and I'm sure if I asked him the answer would be about six hours long.

"I think you should die as a result of eating shit,"  I tell him, trying to lighten the mood.  I'm getting nervous.  I don't want the bar to close down before I get off the phone.  Whoever I was going to argue with will think I chickened out.  I can't have that.

"Perhaps you're right," Cube says.  Haha - what a pussy.  He thinks I'm serious. 

"No cube.  Listen, how long have we knowed each other?  Like 30 years or sumpin'?  

"I want you to take over for me.  I'm done.  I quit.  Time to switch gears.  You've heard of the straw that broke the camel's back?"  Cube whined on and on.

"No. I don't live in the desert.  I ..."

"Well it's a saying.  Related to the last straw ..."

"Cube!  You might be are a huge pussy, but you just blew my fucking mind. I always thought "The last straw" meant you had to actually lift the glass all the way to your lips - which of course is unacceptable.  Are you like a "Savoir Faire" or something?

Anyway - Cube told me to type down my stupid thoughts and post them on my blog for a while.  He said I also have to get an account on something called "Strava" and if I ever move from one place to another, then I have to make a record of it there on this "Strava" thing. 

"That sounds incredibly fucking stupid, Cubey!" I admitted.  But then I figured, what the hell.  Maybe the ladies will see what a studly muffin I am. 

So that's what I'm going to do for a while.  It proves to me that mainland life makes no sense.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have a beating to either dish out or endure.  Ima go for a PR on the "stumble from hut to bar" segment.

Oh holy crap

Get ready for the chameleon roaches.  The roaches down here in paradise have been genetically engineered to blend in so now instead just hiding when you turn on the light, they will instantly turn the color of their surroundings.  Well, that's not precisely true.  They use the equivalent of an invisibility cloak to bend light around themselves.  These are some nasty little creatures.  But don't worry.  Worrying won't do any good.

The only thing you can hope for is to have a qualified exterminator come in and take care of the issue.  Understand though, most treatments won't work because there's no way of getting a good estimate of how many there are.  Plus, you might not want to get rid of them the instant you detect them.  Chameleon roaches don't tolerate other roaches.  They will obliterate any current roaches in your home.   In fact, they were specifically designed for this purpose.

At first, it seemed like an ideal solution to a roach infested area.  Fight fire with fire, so to speak.  But when some of the first test homes began reporting missing pets,  a serious oversight had been realized.  The mutant roaches had grown.  Again measuring size was difficult because even at the size of a common housecat, the roaches were terribly difficult to detect.  It was not uncommon for one of these little monsters to sit at the dinner table, quietly lapping away at the gravy while the occupants ate, completely oblivious.

I don't think the chameleon roaches have made it this far north (I'm in Omaha right now for a family reunion, they call Thanksgiving).  Yeah my ancestors were pilgrims, so?

  But it's only a matter of time before they   ... Hey - What's eating my leg?  Ouch.  That hurts.  But I don't see any... Uh oh.  Goodbye.

The End?

If you are a gnarly wave

I got bad news for you.  I'm back, whore!

Steel-cut motivation

I'll get back to the trip out to Mona Island in a few days, but I just wanted to detour here for one fricken minute and offer my propers to Remington (Peerce Brosnan) Seal-cut Brady.

He has this story about how we shood all run some unspecified distance. It's really cool. And by "run" he means acshally run. Like the football players or the police do.

At first I thought he had to be using the word in some new way, Like "Yeah, I'm running a 625 unner the hood with a 41/frf tranny."

But the more I read it, the more I think he acshally means "moving your legs fast enough that your feet leave the ground"

Crazy.

And even though I won't take him up on this "challenge from the 1970's", I think it's admirable that he makes the effort. Here's to you, "runner".

Is it safe?

If you run too much, Zell might want to check your teeth.

wella komo koko

That's what this little hot island girl said to me yesterday. I thought she was making a pass at me. It would make sense. Look at me! Anyway, I was like "Voolay voo cooshay ..." and then she says "No, you smell like a coconut."
Now if you know me, one thing you know is that I am real smooth with the ladies,
I just seem to always be at ease. The hotter the girl, the cooler I am. Together, we make "warm". And that's not just one of my great lines, That's a Nate Keeler promise!

So I'm talking to this girl - incidentally - I didn't tell her the reason I smelt like a coconut was cause I was on my 4th Pineapple-coconut-ibuprofen-rum smoothy, not counting the one I kind of knocked over into my lap - I'm telling her all about how cool I am and sensitive and honest, and she doesn't let on, but I can tell she's really impressed. That's about the time CB comes along yelling at me asking me where the hell I've been. His real name is TJ, but Cock block seemed to work better at this point. So I pretended he was just some loony and I didn't know who he was. But Then he's like "C'mon nate, let's go!"

oh crap. tide. gotta go surf. more later.

How I spent the day ...

Well, it was another one of these again. You know, a guy could get tired of it. Ha Ha J-effin-K. I was going to actually try to get down to the massage parlor before 2:30, but there was a really nice breeze coming in through the window, so I just sat there for a while and enjoyed that. I blew out my flip-flop again. Oh well. Tomorrow's supposed to be really nice out. I'll probably have TJ take me out on the boat-thing at around 1:00, if I'm up yet. I got that thing to go to tonight. We'll see. Take it easy.

About Me

My name is Nate Keeler. It is not Fred.