Flynn's Wedding: A Tatter's Story (Chapter 2: London)

After leaving Iceland, the fellowship moved onto London, England only to find that nearby, in Brussels, Belgium another creature was close on their tale that went by the name of Brentum.

London was atrocious. The hostel we stayed at had 6 people in it and it was like fucking 100 degrees in there. We spent the night in Leicester Square around Coventry Street. The place was pretty beat actually. We went to a handful of bars and got reasonable drunk by the end of the night.

I'm not a huge fan of England and all. We hit up the London Eye; which is a big ass fucking ferris wheel in the heart of London. Here's the thing about the London Eye. It take about 10 years to get your ticket. Then it takes another 20 years to make your way through the line. They check your backpack and purses before getting on the ferris wheel. My suggestion is this: There aren't any bathrooms while you are waiting in line and you can't bring booze on the trip. Pound a shit-ton of liquor prior to going on this fucker. You buy the tickets before getting in line for the ferris wheel. There aren't any bars in the area so you might have to buy a bottle before going on this. Also, Cadbury discontinued Fingers of Fudge; so don't waste your time looking for them. The London Eye does give you good shots of Parliment (minus the Funkadelic), Big Ben and other shit people find profound. It was at this time the three, Wallagrim Took, Tatdo Butagins, and Samwise Plumgee found their nemesis, Rat Tail. This fucking kid got on our last nerve. First off, he had a rat tail. And secondly, he had a fucking rat tail. The goddamn nerve. I wanted to smack him AND his parents. Rumor has it that he was adopted and his parents were raised by goddamn fucking apes! Like, what the fuck!?! Rat tails? In this day and age?

During the ferris wheel trip, the cart got to a temperature of 1 zillion degrees Kelvin or "hot as balls" Centigrade to the layman. Like how could it be legal to have a cart that hot, seriously? Needless to say, the fellowship noticed that Brentum was close on their track and they had to get the fuck out of Dodge! So they hightailed it the fuck outta England and made their way to Amsterdam where they would, no doubt, lose Brentum and continue their journey.

Will they be safe in Amsterdam?

Don't Shit Where You Sleep

It’s been muttered, “Tatters is a little strange.” Like snowflakes, everyone is different and like poker, everyone is dealt a certain hand. Keeping this in mind, I am back in my hometown; the place where I learned to be a man and cry like a woman.

There are a few things that people may not understand about where I’ve grown up and these things should probably be known before I begin my tale of adventure of what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks.

My hometown has about 20,000 people; and the average age of those people is about 75. There are a select group of people I know that have moved back to Hermitage and a select group of people that had never left. And once you leave, it’s very difficult to smeld back into this society; and these are simple folk. I remind my dad of this on a daily basis. I have to remind him everyday because, well, he’s a simple man.

I dunno when this town turned into what it is now, but rest assured, it was never this bad when I was growing up, or maybe I just didn’t notice. Wal-Mart is a fantastic place to really get an appreciation for this town. As many of you know, I rocked the ‘stache on my way out east and it was embraced with open arms when I got here. The typical man in public is we’ll say 55 years old, mustache, a plaid twill jacket, and usually has a NASCAR hat on and its about 50 pounds overweight. Typical woman is about 45 years old, mustache, pregnant, NASCAR T-Shirt on (yes in the winter) and usually has a few bruises scattered randomly over her body. They’ll jump into their pick up truck, GMC twin cab, covered in rust, and 9 times outta 10, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes will be pissing on something. This ranges from Ford to Cleveland Brown logos. It’s really interesting that there are 3 Volkswagens in town and I know who drives all three of them.

So those are the people. Simple folk that love country music and southern rock. I’d take pictures of these people but if they say my camera they would probably burn me on a stake accusing me of witchcraft.

Moving on to entertainment…We got TONS!

One of the first things you can do, and this is appreciated nationwide, is to indulge yourself in the local drinkery for a few well deserved libations (see Figure 1). On this particular night we saw a buddy of mine play some music at a place called the Clark House. We sampled a few Old Milwaukees and topped it off with a shot of “Creature”, known to the rest of the world as Black Velvet, aka paint remover, aka jewery cleaner.

Another thing could can do if the bowling alley locks you out is drink in a parking lot (see Figure 2) as the manager of the bowling alley suggested. It takes a certain town when the manager of a bowling alley not only allows but SUGGESTS you drink in his parking lot. An opportunity like this may come around once or twice in a lifetime so me and my buddy took full advantage and drank until we couldn’t feel our toes because of the cold. So then we went to his house and drank some more.

Another popular activity is to hang out with Lord Licorice (see Figure 3). I assure you, the Lord, although gallant and wise is not a regular in Hermitage. No Sir. He is a part of Easter Bunny lane (see Figure 4) which is at Kraynak’s. Kraynak’s….there’s no easy way to describe it. It’s really…uh…random. They have a lot of trains there. If you take anything out of this, I hope it’s “if you ever wonder what the right thing to do is, just ask yourself ‘What would Lord Licorice do?’”

Mom mother is sort of a cat lady, she only has four but we’ve had a pretty solid rotation of cats since I’ve been alive. We actually had 4 other cats when I was growing up which make a wonderful segway into another fun activity, which is: Watch the Cats. It’s really better than television. Take Abby for instance (See Figure 5). It was in that position for long enough for me to decide whether or not to take the picture, grab my phone, then take the picture. Remarkable.

I know some of us were Eagle Scouts so another thing to do is pay homage to the boy scouts by putting up robotic moving puppets dressed as creepy ass boy scouts (see Figure 6). Good luck sleeping tonight.

The last things and the most common thing to do is bowl and this dude abides. Had a pretty good game (see Figure 7). Since I’ve been home I’ve went bowling 3 times and drank in the parking lot once…well, actually twice but I don’t count the second time. I’ve also had on average about 6 Stroh’s each time I’ve gone bowling.

You gotta love the place though.

This is the problem I have...

I highly doubt that anyone else has this problem but this is the kinda stuff that toils on my mind day in and day out. First off, like most people, I sorta have mixed reviews about my job. I like money however I don't enjoy doing any work ever. Example being, I was buying some clothes Friday, the the retail mistress at the checkout had asked me "How are you doing today?" I shook my head in disgust and sorrow and said "Not too good here lady." "What's wrong?" "Well, I was playing Madden earlier and I beat the Saints to finish off my regular season then simulated the Wildcard playoffs (I had already clinched a playoff spot) and inadvertantly simulated the rest of the season, losing to the Seahwaks in the first round of the playoffs." I mean, she was at work and THIS was the worst thing that happened to me all day, excluding my dimishing stockade of champagne. So I felt sorta bad. But this isn't the problem I have. The problem I have is this. Okay, I know some of you guys wear you fancy button down shirts/suits, or a nice little polo shirt to work. Here's my typical work attire. A flannel I picked up at Goodwill, covering a plain white Hanes Shirt, with or without coffee or grease stains, and a pair of ripped jeans and a pair of Chucks (and socks adn underwear of course). In "Life's Little Instruction Manual" is says "Don't dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want." Previously, I was doing neither. However, It got me to thinking, "Ya know, I'm a 27 year old engineer and sometimes when I'm superhungover and go to 7-11 for some snacks in this attire, I may be construed as homeless. Point made, so maybe should dress nicer to work. And this is my problem. I been picking up some collared shrts that are nice enough to wear to work, it's a step up. But I don't liek these shirts enough to wear in a social setting. And typically, these shirts cost more than my social setting shirts. So in essence, I am spending more money of workshirts that I don't even like, than my regular shirts. Now I know what you're saying "Why don't you just buy workshirts that you like enough to wear outside of work?" I'm not gonna wear a collared shirt outside of work unless I'm going to court or church (Hold me to this!). Now I can't very well buy cheaper shirts cuz I will utterly hate them, and financially speaking, that is fucking nuts! Also, I can;t wear shirts I like to work cuz I'll get them dirty with grease and holes. Case in point, my barrybostwickband shirt, the old black one, I ruined my previous one and was on my last one and wore it to work, "It's black," I figured, "it can't get greasy." And sure as shit in your poop chute, I ripped it on something.

It just fucking sucks, that I have to spend money on clothes that I won't wear outside of work and like, just enough, for them to potentially get ruined at owrk.