Quick, Smoke Everything!

"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

Around this time my cousin Liz decides to have some drama of her own.  To be blunt, Liz's landlord was a drug dealer.  Not the scary, gun wielding, fuck you up for looking at him funny-type of drug dealer, more of regular guy who happens to have a fairly involved hobby of a questionable nature.  In my experience with landlords, I wouldn't give a crap what they were up to, however, in this case Liz lived in the same house and was kind of stuck, should anything ever go down.

Well, that is almost precisely what happened.  (Surprised, yeah...me neither.) We get word from a few friends the next town over; they were pulled in and questioned for several hours by law enforcement about, guess who.... the landlord.  Our friends, thankfully, did not give them any information, and were also able to tell us that the authorities had painfully little information to go on and were still months away from even finding out who they were looking for.

Still, this was, understandably, a reason for mass panic.  Leah and myself get a phone call and, after being informed of the situation, were recruited into the cleaning efforts at the house.  We scrubbed and cleaned and moved everything even remotely of a questionable nature from the residence.  Hell, he even got rid of any weapons that were legally purchased and a massive assortment of sex toys, because, while not illegal, may cause anyone performing a search to harass him.  I still have a bag of knives in my closet from then.  It was crazy.

I thing this is where everyone's mind went.

When we finish I was thinking:  "Awesome, I can relax now."  Oh, how foolish I was.  Now, I knew a little bit about Leah's past, but I soon discovered just how checkered it was.  You see, she had had a bit of a history with the drug trade in college, and a few really close calls with the law.  She was, as a result, more than a little bit paranoid when it came to things like this.  So, the cleaning that took place at Cousin Liz's house was just the start.  Leah and I did not keep any drugs around, but as I mentioned in my last post Stacy, Liam, and Turtle were the poster children for wasted potential.  We officially banned all drug use from the house, and gave them 24 hours to get it all out.

There were a few arguments, but we were adamant.  They cleared it all out, we cleaned up the place and waited for the hammer to fall, which of course never happened.  Stacy, Liam and Turtle believed that we were overreacting.  I will say this though, while I doubt that they actually got rid of any of their drugs, they did manage to do a much better job of being discreet.  My cousin calmed down a bit and I did not hear from her for a while. So, we go back to normal...until a few weeks later, when we had a party.

Stay Tuned... Next Time: An end of semester party gets BEYOND out of hand.

Turtle Racing

" With an endless assortment of children and animals living under one roof, there was always some absurd crisis that gave comic relief to my problems. "

My life is pretty crazy with random occurrences, insane friends, partying, etc.  However, I do not want you to think that this is always a negative thing.  While I would probably be a happier person and live a MUCH simpler life without certain people in it, I would not trade these experiences for the world.  Every once in a while something happens that is so bizarre and unexpected that I cannot help but be amused by the shear absurdity of it all.  This is what happened next...

Life was pretty "normal" for a while.  Leah picked up work as a bartender in the french quarter.  For those of you that have never been to New Orleans, there are literally hundreds of bars in "The Quarter".  The tourists generally don't get past the big clubs on Bourbon St. but, every side street has a several bars on it.  Gay clubs, Dance clubs, Sports bars, quiet Irish pubs, Strip clubs in every variety, and of course the little Dive bars, all of which are packed on the weekends and are generally dead the rest of the week, unless there is some kind of special event.  Leah started off working at one of the newer dance clubs.

With Leah working nights, and me working a 9-5, we rarely got to see each other anymore.  That, while annoying in itself, also allowed for some shenanigans with Stacy and Liam.  They started playing the "he said/she said" game with us for various things.  Unfortunately, it took us longer than I'd care to admit to catch on because we were so wrapped up in our own lives.

One morning, I wake up to find a guy sleeping on the couch in the living room.  I didn't pay much attention to it, assuming it was a friend of Stacy's who had had a little too much to drink and needed a place to crash for the night.  Just to be clear, I generally don't care if people crash on my couch.  The only rules in my house are: to stay the hell out of upstairs and don't mess with my sleep.  As long as I can still make it to work on time in the morning, and shut out the insanity by closing a door, then, whatever.

I find out that night, that said couch-dweller was indeed a friend of Stacy's whom we will know, for reasons that will become clear in a moment, as "Turtle".  Turtle was looking for work in the city, and Stacy invited him to LIVE ON THE COUCH.  This happened because Stacy told Leah that I said it was okay. Then she told me that Leah had said it was okay. Really not cool, but as stated before, we're nice people...we give him two weeks to get the hell out, on top of the WEEK it took us to figure out what was really going on.

Things go on like this for a while until one day I get home from work to the 3 of them (Liam, Stacy, and Turtle) tripping balls in the living room.  Now, I do not personally partake, but I am not one to judge.  They, however, were always high on something or other, this time it happened to be LSD.  Words can't do it justice...enjoy.

Stay Tuned... next time we get to see what happens when drug dealers panic!

Picking Up Strays

"There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! 

Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter."

Stacy moved in.  She seemed like the perfect roommate at first:  Her work schedule kept her out of the house when I was at home most of the time, and her rent checks didn't bounce.  While she was around we got to know each other pretty well.  We'd hang out, drink, play video games, talk about everything.  She came to view Leah and I almost as surrogate parents.  I honestly think that our house was the closest thing to a stable environment Stacy had ever been in.

That lasted for all of a month, maybe not even that long.  During that time she quit her jobs in Mandeville, moved in completely and started staying in New Orleans full time, and then she lost the job as a "shot girl" and became a stripper for a few weeks.  I still kick myself for not going to see her at work before she quit. (Hot as hell, even if she does consider me a father figure).  And then she met Liam.  Fuck Liam, fuck everything about him, from his pale skin and "emo" hair, to his inability to ever say ANYTHING that is true.  I hated him from the moment she brought the little turd into my house.  This was partly due to the fact that he made her quit stripping and get a job as a bartender at one of the daiquiri places.  Bastard.

Very shortly after Stacy and Liam start dating, Leah and I started to notice that he was ALWAYS there.  After about 2 weeks we finally get a chance to talk to Stacy alone, and found out that the fucking moron had been kicked out of his apartment by his old roommates, and that he had nowhere to go.  Stacy told us that the 2 of them were looking for a place and that they would likely be moving in a few weeks, when the month ended.

At this point Leah and I cared a lot about Stacy.  She came to us for advice, we encouraged her to get into college, and get her life organized.  When Liam walked into the picture, suddenly all of that stopped.  We knew that he was no good for her, and that this wasn't going to end well.  Unfortunately, we also knew that she was "IN LOVE" with him, and would follow him anywhere despite how much it potentially screwed up her life.  People get seriously fucking retarded over love sometimes.  So, Leah and I decide to allow them both to share the downstairs room, for an increased share of the rent.  In hindsight, I should have just secured an alibi and run him over with my truck a few times.

Liam moves in and one of the first things he does is to get Stacy a cat.  (Have I mentioned how much I hate this kid?)  I already have 2 dogs, love em to death, but the problem is that in addition to all of the other crap I have to deal with, they flat out refuse to be house-trained and every morning I have to mop up dog shit.... so the last thing I needed was a cat...or 2 roommates who didn't take care of the cat after the first few days.  They pretty much just worked, got high and fucked all of the time.... I had to buy a better set of earplugs.

Now, I only mention the cat because it led to all manner of stupidity.  Leah and Stacy go out and buy this thing what I swear was every god damned toy in PetCo.  With this truck load of small jingly toys, I now wake up in the morning, every morning, to the sound of 2 stoned morons fucking, having to clean up dog shit, and almost killing myself stepping on cat toys...

How NOT to pick a roommate.

Let's go back to August 2011.  I have just moved into a new apartment, with my new(ish) girlfriend, Leah.  Signed a lease, moved all of our belongings across the lake from Mandeville to a 2 bedroom apartment in Uptown New Orleans.  If that sounds awesome, you're right, it was pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, it sounded awesome to pretty much everyone we knew in Mandeville as well.  Within 2 weeks we had several people calling us wanting to crash, stopping by randomly.  Parties didn't get planned during this time, they just kind of happened.  Normally I'm okay with the odd person crashing on my couch, but that's only when they don't decide to burrow in and camp out for weeks...

Enter, Daisy.  She is about 20 years old, waitress at a Waffle House.  She's young, a little naive.... wait who am I kidding? This girl has no common sense and the survival skills of a lemming.  She calls us up, excited about her new job in the French Quarter as a "Shot Girl", and for those who don't know, this is about one step above prostitute.  These girls literally whore themselves out to sell shots to guys in clubs, and they are paid 100% commission.  But, whatever, to each their own.  She asks if she can crash for the weekend while she has work, and I am too nice to turn down anyone, so she came down that weekend.

Here's where the insanity begins.  She shows up on Thursday night with her overnight bag...AND AN EXTRA PERSON, her friend and "sister" (but not really) Stacy.  Stacy has, from all outward appearances, the exact same back story as Daisy.  About 20, shot girl on the weekend, waitress at a Waffle House.  I'm not happy that no one called to ask if this was okay first, but I agree to let them stay for the weekend anyway.

What started out as one weekend, turned into EVERY weekend. They would come over Thursday night, and leave Tuesday afternoon.  Now, at first this was no big deal, I am pretty laid back and go with the flow most of the time.  We got to know, and like, Stacy.  She seemed to have her shit together, 3 jobs, plans for college, came from a pretty hard situation, but was determined to do better for herself, and was very respectful of our home, always cleaned up after herself, asked permission to do things, tried not to butt in on our life too much.  Daisy, on the other hand, was the polar opposite.  She almost acted like Leah and I should have felt honored to have her grace our home.  She ate all of my food, dirtied all of the dishes, never picked up after herself, followed me around everywhere, and never left me alone, Leah and I even woke up with her sleeping in our bed one morning!

The final straw came when Daisy decided that she wasn't going home during the week anymore.  She started picking up extra shifts without even bothering to ask first, and just stopped leaving.  When she sensed we were about to say something to her, she would stay out at a friends house for a night or 2, always leaving her stuff behind.  Finally, after much complaining to Stacy, we just put her stuff on the back porch, changed the locks, and sent her a message to come get her stuff, it didn't finally disappear for about 2 weeks!!

End of one problem.... Beginning of another...  Stacy wound up moving into our guest bedroom as a full blown roommate, paying rent and all... But that is a story for next time.

And in the beginning...

I have been told by my friends that the things that happen to me are not normal, and that I should start a blog, or video tape my life and get it put on TV.  Regular people have drama, I have downright insanity.

Just to preface a little, I do not seek it out, or cause it.  No matter how normal a life I try to live, the crazy just finds me.  It comes storming into my bedroom half naked, it calls me up in the middle of the night crying, and sometimes it has the courtesy to ring my doorbell, but it is always close by.

I am a 29 year old software developer in New Orleans, LA.  I work between 50 and 70 hours a week, I work, I eat, I go home, I sleep.  Most people like that live boring lives, have families, 401k plans, complain about their neighbors.. Not me.  In between work and sleep, my friends find new and interesting ways to drag me into their problems, or outright dump them on top of me.  On the best of days the police get involved, but those are the good days.

As this develops I'll introduce you to the players and let you all have a glimpse into my insanity. For now, back to work.

Where to begin.

I've been giving a lot of thought into how I will introduce everyone to the random chaos of my life, and a few decisions have been made.

• Story updates will happen at most, twice a week.  Nonsense filler and bad jokes the rest of the time.
• All names will be changed to protect involved parties, however, those changed names will remain consistent to avoid confusion.
• To understand the current nonsense, I must go back about 12 months to lay the ground work.
• All comments are moderated, so please respect the privacy of individuals in this blog, any comments that violate this will be deleted.

These types of things have been going on for my entire life, and they tend to be somewhat interconnected, and are always convoluted, so bear with me and if you have any questions ask and I will address the inevitable confusion.

So Stay Tuned.