Vaca Part I: Down With The Sickness

This is part one of a trilogy of blogs about my vacation this past week. In the middle there will also be a guest blog from Bundles of Bungalo speaking of his vacation with the lacrosse team to North Carolina. This first part of my trilogy is really graffic at times and probably not funny at all as its only real intention is to make people feel bad for me, enjoy.




I woke up Tuesday March 10th to my wonderful alarm that I can never really be mad at when awoken by. Little did I know the song was foreshadowing the tribulations I would go through in the coming days. I arose, dressed and headed off to class feeling a little dizzy and my throat feeling a bit swollen and sore. I wrote it off as the ill effects of lack of sleep. Sitting in class I found it very hard to stay awake and my condition began to worsen. I struggled harder and harder to stay awake but I kept dozing off as if it were Mr. Wright’s high school philosophy class. When class ended I went straight to my room and went back to bed. I awoke several times and each time I did, my throat felt significantly worse. My pillow was soaked with drool and swallowing was near impossible. I did not get out of my bed for the next 28 hours. In the middle of my bed ridden stage, Boss and Colleen paid me a visit; I was supposed to go out to eat with them and Sars but I was in no condition to do so. This made Colleen furious and she punched me a few times like she was The Rock delivering a little Shake Rattle and Roll, but not even threat of the peoples elbow could have got me to move at this point.

I finally did get out of bed to answer my phone around 2pm on Wednesday March 11th. It was Chelsea calling, and she convinced me to seek help and go to the campus health services office. I threw on a sweat shirt and stumbled my way over to health services. I first had to deal with a nurse who took a swab of my throat, meaning she gagged the hell out of me with a massive cue tip. After about a half hour of waiting and suffering in the doctor’s office the doctor finally entered. This doctor however seemed to be very confused as to what his profession was, as most of the time he seemed to think he was supposed to be a terrible stand up comedian. Once he finally stopped making horrible jokes and tried out the whole doctor thing he eventually concluded that I had strep throat. He hooked me up with a prescription and sent me out the door. This of course meant that I had to walk a mile and across extensive traffic to CVS to pick up my aforementioned prescription. In my ill and groggy state my journey to CVS and my crossing of very busy streets somewhat resembled George Costanza’s attempt to cross the street with the Frogger machine. I somehow mentioned to dodge Daunte Stallworth’s Bentley as it swerved it way down the street, another man was not so fortunate.

Somehow I did make it though, don’t ask me how. I arrived back at my room with what at the time I believed to be the cure to my ailments. Bungalo brought me some delicious raspberry yogurt, I managed to eat it, and I took my medicine. About an hour later I layed down in bed only to immediately jump up, run to the bathroom, and share the yogurt I had recently eaten with the first sink I could get to. I puked 17 more times throughout the night and each time was worse and worse. In between spilling my innards, I called my mother and she decided she would come pick me up around 9am. I now knew what time I had to make it too. I just had to make it to 9am. It turned out to be a lot harder than it sounds. Later in the night I began spouting the main ingredient of my circulatory system out of my mouth, I’m no doctor but I don’t believe that is a good thing. Phone in hand I seriously considered calling an ambulance because at this point I was in serious fear that I might actually die, but I knew I just needed to make it to 9am. By the time my mother arrived I was standing in my room, having not slept in almost a full day, and thrown up 18 times, needless to say I was as groggy as a Mortal Kombat character having lost two straight rounds and waiting for the other guy to finish him.

My mom took me home and I began to feel much better. However the next time I took my medicine about ten minutes later I was puking again. After that I was fine until later that night when I took it again and what do you know I was puking again. At this point it was clear that the doctor was an assassin who believed me to be Rasputin and was trying to kill me, little did he know the only way to kill Rasputin is to chain him up and drown him. To sum this up I got real medicine, it worked, my mommy made me a milkshake, I got all healed, and the real vacation began.

I love you too and I’ll talk to you soon,
Brendan McCarthy

Just Too Soon!

So I ventured home this past weekend to make some memories. I expected an exciting time and boy did it start out well. I arrived at the 306 to a warm welcome, two police cars were parked in front of the house. I of course assumed two things, they were either there to lead a parade through the streets of Burlington to celebrate my return, or Zack and Ben had snapped, and decided a duel was the only way to settle their differences. As they set up back to back, Zack wearing the shirt he made with the rainbows on it, and started to walk the assigned ten steps, Zack of course cheated, turned early, and shot Ben. Zack however failed to realize Ben had set last stand as his third perk and Ben was able to shoot and kill Zack before holding X and taking the coward’s way out. The monster kitten then proceeded to go into monster mode and consumed both of their corpses in one foul swoop. The police must be there trying to find the bodies, but the bodies will not turn up, a certain kitty made sure of it.

It turned out both of my assumptions were wrong, as disappointing as this was, the real reason they were there was pretty exciting in itself. They were there to look into the events surrounding a large loss of money at the location named after the home of the sultan or a casino in Vegas. Apparently an employee thought it was the casino in Vegas and the register was the slot machine, and when it opened filled with money, naturally they felt they had won the jackpot and collected their booty. Well as it turns out it was no such casino and they won no such jackpot, but the victim of this jackpot illusion has yet to be discovered and the officers were searching for such person. If you ask me I say the person most likely fled to St. Kits and Nevis, at least that’s what I would have done.

Anyways, a “Too Soon” party had been planned for the night and the excitement was building. This is a party in which people come as jokes that are too soon or inappropriate to make because they may be in bad taste or found offensive or insensitive. And oh boy were there some good ones. One young lady came as a UVM student who had been kidnapped, raped and chopped to pieces mere years ago, truly hilarious if you ask me. I myself was Corey Smith, an NFL player who died this week after his boat flipped over and he gave up holding on and drowned, in the prime of his life, also hilarious. But the award for best idea goes to a group performance. Most of the people who were invited to the party, the vast majority at that, played a brilliant role, they treated the party as if it were genocide in Africa, and they played the part of the rest of the world by not showing up and failing to care about the suffering and anguish it caused. A truly brilliant too soon joke guys! Later a few kids were doing their best Michael Phelps impression… They were winning medals I don’t know what you were thinking. After that we ventured to Wendy’s, a few Dave Thomas jokes were exchanged, and the night came to a close as I drifted into slumber on a futon.

When I awoke the next morning I joined Zack and Ben in front of the TV to watch some college hoops. I of course got on the computer with the rest of them as we all made our best attempt to defeat the man from the future by picking correctly in streak for the cash, and as always, we failed, because as always the man from the future only put up games in which sure to win ranked teams played against unranked garbage teams, but lost. As the man from the future continued to kick me in the pants I checked Sporcle and watched as Zack pwned the new Movie Taglines quiz. I don’t think there is anything more addicting in the entire world than Sporcle by the way and you feel like you are a better person than others when you are able to get more than them in any category whatever it is, and your life is complete when you can get all the original Pokémon in order.

Later that day we gathered a group of our friends to play some pickup basketball at St. Mikes. On the court next to us, Burlington star player Joe O’shea was shooting around and making shots from everywhere. It was very clear this was a shoot around for him and not a big game because he was not rolling around on the ground choking to death. Anyways, we laced ‘em up and began our pickup game. Since we had 12 players we shot free throws to determine the teams and what two people would not play in the first game. This meant that I would not get to play in the first game because I am about as good at free throws as Mike Lonergan is at coaching playoff games. I may well however be the greatest three point shooter in the continental United States. Seriously, when I’m playing the guy guarding me ends up drenched by the end of the game, both from the rain my threes poured down on him, and from the perspiration caused from chasing me around the top elbows of the three point arc. So after the first game ended and I was welcomed in to play, I noticed a problem. Apparently some of the kids playing were not born with the gift of memory, and could not remember who was on their team; either that or they are gay, because they made one team play with their shirts off. I of course ended up on the shirtless team. I removed my shirt but I knew exactly what was about to happen. The floor immediately was engulfed by swarms of girls. They followed me like they were Zack and I was a drunk girl. Everyone realized we would be unable to play with this many girls all over the court, so I put my shirt back on. Although this made it completely impossible for those without a brain who were playing to determine who was on their team, at least we had room to play. Anyways I proceeded to flood the gym, making somewhere around 47 three pointers, including dotting Zack to end a game. Eventually everyone decided it wasn’t fun anymore to because I was just too good and the game broke up. I was forced to call the police again because Doc Rivers doesn’t understand what a restraining order is. I’ve told you a hundred times Doc I don’t want to play for your silly team leave me alone.

It was then time to prepare for the night’s get together occurring at a bunch of young hunnies’ suite at St. Mikes. We took showers, Zack’s being two and a half hours long, mine being three minutes, I put on my hot attire, and we went to pick up some things. I will skip this part of the story for everyone’s protection. After that part of the story we went to pick up Edge from work. Edge came out looking good, and hopped in the car. I was quickly struck with a foreign fragrance. Edge has acquired a knew cologne I am not familiar with and still have not decided how I feel about but I think I like it, but I am unsure, let’s just say it was no sex panther we’ll leave it at that. Edge being the lady’s man that he is was at work and was once again invited for a good time and once again turned the lady’s down in an exchange that was reenacted in different circumstances by Jonah Hill in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

We then went back to the 306 and waited for The 3^rd to pick us up. A few minutes later the 3^rd arrived sporting a hot blue polo and off we went to St. Mikes. We arrived to be greeted in the main lobby of the building by our good friend Gael who was doing his best Joe Namath impression. We proceeded upstairs where many old friends had gathered. Even my good friend Monster Melody, also known in many circles as Connor “The Con Man” Mellen, had made the long trip home just to see me. He and I were both worried the world was about to end because we were both in the same room wearing jeans at the same time, an event that if you had told us a year ago was going to happen we both would have said well that must be the day the world ends. We had a grand time; I discussed the insanity that is LOST for about two hours with my good friend the Chateau who was up from school. Zack did his thing, Edge did his and The 3^rd did his. Those being, Zack creepily stalked a girl all night, Edge made his trademark jokes, and The 3^rd went home early and angry, in case you don’t know those are their catchphrases. There was also a celebrity at the party, no I’m not talking about me I’m talking about the guy who danced with 8 girls once, yes he did make an appearance and yes we were in awe. As the night wore on an epic game of ruit ensued pitting Zack and I against The Con Man and the Big Show Pat Bergman. Regulation was of course not enough play to decide this matchup, neither was one overtime, and neither was two, that’s right folks we entered the third OT and safe to say the ladies were eating it up. The Con man and The Big show quickly took the lead in the third OT, it was two cups to one when Zack and I decided we had seen enough. Zack shot and drilled one cup and I immediately followed it by nailing the last cup with a shot that people would later say was better than that autistic kid in New York. This capped The Big Show’s second OT loss of the day and by far the more heartbreaking of the two.

Overall it was a solid weekend, mad hoops and mad hunnies, and a few jokes here and there. I’m back at school now where instead of doing the papers and homework I have to do I have just written this, and I hope to make this a regular thing. I will be home all of next week and I’m sure I will have plenty more to talk about after that.

I love you too and I’ll talk too you soon,

Brendan McCarthy