Rocktober - Part II

I met Dutch in early high school. We proceeded to form the foundation for near-professional levels of drunkenness. When we drank, we drank with precision. We drank with dedication. We refined our craft to an art form.

Bearer of Expensive Gin. Harbinger of Drunk Times

When Dutch and I are drunk, we are great. We are good at drinking. We are good drunks. We are great drunks. We are charming. We are sexy. We are taller. We have accents. Philosophers, Saints and Don Knotts call us for advice. We give it to them. Scientists try to gather our sweat to use in their unsettling, amoral experiments. We turn them away. We can see through walls. We can read your mind. We predict earthquakes. We speak with both babies and the dead. We can guess what number you're thinking of. Women become moist in our drunken presence. Everybody thinks they are these things when they are drunk, but they are wrong. Dutch and I are right. We are diabolical. We are enviable. We are popular. We are The Everyman - The Ubermench - The Quintessential.

Everybody is good at something. I am good at:

1. Elaborate sock-puppet plays.
2. Accurately shooting high powered rifles.
3. Being a damn good drunk with Dutch.

(NOTE: the above listed events are mutually exclusive)

When Dutch is around, I can't help it. It just happens. When we are together, our powers are amplified. Do you remember that 1980's cartoon, "Pandamonium"? A bunch of mild mannered cute Pandas could meld together and form this massive, super powered, mutant, benevolent panda. We are like that. Only we aren't pandas, we don't actually morph together, and we aren't benevolent.

Unfortunately, I am out of practice.

As you can see, this makes him the perfect vehicle for The Universe's jealous vengeance.

Dutch flew into town a couple days after Shaggy and I got back from the marathon. It was going to be Shaggy's first time meeting Dutch. I was worried. Given Shaggy's ability to withstand the relentless shit-storms that life regularly throws his way, I wasn't worried about him. Dutch is a tornado. The world is his trailer park. I wasn't worried about him either.

I was worried about me. Shaggy attracts trouble. Dutch exudes trouble. I hate trouble.

The evening of Dutch's arrival, he, Shaggy and I sat around Prestonwood Manor (an estate compound purchased by Shaggy last year to serve as the strategic headquarters and staging ground for his global domination efforts - so far those efforts are limited to the renting out of a spare room to me), pouring back expensive beer and even more expensive gin. We boasted to Dutch about our marathon conquest despite our night of boozing. Shaggy pointed out our conclusion of beer-induced invulnerability.

Dutch, however, had another explaination.