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December 16, 2004
Professionals Turned Off the Oven That Night
I went to visit my friend Josh in Madison, Wisonsin. He went to school there and lived in an apartment with a couple other guys. They were all friends, and the other guys became friends of mine during my visits.
Well, one of the guys did. The other one never went out to get super drunk and do stupid, embarrassing things, so I never saw much of him, as that is what I did with most of time during my visits.
Dobber was the guy I became friends with. I'm not sure why he was called Dobber, maybe it was his real name. We didn't talk about such unimportant things. Actually, he did most of the talking. He talked mostly about his fetish-like desire for Japanese women - something he developed during a year in Japan between high school in college. I didn't share that desire with him, but the three of us (Josh, Dobber and I) shared a proclivity for over indulging at parties around the city.
One night we went to a house party and immediately head toward the keg in the basement. "Hey guys. Five bucks a cup." Being a college town known for its heavy drinking the city passed laws forbidding charging for beer without a license. College students are innovative and decided to charge for cups instead of beer.
"We're straight edge. We don't need those cups" We condescendingly said as we headed down to the keg concealing the cups we brought with us. We had our share of beer jonesin' fueled ingenuity.
It wasn't long before we got so drunk we were singing Van Morrison songs in Hungarian accents; unfortunately it wasn't long before the beer was gone too. So we stole the tap and went to another party.
And another.
By the end of the night we were so obviously drunk the straight edge thing no longer worked.
"Wee reaaall straight edge weee doane neeb emny cups."
"You guys aren't straight edge. You're totally smashed."
"Not drinking anymore. Promise"
"Oh. ok. Go ahead."
So we drank more beer bringing us to a point where the Phish cover band was not longer bothersome, making the party much more tolerable. Then I heard something about food.
"Food? I waaannaa eat."
The three of us decided it was time to eat something, but everyplace was close, even La Bamba, home of the burritos as big as your head.
"I've gooat a froe sun pizza aaaaaat home."
We made it back to the apartment and Dobber threw in a pizza. Then we all passed out.
nobody told the oven that everyone went to sleep and it just kept cooking the pizza. Just kept cooking.
Cooking and belching smoke. So much smoke that the smoke alarm went off. It was going off for hours, but none of noticed. The third roommate noticed, but chose to ignore the sound. The neighbors downstairs weren't so keen on the noise, however, and after what they claim to be half an hour they called the fire department.
The firefighters arrived and saw smoke coming out the door and heard the alarm going off. They knocked and knocked, claimed the third roommate, and when it got the point where he could no longer sleep comforatably in his room right next to the door on which the firefighters were knocking he finally got out of bed. He stepped out of his room into the kitchen, the room with the smoke alarm
and opened the back door.
As one of the firefighters was pulling back his sledge hammer to break down the door.
The three of us slept sprawled out on the floor while the firefighters turned off the oven before placing a how not to start your house on fire flyer on the table and leaving.
The next afternoon when we all woke Josh said "Man, I'm hungry."
Dobber replied, "I have some frozen pizzas."
Posted by calculatoronfire at December 16, 2004 03:23 PM