The Dredge House Chronicles, Prelude

I’ve decided to start putting down on blog some of the stories I have from my days at the Dredge House. So I’ll start by telling you what the Dredge House is. Or was, rather.

Just out of high school, I went straight into college. That didn’t work out too well, so my Pop said, “Son, if you’re not going to do it my way, you’ll have to do it your way.” I told him I had no problem with that. “But your way means your house, your car, your job, your money…” Oh. I see. So I had to move out. He gave me a couple of weeks I think. Well during the last couple of days of my stay at the Spacey Senior residence, my buddy TJ got kicked out of his house too. I invited him to stay with me for the final few days in my parents’ house, and we commenced to searching for new living arrangements.

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Let’s recap the weekend.

It was quite a busy one. You probably know by now that I didn’t get a tattoo on Friday, so that won’t be included here. So let’s start with Saturday. I ran out to Shift’s place to catch some college football and a few Cold Ones. The Ones are always Cold at Shift’s place.

Then we walked over to the Blue Note to catch the Tech game, where we sat across the bar from a bunch of losers rooting for Mizzou. Wrong state, assholes. Since I was at the bar already, and Shine lives in the area, I figured I’d call her and get her to join us there for a little football action. So she showed up in her costume (she was on her way to a costume party), which was an autograph book. She was the autograph book. Clever, eh? So I grabbed a marker from the bunch and found the only blank spot left on her shirt by that time, as you can see in this first picture.

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The 9 Types of Pain

There are five types of pain, as the title of this column suggests. I’d like to discuss with you just a few of the four types of pain, because it’s important – I believe – for you to be able to identify all three types of pain.

The first type of pain is a physical one. Say you get your foot stomped on by a passing horse, or your arm sawed off with a rusty bow saw… That’s pain number one. And it’s excruciating, and you’ll probably cry. The first of the six types of pain, we’ll call “Crying Pain”. It’s bad. It doesn’t happen often. But when it does, you know it because you cry. For sure.

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I just got drawn.

Katy 80 rolled into town last night for her old high school homecoming game. I expected to get to see her at the volleyball game, because – as luck would have it – Heather’s girls were playing Katy’s old school. She called me and let me know last minute that she was coming into town – at around two o’clock I got the call, and I was like hey wow, how convenient, swing by the volleyball game and say hi, and maybe you’ll even get to say hi to some old teammates amirite? I wasn’t going to go. But hey, Katy’s gonna be there. So I went.

And I sat in the stands by myself. For like ninety minutes. Well, Callie was with me. Running around, being her usual butterfly self. Because the same vehicle I raved about so proudly last month was the very vehicle she was driving in up from Austin. And that’s just a beating of a drive in a Jeep. So she was late.

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Paris Hilton Eat Your Heart Out

While in Houston, Shift and I were waiting on our friend Khris (I think that’s how she spells it) as she tried on suits in Macy’s. We were in Macy’s too, you see. We were waiting on a woman. And there’s a Sunglass Hut right there inside the Macy’s. So, being bored, we decided we’d shop shades a little bit.

Space HiltonMy eyes almost immediately went to the ridiculously large Paris Hilton shades on the top shelf of the case. They were men’s shades, but just huge. Like something that would have made Eric Estrada proud back in his Chips days. Seriously, they were that big. Well, you know me, I had to try them on. So the lady got them out and I put them on, and magic was made, y’all.

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The Lonely Life of a Battered Dog

My dog Daisy is quite possibly the sweetest dog ever to have lived. I mean besides your dog, okay? For reals. She’s totally sweet and submissive, and – well, I’m out of adjectives. She’s a damn dog. But yeah, she’s sweet!

Sweet DaisyAnyway, we rescued her. And – as you guessed – the previous owner was abusive. Why is that so often the case? She has no visible scarring or anything superficial. It’s all mental. Her psyche is just totalled. Like a subaru left on a train track. We’ve had her for a couple of months now and I’ve not raised my hand to her once. Even though she tries my patience like a Rubik’s Revenge. And it’s not because she’s bad. She’s not. In fact, just the opposite. But she’s got driven into her head so deeply the thought that I’m going to beat her, that she won’t even come to me.

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The Rocket Science of Our Generation

Have you ever noticed that everywhere you go, no matter where you are you – hang on. God that sounded stupid. Let me start that over. No matter where you are, if you’re in a bathroom… Shit. Nevermind. Why do all bathrooms suck so badly?

Specifically, the hardware. Why is it that in every bathroom, no matter how nice the place you go, has trouble with this? THERE! That was the sentence I was trying to say in the beginning. Why is it I had such trouble with that? So you can go into a nice hotel or a fancy restaurant or a shitty little gas station, and if they have stalls in their bathrooms, guess what? They’re either wobbly, or coming off the walls.

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Weekend in Houston

A buddy and I are heading to Houston this weekend, formally so he can golf in some charity event (he’s an executive at a pretty large corporation here in Dallas), but additionally so we can catch a Texans football game. So it’s a road trip, all the way. I understand he watches the wrong football team, but at least they’re from Texas. I don’t know how to feel about all that. It doesn’t matter who’s playing when you’re in the stands though, I suppose.

Anyway, during this golf charity event he’s playing Saturday morning, I’ll be running around Houston by myself. All the gir- um- people I used to know who lived in Houston, well – they no longer live in Houston. So I’ve been scouting my links and contacts and myspaces and facebooks, getting in touch with everyone I used to run with back then, trying to find a friend of a friend who still lives there. No such luck.

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