Step Into My Thimble

White Trash Olympics Event#1: Bowling

Hey, I’m in Kansas! How about that? So, in order to stay sane, Heidi and I devised the “White Trash Olympics” to find out just who is more white trash and able to meld with the Kansas zeitgeist. Heidi grew up in Portage smoking reefers, whereas I spent the better part of my childhood in a bowling alley nursery. Who is more dirty? Well, we couldn’t really decide so we figured we’d better have a little contest involving all manner of “sports” from bowling to beer chugging to how to do donuts in an old thunderbird (yes that means winter olympics kids) in an elementary school parking lot. Light the torch Riblet! Northrock lanes was lucky enough to host the first event. Both of us have a significant bowling pedigree; my mom has loads of trophies from the time in her life when she was neglecting raising me and my brother was forced to sit in the playpen for not cleaning up the toys at the nursery. From such pain is talent born. Heidi’s mom injected bowling hormone into her while she was in the womb thus endowing her with freaky man hands that can whip a nine pound ball like an asteroid through space. Who’s blood runs bluest?

Well, we found out in three games. The first game we both started strong. I with my usual inability to strike but a fair ability to spare provided I’m not hitting the forties too hard and Heidi going blow for blow with me and even upping the ante. The first half of the game was fairly even, with Heidi at a slight advantage, but the one two punch of back to back strikes at the tail end of the game with my own simultaneous choking allowed her to make me her prison girlfriend with a score of 158 Heidi (of the N. Portage Huskies) and a mediocre 103 for the Bad Guy. Game two was my counterattack. Heidi couldn’t seem to get it together, throwing a couple gutterballs and not being able to pick up some crucial spares. I started slow, but as if to emulate my lady love I threw back to back heaters that blasted the pins like two large buildings in Manhattan in the latter frames to win game two 136 to Heidi’s dismal 81. I gloated. At this point we totalled our scores and found that we were tied at 239 pins apiece. Clearly it looked like a third game was in order, despite the pressure to our left from the lady with the mulatto kids and her schlong boyfriend and “Lon ” and “Sandi” to our right who would have won the olympics hands down if they had been invited. They had the mad curved throw. Game three: Ragnarok. Heidi summoned forth the hounds of Hell and beat me with the metaphorical car antenna until I cried uncle. It was a slaughter. Her game wasn’t that exciting, but mine was so bad Lon was looking pained every time I made the walk of shame back to the seat. The final score was Heidi 103 and Roddy Mack with an abysmal 74 (just like my IQ). Heidi truly proved herself more white trash than me this day, I guess her western education paid off. I wish I had taken bowling instead of judo. Still, to comfort myself, I choked her unconcious in the parking lot and made her ride home in the trunk of the T-Bird. Who’s laughing now? I may have got the silver this time but how can you beat me this weekend? This weekend the Wichita Beerfest looms. Truly a rich setting for our next events, Beer Chugging and Drunk Driving. We’ll be sure to keep you posted of the medal count, and thank you for your support.

9-3-2001
Ok kids, here’s where we all say goodbye to the fantastic south american adventures of one R. Frederick Butler. After some bus trouble (which is why I will now curse the people of Santa Cruz to fornicate unnaturally with lemurs and marmots for all time) I finally got my weary self out to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, located in the extreme Northeast of the state. Here Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all meet and much illicit smuggling across borders occurs. More interesting than that is the majestic splendor of Iguazu falls, Gigantic cataracts that look to me like the dentures on God. They put Niagara falls to shame. The best part about south america is they have no fear whatsoever of some dumb kid plunging to his death and his parents suing the government for billions of dollars. You can get real close to these hunnies, and if you really wanted to, you could throw yourself over the side without having to jump in way upstream like those barrel sailing poltroons from Canada. Overview: Iguazu falls is a massive crescent set in the middle of jungle, the falls whipping up a nifty froth as they crash water from some immense height into the river below. An island sits out in the middle of it, partially blocking the view of the whole crescent, for which it too shall be cursed to fornicate unnaturally with lemurs and marmots as well. There are two trails. One takes you to the foot of the falls, where you can stand next to its cascade and be covered in spume and feel for yourself the massive power of running water. It almost makes you want to convert to wicca, wear black nailpolish, and brand an ankh into your forehead. The upward trail extends partially over the tops of the falls themselves by a series of catwalks. Here is where you face your deepest suicidal urges as you look over the edge and imagine yourselves flopping off the side like some demented south american salmon. Oh, the rush. You also get a better view of the whole falls themselves, the water whipped into a froth and spurting, spurting, like CENSORED FOR FAMILY VIEWING CENSORED FOR FAMILY VIEWING CENSORED FOR FAMILY VIEWING so luckily the police let me leave and head to the best part of all, “La Garganta del Diablo” or “The Devil´s Throat”. This is an adjacent part of the falls, a narrow gully with water pouring down on three sides, the vapor wafting up in huge clouds so you can’t possibly see the bottom. It looks like the waterfall at the end of a flat earth. I comforted myself by imagining US naval vessels going over the side. Bye Petty Officer, thats for calling me a “heavy footed bastard” in boot camp. Actually the sight is amazing, it really does look like something out of legend, the whirlpool of charybdis, or a gate to some other dimension. I sat there for a long time trying to make sense of the shapes in the ether as it floated out of the gulf. Moved by my experience with the element water (Satan’s element, for all you mormons out there), I decided to live it up argentino style, and eat their bbq or “parillada”. I ordered the single meal and received a gigantic platter of grilled meat parts, including intestine and blood sausage. The intestine was very chewy, with some kind of guk in the middle. The blood sausage gushed something brown all over my plate, which I sopped up with bread. Then I ate the more normal stuff, chicken, ribs, etc. It was enough to plump even me up. My heart didn’t stop beating fast for a long time thereafter. I had to talk it down. Now I’m in Buenos Aires, gonna be leaving tomorrow, and I’d just like to thank everyone who has enjoyed reading my stuff, given me some good feedback, postive comments, and basically kept me from thinking that I was only writing this for Heidi and myself. Although the adventures may start to get more easy to relate to, I’ll be damned if I’m going to make them less interesting. Its about time I got arrested for indecent exposure anyhow.