Food Fight: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Agnosticism

Let me start this blog off with some Del background work. I went to a catholic elementary school. Luckily my parents wised up to the Catholic school scam and I became a nice normal non god fearing public school kid in 6th grade.

You mean paying extra money to get substandard facilities and piss poor educations from people who don't believe in anything but Eternal Damnation isn't a bargain?



Catholic Schools, wait let me rephrase that, THIS catholic school was for suckers. Allow me to give you some of the finer points of this place

• You had art class once every two weeks
  
  
• There was one computer for the entire school
  
  
• Gym class was housed in one of two places: "The Dungeon" or "The Courtyard". Both equally dangerous places. "The Dungeon" was an ice cold basement with a dilapidated balcony and wait for it, wait for it....carpeting. Mind you this carpeting was more like high grade sandpaper. Absolute torture. Of course, if the weather was nice then you were fortunate enough to have gym out on "The Courtyard". This was the blacktop church parking lot. Try and find a kid from that school that can slide into a base or lay out for a football and I'll give you a $1000. (The irony was that the school was equipped with a decently sized room w/ a gym floor...but it was used for Bingo and students weren't allowed in it...for fear that they'd "muck it up")
  
  
• Lice. That's right you're reading that correctly . This school in the heart of Peekskill, NY, that you PAID to attend had a lice problem. One gross kid would spread their personal flea circus through out the tiny school. How that wasn't enough of a tipping point to switch faster I'll never know.
  
  
• Hmmm, what else was there...oh yeah, THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION. Why spend time on things like science when we can learn, for the 5Th time, all the stations of the cross. (there are 14 btw)
  

That said the school for me had three key pros that public school could not match:

1. McDonald's Wednesdays: Since the school was so small there was no real cafeteria so they had to Macgyver the lunch days. Monday was sandwiches from a deli, Tuesday was a pizzeria, and so on and so forth. Anyone who knew young Del (and sadly present day Del) would know that this was kind of a big deal. The Perfect Attendance record for Wednesdays was a lock for me...if such an award existed.
   
   
2. Church: I know it sounds like a con...but hear me out. If you were an altar boy you'd sometimes get called out of class (no not to play Tarzan with the Priest) to work a funeral. This meant you'd get a) to skip some class time b) potentially get paid for it c) all the hosts you could eat (Mmm, the body of Christ). Looking back at it I'm sure my friends and I rubbed many a family member of the deceased the wrong way with our shit eating grins. Or maybe instead they saw us as a beaming celebration of Life during a dark hour. I'm guessing it was the former.
   
   
3. The Yearbook: This thing was a glorified pamphlet. That said it was a hot ticket. Lets concentrate on the yearbook as it is what initially inspired this nonsensical blog
   

Trust me where this is going you have no idea

The yearbook's big selling point was that you could submit a piece of art or writing to get published in your grade's 2 page spread. Everyone would write little puff pieces sucking off J.C. or his mom and be a lock for a slot...but I refused. I made my stand. I planned on writing anything but religious propaganda. Sadly my Atari obsession had drained the creative juices out of my impressionable young mind. Second Grade writer's block is a sad thing. I went to the Library for inspiration. Hello what did we have here: Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends". I read it for inspiration and inspiration I got...in spades. Here is what I came across:

Spaghetti

Spaghetti, spaghetti, all over the place,
Up to my elbows—up to my face,
Over the carpet and under the chairs,
Into the hammock and wound round the stairs,
Filling the bathtub and covering the desk,
Making the sofa a mad mushy mess.
The party is ruined, I’m terribly worried,
The guests have all left (unless they’re all buried).
I told them, “Bring presents.” I said, “Throw confetti.”
I guess they heard wrong
‘Cause they all threw spaghetti!

Genius work Shel.

I loved Spaghetti (it being my second favorite meal next to McDonald's, of course) and the imagery of the poem. I tried to ape the structure and style with sub-par results. Nothing rhymed with burger (mind you Shel only rhymed off of spaghetti once in his poem but I was a little jackass). I decided that no nun would have ever read this poem and I'd submit it as my own. Now this shit goes to the publisher super early so I had months to revel in my false pride. Revel did I ever. Imagine my chagrin, no... my horror, when my genius poem about spaghetti was listed as "Founded by Del LeFevre". Founded? WTF! The jig was up. I'd been exposed as the spaghetti sham I knew I was all along. After I got a nice sit down chat about the evils of plagiarism with Principle Sister Ann Michael I realized something. I didn't get a lesson in the evils of plagiarism. I got a lesson in malice. What kind of sick twisted bastards would sit on their evidence for months just so they could shame me in print form....publicly. I did mention I was in second grade right? Pure Evil.

Fuckers.

So I guess the real question is why is this event from my childhood so fresh on my mind? Why has Shel Silverstein's poem about spaghetti resurfaced in the halls of my consciousness? Let me explain.

This past Saturday I went to the Beer Garden w/ some people to send off my friends Katie and Eric as they prepared to drive cross country to NYC. We had some laughs and a bunch of drinks. I was by all accounts well behaved and wanting to see "Superbad". So we broke off into groups and headed over to the Promenade and got some movie tix. We had some time to kill so we hit Barney's Beanery for dinner and drinks. For the record since I was committing to a movie so I switched over to soda. The movie going experience is a sacred one to me and I refuse to get up out of my seat for the duration of the movie. Furthermore being drunk for a movie is just stupid. Sadly my guest, lets call her "Jillie", is stupid. Jillie was not on her best behavior. Right from the get go I knew this was a huge mistake but I was a man on a mission. I wanted to see the movie. This girl made it quite the challenge. She was yapping incessantly about nothing throughout the movie, dropping popcorn on people like her name was Alabama Worley, and just being an all around jackass. Highlights of the movie:

• Her getting us yelled at by strangers in front of us and behind us.
  
  
• Her response to said yells: Threatening violence on the "rude assholes".
  
• Her freaking out when i moved my seat to have two buffer seats.
  
  
• Her "storming out". What that really means is she stumbled out and fell down in the handicapped section and sat there until one of the other friends went and checked on her. I'm not that sap. Not me, No thanks.
  

After EASILY the worst movie going experience of my life people came back to my house w/ bottles of patron and kettle. Some drinking went on and then "Jillie" hit my fridge without my knowledge. While I wasn't paying attention (for obvious reasons) Jillie decided to dig into some of my, wait for it..wait for it, leftover spaghetti. (see this is going somewhere) Sadly this spaghetti was easily four weeks old. She'd attacked a healthy portion before I became aware of it. I however assumed all was somewhat ok because she was able to eat it. Hours later it was time for us to go to bed. I had no intentions of monkey business just because the drunk level was off the charts...and I was more annoyed than attracted. We went to bed and I thought my annoyance was at critical mass. I was wrong. Ninety minutes later I woke up to an eery silence. I'm not sure what stirred me but i sat up and looked around. All was peaceful. 5-7 seconds later all I heard was "Jillie" garble something that sounded like "wver-da-baf-vrrrom". Fuck! I jumped out of the bed and yelled no as her head fell over to me and a tidal wave of vomit came spewing out all over.

Spaghetti spaghetti, all over the place.
Spaghetti spaghetti, up to my elbows up to my face.
(Full circle you doubting Thomases!)

I screamed no again as I grabbed my trash can and stuck it under her mouth. After the initial wave was over i grabbed her and sent her into the bathroom to make love to the toilet bowl as I made a mad dash to get the sheets off my bed. As you may or may not know I have a heightened sense of smell. It's more of a curse than a gift. In this case it was a friggin nightmare. Fuck I began to dry heave and wretch as I ran my soiled sheets out to the balcony. I put new sheets on the bed, got a glass of water for "Jillie" and placed her on the couch as she had officially screwed herself out of bed privileges. I went into the bathroom and saw water pouring out of the toilet. Damn it, she had clogged the toilet. There was no mention of this by her...and I was not happy. I had to take a towel and soak up the puke water (while again dry heaving).

What a fucking night.

Any other normal Beer Garden day I would have been well beyond trashed for this event. Not this night. I suppose it may have been a blessing as if I were trashed I would have been on an even playing field w/ jillie and we could have been handsy in bed when she puked. I would have been sexually scarred for life if a girl puked on me while doing any kind of bedroom activities. Start working your brain and picturing what type of god awful positions and scenarios you can come up with. All aren't pretty. All end badly.

Spaghetti spaghetti, all over the clock
Spaghetti spaghetti, all over my _______.
(insert your Dice Clay version here. Mad Lib style)

In the morning as a penance (follow the running theme) i sent her home with my sheets and towel and demanded that they be washed asap. I'm going to throw them out anyway but punishment was needed. I should mention Jillie is a devout fervent practicing Catholic and asked me if i wanted to go to church that morning. I obviously declined.

What have we learned? Spaghetti and Religion just don't mix.

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Now playing: Explosions In The Sky - It's Natural to Be Afraid