4 July 2008: Laramie, Wyoming

When we woke up in the morning Andrew and I went back to his parents' house so I could meet the people who had unwittingly granted me their hospitality. His mom was a lovely woman who was incredibly nice like her son and who took to me rather quickly, maybe partly because she is from Michigan. His step-dad was also a friendly dude, although he was wearing some unbelievably short shorts.

We stayed for a little bit and before we left Andrew's mom invited me to come back that evening for the Fourth of July BBQ party she was hosting. So, well, I guess the guy at the shop had been serious. My bad.

First thing first, though, we went to a BBQ outside his friend's tattoo shop. Or, I should say, it was a BBQ/extreme croquette match. There were five croquette things, each of which was essentially an obstacle in its own right. You know, up-the-ramp-down-the-tube-hit-it-through-the-hoop sort of thing. It was really pretty fun, even though one of the things took literally 45 minutes for even one person to do it, and then everyone else just skipped it.

The kids there were all pretty cool for the most part, which probably had something to do with the fact that they were all friends of a tattoo shop owner and not just regular Wyoming douche bags. Sorry to anyone from Wyoming. Two of the cooler ones were named Ransom and Deal, which just goes to show that in addition to Cody, Wyoming parents love to name their children after cowboy money transactions.

Deal, it should be pointed out, was crochetting a Rastafarian scarf. It can't be argued that anyone who creates any Rastafarian trinket is a cool dude. But, I gotta tell you, I always thought that crochetting anything in Wyoming got you killed. Even if you were crochetting a condom depicting two lesbians having sex. Crochette? Hasn't he seen "The Laramie Project"?

Another cool thing about Deal is that his eight or so year old son was there, and when someone uttered a particularly loud curse the son complained about it. Deal told him "All these grown-ups drinking beer here, they can't help cussing." Now that's a sensible father.

A not-so-cool thing about his son, though, was this random conversation we had.

son: Why are they called tailbones? We don't have tails.
me: Well, we had tails when we were monkeys.
son: We were never monkeys.
me: ***walk away***

After all, you should never argue evolution with a cowboy. Even if it's a cowboy who crochettes scarves.

Since you were wondering, the BBQ was burgers and hot dogs, and delicious at that. But I had to temper my intake since I was going back to Andrew's place for another BBQ. And I had a feeling the grub would be just a few degrees better.

And since you were also wondering, yes, his sister was there. I'd say she was "Wyoming hot," which is the same as Michigan hot except for it's not in Michigan. She was cute and had a good body, and I would guess that for a state like Wyoming she would be in the top 10 percentile. But she wasn't attractive enough that I would get all incestual on her like Andrew had suggested. Weird.

I decided to leave the BBQ after a while and take a leisurely walk back to Andrew's. When I got there the BBQ had already begun and the place was nicely packed with family friends. And so it was that quite of number.

A family friends party.

To be honest, it was really pretty fun. Most of the guests were on the older side-- parent-age, so not terribly older, but older enough-- but many of them were legitimately alright. Call it the older generation's friends-of-the-tattoo-artist scene.

So I spent the first part of the evening devoting equal time both to regaling the older crowd with tales of glory-- which they were surprisingly interested in-- and to enjoying been deap and gin and tonics.

And then Andrew's mom brought out dinner. And oh, what a feast: elk burgers and crab/lobster salad. It was pretty freakin' unbelievable. Definitely the best food I've ever had while traveling.

Through this whole time, I was pretty sweet. Take that for what it's worth, of course, considering the crowd of the people there. Maybe it's just me, but I think Andrew's mom would have been OK with me marrying her daughter. The bad news about that is that Sarah's boyfriend was there. Even though he was an absolute douche bag-- the kind of "tough talk" clown who realizes that he's at an older-crowd dinner party so you might as well talk tough.

He had picked up some fireworks to shoot off, which was a pretty decent gesture. But he bought six fireworks for a total of $28. I'm no expert on fireworks, but something tells me that when they average under five bucks a pop, you probably shouldn't expect much. So I didn't.

After the show we went up to the roof and watched the real fireworks. They were pretty cool, but it occured to me on the roof that I should have done whatever it took to have a date for the night. Since obviously I didn't do enough. But how money would it have been to have brought a date back to this roof and showed up and just been like "What's up, baby." Damn. It woulda been good.

Anyway, there WAS a blatantly divorced cougar sitting right next to me. Or maybe it was a divorcedly blatant cougar. Either way, maybe if this had been Santa Fe I would have been a little more intrigued. Not this time. No thank you.

Towards mignight I went downtown with Andrew, Gabby, and Catherine to meet Ryan at the Buckhorn. It was exactly the same scene as the previous night, and I was pretty weary from the long day and feeling kinda gross from not showering, so it didn't take too long for us to go to the Ranger.

Andrew and the girls left shortly thereafter and I was left with Ryan, who gave me his phone number and address in case I needed a place to crash. So that was set, and I was off.

I ended up talking to this one girl, Leanne, who was 29 and pretty cute. I'm completely positive she didn't say anything interesting the entire night, and when she asked if I wanted to go with her and her two friends to Shari's, the late-night food joint, I said why not.

Now, like I said, I was exhausted by this point and feeling gross in general. Add to that, Leanne's friends were bitchy. And to that, my drunk-goggles were wearing off and Leanne was looking a little less cute and a little more 29. Figuring it'd be nice to get something out of it, I turned to Leanne and asked "buy me hash browns?" Her bitchier friend said "You know, this band came to town last week and they wouldn't let us buy them food. Because they're tough." Really. How interesting.

And then Bitchier started telling this unbelievably rambling story, something about some time she was traveling, and I'm telling you it was the most boring and uninteresting story I've ever heard, and at the end I said in my most obviously and painfully sarcastic voice "WOW, great fucking story." Bitchier gave me a bitchy face and said "Don't be an asshole." And then, I swear this is true, Leanne said to Bitchier "He wasn't being sarcastic, he likes traveling." I couldn't believe it. I had to leave right then and there.

So I went back to Ryan's place.