The Ideal Background - A Rose Colored View

Good day, everyone! The Idealist is making his board debut today! Yay! I would like to thank Yankee and Aussie for having me along and I promise to behave myself and not become too polarizing. My fingers were crossed behind my back when I said that. I see that the other two have sounded off on our founding moments. I don’t come off like a jackass at all. Score one for me.

A quick note on these rugby guys that I'm on the journey with- Aussie and Yankee go to pratice, they go "shower", and then they come to the bar. I don’t know what goes on at these practices, but maybe they should wait awhile to shower afterwards because the effect is generally that they wash off the sweat from practice, then continue sweating after the shower, so they're just putting off the inevitable sweat stained shirt and vague stinkiness for an extra hour or so before it comes back right while we're at the bar. Its mildly offensive. This is particularly true of Uncle Yankee who tends to sweat when he thinks about heat. Of course you will never drag Aussie anywhere without him having to groom himself in front of a mirror for the better part of an hour – hence the Fabio fine in the Code of Conduct.

At least they tend to pile on the deodorant and more perfume than a drag queen on bingo night. Whatever. I don't understand the need for people to go out and beat on each other then go and laugh about it. It all sounds a little homo-erotic. Kind of like that male porno Top Gun. My athletic pursuits generally consist of marathons at the chinese buffet to make sure I dont get ripped off on the All-you-can eat price. On two occasions, I've also run from the police. That ought to count.

On the subject of athleticism, let me just go ahead and throw this out there- Yankee is a shitty athlete. He smokes and drinks. Aussie dragged him into this rugby thing because they're roommates. Aussie has apparently been playing this game for awhile and is in shape, you can tell that by the fact he generally refuses to wear sleeves anywhere he goes. Yankee is drawn to violence. Typical republican. Never saw a conflict he didn't like. Doesn't get more violent than rugby league apparently. Come to think of it, Yankee has been a tad less aggressive of late. Maybe its not such a bad thing, but you understand that it gets to be a worn situation when you get to listen to the full recounting of all the "sick hits" and a complete account of team injuries every time you show up for a quick beer and a shot. If you go out with them more than once in a week, you'll get to hear it, in its entirety, twice. Yay!

Alright, we were having the old "if we didn't screw with the rest of the world, they wouldn't screw with us" argument that we've had a million times. It’s become a well trod path. Seriously, the US was mistrusted before and now those feelings are a little stronger, considering our little stunt in Iraq and the excellent communication skills of our Cowboy-in-Chief. Yankee and I have a side bet on this next election. You know who I'm for- the one that'll clean some of this up rather than keep it rolling. I'm really looking forward to a big steak and two martinis on Yankee's tab come November. Given the success of Obama Girl…I just can’t see how Barack can lose. That chick could convince me to insert needles into my own penis. I might even be willing to bet another couple of drinks that his ‘mature’ candidate doesn't make it to election at all. See, Yankee is catholic. The pope is about the same age as god anyway, so Yankee doesn't see any problem with putting a retiree at the helm. The difference here is that the pope doesn’t have an army or his finger on the trigger to the world's largest nuclear arsenal with a fast growing list of enemies.

Yankee also thinks it’s terribly selfish for me to want free education and health for everyone. How dare I propose something so inherently evil? I love the fact that the currently unemployed writer Yankee bitches about his non-existent tax contributions being squandered by the inefficient government. I’m the one with the job buddy! I’ll decide!

During this particular instance of the same argument we've been having at work for years, Yankee hit a breaking point and decided that we needed to end the argument. He draws a map on a napkin and proceeds to explain that he's been more places than me, so he knows better (always throwing a trump card, right Yankee?), and we ought to go find out.

I've read the other two accounts of this conversation and the incident that followed, which are more or less close to accurate. Aussie did leave out a few key remarks – he was hammered, midweek no less, which is very unusual for a man that is usually a weekend binger but is borderline Mormon during the week.. . . Let me clarify a few things. Yankee originally wanted to go to the most dangerous places on the whole earth and drink. I don’t like rough living and I'd rather not end up losing my head on the internet for everyone to see. I can't see taking a long trip to drink shitty liquor in all the shitholes of the world. I'm not interested in Bratislava, or Tripoli, and certainly not Nigeria. I prevailed on him to turn down the roughness factor on this one and make it fun. Aussie needs showers and mirrors, so he was in. Luckily he complied without a lot of bullshit.

Aussie was a cursory participant in the conversation, checking out this mean looking chick sending text messages. Yankee prevailed on us to keep the stops in Colombia, Kenya, and Nepal. I got the couple of extra days in Thailand (there's a few places I've heard of that I might not mind visiting), and Aussie got to be the token non-American. I bought Jager shot for us as a little kickoff celebration. This could actually be fun. Yankee puked his up. Very gracious of him. While he was wandering down to unload the shot that I paid for, Aussie wandered over to that girl and began chatting. I started listing the financial considerations of a trip of this magnitude on another napkin. We're going to need some serious loot to pull this one off. Yankee came back looking like he'd just gotten maced. I offered to get him another Jager. He declined. Pussy. We worked on the budget without Aussie, and then, all of a sudden, it happened. The meltdown had just kicked off when I noticed and put Yankee on to the scene that was rapidly unfolding at the cocktail table.

Apparently, Aussie was getting shot down somehow. He doesn't take that very well. Having said that she was a bit of a fox and no-one else had the balls to approach her, so all power to him. The whole scene didn’t take very long, but Yankee hit the nail on the head with the Disaster. You can’t take your eyes off of a train wreck. Yankee was starting to laugh. I was speechless. The girl was still sitting on one of those tall barstools. Aussie was standing up, pointing his finger at her. Apparently, she said something he didn't like. That’s when he laid into her. I remember a few key phrases.

He said to her that going to Law School was shit and ultimately a pretty big waste of time given that in the end her life would end up pretty unfulfilling. The girl didn’t like it, at all. Having said that I think she misunderstood what he was trying to say exactly – Aussie has been to law school himself, worked as a lawyer and didn’t really like it. He has often made references to not wanting to end up like Michael Clayton – George Clooney’s silver haired sexiness aside. At least he can give some sort of objective analysis of the situation and what her/their lives might end up like. At least she has a job though Aussie and isn’t gallivanting around the world pissing money up against the wall.

While the two of them were going at it the girl's friend actually got up and left in the middle of the situation. More babbling, and then the shotgun blast. She said something which Aussie later explained was her saying that at least her boyfriend wasn't a complete asshole, or something like that. Aussie turned around, shaking his head, and then turned back to her and laid a line on her that ended in the word cunt. In all fairness to the guy she did seem like a bitch and laid out quite a few insults to him before he responded with the nuclear strike.

While common in Australia, I'm sure, that particular phrase is clearly not on the approved list over here in the states. I couldn't believe it. Yankee was chuckling. Aussie had gotten two steps away when she decided he needed a beer bath. It was awesome. What made it more than awesome was when I found out later from Yankee than Aussie had actually bought her the beer he ended up wearing! Getting Aussie to buy any girl a drink is a huge feat. It’s deliciously ironic that he ended up soaked in one that he did buy. Excellent. Anyway, needless to say, he didn't get her number and the Long Crawl is rolling ahead. Check back soon for more! -The Idealist.