The Mud Hole

Back in I guess... 1995... Julie was finishing up college at TTU... I was working in Nashville, Jones was going to MTSU, and our collective friends had a house in Cookeville. They were a bizarre group. Sam... Bucket... Head... Strunk... and Jerry.

I suppose the best place to start is there... with a bit of a Cast of Characters.

Sam: One of my best friends in college. Sam was the most reasonable of the group. The normal one, who appeared a paragon of virtue and cleanliness, because he was surrounded by such freaks. Those who've been around a while should note that Sam is the one who provided us access to my highschool friend's room, when we wallpapered it with porn. Check the Archives.

Jerry: The Alchaholic Downstairs. The guy drank like Kieth Richards smokes. He'd have taken his Jack Daniels intravenously if we'd have let him. Poor Jerry had a problem too... he umm.. had performance issues... if ya take my meaning. More on that later.

Strunk: The most descriptive last name anyone ever had. Strunk. His name tells the story. The odor fills in the details.

Bucket: Bucket was huge, but not quite so huge as Danner. He was like 6'1, and at least 300 pounds. He occupied a windowless room in the basement of the house. He had a king sized bed down there. While it was filthy... it was still the greatest bedroom anyone ever had... because it was cold.. and there was absolute darkness.

Head: Huge, but not quite so huge as Bucket. He was given to sleeping 40 hours at a time. Quite possibly the laziest human I've ever been around. He was slothful...

This was glorious time to be alive for us. Julie was rooming with a hot little blonde chick named Laurie. On the weekends I'd drive up and either me, julie, and laurie would spend the whole weekend finding some sort of trouble to get into...or we'd spend the whole weekend at the Mudhole. More often than not Josh would show up too.

Usually by 7 or 8pm on Friday night we'd have a game of Rook started... and traditionally, the game didn't end until sunday morning, when we'd all collect ourselves and go stuff our faces at the shoney's breakfast bar.

If you've ever played Rook, you know the game can be as competitive as you want it to be... and honestly, we talked more trash than the average fantasy football league ever dreams of.

Interestingly... some of the most insane experiences of my life... and when your talking about insane experiences in my life, that's a stiff competition... all took place at that house. I could blog for days on them... but I needed to set some of the backgroud first... so you can expect several Mud Hole tales in the coming days and weeks...

For now... Let me leave you with this...

Sam and Josh were playing against Julie and I.... We decided to take a break, to seek out booze or food... or likely both... we broke the game up, laid our cards on the table and set out to find our bounty! Julie and I returned first and found ourselves in a tempting little spot.

Josh and Sam were gone... we were alone! Now.. mind you... we'd never cheated before this... but for what ever reason... we chose this moment to show each other our cards and to plot to secure our not-so-well-earned victory.

"CHEATING!"

Josh burst from the closet shouting like a ravenous Dade County Election Official. Julie and I were so stunned by his instant appearence and bombastic blustering that we dropped the cards on the floor, and instantly collapsed in near terminal laughter.

I have no idea what inspired Josh to hide in the closet that night... nor do I know what caused Julie and I to pick that one moment to cheat... hrm.. considering some of the other activities we were likely to engage in while left alone in the Mudhole... One wonders what other words Josh could've been forced to blurt out when bursting from that closet.