From reikel@medianstrip.net Fri Sep 22 16:17:39 2000
Subject: Debriefing: the 40th of July

I apologize for the complete lateness of this report, which is directly
attributable to my complete laziness. It is nevertheless impeccably
accurate in every detail. 

-- 

This year's 40th of July was one of firsts, lasts, and fifths. For the
first time, it was held in the same place two years running. It was the
last 40th of the millennium. It was the fifth annual 40th. It was the
first 40th that Bill Evans did not attend. It was the fifth 40th that John
Smith did not attend. It was the first 40th where the beer supply was
almost adequate; but it was the fifth 40th where the beer supply fell
short in the clutch hours and had to be supplemented. And it was held on
the fifth day of August, for the first and probably last time.

The weather through July and August had been chilly and overcast, but the
morning of the 40th dawned clear and sunny; Nature herself evidently
smiles happily upon this annual event. Around noon, Stewart and I hopped
in his Buick and headed out to buy provisions: twelve cases of 40s, 90
extra cans of beer just in case, 120 burgers, 100 hot dogs, and about a
hundred pounds of ice. At the liquor store, I noticed a little sign
pointing out that in Massachusetts it is legal to transport no more than
20 gallons of beer for one's personal use; a quick calculation showed us
to be carrying almost triple the legal limit. We would have gotten more,
but we ran out of room in the car. 475 dollars poorer and keeping a close
eye out for the law, we made our way to Hagan's apartment, where we set up
the beer and ice in the bathtub on the third floor, strategically close to
the rooftop patio. We also discovered that Rob actually has a really small
bathtub. We were only able to fit about four cases of 40s and get them
chilled in time to crack open the first set at 2:00 sharp.

As soon as we had the beer set up, we fired up the grill downstairs in the
back yard. We also fired up the music, courtesy of Hagan's unbelievably
huge MP3 collection. Hagan will have to tell you himself about the
playlist he put together, but I can vouch that he successfully included
every punk classic rock cover ever recorded. I had to sing along with a
little Screeching Weasel just to get warmed up a bit. I think I scared
Hagan's roommates.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 the long and distinguished guest list started to fill
out a little, including the one and only Dr. Donald E. Morris, who reports
himself to have slimmed down to a "svelte and sexy" 315 pounds. I can't
independently verify this report, but I can say that when I tried to give
him a big malt-fueled bear-hug welcome, I bounced off and fell down. A few
of Hagan's med school classmates came over, too, plus some MIT people. I
think I scared them too.

Hagan and I soon had our hands full attempting to enforce the single rule
of this year's 40th, namely, a complete cell phone ban. The yellow cards
were flying left and right, along with threats of single-game suspensions.
The referees had to keep themselves fueled with malt liquor, of course, to
make sure that they had the strength necessary for the task at hand. I got
so agitated at one point that I had to take Arkadi Gerney to the mat for
some reason, maybe even a good one. I would have pinned him, too, if Hagan
hadn't intervened. I'm sure that I was in the right, though.

Then Hagan made me go downstairs because of some nonsense about "no
wrestling on the roof". I discovered the grill-meister team attempting to
light our third or fourth pile of charcoal of the day. For some reason
they weren't using enough lighter fluid, so I had to empty the can onto
the grill. I singed my eyebrows a little, and the burgers tasted kind of
funny afterward, but we washed them all down with more malt liquor and
nobody really cared.

Around this time I went back to the bathtub and found that we were almost
out of beer. I started to panic, but Hagan's roommates, Jean-Marc and
Rahul, saved the day with an emergency beer run that netted three more
cases of 40s. I grabbed one of the fresh bottles and headed up to the
roof. Somehow it was getting really hard to hold on to the bottle, and I
spilled a couple of times. I felt really bad about letting beer go to
waste, so I got down and slurped it up to make sure none of it got away. 

Then Hagan's roommate Doug decided that his pants were starting to chafe a
little, so he changed into his usual around-the-house leisure wear,
namely, a towel. We all thought it was pretty funny, but some of us
thought it was an ugly towel, so we took it away and threw it off of the
roof. Doug didn't seem to mind, though, since it was a warm night. Then
Doug suggested that I should change into a towel as well, which seemed
pretty reasonable (my pants and shirt were all soaked with beer for some
reason). People seemed jealous of my new outfit, though, since they kept
stealing it away when I wasn't looking. Doug's girlfriend seemed to want
to get in on the trend, too, but I guess we had run out of towels by that
point so she just had to do without, but no one really minded.

Then Sam Ng decided to start flowing a little freestyle. But for some
reason he couldn't think of any rhymes, so he fell back to the ancient and
elegant Japanese haiku form. Then I had to join in for a few. I can't
remember any of them, except this one, which I spieled when someone
started to give me a hard time about my ancient and elegant mode of dress:

   It isn't my fault
    Rubinson started it all
   Hagan, you bastard

Then I went back downstairs to look for more beer and to find my towel. I
noticed a guy and a girl getting to know each other on top of the washing
machine. They said something to me about putting some pants on, but I
couldn't understand what exactly, so I didn't really pay very much
attention.

Eventually I found my pants again, but then I got angry with the walls in
Rahul's bedroom, so I started punching them as hard as I could. Fucking
walls. The walls didn't seem to notice, though, so eventually I gave up.
By that time everyone had either gone home or fallen asleep in a sitting
position in Hagan's living room, so I decided to call it a night.

Well, when we got up in the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find
that we still had, in Hagan's words, "a beer full of fridge", so I cracked
a can of Bud and had a look around. The roof and the back yard looked like
NATO had bombed the shit out of it, and in a certain sense that's exactly
what had happened. We had, through the fire of twelve continuous hours of
partying and over 60 gallons of malt liquor, purged both ourselves and our
neighborhood of the threats of communism, socialism, and Canadianism. As I
surveyed the battlefield, the site of so much heroic self-sacrifice, I
felt a warm, happy glow of pride in my country and my kin. We are, again,
victorious.

For all of you who were not physically present for this year's
celebration, be assured that you were present in spirit. We poured out a
little from our 40s for you. Just don't miss it again.