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sevenbrothers_nobrides
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Name: R/CT/Z/S/M/B/N
Country: United States
State: Michigan
Metro: Kalamazoo
Gender: Male
Interests: we like girls. especially zack. most of us like the rest of us. we play soccer. we sing, not well, but loudly. we like to read. and we like mystery car rides. but only when they're short so we're not trapped in the hot van for days on end. those kinds of surprises and mysteries i can do without.
Expertise: sutures/fractures/contusions and general destruction of property. like that time that nathan fell down the stairs and sam ripped the railing out of the wall. we're really good at g.i. joes and playing slayer on the sledding hill. but then ben snapped his femur so we stopped.
Occupation: Unemployed/Between Jobs
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
AIM:  there are lots. ask and it will be given you.
Member Since:
8/30/2005
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| yeah. so i live three time zones and two thousand miles away from my brothers which means that very little of the happenings in their lives actually takes place in such a fashion that i am able to directly observe and subsequently pass on these going-on's. however, the distance and subsequent phone relationships i have developed do lend themselves, occasionally, to situations of unceasing hilarity. for instance observe, if you are able, the following conversation:
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Mom: Hello?
Me: Hi, Mom.
Mom: Who is this?
Me: The only person who isn't currently standing in your living room and would be calling you 'Mom.'
Mom: Rob?
Me: No, it's Mahatma Gandhi. OF COURSE IT'S ROB!
Mom: Oh, hi Rob.
Me: Hi Mom......
Mom: So, what's going on.
Me: Well, it's Sunday so I thought I would call and say hi to the family like I've done the past eight Sunday's since I left Michigan.
Mom: Oh, yeah, hold on, let me get the boys. BOYS!!!!!! BOYS!!! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!!! NATHAN, STOP CRYING, IT WASN'T YOURS ANYWAYS!!! COME DOWNSTAIRS NOW!!! ROB'S ON THE PHONE!!
(For the record, the handsets in our home have been missing for roughly 17 months so all conversations take place on speakerphone)
Mom: They're coming. Talk to you later hon.
Me: Bye, Mom. So good to hear your voice as well.
Multiple Voices: Hello? Hello? Rob?
Me: Hi Ben. Hi Nate. Hi Mike. What are you guys doing today?
Ben: Nothing.
Nate: No we're not, we're playing Playstation.
Ben: Well, you guys are playing Playstation but I'm not.
Mike: That's because you didn't want to hang out with us.
Ben: That's because you yelled at me about the G.I. Joe's.
Nate: You shouldn't have buried Commander Massiv
Ben: I didn't and you know it. You're the one who lost him in the Smith's pool.
Nate: No I didn't.
Mike: No he didn't, because I saw you playing with it two days ago and the Smith's was Tuesday.
Nate: Yeah. You're always losing the best G.I. Joe's.
Ben: No I'm not, that's stupid.
Nate: You're stupid.
Ben: You're both stupid.
Mike: Don't call me stupid, you're the one who lost Commander Massiv.
Ben: I did not you stupid jdl/a.mvpe bumble bumble blah blah bzzzzz........
Mike: You did so you st/am mweoifma bumble blah bzzz......
Nate: ......
Rob: So.......
Rob: Hello?
Rob: ......... Hello?
Rob: Hello? Is anybody there? Can anybody hear the speakerphone?
Rob: Hello?
Rob: Hel (this goes on for about four minutes) lo?
Voice: ....apoiem nv mwoeimv uw bored of shooting him in the face over and over again so we decided to go home.
Rob: Hello?
Sam: What's that noise?
Rob: Sam? Is that you?
Sam: Who is that?
Rob: Sam, it's Rob.
Sam: What? Where are you?
Rob: Dude, I'm on speakerphone.
Sam: Oh, hi. When did you call?
Rob: Oh...about six minutes ago.
Sam: Cool. Well I'm going to Thaxton's to play AirSoft. See you later.
Click.
Rob: Hello? Hello? Did they hang up on me?
Try it sometime. Call my family and see what happens. Sunday's around 1pm is usually the best time. | | |
| I am in Seattle. Beginning at somewhere around 11:23pm Sunday evening, which I'm fairly certain was yesterday, I've been in Seattle. I have lots of stories to share about what happens on the open road between Denver/Salt Lake/San Francisco/Portland/Seattle but I have a doctor's appointment to make sure that my organs are all intact after my car accident. Oh yeah. There's been an accident. But that was now, not then. I'll tell you more about then when I get back. | | |
| Left Michigan for my first big, independent life change and six days
into it I'm sleep-deprived, velocity burned, altitude sick, and
bruised in the face from an errant ice axe. I drove away from the Zoo
just before 3pm on Tuesday, 10 January and made my way down to Ft.
Wayne for dinner with my college roommate, Patrick. After cold pizza
and milkshakes the sojourn continued to Indianapolis where I spent the
night at the home of another college friend, the result? a meager 3.5
hours of sleep while I faced 17 hours in the car. For those who have
never taken advantage of the myriad joys associated with an entire day
driving a motor vehicle you may do the following to recreate the
feeling.
1. Lock oneself in a closet, preferably one with a poorly functioning
flourescent light which can replicate the horrific ambience of
suburban America.
2. Prep the closet by placing past-dated dairy products in the
corners in an effort to find that unique balance of ozone, carbon
monoxide and roadkill one associates with the US interstates and used
car interiors.
3. Pack all of your earthly belongings in to the closet with you.
Sit on top of them.
4. If, from your painfully cross-legged position atop your
belongings, you can touch all of your high school band medals and your
favorite slinky, but are unable to reach a kleenex, granola bar, or
bottle of water, consider yourself well-prepared for the trip ahead.
5. Stay there until you feel yourself falling asleep, which usually
takes an hour and a half, then pee in a cup and continue sitting for
another 15 hours while staring fixedly at the palm of your hand, or
the wall, whichever is closer and causes an acute headache.
6. Repeat.
7. Repeat.
8. Repeat.
I'm not saying that I hate driving cross-country, but if I have to
pull into another seedy, backwoods America gas station and watch one
more disgruntled, dispeptic, and socially debilitated station
attendant drag my change through a beef jerky grease stain, I'm going
to commit a homicidal act.
All that to say, after I awoke in Indianapolis at 6am, I crawled into
the still unnamed Volkswagon Golf which I call home, and turned my
back on the rising sun in anticipation of the grimy sidewalks of urban
Denver. Though my day would end up being one of the longest, ever, it
was fairly uneventful until St. Louis. Not that St. Louis itself was
eventful, rather my misplaced concept of time/distance/petrol usage
became an event. Thinking, in my particularly benightened mental
state, that my car could travel on empty for at least the distance to
exit 364 I managed to starve my engine of fuel and experienced the
unique pleasure of having to coast half a mile to an off-ramp. A
friendly man, Mike by name, gave me a ride in his pickup to the
nearest BP where he cheerfully waved goodbye as I scrounged for a gas
can. Once found and filled with 2 gallons of Saudi Arabia's finest, I
took the walk of shame back across the interstate, carefully avoiding
the frantic traffic, but not the pile of dog feces which seemed to
magically appear, on a highway, under my foot. Crap scraped, I
continued to my car and, after topping the tank, continued on my trip.
There's a peculiar sense of nervous boredom/mania which sets in
halfway through Nebraska that can't quite be explained in modern
English, but it was soon subsumed by the horrific sense of
foreboding/anticipation which descends upon your mind upon entering
Colorado and finally reaching ones destination, in Denver, does
nothing to alleviate any of those emotions. But, arrive I did, to
find the open arms of my friend Ryan awaiting me with a beer in each
fist. Travel, when viewed as an end result, isn't all that bad.
XOXO
Rob | | |
| some families deal with heartache in the form of a deceased relative,
be it grandparent, aunt/uncle, cousin, etc. the pain is real and
difficult and forces intense introspection. my family has been
uniquely blessed with a complete lack of that form of grief. as a
result we've resorted to alternate forms of disengagement pains.
we choose animals. you would think that michael, ben, and nate
had been kidnapped, tortured, and thrown in the kalamzoo river to die
by the way my mom goes on about the kittens being gone. it's as
though she was forced to remove a limb with each little cat going to a
new home. "oh, of course you can take rose (sidenote: cats,
kittens, dogs, fish, whatever animal, should absolutely not, under any
circumstances, be named after flowers. period.) and here's my
left leg from mid-femur down. put it on ice to keep the skin
intact." it is far more bizarre in person than in print.
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| sam? hi. is mom home? no? where is she? oh, i didn't realize she was going back to colorado. is dad home? no?! where is he? pennsylvania? what's in pennsylvania? when did he start working with bbc? whatever. have you seen zack today? it's always soccer games. are the little boys around? yeah, okay, well, when you see them tell everyone i said hello. how was your soccer game? obviously, i assumed you won, but how'd you play? you punched how many people?!?
it's impossible to speak to anyone in my family unless you actually sleep in the same house. | | |
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