Skrubly's entry for Blender #28

The words are: 

Frogs / Drinking / School

        The afternoon was too bright, the sun coming in over the trees on
the other side of Gilbertson that seemed to burn into the back of my head.
I'd just woken up about ten minutes before, and now for some reason I was
sitting on the grass outside Ryerson with my guitar and looking around at
the other dorms within sight.  At least Ryerson had air conditioning; it
was the only dorm that does in the Tercero group.  Brian lives on the 
fifth floor, and come to think of it, I can almost see his room from here.

        So I'm just sitting on the grass, playing my guitar, and I start
to think about what Brian is up to right now. He's probably upstairs  
with his girlfriend and probably doesn't want to be interupted, but I guess
he's basically ALWAYS with his girlfriend and doesn't want to be interupted.
Which sort of pisses me off in a way, you know? I'm sick and tired of having
all of my friends ripped away from me by girlfriends or boyfriends.  It just
seems as if once someone gets a girlfriend all their friends automatically
get the back seat. And somehow I always come out looking like the fool when
I ask why the hell don't I see them anymore.

        "I was with Heidi."

        And then they act like that's supposed to explain everything, like
that's supposed to make it okay that for the past three months I've seen him
all of three times for more than ten minutes at a stretch, like it's supposed
to make it ok that suddenly it turns out I find out who my REAL friends are.

        The sad thing is, my "real" friends are the ones who don't have
girlfriends right now. What a crock.

        So I guess that's sort of when I snapped, you know? I mean, Brian and
Merlin were upstairs with their girlfriends, I was in a town far from home,
and what the fuck was I doing here sitting out on the grass? Watching my life
pass me by?

        So I get up, grab my backpack, and start walking. I mean, I don't
know WHY I started walking except that I didn't want to be around there
anymore. Not at all. I didn't want to be the one who is always the third
wheel when it comes to hanging out. So I walked down the street, across the
crosswalk to the Safeway center, and cut through it to the other side of D
street.  D street was pretty empty overall, but I didn't know where I was
going so I didn't really care.  

        After about twenty minutes of walking, I started to slow down. I 
started to feel pretty shitty for ditching out on my friends back at the 
dorm. I mean, it's not THAT bad, I guess. I don't know. 

        So I walked into this bar, the 404 Club. I'd seen it when we'd driven
up here in Merlin's beat-up Celica.  I didn't really care if they carded
me or not, all I knew was that I needed a drink and I needed it now.

        Inside, it was pretty dark, and a couple of guys with Napa Auto Parts
hats looked at me over their mugs. I walked up to the bartender and asked
for a shot of bourbon.

        He looked me up and down, looked at my guitar, looked at my backpack.
This was a college town, so he probably didn't think much of it, but I had
to wonder if he was going to card me or not. 

        He didn't. He just slid a shotglass onto the table and poured some
Ten High in it. I downed it. 

        "Another". He poured, I drank.

        After that, I sat down. He asked me what was going on, and I guess
I told him. Bartenders are used to that or something, but it felt pretty
good to finally tell someone what was on my mind. He poured me another, and
I drank. I started to watch the TV that was on top of the refridgerator and
let the bourbon just get to every little corner of my body. It was relaxing,
and after awhile, I sort of forgot about my worries and just sort of stared.

        The next thing I remembered was waking up behind the bar the next
morning, next to a bag of week-old trash and a broken 10 speed bicycle. My
guitar was still there, so was my backpack. The only thing that was gone
was about twenty bucks from my wallet, which not entirely uncoincidentally
was all of the money I had in there.

         I moved my head a little, and the mother of all hangovers reared
her ugly head and began to thrash and bite at the back of my head. I closed 
my eyes and tilted my head back, wishing it would just all end right now.

        That was when I heard something that was vaguely familiar, but I 
couldn't quite place it. I opened my eyes.

        What I saw was an old promotional sign, upside down in the dumpster
behind me. It had stains on it, and lots of dust, but it was still visible.
It was a picture, a picture of three frogs printed onto cheap plastic, with
a Budweiser logo underneath. Then I remembered the commercial where the
frogs talk. I laughed, and it hurt. It hurt in my stomach, and to this day
I have no idea why. 

        That was when the frogs started talking to me. I must have been 
beyond the valley of hung over, because not only were the frogs talking but 
I was actually listening to them.  It's hard to remember exactly what they
said, except that it involved my hangover, why my life is going nowhere,
a short length of surgical tubing and world peace.  I'm still pretty 
sketchy on it now.

        They basically outlined the idea that although my friends cared about
their girlfriends, and although they might not have seen me as much as 
before, they genuinely cared about me (my friends, not the frogs) and 
wouldn't want to see me upset or hurt. (Then again, they probably wouldn't 
have wanted to see me in a back alley lying in a puddle listening to a 
talking beer sign, either.) I nodded my head as best I could, and I think 
the frogs sort of smiled at me.

        I don't know how I got up, but I did. I finally managed to stagger
out of the alleyway and back to the campus.  While I was walking back to
the college, I was wondering how the frogs knew so much about me. I guess
frogs just sort of know those sort of things, I reasoned to myself. 
(Needless to say, at that moment I was not the picture of sobriety.)

        I looked like hell and smelled much worse when I got back to the
dorm, but someone let me in the building. I leaned up against the wall of
the elevator as I went up. I remember hoping that Merlin and Brian and
everyone hadn't panicked when I hadn't come back yesterday. I mean, I'd
spent the better part of 18 hours wandering around and being drunk and
sleeping in an alley. They must have been worried.

        I staggered over to Shelly's dorm room, hoping that she and Merlin
would be there. I knocked once, and waited, bracing my body up on the 
doorframe with my nose and part of my lips.

        A voice said "C'mon in.." I leaned on the doorhandle and the door
swung into the room. 

        Needless to say, both of them were naked. I mean, sure, they had
a blanket over them, but you know they were buttnaked like nobody's business
under that cover.  

        Merlin looks at me and says "How's it goin'? You look like hell."

        I just looked at him.

        There wasn't any worry in his face, just a post-orgasmic smile.

        He hadn't even known I'd been gone.

        The frogs were wrong.

        So then I just turned around and walked out the door.