Tales from the 'Hood

After finishing my ninth term of higher education, I dipped the 541 and jumped on a train headed for the 206, for a handful of days at my parents' house on Vashon Island, WA (located here).

When you "come of age" on an island, especially one with only two on-duty police officers, a lot of ridiculous shit ensues. Then, once you get off said island, and into the real world, you realize that things go down a lot differently than they did back home. And you kind of get used to it after not too long. This assimilation into civilization always results in ridiculous tales every time I head home, and this weekend has been no different.

Hit the jump for tales of the dead deer, and excerpts from conversation that could only happen on Vashon.



The Dead Deer:

So earlier today I was putting my two dogs, Riley and Bear, in the backseat of the Volvo to go down to the garage where we frequently take the whip to get whatever is currently fucked, fixed. After getting Riley in the backseat, I went around to the other side of the car and was startled by what I saw in the shrubbery just outside the carport.
After uttering a startled "what the fuck," I stepped away from the dead deer and headed inside to figure out the next/first step in dead deer disposal. Naturally, my mother jumped on the phone to call King County and figure out how we were supposed to get rid of the corpse. The answer she received after several phone calls was essentially "Whatever you want, it's not our problem if it's not on the road."
My father decided to take things into his hand at this juncture. His game time decision? Simple. Call "Jack from up the hill"(which is what he refers to himself as every time he leaves a voicemail), who is seventy-something, and is actually just the neighbor who lives beyond the backyard (which is hardly sloped, but fuck it, dude is old). Jack is one of those guys who is like 75 going on 21. Sure he's a senior citizen, but he's running half marathons and climbing mountains, which is more than I can say for myself, or your lazy ass for that matter. Anyways, Jacks solution was to grab a snow shovel, a tarp, and a wheel barrow, and stick it to the man by dumping the deer at the end of the road (see picture above).
Of course, my dad, being the good-natured hard-working American he is, was concerned about being seen by any of our neighbors. Now, I used to be quite a little hellian back in the day, and it was not uncommon for myself and/or my boys to be nervous about some of the shit we were doing, so I'm used to see people act shady or nervous. But let me tell you something, it is fucking hysterical to watch your middle-aged father nervously sneak around bushes in broad daylight, with a dead dear in a wheel barrow, and try to act like he's doing nothing out of the ordinary. And on top of that, when I went back down to take the above picture, he warned me "don't like the Bourkes see you down there taking pictures."
Guess what? The county is coming to get the deer first thing in the morning.

Drinking. Smoking. Straight West Coasting.:
The other night I went over the Gateman household to kick it with some boys (and girl) that I went to high school with. Naturally, we unrolled then rerolled a swisher, cracked open an eighteen of Busch tall cans, played drinking games, shared stories, and just kind of kicked it on a nostalgic/catch up tip. Ridiculousness ensued. Once I remembered that absurd conversation is common place on Vashon Island, I started taking notes:

-"I remember when she shit on my neck."

-"Yeah, Craighead, you had hella burn out marks around the telephone pole... you were doing, like, 80 through here."
y.g. note: "through here" refers to a small section of clear land on the side of the Gateman house.

-"Dude, do you remember last night when we were raging your truck, listening to Deadmau5, and running over hella trees?"
y.g note: are you fucking kidding me?

-"Hella old bitch, remember her? We used to mow the shit out of her lawn."

-"You are like...an ostritch."