{"id":1753,"date":"2012-05-18T20:34:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-19T01:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2012-05-18T20:34:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-19T01:34:26","slug":"summer-fashion-never-tasted-so-white-collar-criminal-from-tlv-156","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/summer-fashion-never-tasted-so-white-collar-criminal-from-tlv-156\/","title":{"rendered":"“Summer Fashion Never Tasted So” (White Collar Criminal, from TLV #156)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"Passed out, sassed out, full of double-letters, scattered amongst grass, I sat poking my stomach with a silly straw left by a litter bug.<\/p>\n

This was not the company picnic I\u2019d picked. My new girlfriend, or FriendGirl\u2014whatever she wants\u2014brought me to this joke-of-a-party and the watermelon was spiked. She works in sales in a booming suburban ditch approximately 150 miles from The Velvet Ditch. Her supervisor said we looked \u201ccute\u201d together. She insisted we were just friends. Only friends. She insisted I wear a goofy lavender tie and faux-leather sandals her mom had purchased for Mikey, her step-brother. Mikey didn\u2019t hesitate to complain when he opened that ill-fated Christmas gift. They weren\u2019t even religious. But as a disciple of Her, I denied my personal tastes and bravely donned the duds, waving at my not-girlfriend\u2019s boss as I carried a cooler full of Michelob Ultras across a sea of green.<\/p>\n

\"\"Co-workers popped over to shake hands and rub elbows with the top saleswoman for the month of March. She patted my arm and subtly prodded me to speak. Gracefully knocking back the lightest beer known to metrosexuals, I jawed about my job. No, it\u2019s not as boring as you think. Yes, I travel. No, I don\u2019t attend sporting events that often. Yes, I think sports are fine. No, I didn\u2019t catch last night\u2019s game. Yes, I\u2019m sure it was thrilling. No, I don\u2019t gamble. Yes, I\u2019d love to meet your date. No, I didn\u2019t go to Vandy. Yes, I\u2019ve heard of it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d heard enough. She noticed. So the girl who sometimes lets me kiss her on the cheek announced to her flock that she would step over to the dessert table and stuff her massive 5\u20194\u201d, 105 lb. frame. A funny thing happened on the way to the German chocolate cake. Russell, her least favorite co-worker, rumbled to the front of the line, but not without inadvertently knocking the Least Interesting Beer in the World out of my feeble hand.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t always drink beer, but when I do, I embarrass all male relatives\u2014Michelob Ultra.<\/p>\n

Frie\"\"ndGirl, vaguely resembling a young Jodie Foster\u2014pre-Hinkley\u2019s show-n-tell\u2014launched into one of her cyanide-laced tirades. Russell brushed it off, telling her to give me something of substance. Whoa. Stripping the moment of its weight, decking the gal\u2019s spirit, and waving me over with a false sense of security that only seduces the most curious of cats, I was hooked. Leaving her to pick up the mess, I followed Russell back to his blanket and suggested he give me what he\u2019s having.
\nNodding with approval, Russell shifted his smirk and lifted a watermelon from his much larger cooler. My teeth sunk in and our conversation quickly flowed like a million babies bobbing for apples made of spikes. And the melon was spiked, as I mentioned. An hour flew by and laughs were dipped in sugar, they were sooo schweet.<\/p>\n

You know that moment when you gaze around you\u2014the world isn\u2019t spinning, just rotating\u2014and from the corner of your third eye you realize the party is jumping, the tricks are bumping, and you might just be a little drunk? I hit that stride at a pleasant pace and moments later it was dark, desolate and damp. 4:30 straight to 9:30, you\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n

I sat up, removing the silly straw from my navel only to see that the park was bare and the Company was nowhere in sight. My phone was dead, naturally, and I wondered if I could walk straight. For whatever reason, I remembered what this former redneck comedian, my favorite person during rehab, would say before every meal: \u201cDang, I didn\u2019t know this town had two Wendy\u2019s!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passed out, sassed out, full of double-letters, scattered amongst grass, I sat poking my stomach with a silly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-collar-criminal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}