Pete In A Pushcart
So flashback to 1986 or so. When I was in college. Pissing away my parents money pretending to go to classes but in reality hanging with my friends and trying to systematically kill my liver on a daily basis. Back then, we had three for one happy hours. Those were happy days indeed.
About Last Night and Ferris Bueuller’s Day Off were my favorite movies. I had this poster hanging on my wall…
Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not Andrew McCarthy but they didn’t have any really hot posters of him and what’s a dorm room without pictures of hot guys you can’t possibly ever get?
I was rocking out to Genesis, Madonna and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. But my very favorite was this:
I went to Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, Texas which actually had a dorm named “The Zoo” that ranked nationally number one with Rolling Stone at some point for the biggest party dorm for men in the country.
…and I had wild friends.
Pete was one of them. He didn’t live in The Zoo, but he did live across the street for a time and apparently soaked up some of the past culture, before moving his freak show to an apartment and torturing all those around him there. Pete liked to drink. A lot. And he is now a PE coach somewhere, which scares the heck out of me. Last I heard he was in another state though, so I think I’m safe.
The fact that Pete was a big drinker gave us endless opportunities to take advantage of him. Whenever we would play quarters, Pete would pass out cold. With his beer in his hand. You know that saying, “You can pry this out of my dead hands”? Yeah, that was Pete, only try prying it out of his drunk hands.
In college, you must escalate to the next level as quickly as possible, so we did. If you made a shot off your nose (I was really good at that btw) you got a bonus shot. The bonus shot was a wet beer towel. If you could shoot the beer towel at Pete and knock the beer he had in a death grip out of his hands, you could make the entire table drink. He usually passed out in the same spot which left an unfortunate mark on the wall, but that’s a story for another day when I am obsessed with cleanliness.
So again with the college student thing where you have to take it to the next level. We got tired of shooting wet beer towels at him one night and decided it would be fun to drag him out somewhere and “do something with him”. Several missteps down the stairs (how sad for him he lived on the second floor, think Weekend at Bernie’s type action) and we loaded him into the car. We drove around for a while (before anyone freaks out, that was in 1986 and I do not advocate drunk driving….I was in my idiot phase) and decided the grocery store was the perfect placed to stage our latest gag.
We loaded him into one of those old carts, the shallow high kind, his arms legs all akimbo and hanging out the side (sidenote: beer can still in hand, Pete had a death grip as previously mentioned). And we shoved him through the doors. The doors at that time didn’t have all the blockage they do now and it allowed us to virtually sail Pete directly into the store, where he crashed head on into a display of soup cans. And it ended, loudly. The last I saw as we all ran to our car, he was there, covered in soup cans, only a hand with a beer can sticking out to identify him. We ran like hell and left him behind. Not nice, I know, but I was 21, get off my back.
The next day we got a call to come collect our Pete from the college police station, which we did. He woke up with not a clue as to what had happened. You can imagine his surprise when he noticed the crescent shaped dents and bruises all over him from the cans that had fallen on him. He had no idea how he got there, and we all played dumb.
We took him home, tended to his injuries and tried not to laugh. We all felt bad until the next weekend when he decided it would be wise for all of us to know if in our old age, Depends diapers would really work. Note to all of you wondering this same thing out there (and I hope there are zero of you), they don’t. At least not after six keg shots, standing in the woods, with only an adult diaper on anyway. The good news is, he never drank enough for us to play beer towel or Push Cart Pete again….the bad news is, I can tell you I have seen a grown man pee himself in the woods with a diaper on and I fear for my old age. And you should too….especially if you favor keg shots at 90.
About once a year I wonder what happened to him. I wonder if he is still a PE coach, if he got married, what his life might be like now. And then I frantically look at my kids school roster, realize he is not a teacher there, and breathe a huge sigh of relief. Because while I have stories about him, there is the slight chance he might remember just enough about college to have stories about me too…and we just can’t have that…
FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, bab! Did you see all those exclamation marks? That doesn’t even demonstrate half of how excited I am that I was totally first.
Oh, Honey, I wish could I could say I’ve been there, done that, but I haven’t. Again, let me stress that I WISH I could say that I have. You incorporated some of my favorite things here, Weekend at Bernies (judge me if you will, but I still love that show) and doing stuff to people that are passed out. I think we would draw all over our roommates when they passed out drunk, but that permanent marker would eventually disappear.
You better hope you don’t run into Pete somewhere. He’s armed with comfortable pants and a whistle. You rock! Also, when we meet IRL, I will be very, very careful not to fall asleep first……
awwww… poor pete! but you know, it shouldn’t take long to know that you just don’t pass out with a bunch of college kids in your midst.
Bwahahaha. That’s too funny. I love the cart action. You should never feel bad about that though. If you drink that much, you have it coming
ramabanana though? Penis? Seriously? You think you know someone
(I totally just edited something out there so no one would steal it for their blog.)
HELLO! I don’t even know what this post is about I just saw that picture of Rob Lowe and started sweating. Whoa. I guess I should go back and read the rest of it now.
We put makeup all over this one guy, and did his nails, and everything. That’s about as exciting as it got.
I’m sooo bad at Quarters. But I rocked at Asshole. I’m not sure I even remember how to play it now.
HA!!!! Push Cart Pete! That is too freaking hilarious! I have done some crazy things to people while they are passed out, including leaving someone at a restaurant while passed out on a table and, oh yeah, not paying the check…But that is better than anything my rowdy friends ever thought up. Classic.
I pity the kids in his PE classes.
Asshole! That was a great game. I can’t really remember how it was played now either. How did we keep it straight while in such inebriated conditions?
Wait…wait….what is this Asshole game I’m hearing about? I’m gong to need someone to tell me please.
Ha ha ha! Perfect justice, heh. Drink too much and pay the piper. Which makes you the piper.
Sign me up as another asshole virgin. Wait, that sounds horribly wrong. I mean, I don’t know what asshole is. Nope, no better…
Great story, but remind me not to read good ‘ol college drunk stories on Fridays, then call my freshman college daughter only to hear she has “big plans” this weekend!
This was GREAT! My friends did something similar - not quite as funny - to a guy in their dorm. When he passed out they wrote his address on his forehead so someone to help him get home. NICE.
Poor Pete - but if he’s anything like some of the PE teachers I’ve had - I bet he tells that story proudly!
Ah, Bananarama… I was in love with the short haired blond. Ooh, and the short haired blond dancer in Sting’s “We’ll Be Together.” And now I’m married to a raven haired Asian. Guess it didn’t mean anything.
Asshole: http://www.barmeister.com/games/rules/26/
I don’t remember it being as complicated as the wikipedia entry describes. I think it’s funny that wikipedia has an entry on Asshole, so I grabbed the link from that barmeister site.
It’s possible though that we made up rules. It’s all kind of fuzzy now. But I remember having marathon games of Asshole in H.S.
Oh my goodness that is a great drinking story, but now I am wondering what kind of dirt ol Pete had on you!!!
What is it with you guys and your college confessionals. First Steenky fesses up to actual jail time and now your painting, let’s be honest, a rather sordid past.
And there’s me thinking you were, you know, an upmarket chick . . .
Awesome, just awesome!!
That rocks. Poor Pete.
I could listen to that Bananarama song forEVER! I, sadly (I think), did not have such crazy college experiences. Although maybe I’m selling myself short….I’ll have to think about it and get back to you!!
You see? This is the reason why I don’t associate with my college friends any longer. And also the reason I didn’t go into politics. Too much dirt. How I survived it is a mystery to me.
Also - Bananarama were way better dancers and had way better hair back in the day. When I look at them now, I’m like, WTF? I wanted THAT hair? And THOSE moves? Um…..wow. So misguided.
reminds me how I wonder how I survived college. That is the college life outside the classroom.
That is, BY FAR, the very best drinking story I have ever heard. And I pretty much majored in Liver Ruination. All my stories involve drinking too much and doing naughty things that should have gotten me knocked up. Thank God I was only in college for five years….er….
that was fan-ta-stic. loved it. (yeah, I loved that damn song, too)
What a great story! Sometimes I regret not going to college just for the beer drinking stories!
Ahhh! the stories of a misspent youth. Since, I also had a misspent youth I can relate.
I do thank God everyday that in 1986 I was married with 2 kids so I didn’t feel the need to wear high waisted ratty jeans and big hair. The poster was a good choice though.
asshole was GREAT. so were 3 for 1’s. that poor kid who had to clean up the grocery display. LMAO.
Push Cart Pete. Awesome.
Thanx for the memories - like Heather, there will be no politics in my future
All the games I can remember have names I can’t put in print….