Hippie Holidays

I met this guy named Thor through my boss. Thor was interested in making a documentary with me, and he had a bunch of film equipment that I was lacking, so I agreed to meet him. Immediately thereafter, he invited me to spend four days at home with him. And I did it.

Thor lived in his parents’ basement, so there was no shortage of food, toilet paper, water, Nyquil, heat, things that normal people have. Also, Thor is a prescription drug addict, so there was also no shortage of tranquilizers.

Things were sort of rocky at my own house. My roommate had been stealing from me, so I decided I’d take a vacation at Thor’s. He and I instantly felt comfortable around each other. I attributed it to the amount of tranquilizers he had been feeding me; Thor attributed it to the fact that we had met in a previous life where his name was Arrow and I must have been one of his good friends or lovers.

Right there, a red flag should have been raised, but give me enough good food and pills and I let certain things go. As long as Thor was not harmful and kept shoving pills down my throat I was complacent.

I managed to stay in Thor’s basement for two days. The second night, he bought vodka because he wanted to make some shit called laudanum, which I guess is this drink that’s like alcohol with opium in it. Thor had opium poppies he had ordered and claimed he knew how to concoct this shit, but we drank the vodka and got drank before the laudanum was made.

For me, drinking usually leads to sex, so that happened. Afterward Thor thought it was ok to touch me for the rest of my stay. I had to deal with him massaging my back, which was not so horrible. But Thor also felt obligated to perform these weird rituals on me that he referred to as “raki”. He would touch my head and loom over me with his eyes closed, looking really intense and moving his fingers over me like he was trying to pull energy from my being. Thor explained to me that he was removing all of my bad energy and putting it into himself. If it worked, that was great, but the pills seemed to work better. Then, to cleanse myself, he made me drink this big vat of tea shit that looked like piss and tasted even worse.

The next morning, I had the pleasure of meeting Thor’s parents when I vomited all over their kitchen and bathroom. I tried to be as quiet as I could. But the mother heard and came down, and I was totally embarrassed and wiped it up, but I figured it was a great first impression to make.

When I was done vomiting, more tranquilizers were given to me until I was once again docile enough to forget the complete insanity that was going on around me.

Thor set up a slideshow to show me some family classic. I looked at a couple of them just by putting them to the light and realized some were of naked children and they were a bit creepy. But it interested me a little bit. He came down with one carousel of slides. I thought this might be entertaining.

Then Thor went upstairs again and I heard him calling for his dad, and the next time I saw him he was stumbling back with a stack of about twelve carousels of slides. My half-closed eyes got huge and my jaw dropped as I suddenly realized that I was trapped here, about to be subjected to watching over 10,000 slides. All I could think was, Oh, shit.

I had slept too much to snooze through the presentation, but I was too tired to get the fuck out of there and drive home.

The fact that I was deeply disturbed must have shown through my face, and I was given another “raki” session. All Thor really had to do was to not play all these fucking slides and the “bad energy” would have left. Instead he insisted that all I needed was raki and a few more candles and maybe some incense. Things got progressively grosser. So the slideshow started.

I grabbed the clicker as to get through them as fast as possible. I start clicking . . . pictures of stars, flowers, mountains, blah blah. Nothing exciting. A couple of artsy pictures of naked babies that no longer interested me. Some cool ’70s looking shit came up but I just wanted to get through it. We got through about three carousels before embarking on one labeled “Mystery”. Creepy children’s drawings came up. Thor demanded that I stopped clicking and go back to the first one. I don’t know what it is about insane people or children, but they draw the creepiest shit to me, and I can’t look at their drawings without wanting to die.

So this drawing has a bunch of spirals and lines and explosions and shit on it and he starts going nuts. He points to a dot and screams “THIS IS ME...HOLY SHIT...THIS IS ME...AND THIS SPIRAL RIGHT THERE...THAT’S MY LIFE...AND THIS LINE THAT IS THE PATH THAT I WENT IN, AND THIS HERE IS WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO GO...AND THIS HERE WAS MY PAST LIFE, AND LOOK HERE THERE’S AN ARROW THAT’S ME TOO...”

Thor embarked on this fucking tirade about how his creepy-ass drawing was something that he was meant to see at that exact moment and how it explained everything about his life thus far. I just sat back and wondered how many more pills he had, and if I could possibly kill myself if I took all of them.

Since we had met in a past life, I was not allowed to leave at this point. In fact, I was told, I was meant to see these drawings with Thor and they were to determine our future together. I had to half agree because I didn’t want my annoyance to be mistaken for bad energy and for another raki session to be performed on me.

I finally got to switch the slide, thinking that since there was really no order to these slides, this would be the last children’s drawing, so I could continue going through them really fast like I was doing before. Boy, was I wrong. The next four were children’s drawings, and the same thing happened. Except that I convinced Thor that one of them couldn’t have possibly been drawn by him because it was done in markers and that I knew that he never used markers to draw. I was driving myself nuts now. I was afraid I’d start turning into a big weird hippie if I hung out there too long.

After the four drawings and all the talk of past lives and this freak-out shit, I flipped to the next slide and it was a creepy guy pointing out right toward me. The next slide was someone’s name with a date under it like (1957-?). Then the next one was an atom bomb exploding. The next one was a drawing of a guy with a big pancake head and Thor lost his shit over that one too. I couldn’t take it. I was done with the slides.

I determined to depart the following morning. Thor and his family were also leaving at about seven A.M. to drive out to Kansas for Thanksgiving. Thor told me that I could sleep in and stay there after they left.

“But your parents don’t know me,” I said, “except for when I puked all over their floor.”

Thor assured me that there would be no problem. I was 5:30 A.M. before I could finally drift into drunken slumber.

Shortly thereafter, I woke up to screaming. I heard fragments like “ARE YOU CRAZY? SHE CANT STAY HERE!” and “WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW!”

Then I heard Thor counter, “SHE’S DRUNK! SHE CANT DRIVE HOME!”

I wasn’t, but after the incident in the kitchen, I buried my face in my hands and realized that Thor’s parents must think I am the worst alcoholic ever. So I stood up and got my stuff ready and Thor came down and apologized and I said I told him that they would not let me say.

“Fuck,” I added. “I wouldn’t let me stay.”

So off I went, but I forgot my cell phone. I contacted Thor and he agreed to mail the phone to me. I was so relieved that the whole experience was finally over. But there was one final nail in this coffin of a story.

While I was staying with Thor, I made an appointment at a women’s clinic to get this VD I have checked out. It was for the day I left his house. Since he had my phone, Thor was trying to call everyone to try to get a hold of me. He called my mother and talked to her, told her I lost my phone, and before hanging up on her, Thor told her to make sure that I didn’t miss my appointment at the gynecologist to get my warts checked out.

My mother. He told this to.

Thor swears that he was doing this so that I would not forget, and I actually believe him because he is so out there, but, Jesus Christ, who the fuck tells someone’s mother to make sure that her daughter gets her genital warts checked out?

I missed the appointment, by the way. His reminder did not help. Luckily my mom has had almost every VD on the planet, so it was not a huge deal, but that’s another story entirely.

Like I said, Thanksgiving is a special time for everyone. I wonder if I can top this year’s. I said the same thing last year. I fear that if I top this year’s I might not live through next year’s. I don’t know what it is about this season, but I end up meeting the most bizarre, scariest people that I ever come in contact with. I end up having sex with them and then puking all over their homes.

Beautiful stories, these are. I can’t wait until I have grandchildren to share them with.