This may come off as an anti eggnog rant, that is not my intent. I don’t consider myself to be an eggnog fan, but every year or two during a seasonally appropriate time I will indulge and be satisfied for years to come. I am not here to shame you if you enjoy eggnog, millions of people do. Who am I to yuck your yum? I just hope that you keep your nogging to the period after pumpkin spice season and before Easter. If you drink eggnog in the summer then I have some news for you, you’re probably a psychopath.
It was August of 2008, and like most Upstate New York stories it happened at a Stewart’s.
I remember it was 2008 for three reasons. The Michael Phelps Summer Olympics, the cinematic masterpiece Step Brothers had just been released, and I had just been evicted since my roommate decided not to pay his rent for 11 months in a row. I moved into a new place with one of my old roommates and a few of the guys who used to live down the street who were also evicted from their houses at the same time. We were all friends and got along reasonably well, but little did we know a psychopath lurked in our midst.
There we were, at a quaint little white house in the suburbs. Far from the chaos of downtown Albany and all it’s distractions and fun. We thought we were all grown up, 5 dudes sharing one bathroom and fighting over parking spaces and trash pickup. Actually this summer 3 of the guys were at home each taking care of their own type of business, doing an internship, recovering from jaw surgery, and finishing up probation. It was just me and one other guy, and I was starting to see why none of his former roommates would take him in. Now I am not going to shame him directly by using his name, or one of the various unflattering nicknames, since he is now a professional and a father and somehow a published author, but if you were around at the time you know who I’m talking about, so from here on out I will refer to him as “Geoff”.
That summer it was just the two of us, working a lot, drinking every night, hanging out and not accomplishing much. As the summer progressed I started seeing more and more suspect behavior out of “Geoff”. His food of choice seemed to be Five Guys, and our living room soon became festooned with bags of greasy cold leftovers that he couldn’t be bothered to throw away. One time I found him in the living room cutting the sleeves off a bunch of tshirts, apparently he was trying to make workout shirts that were more aerodynamic or something, and he just left the discarded sleeves everywhere. When it was his turn to buy toilet paper he bought a small pack of single ply, which is out of wack because he was a prolific pooper. Once I forgot my laundry in the dryer and instead of putting it into the basket I had left right there he threw my clean clothes on the dirty basement floor, when I called him on it and it happened again he overcompensated by taking it out of the dryer, up to my room, folding the full load of underwear and socks and placing them in neatly in piles on my bed. Who the fuck folds another man’s drawers? Oh the best part was that over the summer I noticed a bunch of things were missing from my room, in small but noticeable quantities my whiskey, controlled substances, and some cash were all appearing to walk off. I can’t say for certain that he was the culprit, but by August I was starting to have my doubts about this “Geoff” character. Which brings us to the moment when everything cracked.
That summer our friends, the twins, rented a cabin in the woods and threw a party. As with any upstate New Yorker I am drawn to a cabin party like a moth to a flame. Especially since this was no ordinary party, it had a facebook event page, it had the promise of debauchery, and it had a title stolen from the recently released masterpiece, Step Brothers. This wasn’t any simple cabin party, this was the Fucking Catalina Wine Mixer. And about 20 of us rose to the occasion, we bought handles of bargain basement whiskeys and cases of light beer, we crafted intricate itunes playlists to show the full range of our emotions using 2000s pop punk and 90s rap, and we prepared ourselves to sleep on air mattresses, in the back of our cars, or wherever we may fall. The gang was going camping.
“Geoff” and I of course wouldn’t miss an event like the Catalina Wine Mixer, so we loaded our booze into the back of his Subaru Impreza (the one with the aftermarket spoiler and the hood scoop) and headed off into the woods. As we hit the last civilization before we got to the cabin we decided to stop at the most important place in town for supplies, the Stewarts. We probably could have skipped it, but what kind of monster passes up a chance to get some scratch-offs and a double scoop of Peanut Butter Pandimonium when you’re headed to a party. It was a hot and humid afternoon, the type that haunt the dog days of upstate summers, and we probably just needed a quick blast of A/C and some Jax cheese curls before we headed into the forest. As he walked past the cooler I heard him exclaim “Oooh Eggnog,” I thought that he was joking, I was wrong.
When we got out to the parking lot he set his bag on the hood and started rummaging through it. You know the type of brown paper bag where there were instructions on how to use it as a book cover printed right on it, because Stewart’s cares about the environment and school children. Once he reached the bottom the the bag he triumphantly pulled out a bottle of eggnog and held it up in the sweltering afternoon sun like he was Mufasa presenting his pride and joy to the world. I have no idea why Stewart”s reserves a row in their coolers for a year round selection of eggnog, but they do. I happened into one last week and sure enough there it was, just waiting to expire, or for some lunatic to find that holiday spirit inside them. But back to 2008, where this person who I thought I knew, cracked open a bottle of eggnog on a 90 degree day, gave me a mock cheers, and started putting it in his face. At first I thought that he was just committing to the bit, getting some laughs, but no he was legit enjoying himself. *GLUG* *audible pause* *GLUG* *audible pause* *GLUG* as he ingested a full pint of dairy product with the consistency of Elmers glue, just took it right to the dome. I watched in horror as he just went to town coating his entire GI tract with sticky sweet seasonal dairy. And when he was done he let out an audible *AHHHHHH* like out of a beer commercial. Then he said “That was delicious haven’t had eggnog in weeks.” WEEKS! This apparently is a thing for him, just year round noggin’ it. Regardless of the weather, or the season, or the rules of polite society this guy was just out there giving a big fuck you to the entire world. And I thought that I was supposed to be the nihilist of the group.
After he finished his nog session he calmly got into the car and we drove away. All of a sudden the one ply toilet paper, the discarded sleeves, and the laundry folding didn’t seem like innocent coincidences, they seemed like red flags. This man child had revealed the deep undercurrent of his being, and our friendship would never be the same. What I thought were simple inconveniences of sharing a space with another human being revealed themselves to be a disturbing pretext of a truly psychopathic nature. Any person with the cognitive dissonance to separate himself from the time and place for holiday beverages with such ease surely had to be bad energy to have in your life. But then again I was too young and stupid to know that the people you surround yourself dictate the outcome of your life. So I went to the cabin, had a great time, and drank whiskey until I passed out on a couch while listening to the Olympics on the radio.
I kinda wish that I woke up the next morning and got this guy out of my life immediately, but no I lived with the holiday spiced psychopath for the next 10 months. After that we stayed friends and even spent a while living in the same small town in Vermont. At some point we had a falling out, and I realized that just because we had years of shared history it didn’t need to dictate our future. I do occasionally run across him at weddings, or while doing a pharmacy transfer, and I am past the point of anger at his past transgressions. In fact I am at the point where I can write a somewhat humorous and satirical post on an event that I sometimes pops into my head on humid summer days. And I can write it without anger or resentment bubbling up, it was just a thing in our past, a story with no greater meaning, just a snapshot of a time long ago when we were different people. I don’t actually believe that he is a psychopath, or a bad person, or a detriment to society. He was just another member of the Island of Misfit Toys that I inhabited for most of my 20s, and all us misfits are best described by our quirks. So maybe, just maybe, at a seasonally appropriate time I will raise a glass of eggnog in his general direction in a mock cheers and let the past be the past.
Owen Foley 