Captain Squid

So recently, my sister Lucy scored tickets to the Newport Wine Festival and decided to take me. Why? No idea. Probably because I’m so fucking fun. But the thing was, it was so fancy! Like, women are walking around in GOWNS drinking champagne with their boyfriends in salmon colored shorts and I’m just over here with my jeans and TOMS chugging whatever wine was given to me. (all red wine and all white wine tastes the same to me.) And some people were really snobby. The second we got there, Lucy and I chose the first wine table to visit and we were sampling some wines and the woman was in conversation with someone else and this old guy walked up (like he was walking with a stick up his ass) and held out his glass and said “PINOT NOIR.” He honestly sounded like a VILLIAN. No please. No anything. Thank GOD this woman finished her conversation with the people she was talking with before she gave this old fuck what he wanted at the snap of his fingers. Can you believe the SNOBS that are out there!? I’m the opposite. I let people cut me in every line I stand in.

So anyway, we’re walking around and there is fancy seafood everywhere. In fact, outside by the water, there is a bar where you can get full glasses of wine. And on the bar is A DEAD SQUID WITH A CAPTAINS HAT ON. What!? IS THIS HOW PEOPLE IN NEWPORT PARTY? “oh guys, we gotta set up for this party, where’s the dead squid? Party’s NOTHING without that fucker. LET’S DRESS HIM UP TOO, IT’LL BE A GAS.” This is right next to the random Porsche on the lawn that decided to chill there. But yeah, we had a fucking blast. I found the beer and chicken wings and went to town while everyone else ate fucking fish eggs and lobster shit and raw steak on BONE MARROW toast. I was in my jeans shoving chicken wings in my mouth. Some people just can’t fit in.

The other funny thing I have to say about the wine festival is the bathrooms. Now, Lucy has been to these festivals numerous times, so I knew we’d be drinking quite a bit so on the way there I asked a question that was very important to me. “Hey, what are the bathroom situations like?” to which she answered, “Well, they’re outhouses, but they’re like fancy outhouses…” to which I of course said UGH because outhouses are fucking outhouses, there is no way around it. I was wrong.

These outhouses were NOT outhouses. They were luxury bathrooms on WHEELS. I mean, I hate outhouses with a passion. I avoid them at all costs (like most people do I can imagine, especially girls. I mean, it always smells like poo and there are like 9 spiders of all different shapes staring at you the whole time and the toilet seat looks like it was just taken out of the fucking DUMPSTER and screwed on. I guess I feel so strongly about outhouses because of one night on the way to New Hampshire for a ski trip with the radio station. My car pool buddy and I usually have to pee a lot on the drive from Boston to New Hampshire. Usually, there are nice rest stops, you know, with normal restrooms. However, one night, we really had to go. Like bad. Probably all the beers we had. So we pull off to a rest area with a bathroom sign. Thank GOD!

Now, there are many shady things about this short encounter. One, it was pitch black. There were no lights whatsoever. And for some odd reason, when we left the car and walked to the outhouses, I didn’t realize it was pitch black. I didn’t bring my phone with me. So yes, it is just me walking into this outhouse not being able to see ANYTHING. So of course I hover, but something tells me that if I had a goddamn light, I probably would have found that the floors and walls of this outhouse were covered with shit. Just sayin. It’s a safe assumption.

So that’s the thing. An outhouse is at it’s most frightening when you walk into it IN THE COMPLETE DARKNESS on the side of a quiet New Hampshire highway. You know, where some crazed lumberjack with overalls and a ripped flannel shirt can come out of the woods at any moment and saw you in half with a chainsaw while you’re hovering above an outhouse toilet.

So all that being said, the “outhouses” at the wine festival were FANCY. They had legit stalls with LIGHTS on the inside walls and real doors that had fancy handles that actually locked. There were even sinks!!! That’s class. I peed with my pinky out each time I went.