Our Volunteer Buddy Isn’t an Axe Murderer, But She Does Slaughter Wild Pigs and Eat Them

[FrankenFish goes camping: A heart-warming tale of breakfast booze, zombie cows, and drunken axe murderers.]

When we last left off, I was about to travel into the wilderness with Culture, Blonde Beyonce, and an older woman we barely knew who could potentially want to chop our bodies into little pieces and bury them on a remote ranch north of Santa Barbara.

Well, that didn’t happen, even though all the conditions were just right for that sort of thing.

There were definitely a few moments when fireworks started going off in my skull, like, Warning, warning, you are about TO GET YOUR ASS MURDERED, but surprisingly, nothing ever came of it. And it wasn’t like we had any means of escape. Despite how great my amazingly well thought out plan about using my car as a sailboat was, that shit never would have worked.

See, this is what I thought our situation was:

But this is what it really was:

Before we left on this little adventure, our Volunteer Buddy was all like, Do you have a four-wheel drive car? and we were like, Ummm, no? She cackled and said, This should be interesting!

You guys, no lie, I am writing a fucking letter to the Mercedes-Benz Corporation expressing my everlasting gratitude and newfound brand loyalty that will last for the rest of my sad little life. MY CAR IS IMMORTAL. I have put it to the ultimate test, and it has survived. I should get paid for providing Mercedes with their next car commercial.

It is important to note that my Mercedes-Benz 190E Sport Line is 18 years old and has more than 200,000 miles on it. Yet, for some reason, it seemed like a really good idea to drive it up a mountain with NO ROADS. I have never screamed so loud while driving. I prayed for the duration of every fifty foot, forty-five degree angle dirt climb of that journey. And when I thought I had made it to the top, our Volunteer Buddy points at a terrifying grassy knoll that is basically vertical, and tells us to back up and take a good run at it.

Spoiler alert: We didn’t make it.

[It is necessary to watch this video with the sound on because the important part is listening to us scream - and hearing me say, "Guys, let's never show this video to my mother." This video is proof that you should always listen to your mother.]

When it became obvious that we would never make it up the hill, we were forced to abandon my loyal vehicle in the middle of a field and climb into the car of our potential murderer. As I waved goodbye to my only means of escape, I discovered that the “road” we would have driven down – had I made it over the grassy knoll – would have been impossible to navigate. I would have had to leave my car in the valley, never to be seen again!

Once we were a million miles away from cell phone service and society with a woman who had apparently adopted an injured wild pig, raised it, and then shot it in the head and eaten it (this is a true story, people), we pitched our tent. There seemed to be an awfully large amount of cow poop scattered around (in fact, as we discovered later, we pitched our tent right on top of a huge cow pie). This should have been a warning sign. Sadly, at the time, we were too busy suppressing our intuition to notice that huge amounts of cow shit usually signify a large amount of cows.

We left our sad little camp and took a hair-raising, four-wheel drive journey to the beach to explore and eventually cook dinner. However, a full on sandstorm was underway and everybody (even the ladybugs) were hiding.

[I swallowed about a pound of sand while this photo was being taken.]

[In a survival-of-the-fittest situation, the ladybug on the left will survive due to its amazing shelter-seeking abilities. The one on the right? Well, it's about to be killed by a wind storm. I think this post demonstrates that I am more like the bug that is going to die.]

Cooking dinner in those wind conditions was completely impossible – we realized very quickly that we would have to drive to a small town called Buellton a few miles up the road to eat.

The worse part was that we were all covered in sand and dressed like hobos when we walked into what appeared to be a cheesy steakhouse off the freeway. Sadly, The Hitching Post (yes, that is the name of the restaurant) was completely full of swanky rich bitches from Santa Barbara who were busy vacationing in their mansions on Hollister Ranch. Our Volunteer Buddy took one look and ordered herself two huge margaritas. It was suddenly as if Culture, Blonde Beyonce and I had acquired a crazy alcoholic aunt. The kind that harass all the waitresses and hit on all the cowboys. And order way more food than we could ever possibly eat.

A plate of mussels, a huge stuffed chile, soup, salad, a baked potato and a steak later, our Volunteer Buddy is drunk as hell and ready to go back to camp.

And because I’m the loser with all the large vehicle driving experience (I blame this on The Boyfriend and his sixteen-passenger van) I get behind the wheel of our Volunteer Buddy’s blue SUV and take off towards the pitch-black roads of the ranch.

At this juncture in the narrative we begin to realize we are in way over our heads.

After we get deep inside the ranch (after much panicked steering around sharp corners and cliff-edges) I turn over the car to our drunken Volunteer Buddy. Why? Well, I calculated our survival rate. And, after thinking about it, it was much more likely that we would survive the descent down the mountain into the valley if a drunken – yet experienced – driver was behind the wheel instead of me.

Bad plan.

Volunteer Buddy interpreted our screams as she swerved merrily around corners as an invitation to tell us stories about how the authorities were going to find the car empty at the bottom of a ravine with no trace of our bodies.

I couldn’t even make this shit up.

Blonde Beyonce grabbed my shoulder from the back seat in fear and whispered my name repeatedly in a panicked What-The-Fuck sort of tone. We were laughing hysterically - only Volunteer Buddy didn’t know it was because we were in a hysteria brought on by the absurd way in which our lives were destined to end.

We were basically shitting our pants when we reached the peak of the mountain. How would she kill us? Would we even make it down this valley without crashing? WAS THIS THE WORST JOINT DECISION WE HAD EVER MADE?!

The SUV lurched down the slopes of the valley as we yelled, and shrieked, and laughed. About halfway down, Volunteer Buddy changes subjects abruptly from death and murder to cows. She wonders aloud, What if the cows are in our camp?

OH MY HOLY SHIT STOP THE CAR WE ARE ABOUT TO BE MURDERED BY ZOMBIE COWS.

The headlights wash over at least a hundred cows only feet away from our car. They have completely obliterated our camp. Our tent is nowhere to be seen. The only thing visible on this completely ink-black night is a mass of swarming cattle, their eyes glowing evilly in the glare of our headlights.

We abandon the last remnants of our self-control.

The whole car explodes into sobbing, wet, blubbery laughter. Tears are running down my face and I can no longer breathe. This is it, I think, They will find my body two months from now, crushed instead the shell of a SUV trampled by cattle.

Our Volunteer Buddy takes in our reaction and smiles. She wails triumphantly, “You guys are THE BEST!”

She then proceeds to save our lives by driving into the massive herd of cattle with her car and frightening them away from our camp.

It’s like a war zone. Our tent is flattened, and the ground has become a minefield of cow pies.

We re-pitch our tent to the best of our abilities and crawl inside, still shocked and shaken by the night’s events. We pass out immediately, and I am plagued by nightmares of cows sticking their heads into our tent.

The sun rises, and we face the day knowing we are not going to be murdered.

We celebrate by busting open bottles of alcoholic cider at 10 AM and driving with gusto down the mountain, open containers in hand (yes, in my poor Mercedes). We visit the wind caves and the horses and cows (which are not nearly as scary in daylight) and frolic in the fields like jack rabbits on meth.

As for our Volunteer Buddy, well, the jury is still out on whether or not she is a serial killer...

...but if the fortune cookie I ate today has anything to say about it, our Volunteer Buddy is probably not a cold blooded murderer.

But fortune cookies aren't really the most reliable source of information. Hence, my next vehicle will be equipped with four-wheel drive.

You can never be too careful.

Beaver Attacks, Severed Animal Paws, and Other Reasons I'm Convinced I Have Rabies

So I legitimately almost died from fear last night. We were searching for beavers in the dark, and found about six million of them. In the lake. Where they belonged.

But then the bushes started rustling on the opposite side of the walkway from the lake. And, obviously, my brother, cousins, mother, aunt, and myself all started screaming and swinging the flashlights around like crazy people. But, as it turned out, our portion of the walkway was right over a beaver trail.

The beaver in question was harvesting branches from the other side of the walkway, and then dragging them through his tunnel down to the waterfront.

Whew. Mystery solved.

There are an exceptionally large number of beavers in Coppell, Texas. Today, on a nature walk through “the jungle,” we hit the beaver dam mother load.

I’m fairly certain this is where the mutant three hundred pound beavers live. So I stayed the fuck away from there.

However, my hesitation did not stop my intrepid young cousins from venturing into mutant beaver territory. This is not surprising, considering my youngest cousin brought home this in his pocket today:

Unfortunately, I thought that thing was a piece of plant matter, and I tried to demonstrate to my cousin that it wasn’t a squirrel tail (as he suspected). I picked it up off the ground and discovered that the “plant,” though flat, most definitely had distinctive toes and claws. OH MY GAWD.

Dear friends, if I start foaming at the mouth at your next house party, please assume I have rabies and shoot me. Old Yeller style. Even though, honestly, I’m pretty sure you can’t catch rabies from dead animal parts. But you can probably catch other things, which is why I almost burned off my own hands with hand sanitizer and soap. And also why I don’t think you should hug or hold the hands of any males under the age of 13, because they are probably covered in disease from the dead animal paws they carry around in their pockets. Or maybe that’s only my cousin.

The rest of our adventures where fairly mellow…

[This is the Texas state flower, the blue bonnet.]

[Little cousin is scary good at finding body parts of dead animals. It's bordering on obsession, and I'm getting concerned.]

[My brother is king of the mother fucking forest, yo.]

…and my family fully embraced the idea of a dead piranha tagging along.

Also, I’m sure a lot of you have heard stories of my very peculiar eleven year old cousin. So, just to prove that I’m not one to over exaggerate (well, at least not all the time) here is video proof of the insanity:

The Back of Your Head from Brittany Swanson on Vimeo.

Have an excellent weekend, dear readers.

Roasted Piranha, Bum Rushing, and My Reassuring Declaration About Murdering a Homeless Guy With a Shovel

Cast of Characters (In Order of Appearance)

CRAZED DRUNKEN BUM: A man who will never truly understand how close I came to murdering him with a shovel, and burning his body in a fire pit on Cabrillo Beach.

CULTURE: Office mate, and Americorps VISTA sister.

HARLEM: Americorps VISTA sister and murderer of innocent wildlife.

BLONDE BEYONCé: Roommate, office mate, VISTA sister, and dessert fiend.

THE SOURCE: Roommate who was nearly burned alive by Harlem, and who would have run over Crazed Drunken Bum with her car if my shovel skills proved to be unworthy.

HONEY J: Roomate, VISTA sister, and quietest injured person ever. Does not fraternize well with boulders.

And Our Tale Begins…

Last night, I, the roomies, and/or my Americorps VISTA sisters decided to resurrect our bonfire tradition and hit Cabrillo Beach in the dead of night. We packed and purchased the necessary supplies – which included but was not limited to – a shovel, lighter fluid, skewers, wood, beer, an open bottle of Barefoot wine, my very dead friend Sir FrankenFish, my Pentax K-X, marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and a blanket.

What we really should have brought was some raccoon repellant and mace.

If you know anything about our town of residence, you know it’s a whacked out little port city populated mostly by the criminally insane. Or something. But if you’re looking to meet up with some drunken bums, the beach after dark is a good place to be.

Which is exciting, because, you know, we all always wanted to be in a horror film where everyone gets murdered by a sputtering, slow-walking and obviously inebriated loon. Except for me, because I was the chick with the shovel, and I definitely announced several times that I was COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WILLING to knock our stalker’s face off with our conveniently murder-of-a-full-grown-man-sized shovel.

Even more convenient, I could use said shovel to bury our drunken bum friend. Or I could have just burned his body in our bonfire.

God, I swear I’m not a murderer.

Anyway, upon our arrival to the beach, Culture, Harlem, and Blonde Beyoncé were immediately assaulted by a pair of bear-sized raccoons. Which was a pretty fitting start to the evening, I must say. However, I definitely would have put my money on Harlem in an all out raccoon battle, considering that she followed up the incident with the most disturbing raccoon-death story ever. This is the kind of story that makes me reevaluate our friendship.

See, Harlem and her brother found a raccoon in a trashcan one day during their childhood. And instead of running away like normal fucking children, they became convinced that it had rabies – because raccoons are nocturnal, and the only possibly explanation for the raccoon scavenging during daylight hours was rabies. Of course.

So Harlem’s brother tossed a cinder block in the trashcan on top of the poor creature. But it didn’t die. So like any normal children, they decided to put the animal out of its misery – by DUMPING A POT OF BOILING WATER ON IT.

And suddenly it becomes very clear that the drunken bums aren’t the problem. The problem is that I’m a friend to serial killers. Because I’m pretty sure cooking live raccoons is a sign of future homicidal tendencies. And I think this might be a little much for Bob the Pink Deer to handle.

Well, anyway, I decide to be extra cautious when it comes to Harlem. Which turned out to be an excellent decision when she mistook my roommate, The Source, for a vagrant and almost “bum rushed” her and threw her into a fire pit. Because, once again, the only solution to rabid bums is a horrible death by fire. Clearly.

It wasn’t all murder and mayhem. We did make s’mores, and Sir FrankenFish pulled up a chair, downed a bottle of wine, and snarfed up some charcoaled marshmallows.

And then he tried to go for a swim, but that was interrupted by Honey J tripping over some rocks and ending face down on the ground. Which was funny, because she took so long to get up – and didn’t respond to our inquires about her health – so we all thought she was kidding and started laughing. We are some SICK FUCKERS. She could have been dead, but I was too busy thinking, how funny, she looks like she’s mountain climbing horizontally. THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT REACTION TO INJURY, PEOPLE. I AM FRIENDS WITH SERIAL KILLERS AND ASSHOLES.

Anyway, this is where shit starts to get creepy – we are all enjoying the fire when a male figure in dark clothes starts wandering – no, stumbling – toward us.

I realize that my buddies are backing away from the fire, so I too begin to leave. The figure comes closer, and we all start screaming and running across the beach. He yells, “WHAT THE HELL!” at us, and we basically fall all over ourselves trying to collect our things and make a quick exit.

We escape to street level. But it was too easy.

The Source, Honey J, Blonde Beyoncé, and I get into our vehicle (shovel and booze in tow) and drive slowly next to Culture and Harlem as they walk to their car, so that we can defend their lives if any shit goes down.

And then we see him.

CRAZY STUMBLY DRUNK BUM IS STANDING DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FOR CULTURE’S CAR!

And we start screaming our asses off.

Sadly, because we are assholes and nobody ever believes assholes, Culture and Harlem told us to shut up and stop fucking with them. The Source had stopped her car between theirs and the deranged bum, and I informed everyone that it was no big thing, because I was totally and completely willing to get the fuck up out the car and smack the homeless bitch with my fifty-pound shovel. Meanwhile, The Source was preparing to run the fucker down with her car if he took a step closer. In hindsight, my shovel antics were unnecessary, because she totally would have gotten to the bum first. And promptly killed him, without all the bashing and skull cracking.

But, anyway, Culture and Harlem are taking a damn long time getting into their car because they think we are messing with their heads here, but I’m sure they wouldn’t have felt that way if they had seen the mutha fucking death grip I had on that shovel!!

And, from across the street, comes a startling yell:

“GIVE ME A RIDE!”

Culture and Harlem’s eyes bug out of their heads, and they fling the doors open, leap inside, and – I’m sure – hit all the locks. Both cars of scared shitless girls go flying around the corner onto Pacific Avenue, and a collective sigh of relief is heard.

And that, my friends, is how we cheated death.

My Non-Imaginary Blog Readers, a Skulk of FrankenFish, and a Trip into My Torrid Past

The other day, I happened to log on to my old Gmail account and discover that my roommate from my freshman year of college had sent me a happy graduation email back in June. This was pretty exciting news, because said roommate is totally awesome (I mean, seriously, no one else emails me about their little sister’s adventures as a knife salesman in Wisconsin, or writes about their life in the format of the character descriptions at the beginning of a stage play).

I had thought I no longer had her contact information, so the existence of this fairly recent email was pretty fucking sweet. I promptly responded from my current email to see what was up.

Funnily enough, what was up was that my ex roomie has been reading this ridiculous blog!

Brittany! My stalkee!

I have been up to very little. I moved back home late last year and have been looking for a job/applying to grad school/doing various volunteer things since then. It is a lovely calm little life but one that is completely unproductive. Besides the obvious financial problems of unemployment, I find that I fill the hours with stuff to do and completely forget that I am now a social problem. Until, of course, I am reminded.

In any case, you should know that I have been stalking you. I think you may have linked to your twitter account on facebook at some point. Twitter led me to a blog, and later to your new blog. Which I have to say is quite lovely. But, I’ve been feeling creepy reading it, like a paparazzo in a tree. So I’m glad to have your new e-mail so I can come out of the closet and say: Hello to Mr. Frankenfish!

—The Ex Roommate

P.S. It occurs to me that Mr. Frankenfish must have a plural. School of fish, sloth of bears, a clowder of cats. I can’t imagine a school of Frankenfish, so might I suggest, were Mr. Frankenfish ever to find a mate, that they be called a Skulk of Frankenfish? It is used for foxes currently.

Well, I must say, a Skulk of FrankenFish sounds absolutely wonderful. Which means I’ll have to acquire more taxidermy. (The one small problem is that Sir FrankenFish came out in my last post as a lover of lobsters. What do you call a half lobster, half FrankenFish? And what do you call a group of lobsters and FrankenFish? A skulk of FrankenLobsters?)

The other awesome thing about rediscovering was ex roomie’s email was that I got to re-read my ludicrous responses to her emails.

Wow, things have really changed over the past few years.

Below is my response to the ex roomie’s life as told by stage play character descriptions. This was at a time when I though having multiple boyfriends was a good idea (aka, March of 2008).

Main Character - Me: Antisocial, angry student who desperately wants an adventure. This desire prompts her to do very odd things, like travel to Reno, Nevada and Texas and Berkeley and Boston for a few days at a time, or spend her weekends as a drunk groupie on the floor of a dumpy recording studio with an indie band, or plan her post-graduation move to Seoul, Korea. MC has men issues - she doesn’t want a boyfriend, so instead she has a pack of crazy boys/men that she leads on for ages and has constant contact with via text message. She has yet to make good friends with other students.

MC’s “Boyfriend” #1 - The Graphic Designer: Totally emo, artsy 28 year old that MC worked with over the summer. He is constantly depressed about life, and wants to succeed as a graphic designer, so he moved to New York. Despite the distance, this emo graphic designer still manages to have contact with the MC every day - through emails, text messages, and phone calls. He gets drunk on weekends and calls or texts the MC with very raunchy messages. MC has adapted very quickly and might have a possible career in writing very smutty romance novels (the type with Fabio on the cover) because of all the experience she is gaining by composing sexy text messages.

MC’s “Boyfriend” #2 - The Alum: When MC’s mother told her to date a boy from her college, she did not mean an alum from the class of ‘99! Somehow, MC ended up on spontaneous date with the Alum, who is a 29 year old lawyer with a BMW. MC hates all that the Alum stands for, but finds he is a very nice person. Now she just needs to get him to stop acting like her sugga daddy and to stop saying things like “Let’s go to New York…Right now!” and “Yeah, I decided to take the MacBook to my office, and buy a MacBook Pro for my townhouse.” If the MC had any desire to be a trophy wife, she’d be on the right path with this guy. She does wonder from time to time how he manages to afford everything, since he is almost never at work and always asking her to skip class and hang out with him.

MC’s Best Guy Friend: MC and her guy friend used to always hang out - until the Guy Friend got a girlfriend! MC doesn’t mind, except that Guy Friend is now acting like a retard. Guy Friend’s new lady love has decided to go to grad school in Georgia - and now Guy Friend, who has only know this girl for 3 months, is determined to follow her. MC would explain to him that moving across the country for a girl you barely know is probably a bad idea, but she never sees Guy Friend anymore because he is too busy being depressed and plotting his move to the South.

MC’s Crazy Ex: You probably remember [Soldier Boy] - MC’s crazy (now ex) boyfriend. [Soldier Boy] put MC through much pain and suffering, until one day, MC had simply had enough. Since the break, [Soldier Boy] has managed to drop out of college and enlist in the military. MC now finds his antics funny, and hangs out with him from time to time so she can laugh later about his stupidity. Most recently, [Soldier Boy] was upset that his new girlfriend doesn’t have a car, wastes his money, is fat, and is constantly high. MC thought this sounded very familiar - and then realized that [Soldier Boy] was dating a female version of himself. Unfortunately, he did not see the irony and thought the MC was very rude for mentioning it.

MC’s Roommates, aka Turtles: Kung Pao and Bok Choy are MC’s tiny green roommates. The Turtles are very badly behaved. They pretend to be starving to death to inspire sympathy when they have, in fact, eaten a truck load of turtle pellets. They can often be seen chewing on inedible items in their tank (suction cups, water heaters, filter tubes) or trying to escape while the MC is cleaning their habitat (Kung Pao did a swan dive into the trash can last week). Their goal in life is to make outsiders think that the MC mistreats them - even though they get fatter and larger everyday.

Fin

Oh. Wow.

Well, on a side note, Best Guy Friend (who is no longer, since I basically haven’t seen him in years) seems to be doing very well with his lady love. And Soldier Boy has not be blown up in Afghanistan yet. Which is a good indication that I should stop being so cynical. Sorry guys. You know I think you are both wonderful.

To The Graphic Designer, okay, you did text me again. On Friday. What can I do to help you meet some hot New York girls? Because every time I respond to your texts, you launch into a dirty, erotic tangent that I somehow wasn’t expecting. You’re insatiable. In a bad way. And all those pictures you send me fit perfectly and hilariously into the dick picture rules in this fabulous article. Which makes you kind of ridiculous. I mean, I think you’re a nice guy. I just think you need to stop drinking and texting at the same time.

Oh, The Alum. I can honestly say I don’t wonder at all where you are. Every day when I wake up, I give thanks for having the presence of mind to not engage in BDSM activities with you. That is all.

And me? Well, I ended up with the lead singer of that indie band I mentioned. Yes, The Boyfriend. And I’m still an angry, antisocial nitwit. But I’ve improved drastically. I can honestly say I like a lot more people now. Plus I get out more. And I hear I’m a really fun drunk.

Oh, and my turtles are now the size of dinner plates.

So thanks ex roomie! I’ve enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. And I’m really excited about my possible future skulk of FrankenFish!

Cheerio!

Chatroulette, A Dead Fish, and A Lot of Sweaty Dick (Slightly NSFW Because I Was Too Lazy to Censor My Screenshots)

The only entertainment the roomies and I can really afford is the free kind, so any internet-based phenomenon is fair game on a Saturday night, especially if the experience can be enhanced by alcohol consumption (because we’re more likely to spend our hard-earned money on booze than food).

So, a few weeks ago, I was sitting at work reading Zoomdoggle (as usual) and happened to see a post about a website called Chatroulette.

Okay, 17-year-old Russian creator of Chatroulette. You win. Because it is the Best. Website. Ever. And I’m basically suicidal over it, because somehow I didn’t think of it first. And it KILLS ME.

The only thing keeping me from offing myself over my failings as an internet entrepreneur (preferably in a dramatic manner involving chainsaws and cottage cheese) is the sheer amount of fun I’m having on Chatroulette. Like, really. And if you don’t know what Chatroulette is, I’m mentally slapping you right now for living under a rock that isn’t Wi-Fi equipped. Because good lord, you are missing out!

Basically, you get onto Chatroulette, it connects with your webcam, and then you talk to other people on their webcams. If you don’t like what you see, you just click the “Next” button and move on to another webcam.

But there are some things you should know before you get started.

First, half the people on Chatroulette are sitting around like assholes waiting to be entertained. Then a whole fuckload of dudes are poised in front of their PCs with their cocks hanging out, furiously masturbating (to what, I wonder? The disgusted look on people’s faces? My smiling countenance as I yell, “You’re SO TINY!” into the microphone before I press “next”?). And then, there is the small but awesome percentage of people who are on Chatroulette to do something creative. You really want to be in the last group – your time on Chatroulette will be much more gratifying!

(Also, I think Chatroulette is much more rewarding a group setting. You usually whisk right by the sad dudes sitting alone in their rooms. But I always give groups of people the benefit of the doubt.)

Well, I wasn’t about to sit around all night and wave to naked guys. Instead, I pulled Sir Fitzwilliam FrankenFish down from his perch and commenced unusual online activities!

The roomies and I set YouTube to play the Jaws theme song, and started hitting next. The following is a description of what a typical viewer experienced.

The Setting: The empty living room of an apartment.

The Sounds: The Jaws theme song growing louder.

The Story: A toothy fish head emerges from the lower corner of the screen. It “swims” across the shot, and then towards the webcam…

Well, our antics were astoundingly well received. As in, people were fucking laughing their asses off. As well as offering alcohol to my taxidermied piranha, pretending to fish for it, screaming, pulling out available stuffed animals for comparison, etc.

But you can see for yourself. Because we fucking documented that shit!

I think the most important characteristic of our little Chatroulette spiel is that no one, in the fucking universe, expects to see a hideous dead fish upon pressing the “Next” button. Yes, you see masks. And cocks. And signs saying “Show us your titties”. But not tacky taxidermy.

[First, there were other pranksters.]

[Then there was cock. And cock. And more cock. So I’m only including one cock picture.]

[And space aliens.]

[And dumb bitches at slumber parties. Umm, is the chick with the soda can curlers trying to be Lady Gaga’s uglier little sister from the Telephone video? Because we all know how I feel about that.]

[And terrified dudes.]

[Some people even got so excited that they grabbed the nearest stuffed animal and joined in.]

[Some people wanted to fight Sir FrankenFish. But lost because they’re lame.]

[And some people inspired Sir FrankenFish to come out and talk about his sexuality. You see, he is attracted to lobsters. But the other creatures in the river in South America where he came from aren’t very accepting of his preferences.]

When the roomies and I first began, we naively set the goal of getting a screenshot of Sir FrankenFish with a dick. Well, that goal was met. Many, many times.

We need a new goal.

As a matter of fact, I think this could make an excellent drinking game – take a swig every time you see a cock!

Oh.

Wait.

I’m not sure I want alcohol poisoning.

P.S. This post is dedicated to Turco for the following Facebook comment:

P.S.S. Baby Grey is a very slutty feline that lives with Turco and The Boyfriend.

P.S.S.S I also realize he was refering to taking pictures, not alcoholic shots. But I have booze on the mind. As I do. Everyday.

P.S.S.S.S Plus cats eat fish. Although I’m fairly certain piranhas would be able to eat a cat. But a fishy alcoholic drink would be appealing to a cat, right?

P.S.S.S.S.S Yes. I’m shutting up now.

Why Part of Alaska Should Cede from the Union for the Betterment of the State as a Whole, and What that Has to Do With My Dead Fish

There wasn’t exactly a huge outpouring of ideas from readers when it came to naming my hideous dead piranha, but that’s not exactly surprising because no one reads this crap. Luckily, some creative types came up with Hannibal and Chainsaw – which are pretty awesome names – but my fickle heart was already set on something.

FrankenFish!

Ah, FrankenFish. The perfect name for my dead and scaly associate. I have given my eBay-bought taxidermy a whole new life after death – so I think the name is only fitting.

Except that it’s already taken.

Yes – someone else came up with FrankenFish first! And I thought I was being so witty! But the original FrankenFish has already starred in a motion picture. And is therefore, automatically, more popular than my preserved little friend. Barely.

You see, I Wikipedia-d that shit (yes, Wikipedia can be a verb. But, as I tried to explain to a little old lady yesterday, Amazon can not. You cannot Amazon something. It simply is not of Google or Wikipedia status) and found a film from 2004 called Frankenfish. Apparently, Frankenfish is like the worst movie ever, because Wikipedia had this to say about the plot summary:

Yes, Wikipedia is telling you that this plot summary is simply too fucking long and detailed. They don’t want this information, because nobody freaking cares. In fact, the jack asses that spent an hour composing this Wikipedia entry have completely wasted their time and effort, according to Wikipedia. Because Frankenfish is so lame, it only merits a sentence! A SENTENCE!

Wikipedia thinks you can IMPROVE this article by REMOVING details. Have you ever seen anything like this before?! I legitimately feel sympathy for Mark Dippe, because I bet no studio ever financed a film directed by him ever again. In fact, his Wikipedia bio is one line long. It says he is from Alaska. And now I legitimately feel sympathy for Alaska. Because it is the birthplace of a director who makes films that even THE FUCKING INTERNET doesn’t care about.

The horror.

Even more horrific is the film’s theme song, which was apparently retarded enough to merit a mention:

“Wata”? Really?

Anyway, because Frankenfish the movie has made such horrible use of a perfectly good fish name, I hereby claim it as my own, with the hope I can do it justice.

World, meet Sir Fitzwilliam FrankenFish! (The Sir and Fitzwilliam add some sexiness and class, don’t you agree?)

P.S. According to IMDb, Mark Dippe’s career is in a bit of a tail spin. He’s directed some straight to DVD cartoons about Garfield the lasagna-eating cat, a film called Gigi that doesn’t even have a plot summary, and – get this – his next project is The Legend of Spyro (yes, about that purple dragon from the Sony game series).

Alaska, if I were you, I’d cede the territory that bitch was born in, stat. Give it a flag, a king, and call it Lame Land. Problem solved. Our buddy Mark isn’t from Alaska anymore.

All hail Lame Land, home of mutant fish film directors and the arbitrary lost caribou.

My Dead Photo Bombing Piranha Needs a Name*

*You know you’re now curious enough to read this whole post. I am the wizard of attention-grabbing titles.

When you’re poorer than a church mouse (I don’t understand that expression – wouldn’t a church mouse have access to an alms jar, while a typical house mouse would not? I think that being a bank vault mouse would be a damn good time – if mice were actually able to spend money. Sorry, just rambling here) you have to be pretty creative with your fun.

My latest attempt to brighten up my life involves carrying around a dead fish in my purse, and staging “photo bombing” sessions. And now you’re like, wha the fuck?! Yeah, you know what I said. A dead fish. In my handbag.

You can blame it on eBay. And the fact that I live in a town full of weirdos. But this seemed to be the best idea I’d ever had when I thought of it (and still is).

Just think, my dead piranha friend can have his own Twitter and Flickr page. A huge cult following. An online persona. I can take him all over the world, and then have a giant portfolio of travel photography ruined by an ugly dead fish (what, exactly, are the stipulations about bringing taxidermy into other nations?).

And all this fun only cost me $9 on eBay!

Pure, cheap, brilliance.

But to really put this fun new plan into motion, I need to give my new zombie fish a hot spanking title. Yeah, that’s right – he needs a name people!

Once my ugly fish gets a name, this shit will be official. And I can start my project. (Dude, are the security guys at LAX gonna flip out if I have a piranha in my carry on? Because that shit is gonna show up in the baggage x-ray machine. Yes, I am already thinking about this. It’s good to plan ahead.)

So help a poor girl out. Comment, or tweet, or Facebook me or some shit. It’s so little to ask when you know my dead fish antics will provide hours of online amusement!

But don’t think my scaly new friend will be replacing Bob the Pink Deer and his quest to save children who have witnessed murders as my mascot. Because that shit’s still on.

Many Thank Yous and Fish Love Bites,