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.

“What Meat Do You Want?!”: Free Food, Electrocution, Camping, and Other Things That Don’t Normally Happen But Are Occurring This Week

I was having some kind of out of body experience yesterday morning.

It all began at 5 a.m., when Soldier Boy texted me because he was sitting in Maine on a lay over on the way back from his latest stint in Afghanistan. At the time, I was all sorts of disoriented – I could comprehend that the text was from him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t read what it said. I groaned, rolled over, and started dreaming of Werebears and unmitigated violence against cubicles.

Then my alarm rang, because it was two hours later and time to get up.

In the shower, I was so distracted I couldn’t remember if I had shampooed my hair. There was something off. Someone had tried to contact me, and I suspected it was Soldier Boy, but I was kind of creeped out because dreaming about your exs is just not kosher. Finally, soaking wet and frustrated, I picked up my iPhone and discovered this:

Soldier Boy: “I know its early and I foot expect a response but boo!”

Umm. Well, I certainly felt better about not being able to read the damn thing. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Homeboy was either drunk, or more tired than I was.

I texted him back.

We ended up launching into a text message conversation that lasted the entire length of my before-work routine, and nearly caused my unfortunate demise.

See, while holding the iPhone in one damp hand, and the blow dryer in the other, I tried to plug in the blow dryer and somehow ended up with my wet fingers on the prongs when they made contact with the socket. I have never made this mistake before, no matter how disoriented.

OH MY HOLY HAIR STYLING.

I don’t think I’ve ever been electrocuted. Except for that one time on purpose in high school science class for a lab project. I had zero idea of what was going on, except that my right hand had acquired some kind of spontaneous disease in which it fell asleep and was stabbed a million times with a million invisible needles.

3.7527 seconds later, I was like, Oh holy fucking hell, I am a retard, I JUST ELECTROCUTED MYSELF.

Quite the Monday-morning shocker, if I do say so myself. (Haha, I just realized I made a pun. Go me.)

If Monday sets the tone for the rest of the week, than me electrocuting myself makes quite a lot of sense.

See, this Friday, I, Blonde Beyonce, and Culture are hitting the road to potentially be murdered on a vacant lot two hours away from Los Angeles. We know this totally awesome volunteer from work and she invited us to go camping on the property she and her husband own north of Santa Barbara.

We were all like, Hell yeah, we’ll go camping with you awesome volunteer lady whom we all adore!

And then, last night, The Source is like, Wait, who the fuck are you going camping with?!

And we’re like, it’s cool, she’s really bad ass! And she’s going to set up the tents beforehand during the day, so we don’t have to set up in the dark on Friday night!

Which means, of course, that we have to drive up there ourselves in my ancient Mercedes which hit an astounding 200,000 miles last night.

Why in my old car? Well, because Culture’s car is less powerful than my once-top-of-the-line Mercedes and more likely to get stuck when we DRIVE ON A DIRT ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO RENDEZVOUS WITH OUR VOLUNTEER BUDDY!

Plus, apparently, when we get there, the only cell reception we will have will be in the ocean.

So, in summary: We are taking an old high mileage car onto an isolated dirt road after dark to meet a woman we barely know, and the only way we can contact the outside world is by running into the ocean with our cell phones.

This is turning into another one of those serial killer posts.

It’s all okay though, I’ve got a plan. In the case our buddy turns out to be a murderer who has lured us unsuspectingly onto several acres of vacant property to stab us and throw us into the Pacific Ocean, one of us will grab the tent stakes, while I get the car – we will fight her off while we get into the Mercedes, lock the doors, and then floor it into the ocean, where we will call 911 and turn my car into a boat by using the tent as a sail – because her large four wheel drive vehicle will surely destroy us and beat us to the highway if we try to make a run for it.

[Obviously, I will be the first to die, since I am inside the halfway submerged vehicle. If your car is sinking, you have to wait until the pressure is equalized (aka, your car is full of water) before you can open the door to escape. Not my best plan.]

Brittany and Crew, 1. Serial Killer, 0.

Please, don’t doubt my ability to stay calm in the face of danger or take on serious missions. I have the determination of a college kid on Adderall the night before a final exam. In fact, today, I was so determined to eat breakfast that Culture and I sprinted out of the office while yelling, “We’re on a secret mission! Be back later!” and rushed to Subway because they were giving out free breakfast sandwiches and coffee before 11 a.m.

And, if there’s any fact you should know about my town of residence, it’s that the homeless population is larger than the population of people with homes. This means, when Subway announces free food, the place is instantaneously transformed into a mental health ward that smells of toilet-bowl moonshine and sweat.

Culture and I didn’t care. We stood 6 inches behind Smelly Toothless McGee and got our free breakfast sandwiches. When the Subway lady yelled, “WHAT MEAT DO YOU WANT?” to Smelly, he replied, “Ghhhharrrrg, myyantabal jusrter nuts!” and we nodded our heads like, “Yeah, get that dude some jusrter nuts! I’ll have sausage!”

[This is the part where you're like, wait, doesn't this blogger work in a homeless shelter and shouldn't she be nicer in her portrayals of homeless people? Okay, look, if you worked with homeless dudes, you would understand that I am being very fair and accurate. Plus, I have a true fondness for these smelly nut jobs because I've kept their shopping carts from getting stolen. That's more than you can say.]

And that, my friends, is why I’m not going to get murdered this weekend.

P.S. Thanks to Soldier Boy's cousin for telling me that "What Meat Do You Want?" would be a good blog title. Because, truly, it is.

Power of Bob the Pink Deer

"After reading my roomie’s post I think we should start a ‘Power of Bob the Pink Deer’ foundation to help save children who have witnessed murders."

-Tasha Dee, my infinitely wise roommate, who read the post below and had the Best. Idea. Ever.

How I Cured a Potential Serial Killer*

*Or, “How I was Scared to Death of a 7 Year Old.”

I have no idea what inspires people to reproduce, other than to satisfy their God complexes. Children are basically tiny humans with completely malleable personalities, and no verbal filters, so they can learn any behavior and express any emotion without remorse. This is truly terrifying. Your child is a like a tiny, snot-covered window into the recesses of your tarnished soul. They pick up your personality disorders like a dog picks up fleas, and suddenly you’re standing in line at Starbucks with a 3 year old who is calling the cashier “mentally slow” and shrieking how they “want room for cream, dammit,” with the lisp of an adorable cherub. Holy shit. I bet you forgot that your toddler was present for your adult tantrum. Now the whole world is staring at your sweet angel, not-so-secretly thinking about what a ass hat you are, and that they ought to contact child services.

Don’t worry. For the most part, you have to do some pretty heinous shit for your child to be so messed up that they can’t find some faucet of society that accepts them. Surely they will be able to bond with other emo snots who are searching for meaning in skin-tight jeans and man bangs.

But, keep this in mind when you stab your husband with a letter opener in the living room during your 2 year old’s Seasame Street-theme birthday party: serial killers pretty much have to fly solo.

Exhibit A

(Those psycho kiddie drawings in movies always look fake. But is this not the most legit thing you’ve ever fucking seen?!! Wanna know why? THAT SHIT IS REAL.)

I was watching a few kids the other day while their parents were otherwise engaged (in a life skills workshop, how ironic) when my heart fucking stopped from looking into the eyes of evil. She was 7 years old, and she was furiously drawing something that looked like a knife. Or the Statue of Liberty’s torch. I wasn’t sure, so I threw a meaningful glance in the direction of my friend/co-worker, who I could tell – from the shocked look on her face – saw what I was seeing too.

[This is the point of the Japanese horror film where the stupid protagonist bitch stops trying to help the creepy little girl because she’s realized that normal children don’t grip their crayons like hammers and scribble black holes. Or wear all their nasty, unwashed hair in their face. It’s just not normal. That kid doesn’t need your help; she wants to eat your face off with her little bat teeth! Duh!]

This may be my imagination, but I’m pretty sure this kid was humming a creepy little tune to herself while she scribbled blood all up over those daggers. I felt this with the utmost sincerity: fuck my life. I am not a psychologist in any sense of the term; even worse, I had just finished reading Deeper than Dead by Tami Hoag, in which a little boy goes all batshit crazy and stabs another kid on the playground.

I don’t want to die by the hand of some 7 year old who can’t draw for shit.

Well, being a totally responsible adult and all, I knew I had to reach out and help this kid (just like every other retard in Hollywood horror flicks). What are you drawing? I said, in my sweetest, most nauseating, I-can-be-your-best-friend voice. “A picture,” was the super curt response.

Fuck. She’s fucking crazy and she’s secretive. She’s totally going to find out where I live and hide under my bed. And then stab me to death while giggling creepily!

So I pretended to not be interested. And kept coloring my picture – which was so nice and happy, I was certain it was imbued with the power to eradicate serial-killer-like tendencies.

Exhibit B

(I’m usually not a fan of happy shit. But I will go to great rainbow colored lengths to prevent the proliferation of serial murders. Go me.)

Well, Psycho Sally (not her real name) finally took the bait. She moved closer and closer, and finally, in that sweet, scary little voice of hers, she announced that my picture was pretty – and asked if she could have it.

Never in my life had I more willingly given up a piece of my work. Please, I thought, little crazy girl – be cured by the power of Bob the pink deer!

Well, now came the next stage. Homegirl wanted my shit, and since I had given it to her, she was going to be my friend. At this juncture in my narrative, she has now cut out her bloody knives and pasted them in the hands of a deranged stick figure. Oh, and written the words, “You are going to be dead” across the drawing. WHAT THE FUCK, LITTLE GIRL??!

Well, because the little girl was now my friend, I – and my co-worker – continued our desperate inquiry about her artwork. She then told us that her cousin had been murdered. Someone had come into the house and stabbed said cousin.

ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW, LIFE?!

Surely, you jest. All those fucking movies about crazy children are based on fact? Disturbed children like to draw violent images? I probably should have already known this, but crap. I felt like I was living in an episode of Dexter. Hey look everybody! I found a future murderer! Now all I have to do is teach her to only murder bad people, and how not to get caught by the police!

Someone should make a television show about my life, like seriously.

Well, anyway, Little Psycho’s mom came to collect her – I was hoping she’d learned some useful life skills – and we parted ways. The kid took my drawing with her. And cracked a smile. So, yes, public at larger – my superior happy art skills may have saved your life. Because of me, you will not be stabbed to death. I like to be thanked via PayPal.*

*Don’t get fucking pissed, I know this kid needs a freakin’ psychologist. But sometimes, it’s therapeutic to laugh at how art mimics life. And I’m fucking traumatized as shit – if I murder you in your sleep, you’ll know why. And your family will forgive me because I obviously couldn’t help it – I looked into the eyes of pure evil, and they drove me to do it. Duh.

The Stalkers at UPS

It’s kind of awesome that some minimum-wage earning, half-in-the-bag, unshaven stoner took the time out of his busy schedule at the United Parcel Service to commit a federal offense – just so he scare the crap out of some unsuspecting internet shopper.

Yes, that shopper would be me.

On Saturday, I finally received the planner I had ordered from Poketo. It came in a manila envelope, and had been shipped by some packing service through UPS. The flap was taped down with industrial packing tape, and I struggled to rip it open. At first, only a small corner opened – but that corner, much to my surprise, had “eet” written on it in someone’s sloppy cursive.

Now why would anyone write something on the inside of a manila envelope flap?

At first, I figured it was just a cute message from someone at Poketo, in the same vein as all those Etsy artists who write you “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” notes because they’re starving to death into their studio apartments trying to make ends meet by doing freelance photography and sewing plush monster dolls.

But no.

After taking a pair of scissors and cutting carefully around the flap, I discovered this:

“Brittany let’s meet”

Whoa. Whoa. Cue panic mode! (If you’re not aware, all young females from the suburbs have been raised with the idea that everyone is out to rape/kill them and if they aren’t extremely cautious, death by psychotic drug addict/serial rapist is inevitable. I can thank my mother for the waves of insuppressible fear that arise every time I happen to be alone on a sidewalk after dark.)

Here’s the thing. Obviously, my UPS stalker had gotten my name from the address label on the package, and therefore could very well have my address. He could show up at my door, knock, ask for Brittany, and then murder me. All because I had made the grievous mistake of ordering something online. Woe is me! My internet shopping addiction has led to my demise!

For fuck’s sake. What kind of serial killer sends notes to his victims via UPS before showing up at their door, with no idea what they look like? This seems like a shaky plan. This hypothetical serial killer would be in federal prison by now.

So, of course, I calmed down. And laughed. Silly UPS fucktards – they really must be bored. Fucking with my mail and shit. Yeah, dude was probably high and hitting on people via cryptic envelope messages seemed like a good idea.

But, ummm….if I turn up dead, would you let the police know about this?

Thanks.

I mean, not that that would happen. I’m just kidding.

Sort of.