Saturday, June 30, 2007 will forever be remembered as the day we invented Fuzzy Tang. Before then, I didn’t even know that sugar-free Tang existed.
We carried our creation to the Roughrider Days parade, where we met up with Cindi’s parents and uncle Mike, who’d arrived very early to save us a good spot. Since we were still early, we took advantage of the $2 long islands that Ponderosa Liquors and Wildlife Gallery was selling right behind where we sat. Very soon, we had bathroom-related emergencies, and one of the locals took us into the beauty salon to pee. We loved Dickinson.
The parade was awesome, as expected. There were Shriners in little cars, class reunion floats, Denny Halsted the rodeo clown (the two-time Canadian entertainer of the year!), gigantic tractors, candy raining from flatbed trucks, and mardi gras beads.
Also, a “you’re going to hell, sinners!” float. That was my favorite. You don’t see that much ’round these parts.
After the parade, we went to Dan’s supermarket for beverages and such, and it was there that we discovered NOBBYS, the coated-peanut snack that’s the worst thing you’ve ever tasted, and yet you can’t stop eating them. We went back to Cindi’s parents’ house for lunch, and were joined by Cindi’s aunt Rosemary, possibly the coolest old person we’d ever met. She told us she was a pimp, and called her garden hoe ‘velvet’. It was confusingly awesome.
We took a nap, and then part of the group headed to look at scary cemeteries while Jumi and I sat on the patio, knitting. Michelle, Dustin, and Gavin arrived; we played with fireworks and monkey nuts in the backyard until it was time to go back downtown for the main event.
matt’s blue balls
wendy having a time-out
gavin’s smoke bombs
We piled in the Dead Hooker and headed downtown to the Party on the Pavement. We’d heard rumors about it, and were very excited to experience it ourselves. We began at Bernie’s Esquire (rentadrinkingbuddy.com), where we played some naked ladies, met some dude Cindi went to high school with, and got ourselves nuzzled by Bernie. He’s related to her somehow, just like everybody in Dickinson.
We went down to the other end of the blocked-off street to see the band, but they were having technical difficulties. We decided to check out the Eagles Club, where we signed the guestbook, turned off all the lights in one side of the bar while trying to ride on the motorized chair installed in the stairwell, and pissed off the people at the class of 1987 reunion by visiting their special bar. Then we went to the ladies’ room and met probably the only black girl to live in Dickinson. She told us about her favorite cocktail: Hpnotiq and Grey Goose. You drink it, and all the old guys go HOLLA!
What else could we do? The bartender asked, “you know that’s two kinds of liquor, right?” Duh. We even got one of the rodeo cowboys at the end of the bar to try Hpnotiq. As expected, it was absolutely terrible. And so we loved it. HOLLA!
We took our drinks outside, and by then the band was playing. Half the city was standing in a half-circle in the street, about 50 feet from the stage. This was confusing; apparently North Dakotans don’t know how to party, but we did: We took up spots right in front and started dancing (as is my wont, I danced barefoot). The band was none other than Bismarck’s finest cover band, 7 Tall. We loved them, and were suitably outraged that they had to remove ‘Crazy Bitch’ from their setlist. It had bad words in it, after all.
the autographed 7tall setlist
After the band finished, we hung out talking to them for a bit, and then Cindi wandered off with the high school dude to do dirty things in a port-a-potty. We went back into the Eagles Club. Matt and I visited the handicapped stall in the ladies’ room together for, uh, moral support. Yeah. While he went to go use the men’s bathroom, I busied myself with digging through drawers in the banquet room. I have no idea why, it just seemed like good entertainment at the time. While we were doing that, Wendy was upstairs almost getting into a fight with the class of 1987. When the guy almost jumped on her, she knocked his drink out of his hand and took off.
DICKINSON RULES.
We returned to Bernie’s just in time for last call, then everybody piled out into the streets to stagger around, shouting at each other. We finally regrouped, and Wendy, Jumi, and Cindi headed to the NoDak Motel for a lesbian pool party (you’ll have to have one of them explain), while Matt and I went back to the house to take advantage of nobody else being around. We didn’t hear them get home sometime after 3am.