Back in the ’90’s, I was the primary Coca Cola illustrator at Impact, the promotional division of Foote, Cone and Belding. This was my first and last professional full time, salaried gig and it lasted from September 1992 to April 15th, 1998.
I worked with some of the kindest, loveliest people ever. There were a ton of meetings, work and many parties. There were party-parties, official parties, going away parties, you name it. There was fun to be had and we had about as much as was allowed by law. Maybe a bit more.
Our proclivity for partying broke out of the work place and we decided to make a yearly weekend out of it. Since a good chunk of us were married and another good chunk weren’t, we figured it’d be best for the guys and gals to have their own weekends. There were already enough rumors flying around.
The ladies called their get together the BVD weekend. I have no clue what went on there, but there was an off chance of liquor being present.
For us men, we had Shorty Robe weekend. No doubt inspired by radio personality Kevin Matthews who had a running bit about men spending the weekend together, sleeping together, cooking steaks, wearing shorty robes…IS IT WRONG?!?!?
We said no, it wasn’t! Some of us may even have brought shorty robes with. In fact, to extend the bit, each year that we did it, there was always one junior account guy who just started and wasn’t that familiar with us, so of course, we played on that. We’d invite the new kid along on the big weekend and then once in awhile in the weeks leading up to the event, at lunch or out of the blue, –when the new kid happened to be around– one of us would ask, “Hey, who’s Vaseline Boy this year?” and of course another would respond “gosh, who *was* the last hired?”
And each year, the new kid would get extremely worried, sometimes bowing out, but the entirety of the bit was just naming the new guy Vaseline boy. We let their imaginations do the rest. Us, Hitchcock, we use people’s imaginations.
But the yearly weekend was held at a couple places over the years. We rented a big beautiful house on Lake Delevan the first year. The was football, poker, beer and films being shown, us making commentary on all of it. Great acoustics in that house, prompting us to start letting loose with YEEEEHAAAAAH quite a bit (me being the worst offender by far) and I’m pretty sure we broke two of the three toilets in the first hour– I’m not even sure how that was possible but there you go. Still, we had a good time.
Second year we couldn’t get the house again so Dave Becker was kind enough to host at his house, which we filled up, played football on wet grass, exhausted ourselves, played poker, drank copious amounts and passed out from the football as much as the beer.
The next couple years was held out at a cabin in Ottawa, some 2 hours southwest of Chicago. The cabin was sequestered inside a deserted farm that for all intents and purposes could have been the setting for any and all slasher films since 1973. I was giving Scott Wheatley a ride to the event and we thought we’d gotten lost, until we saw a youth standing in a field. We pulled up and asked for directions. He was probably about 10 years old and sucking on something. Lollipop, turkey leg, human femur, I don’t know — but he was no help and we got a simultaneous Shining *and* Deliverance vibe from him at the same time, so we motored on, through the murder farm.
The cabin was nice enough though when we got there. I guess after the farm and the kid, anything else looked pretty good. They had a giant stack of mats in the corner to pull down and put sleeping bags on. This was a place that seemed really perfect for big camp outs fir larger crowds. We had a great time, as there was drinking, a fire pit out back, drinking, some occasional wildlife, we ordered a pizza, there was some drinking and one enterprising gent actually went to the trouble of making pot brownies and bringing them to the get together.
Now, I think the statute of limitations has passed on pot related affairs since this happened 25 years ago and hell, it’s legal now, but I’ll protect the anonymity of the baker. Although I’m sure he’d survive the scrutiny, he’s a very able man.
The thing IS….. up until that point, I’d never had pot in any form. No one believes a 34 year old guy had never tried it but as of that weekend, the point was moot. Never liked the smell of it and I’ve never been a smoker in any form. But brownies… well, especially after copious amounts of beer, brownies are always in my wheel house, so I munched big time. Probably half the pan. It was a big pan. In the meantime, there was poker and films about wildlife and eventually, I had my first case of dry mouth ever. It was horrible! And since I was already buzzed, I sensed nothing else out of the ordinary. Until the next day. I had a good night’s sleep. I don’t even think I had much, if any hangover. But I was very tired.
It came time to leave and Wheatley and I were driving back. A very long and boring drive, where the endless vista of flat land was broken up only by blinking. Suddenly, I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. I seemed to have all my faculties in order but mother of god, there were times when I just wanted to pull off to the side of the road and sleep. Or just drive into the corn, to see what happened. Wheatley had no clue what was going on in my head. Thankfully, I had the life giving caffeine of Coca Cola.
Coke. I’d like to teach the world to sing.
After finally getting home and sleeping further, I went to work on Monday. And here’s why I’ll likely never try pot again in any form, even if it is in brownies. I couldn’t draw! At all! All of Monday, all of Tuesday, I could not get anything on paper. Thankfully, there was a lull in the workload. I happened to be in the facilities when the baker himself showed up and we talked about his product. When I mentioned I ate about half the pan, good old Heisenberg literally hit the ground laughing. Evidently, there was an extremely large amount of product in those squares, no *wonder* I couldn’t draw, I think I was still high on Tuesday.
The only other memorable event from I think the last time we went to the cabin for the last big weekend– we got it in our heads to get a pizza delivered. It was a beautiful night and seating was sparse around the campfire, so I went into the cabin, picked up the couch, and lifting it over my head, proceeded to march down the hilly incline to the campfire. What’s interesting to me is that I’m pretty sure I could never do that sober but we needed seating. Eventually, I went in to order the pizza on the cabin phone. I was having difficulty reading the phone book for some reason. I was trying to phone the local pizza establishment in the yellow pages, “Little Diana’s” but somehow, I kept calling the standard white pages entry for “Little, Diana”.
I also seemed to have a very difficult time forming words to get the order right, not that the Little family was ever going to come through on delivery. I think someone else eventually made the right call to the right place. But that was our last Shorty Robe weekend. As always, a good time was likely had by all.
The moral of the story?
Don’t do any of the bad stuff.
Thank you, good night and god bless.
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