Something funny

"GRAPE KOOL AIDE"
After my brother Randy had his night of wedding and "woop de do" I went to work on the line. I had transfered my card to the Fairbanks local. What I was really trying for was a gig at the city with Randy...I was happy with 40 hours a week..fixing pot holes during the summer and shoveling snow all winter. I came one number to getting just that except a school friend of mine named "Melvin" took the gig....I should have talked him out of it cause I knew he wanted to go up north and frankly I really didn't. Melvin had "overdosed" on acid....not once...not twice....but FIVE TIMES"!!!!.....ok this left the poor guy about as sharp as a bowl of oat meal...and Randy would tell me all about it...so I took a gig up north...the summer of 76 when our country turned 200 I was working at "Isabelle Pass"...I remember my first day on the job they hand me a shovel,a pair of rubber boots and take me to a large pond that was basically a half football field size "cess pool"...some how during the winter it had backed up and now it was a two story sized pile of frozen POO AND PEE PEE with pieces of toilet paper hanging off it...our job was to thaw it out with steam tubes chop it up and pull the lining out straight....and another thing....it SMELLED,SMELLED LIKE RANK DEAD POO!!!!!, My first day I ask one of the guys...."Do they put all the new guys here..?"thinking this was some sort of initiation.....He goes...."No dude your just lucky"....story of my life....so a poo shoveling I went.......mean time when I wasn't on the line I stayed with some friends in town...Mike C(Mr Up with People,boy scott guy) GB and another friend from school....Reed...one of the coolest most intense guys I knew...I remember him from school one day I was catching the bus with some gal from school out in North Pole....Reed came on the bus...all bad with a tude to match....went to the back of the bus...pulled out a blues harp and played non-stop for 45 minutes....he was one of the best harp players I ever knew. So I was back for R&R and hanging out with the boys when they did something funny one day. Mike C had by now got a job with Alaska Airlines (where he still works today) Reed was working somewhere....GB had gotten this job with the State of Alaska as an audiologist ,testing how deaf people were...tuff gig considering he had no degree....now let's go back a ways....
When I first met GB he was this..out door kinda guy...wearing big hiking boots,a huge back pack and a leather hat with beads and feathers sticking out everywhere. I still remember the night at the One way In when GB got "touched"...I'm not sure if he had been saved before...his aunt was a believer. I just remember that night....The Jesus people had been praying for GB and it was like this....his legs turned into rubber...He kept falling down and we kept picking him up...and all he kept saying was...."I never felt like this before"....boom back on the floor...we pick him up and .."I never felt like this before".....boom back on the floor. So one day Gb decides....camping,hunting,sticking feathers in his hat ...wasn't cool anymore.....gormet food....fine wine ...would be his new "Image"....problem was Mike C and Reed as well as Randy....all knew it was a .....show...fake...Now at my age....hey the guy could cook....developed a very refined taste in wine...food,cheese, bread....20 years before any of us......but then it was pretentious and snobby and misunderstood We were staying at these apartments in midtown and GB would come home to yet another "room behind the couch"...go figure...he was always sleeping behind a couch....with a lamp,books,a cassette player and a sleeping bag...But at this time Gb had this "fancy" gig at the State...he would come home everyday with a copy of the "Wall Street Journnal"....at my age I know about stocks...securities...bonds.....at that time I don't think that GB knew the difference between a bond or a bong frankly.....but every day he would come home take off 100.00 Italian "racing gloves"..( weird because he didn't even own a car...let alone an italian one)....GB had a crystal decantor...that he would keep his red wine in....in the fridge no less....ok all you red drinkers know....you never store red in the fridge. Red wine is always..ALWAYS...stored at room temp...anyway...off would come the gloves...out would come the Journal and out would pour a class of red out of the "fine decator and into a crystal...goblet" .......each day around that time he would come home we ...were almost always watching reruns of "Star Trek"....so one day I come home. getting ready to return up north . Mike C and Reed said this....." We were drinking beer today......so we ran out....and didn't have any cash to get more beer.......so the thought occurred to us......GB has a whole bottle of wine sitting in the fridge....in that fancy smancy...crystal..decantor...well we drank all that ....and having no cash to replace the wine.....we came up with an "alternative"....we replaced the good wine with.....GRAPE KOOL-AIDE.....ok folks.....let me educate you about both wine experts and "foodies"....all good wine drinkers...rather they are...consumers or experts. know.. ONE look at a bottle...see the color..smell the bouquet...the moment the cork comes off the bottle or the top comes off the decantor....they know....KNOW the difference between......fine wine.....and sugary grape......KOOL AIDE......the boys tell me to play it cool....I'm like sitting there watching Mr Spock,Bones,Zulu.....Captain Kirk......while GB.....takes off the 100.00 italian racing gloves....opens up them Journal....like he's Warren Buffet(long before we even knew who the "Oracle of Ohmaha"would ever be)....cracks open the decantor.....Spock......Chekoff....out of the side of my eye........he's reading the Journal.....slowly....he reaches for his crystal....goblet.....hell I could smell the sugar from across the room.....reminded me of grade school.....every trailer park home knows that smell of sugar and kool-aide....I'm looking at my drunken friends....Mike....Reed....and they are REALLY REALLY trying to maintain....not appear to be as hammered as they are.......James T Kirk......the Horta.....warp drive......dilithium crystals......Scotty.....beam me up.....FINALLY........LIPS TO THE GOBLET!!!!!!.....silence........then....then....WHAT IS THIS SHIT!!!!!.......WHERE IS MY WINE.....WHAT DID YOU ASSHOLES....DO......YUK....across the room and into the sink flies the decantor.....meantime the tension breaks....and everyone....even me wind up on the floor in fits of laughter.....I wonder if they ever replaced his wine......I forget......I'm sure they did...well at least you would think they would.....KOOL AIDE....RIPPLE....MAD DOG 2020, MERLOT....IT'S ALL THE SAME TO A PRETENDER...