Brad Brown

Photo by WordRidden

My co-worker Mike invited me up to his house for a 4th of July Lowcountry boil. A Lowcountry boil is where you cook shrimp, crawdads (a Southern term for crayfish), crab, and various other meats and vegetables in a giant pot of boiling water. The mixture is flavored with mustard seed, coriander seed, cayenne pepper, and hot sauce. It’s a great way for suburban types to experience Cajun food without leaving the gated confines of the subdivision.
 

Zatarain’s

Upon my arrival, Mike handed me a beer and two boxes of Zatarain’s seasoning. “You’ll be in charge of starting the boil,” he said. I’m not sure why I was given the responsibility, but I accepted with lukewarm enthusiasm. The boil wasn’t scheduled to begin until five o’clock, so that gave me an hour to sip Milwaukee’s Best and make small-talk with the guests. For some reason, my presence at a party seems to attract people who have a lot to say about insignificant topics, and those people always end up talking with me. “…and little Jimmy just joined Cub Scouts. He just earned his maiming badge, and he is at sniper camp right now,” said the overabundant mother in a spaghetti strap so tiny that there were more helpings of muffin top than I cared to see. “Fascinating. I was a scout at one point, but when I realized they were training me to be a killer, I told them to {expletive} off,” I replied. That’s a great way to quickly end any conversation.
 
“Dude, it’s five o’clock. Run out there and put the seasoning in,” Mike yelled from across the kitchen island. I grabbed the boxes of seasoning, traversed several toddlers, and made my way to the driveway, where two giant boilers were stationed. I ripped open the first box of Zatarain’s, took out the bag containing the spices, then ripped it open and poured the spices into the first pot. I then did the same thing to the second pot. As I was walking back towards the garbage cans to throw the empty containers away, I noticed that the spice bags were perforated with tiny, uniform holes. “Hmmm, those look an awful lot like my boil-in-bag rice packets,” I thought. “Oh {expletive}. I’ve {expletive}-ed up.” I then read the box - “boil-in-bag.” Oops, I suppose I should not have poured the spices directly into the boiling water!
 
Upon hearing how I had ruined 48 pounds of seafood, Mike was surprisingly calm. It must have been the alcohol, because I would have been pissed had it happened to me. However, whenever someone came into the kitchen for more food, Mike would say “If it sucks, it’s Brad’s fault. This loser poured the seasoning directly into the water.” The meal wasn’t that bad, if you didn’t mind the occasional bit of pepper getting stuck in your gums and making you cry like a schoolgirl. The moral of the story: Never turn your crab boil over to someone who doesn’t cook. Alternatively, never trust a man who doesn’t read instructions.
 

Liftoff

Photo by blmurch

After the Zatarain’s fiasco, we retired to the backyard lawn for fireworks. Mike’s brother Bob was given the role of fireworks technician. I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, because Bob was one of those guys who you could tell was missing a few screws just by the way he looked - a blank stare, long unwashed hair, and a “Liquor in the front, poker in the rear” T-shirt. Picture Charlie Manson at a backyard barbecue and you’ll get the idea. Every other sentence he uttered began with the words “dude,” “man,” or “look at this.” I would trust him with pouring my garbage into a garbage truck, but little else.
 
Around 8:30, when darkness fell, Bob ran out onto the lawn to start launching bottle rockets. Normally, one places the stem of a bottle rocket into the ground, lights the fuse, and then the pyrotechnician runs for cover. Bob’s process was somewhat different and it went something like this:

• Face the onlookers.
• Pull down pants.
• Pull down boxers slightly, so as to expose ass but keep the genitalia hidden.
• Bend Over.
• Insert stem of bottle rocket into rectum.
• Yell to the audience, “Hey Jimmy, come help me with this.”
• Yell “Woo hoo” once Jimmy lights the bottle rocket.

While this process was occurring, a wave of whispers spread throughout the onlookers. “He’s going to shoot a bottle rocket out of his ass.” I’m not the kind of person who gets shocked often, but this was one of those times. I’ve shot bottle rockets out of cans, out of melons, and out of my hands, but never out of my ass.
 
The first bottle rocket launched from Bob’s butt flew straight towards the neighbor’s roof, landed, and then it exploded. The second and third did the same. By the fourth launch, Bob improved his anal aim and was able to get one to detonate in the air. There was no fifth launch, because as it was about to occur, we heard a siren. Bob removed the rocket, pulled up his boxers, then pulled up his pants, and ran for the crowd, so as to blend in [as well as one could with smoke pouring from their unzipped fly].
 
Apparently, the neighbors weren’t too keen on bottle rockets exploding on their leaf-covered roof. Once the cops arrived, they gave a very genteel “Someone reported fireworks. If you were firing them, please stop” request. Had we been shooting them in the inner city, we would have been cuffed, sodomized, and imprisoned (not necessarily in that order). Thank God for suburban living.
 
The party ended with a whimper. When I arrived at work the next Monday, my Zatarain’s mistake and Bob’s butt launch were the talk of my co-workers. Eventually, everyone forgot, until now. Remember, whatever happens in the suburbs stays in the suburbs, unless of course BradBrown.com blogs about it years later.

 

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