How to have fun at a Noder Gathering
For the purposes of this brief WU, the author assumes a three day gathering lasting from Friday evening till Sunday Evening. Feel free to modify the time and dates in this schedule to compliment your own gathering and its length.
Friday evening: Arrive fashionably late.
If flying, make every attempt to miss your connecting flight. Be prepared to blame everyone but yourself for forgetting about time zones and their consequences in relation proper scheduling. Remember it’s not your fault you are hopelessly ignorant, it’s the fault of airline employees for placing only half a dozen time pieces in the terminal and not a full two dozen. Wait four hours for the next connecting flight. Periodically irritate airline employees with outlandish claims about missed business meetings, dead relatives and potential plagues of litigation against their company and themselves.
Friday evening: Drink and tell stories.
Imbibe in the nectar of love and truth, Pabst Blue Ribbon. Let the beer flow into and through you. Tell engaging stories at every opportunity. Your stories will be best received if they revolve around you, dubious actions from your past, or completely ludicrous tales based mostly upon something you saw on a talk show. Ideally, your stories should have little or no conclusion and be so far removed from the experience of your listeners so as to create a conversational void when you pause to sip from your drink.
Saturday Morning: Sleep on the floor.
Nothing says fun like sleeping on thinly cushioned flooring. Remember that pillows are for wussies and for added pleasure use bedding material that is either too cold or too hot. I recommend an arctic sleeping bag rated to temperatures below –20 degrees F that you received as a gift while still a teenager and is far too small for you to use comfortably for anything other than a close fitting body bag.
Saturday Afternoon: Take in the sights.
You and your group should enjoy the local entertainment and peruse the city’s arts. I recommend visiting a renowned art museum and terrorizing the security personnel by throwing ice at modern art ensconced in a reflecting pool. A trip to the museum can only be followed by visiting the upscale tourist old town and engaging in a scavenger hunt to familiarize yourself with the city and its offering while promoting team cooperation and allowing an opportunity to get closer to your new friends. Or, you could just blow off the scavenger hunt and get some good food at a good restaurant.
Saturday Evening: Get food poisoning.
Sure the ribs were tasty, but that doesn’t mean they’re not contaminated with deadly toxins and or bacteria. Good taste doesn’t exclude bad intentions; otherwise you probably would have completed the scavenger hunt. Think of it as God punishing you for being an ass. To enhance funness, persist in the belief that your ill feelings are the result of jet lag, biorhythms, high tides or other liberal nonsense. To ease your bubbling stomach, try drinking more booze. Nothing eases a churning stomach like beer.
Sunday Morning: Steal a bed.
You slept on the floor last night, it’s your turn to sleep in a bed, or a thin mattress on the floor, whichever you feel more comfortable seizing. Engage your power of ironic misdirection and feign an illness you really have but are unwilling to admit, and make off to a remote sleeping area and claim your nest by simply occupying in it. Ignore the bedding that took up most of your luggage space and locate a more appropriate blanket that won’t cause you to alternately sweat and shiver.
Sunday Morning: Do not sleep.
Remember, you’re poisoned, try to act appropriately. At least six times during the night, get up to vomit and or release your painfully loosened bowels. Enhance this portion of the gathering by forgetting where the bathroom is, which way doors open and where your feet should go when walking. Any preventive medication consumed should be expelled as swiftly as possible before the miracles of modern chemistry can have any effect on your pummeled digestive system. Remember to clean up after yourself. You’re trying to enjoy your weekend, not inconvenience your host or spread filth in their home.
Sunday Morning: Say nothing.
Speak of no one about your potential illness. Be mysterious and let them draw their own conclusions. Be especially reticent in revealing even the vaguest of details to the nurse in attendance as she may be able to lend healing advice or solace. Your tight lips will prevent not only the secret of your weakness from escaping but also any stray pollution of queasiness that may be lingering in your devastated intestimes. Remember to hydrate and drink lots of water.
Sunday Afternoon: Spend all day sleeping.
The night is for spitting up in toilets and filling your nasal cavities with odd shaped chunks of pork and potato, the day is for recuperative sleeping. Lie down in an unoccupied bed room and spend several hours trying to ignore the children throwing things at you, jumping on the bed and attempting to engage you in conversation revolving around things they saw and whether or not you are sleeping. Wake up only long enough to alternatively ask the children to stop hiding “treasures” in your ear and say good bye to your new friends. Assure everyone that you are fine. Deny any possibility that you may still be ill.
Sunday Evening: Return home.
Continue to ignore the unsettling rumblings emanating from your nether regions, taking every opportunity to sit on a toilet. Do not vomit in your host’s vehicle as he drives you to the airport, to do so would be ruder than can be expressed and will likely not result in an invitation to return. Upon discovering that the terminal gates in the airport have no restrooms, necessitating an unwanted trip through security for every restroom trip, do not stop hydrating. The flesh is weak and will betray you, but it can be controlled. Try reading Maxim and concentrate on editing the text. The next few hours of cramped coach seating and delayed flights will be the hardest part of the weekend. Do not despair, the end is near, one way or the other.
Monday Morning: Skip work.
Once you’re wrapped safely in the warmth of your own home, notify your employer of your absence and then sleep for fifteen to sixteen hours. When communicating with your employer, be as obtuse and brief as possible. Send an E-mail instead of calling. In the fugue of your weary battle with food poisoning, attempt to make as little sense as possible in your email. Misspell every other word and make up words and dates. Turn off your phone and refuse to make any further communications with your office. A good example would be, “out sickle tamamlane, the sex of Juniperly.”
Monday Afternoon: Return to your life as normally scheduled.
Wake up late in the afternoon and gently test the gustation waters with a healthy but bland meal. I suggest cold cereal or rice. Once a sizable portion of your meal has stayed below decks celebrate with several hours of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 golf and prepare to return your life to normal.
Repeat as necessary.
Photos available at http://jedi.nevada.edu