Where were you people?

I nearly suffocated.

They say Monday is wash day, but in Pat Lee's shady, peaceful corner of Somerville, Massachusetts, Sunday is beer can stacking day. This Sunday was no exception, and it was no later than 9 a.m. that I was up, the last beads of shower water still clinging to the hair behind my ears, stacking the weekend's conquest. I opted for the early start because of the intensity of the weekend's activites.

Friday night the folks from the office had planned to go to a bar, but when a severe thunderstorm sprang suddenly, we opted for the shelter of my apartment and brought provisions back with us. It wasn't until after midnight that an arm-wrestling match between two female VPs that ended in a bloody nose and the drunken termination of my dog (who was, as far as I know, never actually an employee) forced me to usher the howling, cavorting mass, mad and miserable with drink, out the front door.

Scarcely had I woken on Saturday when the first visitors arrived for the dachsund races on pay-per-view, the party for which I'd previously agreed to host. This event, though attended by what (I used to think) was a far less sophisticated crowd, was, on the whole, far more civil, though no less debauched. That night, long after the last heat had been run, in a deep and unnatural sedation, I slept, dreamlessly, draped on my back over a stray brick that had been thrown through a window and into the house, sometime after the arm-wrestling and before the dog-firing, the previous night.

By Sunday, then, I had 1,841 beer cans, not counting the few dozen that had been crushed, dented, squeezed, burst or otherwise compromised and, thus, difficult to balance, with which to stack a masterpiece. For weeks I had envisioned a 1:100 scale model of the step pyramid of King Djoser, gleaming in golds, silvers and greens in the sun of the budding New England summer. It was an ambitious vision, but I was confident I'd had just the kind of weekend that would finally allow me to realize it.

Around 1 o'clock I was atop an eight-foot ladder, leaned against the side of my house, putting the finishing touches on a tricky section of the east wing, when my dog came bolting out of the house after a squirrel and upset my support. I swayed and tried to keep my balance, but I could only graze the eaves of my home with my fingertips before I overcompensated on the undulating ladder and fell crashing into my creation.

When I came to, I was entombed in a mausoleum of aluminum. It became apparent, after only a short time, that no amount of struggling would free me from the trap. I could do nothing but call for help. I just kept screeching and screeching ... but you fellas must not have heard me. If you did hear me, then you are ass holes for not doing anything. If it hadn't been for the homeless man who comes by on Tuesdays to collect stray cans to turn in at the local recycling center for $0.05 a pop, I might have starved there. Rest assured that had that been the case, I'd have used the last of my flagging energy to carve curses on each of you into the rain-softened earth before losing consciousness for the last time.

Anyways. That's why I'm late.

So ... this is blogging ...