by Mark Nutter
“Your treat?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s do it.”
Postmortem For A Boston Tea Party Party
Has this ever happened to you? You spend six months planning an event to commemorate the Boston Tea Party, and then when the big day rolls around, nobody shows up.
I decided to throw a party because here it was, six months before the historic anniversary, and nobody at work was planning anything. There would be amazing parties going on all over the country, especially in Boston, Massachusetts, duh. Why should Downers Grove, Illinois, be any different?
I decided to do it myself. I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong.
I realize that because of the date of the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, there would be conflicts with holiday get-togethers. Christmas and Hanukkah and stuff. (The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773. Excuse me for stating the obvious).
And even though I have my priorities straight, I’m aware that some people consider Christmas to be a more important holiday. It takes all types.
I have no doubt the guests who went to holiday parties instead of mine stood around drinking eggnog and singing Christmas carols or whatever, while in the back of their minds they’re thinking about the brave patriots who dumped 342 cases of tea into Boston Harbor in order to demonstrate their ardent belief in “No taxation without representation.” I bet they felt guilty. I could have told them they would.
It’s also possible people stayed home and observed Boston Tea Party Day with close family members. That’s fine, I get that, although you won’t find me observing this day of days with my family. My father loves BTPD (short for Boston Tea Party Day) as much as anyone, but he hates organized events and if I tried to get him to participate he would probably punch me in the gut with his right fist while continuing to hit my mother in the kidneys with his left, as per usual.
Where are my manners? My name is Greg Stupak. I’m forty-two years old. I work at Consolidated Industries, Inc., in Downers Grove, Illinois, with my girlfriend Jeanette Fabiani, and my best friend Pete Dennis.
My girlfriend Jeanette would have helped me with the party, except we don’t live together. She needs her space. I bet that’s what she’d say if I asked her.
And if I sometimes feel lonely I always have my best friend Pete Dennis to talk to.
“I’m always here for you,” he said once, when a bunch of us from work went to Pedro McGillicuddy’s Cantina. It’s possible he said it to someone standing behind me, but I like to think it was me, when we made eye contact for a split second.
Maybe people were afraid my Tea Party party was a political thing. I thought I made it clear on the invitation that it had nothing to do with politics.
I hate those stupid Tea Party people. They act like they own December 16, which is ridiculous. You can’t own a day that’s the most important day of the year, plus their costumes aren’t very good.
Speaking of costumes, I said on the invitation that you didn’t need to come dressed as a Native American since, in point of fact, most of the colonists were not dressed as Native Americans. That’s a common misconception, and once again, excuse me for stating the obvious. Colonial merchant costumes would have been acceptable.
Of course as the host I had to dress up as a Mohawk warrior. I went to my closet and picked out my best and newest Mohawk warrior costume, the one where the fringe was still clean. This time I even gave myself a Mohawk haircut, and I did a good job, you could barely see the Band-Aids.
I had the activities planned out, not too many because number one, my apartment is small, and number two, because I hate it when every minute of a party is crammed with things. I thought there should be free time for the guests to mingle and discuss the Boston Tea Party amongst themselves.
But I did plan a trivia contest, and then a game where we would bob for miniature tea chests in a punch bowl that represented Boston Harbor.
And then dinner. I had to improvise when it came to the menu. Instead of meat pies, which the colonists ate but I couldn’t afford, I would serve Hormel Canned Chili / No Beans. Personally I prefer Hormel Canned Chili / With Beans, which I eat most days, and then on special occasions, Hormel Canned Chili / Chunky Beef with Beans. But this was a party, and the No Bean option was important, to avoid social embarrassment, even though Boston is known for their beans ha ha. It’s attention to details like this that make for a successful party.
***
I have to admit, my feelings were kind of hurt when both my girlfriend Jeanette and my best friend Pete decided to skip the party, along with all my co-workers.
Pete’s words echoed in my ear: “I’m always here for you.” Frankly I was feeling pretty low. I decided to take him up on his generous offer.
I must have been more desperate to talk to my best friend Pete than I realized, because I ran out of my apartment in my Mohawk costume without bothering to put on a winter coat. I did however remember to bring my tomahawk.
Pete has a very nice apartment on the eighth floor of a high rise in downtown Downers Grove. The front desk was unoccupied, the doorman probably living it up at a Boston Tea Party party somewhere. I was about to buzz Pete’s apartment when an old lady with a fat Pomeranian on a leash came to the door. I held it open and she thanked me. Then I slipped into the building.
I climbed the stairs two at a time, excited to visit my best friend Pete’s apartment for the first time. I expected he would enjoy the surprise and my costume.
When I got to his apartment — 8H, I remembered from when I mailed his invitation — I thought that instead of ringing his bell I would pound on his door with my tomahawk. Pete was a guy’s guy and would like that.
At this point I suppose I should explain why I also had duct tape. It’s like this: sometimes when I get talking about the Boston Tea Party I can get a bit long-winded, like a crazy professor or something. I thought we could make a game of it. Pete could say, “Oh no, the crazy professor is going to talk and I’m leaving the room,” and I’d say, “no you’re not, because you’re duct-taped to your chair.” Something fun like that.
He’d be unable to move while I described the ad valorem tax of 25 percent that was levied on tea imported into Great Britain by the East India Company. Then when the game was over he’d thank me for the useful information.
POUND POUND POUND POUND. I beat out a rhythm on the door with my tomahawk, not a rubber souvenir for children but a real one such as a few of the Sons of Liberty might have carried.
The door flew open. My best friend Pete was standing there in his boxers.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is this?!” he said.
“Pete? Who’s there?” said a familiar voice from somewhere in the apartment.
“It’s Stupak,” he said.
My girlfriend Jeanette came out of the bedroom wearing a shirt that must have belonged to my best friend Pete.
Let me try to describe my feelings at this point. I think they were mixed. On the one hand, I felt hurt that they hadn’t come to my party and instead chose to observe the Boston Tea Party without costumes. On the other hand, I felt pity. Here was my girlfriend and best friend half-naked, missing the fun. One more hour and they’d have to wait a whole year for the next BTPD to come around.
I think jealousy was in there someplace too.
But my jealousy wasn’t as strong as the pity I was feeling, the kind of pity that makes you swing your tomahawk and hit the man in front of you so hard he falls to the carpet. I knew in that moment how a Mohawk warrior felt and I realized it was this same feeling of pity that had inspired the Sons of Liberty to get dressed up as Native Americans, or some of them anyway.
It wasn’t pity that made me hit Jeanette. She was screaming and I had to shut her up. But I didn’t hit her as hard as I hit Pete because of the feelings I have for her. I suddenly had a whole new insight into my parents’ marria
ge.
***
“What makes a person fail to acknowledge their love of the Boston Tea Party?” I asked, not expecting an answer because Pete and Jeanette were duct-taped to chairs plus I’d also duct-taped their mouths.
Even with the tape on, Jeanette was screaming, screaming for her lack of appreciation of American history.
Pete wasn’t screaming but he was awake. I could tell because his eyes were rolling around and his head kept falling off to the side.
“I was feeling pity earlier,” I said, “but now I’m feeling generous. I’m going to give you guys the benefit of the doubt. You wanted to celebrate the holiday here on your own, I get it.”
In spite of the duct tape, a little drool was trickling down Pete’s chin.
“You didn’t come to my party. And now here I am. Let’s say I just crashed your party, how’s that?”
I could tell by the way Jeanette was straining at the tape that she liked the idea.
For my party I thought it would have been fun for us all to take turns relating the story of the BTP and the strained relationship between Parliament and the thirteen colonies that led up to it. I considered removing the duct tape from their mouths. But Jeanette was still trying to scream, even though by now she was pretty hoarse. And Pete didn’t look like he’d be able to put two words together ever again.
So I decided to tell the whole story myself:
“As Europeans developed a taste for tea in the seventeenth century, rival companies were formed to import the product from China... “
***
After a while Jeanette’s screams turned to whimpering, and Pete was making gurgling sounds. I pressed on:
“Many of the Sons of Liberty were dressed as Native Americans, and, oh, I read this interesting fact the other day. Did you know that it was just as common for colonists to scalp Native Americans as it was vice versa? Did you know that, Jeanette?”
Jeanette whimpered louder. I guess she didn’t know that.
“Did you know that, Pete?”
Pete’s eyes continued to roll around, and I wondered if he’d be able to retain this material. That’s when I decided a demonstration would be helpful.
I suppose I was only reinforcing a stereotype, Native American scalping a white man, like that. I probably should have dressed Pete up in my Mohawk costume, to be fair, but we were different sizes plus I didn’t want to get blood on my buckskin.
I made a quick trip to the kitchen, chose an all-purpose knife because a serrated bread knife would have been historically inaccurate, and returned. Jeanette was struggling harder than ever now, excited at the prospect of seeing history come alive.
It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did. But Pete had recently gotten a holiday crew cut, and there wasn’t much to grab onto. In retrospect, the serrated bread knife might have worked better. Instead of a scalp in one piece I had a bunch of small clumps of hair and skin.
And Pete was still alive. But I had forgotten the point I was trying to make. I hoped Pete remembered. I’m sure he did.
***
The botched scalping took it out of me. I pulled up a chair and sat next to Jeanette, who didn’t move and was no longer capable of screaming or squirming.
“I feel bad,” I confessed to her. “That was a long digression. That’s not what I came here for.”
I examined the bloody kitchen knife. Somehow Jeanette found the strength to start screaming again.
“I know, I know. What does this really have to do with the Boston Tea Party? I guess I really am a crazy professor type.”
I dropped the knife on the carpet.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I gazed into her eyes.
Then something changed. Let me try to explain what I saw. Everything in the physical world looked like the thing that it was, and at the same time each thing was also a symbol of an abstract quality that existed in a different dimension and was projecting itself into our world.
I’m not explaining this very well.
The best example I can think of is, my girlfriend Jeanette was a woman, and at the same time she was a symbol of something else. Probably oppression.
She reminded me of a chest of tea.
Jeanette’s hoarse muted screams were drowned out by the founding fathers in my head shouting, “No taxation without representation!”
Adrenaline surged through my tired middle-aged body. The Sons of Liberty must have felt exactly the way I felt, and they would have done exactly what I did, if instead of chests of tea, the ships of the East India Company had been laden with women duct-taped to chairs.
I slid open the glass doors that led to Pete’s eighth floor balcony. I dragged my girlfriend Jeanette out into the icy cold, and hurled her and the chair over the railing.
***
On the way back to my building, I stopped short. I’d never seen so many cop cars before. They lined the snowy street with their lights flashing, and I knew exactly what had happened. One of my neighbors had hosted a Boston Tea Party party, and things had gotten out of hand, which can happen at these events. I wished I had been there.
An instinct told me I shouldn’t go home, so I found an all-night diner. You’d think every place would be closed for the holiday, but some people are just greedy.
All in all, it had been an okay day. I didn’t feel as bad about losing my girlfriend as I might have. And Pete was still alive and could still be my best friend. I hoped he’d be able to overlook my scalping digression.
I’m not sure what the future holds. Maybe I’ll see if those political Tea Party people are still together. I could help them in organizing events. And also with their costumes.
The Final Interview:
A Bold Experiment
Leo DiPaolo’s “Get That Job!” weekend seminar makes you fearless.
That’s why, when I saw the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was interviewing for a new job opportunity in space, I fearlessly went for it. Fearlessly.
I created a new affirmation for the interview: “I, Tom Schlatter, fearlessly make $3,995.00 per day in my new job as an astronaut.” ($3,995.00 was how much the seminar cost.)
I stood outside a dilapidated warehouse in the Dilapidated Warehouse District. Good thinking, NASA, I thought. You’re hiding from Russians, or aliens. My respect for you is growing.
I pushed open an iron door and entered. The room was empty, save for a table and chair. A man sat at the table, staring at a goldfish in a bowl. He was attempting to stab the goldfish with a knitting needle.
I hate to define a man simply because he wears Coke bottle glasses, but this man wore the thickest Coke bottle glasses I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t not think of him as Mr. Coke Bottle Glasses.
He looked up with eyes that appeared to be the size of tennis balls.
“My name is Doctor Fyodor Alyosha Pavlichenko,” he said. Too hard to remember, I thought. I’ll stick with Dr. Coke Bottle Glasses.
“My name is Tom Schlatter and I make $3,995.00 per day in my new job as an astronaut.”
Oops. Instead of introducing myself, I had repeated my affirmation. I blushed.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Tom Schlatter. Here’s my affirmation: I, Doctor Fyodor Alyosha Pavlichenko, save mankind with my innovative experiments in deep space, plus I have 20/20 vision.”
He dreamed big. I liked that.
Dr. Glasses looked me up and down and began laughing. This went on for about ten minutes. Then he slumped back in his chair.
“I bet you’d like to know what I find so funny.”
“Yes.”
“So would I.”
Dr. Glasses stabbed the goldfish with the knitting needle.
“May I ask how long is the training period?” I said.
“Training for what?”
“Training to be an astronaut.”<
br />
“There’s no training.”
“No training? But Dr. Coke Bottle Glasses — oops! Dammit!”
I don’t think he heard me. Dr. Glasses was studying the goldfish at the end of the knitting needle. He dropped the dead fish back into the bowl and watched it float.
“Interesting,” he said.
It seemed premature at this stage to ask if I had the job. Leo DiPaolo said, when in doubt, ask about the organization.
“May I ask about your organization?”
“My organization?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Glasses laughed for another ten minutes. Then he rose from his seat.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you my ‘organization.’ And then I’ll show you your rocket.”
He opened a door and exited. I followed, thinking, ‘your rocket.’ He actually said, ‘your rocket.’
In spite of stabbing the goldfish and the prolonged bouts of laughter, I had a good feeling about this.
***
When he said he would show me his organization I expected to see people and maybe a few animals. What I didn’t expect was all animals and no people.
Several dogs were flying in a circle, attached to a giant spinning machine. An orangutan was rubbing two cats together and measuring the static electricity. A horse was running on a treadmill, monitored by a chimpanzee. That chimpanzee was being watched by another chimpanzee who wore a white lab coat and seemed to be in charge.
Everything I knew about NASA was based on movies I’d seen. Guys who looked like Kevin Costner wearing short sleeve white shirts with pocket protectors, looking at blips on screens. I had never seen this particular movie.
The horse collapsed. Two chimpanzees in hard hats dragged him away and replaced him with another horse.
“Very impressive,” I said to Dr. Glasses, “but are there any people in your organization?”
“There’s you.”
I didn’t want to get excited, not until I heard the words, “You’re hired.” But boy, was I excited.
We passed through the animal testing facility into a room that was even bigger.