My Buddy Swifty

 

By SirWilho

 

Everyone needs a friend like my buddy Swifty.  I am very fortunate to have people like him in my life.  Swifty has the ability to take away the intermittent sting of reality by simply being in his presence.

If I was to describe his demeanor, it would be a crossbreed between Slow Poke, from the Speedy Gonzalez cartoon, and a Border Collie.

A list of Swifty’s positive attributes would make for a boring read, so I will relay a few stories that make me chuckle every time I think of them.

 

Twice a year, Swifty and I pack up all our gear to embark on a U.P. pilgrimage.  The 500 mile trek is arduous, so driving the first leg of the journey is key since you can then enjoy the last four hours in full relax mode.

Swifty’s wife is nice but can’t understand how a couple guys can drive 9 hours and politely debate Darwinism vs. Creationism, or make a plan to solve World hunger.

To ‘help us’ have a more serene time, she has often provided books on tape to ward off the boredom of the drive and to better occupy our time.

The first few times of trying to follow the stories eventually ended up with us shutting them off because we couldn’t keep our mouths closed and ended up missing important details in the story.

Prior to embarking on one journey, we  decided that we were going to keep our yaps shut and really pay attention to this latest book.

Here is a brief recap of our attempt to pay attention.  First hour we kind of get the jist but are a little confused.  Second hour new characters keep popping in like they’ve been there all along and we try to follow.  Third hour we’ve got new characters, old characters, far places and familiar places.  Fourth hour we start feeling dumb because we can’t follow and start saying how stupid this book is and ‘who is this guy and why are they in this place now when they weren’t here before’, etc.. etc.

We finally decided that we weren’t mentally capable of listening to a book on tape and Swifty went to take it out of the CD player in his truck.

Now… my buddy Swifty is observant, and what he notices is that the RANDOM button had been pushed on the player.  We would have been much better off talking about ‘Peace in the Middle East’ because having the RANDOM button pushed took us from chapter 1 to chapter 12, back to chapter 3, over to chapter 7 and so forth.  Yep, we are definitely not idyllic examples for being on top of the food chain.

 

Nobody can outdo Swifty when it comes to ‘out of the box thinking’ and this next example demonstrates his uncanny talent.

Several years ago we embarked on a guy weekend that included ice fishing, hanging out and having a couple cold ones.  Our fishing day was long and bitterly cold, with no success on fish being caught.  We ventured back to our cabin, got cleaned up and went out to catch a bite to eat.

Luck was on our side when two bead necklaces were put over our necks as we walked into the tavern.  Turns out it was ‘Mardi Gras’ night at the bar and grille.  We enjoyed an excellent meal and several drinks just prior to the DJ taking over.  Once the music started our night soon became interesting.

I felt like we were back at an 8th grade dance.  Boys here, girls there, nobody’s dancing and it’s kind of subdued.  Swifty can’t handle the blase’ atmosphere and decides to take the matter into his own hands with clever ‘out of the box’ thinking.  He explains to us his strategy to get the dance  floor hoppin’.

Amazement and bewilderment is a good description for his plan.  We offer tons of encouragement and support since we are his good friends and even throw in a ‘Genius… pure Genius’.

“See,” says Swifty, “we’re not locals, and we need to get the local’s to start dancing, then this place will be more fun.”  His plan sounded great to us and we were excited to watch it unfold.

Swifty saunters across the dance floor and sits down with a local.  A waitress stops by their table and he buys a beer for his new friend.  The “Swifty” plan is working nicely so far.  Soon, their heads come closer together as they laugh and giggle at each others wit and charm.  “Danggg, look at Swifty go,” we say with admiration.

I am watching intently and lip read the big question he proposes.  “Wanna dance?”  I see him coo.  The new friend’s head tips up coyly and I notice a twinkle as their eyes meet.  “Yes.”

Our gang is now enthralled with this series of events and we poke each other while pointing at Swifty and his new friend as they walk to the dance floor.

For some reason the rest of the bar doesn’t quite understand why this ‘out of towner’ is dancing with one of ‘their’ locals and they decide not to dance.

For a while it’s just the two of them out there. They danced so well and in sync to each other that the judges of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ would be impressed.

One dance goes by, then two, then three.  Still no takers to the dance floor until it was about the fourth dance and Swifty was flailing away to ‘Can’t Touch This’, by MC Hammer, and his friend was trying to keep up.  All Swifty needed was his pair of parachute pants to be a dead ringer for Hammer, well, the white version anyway, but you get the picture.

The rest of the bar can’t take it anymore and flock to the dance floor.  Evidently, two MEN, who, “Dance Like No One is Watching,” was too much for the locals and they took over.  See…. Swifty’s plan worked… Yep, pure genius we declare…

This is where I have to put a disclaimer so that my buddy Swifty doesn’t get whiney.  He is the self proclaimed ‘horniest guy he knows’, for his wife, and truly hetero.  I tried to contradict his claim of Grand Master Horny Guy, but there is no way to empirically dispute it.  Hmmm…. That slogan would look great on a t-shirt…. I AM THE HORNIEST GUY I KNOW….see… genius…

 

I didn’t witness this last episode of Swiftyness, but I would like to retell it the way our friend Bubba told me.

A fun filled weekend was planned for fishing out of Bubba’s  36’ boat.  They were going to fish for salmon on Lake Michigan and if the fish weren’t biting they could swim, hang out and enjoy the lake while having a few drinks.

The weather that day was hot and calm, not great for catching fish, but it sure was awesome for swimming.

Bubba’s boat has a flybridge and you can climb up onto it, then jump off to the water 15 feet below.

The current was really strong that day, so for safety reasons Bubba threw out his life ring that was attached to the boat by a rope.  The guys could jump off, grab the ring and be pulled back in.  Simple and fun, but guys can’t settle on just ‘fun’, we always need a little more excitement.

Swifty was egged on by his buddies to see if he could jump off the flybridge and through the opening in the circular life ring.  In his mind, he is a well renowned, expert pole-vaulter so he surmised that the depths of his athletic capabilities were far above this challenge.

The stage is set.  Swifty is on the flybridge, the life ring is in position, and the only thing left is the jump.

Newton’s law on velocity was upheld when Swifty reached lightning constant speed and into that ring feet first.  Robinhood himself could not have arrowed the center any better than he did.  At first, the jump was deemed perfect and everybody is amazed.

It became evident that something didn’t quite look right as they see Swifty go three quarters of the way through the ring but then they lost sight of him as he went 10 feet underwater.  The ring does its part and propels him to the surface like one of those long bobbers with a little bluegill  attached.

Evidently, as Swifty attempted to go through the center of the ring with his arms pointing straight up, the opening wasn’t  wide enough for him to get his shoulders through it.  The end result was that the inside of the ring has pinched his arms to the side of his noggin and he is now a part of  the ring and bobbing up and down in the water.

My buddy Swifty is now in a situation similar to the time I challenged the, ‘bonds instantly’ warning on Super Glue.  It will, and does bond a thumb and index finger together instantly.  What happens next in a persons mind is universal… panic immediately sets in. Same as putting your tongue on the merry-go-round at school in February when it’s 20 below. You are now in panic mode and scared.

The crew was clearly concerned about the situation of their fellow mate and the reaction to this event is classic, ‘Man Concern’ since this is how we think.

“Should we drag him behind the boat near the hundreds of people sitting along the channel?” asks Bubba.

Fifteen minutes elapse and the boys need to catch their breath from laughing so hard.  Finally, it was time to pull the squirming, twisting, red faced, kicking, yelling, bobber of a man into the boat.

Swifty is still stuck in the ring.  Sad, worried eyes with arms up like a two year old who just got hollered at and wants to be held is the picture of my buddy.  The ring has him like a Chinese finger lock and there is no relief in sight. A little swelling was going on and that only made it lock tighter around him.

Bubba decides to head back to the marina and Swifty wants to escape the throngs of people sitting along the channel so he tries to go down into the cuddy cabin.  Oh, Oh, there is a slight problem.  The ring is too big to make it through the door so Swifty has to sit patiently as the spectators curse themselves for not having a video camera.  They were all thinking the same thing.  “Dang…. coulda’ made a million bucks with that one.”

Fifteen minutes of being lubed up with dishwashing detergent and a half hour of wriggling by Swifty gets the ring level with his armpits.

Panic, adrenalin and survival mode take over for Swifty and this enables him to push the ring down and off of his body.

Consistency was reached on his skin because when first went flying through the ring, it took off half his hide, now the other half was peeled away during the final push towards freedom.

My buddy ended up none the worse for wear and continues to take the intermittent sting out of reality…  Hmmm, perhaps a Swifty 2 might be in order.