NEW FEATURE: The Friendship Series part I

DUTCH IS IMMINENT

Next week, if all goes well, my old buddy Dutch a.k.a. “The Duchess,” b.k.a. Big Daddy Long Stroke will be in town and staying with me for a couple days. For those who don’t know who I am talking about, Dutch is the guy that got me into blogging in the first place, so thank him, praise his name, and nuzzle his soft and yielding back hair.

Dutch and I met sometime in the mid-Nineties when I, desperate to recoup my financial losses after having been rejected by a Bible-thumper who made sure I spent most of my money first, got a job at a department store. Depending on where you live, you may or may not be familiar with Meier; it is a Michigan-based company consisting of huge stores with everything under one roof. Our Wal-Mart, I suppose. Sadly, I had to waste my vast intellect & incredible amount of sexual prowess in that place.

It’s ironic that I met two very good friends there and that only one is still worth a shit. That would be Dutch, in case you haven’t been reading along.

When I first saw him, I swear I thought he was some kind of Eskimo. He looked like a tall Charles Bronson with a Beatles haircut and everybody seemed to know his name. It was only later that I realized his nametag encouraged people to say his name, which no one ever seems to tire of saying, myself included.

Dutch isn’t his real name, of course. His real name is George, but one of his brothers’s mispronounced the name and it came out sounding like…you get the idea. The cuteness factor dictated that he be given a nickname for life. That was good for him, because Dutch wasn’t exactly the most outgoing kitty in the litter.

Okay, he had a SEVERE case of social anxiety. It was so bad his weird friend had to do his ordering for him at restaurants. He had an awful stammer that would become more pronounced the more nervous he became. So he drank. Everybody there did except me. Dutch was five years younger than me (I think he still is but I haven’t checked) so that placed him well below legal drinking age at the time.

As I got to know Dutch, I realized he wasn’t a shy Eskimo at all; he was an emotionally scarred Mex, who’d grown up in Michigan. That blew my mind because, honestly, I’d never met a whiter person. He was into Grunge and he said “Dude” a lot and all his friends were perfect examples of when white met bread.

But there was an inherent coolness to Dutch. It was as undeniable as the inherent hotness of some of my blog readers. Eventually, he and I started to talk, or rather I started to talk and he mumbled and stared at the floor a lot. This could not stand. I too had been painfully shy in high school and could have used someone to pull me out of it. It became my mission to do so for him.

Why, you ask? I hated seeing what I’d slowly come to realize was a very intelligent guy dealing with such an obvious handicap. A guy like Dutch, despite being tall and imposing physically, would get railroaded in life if he didn’t stop being a pushover. Plus, he was an avid reader, and we gotta look out for each other. I don’t include Green in this category, ‘cause all he seems to read are cliché-filled fantasy novels and books about how cool Jesus is. But I love him just the same…just not as much as the fair Duchess.

I seemed to start working at Meijer during a time of transition. Many of the people I befriended were looking to get out and soon Dutch and I were the only ones of the original groups left. That naturally brought us closer as wanna-be’s and youngsters sought us out for guidance into the cool, merchandise destroying, manager-enraging, customer shocking exploits that had made us infamous.

Now that I was hanging out with Dutch away from work, I was able to work on that damn shyness. By refusing to order for him at restaurant, by introducing him to different types of people (i.e. negroes) who seemed to adopt him on sight, he slowly emerged from his hairy shell. We even lived together for a few months when he first moved out of his mom’s place.

During the last days of our shared Meijer hell, Dutch and I were approached by a former manager who was now working for the then fledgling Office Depot. Sensing a way out, we both jumped at the chance and put in our notice. He and I quit on the same day, prompting some to pronounce it the end of an era.

Did I mention I accidentally shut the store down for two hours by striking a gas line with forklift blades? I earned the nickname “Dr. Death” and was hailed as a god…it seemed pointless to stay, especially when my initial two weeks’ notice was written in poem form as a criticism of the way the place was run. I was much cooler back then (Please see cool points post for further info).

Duchess remained at Office Depot for six months while I ran screaming after two days into an office job. Eventually he got a much better job at a gay steel mill (See the Simpsons for further info on that phenomenon).

Apparently, the only thing keeping him in Michigan was the fact that he still had some family here. Slowly, one-by-one, his family members departed for Texas to look after sick relatives and be more Mexican. In 2003, Dutch made the decision to be the last of his people to move down to Texas, a state that frightens me for more reasons than I’d care to discuss. I haven’t seen him since.

It has been dull and gray without him. Dutch’s sense of humor, laid back personality and dependability has been sorely missed. In light of recent developments with at least one person who turned out to be worthless in the friendship area, it will be nice to reconnect with someone who remains consistent.

Dutch is imminent. Let us bow our heads~