Last weekend I drove back to Mass for my cousin Amy’s bachelorette party and my friend Jodi’s bridal shower. In this short weekend, I managed to see domestic abuse and the cops, attend a car show, meet a Massachusetts state senator, and dance on a stripper pole. Did I enter the Twilight Zone? No, just Western Mass.

I hit the road after 9 pm on Friday after dropping LTJ at Captain and Mrs Larby’s for their summer shingdig (sorry I missed it!). As I drove past the sign for Monson, I was waxing nostalgic on my childhood days. Some of you Diatribers dispute the existence of Monson, but I can assure you it is real. Whether or not it’s part of the Twilight Zone is another story.

I ended up hitting Palmer at 1:30 am and went to the local hangout to meet my cousin Melanie as it was just after last call.

Now that I have moved on from the backwoods of Western Mass, I hate to make generalizations, but I have to admit after the bar scene that greeted my eyes, I was very happy that I no longer live out there and have that for my Friday night excitement. It was a depressing mish mash of poofy hair and white wife beater tank tops. I scene of boredom and repetition, as I know all those people are there every Friday night of their life, unless they are making the “big trip” out to Springfield to party. And I hate to use the word “white trash” but let’s face it, that’s probably the most accurate way to sum it all up. At the very least these people are trapped in a dimension of time, the land that time forgot… I was starting to wonder if maybe I really was in the twilight zone.

Melanie’s first words to me were along the lines of “we need to get Sonya out of here. she’s wasted and starting fights.” Come to find out, she’s starting fights with the girl who hooked up with her boyfriend when they were broken up. Now, I was really feeling back home… as a similar scenario occurred another time I was home over a year ago and in that one a girl jumped me…

I followed Melanie driving Sonya’s car back to Ware (not Where?). We arrive at Sonya’s boyfriend’s house just as my phone rings. It’s LTJ and I say I have to run as we’ve just arrived. Before we hang up he warns me not to get into any fights (also referring to the time I was jumped in Ware). I laugh. How could that possibly happen tonight?

Fast forward a few minutes and suddenly Sonya is outside the house shouting at this girl that was there. Then Sonya’s boyfriend goes outside and is yelling at Sonya. The next thing I know he’s shoved her against the car and is pulling her by her hair. I am watching in shock, eyes wide. She runs into her car and he’s screaming something about how she hit the back of his car and he escalates into a severe ‘roid rage. He jumps into the passengers side of her car and is grabbing her by the throat. I run over to the driver’s side (the window is down) and I yell at him “If you don’t let her go right now, I am going to call the cops.” During the pause, Sonya punches him in the face a few times, jumps out of the car, and starts walking down the street.

We all go back in the house and he is yelling at me about how I threatened to call the cops on him. I respond by saying that no matter what she did he had her by the throat. He says I can leave his house. I say gladly and leave with the words “you people are all crazy.”

As Melanie is giving me the directions to get back to her mom’s house, two cop cars arrive at the house. In this close-knit town Melanie knows the cops and assures them that she will smooth over the situation.

Senator Stephen Brewer
Laughs at “the Internet is just a bunch of tubes”

So yes, LTJ, in a little under 30 minutes, I managed to get into a fight and see the cops. Nothing like being home.

The next day I meet Melanie and we go to this local ice cream stand / burger joint to grab food. The place is packed with hot rods. We have just landed ourselves in the middle of a car show.

While we are waiting for our food, this older man approaches us and introduces himself as Joe Schmoe, actually his name is Stephen Brewer, a Massachusetts state senator. He asks where we live and what we do. He says “Oh, I don’t know that much about computers or the Internet” to which I could not help myself but to reply, “Oh, the Internet is just a bunch of tubes.”

Saturday night is Amy’s bachelorette. We are in the middle of nowhere, Hardwick at my aunt’s and the party bus is late to arrive. The driver had a hard time finding it, surprise surprise. On the party bus, there was a pole and we made each girl dance on it…

So no, I was not literally stripping, just dancing.