If there was a Family Feud category, “Most depressing expressions in the English language”, it would probably look something like this:
1 – “We need to talk”/ “I need to tell you something” – 68
2 – “I saw your ex the other day…I think he/she lost some weight” – 14
3 – “Excuse me, sir/madam, but is your license plate (insert yours here)? There may be a problem.” – 10
4 – “I guess you had to be there.” – 7
5 – “The abortion didn’t take. We might have to try again.” – 1
6 – “I’ve got cupcakes!” - 0
The one I want to talk about in this space is #4. How many times have you told a story to a group of friends and nobody laughs and you say, “Oh it’s one of those things…I guess you had to be there” and all they can say is, “Uh, yeah”. You just feel this sudden weight in your chest, this letdown, this feeling of why did you even open your mouth? There’s that one awkward moment after where everyone kind of just looks around the room and sips their beer until someone asks “What’s the score of the game?” Well, unless you’re in Denmark, and then someone says “So…it still sucks to be Danish.”
It gets to the point where you start throwing it out there before the story even begins. “Oh check this out, well, you probably had to be there, but…” I mean, what’s the point then of even continuing the story? Sometimes you even have the one asshole friend who WAS there and after the story and says, “Actually, I was there and it wasn’t that funny.” God, I hate that guy.
Fortunately, I have someone in my life that saves me from being relegated into storytelling hell. The law of having to be there does not apply with him. We’re going to refer to him as “Larva Johnson” or “The Larva”. It’s not that the stuff that happens to the Larva couldn’t happen to anyone else, it’s that they happen to him and regardless of whether you know him or not, the story is still pretty damn funny.
First, to describe the Larva, he is a man in his 20s, on the bigger side, with a love for fine fast food, fine weed, nice clothes and cologne. He is extremely outgoing and friendly, but has a pension for grossly exaggerating any and all stories. For a simple example, we once won 15 games of beer pong in a row, an impressive feat and to this day, my personal best. But every time we’d go to a party for at least the following year and he would retell the story, we somehow ended up winning 29 games. I would correct him, but he would get agitated and fire back with some baseless argument like “NO, DOM, it was 29! I remember it distinctly!”
Back in college, his lifestyle was not exactly the healthiest. On the weekend, his day usually began at around 3 PM with the coughing up of phlegm that could be heard downstairs. Then he’d light a cigarette, come downstairs with his hands in his pants, and take a seat on the couch. He’d then put his bare feet up on the table (his feet are webbed, by the way, no joke) right next to where your food was sitting and say, “Who’s down for some McDonald’s?”
Ugh, I get chills thinking about it.
All the same, Larva Johnson is one of my best friends, a true character whose friendship is always highly rewarding in the form of hilarious stories. There was the time he drunkenly referred to the girl from the “Requiem for a Big Mac” article as “his kind of girl”. There was the time a rival fraternity was laying siege to our house and he was sitting in the corner having a borderline stroke from consuming too many Sparks Malt Liquor Energy Drinks. There was even the time he got angry at Jeff and I for not believing his grossly exaggerated story about a kid from his hometown selling weed out of an ice cream truck that led to the running joke “Larva deals AIDS out of an ice cream truck”. Consider this the ultimate test of the “I guess you had to be there” theorem. If you don’t laugh at at least one of the following stories, well, then… I guess you had to be there.
Larva Johnson and the Nutty Fiasco
So this was a few months before I graduated. A sorority that we hung out with was having their annual dessert buffet to support Cardiac Care, and I went with explicit instructions from the house to smuggle back as many goodies as I could. I arrived back at the house hours later with a plastic trey full of various cookies and cakes and donuts. Jeff and the Larva are sitting in the living room and as I set down the trey on the table, they start picking through to see what they like.
Now, Larva Johnson is DEATHLY allergic to nuts. In fact, when he was pledging, brothers used to throw pistachio shells at him because of it, which in hindsight may not have been a great idea (of course, I was the guy who once drunkenly discharged an entire fire extinguisher on a kid, leading to the evacuation of our basement, so I guess I can’t talk).
Regardless, Larva picks up a chocolate chip cookie and looks at Jeff and I, who are eating similar cookies.
Larva – “Does this have nuts in it?”
Me – “Yep.”
Jeff – “Yeah, peanuts.”
Larva – “I’m allergic to peanuts.”
Me – “I know. There’s plenty of other stuff that doesn’t have nuts in it.”
Now, any person with common sense and any bad nut allergy would say, “Okay” and move on. Not Larva Johnson.
Larva (observing the cookie in all its glory) – “Are you guys sure?”
Jeff – “Absolutely. I just had one.”
Me – “Yeah, man. Just grab one of the Krispy Kremes.”
Larva (narrowing his eyes) – “I don’t believe you guys.”
Jeff and I stare at him shaking our heads, munching away. Let me remind you, the Larva is a man who loves eating and he adores chocolate chip cookies.
Me – “Well, do whatever you want, but I’m telling you it has nuts in it.”
Jeff – “Don’t eat it, man. Seriously.”
Me – “We wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
Larva (still holding the cookie inches from his mouth) – “You guys are just messing with me, right?”
Jeff – “Nope. That thing your hand will kill you.”
Me – “Jesus, where’s your epipen?”
The Larva examines the cookie once more before cautiously taking a large bite. He munches slowly, looking like Donovan after sipping from the wrong cup in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Then he looks up and says, “Hey! There’s no nuts in this at all!”
Okay, so that is something Jeff and I would joke about. Had there really been nuts, I’m confident one of us would’ve physically stopped him. Or at least Jeff would’ve. The fact remains that Larva Johnson risked his life that day, and he risked it over a fucking chocolate chip cookie.
Larva Johnson and the Graduation Party Piñata Incident
This happened the previous summer from the aforementioned Nutty Fiasco. A large group of us had gathered for a day of drunken revelry at the home of one of our friends who was hosting her graduation party. The party started early in the afternoon with both family and friends alike hanging out, eating burgers and dogs, and drinking a lot of beer.
So it’s later in the night. Many of the parents have left, but not all, and it’s mostly us drunken college students. However, the girl whose house it was had forgotten to put out the piñata for all the younger kids earlier in the afternoon, so she put it out at night for the few remaining kids. The problem was with most of the adults gone, they needed someone to hold the rope that kept the piñata elevated for the kids.
Enter the Larva. He comes wandering into the backyard from the street where he had just finished smoking a blunt in someone’s car. His eyes are red and glassy and he’s struggling to complete sentences. Between the beer he drank, the food he ate, and the herb he smoked, it was like he had somehow devolved back into Cro-Magnon times.
The rest of us instantly volunteered him to help with the piñata.
Graduation Girl – “Hey Larva, we need someone to hold the piñata for my cousins. Would you be down to do that?”
Larva – “Mmm….uhhh…buhhh…sure.”
So the rest of us are sitting on the patio, kind of laughing at Larva while drinking more and watching him struggle with the rope. He takes the rope and holds it lazily in his hand while swaying gently back and forth. At this point, he is a definite risk to just collapse on the grass and fall asleep in the middle of the party.
No one was ready for what happened next.
Graduation Girl takes her cousin, a pencil thin ten year old girl and puts a black blindfold over her eyes. She asks her if she can see, and the little girl says no. Graduation Girl (who I’d like to say is wasted, but can’t be sure) then hands her a brand new wooden Louisville Slugger and starts to spin her. She spins the girl about ten times, but when she is done, the girl is facing the Larva, not the piñata. Graduation Girl backs away and her cousin starts takes two confident steps forward.
At this point, she’s blindfolded looking at the Larva. The Larva is swaying gently, staring back at her, deadpanned.
We’re all watching this still. I tap Justin on the shoulder and say, “Yo, what if she were to…”
WHACK! The ten year old girl winds up and cracks the Larva across the face with the wooden baseball bat as hard as she can, thinking it’s the piñata. Catches him right along the jaw. He stumbles back to the ground; Graduation Girl runs over and takes the bat away. The rest of us are laughing hysterically. The Larva struggles to his feet and starts yelling “Ow! That really hurt!”
Amazing. This was amplified in awesomeness on two fronts: one, his jaw clicked when he talked for about a week after, and two, a few days later he was getting lunch during work and while walking across a parking lot, a guy wasn’t paying attention and backed his car into him, knocking him over before driving away while the Larva hobbled to his feet, screaming expletives.
You didn’t have to be there.
Until next week, stay tuggled.
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