Holy Guano

Nothing zany happened on the flights to Austin. I was actually at a loss on the drive back from the airport because usually I have wacky airline stories to share, like the kid who peed his pants, the snow machine, the insane coconut wielding pilot, or whatever--nope. Smooth flights, on time, slept through most of both of them. True story.

I'd told Lizett, put on your whore clothes, we're going out Friday night! She did, such as they are, but we didn't. God, I'm such an awesome, lazy sack. Instead we opted to stay in sipping Coors Light and watching Scrubs per our Standard Friday Night Arrival Agreement. Then she said she'd read this article on Slate about how Zach Braff isn't as awesome as everyone thinks he is--everything went grey, and the next I remember Lizett was a quivering mass on the ground, the apparent victim of a particularly savage tickle attack. I know, we're too cute, right? Also, that didn't really happen.

Saturday was the big visit to Houston to meet Lizett's parents. It was...something. I will say this, my kneecaps were not actually crushed in pneumatic presses, nor was I punched in the throat and lit on fire, so that's something. Also we stopped at What-A-Burger on the way down and it was pretty delicious. No, it was actually a very lovely trip, and her parents are probably the most adorable people I have ever met--her dad still calls her mom his girlfriend, does that not make you want to go hug a rainbow? So we did normal family stuff, ate, sat around, went out that night with her brother, it was a good time. They speak-a Spanish--I trlrlrlrlust them.

Sunday we ate donuts and finagled our way out of Mass in favor of heading off early afternoon to get back to Austin. Lizett had won tickets to a river cruise, you see, and it was AWESOME. Not the fake kind of awesome where I say something was awesome and I really mean it wasn't awesome at all, it was actually awesome. It turns out there is a colony of approximately 1.5 million bats (really) living under the Congress Ave. Bridge in downtown Austin, and every night at sunset they take flight en masse to go hunt 30 or 40 tons of delicious insects.

So they have this little boat (Austin, not the bats) and they take you out on the river and position you so you can directly view the bridge against the sunset and then suddenly--WHOOSH--a million bats are flying out of the bridge simultaneously, zooming off in these frantic plumes so thick they look almost like smoke, and they all join together in one massive wavy line that just keeps extending out to the horizon, and you watch it all close up as a glorious rain of bat guano descends upon you--I say glorious because while I managed to stay quite clean, Lizett took a shot right to the face. It was really, really cool, like one of the coolest things I've ever seen. If you're ever in Austin, you must go see the bats. I insist you see the bats. SEE THE BATS, SEE THE BATS, SEE THE BATS!!

Our boat was pretty fantastic too. The tour guide told this fabulous ghost story about how several years ago, on a night very much like tonight, and in almost this very spot on the river, she bumped a log and tried to push it aside, only to discover it wasn't a log at all but a HUMAN CORPSE! AHHHH! Then she ended the story with "no seriously, that happened. Turned out to be like this transient drug addict or something, they don't know if it was foul play or what." So, that was highly disturbing. On the plus side, there was also this other guy on there who was for some reason wearing a short sleeved jumpsuit, and who's only apparent purpose was to talk in outrageously exaggerated accents and state that since we were on international waters he could murder us all and there would be nothing the authorities could do. Very nice. He also, at Lizett's suggestion, nearly did murder us all by flashing a spotlight into a flock of heron roosting in a grove of nearby trees. Have you ever seen a flock of agitated heron up close and personal? Brother, it is no picnic, especially after you just watched them ravenously go to town on a whole assload of otherwise impressive bats. SEE THE BATS! You must...see...the bats.

After the cruise we headed to Hooters where--and I'm not making any implications here, I'm just saying what happened and you can draw your own conclusions--I totally caught Lizett checking out one of the Hooter Girls. And then pointed it out. And then she kicked me. Also she gave me a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I think I'll just go ahead and omit it. In conclusion, I will pay you $10,000 to go see the bats.