Graveyard Shift

Well. Last night was interesting.

I got an IM last night from a girl I somewhat know who lives in my neighborhood, but am still cautious of. Mainly because I don't trust people unless I've known them for a long time. Anyway, it turns out that she (now known as keoieid, since it's one of her blog aliases) and her boyfriend needed help burying some dead pets of theirs (they rescue rats and mice at old age so they don't have to die in a pet store or shelter), since neither of them have a license. So, I was asked to drive these two people, one of which I barely know and another I don't know at all, to a graveyard. At midnight-ish. In the DARK.

Yeeeeah....I was scared that I was going to get my head bashed in so I could convieniantly get burried in the graveyard. Heh.

Thankfully, Keoieid said it was alright if I dragged a friend along as a security blanket. She also promised to give me a ring that is insanely important to her as insurance that I would get back home safe and sound. Well, who else do I call to accompany me other than my B. Bear? (A best friend of mine since high school) He didn't have any other plans, so agreed. I gave Joey a call on his cell phone and told him my plans, and that I'd call him if/when I got home safe and sound. He ended up calling me twice during the event to make sure I was okay....heh.

B. Bear gets here at about 11:00-ish and we go pick up the girl and her boyfriend. All of us dressed in dark colors, the pets wrapped in rags and bags since they had been in the freezer up to this point, and none of us with any type of gardening shovel. First stop, Long's Drug Store to see if they have anything we can dig with! Of course, after doing a few laps, we can't find anything that's exactly what we want. What do we end up buying? A large spoon made of metal. Heh. Also, some drinks (soda, water, and $3 strawberry daiquries that tasted slightly like watered down strawberry yogurt), and a bag of chips. Off we go to the graveyard.

One thing about this graveyard that amuses me is that it's right next door to a retirement center, and across the street from a mortitian's. Anyway, we pull up next door to an apartment complex on one side of the cemetary and non-chalantly walk towards the place as though we had every right to be there. Making certain no cars were coming, we hopped the two-foot wall and disappeared into the shadows.

Now, my night vision is CRAP for some reason, if it's very dark and shadowy. If I wasn't too scared to be where it was a bit better lit, it wouldn't have been so bad. As it was, my poor B. Bear turned into my night vision "seeing-eye-buddy," meaning that I clung onto his arm so that if I stumbled, I wouldn't go too far.

Anyway, we continued through the graveyard until we got to a point where cars would not be able to see us from the street, so we stopped clinging to the shadows. At one point, we passed the spot where apparently Keoieid had burried some dwarf hamsters she'd rescued earlier in the year, so she stopped and poured some of her strawberry daiquri over the grave for them. We continued onward until we got closer to the back of the graveyard and set to looking for ground soft enough to dig in. Of course, we're all trying to be quiet, but still cracking jokes at each other in an attempt to get others to laugh (especially Keoieid, since she does a loud snort when she laughs....which made me giggle like a chipmonk...which made B. Bear laugh louder).

Well, the first place we tried to dig was in "The Greek Section," where I imgagine all of the Greeks get burried, since Keoieid mentioned that she had promised them that the next time they were there that they would burry some pets with them. Unfortunately, the ground was too soft, so we went and looked for a different spot. After, of course, telling the Greeks that if they get softer ground that they can have the next pets.

After finally finding a spot with soft enough ground, we dug the holes for the pets. Well, by "we" I mean that it was Keoieid's boyfriend who did all of the digging. Always let the big strong men do the work, eh? We were near a wall that had houses on the other side, and one of them had lights that kept going on and off. B. Bear and I were paranoid that they could hear us and kept very quiet whenever the lights came on. Another thing that was odd was that I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye. Like, a light in the graveyard going on and off, or something darting past in the distance just out of my field of vision. It creeped me out royally.

Once the critters were in their makeshift graves, they added something circular (to represent eternity, I guess) and poured a bit of boozahol (B. Bear's term for the drinks) into the ground with them. After the ground was replaced, we went back toward the street, once again clinging to the shadows. I started humming the Mission Impossible thing while B. Bear made jokes about feeling like he was in Splinter Cell.

We FINALLY made it back to the street, piled into my Honda Civic, and headed back homeward. I dropped off Keoieid and her boyfriend at the apartment complex they live in, returned Keoieid's ring, and then B. Bear and I came back home.

Since B. Bear was the friend that went with the niece and I to the Renaissance Faire, and videotaped/took pictures of the event, we spent some time transferring the stuff from his little USB drive onto my laptop and viewing the material. That took....about two hours or so. Heh. Once that was all done, along with the mutual gawking at each other's sketch books, he went home and I went to bed. The entire evening went from about 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM for me. Wow.