When I was asked by Katie to say a few words, I was nervous. Not because I'm afraid of public speaking, but because I was worried that I couldn't be myself. And not because I don't know how to read a room but because it wouldn't be honoring Patti if I weren't myself. So I came straight out of the gate with a question for Tony and Kate "Can I tell a story that's a little bit inappropriate?" I had been speaking with Katie at the time and she let out a little chuckle like she does and said "Oh honey it wouldn't be you and it wouldn't be Patti without an inappropriate story... Now before you usher all the kids out of the room, I will keep it mostly PG... Maybe a little PG-13... Ok? So let's put the fun in "funeral", shall we?
Patti and I were lovers for the past 15 years... Her enlarged heart didn't stop her from being an amazing lover...
I'm kidding of course... It wasn't the past 15 years... I moved to Arizona during that timeframe... It was 10 years post-high school... Again, I'm kidding.
I think she would have appreciated seeing your faces when I said that... You did ask for embellishment...
And that's the thing about Patti, that huge, contagious smile she had. I know we're all picturing it now. I sure am.
As an aside, that moose room. What the F was up with that? That was a little unhealthy, no? I remember the first time I was in its presence, which was several years after high school and I hadn't been in Patti's orbit very often... And when we were in High School this was NOT a thing yet. I guess when your kids leave the nest you've got to put your energy elsewhere, and Moose were where she stored her energy reserves... And boy did she have some energy reserves... I'm sure it got worse over the years but when I experienced them, it was pretty F'n creepy. I'm sure she had a file started on her at the FBI because of this unhealthy obsession.
I was so envious of her relationship with her kids, because I never had that with my own mother. I mean Patti chose her apartments based on the proximity to the kid's school, or the train station when Tony was in college so he could come home on weekends. My parents would have never done that for us, but Patti did it for her kids and I sure took notice. She wasn't terribly overbearing mother-ish to me when we were in high school, she was more like just one of the boys... But she did care, she did want to make sure you got home ok and if you had eaten.
Anyway to the meat of my story... When I heard that Patti had passed, I said to my wife, "She was such an awesome "mom" to all of us in high school... She helped us write an erotic story one time." She was like "what?". So I had to go to the archives and find it on the wayback machine. Which I will totally airdrop or email to you if you want to laugh your ass off... I will say this, the story holds up to this day. It's plausible and while it's a little elementary and our sexual inexperience shows in a few parts, it does still hold up.
So how did this happen? Well one day in probably 1995, a few of us guys were sitting around the Landa living room on the flip and f's, as we had time and time again. I had gotten a hold of a Penthouse forum, which for you non-degenerates is like a "Readers Digest" style magazine published by the late great Larry Flint, filled with erotic stories. Most of which were probably written by a team of Monkeys with Typewriters. Some were so outlandish that you wondered how they published these stories in the first place. So I'm reading this aloud and we're picking them apart, as you do with your group of friends when you're 18... So we says to ourselves, "man we could write a better story than these, they would probably even publish it if we submitted it." And so "Catch of the day" was born.
"It's an unspoken law on Lake Naquabay that when you do someone a favor, they are expected to repay you ten-fold..." Not bad, not bad. We get a few paragraphs down and we're running out of vagina euphemisms. Then we hear something from the other room... An expletive that I won't repeat. But it was Patti with a synonym for the ages... "Don't call it xxxxxxx! Call it XXXXX!" How could we forget about the XXXXX! She comes in the room and asks us to read what we have so far. She gives very helpful criticism and provides some helpful tips on some of the finer nuances of the sexual experience. After all, we were all 17-18 boys who were not incredibly experienced in that way... It wasn't creepy, it wasn't judgy, it was helpful to move the story forward. She helped us finish the story and made it better
We never did submit the story for publication, but if we did and it got published, it would all be because of her. Rest in peace Patti. The world isn't going to be the same without you.