Bar drinkware

My name is Nicholas,
I've lurked on this particular Reddit post for years now. It's taken me this long to compile my experiences for understanding and healing. I want to start with what other users and I share. Some traits have a few differences, but I match up 90% percent or close to. Also, I had similar experiences with shadow people, law enforcement encounters, military families, and even my military service, including the specific function I was fulfilling during my time serving that wasn't a part of my job description.
Below is a comprehensive breakdown of how this ties into the GATE conspiracy for my lived experience.
-Blue eyes (hazel seems equally familiar) Brown Eyes
-Occipital Bun (aka math bump on the back of skull = Neanderthal trait) Yes
-Birth complications (like weeks early or not breathing) Unsure
-Near Death Experience (particularly drowning) Had to be saved by a Jersey Shore lifeguard when I was in elementary school.
-Lack of memory or GATE (we all did many, many hours there, and it's all very vague) Yes
-Windows were covered in all GATE classrooms- Brown paper covered windows, check.
-Tendency to be followed (abductions and general tracking, too) I had an experience in Haifa, Israel, in 2016, where a Marine I was out with while bar hopping was abducted and escaped. I believe they got the wrong guy.
-Law enforcement has been extremely lenient and easy during chance encounters since I was a child. I was a Law and Public safety major in high school, and the teacher was a former Police officer and Corrections officer.
-High IQs - I've been told
-Highly intuitive and sensitive children- I live it every day.
Other similarities that are less common but a few exGATErs agree on too;
-Interest in /x/ phenomenon (occult knowledge) - Had a Wiccan aunt introduced me to all sorts of esoteric beliefs and studies- I am still fascinated. Not just Wiccan practice, but all of them.
-Heavy early twenties drug experimentation period - Lots of weed, lots of stimulant abuse (caffeine, cigarettes, vapes, I abused Adderall maybe two times, but only one pill per escapade. I also drank a lot while in service, and I've done psychedelics in my mid-twenties.
-Forehead scars- I was learning how to shoot my new rifle, and I placed my forehead too close to the scope and the recoil caused the scope to hit between my eyes, causing bleeding and a permanent scar.
-I couldn't pronounce the letter "R" in early speech therapy for my life.
-Firstborn sons Thirdborn son, first one in the military.
-Migraines- No, not that I remember.
-Israeli art student girlfriend (not even joking) Potentially? I had an artsy girlfriend whom I had my first sexual encounter with while in 7th grade. Growing up where I grew up, it wouldn't be a surprise if she was Israeli or Jewish.
-Premonitions/prophetic dreams- Yes.
-Above average intuition- Yes
My name is Nicholas,
Early life summary :
I grew up thirty minutes from the Twin Towers on the opposite side of the Hudson River in New Jersey; my father worked in Newark, New Jersey, and watched the collapse of the Twin Towers from the rooftop of the business he was the manager of. My uncle worked down the street from the Twin Towers and was present for the attacks. I was around six years old when the attack happened, and I'm almost sure I saw the smoke from the attack and the collapse. My family and I moved to a rural community in Northwestern, New Jersey, when I was around eight. I will reserve my GATE experience for a separate section; this portion is more for the reader to understand the gravity of my childhood leading up to GATE and post-GATE experiences before my time in service.
My room as a young boy was decorated with portraits of various Allied leaders of World War 2, whether it was Roosevelt, Churchill, and others. I also had pictures of maps of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the locations of where the atomic bombs landed marked on the map, and routes in and out of the city. It was like any other map, but it was a military one. I had US propaganda posters and pictures from the period as well. One is the famous Uncle Sam photo of him pointing at the person passing by and saying, "I want you."
(Info for reference - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam ) I also had various warplanes hanging from the ceiling; the one I remember the most was the Enola Gay, a plane famous for its use in the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima
( Info on Plane here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay ).
Mind you, I was no older than 14 years old at this point. I watched every war movie and TV show from back in the 40s to the present day (mid-2000s). I had every single documentary and more. I was also at a very advanced reading level for my age, and I had been reading Dante Alighieri before middle school. Specifically, his work titled "Inferno."
( Info on Inferno here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)) ). For those uninitiated, it's a very high-level book. I look back now as an adult and ask myself how I could have read that as a child, but I did. This plays into something that is taking place in the present day. I took an aptitude test through the VA to access a specific education benefit. One of the aspects of this test was reading comprehension, and I scored in the ninety-nine percentile; this means I scored the highest I could score.
Gate Experience
My gate experience is quite fuzzy. I remember doing tests with the various Cards, the Rorschach test, the brown headphones with the curly cable leading to a CD player, the brown paper-covered windows, and even some sort of test or something that's hard to describe that I did on the computer. I remember taking images of little soldiers and setting them up in formations on the screen. Of course swordsmen in the front, archers in the back. That portion is incredibly fuzzy. I have no memories of the people who gave these tests, who they were, or what they looked like. I do remember attending therapy in high school, and I was incredibly hesitant to speak about my younger experience with my therapist. Is it connected to this GATE experience? I'm unsure. What sticks out to me most importantly is the drinking of the pink liquid. I remember the cups were either plastic or paper, small shot cups that could be used to deliver medication to someone—something you see at the hospital or doctor. To this day, I do not remember what the liquid was. I do remember it tasting like that pink cough syrup. But I have a feeling it wasn't that. What it was I'm unsure. Much like other Reddit users you have commented on this post, I, too, was separated from my normal classmates during this period.
I've done a lot of reading on Gifted and Talented Education, specifically on the "conspiracy" side of it.
Here's a podcast about the GATE program; it also provides images of the various tests they would conduct and even the headphones we used.
https://theoriesofthethirdkind.com/blogs/episodes/gate-program
Highschool
Rather than attending what I would describe as a "normal high school," I attended a technical school that included shop classes that took three or four periods out of the day depending on my current grade (i.e., Sophomore, etc..) Each year, the time spent in the shop class increases from two to three and then from senior year to four. For example, some of the shop classes were nursing, welding, carpentry, auto mechanics, and, more importantly, my shop class was named "Law and Public Safety." Within this shop class, I had a teacher who was a retired law enforcement officer and, at one point, a Corrections Officer. We will call him Bob. Bob was very open about his support of the military, law enforcement, and various forms of public service, including Fire Departments and Emergency Squads (EMTs/Paramedics). Portions of the class were concentrated on physical fitness; other portions were focused on current event research and study. We had to research a topic and then do a presentation about said topic every week. We, of course, studied law, Miranda rights, and various portions of the US government in our class, including the Justice System, the Executive branch, and the Legislative Branch. We also had speakers from all walks of military, police, and emergency personnel. During one year, I believe it was my senior year, we had a field trip to a Boeing aircraft facility. Unfortunately, I could not attend due to one of my low grades in a class. I believe it was math. I wouldn't say I liked high school math and most of my teachers, thus leading to a bad grade. But I digress. Another large portion of our time in class was visits from military recruiters: Navy, Army, Air Force, and the Marine Corps. I have been fascinated with the Marines since I was a child. There was no question whether or not I would join in my parents' eyes; it was just a matter of when. I would speak with Marine Recruiters every chance I had in high school, whether in shop class or during lunch when they had various tables set up in the lunch room with the now infamous pull-up bar. (Which, by the way, was to test children and their physical fitness to see if they were candidates for military service, the caveat being that the children who accomplished the said goal of pull-ups would be rewarded with a free bag or some drinkware that had the Marine logo on it.) So, as a teenager, I was exposed to my way into the military through recruiters when I was fourteen. I told my mom, "You will sign my contract now as a seventeen-year-old, or I will enlist anyway when I turn eighteen." She knew my choice was always going to be infantry. She signed my paperwork. I was also involved in a year-long training regiment before enlisting. We called this the Delayed Entry Program.
(Info on DEP here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_Entry_Program).
We learned various forms of Marine Corps knowledge and culture, and of course, physical fitness was a significant portion of our weekly meetings, which were usually held on Fridays.
MILITARY SERVICE- I served in the United States Marine Corps from 2014-2018. I was an Infantryman, and my specialty was a MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) called 0352, also known as an Antitank Missile Gunner. Scanning the battlefield for enemy vehicles and identifying and appropriately engaging the target were my primary purposes -my job description- and I ended up making ties to posts similar to what other users have described as military intelligence. A bit of background on my military family (if that isn't evident in today's America, I implore you to ask friends of yours who served whether or not they have a family member who served or is serving. More than likely, that answer will be Yes.)
My father served on the USS La Salle (Page Here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_La_Salle_(AGF-3)) )
I don't have much connection with my parents, especially my father. I'll talk more about that later.
The TLDR concerning the Wiki is that it was a command and intelligence ship my father served on in the 1980s. The ship's home port during that period was Naval Support Activity Bahrain, in Bahrain an island country located in the Middle East. At this time, the wars in the Middle East haven't occurred yet. My dad admitted he was floating around the Arabian Gulf on various intelligence-gathering operations in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.
(Info on Bahrain here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain )
My grandparents served in the Army, one on active duty, another a national guardsman. One of them is alive, another I never met due to him dying before my birth.
My Grandfather, who was on my mother's side, was an integrator during Vietnam; from what I understand, he stayed stateside. (To what degree I'm unaware) The assumption here is that prisoners of war were sent stateside for various levels of intelligence gathering.
My Grandfather on my father's side I know very little about. He was in Indo-China during World War 2
(Info on Indo-China here—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Indochina_in_World_War_II ). It comprised Cambodia, Laos (from 1899), the Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan (from 1898 until 1945), and the Vietnamese regions of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the center, and Cochinchina in the south. The capital for most of its history (1902–1945) was Hanoi; Saigon was the capital from 1887 to 1902 and 1945 to 1954. This is just some info pulled from Wiki.
Always Faithful-Semper Fidelis, I served in the United States Marine Corps between 2014 and 2018. As mentioned previously, my job as a Marine was to not only destroy tanks but to identify them and understand both the capabilities and limitations of each vehicle, including what country it originated from, what category of armored vehicle (Armored Personnel Carrier, Tank, Infantry Fighting Vehicle etc) its weapon system and most importantly how to destroy the vehicle with two different weapon systems named the FGM-148 Javelin or Advanced Antitank Weapon System-Medium,( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin ). Another is called The Saber, also known as the BGM-71 TOW in the military ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW ).
To sum up my training in that job, I had to memorize fifty different NATO and Non-Nato vehicles by the way they looked during day time, night time, and through various thermal or night vision optics, how they sounded, and the multiple weapon systems that these vehicles had and how to effectively destroy them. I was damn good at it, or at least the identifying piece, but more on engaging the enemy vehicles later. I took pride in being the "nerd" of the infantry as our other infantry peers were jokingly and semi-seriously calling us. One of the many final tests we had to complete was one where we were shown an enemy vehicle on a screen and had five seconds to identify the vehicle and what country it belonged to on our written test. We had to do this for all fifty vehicles.
( What is NATO? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO )
It felt incredibly reminiscent of that scene in Star Wars Commando where you're a Clone sitting behind what can be described as a child using a futuristic computer inputting answers incredibly fast on the screen.
(Video for Context https://youtu.be/CL5i33CTld8?si=Rbh72TNTq1MUXNLI&t=27 )
What I found myself doing quite often was kind of embarrassing to ordinary infantrymen, especially as a junior enlisted Marine in the infantry. Since my MOS consisted of engaging armored vehicles, I went to a mounted platoon. These types of platoons are called CAAT or Combined Anti-Armor Teams. They are normally comprised of eight vehicles, two squads, and four vehicles per squad or "section," as we call it. We had HMMVVs and MRAP/ MATV Vehicles at our disposal.
(Info on vehicles here-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh\_M-ATV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humvee )
I drove these vehicles quite often, and I wouldn't say I liked it. I wanted to be a gunner or a dismount, but I was the driver due to my rank and lack of experience. Turns out driving isn't easy. I have to take responsibility for an entire vehicle and the lives of up to four other people in the vehicle—and in some cases, like the MRAP, more lives—ten fully equipped passengers, to be exact, in the MRAP.
In Marine infantry culture, being the driver, in my experience, was always reserved for the junior guy, the shitbag NCO, or someone just filling a need in the platoon. Which, in my thought process, could make more sense. Give the guy you trust the least the reins of a multi-million dollar vehicle with troops and a pretty expensive weapon system. FYI It doesn't make sense through that lens.
In Syria, I found myself transporting the operations Commander around various parts of Northern Syria during the Raqqa Offensive of 2017. I also found myself transporting VIPs and what I can surmise were intelligence agents of either the military or CIA to and from meet and greets with The Kurdish militia group known as The Peoples Defense Units, also known as YPG/YPJ. I was also invited to these meetings with men in Marine Corps Desert Camo Fire Resistant Operational Gear, commonly known as FROG gear. (Context Here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Combat_Shirt )
Their looks, how they spoke, and the nature of calling them by pseudo-first names raised many eyebrows in my then 20-year-old brain. They wore the same uniform, but I know a Marine when I see one, and I know who isn't. They weren't. At least not your average infantry Marine.
We sat with these Kurdish fighters and had Chai tea, many, many, many French light cigarettes, food, and chit-chat. But it wasn't for fun; we were working and uncovering what was going on in the militia's ranks. Unfortunately, I cannot remember a lot of these meetings. Portions of my deployment still escaped me due to the nature of the destruction I witnessed. Children playing around undetonated bombs and having to withhold supplies from starving people out of fear of accidentally running someone over in a crowd due to them finding out Americans were giving out water and food. At least, that is what we were told.
A few other points of interest
I would also transport supplies to a base known as the "Concrete factory," where the militia group and special forces would operate. These militias were getting brand new uniforms and weapons, including BGM 71 TOW, the heavy anti-armor weapon system I specialized in.
I was in on every single convoy brief or troop movement as a Corporal; I was also briefed multiple times in the special forces tent located at our airfield called the Kobani Landing Zone.
This comes back to the cultural differences in the Marines. To reiterate, being a driver is usually reserved for lower-ranking enlisted, "bad" Marines or out of necessity. However, contrary to those beliefs, I was privy to a tremendous amount of information. Usually reserved for leaders of higher rank. At this point, I was a Corporal, an E-4—the starting point of becoming a Non-Comissioned officer. I was a junior non-commissioned officer promoted within that year, and this was my first deployment as an NCO. This is not normal, at least in my experience and how I was made to feel about the situation. I was also compelled by my command while stateside to visit the S-2 Shop quite often. The S-2 shop is military intelligence. Rooms where you turn your phone off, leave it outside in a lock box, and have to be let in by someone with a code were quite often rooms I entered while stateside.
(Peoples Defense Units Wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Defense_Units
(Battle of Raqqa Wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raqqa_(2017))
I can provide proof of military service, photos, and whatever else users would like to skim through. I will not include information that might doxx me or anyone I worked with.
I will leave you with this.
All lies come to the surface, and truth will prevail.

Our “suggested” tipout policy:
Percentages are based on total sales KITCHEN .5% HOST 1% EXPO 1% BAR 1.5% SERVER ASSISTANT 2.5%
*We have to tipout the bar on total sales NO MATTER WHAT, even if we had a dry shift aka no alcohol or drinks came from the bar
*Not every shift has an expo, ergo, no tipout to an expo that doesn’t exist 👍🏻
*If you’re scheduled to work a banquet, you have to tipout the salary banquet manager 2% of the total sales from the banquet on top of the above listed tipouts
*Our server assistants are glorified bussers 😡 Their job duties include getting waters for tables and doing a post-bus/reset after the guests leave. NOTE: we as servers are expected to pre-bus the table so that when the guests leave the only items left on the table are drinkware and napkins
Here’s a fun “pretend breakdown” just for shits and gigs:
Total sales $2000 18% tip average=$360 cash tips -$10 KITCHEN -$20 HOST -$20 EXPO -$30 BAR -$50 SERVER ASSISTANT
Walking out with $260
Now let’s pretend there are 4 servers scheduled and all have the same sales! $40 KITCHEN $80 HOST $80 EXPO $120 BAR + the tips they get from their own guests $200 SERVER ASSISTANT!!! That’s only $60 less than what the server is walking with!!!!!
Is it me or is that kind of fvcked!?!?!?
Ps, if you don’t abide by the suggested tipout policy, they’ll cut all your shifts

Hello all, My company is in the glassware/ drinkware and tableware industry- I sell in bulk to local Foodservice venues (all local).
Annual numbers are great YoY, only been in business for 3 years, have a showroom and warehouse- but not technically a brick and mortar store. On an average monthly sales are at $25k, a good month $35k+. I am the owner, operator, delivery guy, no employees- just me.
Have only been operating through a PDF catalogue with my products of about 200 SKUs.
All local clients. 99% of deliveries are to local restaurants, bars etc. which all fit in my truck, hand delivered by me. The value added I provide is same day or next day delivery guaranteed.
How would I go about creating a website for this? How is this scaleable to the point where I won't have to make these deliveries on my own using a website?
Note: All products are case packed (between 48-144 units for the most part). For example: a box of champagne glasses are case packed by 72 units per box.
Is e-commerce worth it? Every item is fragile and I can't see how sending a small parcel delivery with a courier to be worth it for breakage- let's say to a restaurant into another city. (Apart from shipping them out on a pallet).
Looking forward to your input

Hello all, My company is in the glassware/ drinkware and tableware industry- I sell in bulk to local Foodservice venues (all local).
Annual numbers are great YoY, only been in business for 3 years, have a showroom and warehouse- but not technically a brick and mortar store. On an average monthly sales are at $25k, a good month $35k+. I am the owner, operator, delivery guy, no employees- just me.
Have only been operating through a PDF catalogue with my products of about 200 SKUs.
All local clients. 99% of deliveries are to local restaurants, bars etc. which all fit in my truck, hand delivered by me. The value added I provide is same day or next day delivery guaranteed.
How would I go about creating a website for this? How is this scaleable to the point where I won't have to make these deliveries on my own using a website?
Note: All products are case packed (between 48-144 units for the most part). For example: a box of champagne glasses are case packed by 72 units per box.
Is e-commerce worth it? Every item is fragile and I can't see how sending a small parcel delivery with a courier to be worth it for breakage- let's say to a restaurant into another city. (Apart from shipping them out on a pallet).
Looking forward to your input

What are consumer good tier objects that a society with an extremely high facility in material science would produce? Examples:

1. a small block of aluminum that heats and holds itself at the ideal temperature to keep a cup of coffee warm when set on it
2. mirror of perfectly reflective and unbreakable glass
3. disposable superconductor that works at room temperature
4. a shirt that changes color based on the mood of the wearer
5. a canteen of compressed water, etc...
6. Crazy Glueons; a small tube of liquid that instantly and permanently bonds any two materials at the subatomic level. (u/Fieryforge)
7. Sub-Atomic Under Protection: Armor which can protect a person down to the sub-atomic level. Only protects a person from minor laser fire. (7-10 u/snakebikte262)
8. Interactive Art: Art whose characters can be conversed with an who can respond to prompts.
9. Corpo-Grub: A small, dense bar that provides 100% of a person's daily nutrition, though leaves them slightly hungry.
10. Instant-Grub: A pre-made meal that cooks itself after pulling a small tab.
11. Self-cleaning fabrics (11 – 112 u/Cautious_Ad1953)
12. Holographic pets
13. Temperature-regulating drinkware
14. Portable water filters with infinite uses
15. Unbreakable smartphone screens
16. Wall paint that changes color on command
17. Edible food wrappers
18. Solar-powered personal drones
19. Collapsible houses
20. Noise-cancelling windows
21. Graphene batteries with month-long charges
22. Bioluminescent houseplants
23. Automated self-repairing footwear
24. Carbon nanotube space elevators
25. Voice-controlled kitchen appliances
26. Smart mirrors with health monitoring
27. Wearable air purifiers
28. Instant-chill beverage coolers
29. Aero gel insulation blankets
30. Molecular 3D printers
31. Nutrient-dense meal pills
32. Self-assembling furniture
33. Memory foam that records dreams,
34. Clothes with built-in climate control
35. Transparent aluminum windows
36. Smart tattoos with health tracking
37. Magnetic levitation skateboards
38. Cold fusion home power plants
39. Artificial gills for underwater breathing
40. Personal teleportation pads
41. Quantum computers for home office
42. Emotion-responsive toys
43. Recyclable electronics
44. Invisibility cloaks
45. Adaptive camouflage vehicles
46. Flexible OLED displays
47. Robotic AI coaching systems
48. Nanorobot cleaners
49. Anti-gravity belts
50. Smart paint that repairs scratches on vehicles
51. AI personal stylists for clothing
52. Organic light-emitting diodes in plants for natural lighting
53. Self-tightening sportswear
54. Energy-generating exercise equipment
55. Virtual reality travel simulators
56. Bacteria-powered clothing for performance tracking
57. Photosynthetic solar panels
58. Selective sound-blocking earbuds
59. Food synthesizers for customized meals
60. DNA-based security systems
61. Home robotics kits for children
62. Smart kitchen countertops that can cook food
63. Artificial wombs
64. Smart contact lenses with augmented reality
65. Bulk matter transmitters
66. Modular smartphones for easy repair
67. Liquid body armor
68. Wireless energy transfer devices
69. Personalized scent generators
70. Self-regenerating tires
71. Precision medicine dispensers
72. Clean water generators from air humidity
73. Smart tiles that generate electricity underfoot
74. Portable holographic displays
75. Nutrition-optimized food generators
76. Orbiting solar farms
77. AI-powered exercise mirrors
78. Patchable vaccinations
79. Self-sustaining terrariums
80. Virtual reality enhanced education systems
81. Adaptive road surfaces for safer travel
82. Carbon capture building materials
83. Smart windshields with augmented reality
84. Exoskeletons for enhanced mobility
85. Desktop fabrication machines
86. Magnetic soap for oil spill cleanups
87. Personalized gene therapy kits
88. Stress-relief ambient lighting
89. Implantable fitness monitors
90. Speech-generating devices for the mute
91. AI therapy assistants
92. Efficient desalination devices
93. Instant language translation earpieces
94. Organic refuse converters to power
95. Healing pods for rapid recovery
96. Subdermal ID chips
97. Smart keys that upgrade home security
98. Rejuvenation serums
99. Sonic tooth-cleaning devices
100. Customizable mood lighting systems
101. Cloaking devices for privacy
102. Microbial fuel cells
103. Electronic taste enhancers for food
104. Paper-thin e-readers
105. AI gardeners for home gardens
106. Virtual reality workout environments
107. Nanoscale water filtration systems
108. Atmospheric water condenser bottles
109. Bone conduction communication devices
110. Haptic feedback suits for gaming
111. Remote health diagnostics kits
112. AI diagnostics for vehicles

Just got back from 10 days in Peru and had a wonderful time. Here is my assessment of where I stayed. This was a group of 9 adults in their early 30's, celebrating one in the group's birthday. Trip was arranged via Black Tomato. It was about $9kpp before flights, dinners, and incidentals so $10-12k pp overall, so perhaps not super FAT, but I don't think lodging in Peru can get much nicer or more FAT. There are some options to make parts of our trip fatter which I will attempt to cover.
Flight
We flew United IAH - LIM in Polaris business class. This was a great option, and pretty affordable. I believe AA only flies narrowbodies to Peru so finding a true lie flat for the flight was great, though more important for the return flight which was a red-eye
Lima

• Hotel: Belmond Miraflores Park - beautiful hotel with a great breakfast and neat bar. The bartender was super friendly, letting us try different Piscos and even inviting us behind the bar to take photos and learn to make some drinks. Lobby with its "Library" was very nice, and had live music on the weekend evenings which varied nightly (singer, piano player, sax player, etc). The rooms were a little dated which I think helped set my expectations for "Luxury" in Peru, although I would say the actual rooms in this hotel were probably the worst we experienced throughout the trip. They were still adequate and clean, just seemed a bit aged and cheaper. The rooms also varied even though they were all the same price level. The birthday boy got a corner room that had it's own Sauna in the bathroom which was pretty nice, I think there is only 1 per floor that has this. I had my first massage of the trip at this spa and it was the best of the whole trip, but their spa is quite small and really just for treatments (no water circuit etc). Rooftop pool was at a nice temp and was fun to hang out in during the afternoon before getting ready for dinner.
  
• Food:
  
  • Lunch at Central: At first I was a bit disappointed to only be having lunch there, but the Peruvian way is to have a large lunch and a lighter dinner so I think this was actually the way to go. It was very interesting and quite good. I have been to a number of highly ranked/Michelin starred places, and this one is up there in terms of creativity and ambience, but service was middle of the pack for this type of establishment. Additionally, the cuisine was just not my absolute favorite so while it was extremely well executed for what they were trying to accomplish, it just didn't blow me away as a "#1 in the world" type place. I take that sort of ranking with a huge grain of salt after dining at Noma last year though.
  • Other places we ate: Rafael and Jeronimo, both of which were good.
• Activities
  
  • Bike tour of Lima: This was easy and very fun and informative. We started in Miraflores near the edge of San Isidro and rode along the coast through Barranco, stopping to see many art installations, murals, and a couple art museums/galleries. Really enjoyable way to see the city and it was nice to get the blood pumping.
  • Other than that we pretty much just walked around and ate and drank. Not a bad way to see a city.

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

• Hotels:
  
  • Sol y Luna, Urubamba: Urubamba is not the nicest town, but Sol y Luna is a very nice property. They have something like 30 casitas, each sleeping 2 as far as I know (they may have some larger ones). Breakfast was included and they had a beautiful restaurant and pool. They also offered activities like horseback riding, but we didnt have time to take advantage of it
  • Private Camp at Laguna Huaypo: This was definitely the least "FAT" aspect of the trip, but it was still pretty nice. We mountain biked to a high elevation lake outside Cusco and ended the ride at a private camp. There were 9 of us, 2 guides, approximately 6 porters, a chef and sous chef, and two masseuses, so it was more than 1:1 staff to guest ratio. The sleeping arrangements were fun for us, but if you were wanting something truly FAT you would want larger tents and beds higher off the ground. The food, drinks, and massage were very good and I got some amazing Milky Way photos at night. Really cool experience.
  • Inkaterra Pueblo: This is (I think) the nicest hotel in Machu Picchu Town, and it was really cool. It it quite expansive and has very jungle vibes. There are a variety of room sizes and we stayed I believe in basically their "standard" room but it was still quite large with a separate living and sleeping area and large spa-like bathroom. The massage here was pretty good as well. We were only here for a fairly short night after an 8 mile hike, so I mostly just ate and slept here, but I think it is definitely worth staying at if you are going to do a couple nights in Machu Picchu Town.
  • Belmond Monasterio Cusco: Easily the coolest hotel we stayed at on the trip. Built in a former monastery and the history really shows. The rooms were nice and comfortable, but the amenities were truly excellent. Dining for breakfast on the courtyard was lovely, the breakfast spread was incredible, and the service was top notch. One in our party was struggling with the altitude (Cusco is at about 11,000') and one of the staff took some cash from him, went to a farmacia, got some medicine, and returned to his room in about 20-25 minutes - all of this was offered, my friend only asked where a pharmacy was and they took care of the rest.
• Food:
  
  • Pachapapa: Our guide explained that this is a good representation of an authentic Peruvian restaurant, just slightly cleaned up and made more tourist friendly. Really good food and good vibes. We ordered 2 Cuy to experience that, and it was surprisingly delicious. Google it at your own risk, Cuy is Guinea Pig and it definitely was an adjustment to go from thinking of it as my childhood pet to thinking of it as a meal.
  • Panchamanca experience at El Albergue: This was a very cool experience where we had a traditional Peruvian celebration meal cooked in an earthen pit with hot coals. The food was delicious and while we waited for the food to cook we bottled our own botanicals with a spirit made locally that they corked and sealed for us so we could transport it home as a souvenir. El Matacuy Elixir Andino - look it up.
  • Private lunch at a Peruvian estate: Not sure how Black Tomato started a relationship with this family, but a well connected Peruvian matriarch hosted us at her home in the Sacred Valley for a private lunch with cocktails. We were there 3 or 4 hours and had a wonderful conversation and meal with her. I was skeptical that this would feel like just a canned tourist experience, but it felt authentic and very enjoyable.
  • La Bodega 138, Cusco: Surprisingly good and low-key pizza spot in Cusco recommended by our guide. Apparently Cusquenas like their pizza and this place took really good care of us.
• Activities:
  
  • Mountain biking and Kayaking to/at Laguna Huaypo: This was really fun but probably my biggest issue with the trip. I didn't organize the trip, so I'm not sure what the main organizer told the tour agency, but they definitely thought we were better mountain bikers than we were. We got an extremely brief explanation of how to operate what turned out to be very high performance mountain bikes. All went decently well, but 2 people did lose control on a very steep/gravelly section and fell. Both ended up ok, but one had some pretty major road rash. We were really lucky no one got more seriously injured. They had first aid gear and took care of everyone, but looking back they really should have asked each person more individually about their riding experience and confidence on a mountain bike. The Kayaking was really fun, and much better explained (and frankly just less dangerous).
  • Hike to Ollantaytambo via Pumamarca: This was our "warm up" hike and while it was only a couple miles, it topped out at over 12,000' of elevation. Having come from sea level in Lima the day before, it was tough on a few in our group. Our fitness level varied from "runs 8 miles every morning" to "hasn't worked out in months" so it was also an opportunity for the guides to assess our fitness level and understand what sort of pace was feasible.
  • Train from Ollantaytambo to KM104/Machu Picchu Town: This was actually one of the highlights of the trip. Make sure you book first class tickets, and when they invite you to the bar car, go. I don't want to spoil it because our guide didn't tell us what to expect and it made it much better. It was really fun and got us all very excited for the day ahead.
  • Hike from KM104 to Machu Picchu via the Sun Gate: This was our biggest hike of the trip. 3 of our group decided not to do it after the previous hike and bike accidents. It was pretty tough for me (I am 33, not in great shape, but have some hiking experience). 7.7 miles, mostly uphill and with a lot of Inca stairs. Only 500 total permits per day are given out for any stretch of the main Inca trail, which includes day hikers like us and through hikers doing the 4 day expedition. The 500 includes guides and porters. For our group of 6 hikers, we had 2 guides and 4 porters. There are some treks that are way fatter and employ many more porters - our guide told us about one option that includes crystal drinkware and fine china when you stop hiking for the night. For 2 hikers it employs 27 porters. If you have the ability and desire to hike to the Sun Gate, I recommend it very highly. There were multiple people having emotional/spiritual experiences once they ascended the last stretch of monkey stairs and crested the Sun Gate. It is truly breathtaking and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment after a long 5+ hours of hiking
  • Hiking Huayna Picchu. This is the highest mountain peak you see looking down over Machu Picchu in most of the classic photos of the ruins. You have to buy a specific ticket to have access to it, and they give you a time window for you to begin the hike. It is very narrow and virtually all stairs straight up to the peak, 1300 stairs and about 1000-1250 feet of elevation gain. It took us just over an hour to get up it. It was pretty rough, but after the long hike the day before it went by very quickly. The views from the top honestly were at least as good as the Sun Gate, if not better, but it was more crowded at the top and didn't feel as "special" as the Sun Gate hike.
  • Cocktail tour of Cusco: This was on our last night in Cusco and we had made really good friends with our guide (Shoutout Irving!) so we went on a little cocktail tour and then got drunk together. He was supposed to go home and eat dinner with his family (he lives in Cusco) but decided to stay out with us and party. It was a fantastic end to the trip. I feel incredibly lucky that we got a guide we got along so well with. He was our same age and had a very similar sense of humor as us. Can't recommend him enough.

Overall it was a really great trip. Not the fattest in the world considering we forewent the crystal and china on the hiking, but still among the fattest you can do in Peru. If you have any desire to see Machu Picchu, I strongly strongly recommend it. The Peruvian people are super friendly and take an immense amount of pride in Machu Picchu and it really made the experience great. This was my first time going on a Black Tomato trip, and I wasn't sure exactly what all we were paying for beyond someone getting some restaurant reservations, but they took care of every piece of logistics to a tee. We were never left waiting on transportation or anything. We went immediately to the front of every line, and had every detail taken care of. For the situations where taking our luggage with us didn't make sense, they provided us each an overnight duffle for us to pack and transported our luggage for us to the next hotel. On the long hike, the porters went ahead of us and set up a canopy, camp chairs, and a delicious lunch basket for each of us at one of the rest stations. By the end of the trip we were all browsing other Black Tomato tours and trying to decide where to go next. 10/10 would recommend. Happy to answer whatever questions I can!

My fiancé and I are starting to plan our Charlottesville wedding for next year, and having some difficulty estimating standard catering prices per-person. We are interested in a plated meal, bar service, and flatware/drinkware rentals. Any recommendations/knowledge for local catering companies?

Lobo #20 - John Constantine
<< l < l > l >>
Author: trumpetcrash
Book: Lobo
Arc: John Constantine [#1 of 1]
Set: 85
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PREVIOUSLY ON LOBO: After a galactic goose chase to find a man with a bounty on his head for his stolen time travel technology, Lobo discovered that the time travelling technology was a hoax and that he had no way to travel into the past and erase his despicable self. To make matters worse, Scapegoat – demon and his best friend – told him that he’d manipulated Lobo at birth to turn him into an unstoppable brutalization machine in order to help destroy the Divine – and Heaven – in the coming Revolution. Scapegoat, in an attempt to pry Lobo away from emotional and Earthly misgivings, instructs one of his demonic underlings to kill Lobo’s daughter, Crush. She’s bene on her homeworld of Earth for several weeks, scrounging around the streets of Gotham, but if she’s going to have a chance at surviving this demon attack, she’ll need some help…
Most people would expect a renowned demon-slayer’s breakfast to contain eyeballs or tentacles or something else that would make your average Earthling peel away in disgust, but these people overestimate the strength of John Constantine’s culinary palette; at the time that this tale took place, he started every day with a quarter of a box of Captain Crunch.
His demonic consort, Ellie, mentioned it every morning that she ate with him. “The mighty Constantine, eating cereal made for children.”
John, usually not completely dressed by breakfast-time (or lunchtime, for that matter), would shrug and flaccidly insult her own choice of calamari-kabobs.
One morning, though, there were no insults. John’s Captain Crunch went unsullied and Ellie just nibbled at her squid without committing to any particular bite. The air was heavy – not with sulfur as in Hell, but with the shadows of secrets – for several minutes.
Eventually, John spoke. “You haven’t been quite the same since I took ol’ Swampy and that alien to kill Negral,” he said. “Is his death still bothering you?”
Her red irises flashed up to John. “Of course not. I said I wanted to turn over a new leaf, and I meant it. I’m not sick of do-gooding yet, John. After all, variety is the spice of life.”
John nodded as if he hadn’t heard it a hundred times before. He returned his gaze to his breakfast bowl, but not before saying, “Anything interesting happening in the ol’ demon world today?”
“You’ve said “ol’” without the “d” twice now, Johnny boy. You feeling okay over there?”
“No misdirection, please. I just want to stay up to date in the demon world. That’s all. No fights.”
“You want to stay up to date, so you keep using the word ‘old’…”
John knew Ellie was hiding something but didn’t think he could get it out of there, so he just sighed and started to chew with his mouth open.
Smacking, his mother had called it.
It affected Ellie almost as much as it affected John’s mother. Her spine clenched, her eyes widened, and her nostrils flared.
“John–” she began. “You know I don’t like it when you chew with your mouth open.”
“I think I remember that.” John twisted his face in mock concentration while Ellie fumed. “But I also recall that I get pissy when people who I work with keep secrets from–”
“John, don’t be such a ba–”
She would’ve called him a “baby” and moved onto progressively worse insults if it wasn’t for the shriek of John’s cell phone. It wasn’t the phone in his pajama pants pocket that he would’ve happily ignored a call on, but the phone that was ceremoniously hung on the motel basement’s dingy wall with glorious Command Strip technology.
It was the emergency phone.
John left his Captain Crunch behind as he leapt out of his seat and towards the wall. He opened the phone, expecting it to be a costumed superhero or his friend Chas or maybe even his sister; instead, it was the voice of a burly alcoholic.
“Constantine.”
“Lobo,” John realized aloud. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A demon named Scapegoat is orchestrating the final battle between Heaven and Hell,” he said simply. “And he wants to kill my daughter, who’s on Earth. You need to stop him.”
John cast a glance backwards at Ellie, who just smoldered.
“Where, Lobo?”
Gotham seemed more alien to Crush than outer space could ever hope to be.
Outer space was more colorful and more obnoxious than Gotham, but it didn’t seem as dangerous. Sure, there were entities of unbelievable power lurking on that forbidden moon or right behind that nebula, but they were too big to have the effect of a rusty shiv pecking at your ribcage. Space lacked the stench that Gotham entrepreneurs could bottle up and sell on the interstellar black market as a tool in any amateur torturer’s toolkit.
Despite it all, though, Crush couldn’t quite pull herself away.
She came to Gotham first to help fight the vampire hordes. She did her part and saved some people despite seeing terrible things. After getting her parents back to their land she should’ve gone back to L.E.G.I.O.N., back to her surrogate family, but she was too morbidly intrigued by Gotham to return. It felt like something that her father would’ve loved – the kind of thing that was in her blood. The kind of thing that was evil, demonic to the most extreme vector. The kind of thing she shouldn’t have gotten herself mixed up in.
She never did, really. She stayed out of the local vigilantes’ sights and did a little do-gooding work on the side. A few drug dealers had been locked up because of her. She tried to try booze – sure, she’d had a can of beer here and there back home, but she didn’t really want to even do that again now that she’d seen her father – and couldn’t bring herself to drink it.
That’s when she knew she was ready, when she was sitting at the bar and felt with absolute certainty that she’d never sit at one again off the clock. She stood up and turned away from her untouched drink, her chest slightly more swollen with self-confidence than before.
That’s also when she saw the demon.
At first, she thought that there was a tall, straight-backed man in a heavy black cloak coming to take her just-vacated seat. She shuffled slightly to the left to make way, but the man didn’t follow through the channel. That’s when she realized that his face wasn’t just dark-skinned, but fuzzy and humming too.
His face was moving, as if it was made of a hundred little–
Crush yelped a bit when the first centipede shot out of the cloak and onto her uncovered left bicep. The little thing squealed and tried to sink its pinchers into her muscle until her right arm came up to swat it. It burst with a small pop, but by the time it was dead there were three more skittering on her and more spraying everywhere else in the bar.
The crowd around her started to scream and rush for the exits. Crush heard one or two people holler, “It bit me!”, and saw at least three fall to the floor, but she couldn’t tell if it was because they were bit or because other people toppled them over and trampled over them in the rush to escape. Crush just knew she had to get the bugs on off her; she ran her hands over her arms and neck and she leapt into the air and landed behind the bar counter, momentarily out of sight of the centipede-man.
Crush had no idea what the centipedes’ bites would do to a Czarian, but she wasn’t hankering to find out.
The gap between the bar counter and the wall was lined with bottles of booze and sinks and drinkware and everything else that normal bar operations required. Crush was trying to figure out if she could use any of it when the shifting face appeared over her. A buzzing, claw-ended hand reached over the counter for her, coming for her face. It dropped insects that she hit away in mid-air with one hand as the other reached for her gun. Before she could grab it something else reached over the counter and yanked the demon away from her. She puzzled as she checked the cartridge in her gun and raised it.
Someone was dueling with the creature now, someone with oily gray skin and with the head of… a fish? This confused Crush more than anything else. Why was a walking fish trying to save her? She shook the questions from her head and shifted the gun to the right, aimed firmly at the bug man. Then something insidious flashed in her right ankle, and with a scream the gun fired and shot a blast of energy into her attacker. She couldn’t see the effect, though, since the sudden pain in her leg sent her rolling over the bar counter and onto the ground neck-first.
When she was next awake her vision of the bar, with the fish (no, shark) man bound to a bar-stool by a rope of skittering centipedes, was tinted red. Something in her leg was jerking back and forth, moving her flesh and muscle and bone and drinking her blood. It felt as if it had been happening for hours, but perhaps it was only seconds.
The man – no, the thing – in the cloak stood a few feet away, ominous and silent except for the chittering bugs that made up his form. She wanted to ask it why it had done this, why it was hurting her, who the shark-man was, but she was too busy screaming in pain.
The pain started to travel up her leg, and she thought that she might die.
Then there was a flash of light and there was a fourth person – being, at least – in the room. This one was a human man and a shaggy caramel-colored beard that matched the tousle of hair atop his head. He looked like a detective in the dingy trench coat he donned, and he held something in front of him that Crush couldn’t make out due to her pain-induced convulsions.
“Beelzey, Beelzey,” the man tittered. “Working with crawly critters now, are you?”
“My name is Beelzebub.” Its voice was like a hum that came from nowhere in particular. “Johnny.”
“John Constantine,” the man sighed. He raised what had been in his hand to his mouth, and Crush’s stomach sunk when she saw it was just a cigarette and not some weapon.
“Connie.”
“Whatever. I’m here to stop you from killing her –” he waved a finger towards Crush. “And… whatever the Hell that shark thing is.”
“I don’t have the charm to kill that thing,” hummed Beelzebub. “It was just a nuisance.”
“Who gave you the charm to kill the girl?”
Crush thought she might’ve seen a centipede curl into a smile on Beelzebub’s face, but a fork of shooting pain ripped her attention away from it.
“That is not of your concern, mortal.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m concerning myself with it.” Constantine pulled something else out of the pockets of the trench coat. “I think that you were given your charm by someone who shouldn’t’ve been giving it to you. I think that if I crush this rock–” he flashed a ruby pinched by his pointer finger and thumb – “that you and your buddies are screwed out of luck for the time being. Shall we try it?”
The buzzing got louder and something deep and evil started to howl in denial, but before the centipedes suddenly flying through the air could reach Constantine, he crushed the little gem between the folds of his palm. Suddenly the cloaked figure and all the centipedes – including the one in Crush’s leg – were gone.
After an indefinite period of time, Crush awoke with a little splash of water on her face. Constantine had laid her out on the pool table. Her mouth started to form into a question, but Constantine interrupted.
“Beelzebub tried leading a rebellion a couple millennia ago, and now he’s chained to the will of his hellish superiors. Apparently there’s a bit of a shakeup going on, though, since a low-ranking demon named Scapegoat was able to get him onto our plane of existence.”
“Scapegoat?” Her leg still burned.
“Apparently one of your dad’s old drinking buddies. Don’t give me that look, I’ll explain when we get back to the compound. You’ll be safe there, at least for a time.”
Crush was too weak to argue, so she just nodded and tilted her head to the other figure over the pool table. “Who’s that?”
The aquatic beast chuffed a few words.
“According to police databases, his name – designation, really – is King Shark. He’s a mutant that says a man who smells just like you broke him out of jail a few months ago. Says he’s in your debt.”
“That’s… that’s…”
“I know.” Constantine reached down and grabbed her shoulder. “Deep breath, now, okay? This’ll only take a minute.”
Crush found the motel – or whatever they called these things in Britain – unsanitary; she didn’t believe in staying overnight at a place where you have to check for cockroaches before you commit to each step.
The room they materialized in was sparsely decorated. There was a folding table, a few chairs to go with it, and some rudimentary appliances (coffee maker, microwave, etc) which sat atop a counter on one side of the room. Sitting at the table was a slender, evil-eyed woman with billowing red-and-black hair. When Constantine and his tagalongs first appeared, she looked pissed, but after seeing both Crush and King Shark, her expression turned to one of confusion.
“What have you gotten yourself into this time?” she tittered. “Is this the girl you’re supposed to return to her father?”
“Actually, Ellie, he wanted me to hold onto her and keep her safe until the war’s blown over.” John sauntered over to the table and took a seat, not bothering to guide Crush or her aquatic guardian. “So we’re gonna build a little compound right here.”
The woman – Ellie – rolled her eyes. “You think we can hide out from a cosmic war in the basement of this shitty place?”
“The battle will take place in some part of space far, far away, and you know how these battles go. No one will really win, nothing will really change. Let them measure their dicks for all I care. Besides, I used up quite a few favors getting the girl – Crush – out of a bind with Beelzebub. Best to lay low for a couple weeks.” He finally turned towards Crush and King Shark. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. There’s a room for each of you over there.” He pointed towards a hallway that sprouted out of the eastern wall.
“Well… thank you.” Despite her timid timbre, Crush really meant it. King Shark echoed with his own thick and rubbery “Thank you.”
“Are either of you hungry? It’s still breakfast-time here in England, but Ellie makes a mean grilled cheese, and if you don’t like those we might be able to find–”
“No thank you.” Crush put her hand up. “I’m just going to go lay down for a few. Thank you, again.”
“Be sure to shake the bedsheets!” John called as she sulked down the hallway. King Shark followed, but had the good sense to enter a separate room from hers. “There might still be bugs in them!”
Crush sighed a heavy sigh, for she was starting to think that this place was going to make Gotham look luxurious.
That night, John ignored Ellie’s soft, nimble hands and her puckered lips.
“We have guests, Ellie,” he groaned softly into her ear, for they were still tangled up in each other under the bedsheets. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’ll have to wait.”
“When did you become so prudish?” She twisted herself out of their twist and sat up on her knees. “It’s just an overgrown fish and a moody alien.”
“That moody alien is a moody teenage girl, Ellie. I don’t give a damn about the shark, but I feel weird–”
“John, you have sex with a demon every night. I think you’ve passed weird.”
John took a big breath of a sigh and brought himself up to look Ellie in the eyes. “Ellie, you’ve treated me like an annoyance all day. Why should I go out of my way to please you right now?”
“Because I’ll make you feel good too.” The invisible tongue of her pleasure started upon John’s neck, but he mentally swatted it away.
“The truth, Ellie. Something’s been bothering you.”
Her arms folded across her chest (not just to display annoyance, but also to accentuate her bosom), and she huffed and puffed in a way that the average mortal would incorrectly assume was improper for a demon.
“Ellie…”
“Fine.” Her face twisted up into something… crooked. “The other night, I was visited by a demon. Don’t get that look, we didn’t do anything. He summoned me to take part in the Revolution; apparently that Scapegoat guy really is amassing an unholy army to defeat the growing Divine army. And they want me in it, John. The want me in it.”
John tried not to draw back, tried not to show her he was scared. “What did you say, Ellie?”
Her face pinched. “That I’d think about it.”
“So you haven’t been on the outs with me because you’ve been regretting sending me to kill Negral?”
Hesitation betrayed her. “John, I –”
“Ellie… you’ve been doing so good, you’ve been acting like a real –”
“A real what, John?” she snapped. “What is it that you want me to be?”
His hands found hers, brought them closer to his chest. “The best possible version of yourself, Ellie. And how can you be that if you participate in the battle that might end the universe?”
“I’m a demon, John. Maybe it’s about time you get that through your skull.” Her voice was hard; she took her hands away, rolled off the bed, stood up. “I’m not chained to your mortal universe like you are.”
John followed her off the bed. “Are you sure about that, Ellie? Can you really mean that, now?”
When Ellie finally did speak, it was accompanied by a single drop of brimstone rolling from her eye.
Crush had spent her first day in the motel basement falling in and out of sleep before allowing the tides of drowsiness to submerge her until the British sun rose the next morning. She readied herself in her room and sauntered into the storage-area-turned-living-quarters – she still had to ask John and Ellie why they were staying at the bottom of a motel – and found it deserted. No matter; she took out her phone (the Terran one she could only use on Earth) and caught up on all the trends that she’d missed while with L.E.G.I.O.N. or fighting crime in Gotham. She expected that social media would feed her relief, but really, it just made her feel useless.
She was ready to find a way out of the basement when a figure emerged from the east-bound hallway: John Constantine. He looked as shaggy as always, but there was something about him – maybe the gauntness of his face and twitch of his fingers – that made him seem even less put-together than usual. Crush attempted a smile at him, but his eyes passed over it vacantly.
“Where’s Ellie?” she found herself asking, thinking the name of his lover would brighten him up. “You said she makes a mean grilled cheese.”
John, who’d found the coffee pot, let his hands fall away from the machine and turned towards her, knife-marks in his eyes. “She’s not going to be here for the foreseeable future.”
“Oh.” Crush cursed herself for bringing her up and cursed herself doubly when she realized that her mouth was asking, without her permission, “Why?”
“She had… other matters to attend to. A war to wage that I cannot be a part of.”
“Okay.” Crush vaguely wondered if this had to do with Beelzebub and the fact that her father had pissed someone off enough to try and kill his daughter. The idea of her father getting wrapped up with religious factions should’ve been comical, but she just couldn’t bring herself to laugh. “When am I –”
“You’re not getting out,” John said shortly, throatily. “Not until the Revolution’s been fought.”
“The Revolution?”
John, who had turned his back towards Crush and his trunk towards the coffee pot, now whirled around and barred his teeth. “The cataclysmic battle between Heaven and Hell that your father’s old friend has been planning for longer than you can fathom, the battle that, if the demons win, could spell subjugation for everything born for the rest of eternity! So, yes, we are staying inside my bubble!”
Crush had not been prepared for such a brutish, outright, emotional assault. It was more of a shrapnel-stuffed grenade than a tactical missile, in all honesty, but it was still frightening. She had the fortitude not to twitch, but on the inside, she squirmed.
“Sounds like the type of thing that we fight, then. Save the universe and all.”
Crush saw fire in John’s eyes; the fact that fire, so symbolically red, turns blue when hot enough explained why Crush could not make out the sheen over his irises and coronas.
“I have the place locked down with magic,” John said tightly. “Here we stay.” He snatched the coffee machine, unplugged it from the wall, and tore off to his room amid his billowing trench coat. Crush looked after him, wistful for something unknown, and sighed.
Eventually King Shark came out, helped himself to some of the popsicles in the freezer, lamented the lack of fish in the fridge to the best of his limited vocabulary’s ability, and sat next to Crush. She was bored of social media and sought to teach King Shark cards instead. The cribbage board proved too complex, as did any form of trick-taking game or even solitaire, but he was able to learn Go Fish quite well – as soon as he realized that one wasn’t supposed to eat the cards, despite the game’s name.
John darted in and out of the general living quarters for several days. Crush could never establish a conversation with him. She looked for any sign of spiritual warfare, but besides the tame terrorism and do-gooding of everyday life, couldn’t find anything.
One time, when he was grabbing a beer, King Shark asked about Ellie too. John gave him the same scarred look he’d showed Crush – although not as cutting as that one – and said, “That’s up to her, now. We can simply wish her the best.”
It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth day – Crush was losing track of time with only Go Fish to mark its passage by – that Crush was able to start a real conversation with him.
“Can you let me use my interstellar phone?” she repeated several times when he was grabbing a bottle of beer from the fridge. “I need to tell the team at L.E.G.I.O.N. that I’m okay.”
“You’ll tell them where you are, or that the Revolution is coming. That isn’t okay.”
Crush moved her hulking frame in between him and the hall to his room. “Why not? Don’t you want something to do something about it?”
John shrugged. “I’ve been doing things for a lotta years, sister.” He was mildly intoxicated. “Time to take myself out of the mix.”
“Ellie’s up there, isn’t she?” It was a bold assertion on Crush’s part. “And she’s on the other side. And you don’t want to fight her.” Nothing on his face, just alcohol-carved stone. “You don’t have to, Mr. Constantine, but you have to let me out.”
“And me,” grunted King Shark from somewhere behind them.
“And the King,” amended Crush.
For a moment she thought John would break, but then she found herself flying ass-over-teakettle and saw John stepping over her and into his room.
She and King Shark numbly discussed breakout plans, but she didn’t know the first thing about magical charms, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t have been able to communicate it.
It was a surprise when, on the seventh morning, she woke up blinking the sun’s rays away.
“I didn’t think I had a window…” she grumbled sleepily before she pulled herself up and pulled herself into consciousness. “We’re outside!” She and King Shark really were deposited on the lawn of the motel.
John stood over them, neither smiling nor glowering. “I’m guessing you have a ship somewhere?” Crush nodded. “Safe travels. I won’t be able to transport you again. It’s a rather limited power, but it’s also a long story.”
Crush kept nodding as if she understood. “My ship seats three.”
“Then you two will have room to pick someone up along the way.” Now he smiled, but it was a sad one.
“Why are you doing this, John?” asked Crush, now standing and staring into his eyes. “Refusing the battle, I mean.”
“Because… I might love her, Crush,” he said. “And frankly, I don’t know how to deal with it. I’ve loved people before, but no one else is like her. I… it’s easier this way. I’m more of a screw-up than I let on, Crush, and you don’t want me screwing you and your father and whoever else you freaks accumulate up. No feelings.”
Once again, Crush nodded as if she meant it. “No hard feelings. Goodbye, John.”
“Bye, Crush. Tell your father I said hi.”
“I will.” Crush started walking then, not letting herself look back. King Shark followed obediently, although he did look back. He looked all over. Crush found his curiosity somewhat amusing, and idly wondered how he’d do in space, and how he’d do when fighting the hordes of demons that surely laid in their path…
NEXT TIME: The epic four-part “Lobo the Czarian” begins. We shift our perspective back to our favorite damned bounty hunter as he prepares himself for the battle of a lifetime and grapples with the realization that his lifelong friend and mentor Scapegoat had groomed him to be a tool of demonic destruction for his whole life. The next five months will be wild ride, folks, so buckle up! Thank you all for making it this far into not only this issue but this series, and if you only started reading Lobo midway through its run, I’d recommend going back through all of the earlier issues before reading “Lobo the Czarian” because it’s going to be a bit of a victory lap over all of this bounty hunter’s lore and what-have-you. See you all next month, and till then, stay safe and keep on readin’.

Thanks very much to yellowlab72 for posting that Kegworks has BG Reynolds on sale. I thought folks would appreciate some of the other things they have on sale - some really good discounts! The search within the sale isn't good, so you may have to do some browsing unless you know exactly what you want. I grabbed some links to help you out. I looked, but wasn't able to find a free shipping coupon.
Syrups: BG Reynolds, Liber, Small Hands, and others: https://www.kegworks.com/cocktail-ingredients/shop-by-category/syrups/?sort=price%3Aasc
Tiki mugs: https://www.kegworks.com/drinkware/shop-by-category/tiki-mugs/?sort=price%3Aasc
Sodas, and tonic: https://www.kegworks.com/search.php?search_query=soda§ion=content&sort=price%3Aasc
Swizzles: https://www.kegworks.com/search.php?search_query=swizzle§ion=content
Tiki patterned glasses and bar tools: https://www.kegworks.com/search.php?search_query=urban%20bar%20tiki§ion=content
A great set for a cheap party: 6 mugs, "bamboo" straws, & mermaid drink charms for $35: https://www.kegworks.com/polynesian-party-ceramic-tiki-mug-pack-set-of-6-mugs-straws-mermaid-drink-charms/

Planning some more tiki bar visits and really love bars with great mugs and other drinkware. What're your favorites? I think so far I've been most impressed by Three Dots and a Dash.