“So here’s a strange story that I pull out every now and then.
When I was in High School, I played guitar in a few different rock/metal bands. One band attained a decent level of success (for a high school band), while the others were basically just me ‘jamming’ with some friends. This story revolves around the latter of the two.
A friend of mine had told me about a guy he knew who was looking for a guitarist to play with. My friend had said that this guy was a few years older, lived in a neighboring city, and was a pretty decent drummer. My buddy was also a great drummer and stand-up guy, so I trusted his judgment. Uncharacteristically of me, I took the guy’s number, talk briefly with him on the phone, and decided to drive over to his house.
This was mid 90s Cleveland. I lived in a pretty middle-class suburb, about 15 minutes from downtown. He lived closer to town, in a little rougher area. I lived in a clean 3 bedroom house with my family. He lived in the damp, cramped basement of his grandmother’s run-down house. Our lives were a bit different, but we both loved heavy metal, and that was enough for me.
I pull up to his house, we shake hands, and he lets me in. We enter through a side door. The entrance is a spilled level, with a small set of stairs going up to (what looks like) a very filthy kitchen. Another set leads us downstairs to a mostly unfinished basement. It’s dark, damp, and smells like mildew. It has concrete floors, low ceilings, wood-paneled walls, and some old furniture. Perfect for high school kids playing metal covers.
The basement is also really, really dusty. I see some floodlights and a sledgehammer. I ask him what’s up with the dust, and he said he was changing the layout of the basement. His grandmother said he could take down some walls to make his bedroom bigger (which, in hindsight, was probably a really bad idea). Cool, whatever, let’s jam. We have a few drinks, awkwardly play through a few covers, and then riff for about an hour. I remember it being pretty fun.
We finish playing and sit down to have another bottle. I remember asking if I could swing the sledgehammer at the wall. ‘Go for it!’ he says. We start to take turns on this bare piece of drywall, opening it up more with every swing. We’re both going at it for a few minutes when he yells for me to stop. ‘What the heck is that?!’ I remember him saying. We look down, and there we see something laying between the sheetrock.
Remember, this is an older house. Whatever we found within the walls had probably been there for a very long time.
He leans down and pulls it out from the mess that we made. He brings it over to the coffee table, and we kneel down next to it.
It was a box wrapped in a piece of dusty cloth. I remember the cloth being pale red and having a scratchy texture. The box was wood. Old but, not ancient. It was pretty smooth and was in decent shape. It had a simple metal latch on the front, but no lock. I remember thinking that the box was pretty nice and that whoever hid it, probably did it for reason.
We both took turns guessing what was in the box. Based on the condition of the box, and how it was hidden, we were sure it was money. I said that, since I was there for the discovery, I got a cut of the riches. He laughed.
We unlatch the font-lock, and slowly open the top cover. As we open it up, we see another piece of cloth. I think it was the same cloth that wrapped the box. He reaches in and picks up the contents. Whatever was is in this cloth is loose and in pieces. He grabs it with two hands and transfers it to the table. He then peels back the cloth to reveal this great mystery.
There they were, in all their glory. Two perfectly preserved, finely crafted, amazingly smooth…
Wooden dongs. Wooden dongs?! Wooden dongs.
They were pretty big and slightly curved. More artistic than anatomically correct. One was slightly bigger. Neither of them made any dang sense.
For some crazy reason, this guy, who I had just met, and played a bunch of heavy metal covers with, lived in a house that had two wooden dongs living within its walls.
I never went back over there.
I understand that this story is really hard to believe. Every time I tell it, I’m met with either ‘that never happened, you made that up,’ or ‘it’s been so long, you’re probably fabricating it.’ Both are valid, but both are incorrect. This definitely happened. While I don’t talk to the metal guy anymore, I still occasionally talk to the friend that hooked us up. He jokingly apologizes every time we see each other.”