by Rick_Slick

The 2005 There Real Life Gathering, by all accounts from people who went, was a fantastic success. People from all over the world sharing a common interest in a virtual community gathered together to celebrate friendship and a passion for one of their favorite social activities on the Internet. In fact, many of them learned several new tidbits of information regarding There and its members on this trip:

10. Baloo, caretaker of the There economy and mastermind of all of the financial intricacies of the virtual world, spent over a half hour trying to work out 15% gratuity on a group meal.

9. There's network room is actually powered by a 9-volt battery.

8. Dance emotes look better on the avatar's in-game than they do on real life people, no matter how drunk.

7. Hitting people with buggies in There = fun. Hitting people with cars in real life = lawsuit.

6. Meret does not wear women's clothing in real life, just as he does not in-game, either.

5. Disky in fact looks nothing like a disk.

4. The giant orangish stain along the wall in one of the office corridors was created by PixelVixen's makeup while forced to use her face to grind herself to a halt during a heated rolly-chair race against Vash_Community gone horribly wrong.

3. Sonblock's developer item acceptance method: huge roulette wheel at his desk with 37 slots all marked "Reject" except for one that indicates "Accept".

2. Michael Wilson cut his own salary by 90% to help ensure the financial stability of There -- gets to work by grabbing onto the rear fenders of automobiles while wearing roller blades.

1. Huge portrait of RavenTresses with all sorts of spot lighting is first thing you see when you walk into the There office lobby.

It was a wondrous occasion to be able to meet for the first time online friends with whom you have shared so much laughter and so many good times, all while learning more about the mechanics and the history of the virtual world that brought them all together. There was also lots of drinking and making out.

But I wouldn't know. I wasn't there.

RavenTresses and I would have gone to the There Real Life Gathering, but unfortunately I lost my invitation, plane tickets, hotel reservations, printouts of maps and directions, money, RavenTresses' phone number, and all my Rainbow Brite designer luggage somewhere within the messy confines of my computer desk. As I sat sadly under a pile of papers and computer game boxes, I felt left out because now everyone would get to have all sorts of fun and whatnot and I had to stay home all by myself. This reminded me of the time that I had to sit for nine hours after soccer practice because my mom forgot to pick me up because I forgot to tell her I joined soccer or for that matter had any inclination to participate in sports whatsoever.

Never admitting defeat unless I just lost big time in front of a huge group of people, and even then playing it off as letting the other guy win out of pity and good sportsmanship, I decided to pick myself up, dust myself off, and have my own There Real Life Gathering right inside my own apartment! This was the greatest idea ever, except for the guy who first thought of putting naughty images on the World Wide Web. I could invite all sorts of random Internet strangers over to my place for a big party -- because that never ends up in disaster -- and I could get a huge blackboard or something and teach them all about how There works! Most people don't realize it's all programmed in LOGO.

I was fixin' to get to work right away on the invitations and the advertisement of my gigantic event, but procrastination and sheer laziness got the best of me. Before I knew it, it was already the weekend and no one knew about my Real Life Gathering! I guessed I would just have to party all by myself because no one showed up at all! I'm not even entirely sure what happened the first night, because I passed out drunk on my sofa on top of a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon with my tongue all hanging out with a thick trail of slobber oozing out, and half-empty bottles of Corona everywhere. That's pretty much exactly how my 13th birthday party went, so I was no stranger to waking up in weird positions reeking of alcohol. I vaguely remember calling up There customer support and asking them to help me troubleshoot why no one came over for my TRLG, and that it was clearly a bug and demanding that it be added to the Top Ten Community Issues list.

Saturday and Sunday went by pretty quick too. On Saturday, I woke up bright and early around 2pm and discovered that my blackboard I was going to use to explain in excruciating detail my weak understanding of the inner workings of There had been completely covered in Vaseline. There were pizza boxes littered all over the floor, mostly containing dry, cold, crusty pizza that was left over because no one from There bothered to stop by. Nothing beats waking up and leaping off the sofa only to feel cold pizza sauce oozing between my toes after planting my feet squarely into rotting, smelly food.

I spent the rest of day nursing a migraine headache with more alcohol and trying to figure out how I managed to get both of my legs into the left leghole of my underwear simultaneously. RavenTresses called me up to find out how my TRLG was going, so I turned up the angry heavy metal Barry Manilow music in the background and told her we were all having a really awesome time. She asked who all showed up, and I was all like "Um, lots of people." then I told her I had to go right quick because we were about to have a presentation on how the puppies in There worked and whatnot. The truth was, I was dying for her to come over and make me some of her peanut, butter, and jelly sandwiches she says are her specialty. I don't have the heart to tell her it's supposed to be "peanut butter" and not peanuts and butter.

On Sunday, I didn't get any fancy tours of the There server rooms or anything, and for having no one show up at all, my apartment sure did get pretty trashed! This was the last time I'd invite all these rowdy There hooligans to my apartment, with them all wrecking it up and all! Does anyone have any idea how difficult it is to get smashed up Cheetos out of the carpet? My entire apartment smells like 3-week old bologna, even though I don't even own any bologna, and someone spilled my huge box of glitter and sequins all over my bed. This was clearly the worst idea I've had since that spelling bee I hosted at the Karuna stage that we did with chat bubbles.

Needless to say, my first attempt at a There Real Life Gathering left me incredibly hungover and my apartment looking like I had the guys from Metallica over and I suddenly shouted "I download all your music off of Napster!!!" I can't believe this place got trashed so badly with all these crazy Internet people who never showed up! I think I'll stick to having get-togethers in-game from now on. Right now I need to do dishes, because I'm drinking juice out of a flower pot. For crying out loud... who smeared melted chocolate all over my bathroom??