Soca Storm by Major Lazer: When Meeting Your Girlfriend's Parents Turns Into a Cross-Species Rave
Reading Time: The time it takes for Wood Elves to crash your formal dinner and dance on ya girl
“I’ll be honest – I’m terrified to meet your parents.”
Ranger sat in the driveway in his dad’s BMW with the car lights dimmed. His girlfriend of six months, lover of seven months, profile he Tinder-stalked for three months, Vanessa, brushed a piece of lint from his Navy blue Everlane knit blazer.
“Shhh,” she cooed. “You’ll be fine.” She smoothed a wrinkle from his Brooke’s Brother khakis. “You’ll just have to assert yourself harder since you have divorced parents and a weak first name.”
Ranger gulped audibly. “Didn’t your dad shoot your last boyfriend?”
She ran a hand over his neatly parted hair. “We had just broken up so technically he was trespassing, and it was only a flesh wound.”
“Oh God,” he cried. “I just peed a little.”
“You’re fine, Range. Just be yourself.”
Ranger coughed asthmatically 12 times and sucked in on his inhaler:
“Ah-heeeee”, he inhaled. “Ah-heeeeeet!”
“Actually, maybe just don’t make eye contact, just for tonight.” She rubbed his inner thigh. “Be good and we can play the Piggle Wiggle Nakey game.”
“Okay,” sniffled Ranger, like a small, overprivileged latchkey child.
“And this sounds weird but it’s important.” She turned to him. “My parents take so much pride as dinner hosts. Just a warning. Things can get…theatrical.”
At the front door of a house that looked like the Clue mansion, Ranger knocked loudly and the door swung open. Mr. and Mrs. Vanessa stood there, casually dressed and amicable.
“Come in,” Mr. Vanessa boomed, and shook Ranger’s hand vigorously. “Brandy? Cigar?”
“Oh no,” said Ranger. “I don’t smoke.”
“Tonight you do!” Mr. Vanessa laughed uproariously and handed him a long cigar, already lit.
“Let’s go to the kitchen table and while Melissa braises the pork we can talk about why you’re the right person to breed my only daughter.”
Ranger puffed on the stogie like Piglet trying to swallow a piece of lit firewood. They walked to an elaborate dinner table, surrounded by ornate décor and a wide-open ballroom style dance floor. Vanessa’s mom seated Ranger next to a life-sized statue of a standing grizzly bear, with an enormous sculpted furry Grizzly Bear phallus dangerously close to eating level.
Mr. Vanessa sat and crossed his legs and re-lit his cigar with a table candle. “Ranger, I’ll be straight with you tonight – I don’t want to grill you about your life details.”
“So,” he ashed his cigar, “what’s your salary like?”
Dinner was served. They ate pineapple ham with mashed taters, curried duck and tossed organic yard salad from the family water garden. A most succulent meal, good enough to make a grown man cry.
Ranger gradually became disarmed. Yeah, they were weird and the grizzly bear penis near his mouth was off-putting, but if this was the worst of it, he could deal. He looked over and squeezed Vanessa’s hand.
“Good.” She gazed at him with a glint in her eye. “So you’re ready for the after-dinner party.”
Her parents exchanged looks and arose. “We’ll fetch dessert.” Mr. Vanessa looked back from the kitchen entrance. “Hold on to your butts.”
Ranger missed the nuanced change of demeanor in his girlfriend, the mischievous Satanic glances exchanged between parents and daughter.
Suddenly, the walls exploded with bass and sound.
The lights dimmed and glowsticks tied to cords dropped from the ceiling. A kaleidoscope swirl of light and sound invaded the room and Vanessa’ parents danced back through the kitchen door, adorned in neon glow paint. Their faces were covered in finger paint and Mr. Vanessa gyrated towards Ranger.
“Um, what’ happening?” Ranger swirled in his seat and a pair of pygmy elephants burst through the double doors in the ballroom. “What the shit is happening?!”
Vanessa’s mom was actively shedding her clothes and Vanessa stood, swirled her hips, maintaining eye contact: “Dessert, baby.”
The elephants trumpeted. Jungle chaos broke loose.
Small orange Oompa men climbed down net ladders from the rafters, onto the table, dressed in Nordic sheepskin and faces painted vibrant hues. One of the little creatures landed in Ranger’s lap and he shrieked and reached for his inhaler. The Oompa man squeaked and rolled off his lap and waddled to the dance floor.
“Ah-heeeeet!” Ranger inhaled. “Ah-heeeeeeet!”
An emu stampeded through a side window and began fluttering in perfect rhythm to the frantic tympany. The chanting swelled and suddenly there were partygoers of all shapes and sizes filtering through the front mahogany doors. Ranger swore he saw…was that a group of people dressed as Muppets? No, there was no costume. It was just the actual Muppets.
A six-foot Bald Eagle strutted through the open doors in a leather jacket in aviator glasses. The bird looked around the room, lit a Marlboro with both claws, and ambled off to a corner.
Beating drums and dancehall breakbeats consumed the crowd and flamethrowers spouted streams of fire. Ranger reached next to him and mindlessly steadied himself on the bear statue’s enormous statuesque penis.
Ranger yelped and the bear gazed down disapprovingly. The 800-pound animated carnivore shook his head, as if to say, “Creep”, and flowed off into the crowd to dance with a faction of naked Wood Elves break-dancing on the staircase.
A Billy-goat troll with the legs of a goat and the haired chest of an Irishman kicked in a foyer window and stepped over the broken glass. He carried a 40 oz. beer and a pipe and dance-strutted his way towards a group of humans wearing Peacock feathers.
The terrified boyfriend grabbed up his Blazer and swirled. “Vanessa!” he shouted. “’Nessa!”
He looked about frantically. He saw her hair moving with the beat. There she was. Two Wood Elves. On Either Side. Dancing on his girlfriend erotically.
“Hey, shoo!” He rushed over and swatted them away. “Be gone, Orlando Blooms!” He swatted at them with a cloth napkin. “Back to Rivendell!”
The elves chattered in a strange tongue and threw a handful of glitter in his face. Vanessa shrugged and continued to dance. “Ranger, baby, you should go if you can’t handle it.”
The beat reverberated in him. Everything swirled. Elves and elephants and giant bear penises and delicious curried duck. Man, that curried duck was good. The room smelled of incense and there was an Oompa man smoking a pipe while riding a baby giraffe through the den.
The storm swept over him and everything went black.
Attention reader – press pause!
Vanessa shopped quietly in Whole Foods with her new boyfriend, Dirk. He wore Sperries and was dressed like someone orphaned him at age six in Banana Republic and he never left the mall.
“Porkchops on sale, honey.” He browsed. “Organic. No hormones.”
“Oh, that’s so nice. Maybe you can cook them while I finish Downton Abbey tonight.”
“Sounds so chill,” said Dirk. “That reminds me, what do you think of me coming over to meet your parents this Friday?”
“Oh yeah?” Vanessa looked up from the meat case. “Are you sure, hon? My parents can get pretty crazy – haven’t decided if you can handle it yet.”
Dirk laughed loudly, a bellowing douchebag laugh. “Babe, I was Psi Delta Chi Psi Chi Phi Pi. They used to call me Keg Kong. I think I can handle your suburban Mr. Rodgers parents.”
Okay, reader! Press play, again!
Vanessa glanced over, that gleam in her eye. “Okay, then. I’ll get us a bottle of wine, maybe some dessert apricots.”
The beating of drums in the deep seemed to come up through the floor and rushed the room, like a stereo underwater.
“Nope,” Vanessa shrugged. “Dinner Friday sounds great.”
Jars on shelves trembled and the lights flickered.
Somewhere, in the distance, there was the bellowing of elephants.
That’s it, y’all. If you enjoyed this great expulsion of creative energy, share it with a friend or drop tips in the internet tip jar. Check out the other Hyperdramas, an Appalachian time travel set to Odetta Hartman and an office work party on Ecstasy to Mark Ronson.
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Songs by Major Lazer to get you bothered:
Lay Your Head on Me
Lean On (Yeah, I know how overplayed it’s been — it’s still good!)
Light It Up
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