May 092012
 

While Chooch was in school on Monday, I took advantage of Henry’s day off (rarely happens) by making him go to the mall with me. We went to Century III, which is the mall I practically lived at growing up (read: where I stalked Scott Dambaugh). It’s been quite a few years since I actually walked around in there and while I knew (based on the crumbling parking lot alone; it reminds me of when everything falls apart in The Neverending Story) that it had become totally run down over the past decade, nothing could have actually prepared me for the commercial ghost town it actually is. As if I wasn’t depressed enough, now I had to walk around past imaginary tumbleweeds, exclaiming, “Well, I guess I’m not going to get coffee at Gloria Jeans!” “OMG, et tu Orange Julius!?” Basically, the only stores left are PacSun facsimiles, stores that outfit teenage girls in the greatest hits of suburban skanks, and Champs*. The lone remaining book store is now a used book store.

(*I used to hang out at Champs ALL THE TIME in 10th grade because I had the hugest crush on Will, one of the hottest mall employees of all time. One time, I was all sad because my boyfriend had broken up with me and Will said, “Here, call someone who cares” but instead of the dick-move of placing a quarter in my palm, he slipped me a piece of paper WITH HIS PHONE NUMBER ON IT. God, he was so hot. I mean, nice.)

The pet store isn’t even there anymore! Now there’s local high school art on display in that area. I don’t want to look at shitty art, I want to pet a motherfucking kitten, OKAY Century III Mall!?

There’s a good Mexican restaurant in there though. Luckily, it can be accessed from the outside so you don’t have to actually inside the wasteland.

That was one of the worst nostalgia-drunken stumbles down memory lane of all time.

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At least we got to walk through Macy’s men’s department, where I picked out ironic outfits for Henry’s imaginary makeover. And I got to use the Hot Topic gift card that Barb gave me at Chooch’s party, so that was a nice little pick me up.

20120507-204540.jpgMoustache Therapy!

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We ate lunch at Lotus Garden, where I openly (and awkwardly) wept about Don’s death, learned I hate chop suey, and marveled at the exorbitantly-priced 1960’s cocktail list. I expect those prices at late shift happy hours downtown, not at a Chinese restaurant in the South Hills.

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Even though I didn’t like my food (and really, I had no appetite anyway so what did it matter), the ambiance made up for it.

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My bean cake soup was so good, but I couldn’t even finish that. Chooch, the pickiest eater of all time, actually stole it off me when I reheated it for dinner; he ate every last piece of tofu, snap peas, mushrooms and water chestnuts. EVEN THE SCALLIONS, which tells me he wasn’t born with my prominent aversion to crunchy vegetables in soft food/soup.

20120507-204616.jpgZombie Barf Night Cap

The best thing about Henry and Chooch is that, unlike the people who always say they are there for you until you actually need them and then they conveniently ignore your texts and blow off plans, these two are always there for me. Couldn’t do this without them and my real friends.

  7 Responses to “My Day with Henry”

  1. That soup looks delicious. And I freaking love that ring!

    • Hot Topic! It came in a set of three: this one, a silver one, and a black one. I gave the black one to Chooch so we can have better moustaches than Henry. :)

      • I’m totally getting my family o’ 3 a set of those! And we’ll do the color division the same way, because I like blue, Nature Boy’s fave color is black, and–Tree Guy gets what’s left. Haha!

        P.S. I totally dig through the kids’ treasure box at the dentist to see if they have fake mustaches whenever we’re there. We’ve only scored one once…

  2. You know what, it pisses me off that you’re being dicked over by friends when you need them most. In fact, anyone who hasn’t been there for you during this time isn’t your friend at all, but an opportunistic asshole. Being down in the dumps always shows us who our real friends are, and it sounds like you do have real ones. Stick with them and fuck the rest.

    • Wise words. ;)

      There’s always one bad egg. My other friends are gems!

      • Dang Ang! You sound like a badass. If you wuz my friend, I’d give you a high position in my mafia.

        Erin, I’ve learned that some people just don’t know how to handle the grief of others. And other people are so deep in their own depression or grief that they have to build a barrier to keep from absorbing the grief of others. It sucks when you are the one who needs them–particularly if you’ve been there for all of their Debbie Downer days.

        Then again, as Ang so aptly put it, some people are just assholes.

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