Mar 212015
 

When I woke up last Saturday morning, I told Henry that my goal was to be as obnoxious as possible all day.

“I’m sure you’ll win,” he said somewhat happily, probably since he wasn’t going to be with me. I was Janna’s burden!

I found out last December that Howard Jones was playing in Cleveland in March and I begged Janna to go with me. But, since Janna isn’t Henry, she said sure right away and I didn’t have to make any false promises like I typically have to do to get Henry to go to shows.  Henry was so excited that he didn’t have to go, that he even rented a car for me so I honestly didn’t have to do anything to prepare for this day aside from order my own ticket. Henry is the best, you guys!

Bu then I flipped out twice before even leaving the driveway, once because I couldn’t get the car to recognize my phone and once because I couldn’t find the route he pre-programmed into the GPS for me, making Henry come out to assist on both accounts. Janna just sat there and sighed, because she has been a spectator of the sick sport of Henry and Erin for 14 years now. Afterward, Henry made some douchey retort on my Facebook status about how I “won before even leaving.” Whatever forever, Mehoover.

The drive to Cleveland was, thankfully, uneventful. I mean, as far as being murdered by hitchhikers or flipping FBI cars go. I only missed one exit! And it was because HENRY had the GPS set on MUTE, good job, HENRY. Because Henry is a Professional Driver, I don’t do much driving myself these days. And while it was nice to be behind the wheel, it was also pretty maddening not being able to tweet nonsense about Janna BECAUSE I DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE YOU GUYS. Nor should you.

Once we made it into Cleveland, our first stop was a late lunch at Melt, because it’s sacrilege to go to Cleveland without shoving a cinder block-sized pile of bread, cheese & assorted sandwich accouterments into that gaping pit in my face that is often mistaken for the portal to Hell. The best part about Melt is that they recognize vegetarians and vegans as real human beings and nearly everything on the menu can be tweaked to accommodate the meat-averse population.

And that is how I was able to enjoy the Melt of the month: a chicken pot pie grilled cheese, are you kidding me. And the funny thing is that I was never a big fan of pot pies when I still ate meat. I would eat the puff pastry on the top, scoop out the middle straight into the trash, and continue on to the bottom layer of pastry, all soggy from the gravy and totally amazing.

Here you can see some puffed pastry hanging out, like the labia of an over-worked grilled cheesgina.

If I’ve learned anything from the last three years’ worth of Melt power-chows, it’s to pace myself. Especially considering every time I’ve eaten there has preceded a concert, which means I have to endure an evening of my rumbling digestive system rivaling the sound of the show. So I slowly ate half and then immediately pushed away my plate.

Janna’s menu was on the back of an Alan Parsons Project record cover and I almost died because “Eye In the Sky” brings back weird flashbacks/maybe-memories of my birth dad and has pretty much haunted  me my whole life. Just a few weeks ago, I spontaneously queued it up on Spotify just to torture myself. So it was pretty apropos that this happened during the tour down music-memory lane I had embarked on last weekend.

Fucking orgasmic grilled cheeses (Janna got the Big Popper, which I had the last time and highly recommend!) and kismetic album covers aside, I would have to say my Melt highlight was when our waitress carded me when I ordered an Angry Orchard and then said, “No way, you look YOUNG. We were born in the same year, I’m jealous.” FUCK YES SEMI-HEALTHY LIFESTYLE FTW! Just kidding. It’s all that baby blood I drink. 

Looks aside, I definitely feel younger now than I did in my 20s, so something’s working right.

After we ate, we took a test-run downtown to make sure we knew for sure how to get to the venue while it was still daylight, and the GPS kept trying to convince me that it was OK to turn the wrong way on one-way streets, which is why I would rather just print my directions out on paper via Mapquest like the old days, ugh. Directions and I just aren’t a match. Then the Flower Child foray happpened, after which I made good on my promise to take Janna to Edgewater State Park in order to see disgusting Lake Erie (all large bodies of water disgust me) and it was even more disgusting because IT WAS FROZEN AND LOOKED LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH AS SEEN FROM SPACE AND I ALSO HATE SPACE!! Ugh, fuck you, Janna!! (Don’t worry — I said that to her face, too.)

All that white behind us IS FROZEN LAKE DISGUSTINGNESS.

OMG I’m puking in my mouth just looking at this.

FUCK YOU. This might as well have just been ALASKA, that’s how repulsed I was. (Alaska is one of my biggest fears, in case you’re new here.)

I was just really distraught about this. I kept thinking we were going to get taken by a serial killer who would then place our mutilated bodies in some obscene ice-fishing tableau on the lake.

Luckily, I was rewarded for my valiant effort to make someone other than myself happy (ugh, who am I anymore) when we were trodding through grass and JANNA ALMOST STEPPED ON A DEAD RAT!!! Oh god, I was already cheering so hard, I can’t even imagine the euphoria that would have poured over me like a bucket of rainbow glitter had her shoe actually made contact. Of course, she was like, “It’s not funny” and then she went off to use a porta-potty but SHE HAD TO CLEAN IT FIRST BECAUSE IT WAS GROSS and she had no other option, because when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, right? So at this point, I had literal tears from laughing so hard and started to see sparks in my periphery, because this is a thing that has been happening lately when I strain myself from reacting to absolute hilarity (which I was I seriously think I have a laughing disease!!). I had to go sit on a bench and text the only person who I knew for a fact would appreciate the latest Janna episode: MY BROTHER COREY.

“Go knock over the porta-potty while she’s in it!” he begged via text and I was being stabbed in the ribs at this point by the Giggle Gods. Then I tried calling Henry to tell him that Janna almost LITERALLY imprinted with a rat corpse and then had to scrub a porta-potty, but he knew better than to answer because I was either going to:

  • bitch about direction-things and blame him for being lost in the red-light district.
  • tell him I found some medieval birthing chair at a garage sale and could I spent $666 on it?
  • try to tell him a story but end up having a Bobcat Goldthwait-esque chuckleptic seizure in his ear instead.

And then it was finally time to set off to the Trinity Cathedral for Howard Jones! And I only made one wrong turn!

 

 

  3 Responses to “Retro Weekend: Pre-Howard Jones Hang-Outs”

  1. Grilled cheesegina. You’ve permanently scarred me.

  2. What kind of Professional Driver puts the GPS on mute? I guess the kind of Professional Driver who drives into the trucks only section at a rest area. Way to go, Mehoover!

    “when we were trodding through grass and JANNA ALMOST STEPPED ON A DEAD RAT!!! Of course, she was like, “It’s not funny” and then she went off to use a porta-potty but SHE HAD TO CLEAN IT FIRST BECAUSE IT WAS GROSS”

    TOLHURST!!!

    Honestly, I think it was your usage of “went off” in relation to the action that made me laugh hardest.

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