We only got about 2 – 2.5 hours with Chooch on Saturday but it was so worth it. We got to University City a little after 3PM and there was a flea market thing going on so one of the streets was blocked off AND THERE WAS A MISTER SOFTEE ICE CREAM TRUCK PARKED PLAYING ITS HAUNTING MELODY!

“Did you get a Mister Softee???” I panted by way of greeting.

“No,” Chooch sighed because unlike me, he does not fine reasons to obsess over the little things, like an East Coast soft serve franchise with a creepy cone logo. 

“I wish I had worn my Mister Softee shirt,” I murmured through waves of regret.

This time Henry got to take the elevator up – we did not make him climb 20 floors, which is he STILL crying about, by the way. In fact, I even texted Chooch the other day and said, “OMG guess what he’s crying about right now.”

“Idk. The steps?”

DING DING DING.

“I’m sorry, but you two fuckers LEFT ME IN THE STAIRWELL. I could have had a heart attack!!! I could FEEL MY HEART BEATING IN MY EARS,” Henry raged from the kitchen when I told him I ratted out his whining to our judgmental son.

Chooch actually had one of these already on his desk! Granted, he had it upside down, but that’s fine. I fixed it, framed the Marvel Cave one, and then picked up the ICONIC picture of Henry rummaging through my backpack in the Busan train station. Chooch took this picture of him that day and we laughed about it heartily for the rest of the trip. I can vividly remember sitting at a table in the train station, nursing drinks from a cafe, and cracking up over this while Henry sat alone and smoldered haha. We were so slap-happy. Then I printed and framed the picture for Chooch that Christmas.

Meanwhile, I presented one of his roommates with the shoo-fly pie we had brought from Dutch Haven and I don’t know what I was expecting, the equivalent of a Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes winner reaction, but he was like, “OK” or something and I was like, “WOW OK” and then stewed over that for the rest of the day. I brought it up immediately after we left the room and were waiting for the elevator.

“I don’t think your roommates like me,” I whined to Chooch, who did not care about this at all and said, “Well, they were having a conversation and were distracted” but ONLY ONE OF THEM WAS IN THE ROOM DURING THE PIE PRESENTATION.

“I like your high school friends better,” I said sadly but also not without a hearty dose of crybaby poutiness.

“Wow,” Chooch mumbled, again not caring.

Then we took Chooch to GIANT, a grocery store which is apparently of no affiliation to our local Giant Eagle grocery stores. He’s trying to be a grown-up I guess and opted for the lowest tier of the dining plan and alleges he will be “cooking” at “home” for most of his meals.

Um.

‘K.

Henry left us to go to the bathroom so we wandered down the baking aisle where Chooch started to ogle the flour.

“I should get flour,” he said.

“For what??? Isn’t that for BAKING?” I cried, gagged by incredulity.

“Um, yeah, that’s why I want to get it,” he scoffed.

“Well, I don’t know what kind you’d need so you have to wait for him to come back from the bathroom,” I said, dusting this whole uncomfy sitch off my shoulders.

“Yeah, I wasn’t asking you, believe me,” he sighed.

He did grab a thingie of sugar though because he said they “made lemonade” whatever that means the other night and had to use I forget what to sweeten it. Honey I think he said, I quit listening because I WAS SO BORED.

While we were there, Henry signed up for a Giant loyalty card thing because he’s a good homemaker. Chooch also made us buy him a pineapple plant, not shown.

And just like that, our time with Chooch was up. We took him back to his apartment, his roommates came down to help him with the groceries, and then Chooch and I hugged goodbye awkwardly which ACTUALLY IS PROBABLY JUST AWKWARD TO EVERYONE ELSE BUT  NORMAL FOR US SO LEAVE US ALONE.

This was Henry’s truck stop dinner later that night. He had to assemble his hoagie that he bought at 7-Eleven and that’s the face he made after I started dry-heaving to best convey my disgust at this splayed meat exhibition.

Also fun to note is that I was still on a mission to get all of my steps for the day so at every truck stop, I made Henry walk all around the parking lot with me, EVEN THROUGH THE BIG RIG SECTIONS and we started laughing because to all of the truckers in their cabs, they probably thought I was a LOT LIZARD leading Henry to the PARTY ROW for some COMMERCIAL COMPANY.

Why yes, I did Google trucker sex lingo and apparently there really isn’t much they use over the CB in case the POPO BE EAR-PEEPIN’. But I learned PARTY ROW and COMMERCIAL COMPANY after going down the lot lizard rabbit hole and just an FYI, I learned about lot lizards back when I had a Blackberry and used to play around on some CB radio channel on it with truckers.

Well, I guess that’s all. Chooch is officially back in Philly, working his co-op which he said seems cool so far, and learning how to make things with tofu which is already a step ahead of me.

I’m not crying about him being gone, I’m crying about him surpassing me in the cooking area.

Just so  you know.

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