One of my co-workers called out to me from her office, “Do you like tomatoes?”

That’s a loaded question. I suppose I do like tomatoes, but only on certain occasions, in certain foods and sliced in certain ways.

But this was coming from a co-worker with whom I’m not very close; not wanting to engage her any further by revealing intimate details about my dietary habits, I settled for a simple, “Sure.”

And then there she was, standing before me with a carton of cherub tomatoes.

“Here, take one!” she said eagerly, arms extended like she was handing me a birthday gift. “It’s like an explosion of flavor in your mouth!”

Stunned, I stuck one tentative hand beyond the plastic covering of the carton and right smack into the warzone of small red torture devices.

Never do I just EAT A TOMATO. Oh, I know all about you fools who shake some salt on those motherfuckers and eat ’em like a goddamn apple. But that’s not for me. Put it on a grilled cheese, for sure, but someone gives me a whole entire tomato and it’s getting chucked for fun.

What a Normal Person Might Do:

• Politely decline.
• Pretend to have gum in their mouth.
• Puncture their breast implant and run.

What Erin Does:

• Accept the challenge.

I felt backed into a wall by then, anyway. My hand was already instinctively in the carton (actually, by this point, it was stuck in the carton; have you seen the gargantuan rings I wear?) so this was definitely the point of no return; and she was standing there all excited and wide-eyed, waiting to become Tomato Bros with me. I was willing to tell her what she wanted to hear just to make her go away.

It was the size of a fig, the one I withdrew. Instead of biting it, I sighed heavily and popped the whole thing into my fake-smiling mouth.

My molars squished into it and sent guts of the tomato gushing through my mouth; the wet, gelatinous texture made my sad tongue curl back in terror. This was definitely not a good time for my taste buds, or my gag reflex for that matter. I’ve had an easier time getting through reluctant, obligated blow jobs.

That’s about when the tang of bile began to slowly crawl up my throat like a geriatric geyser. I was still chewing and smiling while she stood there expectedly, praying that she doesn’t notice I’m dry heaving with zipped lips. And then of course, a veritable reel of disgusting images played out inside my mind, because why wouldn’t I want to think about:

• snakes engulfing writhing rodents,
• Snooki’s kooka engulfing writhing rodents,
• Sarah Palin as President, and
• Grandma Cleavage modeling her new Irish Snuggie,

while I’m hosting what I can only describe as Satan’s sour semen on the bed of my tongue.

The short version: It was yucky, you guys. :(

My body was trying to reject it into my cupped palms but she just wouldn’t walk away.

Someone else walked by and she turned to offer them their own cherub (who tossed it into his mouth like he’s some Huck Finn motherfucker, I might add; I might also add that his name is MITCH, the worst Facebook friend in the whole world, and you know why I can add that? Because HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THIS EXISTS BECAUSE HE NEVER CHECKS IN WITH HIS STUPID FACEBOOK FRIENDS.), affording me a few seconds to openly cringe and emulate the No Bueno! grimace a baby makes when being force-fed organic mashed peas. I definitely didn’t want to swallow, so I tucked it behind my teeth, under my tongue, if I could have dripped it down into my bra, I would have; and then I choked out a strained, “It’s really good, thanks!” Like it would have killed her if I told her the truth, as if she grew this bitch in her own goddamn garden from seeds extracted from her loins. And then I couldn’t hold on to it any longer—I swallowed. I mean, it might as well have been a load of ejaculate so why the hell not?

“An explosion of flavor, right?!”

Yes, something like that.

If you see me at the grocery store, rubbing elbows with Domesticates and Elderlies sporting open wounds, then you know I have to be there for a very good reason. This girl don’t shop for food otherwise.

On this particular Saturday, the reason was: popsicles. REAL popsicles to be made using the Zoku Quick Pop maker that my aunt Susie got Chooch for his birthday. She said she wanted us to have it because she knew how much fun we had making chocolate lollipops together as one big happy 1950’s TV family and figured we’d also take great delight in preparing our own frozen treats as well.

I’m sure she also probably knew that no way was I going to settle for popsicles made solely of Everfresh juices. I wanted the gourmet shit that I saw on the Zoku website. Henry let me choose two recipes and then we went to the grocery store where I complained the whole time and had panic attacks every time I got too close to meats and people.

Grocery stores are gross, you guys.

Even though the recipes I chose only called for lemons and cantaloupe, I decided we needed many more varieties than just those two pedestrian fruits. I’m a sucker for melons and there was a pile of like, 6 different species. (Brands?) I couldn’t remember which I liked the best. Thank god Henry keeps track of these things (only because he knows better than to ever buy for a second time something I hate) and loaded a Santa Claus melon into the cart.

God those things are like pure, unadulterated candy.

We also needed exotic things, like AGAVE NECTAR, and I complained that the aisle housing these sweetening novelties smelled weird, like a Mexican abortion clinic, which triggered Henry’s official look of STFU Spoiled Bitch. Turns out AGAVE NECTAR is like honey for cooking snobs. (But what the fuck do I know about things that people buy as ingredients. I’m an eater not a cooker.)

(I may or may not have spelled out the word “AGAVE” every time I needed to say it because I don’t know how to pronounce it.)

Henry’s favorite part of having me tag along is when I hold up food products and ask, “Do I like this?”

“Not for $8.99 a pound, you don’t!” he spat when the item my delicate hands clutched was a bag of rainier cherries.

This is how I learned that fruit is expensive. I have no basis of comparison when it comes to these things, especially since I was raised on fine food fare, so I will take Henry’s word for it. Especially after I said, “Wow, that was cheaper than I expected!” when the grand total came to $70-something and he nearly sliced out my tongue with his travel toenail clippers.

“This was all shit for popsicles and like, two frozen meals for YOU. Chooch and I got NOTHING,” Henry argued. Oh wah wah, go order a fucking pizza then. (He did, too.)

The popsicle maker comes with a fun face-maker kit, so I cut some bananas (the only fruit I sort of know how to slice) and started using the shapes to make eyes when Chooch pushed me out of the way and yelled, “I WANT TO DO IT TOO!” which made me yell back, “NO YOU’RE RUINING IT! HENRY, HE’S RUINING IT!” which made Henry yell, “OMG BOTH OF YOU GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!

” Henry was apparently doing the “important” part, which was actually mixing all the ingredients together so we could have something to even put the fruit slices in.

Henry is so smart like that.

I guess our sibling-like bickering was impeding Henry’s ability to properly mix up a batch of girly lemon cream, in which he added LAVENDER because he knows that’s my favorite flavor (not really, but close) and he’s been kissing up to me so I don’t pack a bag and GTFO, which is what I’ve been threatening to do lately. Oh go on, laugh. We’ll see if you’re still laughing when me and my hobo sack show up on your front stoop, asking to pitch a tent in your living room.

OMG I’LL NEVER BUY POPSICLES AGAIN

This Zoku thing is genius. You would think, since I had a hand in preparations, that at least the first few batches would come out looking like molten shit on a stick; maybe some would break off inside the machine; maybe at least one would have hemlock in it, making all of Henry’s wishes come true. But no, the inaugural batch and each one after turned out perfect. (Although Henry will argue that I jacked shit up when I tossed in a handful of Froot Loops to the cantaloupe mint mixture.)

Did I mentioned that after Henry diced it, I pureed that all by myself (after Henry showed me exactly which button to press and then hovered over me to make sure nothing fell in, like my face or a brick of cocaine)? Anything that is Erin-proof is a dream contraption. Go get one.

We had so much fun that I demanded we go to Williams-Sonoma that very same night to buy more sticks for the damn thing. Ours came with four and after making two of the lemon popsicles, it quickly became clear that we would need as many  more as we could possibly get (though Henry said one box of 6 would be fine). I have never been inside of a Williams-Sonoma (what reason would I have?) but luckily, before I could break out into fear-of-cooking hives, Chooch led us straight to the Zoku display. At least he’s good for something.

We didn’t have the ingredients on-hand to make fudgesicles and Henry started bitching about not wanting to leave the house again, so instead he improvised and concocted something akin to frozen Mexican hot chocolate. I approved.

Chooch and I made striped ones today, ALL BY OURSELVES! Literally anyone can use this thing without fucking it up!

But seriously, the grocery store, Willams-Sonoma and then a trip to Home Depot on Sunday? No wonder I feel so suicidally disoriented today. At least my freezer is stuffed full of frozen wonders! (The popsicles, not sperm and phalanges.) The cantaloupe mint is my favorite. I’m going to go fellate one right now.

Kaitlin had a whole Macy’s box full of leftover macaron shells that were no longer good enough for her to use (but still edible, and trust me, we edibled them) so she brought them in for me to play with.  I am a huge fan of her macarons, so it was an excruciating test of restraint to not tongue the entire box right there at work. Then I had to live in the same house as them for TWO DAYS.

Henry, Chooch and I took them to the cemetery yesterday for a little photoshoot, and the whole time Chooch whined, “NOW can I eat one?”

He really wanted one with sprinkles, but there weren’t very many of those ones so I definitely wouldn’t let him eat any until I was done. I’m the meanest mom ever.

Henry wouldn’t help me AT ALL because I yelled at him on Friday when he walked out of the kitchen with a macaron shell hanging out of his mouth, dribbling crumbs all over the floor.

He probably would have consumed the whole box before I got in a single shot if I hadn’t been watching that box like your uncle Cletus watches porn.

When we came home from the cemetery, I finally let Chooch indulge himself.

He’s such a cookie creep.

These have got to be among the filthiest hands to ever handle a French macaron.

When I look back on it now, the most amazing part about last Friday was that Henry and I not only made it to Cleveland right on time to meet Jason at Melt, but we drove the whole way without:

• tears
• bloodshed
• break-ups
• one of us getting kicked out of the car
• muffins being whaled at faces*

(*This happened once, in Virginia. And I will never let Henry forget it. In fact, I might write about that this week since I’m on a roll with illustrating to the Internet what a fucker he can be.)

We did, however, listen to copious amounts of Dance Gavin Dance, even though I had made a mix specific to our road trip. I hate my one-track mind sometimes.

Jason, when planning the itinerary for Erin’s Dying Wish Day, remembered that I’m an aficionado of melted cheese sandwiches, even had my friend Sarah draw me a grilled cheese in the stylings of the Sacred Heart, complete with crown of toothpicked-pickles, which I’d have already had tattooed on my arm if it weren’t for student loans fucking up my entire life. I’ve wanted to go to Melt for sometime now, so Jason made that happen and even got there early to act as a place-holder since Melt is a hot commodity and can get super crowded before the doors even open.

Now, the whole two and a half hours it took us to get there, I tried to reason with myself that I should focus on one thing at a time instead of the entire day ahead of me, which would undoubtedly cause me to ping around the car like a cat with Scotch taped-paws. So that’s what I did, I focused all of my nervous energy on Melt.

What was I going to order?

How was I going to decide?

What if I got sick?

Why didn’t I buy Rolaid Soft Chews*?

What if I puked?

What if it was super crowded there and I had a panic attack and died before even tasting my grilled cheese?

(*When I was friends with Christina, she knew to always keep Rolaid Soft Chews on her person at all times when I was visiting her. My excitement and nervous energy, combined with even the slightest speck of grease on a plate, never fails to manifest itself into a brick of anxiety in my stomach.

)

There were a lot of things to consider. Maybe if Henry was more fun in the car and would play obscene travel games with me, my neuroses wouldn’t have time to activate. Or if he’d be less of a square about picking up the occasional hitch-hiker. (I haven’t helped out a hitcher in ten years because of Henry. This is, right now, being added to the CON column of my Henry List.)

We arrived shortly before 11 and I was relieved to see that Jason was the only one standing outside the doors—no crowds! There was one “what if” to scratch off the list, but I still had to worry about what to order and going into cardiac arrest, possibly finding a way to lethally impale my eyeball on the straw in my water glass. Maybe I shouldn’t use a straw…Or maybe skipping a beverage altogether was key.

But then what if I found myself choking? Henry knows the Heimlich (he learned it in THE SERVICE; I just found this out recently because he was bragging about it), but would he actually use it on me, or would he find himself paralyzed in a state of extreme pleasure, watching my face morph from Erin to Smurf in 0.5 seconds?

While my internal dialogue was percolating my synapses, Henry and Jason stood around talking like normal people.

I wonder what that’s like.

By the time the back door was unlocked, a substantial line had started to form behind us. Suddenly, waking up early to get there didn’t seem like such a drag after all. (Not that I could even sleep the night before, anyway! God, I was so giddy.)

We were seated at a corner table, and Henry filled Jason in on my need to sit in whichever seat allows for the most panoramic view of the restaurant, like I’m a CIA agent. (I just prefer having as few people behind my back as the seating arrangement permits.) Jason offered to switch seats with me and I almost took him up on it until I realized how ridiculous I was being. Lately, I have become hyper-aware of my neurotic preferences.

“And then I’m usually stuck staring at the wall,” Henry complained. Bitch, shut your mouth and be thankful that I even allow you to go out in public with me.

Confession: I had already looked at the menu the night before at work, in hopes of narrowing it down. I was pretty sure that I wanted the Mushroom Melt, but then I made the mistake of picking up the menu in front of me which immediately placed my brain at the center of a maelstrom of grilled cheese choices. I felt confused and panicked, especially when I noticed that there were vegetarian options for nearly every item which I hadn’t known, and this opened up a brand new ordering quandary by practically doubling the choices available to me.

And then! I noticed the Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana, which sounded rebelliously unorthodox amidst the cheesy variety. I kind of wanted to be That Person who goes to an establishment built around grilled cheese and not order a grilled cheese. Plus, the latticed nerves in my stomach were kind of craving something sweet.

But how much of a faux pas would it be to not order a grilled cheese on my virginal visit to Melt?

Everyone at home would be so disappointed in me. Chooch would probably get harassed at school. My grandfather would roll over in his grave and haunt me for the rest of my life: All those years of practice you had, ordering grilled cheese at Denny’s and Blue Flame, and for WHAT? It would be right up there with dropping out of high school. I’d eventually get that tattoo only to be reminded of the fraud I am; the banner on it would have to be changed from “4 lyfe” to “fair-weathered fan.”

(Technically, the peanut butter and banana has cream cheese on it.)

After all of this inner hemming and hawing, I went with my first instinct and ordered the Mushroom Melt, which the waiter, after suggesting 87 vegetarian options, admitted was his favorite. This ended up being a wise choice because it was simple enough to not sink through my stomach like a cannonball, but it still had enough going for it to make it better than any restaurant grilled cheese I ever had. Carmelized onions* were draped luxuriously around clumps of portobello mushrooms and stuffed generously into the middle of  a viscous expanse of hot provolone, providing the sweetness I was looking for without making my teeth ache.

(*One of the few onion variations I can tolerate on a sandwich; I’m notoriously fussy when it comes to onions, enough that Henry had to make himself a guidebook to prevent instances prompting me to chuck meals back in his face.)

There was enough cheese packed between those slices of bread to fashion a fromage robe, and believe me, I thought about it. Fuck Lady Gaga.

I’m adding cheese to the list of porn I need to direct.

Henry and Jason ordered things that had meat on it so I didn’t ask them how it was. And really, wasn’t it all about me anyway? I can’t even remember what we talked about while we ate, I was so tuned in to my sandwich and the fact that once it was demolished, we were going to the Alternative Press office which would make my stomach lurch but I’d wash it down with water all while managing to not impale my eyeball on the straw after all. But I do know that I lasted forty-five minutes before practically vomiting the subject of Jonny Craig, causing Henry to wince from across the table. I tried to promise that I wouldn’t reveal my true, obnoxious 16-year-old fan girl self by eagerly mentioning him (and it’s always eagerly, believe me), but keeping promises was never my strong point.

The Mushroom Melt was glorious, like taking the best grilled cheese in the world and infusing each bite with seasoning ground from comfort, magic and the best childhood memories. But, truth be told, I’m going to have to make at least a dozen more pilgrimages to Melt before I can write an accurate review. (In other words, I REALLY want that peanut butter thing.)

Get fucked.

All the pre-school kids get to bring in treats on their birthday. Since there was no school on Monday, Chooch is bringing shit in tomorrow. I thought perhaps Henry could bake some cupcakes; Chooch suggested cookies.

But Henry went off on his own and decided to make chocolate lollipops. He bought three different sets of molds: pirates, dinosaurs and monkeys. Also procured were bags of white chocolate molding things, food coloring and paint brushes to help aid in a potential murder-suicide situation.

Because solid chocolate is too easy.

Before sitting down to “help,” I considered relisting* myself as “in a relationship with Henry Robbins” on Facebook so that I could re-breakup with him after fifteen minutes, because the two of us working side-by-side on anything involving food and arts and crafts is surely going to end with our home criss-crossed in yellow crime scene tape.

(*Technically, according to Facebook, I’m still single after Henry failed to take me roller skating Saturday night.)

Henry wasn’t even done setting up yet when Chooch spilled a jar of orange food coloring on himself THREE TIMES. This was partly because I was too busy perfecting my Negligent Teen Mom act and partly because no one ever listens when Henry says not to touch something, which would explain why I’ve found myself in so many philandering situations over the years.

So now my child looks like he was sired by Pauly D after a reckless night of beatin’ the beat in Snooki’s kuka with his spray-tanned guido venereal-rod. Have fun selling booty shorts on the boardwalk this summer, son.

Meanwhile, I managed to paint the miniscule crannies of a pirate skull, a pirate ship and two dinosaurs before completely flipping my shit.

“IT WON’T STAY MELTED!” I kept screaming at Henry, who would calmly tell me to “work faster.”

%&*%*^$*^%

Listen here, Wonka. Unless you want to see how fast I work when equipped with a sausage grinder and your dick in my hands, best BACK UP OFF ME.

Fifteen minutes — pretty lofty expectations on my behalf. I only made it ten before rage and a quickly diminishing temper had me demonstrating full-body palsy shakes before launching my paint brush into a death-spiral to Hell and stomping off to pout on the couch.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Henry murmured, hard at work filling his molds with plain milk chocolate and not even bothering to PAINT THE FUCKERS LIKE HE WAS MAKING ME DO, while I yelled a bunch of vulgarity-drenched death threats to the entire institution of chocolate candy and made promises to insert leftover lollipop sticks into Henry’s asshole while he sleeps tonight.

He’s currently in the kitchen, making exaggerated motions of extreme harriedness while I sit here listening to Emarosa, loudly and with my feet up, because I have no obligations to fulfill. Life is good.

Enjoy yourself, bro. This was all your idea, remember? If it were my choice, I would gladly just jam a stick of Juicy Fruit in each of those little fucker’s mouths and be done with it.

God, I hate doing things.

Nothing says Happy Birthday like half-assed chocolate shit on sticks born from rage, dysfunction and pure, unadulterated hate for life. Eat ’em up, kids.

I won’t lie–I’ve been on a diet. I’m pretty serious about this rollerdance pipe dream and figure I better do all I can to get into good shape so I don’t look like a rotund Liberace in my majestic sequined unitard. (Today, sticking to this diet has proven especially arduous since there was a Dip-Off at work, inspiring my co-workers to wish to ladle said dips into my mouth all night.)

Last night, when I went out to dinner at Mad Mex with my friend Gina and her girlfriend Elissa, I had every intention of ordering a salad. Something sauceless & sprout-like. Maybe just stick to licking the rim-salt off Gina’s margarita. But then I saw that the special was jerk pork tacos with FRIED BANANAS and then all I could think about was substituting the pork for tofu but definitely keeping the FRIED BANANAS.

FRIED BANANAS in a taco. How motherfucking Caribbean. And to think I was just saying the other day that I needed to paste some island flavors upon my palate. (This is all thanks to seeing the same Shabba Ranks video twice in two days on VH1’s Island Soul.)

I had been subsisting on leaves for nearly two weeks, with some rice and yogurt thrown in here and there. Maybe a covert, guilt-covered cough drop when no one was looking. So that is what I ordered, this fucking taco with FRIED BANANAS, and goddamn was I feeling great about it, too. If I’m going to cough up a cheat night, it better damn well have the FRIED BANANAS protruding from it.

As I turned away from the waitress to talk to my friends, I noticed her form hovering in my periphery.

“I just want you to know that it’s really hot,” she interrupted.

“OK,” I acknowledged. This should have been a sufficient response, I felt.

“No, it’s very, very, very hot,” she stressed.

Again, I said that was fine, and she finally retreated.

“Three ‘very’s!” I exclaimed to Gina and Elissa. “Goddamn.” Doubt started to creep in. Doubt and anxiety.

“I feel like I’m about to get a piercing, not a taco,” I joked, but the fact was that I was fucking serious on the inside. My palms were beginning to glaze a little, and I had this bad feeling that I was about to become the first person to expire from jerk sauce, completely killing my Caribbean cred.

Coming back with our drinks, the waitress felt compelled to reiterate again just how spicy this dish really was. She started comparing it to various hot sauces I had never had, assuring me that it was way hotter than these particular fiery juices which had never graced my tongue.

“I LOVE that sauce, but can’t handle the heat of this one,” the waitress put on the table, like that was going to actually serve as some basis of comparison. Maybe if she had remembered to sling her Miss Pennsylvania Pepper Sadist sash across her bulky bod’, her statement might have made more impact.

“You’re scaring me,” I admitted, seeing my FRIED BANANAS all lassoed up in a rope, being wrangled out of my reach by Lisa, Mad Mex’s resident kill-joy.

“How about I have them put the sauce on the side?” she suggested, in a tone that still didn’t suggest an ounce of confidence in my decision, like I’m a fucking albino swearing I won’t perish beneath the sun when I join that Palm Springs nudist colony.

“I wanna see your face melt off,” Gina gushed supportively after Lisa set off to baby my taste buds by segregating the jerk sauce in a ramekin, where it didn’t stand a chance of flooding my food.

Waiting for my dinner to arrive was much like standing in line for that piece of shit carnival ride that killed three Mexicans back in ’08 and definitely is demanding human blood to be poured into the mouth of Hell, so says the shouts of your mother as she begs you to just pitch a fastball at Bozo instead: I mostly knew I was going to be alright, but now had that niggling voice of caution lashing its tongue and waving a spaghetti sauce-coated wooden spoon in my head.

When our food was placed in front of us and I took my inaugural bite, I expected our waitress to pop up between my legs and scream, for one last time, “IT’S REALLY HOT BE CAREFUL!” while braced to dump a freezer of ice cubes and frosted mugs of milk down my gullet.

But she didn’t, and yet it turned out to be fine. Completely anti-climactic. I wound up just dipping my taco in the cup of jerk sauce and accompanying pineapple salsa (WARNING: CONTAINS HABANEROS, OH NOES!), allowing me the perfect sauce control over my food, and in the end, I was very happy with my choice.

Even though it was the most anxiety-laden taco I’ve ever ordered.

That night, the waitress was in my dreams, trying to talk me out of doing everything I wanted to do because it was too hot. I woke up wondering where she was when I needed her fanatical advice, like in 2001 right before I had that one night stand with Henry.

It’s weird, just last Saturday Jessy was over here and I was showing her some of my older photographs.

“This is my all-time favorite,” I said, pulling up this photo I took of Kara in 2008 in one of the bathrooms at Zenith.

Then a couple days later, Kara was like, “Hey let’s go to lunch at Zenith this week.” Almost as if she could sense her picture being shown!

So I met her and her baby Harland there on Thursday for BBQ seitan sandwiches. The best waiter in the world, Keith, was our server! I love that guy; he has this natural charm to him, like he could just pull up a chair and join you and it wouldn’t be weird or awkward at all.  The Gypsy Cafe needs a Keith. They should find a way to clone him so they can get rid of the guy who spills champagne on people’s heads.

Halfway through the meal, Harland reached his arms out to me. Kara laughed and said, “I think he wants you to hold him, Erin!”

Me and babies? Not really so tight. Don’t get me wrong – Harland is a sweetheart and I like to look him, but keeping some distance between us is imperative.

However, I wanted to be a good friend and give Kara some free hands with which to eat, so I took Harland from her and we walked around, looking at the art and antiques strewn around the restaurant.

Kara said Harland doesn’t let anyone keep him from her for more than like a minute or something, but for some reason he was like, “Nah, lady, this is cool. I’m not gon’ cry. Now take me over there so I can fondle some pumpkins.” Kara thought this was funny, me being all uncomfortable with a baby in my arms.

I think Harland can sense that and does this to me on purpose. After all these years, someone has finally come along to give me a taste of my own medicine. That baby is mega manipulative.

Together, we scoped out a painting of a topless broad. He was cool with that.

I finally gave him back to Kara and sat back down. But Harland toddled back over to me, sat on my lap, and stole my roll! What the fuck, Harland?! This is payback for writing that haiku about your mom’s butt crack, isn’t it?!

All joking aside, he’s good for a one-year-old. I never took Chooch out to eat without Henry when he was that age, because he made me a nervous wreck. But Harland is quiet and well-behaved.

Kara and I must have read opposing parenting books.

Before we left, we checked out the bathroom for old time’s sake. It’s green now! But still the best bathroom in Pittsburgh, as far as I’m concerned. I snapped this with my phone, because I felt we needed an updated version now that Harland is around.

I came home from lunch and promptly iced my arm from all the baby-carrying (I’m way out of practice). Henry asked accusingly, “Wait – she took Harland? Then why didn’t you take Chooch?!”

Chooch, eating lunch in an antique shop? Has Henry not met our son?

A few weeks ago, Henry and I attempted to have a date night but someone forgot to make dinner reservations, so we wound up eating at some AARP rec room in Rostraver.

Halloween weekend, we finally made got to have our proper date night at the Gypsy Cafe.  The only bad part was that I was on the tail-end of a stomach virus, so all day long I practiced slow, deliberate bites while psychically pleading with my stomach to not return-to-sender.

Our reservation was for 5:00pm, right when they opened. We were the first ones inside, and I preferred that. Walking into crowded restaurants makes me blanch.

Gypsy Cafe is really small, intimate. The perfect setting for Henry and I to stare dumbly at one another and struggle for things to talk about.

“I love it here already,” I whispered to him, noting a Ouija board in a corner of the small stage by the door.

“You haven’t even had any food yet,” he argued, killing the moment.

I’m convinced I have some gypsy in me, and I’m not talking about the wang of Eugene Hütz. (Forget my name for a second – there isn’t an ounce of green beer and potato famine in this girl’s blood, OK? Also forget the brief phase I went through where I was fronting a gang to take down the gypsies after a pack of them pick-pocketed my Pappap in Rome. I was 11, but already had some hardcore anger issues.) For years, I’ve felt a strong pull to Romania and have always coveted Starr’s wardrobe in The Lost Boys.

See? Some concrete evidence right there.

I spent more time picking out the wine I wanted from the beverage menu than I did looking for an actual meal. Which made a lot of sense considering how sick I had been.

Nothing beats the stomach flu like a cold glass of Transylvanian wine. I ordered some pumpkin ale thing for Henry because I wanted to try it in hopes that it would be The One that would make me sort of like beer.

You can stop leaning forward in anticipation – it didn’t. It also wasn’t the beer that Henry had ordered, but something “comparable” to it.

Later, the waiter discovered that they did actually have the kind Henry had originally ordered, so he tried a bottle and ended up liking it a whole lot better than the replacement. I was angry that I was now going to be paying for two bottles of beer.

WE ARE NOT RICH PEOPLE, HENRY.

My wine was delightful though and made me feel like Vlad the Impaler was spearing my organs like enemy heads.

In all the good ways, of course.

We ordered the pumpkin curry hummus from our very blasé waiter.  Actually, it came with Henry’s dinner, but I ate most of it while Henry was too busy reading his beer label, glasses slid all the way down the bridge of his nose. It was definitely some of the best hummus I’ve spread on my tongue of late.

Henry and I both ordered the sweet potato bisque. The soup of the day literally changed three times in the 20 minutes since we arrived, and I was happy the roulette wheel stopped on the bisque because it sounded the most pleasing to me. (Seriously – three times they switched out the fucking soup on us.) The bowls were big and the bisque was velvety, savory and in my Will you can now read that this is the fluid with which I want to be embalmed. I wished that some Food Network suit had been there to watch my over-exaggerated facial orgasms as I spooned that creamy shit into my large mouth.

“I mean, yeah it’s good,” Henry said with a look of cautionary disgust after I said for the 7th time, “OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING ISN’T IT AMAZING.” I’m pretty sure he was anticipating me to de-bra and dunk my breasts into the warm soup. Because that’s usually what I do at home when I get super-excited about soup.

You don’t?

Must just be us gypsies.

My main course was the Autumn Tangine, which was a stew of root vegetables, farfelle, and golden raisins. I didn’t bother to ask Henry what he ordered, but it was something made from beast.

My tangine was alright. To be fair, I had reached the ready-to-burst precipice after gormandizing the shit out of that soup, so I was forcing tiny bites of the stew into my mouth at this point. I thought it was good, but it wasn’t anything different than something Henry would make at home. That’s either a huge compliment to Henry or a really cruel insult to the Gypsy Cafe.

I think next time, I’ll just sit at the bar with a flight of exotic Romanian wine and a vat of sweet potato bisque, pickpocketing the waitstaff.

(But no seriously – I need to go back on a day that’s not shared with me vomiting in the bathroom.)

I had given Henry explicit instructions on what to get for the cupcakes while I was at work Thursday night. The plan was that he was going to bake them and then I would attempt to not look like an honorary member of The Dream Team while recreating what I saw in the last issue of Better Homes & Gardens (which somehow is delivered with my name on it, but Henry is always quick to whisk it from the mail slot before I throw it away).

When I came home from work, it was after 9pm and I quickly saw that Henry had not yet made the cupcakes.

“I’ll get to it,” he kept muttering.

I distracted myself by stuffing the treat bags with lame little Halloween party favors and candy. Then I panicked because I wasn’t sure if the game we had in mind was good enough, so I printed out Halloween mazes and stuffed those in the treat bags too. Goddamn children.

This took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. One could imagine how exhausted I was, having single-handedly carried this entire party on my back while Henry pranced around in his underwear.

Somewhere around 10:30pm, I found out that Henry had purchased red decorating gel instead of black. RED! I cornered him in the kitchen as he mixed the cupcake batter and laid into him for being so worthless, so stupid, so irresponsible, so UNRELIABLE.

We broke up for the second time that night, but he still put his big boy pants on and went back to the store in search of black decorating gel.

By the time he came back, I noticed that he also forgot the pretzel sticks/Frankenstein neck bolts.

“I just came back! I am not going to the store again!” Henry shouted.

I raised a knife.

We broke up again.

I know, I know: Erin, why didn’t you just go to the store yourself? And let that motherfucker win?! Never. Let me remind you that the fact I haven’t eaten meat since 1996 was born from my impenetrable stubbornness. My head, it is that of a bull. (And not just because I’m that ugly.)

“Just forget it!” I screamed. “Fuck the cupcakes! I just won’t take them!”

“Fine,” Henry mumbled, pushing past me and going to sit down on the couch.

“NO I’M JUST KIDDING WE NEED THE CUPCAKES OMG GET BACK IN THERE!” I yelled, heart rate up, left arm tingling. Ew I fucking hate parties. As Henry walked by to go back in the kitchen, I muttered, “But the cupcakes are going to look pathetic since you forgot the pretzels, good job.” I saw him tense up for a second, like he maybe was contemplating pushing me into the hot stove, but then he adjusted his Susie Homemaker ruffled apron and went back to ladling batter into the cupcake tray thing.

“Did you start cooking the spaghetti yet?” I asked. We needed a lot of spaghetti noodles for the stupid game that the other moms so thoughtfully left for me to come up with.

“Can I get through the cupcakes first?” he snipped, and we broke up again.

Around 11:30, the cupcakes were cooled off and it was time to start icing them. Henry mixed up a bowl of purple frosting while I struggled with the orange. I didn’t mix it well enough, so all the cupcakes I frosted had dark orange striations throughout them, and that’s on top of the sides I smashed in from gripping too hard.

“Look,” Henry instructed. “Turn the cupcake with your other hand so the frosting goes on easier.” But as usual, I ignored his tip and continued glooping on mounds of frosting before moving on to the frustrating task of smoothing that shit out.

I started to cry. Then I screamed, slammed down the cupcake I was working on, and marched out of the kitchen.

But not before breaking up again, followed by a death threat.

“You’re a fucking retard,” I heard Henry say as he examined the three cupcakes I managed to frost before having a full-blown temper seizure. I really believe that it takes a special kind of person to be able to work with sprinkles and frosting without winding with brain matter Pollacked across the kitchen wall.

I started to watch the Jersey Shore reunion show, mouth still molded into a scowl, until I realized that I couldn’t let Henry take all the credit for the cupcakes. And he would, too. I knew it. So I went back in the kitchen and pushed Henry out of the way. He had a plateful of large marshmallows which he had previously rolled through green glittery sprinkles. I picked one up and decided to start working on the Frankenstein heads, that maybe if I concentrated real hard on that, I could block out the fact that Henry was two feet away from me, making me hate life.

By then, it was midnight.

I did that high-pitched shriek that happens when something isn’t going my way.

“What?” Henry yelled.

“THIS BLACK GEL IS TOO THICK! THIS FRANKENSTEIN IS RUINED!” I hurled it into the garbage.

“Great,” Henry said sardonically. “Now we’re going to be short one marshmallow.” Turns out there was just enough green sprinkles for fourteen marshmallows, the exact number of kids in Chooch’s class. “If you weren’t being such a BITCH, I probably could have fixed that one,” Henry sneered and I wanted to skin him alive.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking perfect!” I spat. And we broke up so badly that I created a profile on Match.com.

Whoever lives in this house after us is going to be haunted by all the ire left clinging to the walls from our mutual belligerence. And that’s assuming we both make it out alive. Otherwise, someone might want to consider taking a wrecking ball to 3021 My Street.

Being short a marshmallow, I made the executive decision to only use half and do spiderwebs on the other cupcakes. Oh great idea, Erin Rachelle. Next time, maybe try to remember that you have an unsteady hand and SUCK at decorating.

How do you bitches make this look so easy?

I was standing over the oven, dragging a toothpick over these bastards, and GRUNTING. It was excruciating! You need precision for this shit. And precision and me? We’re not friends. We’re not even frenemies. In fact, if precision turned into a zombie, I’d push everyone out of the way so I could be the one to shoot it in the motherfucking head. Precision makes me cry, you guys. And I think I have arthritis now. I fucking hate you, too, spider webs.

I hate anything to do with baking! I hate frosting! I hate food coloring! I hate the kitchen! I hate Henry!

I do like licking the batter off that mixing contraption though.

The worst part is that I kept catching Henry trying not to laugh when my sanity was very clearly slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Of course, they looked nothing like Frankenstein and I had a failure-induced panic attack. Then I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have a variety.

“What if the kids start fighting because they all want one with a marshmallow head?” I freaked out.

“It’ll be a good lesson for them. You don’t always get what you want in life,” Henry said matter-of-factly. That’s great, but I didn’t want to be there when parts of Mr. Potato Head began flying as the kids fought each other with tinker toys and glue sticks and teachers staggered away with pencils jutting out from their femoral artery. You might be wondering what sort of impression I have in my mind of preschool classes. Obviously a very Mad Max, post-apocalyptic one.

It was nearly 1:00am by the time we finished decorating the fuckcakes. Henry and I slept in separate rooms.

FUCKERS!!!!

[Ed.Note: Henry can attest this is not an accurate account. It has been toned down. A lot.]

Somewhere in my blog travels, I stumbled across Crunchy Betty, who is (super pretty and) having a contest thing where you send her a picture of food on your face. I thought, “Boy, that sure sounds fun, and maybe I should keep up with this blogosphere elbow-rubbing thing.” You know, instead of being that pissed-upon loser blog in the corner.

And really, does it get any better than applying balls of sugary Trix to your face in ninety-degree heat, using peanut butter as adhesive? I had to take these pictures faster than I jump into bed at night. (I don’t like standing next to the bed after dark because SOMETHING MIGHT LOP OFF MY FEET WITH A SICKLE, so I usually do a little running leap, like I’m some goddamn gymnast in fear of being whipped by Bela Karoli.)

There. That was fun. But no one wanted to kiss me…?

[ETA: I’m sure I did this wrong, now that I think about it. I have this incredibly rich habit of glossing over words like a sixteen-year-old fresh out of Adderal and I’m wondering if I was supposed to actually make one of the facial mask recipes on Crunchy Betty’s blog. There might be a do-over in the future.]

One of my co-workers is the antithesis of me. Her name is Kaitlin, and she’s really good at baking. The downside to working in the evening is that usually by the time I get there, everything  she’s brought in for the office has already been devoured, so I’ll have to sit there and listen to everyone’s verbal orgies about the lingering tastes in their mouths from Kaitlin’s delicately baked cookies.

As a self-proclaimed expert on the tastes of baked goods, keeping a polite smile on my face is hard when all I really want to do is start skulking around for crumbs.

But yesterday Kaitlin and Barb were thoughtful enough to make a little sample plate for me and stow it away in the fridge. It even said “Treats for Night Train” on it so no one would try and steal it. I’d have felt better if they booby-trapped it, or hired a ninja to crouch all spider-like against the ceiling in the kitchen, but if you’re confident a flimsy strip of Scotch tape is enough, then whatever.

“They’re macaroons,” Barb informed me before leaving for the day. I was a little let down. I was hoping for something more amazing, like something that maybe Lady Gaga could be found dunking in a delicate cup of Earl Grey with the Queen. (Something not from a sex toy line. We’ll save that for Sunday.) Something ritzy. Something exotic. Something made with lavender because I am still on a lavender kick and keep trying to convince Henry to put it in everything. (Lavender, not his dick.)

When I think of macaroons, I think of my Sunday school teacher wearing a shawl, surrounded by eighteen cats. (What? You don’t still think of your Sunday school teacher? You’re weird.) I think of hard coconut things. I think of your grandma’s wake.

I decided that I was going to just wait and take the plate home with me. Kaitlin has been saying that she wants to learn to take photos of her food and I was like, “OK! Just let me learn how to do that first. Then I will try to act like I know what I’m doing and teach you.” Originally, she was going to teach me to bake in exchange, but I think I would rather her do all the baking herself. Ovens don’t agree with me.

There I was, sitting at my desk, trying to get my work done, when two of the analysts decided to stop right next to me and gush about the macaroons. Now, these were two guys and not some blue-permed Eloise and Matilda wearing puffy-painted cat sweatshirts and fanny packs.

“Oh my god, did you try the coffee one?” the one asked the other.

“No, but I had a raspberry one and it was so fucking amazing,” the other answered back. There are raspberry ones? I thought.  I like raspberry things.

“I expected them to be hard like rocks, but then I bit into it and it was the perfect crisp, AND SHE MADE THOSE HERSELF!” the first one exclaimed incredulously, like this was the dessert version of Jesus Christ, getting Nazareth all up in arms. Let me remind you that they were right next to my desk, getting their bakery ejaculation all over my stapler. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were taunting me, trying to get me to cave and eat through the refrigerator door for my own set-aside allotment of macaroons.

Later in the night, one of the processors stopped by with two of them on a napkin (macaroons, not guys talking about them). “Special delivery for you!” she smiled. “I wanted you to get to have some before they’re all gone!” I examined the two round cookies as she placed them in my hand. “There’s a lemon and a chocolate,” she pointed out. “Sorry, I ate the last raspberry one! It was too good to save!”

I was about to mention that Barb had set aside a plate for me in the fridge, but now that these macaroons were eight inches from my face, I forgot all about honesty and was overwhelmed by glutton.

When she walked away, I tapped one. The shell felt hard, but its answer to my tapping was hollow. I took a small bite of the lemon one. The shell broke away crisply just like the one guy had said, but inside it was moist, cakey.  The filling between the two domes was light and lemony, which is a good thing since it was a lemon macaroon. I actually murmured (MURMURED!), “Oh my god.” The only other time this has happened was the first time I tried a cupcake from Vanilla Pastry Studio. The stack of conflict checks on my desk eschewed, I began thinking about putting Kaitlin and the Sugar Fairy into a ring and have them bake-off for my love.

I quickly placed the macaroon back down on my desk. This was clearly not the sort of delicacy you pop in your mouth and ingest in one bite, like some fucking mini Chips Ahoy.

Then I picked it back up. I looked at its innards real close and marveled that someone I know in real life could make something so fragile in her own kitchen, as opposed to being made by a magic French baker from 1874 with an oven heated by elves fanning burning coal. And of course I use “magic” as a codeword for “Satanic.”

Try to imagine back to that time a fairy gave birth atop your tongue to pure bliss and a sack of crack-coated laundered money, how happy and rich you felt with minimal cleanup.

Now you know what it was like to eat one of Kaitlin’s macaroons. Happy and rich, obviously, since I have to spell it out for everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Happy and rich. Like I should have been wearing pantaloons and drawing a mole on my face while waiting for my turn under the guillotine. Who cares about death when there are MACAROONS.

Clearly, whatever I originally thought was a macaroon is not a real macaroon. I’m also pretty sure what I thought was a macaroon came packaged in cellophane from the grocery store and was made with cheap ingredients that even paupers would scoff at. (I’m also an expert on things paupers scoff at, as I’m dating one.)

As my taste buds panted in the afterglow, I began firing off a flurry of customary emails to Henry, informing him that he needs to learn to make macaroons because it’s the only thing I’ll be eating from now on.

Do you know how painful it was not to eat the entire fucking napkin afterward, like a goddamn goat?

And to come home with the plate Barb had left for me, only to spend another half hour setting up the lighting and fucking with the camera settings to get a photo for Kaitlin, when all I wanted to do was forcefully masticate the shit out of those little pastel bitches? In the end, I didn’t even care how the photos turned out. Chooch and I were too busy wading in saliva.

I think Kaitlin’s ‘roons* have rendered me retarded. The only thing I can say about the raspberry one is that I’d give up sex for life if someone promised me one of those a day. There was a REAL RASPBERRY IN THE MIDDLE! I was totally not expecting that and I really almost died.

I have big plans for Kaitlin. She just doesn’t know it yet.

*This is what we experts call macaroons. Also, I am so much of an expert, that I didn’t even realize I was supposed to be calling them “macarons.” I win at French stuff.

There is no reason why a 2-hour drive from Pittsburgh to Cleveland should take nearly 4 hours, yet that is how long it took Alisha and me to get there on Saturday. I blame Henry and his propensity for printing out defective directions. Granted, we did a lot of dawdling, but Henry doesn’t need to know that.

I didn’t get kidnapped by a trucker at the rest stop, but I didn’t have a bathroom issue, as usual. First, as soon as I shut the stall door, the automatic flush was triggered and I’m not sure why, perhaps I was over-caffeinated, but the rush of water as it was being sucked into the bowl made me yelp. Yes, yelp. Not one of my finer moments. Then, the stall door started to drift open and I didn’t have my pants all the way up yet. Public rest rooms are my enemy. I’m certain that one of them will be the scene of my future murder. (Bathroom 1, Erin 0.)

It was a little after 4:00pm by the time we parked in the garage across from the House of Blues. Doors didn’t open until 6:00pm, so we decided to check out the Chocolate Bar that was right across the street. A quick once over of the menu posted by the door was all it took to convince us we might die if we didn’t enter the door, however I might have changed my mind had I been privy to the fact that their website intro actually says “What happens at The Chocolate Bar stays at The Chocolate Bar.” Oh really?

Someone needs to call the fucking Mafia and have them bury that slogan next to Miley Cyrus’s body in the desert.

(What, she’s not there yet? Patience, my friends.) And there will be no pouring of the 40s, no ironic “What happens in the desert…”s slung around for old time’s sake. Bury it dead, please.

“I can’t believe this place is attached to the hotel Christina and I stayed in last October and we didn’t even know it,” I irrationally lamented, upset that I missed out on something I didn’t even know existed.

“Yeah, but if you had come here with her, she’d have thought it was a date,” Alisha pointed out. I looked around and noticed that the ambiance was definitely dimmer-switched and candlelit, with edible underwear for sale in a corner nook.

She is wise, so wise.

We had a very perky blond waitress whose name I didn’t care to remember, but she complimented me on my rings and that’s the most important thing to me. I ordered a flight of mousses and Alisha got a platter of strawberries accompanied by a martini glass full of melted chocolate. My teeth got all sprung just looking at it, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to swipe it from under her nose and chug the whole motherfucking glass.

This “incredible sample” of dessert mousses included double chocolate, creme caramel,  cappuccino chocolate and lemon ginger; the tray was finished with halved strawberries lying quite sexily atop rose petals. I tore into the creme caramel first and it was actually pretty amazing; it was hard not to swipe at the caramel residue with my finger toward the end when my spoon exhausted its welcome. The double chocolate was topped with white chocolate curls that were definitely not shaven from one of those pink-eyed albino candy rabbits that no one ever wants to see in their Easter basket, but more likely from the wings of angels, fresh from a celestial orgy.

Did I mention my presentation included rose petals? Well, it did. Alisha’s didn’t. She tried to act like she didn’t care, like her vat of molten chocolate made up for the petal-less platter, but I kept seeing her ogling my petals and I felt, as usual, so very triumphant.

The lemon ginger mousse was a pretty large let down. Whatever the hell that white stuff was on the top tasted synthetic, like frothy plastic, or ejaculate if it had been whipped like egg whites. The lemon was too potent and overpowered what trace notes of ginger even existed. I was disappointed with it and am now determined to get Henry to make his own (ejaculate-less) version.

By the time I got to the cappuccino cup, I was on the verge of choco-nausea. I think it tasted great, and I was mad at myself that I wasted the remainder of my sugar tolerance on that ginger shit when I could have been savoring some cappuccino mousse crap.

Alisha must have some strong-ass will power for not slurping that drinking chocolate once she ran out of strawberries. Actually, I don’t think she even ate all of the strawberries. What a crybaby. Anyway, her dessert must have been good because she was relatively nice to me during the length of our stay.

I later looked up The Chocolate Bar on Yelp and most of the reviews were beyond negative. I mean, yeah, the spoon in my setting had been previously used, but who doesn’t like experiencing someone else’s final bite once your saliva moistens it from its crusted cocoon?  And apparently, there is big beef in Cleveland with the waitstaff of this eatery. I mentioned this to Henry and he pointed out that I was taking the word of the inhabitants of America’s most depressed city. Touche.

However, too many choices remain on the menu for me to not want to give it a second shot.

Afterward, I tripped when I failed to realize that the bathroom floor sloped upward. (Bathroom: 2, Erin, 0.)

Alisha and I had plans to meet down the street at Eat n Park for lunch.  I don’t mind walking there because it’s only a few blocks away, but I hate that I have to cross over a main road; it’s a phobia.  Fortunately, there was a young guy ahead of me who was about to cross, so I ran and yelled, “Wait! Wait for me!” He turned mid-step to eye me up suspiciously. Catching up to him, I panted, “I don’t like crossing the street by myself.” It wasn’t awkward at all. But then I made the mistake of telling Alisha and she was like, “Why are you so stupid.”  Later, she ordered a turtle sundae but that is a story for another time.

__________________________________________________

OK, it’s time. Alisha decided we should get dessert and since she was buying, I heartily agreed. “I’ll have the dutch apple pie,” I said to our waitress, Barb. This was after I recovered from the shiver session I had when, in passing, Barb imprisoned me in an intense eye-lock. I really don’t know what that was all about, but afterward I was literally trying to bear hug my way through to my soul, you can ask Alisha.

Barb nodded and duly jotted it down.

“And I want the turtle sundae,” Alisha mumbled with the general disdain she reserves for strangers.

“Ooooh, the turtle sundae!” Barb exclaimed in an intonation preschool teachers must master before getting their own classroom. And then she let loose with some celebratory sound before shuffling away.

Shocked, I asked Alisha, “Did she say ‘God damn’?!”

“No,” Alisha shook her head, looking alarmed. “It was just some excited noise. And why was she talking to me like I’m 8 years old?”

When Barb came back, she made some monotoned comment about, “Here’s your dutch” before raising her voice several octaves and cooing, “And here’s your….turtle sundae! Ooooh! Look at that!” Alisha gave her a fake smile and was all, “OK bye bye now.”

“What the hell, it’s just a sundae,” I said. And not even a signature one at that. But then I remembered I had the pie of the Dutch beneath my face and focused on that for awhile.

Barb reappeared a few minutes later to make sure we were competently devouring our desserts. “How’s your TURTLE SUNDAE?!” she shouted, fawning all over Alisha like she was a visiting diplomat, because don’t all visiting diplomats stop at Eat n Park for a turtle fucking sundae while visiting Pittsburgh?

Alisha, refusing to make eye contact, assured her it was fine. Satisfied with that review, Barb began to retreat. She made it a few feet before turning, as an after thought, and asking over her shoulder, “Oh, and how’s the pie?”

Oh, why it’s no turtle sundae, Barb.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that this situation seemed redundant. Like, I was having some major deja vu. And then I realized I had been in that same situation before, three years ago, only that time I was in the Queen Seat. I went home and checked LiveJournal, and sure enough, this was not my first run-in with Barb, the Dessert Snob:

July 2007

Lisa temporarily resides in Colorado so I was excited to get to see her Wednesday afternoon during her Pittsburgh visit. We walked down the street to Eat n Park for coffee and dessert, the perfect pre-work sugar fix.

Our waitress Barb was an older woman with the easy-to-talk-to charm of a seasoned server. Lisa immediately overshadowed me with her big smile and confident voice.

“I’ll have the chocolate cake!” Lisa cheerfully ordered.

Barb smiled and jotted it down.

“And I’ll have the blackberry pie with ice cream,” I ordered not as cheerfully, but I sort of smiled. Which is big for me.

Barb’s body shook with pleasure. “Yes! Good choice!” she sang as she scratched my order on her pad with a flourish.

“That’s my favorite!”

I smirked at Lisa after Barb retreated. “She likes me better than you,” I chided.

“What makes your pie so much better than my chocolate cake? I mean, it’s chocolate cake!” Lisa’s visage melted into a befuddled glaze.

“Chocolate cake is a menu mainstay, Lisa. My pie is a seasonal delight.” This seemed to distract Lisa long enough for me to continue droning on about my life’s conundrums. It’s nice to have counseling ears across from me sometimes.

Barb returned with our desserts and the reminder than I am, and always will be, better than Lisa. She set down Lisa’s plate with an unremarkable motion, but then turned to me with the fanfare of a queen’s arrival as she gently placed my pie beneath my fat face and took a step back.

“Look at that pie, would you?

Oh, I hope you will enjoy it. It really is the best!”

I hesitated before crushing into the crisp sugary crust, unsure if Barb was going to stand there and gawk. She smiled once more and carried on with her rounds of coffee refills.

Lisa was absently slapping her cake with the back of her fork, scowling at me. “Enjoy your freaking pie,” she mimicked.

During our meal, Barb came back later with our separate checks. She was delighted to tell me that my check was special. “Lookie here! There’s a number at the bottom to call and complete a real short survey. Then you write down the code they give you and bring this back next time for a two dollar discount!

” She clapped her hands together and held them under her chin, waiting for me to call my mommy and thank her for birthing me so that I could one day experience the jubilation of getting an Eat n Park survey check.

I feigned happiness for the sake of Lisa’s plummeting self-worth. “It’s because I was smart enough to order the delicious pie and not the boring cake,” using my words to further wheedle away at her ordering inadequacies.

We continued to pick away at our desserts and imbibe (too much) coffee, when Lisa spilled her water all over the table. Barb came running over with her rag and we all tried to make light of Lisa’s fumbling fingers.

“At least it didn’t get on her pie,” Barb sighed.

The worst part of today’s episode in dessert racism is that suddenly Alisha likes cherries now and no longer gifts me with her unwanted maraschino sundae toppers. FUCK.

__________________________________________________

Just a few moments ago, Chooch started shouting some nonsense about how there’s a Valentine card for me in the car.

“No there’s not,” Henry said tersely, all but making throat-cutting motions to get Chooch to shut up.

“Yes there is!” Chooch battled.

“No there’s not!” Henry said through gritted teeth, like the subject was hidden paternity and not some flimsy supposedly secretive greeting card for a holiday that I know is tomorrow, sorry, but I have a calendar and people on twitter reminding me every .005 seconds that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

“Yes there is!” Chooch shouted, getting visibly upset at this point. “We bought it in the Valentine card section!”

The jig is up, Henry!