Dear Internet Diary,

It appears that when I was born on July 30, 1979, I was bestowed with the flimsiest immune system this side of AIDs. I had intended on writing about Alisha’s and my very fortuitous evening at the Penguins game last night, but my throat hurts so bad that I am in tears and my skin is pleading with me to dunk it in a tub of hot, sudsy water. I don’t know if this is some kind of obsessive-compulsion, but I get real nervous if I go more than a day without writing in here. What does that mean?? I don’t know. So I hurried up and found something old to post from LiveJournal. It’s from the secret locked-entry vault because it’s about co-workers, but since I no longer work there, who gives a fuck, am I right?

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Murder Girl and the Coat Hook Conundrum

January 2007

Thursday night, I walked into the kitchen to get a coffee refill. Two girls, Kristy and Allicia, were conversing near the counter. I was just in time to catch Allicia saying, “…and now I’m facing murder charges…”

I was stunned into silence and tried frantically to suppress nervous giggles. Two weeks ago, I had heard Allcia telling someone that she teaches bible study and that anyone who knows her knows that ministry is her whole life. My presence apparently didn’t faze her one bit as she continued telling Kristy things that would probably be best told to a lawyer. I tried to shake myself out of the stupor so I could hear more and try to piece together what she did, but the situation only proved to further unravel as Allicia noticed the empty coffee mug in my hand and reached over with the pot to fill it.

Horrified, I watched as coffee rose up to the brim. I have a system and she completely shot it to hell. So while she was diving deeper into the tumultuous situation she’s created for herself, I was too busy dwelling on the fact that she poured my coffee before I had a chance to lace the bottom of my mug with the flavorings of my choosing. I always add this stuff first because I’m lazy and it cuts out the dirtying of the spoon step, you see. Why bother pissing around, meat-fisting a spoon, when you can already be slurping the surface of the hot brew? So while I was standing there, now staring into a piping hot mug, Kristy–who earlier had seen the picture of Riley on my desk asked if he was “what, like three?” when he’s clearly still a baby– leaned over and handed me the cannister of sugar. I use sweetener, not sugar, but what did I do?

I thanked her and poured it into my mug.

Peer pressure works in mysterious ways. It’s amazing that I’m not waddling around with my asshole corked with bags of heroine, that’s for sure. Sometimes I think I purposely don’t say no, just to make things uncomfortable for myself. Why sit back at my desk with a cup of coffee garnished the way I like it when I can grimace through a seemingly never-ending cup of bad-tasting sludge?

Why didn’t I simply raise my hand in a halting fashion and say, “No thanks, Kristy, I prefer a pack of sweetener” or “No, Allicia, I’ll pour my own damn cup of coffee”? Because I’m Erin, that’s why! I mean, what’s the worst that would happen, Allicia’d kill me? Oh wait.

Sometimes my brain doesn’t work quick enough and get myself into these dumb scenarios. I really think it does this to me on purpose, to see how situations will play out. Awhile back, when some guy in the cemetery told me to have a nice walk, as we stood near my car, why didn’t I just say, “Thanks, but I’m actually finished with my walk and now I’m going home”? Or better yet, not said shit and just got in my car and left? Instead, I walked past my car and continued to walk, even though my legs were killing me and it was kind of fucking hot that day.

So now I had a cup of coffee prepared out of order and with real sugar instead of sweetener. There was nothing to stir my coffee with, and instead of dumping it for an improved cup I retreated back to my desk with my crappy cup of caffeine and sipped through the bitterness with a puckered face.

What if some day, Kristy is in a good mood and takes it upon herself to gift me with a cup of coffee and thinks that I like it with a dusting of sugar and not stirred?

But I guess the bigger question here is: I wonder who Allicia killed?

***

At first glance, Tina appears to be kind of white trashy, with her femmullet hybrid in gray. But I think maybe she just makes bad choices when it comes to her hair, much like Hoover. Tina was hired a week before Bill and me but one would mistake that she’s been here much longer, with her air of superiority and need to take charge. She wears high-waisted mom-jeans, sweatshirts with turtlenecks peeking out of the collar, and she caps off the ensemble with a pair of plain white Reeboks.

She’s a walking billboard swathed in United We Stand banners and yellow magnetic mini-van ribbons. Her daughter writes pro-war poems which Tina submits to Fox News and is then shocked when she doesn’t receive a response.

Allicia (aka Murder Girl) is a large-framed black woman who speaks softly yet each word is tinged with annunciated assurance. Usually she wears a golden weave but lately her hair has been pulled back into a natty ponytail held in place by a too-large and ruffled Scrunchie. At her last job, a co-worker told her that she liked her Coach purse, so Allicia gave it to her. A valiant and upstanding gesture for a suspected murderer, am I right?

During a quick meeting Tuesday night, there was a situation.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Michelle asked as she brought the meeting to a close. We were all gathered around the section where Allicia and two others sit.

Allicia slowly turned in her seat and  said, “Someone took my coat hook.” Each employee has a hook which attaches to the top of their cubicle wall, but in Allicia’s section, she and the other two employees have theirs hanging all in a row, on a shared wall. I looked over and noticed that now there were only two.

Michelle said she would get Allicia a new one. I thought this meant the meeting was over, so I started to turn on my heels.

“But Michelle, someone took my coat hook,” Allicia repeated. Michelle nervously repeated that she would simply get a new one for her.

“Wait, I think I took it,” someone piped up from behind me. It was Tina. Great.

“Well, it wasn’t your coat hook to take,” Allicia spat, flavoring her complaint with ebonical verve. (And that’s the best kind of verve to have, really.)

“I needed a coat hook and asked Michelle for one. We didn’t think anyone was using one of the ones on that wall, since there were three,” Tina retorted, not balking at Allicia’s increasing agitation.

If I hadn’t walked in on Allicia’s murder-talk last week, maybe this would have been easier to exit, but instead I stood there, glued to my spot, waiting excitedly to see how it would play out. Everyone else stared at their shoes or picked awkwardly at their cuticles while my head snapped back and forth like I was following a tennis ball during match point. Would it come to blows? Would I get splattered with blood? Maybe it would make the news. Oh, mama, one could only hope!

“There were three coat hooks because there are three people who sit here,” Allicia seethed behind her character-building gapped teeth. Michelle shifted in her seat and was probably desperately trying to find a way to diffuse this escalating situation. Once again, she offered to get Allicia a new hook.

“I don’t want a new hook. People should axe before they take.”

Tina turned up the volume when she shot back, “I did ask!” Her face was flushed with spreading florets of anger.

A heavy drapery of tension hung over the room.

Allicia turned her back on the room as she mumbled, “Next time, axe the right person.” That’s my girl, right there.

Michelle stood up and we all dispersed. On our way back to our section, Bill and I discussed our relief to be basically sitting in a desolate area of the room, ostracized from the rest of them.

This way, we wouldn’t get caught in any impending crossfire.

Later that night, Michelle was sitting with me at my desk, going over some new applications. I tried to press her for more information regarding Tina and Allicia but all I could squeeze out was that Tina and Allicia are both strong-willed women who clash and that the coat hook debacle was the stupidest scenario she’s encountered as a supervisor.

“I mean, do you know how easily I could have just gotten her a new one?” she said with tired eyes.

Yeah, what was the big deal, I thought. But then I discussed it with my super-sleuth friend Bill From Michigan who theorized that perhaps the coat hook was Allicia’s murder weapon which would explain why she was so desperate to get it back. I did notice the next night that the wall was once again decorated with a trio of hooks; I wonder if Allicia got hers back, or if she settled for a new one.

I bet everyone else forgot about the incident quickly after it ended, but I childishly obsessed over it for the rest of the shift. Besides, Eleanore wasn’t there for me to record snippets of her conversations with my cell phone, so I had to busy myself some other way.

Allicia stopped by my area near the end of the shift. I guess I should be thankful that Allicia likes me and will jiggle the back of my chair when she passes by and then laugh a Michael Jackson-esque “ha-HEE!”. She was complaining to Michelle and me about how tired she was and that she thought walking around the parking lot, in the brisk air, would wake her up but it hadn’t. Michelle implored her to be cautious while walking around out there at night, because the facilities border on the cusp of one of Pittsburgh’s seedier neighborhoods.

“I’m not worried,” Allicia drawled. “Besides, I have a knife.”

I think I’m going to ask Allicia if I can join her on her next walk, get her to open up to me. Maybe I can force her to say something mildly humorous and I’ll give her a playful shove and squeal, “Oh, you KILL me!” Do you think that would trigger anything?

God, I am so attracted to danger! It makes me giddy and hyper.

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My first internet boyfriend was wrangled back in the fall of ’98. His name was Misfit and we met in a now-defunct goth chat room called Darkchat (where my nickname “Ruby” flourished to the point where it’s now hard to shake, and no, I was never really “goth”). Misfit and I became soon embroiled in a hot-and-heavy phone relationship, even watching Sleepless In Seattle together while cradling the receivers between shoulders and ears. He asked me to come to San Diego to spend Christmas with him, and I went through great lengths to make it happen. My mom thought it was cute (she was secretly hoping that he would see to my demise, I’m sure), and promised to help me get a plane ticket. Then I called him one night and heard the giggling of a horny female from within his dorm room.

My internet lust did not die with Misfit; there were plenty more faceless nicknames scattered around the world for me to fall for, like Fade who was in his twenties and admittedly never had a girlfriend; and Darq, the adrogynous Brian Molko wannabe from England who would send me angry ICQ messages if I wasn’t home when he would call. Each time I met someone new, I’d break up with my boyfriend Jeff. He was the most lenient boyfriend I ever had. Probably because he wasn’t very threatened by some dude who lived a thousand miles away and knew I’d be back after the initial white horses and rainbows of it all fizzled.

Until October of 1999, when Narcissus from Vancouver and I realized that after a year of chatting in Darkchat and over ICQ, we were soul mates. His real name was Gordon and I charged ludicrous amounts of calling cards to my mom’s company gas card. My friends Jon and Justin, who were always with me back then,  hated Gordon because he had a knack for calling at inopportune times. Like when we would all be engaged in dead baby hypotheticals or watching my friend Jon model wigs.

But he’s my soul mate, I’d remind everyone as I kicked them out of my house so I could call Gordon.

Through all the mix tape swaps and late night phone sessions, Jeff toughed it out. He’d sit there and listen to me gush about how educated and refined Gordon was, and how someday I was going to bear his child and we would raise it on love, chatroom etiquette and The Cure.

But then a pivotal moment occurred:

Gordon was flying to Pittsburgh.

He had arranged a flight in December with the intent of shacking up with me for two weeks. It was going to be perfect — we would obviously fall even more madly in love and then I would go back to Vancouver with him and we would get married and live in a big house filled with coffins and pictures of Robert Smith and it was going to be all so very perfect.

Jeff cried.

Jon and Justin vehemently vetoed this plan and begged me not to get my hopes up, that he could arrive and all illusions could shatter. But he’s my Gordon, I argued. There ARE no illusions, just buckets and barrels of twinkling True Love.  

I was subsequently mocked every time Gordon would call in their presence. But one evening, my friend Justin could bear it no longer and reluctantly crossed over to my side. “Let me say hello to him,” he asked. After making him promise to be nice, I passed him the phone.

“Hey Gordon, how’s it going?” The air hung heavy as Jon and I waited expectantly for Justin to wrap it up. “Yeah? Well fuck you too!” Justin slammed down the phone and yelled, “Your friend’s an asshole, Erin!”

Gordon had replied to Justin’s greeting with a “Fuck all.” This was a new phrase for Jon and Justin, and no matter how hard I tried to explain what it meant, they assumed I was trying to cover for Gordon, and that clearly it was the Canadian way to say that he wanted to kill Justin’s mother and rape his sister. They took offense and set off on the war path. Plans were made to drop by while he was visiting, and parade around my house in “Fuck Canada” t-shirts while mocking the dialect. I even heard whispering about a maple leaf burning.They were going to hold this against the entire country.

I eventually got them to cease fire and they agreed that they would be civil when he arrived. I had two weeks left to prep them, reminding them of sensitive subjects and other sore spots to avoid.

“His brother died of AIDs, so don’t make any AIDs jokes,” I warned.

Jon was appalled by this. “How often do we tell AIDs jokes? I don’t even know any!” Still, I feared that he would go home and start putting together an act.

Finally, Gordon’s arrival date was upon us, and I rushed to the airport. I couldn’t wait to run my fingers through his coal black 80s retro hair, and oh how I hoped he would be wearing the military jacket that I had seen him in in one of the pictures he emailed me.

I leaned up against a wall and waited as a stream of passengers poured off his flight. I saw a young, tall guy with a long gray pea coat and wobbly red head approaching. We made eye contact, but I quickly pulled away. Weirdo, I thought. I looked past him, waiting expectantly for Gordon, when I realized Big Red was still staring at me and smiling goofily.

He was Gordon.

But where was the shiny blue-black hair that flopped so precisely over his left eye? Where were the big black stompy boots? What I saw in front of me was a walking ad for Banana Republic.

I wanted to run but my feet were frozen to the ground. I had never in my life seen a pate that enormous. Even when he came to a complete stop before me, his head was still jiggling around on his shoulders. Biggest head ever. How was it even possible for a neck to support a head that large without some sort of brace, I wondered. I tried my hardest not to stare, but my eyes kept wanting a tour of that globular cranium.

We exchanged pleasantries and Gordon moved in for a kiss. “Oh, hey now. Ha-ha! Let’s go get your luggage first!” I pulled away much too quickly, with my hands out like a shield, even; but he didn’t seem fazed.

And so I spent the next forty minutes trying to ward off any public displays of affection that he mercilessly flung my way. I finally acquiesced and allowed for one quick, impersonal hug before we got into my car. I had to try not to cry into the breast of his coat.

Jon wanted to come over to meet him that night, so I called him as soon as we arrived home and insisted that Gordon was really tired and not up for a visit, because really I was entirely too embarrassed. I could just hear all the “told you so”s. Could TASTE them, even. “No, I’m quite fine. Tell Jon to bring his jolly ass over!” He really said that. Jolly ass.

“In-person Gordon” evidently liked to speak with a faux-British accent. I would also find that he would slip over into a Scottish brogue as well, all the while never omitting the “eh”s and “aboot”s. He was an accent mutt. I could not allow Jon to witness the monstrosity on my couch. I would never hear the end of it.

Through my patented gritted, toothy smile, I hastily suggested that we order food. If he’s eating, maybe he won’t talk, I prayed. Gordon insisted on placing the order, which turned into a condescending, one-sided shouting match with the pizza place through the phone.

“Hey, we’re Americans, not deaf,” I reminded him when he hung up.

While we ate our pizza, Gordon began asking me about what I had planned for his visit. Nothing that we can do now, I thought, as I glanced at his quaking head. There was no way any of my guy friends were going to be hanging out with him. I would be teased for the rest of my life. I wasn’t sure I could risk ANY of my friends meeting him, to be frank. He was a giant, bobble-headed manifestation of my naivete and Internet love abuse.

Two weeks of this oaf hulking around my house — could I stand it? All those marathon phone calls had left us with little to say to each other. How was that possible? We were supposed to have everything in common.

Gordon needed cigarettes and suggested that I take him to my favorite gas station that I had told him about in one of our many all-night phone sessions, the gas station where hundreds of my mom’s company dollars were spent each month on groceries, toiletries, and Slushies. I began to resist until I figured that it was late at night and the only person there would be the night employee, my buddy Mitul. We had a love-hate relationship, but he wouldn’t say anything about Gordon.

As Gordon roamed the aisles in search of American goods, I stood at the counter with Mitul. Maybe I was just paranoid and reaching to find flaws in Gordon. I bet no one else will even notice his head size.

“That the Canadian you in love wit’?” Mitul asked in his thick Indian staccato. I rolled my eyes and shrugged, prompting Mitul to bust out with a laughter-coated, “Erin’s goofin’ wit’ Big Head!” For two years I endured this mockery from my supposed friend Mitul. Two years. If Mitul was able to see past the language barrier to make fun of the situation, then there was absolutely no way I could bring him around anyone else. They’d collect enough fodder for the biggest, bloodiest roast of Erin of all time.

Later that night, Gordon was leafing through my photo albums, while simultaneously bitching about how horrible American cigarettes are. I was trying to show him high school pictures of my friends and me, but he insisted that he just wanted to see Jeff and the other guys I hung out with; I watched as the flesh covering his over-sized skull grew redder and redder. Someone was jealous. To curb any impending outbursts and awkward trust conversations (because clearly I must have been fucking every friend with a penis), I grabbed a new photo album from the pile and flipped to a random page, trying to change the subject.

“Oh, and this one right here? That’s Tex. It’s a bad picture of him. Doesn’t he look like an AIDs patient?” Several decades of silence passed and I slapped my hand over my mouth. All that rehearsing and pre-damage control I practiced with my friends, and I end up being the idiot who makes light of AIDs.

“My brother died of AIDs,” Gordon said, the weight of his enormous head causing him to hang it. And he cried.

Not knowing what else to do, I gifted him with pity sex. Yeah, that’s right, Erin goofed with Big Head. I was going through a dangerous “sex is the answer” phase, OK? I was YOUNG.

(Henry wishes I was still in that phase.)

And that was awkward, I have to say. I didn’t want to touch him, but a few times I slipped and placed my hands on his head, causing me to experience internal vomiting. I took a hot shower afterward, locking the bathroom door to curb any attempts for him to join me. I was afraid that the soap suds would be unable to penetrate the smarmy pretentiousness that I was so sure had coated my flesh, so I scrubbed myself raw.

(I’m shuddering right now, at the memory.)

The next morning, I called my friend Keri and begged her to come over. She’s the one who took me to the hospital when I had a condom lost inside me, so I figured if anyone would be blase about the situation, it’d be her. “I don’t want to be left alone with him. I might say more stupid things and be forced to have more Big Head sex!” Keri agreed to be my buffer and came right over.

“Where is he?” she asked, looking around the room, as if anyone’s eyes would not immediately be drawn to the mother whompin’ head, like flies to a carcass.

“He’s engaging in a shower,” I answered with air quotes, imitating his phony accent.

We sat on the couch and I purged and ranted as long as his shower enabled me to, until he made his grand entrance down the steps.

Wearing nothing but a towel.

He nodded at Keri while he walked across the room, slapping his big feet against the floor, and spraying droplets of water in his wake. He stooped down in front of us and rummaged through his suitcase, which he had left laying open in the middle of the room. He stood up with his chosen wardrobe for the day, and nodded again at Keri and me, before retreating back to the bathroom.

Keri sat rigidly, her eyes opened wide in horror. “That’s the biggest fucking head I’ve ever seen! Does he have some sort of condition? Why is it so big?”

“I don’t know. He’s very pretentious, do you think that’s why?” But then it came down to: “Is his head big because he’s pretentious, or is he pretentious because his head’s big?” For the fifth time since he arrived in Pittsburgh, I started to cry.

The three of us went to Denny’s for lunch, where Gordon proceeded to cut Keri off every time she tried to speak. He sat there and droned on and on about how great Canada is and what a poor country we live in here in America, and my god, this restaurant was terrible. And then he talked about British comedy and how rich his grandparents were, all while I stuffed my mouth with grilled cheese and stared out the window. Keri tried her hardest to make conversation, but he didn’t even attempt to feign interest, talking right over her as though she wasn’t even there (Kind of like how I do around Janna. But that’s different!), all the while twirling and flicking his scarf in his hands.

Yes, we know your scarf is cashmere, motherfucker. This is what I longed to scream while wrapping it tighter and tighter around his thick neck until it turned a pretty azure hue.

Keri left as soon as we returned back at my house. She couldn’t be paid to stay. I don’t even think she said goodbye.

“Would you care to join me in some viewing of ‘Fawlty Towers’?” Gordon invited as he procured a tape from his suitcase. With him? No. With someone else? Gladly. I politely declined so I wouldn’t have to sit with him, and busied myself with a magazine, figuring we could at least have some quiet time.

And then the simulated British tittering began. Not wanting to stick around long enough to hear him bust out with a “Chortle, chortle, that was a  jolly fine joke,” I played the headache card and excused myself, locking the bedroom door behind me. Laying in bed and wondering how the fuck I was going to survive two entire weeks of Bobble Head, I picked up the phone and called the one person who could rescue me.

Cinn arrived a short while later. I heard her knock and waited for Gordon to open the door. There was silence, and then I heard her knock three more times with increased impatience. I ran downstairs and realized that Gordon wasn’t even there.

“Where the hell is he?” Cinn demanded, pushing her way into the house. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I explained to her how he was rude to Keri and how he was being so negative about America (and I’m not even patriotic) and that I literally had nothing to say to him, and he was clingy, oh so clingy, and I couldn’t breathe and every time I closed my eyes, I pictured the butcher knife in the kitchen.  Cinn said there was little time and began to rummage through his suitcase.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I cried, pulling back the curtains to ensure he wasn’t on his way back from whereever he had disappeared.

Tossing aside his underwear and socks, she found his return flight intinery and called the airport. When she hung up, she assured me that he could be out of here and on a plane by morning, without losing his mother’s frequent flyer miles.

All that was left was for us to wait. Maybe he won’t come back at all, I hoped. Maybe he’ll get mugged or wooed by a carnival committee, that could happen, right Cinn?

When he eventually returned to my unwelcoming arms, and explained in his haughty British accent that he had “gone for a walk around the block,” Cinn took him by the arm and led him back outside. On the front porch, she sat him down and first chastised him for leaving the house without telling me, like he was a seven-year old who took a detour to the arcade instead of coming straight home after school. Then she explained to him that Erin was a little overwhelmed by the idea of him staying for two whole weeks, and frankly, she felt very uncomfortable to the point where it would be best to cut the trip short. How short, Gordon asked. Oh, like tonight, Cinn answered.

And so, with all the flair of a menopausal woman, he burst into the house, crying, and implored me to change my mind. I tried to be compassionate and told him that I just wasn’t ready, but when I was, I would come and visit him in Vancouver. This is all just moving too fast, I said dramatically. Do you still love me, he asked me through the tears. Of course, I lied.

He ate it up, like it was just another chapter in our perfect love story.

Cinn helped him book his flight and then spent a few more hours chaperoning us, ensuring that I wouldn’t succumb to more pity sex, and, you know, have to talk to him. But eventually, she had to leave. That left me with about five hours to kill.

“You know, you should probably get to the airport early,” I recommended. He asked me how early I was thinking and I said, “Oh, you should leave now, maybe.”

He asked me if I was ready to take him and after thinking it over for, oh, half a second, I explained to him that I would be too sad to go to the airport with him, and that he should just call a cab. And so I handed him the Yellow Pages. I hardly wanted him to slobber all over me at the airport, in front of people. It was bad enough he was doing it in the privacy of my house.

The hard part was next — trying to stay awake in the middle of the night, so that he wouldn’t miss his cab and/or his flight. I sat on the couch in a very annoyed and disgusted position, as he lay with his head in my lap, serenading me with Joy Division songs.

I’m not kidding. To this day, my skin crawls when I hear “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” It’s not love tearing us apart, moron, it’s your watermelon-sized dome and accompanying ego. I couldn’t believe how much someone could differ in person. The Gordon I knew via the phone was sincere and sweet and funny. The Gordon who was snotting all over my lap was brash and arrogant and pretentious, and worst of all – rude to my friends. That’s intolerable.

Just as Gordon was humming the opening notes to track 5 of his Joy Division Sob Fest, I leapt off the couch.

“Oh my god, I didn’t even get a picture of you while you were here!” I realized. I went to grab my camera, leaving Gordon with a few seconds to wipe the tears from his eyes and blow his nose. I took his picture just as the cab pulled up the house. It’s disappointing how the true enormity of his head is camouflaged in this photo; my friends and I have lamented over this for years. But take my word for it — others saw it and cowered in its shadow.

He called me from the airport in hopes that I had changed my mind, as though the twenty minutes we had been apart would have made my heart swell with lonliness and regret. I assured him that nothing had changed. He said he still loved me. I tried not to puke.

Needless to say, we haven’t spoken since; and last I heard, he was in Ireland, so one can only imagine how incredible his accent collage is these days.

Jeff and I reunited, but there would be more boys down the line to break us up. You know, like our friend Henry.

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The following is an account of only the second time I ever hung out with Alisha, and also the reason why she might not be attending our skating fiesta this weekend.

Wanted: A Skating Costume

Originally posted February 2005

The typical skating troika of Janna, Henry and myself was thrown askew  as we added a new member to our elite skating club: Alisha.  She had no idea what she had subscribed for.

Let me just say that she made Janna look like a bona fide Olympian out there. The new catchphrase of the night became, “Are you going to cry?” which replaced the traditional, “Where did Janna go?” It took her about a half hour to make it around one lap, but to her credit most of that time was tied up in untangling herself from the amassment of limbs and wheels after she crashed into a roller blader. I was proud of her, though; she accepted the blader’s helping hand to get her back on her feet, brushed off her jeans, and went right back to hugging the wall. She’s got moxie, that girl.

There were some new faces there in addition to MulletTail, Spandex Dancer, the YaYa Sisterhood (a quad of doughy middle-aged women who eke around the rink leisurely, clipping coupons and trading masturbating tips), and Knee Pad Girl. Most notably was the desperately aggressive lesbian who honed in on Alisha instantly. Apparently, her attention was making Alisha uncomfortable. I can’t imagine why – I thought she was quite attractive; the way her cotton potato sack shirt billowed atop her lumpy body in the most flattering hue of olive, her crew cut bristling in the breeze while her pacifier bounced up and down against her floppy bosom. She was probably one of the hottest folk there and Alisha was totally snubbing her. I found that very rude.

We had an off-rink conference where, judging by the minutes I kept, Alisha vehemently insisted that the boxy broad was not her type, so I promised that if it would make her feel better, I would steer the lesbian toward Janna’s direction, whose type is “Breathing, and even then sometimes not.” I asked Alisha later what her type exactly is, and she goes, “Blond, amazingly hilarious, nice rack. You know…you” and I was like, “Yeah I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.”

I think the real issue was that Alisha was pissed she wasn’t the token lesbian of the night.

Henry was glad for the girl drama because it gave him quiet time on the rink to reflect upon his days in the service getting screwed (in the very non-sexual sense) by prostitutes.

“Look at me now, whores,” I imagine he was saying in his head while power fisting the air. I also turned my head just in time to see him attempt some weird swirly thing with his feet.

Suspiciously, Janna didn’t have to exchange her skates once, not with Alisha there. Instead, I believe she was trying to mentor Alisha, Then it occurred to me that Janna was using false compassion toward Alisha as a new excuse to take copious breaks. Every time I looked around, I saw Janna cozying up to her along the wall. But then she’d get cocky and push off the wall like she was about to speed skate, because for once she was better than someone and felt compelled to visibly display her skills. It was a shame when, by the end of the night, Alisha had matched those skills. Janna was crestfallen.

Frugal Henry was just happy because we didn’t have to pay for our pizza, which by the way was comped and already placed in the oven in anticipation of our arrival by the fine Vallerena proprietors. That’s a good feeling, right there. It was probably free because we brought them a newbie. Or Henry’s peddling free BJs again.

During Limbo, Alisha was relieved to see that the awesome and talented Spandex Dancer had fallen.

“See look! He falls, too!” She looked too smug and I just couldn’t have that, so I explained to her that it was different when someone of his wheeled endowment falls as it’s generally because they’re attempting to do something wildly skillful, not complete half a lap around the rink. I mentally applauded myself as I watched her face begin to sag back into a frown.

Something happened to me last night, though, that brought skating to the next level: I skated through an invisible blanket of odor. That’s right, I broke through the curtain of someone’s goddamn fart.

It was entertaining imagining whose anus generated the noxious fumes, if it maybe temporarily got caught in a psychedelic spandex web before wafting into a flatulant wall. I’d love to blame it on one of those in my company, but their location at the time rendered it physically impossible. Though, Janna’s raunchy ass could probably produce a stench that lingers.

Alisha whined incessantly about breaking two nails, but those are the sort of sacrifices one needs to make for the love of the skate. Now she’ll have memories that will last a lifetime.

ETA:
Upon reading Alisha’s journal, I am sorry to admit that I have misinformed everyone. She broke three nails, not two. My condolences, Alisha.

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One of my resolutions is to plan more shit that will get me out of the house.

I was thinking about when I last felt really content, like I wasn’t wasting time, and the first thing I thought of was the winter of 2005 when Henry, Janna and I used to go roller skating. (That sounds like we played derby or something hardcore, but the reality is that we only went about four times.) So I decided I don’t care if I have to rollerskate while strapped to a gurney, I’m doing it this weekend. Time to get back to my roots, yo.

To commemorate this greasy-wheeled occasion, I decided to dig out my old roller skating entries from 2005, because they make me happy. And my belly hurts because God forbid I tried to eat a substantial dinner, so I could use a little happy-happy.

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January 2005

Lately, I’ve felt the need for speed. I lay awake in bed for countless hours, tossing and turning while remembering fun times had in the roller rinks of my youth and longing for that smooth surface to enrapture my wheels once more.

Luckily, my friend Google pointed out that there really is still a smattering of good old fashioned roller rinks in the area. I chose one that was an hour away because it was the only one that hosted an adult skate. After Henry sat me down and said, “You are aware that adult skate doesn’t mean there will be strippers, right?” and I nodded slowly in recognition, he promised that we could go. I had an entire week to wait out, though, and boy was it excruciating.

However, the wait gave me something that I hadn’t experienced since I was kid waiting for my sea monkeys to grow: Anticipation. For a week, I’d fling back the comforter of my bed each morning, declaring the number of days left before I was free to skate. I found myself absent-mindedly sketching skates during class. I was comparing everything to skating:

“You know what’s just like paying the electric bill before they shut us off? Roller skating.”
“Oh, you know what would be really good with this sandwich? Roller skating.”
“You know what’s just like that war in Iraq? Roller skating.”

I wasn’t annoying to be around at all. At all.

And finally, yesterday was the day. Janna decided to join us, and every few minutes, I excitedly inquired about their degree of excitement. My inquisitions were met with despondent mumbles of, “Sure” and “I guess.” I began to question myself why I keep such lackluster company.

No matter, because I had enough exuberance to pass around. I shook in my seat the entire length of the trip, getting myself so riled up that I had to pee. Then I would bellow animalistic, guttural battle cries through clenched teeth while pumping my fist in the air.

I was really excited.

Once we eventually arrived at the Valarena Roller Rink, my hands were clammy and it felt like someone was fisting my heart. While I took deep and calming breaths to keep from choking on squeals, Henry decided to forgo his blades and rented an old school pair of quads. As did Janna, who would prove to be our own little Goldilocks as she exchanged her rentals three times before settling on a pair of inlines.

Since I am a very responsible and capable person (I’m excellent to travel with, never mind the time I left half of my wardrobe in a hotel closet in Australia), I spent the day making sure I had everything required for my skating bonanza. I came prepared with new hot pink laces, an appetite for that delicious snack bar pizza that I kept going back to ogle on their website, moxie and what little stamina I could muster from my out of shape self.

What I hadn’t prepared for, however, was Henry morphing into Disco Delight as his wheels hit the creamy surface of the rink. He was showcasing flamboyant little twirls and twists with his hands clasped behind his back; his long brown curls billowed behind him in the wake of his self-made wind. And then there was the surreal arm choreography: he’d stretch his arms out in front of his body, spread his fingers and violently shake his hands like he was skating to ragtime. I’m hoping I don’t need shock therapy to erase those images from my mind.

Every so often, I’d catch him running his hands up and down his body and plucking his imaginary rainbow suspenders. I like to believe that in his tiny delusional mind, he envisioned that he was wearing his best polyester play suit and holding not my hand, but Kristy McNichol’s. It was like he had skated right out of an episode of After School Special, circa 1977.

I was really beginning to get pissed because he was showing me up. This doesn’t sit lightly with someone of my egocentric caliber. I finally lost my temper and shoved him, and he immediately pointed out the numerous signs and placards warning that horseplay is cause for removal and banishment.

So once the rink started bumpin’ to my Def Leppard jam, I had no choice but to bench him. We exchanged words as he implored me to reconsider, stating, “But I can’t help that I’m better than you. I’ve been skating since before you were born! Well, I have!” Oh, the pleasure that coursed through my veins each time I’d skate past him; the puppy dog eyes pleading to be allowed back on the rink. My body, even while suffering from extreme fatigue as this was probably my fifth trip around, managed to shake riotously with greedy laughter.

And then our pizza was pulled from the oven. I took a long enough break to savagely gnash my teeth into my share before barreling back onto the rink in time for S Club 7. The videos for some of the songs were projected onto the back wall. Let me tell you, nothing is more liberating than skating through flashing disco lights worthy of giving any good epileptic nightmarish seizures while Marilyn Manson’s face is slathered across the wall, rockin’ the rink with his rendition of “Tainted Love.” It truly was adult night.

Where was Janna throughout the evening of wheeled debauchery? When she wasn’t hugging the wall, her ass was glued to her post in the game room as she guarded our beverage. She seemed ok with that, and our drinks made it through the evening unmaimed.

Sadly but inevitably, 9:30 rolled around and it was time to leave our new haven. I felt an unbreakable bond with the eight other skaters, like I should have stood in front of them while beating my breast bone.

I discovered as I was replacing my skates with societally regulated non-wheeled shoes, that I had broken one of my Goodwill relics. But this is good news because now Henry gets to buy me a brand new pair with blinking wheels.

Oh, and that pizza? It was delicious, as I knew it would be.

Henry, emulating Brian Boitano’s victory lap around the rink,
while cradling an armful of make believe flowers.

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Chooch is sick, won’t let me sit with him on the couch. For a long time this morning, I was told to “go in the kitchen and stand by the oven. Leave me ALONE!” But then he softened and crumpled into a sick heap on the couch and whined, “I wanna watch sumpin’ scary!” So we watched Friday the 13th together. The one with Corey Feldman. At one time, I knew every movie in order. But now I’m an old broad and actually forgot that Corey Feldman was even in any of these until I put it on this morning. And Chooch, god bless him, every time someone gets kilt, he goes, “Who did it?” Um, Jason, maybe? Stupid.

But now it’s over and I’ve been banished from the couch again. So, with nothing else to do and no motivation to paint right now (that’s after hours, now you know), I’ve been reading through all old LiveJournal entries, trying to find something in particular. Instead, I found a series of posts written from my second-to-last job at the data processing monkey house. While I was reading these, all I could think was, “It’s a fucking wonder I was never fired from there” and “Wait – did I ever do any work?” I’m sure Collin can answer that last one.

Then I found two entries about the bathroom there and it simultaneously made me miss that place and swallow throw-up. I’m reposting it because I have nothing else to say while I await the next Freaky Feature subject to bare her soul for me. (It should be a good one, too!)

Oh, and P.S.! Thanks to Andrea, Tiff, and Dorothy for sending me magnets! More on that later this week, too. (I’m still looking for more magnets, btw!)

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Bathroom Discourse

August 2007

One of my favorite things about working here is playing a little game called “What In the World Will Make Erin Dry Heave Tonight?” Could it be the dumpster in the outside hallway, long overdue for an emptying, contents ripe and roiling in the August humidity, the putrid stench of which permeates through the tiniest nook and cranny and wafts its way in sinister coils into our work areas and kitchen where it gyrates near the fridge and dares us to retain our appetite?

Maybe Jonnie May the Security Guard will want to shoot the shit with me and I’ll be forced to fixate on her dirty snaggle tooth while being held against my will in the bubble of rot we around here call “the kitchen.”

Mostly, it’s as simple as taking a stroll through the restroom.

If it’s a particularly good day, I’ll arrive right on the heels of some nasty ass broad pinching a loaf after devouring a petting farm, and then forgoing the courtesy flush and Glade spritz. Because nothing complements a fresh cascade of diarrhea than the crisp notes of apple cinnamon.

Maybe a tampon, bloated with toilet water and menstruation, will be fanned out like pretty cotton origami bouncing off the sides of the toilet bowl.

Last week was a memorable delight that I took great pleasure penning in my diary with flourishing strokes of calligraphy: Along the side of one of the sinks was a bright, thick streak of  Red.

Oh look, it’s 1976 and a blind extra just walked in here from the set of Carrie and mistook the sink for a towel. I tried to shrug it off as an average day at MSA.

Or maybe someone performed an auto-kidney extraction next to the commode because they don’t have the Internet at home and needed to list it on eBay immediately. I hope they made it back to their desk to do that.

Maybe someone was eating a heavily ketchup’d burger next to the sink because they have some weird disorder where they need to watch the reflection of their teeth gnashing. This is a true condition. Janna has it.

Maybe some bathroom birthing enthusiast shot one out and left the remains of the placenta on the porcelain in lieu of a victory flag.

No matter the scenario, I wasn’t going anywhere near that sink and subsequently failed to eradicate the memory of it from my mind for two days. Look, I’m a girl and I too put on my menstrual party hat every month, but I don’t swipe a veritable advertisement of it on the sink as an invitation. Though really, I’m hoping the blood flowed from an orifice not betwixt legs. (Sometimes it feels like I’m in the bathroom of CBGBs and I half-expect to step over someone in the throes of over-dosing.)

Then on Friday, the industrial-sized roll of toilet paper in one of the stalls had fallen out and was strewn dejectedly near the base of the toilet, where countless strands of bacteria were inevitably colonizing. I continued on to the handicap stall. While I was basket weaving (what, you don’t think I perform regular bodily waste removal like the rest of you, do you?), I noticed a rather large box, with a built-in handle, off the right of the stall, half-concealed in aged Christmas wrapping paper. A post-it note adhered to the top informed me that it belonged to our new employee, Babi, and to “Pls not remove, Thank U.”

Of course, my gossip-greedy fingers spun it around to the non-gift-wrapped side. It was a toilet seat raiser. I’m excited to have a new mystery to involve myself in: Why does the new lady need raised upon the toilet, and why doesn’t she stow it away discretely in the utility closet so assholes like me don’t make fun of her on the Internet?

Oh wait, she is concealing it. With wrapping paper.

Operation: Photograph Toilet Seat Raiser

I was on a mission when I got to work last night: to acquire evidence of the Christmas-papered toilet seat raiser. Every twenty minutes or so, I’d stuff my cell phone into my pants and duck into the restroom, hoping that Babi had finally stowed it away in the handicapped stall. Three hours into the shift, I began to have doubts and started to wonder if Babi had quit. I think I voiced my concern a little too emphatically to Eleanore, whose answer of, “I don’t know, babe,” seemed coated with suspicion, because who the fuck cares about New Employee’s status? Well, I do. My hands were actually trembling, I’m embarrassed to admit. I finally found out that she had merely called off, and I was relieved. I mean, she can quit, but not until I get my picture.

It took Babi several hours to hit up the bathroom tonight, but she eventually did. I mean, she’s old. How long can the elders really hold their bladder?

Raised eyebrows were probably flashed every time I walked in and walked back out. What? I’m checking for my period. It’s usually over there, in that corner, with a purple Post-It note on it. Your period doesn’t have a name tag on it, too?

I forgot to turn the sound off of my phone during the bathroom recon, so the enchanting melodies of a boing-ing spring ricocheted off the tiled walls, like I opened up a can of clown sex. It nearly gave me a stroke.

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Hi. I’ve posted this on LiveJournal before, but never here on Oh Honestly, Erin.

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There are some standard cultural traditions that I avoid like the plague. For example, having ‘Happy Birthday’ serenaded to me.

It makes me want to unzip my skin and climb inside my body cavity. I never know what to do with myself while locked in this thirty second predicament. Where do I focus my eyes? Do I mouth the words along with everyone? Do I laugh, smile, cry, fellate a candle? Where do I put my hands!? I cannot explain this phobia, but my mom is clearly to blame for the one regarding dressing up for Halloween.

It wasn’t always a disaster. In fact, I used to enjoy it.

Exhibit A: Erin as a bunny in Kindergarten:

Notice how carefree I was. I’m undeniably thrilled that it’s Halloween and I get to dress up and be pretty. But this was back when Halloween was pure and simple—before my mom caught wind of the costume contest at my elementary school. Children from each grade can win a prize for the most creative costume? Who knew?

By the time second grade rolled around, my mom had morphed into Pageant Mother:  Halloween Edition. Choosing my own costume was no longer in the cards. While all my friends were running amok in Kmart, fingering racks of synthetic Snow White capes and vinyl witch masks and probably inhaling 567,872,536 incubating germs left behind by the hundreds of people before them who breathed inside the masks, my role was to sit idly on my ass while my mom tapped into her creative genius for the perfect costume, year after year. I wanted to contract viruses, too, goddammit. But my mom would remind me that there was real life fame and fortune on the line, and since I was only eight, I still had faith in her.

My first homemade costume wasn’t all that sufferable. I have a vague recollection of wanting to help and having my fingers slapped. (Oh my god, I totally do this to my kid now. I have become my mother.)

Though I was shy, I secretly gloated behind my crayon tophat as everyone shrieked about the coolness of my costume. Other kids paraded around the elementary’s parking lot wearing their generic Made in Taiwan costumes, but I was the real deal, yo.

That year gave me my first taste of Halloween costume greatness. I was the winner from my grade, hands down. I remember clutching my prize (a real life silver dollar!

) to my heart and beaming knowingly at my mom—we were on our way to big things, I could feel it in my immobile torso. If we had been given the opportunity to recite an acceptance speech, I would have dedicated my winnings to her.

The excitement of the costume contest came to a crashing halt that evening. It was nearly time for Trick or Treating, and I realized that I didn’t have a real costume. You know, real as in ‘practical.’ Real as in ‘I will be traversing great lengths for the sake of candy and this fucking mummifying cardboard box is slightly invasive, can I get a leotard and some mother bitchin’ fairy wings?’  My mom, when I brought this to her attention, scoffed at me and said, “Yes, you do have a real costume!” Next thing I know, my arms are in the air and she’s shoving the Crayola box over my body. This is not the sort of costume that a child wants to wear while on a hunt for candy; my range of motion was limited. My step-dad rose to the occasion and pleaded with my mom that it was going to be a serious buzz kill for me. But don’t get it twisted, this isn’t the heart-warming moment of the story where the girl realizes that her step-dad loves her and decides to call him “daddy” for the first time. His concern was thinly veiled selfishness; he was attempting to save himself from the inevitable whining in which I was about to unleash like tiny verbal firecrackers. I remember hearing my mom respond with, “Yeah, but I want the neighbors to see.”

My shuffling got me down half of a block before I had to head back home, thanks due to cardboard chafing. That was the lightest load of candy any child over the age of five has ever obtained in history, with the exception of those getting hit by a car, kidnapped or only having a palm  to put it in. And it was all my mom’s fault.

By the time third grade rolled around, the Crayola catastrophe was a far off memory. Figuring the ambitions of my mother was a one time deal, I asked her to take me to the mall so I could pick out my next costume. My request was greeted by a look of horror, and she said, “I’ve already started working on your costume.” Oh. We’re doing this again, are we? Goodie.

One would think I would have a say in my own ghouly accoutrement, but all of my ideas and helpful suggestions of butterfly wings and fake blood were shot down. I was, after all, only a kid. And it was only my costume. This one would prove to be the single most over the top costume of my elementary school’s history. (I did extensive research. And by that, I mean I assumed.)

Notice how I’m gazing longingly off in the distance. I think I was devising a plan to steal He-Man’s sword and slash my way out of the sandwich board costume.

The traditional parade was a bitch, as this latest costume proved to be a proverbial thorn in my side. I had to take tiny baby steps, because walking with too much zest caused the cardboard to bounce off of my knees, running the risk of dislodging some of the game pieces. It was during this panoply that I discovered what it’s like to be chased down by the paparazzi. Not that I knew what paparazzi was back then. I had cameras being shoved in my face by a bevy of soccer moms and lunch ladies.

I won again, this time grudgingly. Another silver dollar. That novelty was being stretched thin. My strongest memory of that day was being divided: on one hand, I was elated and lapped up every last drop of attention that was tossed my way because I was no longer an only child and had to resort to destructive behavior to get even a glance in my general direction back at home; but on the other hand, I was embarrassed and wanted to go home and cry in bed.

I returned to my classroom after enduring another photo-op with the principal, and I couldn’t help but sense resentment from some of my peers. A handful of them had even retired their standard super hero costume fare for the likes of Coke cans, a skyscraper, and french fries. They were all clustered together on one side of room, sulking over their failed efforts. But then there was the other half of my classmates who were happier of my win than I was, and wouldn’t cease pawing at my costume. Here, have it. It’s all yours.

By the time I got home, I had put the horrors of Monopoly behind me. This time, my mom relented and I had a backup costume for Trick or Treating. I had to make up for the last year’s debacle, and the painful memory of it made possible my desire to cover extra territory. It was at this young age when I grasped the concept of heaping large amounts of chocolate and caramel into my system to temporarily numb depression.

Apparently I was doing too much indulging, because I became fat. Fortunately, by the next year, I was too busy worrying about weighing more than 85% of my class than stressing over my stupid grandfather clock costume. Suspiciously, there’s no picture of that year’s effort, and I think the fact that I was trumped by my classmate Mike’s grape guise may have something to do with it. To this day, my mom insists that it was about (PTA) politics.  I was relieved to have the heat taken off me. Mike’s costume was killer, yet oh-so simple. A purple sweat suit with purple balloons pinned to it. Genius. My mom still goes off about how he didn’t deserve it. “What did that take? Like, five minutes to pull off? I had worked on that fucking clock for a week!” The grandfather clock really was a crappy costume, though, and I didn’t know the meaning of constricting until that year’s sheath of cardboard was shoved over the shaft of my newly plump body. Divine would have had an easier time sausaging into her evening gowns.

Oh, how I longed for a drug store costume. Imagining how comfortable a plastic Rainbow Brite smock would be was the only thing that held my sanity in place during the ritual romp around the parking lot.

My mom, still feeling the blow of defeat from the previous year, pulled a “phoenix rising” and came back with this one:

It would turn out to be her swan song, and she was rewarded handsomely when I reclaimed my title. I won a real dollar bill that time, which I believe went right into my mom’s purse.

Of course, people who didn’t know me then always express genuine concern with the fact that I’m so into October and all of its creepy overtones yet so blase about dressing up.  Well, NOW THEY KNOW.

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Sometimes, when I stupidly have an urge to procreate again, I go back and read some of my pregnancy posts on LiveJournal, wherein I am quickly reminded to close them legs up, close ’em up tight, ya’ll.

Today, I had a fleeting desire to try and birth a creature that might actually enjoy to cuddle with its mother, unlike Chooch who might as well just start pulling a switchblade out of his underroos and rolling cigarettes in his shirt sleeve. So to LiveJournal I went, and I found this lovely memory of Ponderosa and realized that hey, I still haven’t been to a buffet since then. This grudge thing, it comes easy to me.

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Originally written January 13, 2006

It was all Henry’s bright idea, really. While idling around the house, wondering what to do for dinner (I was content extending my breakfast and lunch of gummies into the evening), Henry suggested Ponderosa. I quickly thought back upon my last trip to a buffet and decided that I wasn’t living life to the fullest unless I gave it another go. Besides, my mom used to take me to Ponderosa when I was a wee chitlin’, and if memory served me right, I believe I liked it.

Things immediately got off to a rocky start when we arrived. I stood in front of the large menu hanging on the wall behind the counter, heart rate increasing from the impending pressure cast onto me from the impatient stares of Henry and the cashier. My only option, of course, was the buffet, as everything else was steak, steak, seafood with a steak smoothie, or super steak. That’s gross for a vegetarian.

We walked over to the secluded booth I chose and it was here when I became arrested by what I affectionately call Fish Out of Water Syndrome. I stood there, next to the table, with one knee on the slippery booth, looking to Papa H for guidance. Do we sit down first? Do we stand here and wait for a signal, a green light or the peal of a dinner bell? Maybe we should just leave; I really wanted to just leave.

“What do we do now?” I whispered. I could feel the anxiety branching its russet fingers across my face, panic wavering from my flesh like heat on the horizon.

“Uh, we go up and get a plate,” Henry chided in the tone he reserves for moments he feels I should be reminded of my fucking retardedness, after which he stood there and stared at me for a second longer, then shook his head and walked away. I quickly ran after him, grasping onto the elbow of his shirt with my sweaty fingers.

I hung back awkwardly, observing Henry’s professional buffet maneuvering. Following his lead, I grabbed a plate, making certain it didn’t come complete with a hair like his selection did, and then I began to tentatively prong clumps of withered lettuce into a small mound on my plate. The lack of fresh spinach among the salad spread had me so bereft that I had to mentally talk myself down from tear-shed. Hormones are a bitch, but to be fair I probably would have stamped my foot even without-child. Two steps down, an employee was coveting the green pepper slices, thereby monopolizing the container from all the paying customers such as myself who really had their hearts set on the addition of the crisp, snappy vegetable to their salad. The peppers were already overflowing! There was no need for restocking at that particular moment, but then I remembered that to me, buffets are  merely an extension of a waking nightmare, so I tried to stop having standards and began to expect typical salad fare to lie in festering clumps, marinating in general buffet splooge and skin flakes from the arms of overreaching salad fixers.

Sans peppers, I moved on to the dressings, which I was delighted to find were not labeled. I blindly added a small dribble to the center of my spinach- and pepper-less crap hill, and shuffled back to our booth with my head down. (I shuffle while pregnant.)

As I pushed the questionable bits of salad around on my plate, I took the time to scope out what nonpareils Henry had acquired. This resulted in an interrogation of how he managed to escape my side long enough to seek out an array of slightly-edible choices. Items such as a golden roll and mac n’ cheese garnished the edges of his plate; things that maybe I would have enjoyed as well.

“If you would have continued along, you would have run right into it,” he explained while tearing chicken off the bone like a caveman, as I whimpered with jealousy.

It’s true, I could have taken more time to explore the depths of the buffet, but not while some old man was breathing down my back, waiting for the right moment to swoop down under the sneeze shield. He was right up against me, tongue wagging and elbows primed and jutted, waiting for the opportunity to start jabbing. I imagined him coating me in the remnants of his impending whirling dervish, and to be honest, I wasn’t trying to stick around for that. Buffets make me feel so rushed as it is, but throw a buffet bully into the mix and watch me freak out like the amazing social abortion that we all know I can be.

After I explained this scene to Henry, while trying to be brave and stifle my tears, he promised to take me back once I picked my way through the salad. Henry’s plate of thoroughly gnashed goods had long since been whisked away by the nicotine-damaged waitress, and still the minutes ticked on. He sat hunched over the table, watching me with his glazed-over eyes as I tediously cut too-large florets of broccoli into bite-sized morsels with his knife.

(My knife was adhered to the napkin it was rolled in, courtesy of an unknown viscous substance, so I wasn’t really anticipating using it on food that would eventually wind up in my mouth.)

By the time I had devoured all parts of the salad that appeared to be health code compliant, there were too many people in line at the buffet, so I made Henry wait some more. It was during this interim that I really got a good look at my fellow diners. Interspersed with folk of Henry’s ilk, and a handful of citizens who looked like they could self-suffice for a few weeks without sustenance, sat:

• (1) man who arrived with his belt already unbuckled;
• a troika of children who had thrown their jackets onto the floor upon arrival and then proceeded to lay on them;
• a group of guys who clearly had just gotten high out in the parking lot

I also finally got to put a face on the noisy nose-blower behind me. And boy I wish I hadn’t, because for that moment in time, I feared that I had somehow wound up in Appalachia.

On my second round of facing the ominous buffet, Henry walked me through and pointed out things that maybe I would enjoy, like cottage cheese, potato salad and macaroni and cheese; it was like having my own guided tour and I felt the need to ask when we were going to see the basement. Little dollops of everything Henry recommended dotted the perimeter of my plate, which I then crowned with a hesitant spoonful of buttered noodles (they looked like worms swimming in snot, you guys) and chocolate pudding (it looked like soft serve poop with a  diarrhea skin, you guys). Henry brought me back a smaller plate featuring a diminutive lump of mashed potatoes (which I took one taste of and gagged back up for added effect), nachos and cheese, and a slice of pizza.

I’m really glad that he had the foresight to include the nachos because otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to deduce that the cheese sauce festering away in that vat on the buffet was the same exact coagulated concoction used to coat the macaroni. It was disgusting, and it made my face crumple up like an air-filled paper bag being crushed.

I may have struck out with everything on my plates, but I still had the pizza to count on. The cheese was so thick and heavy, congealed with a luminous sheen of grease not unlike a pool of oil in a parking lot or the complexion of an amputee after performing a one-legged fornication obstacle course on the most humid day of the summer while chugging mugs of habanera chili, that I had to use a fork to pry the slice off the plate. Mistaking that I was in a real restaurant, with a real slice of pizza in my paws, I dove right in. And what a shock to the taste buds (whom I have promised to make it up to, by the way) as they drowned in a wad of artery-plugging mush. I managed to lumber through half before the thick tomato paste became too much to bear. And the crust was like no other: A strange hybrid of what one might assume was soggy Ritz crackers crumbled and rolled out with Nilla Wafers on a tray spritzed with Grandma’s Aquanet to form a sad semblance of pizza dough. I was intrigued. Nauseated, yes; but intrigued nonetheless.

Hope blossomed around the ingested sludge in my stomach when Henry suggested that maybe the desserts would be better. He brought back a smörgåsbord of pint-sized confections: A small bowl, which bore a striking resemblance to an ashtray, housed a small portion each of sugar-plated bread pudding and a crumbled mass of what I believe had “apple” in the name. Next to the bowl, he set down a plate which carried a slice of some curious variety of sweet bread and a brownie.

The crap in the bowl was decent, but the brownie was no more than a glorified piece of school cafeteria cake with an APB out on the icing. And the bread! Good Lord, the bread. Having the inferior taste buds that are programmed into your average blue-collar worker, Henry masticated his bite of bread as though it were a caviar-capped truffle, but I droned on and on about how dry it was — I even conducted an experiment using a small sample of bread, a sip of water, and an extended tongue — and oh yeah, what exactly was I eating, anyway? He insisted it was nothing more than nut bread, but halfway through the shared slice, I bit into a mushy mouthful of banana.

“It’s banana bread!” I announced as I pulled the plate away from Henry and happily ate the rest.

“So because you now know it’s banana bread, it’s suddenly good?” A veritable pylon of steam chugged from his ears as Henry wrestled with this concept. I love confusing him with my nonsensical food laws.

Unfortunately, one slice of banana bread is not enough to change my prior conception of the buffet, so from this day forward, the word will be completely obliterated from my vocabulary. Buffets no longer exist in my universe.

The lesson learned is that evidently, my boobs aren’t the only thing that have gone and changed on me since I’ve entered adulthood; my taste buds are no longer the same under-developed specks upon my tongue as I once knew them to be. Which explains why Chuck E. Cheese pizza isn’t exactly a delicacy worth writing home about these days, either.

What bothers me the most is that I still don’t know what dressing I had covering my wilted salad.

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You know how when your neighbor is chasing you around with that fifteen-inch barbed dildo and electrical nipple clamps, your heart swells up with such a rush of adrenaline that you feel like you might die right then and there in a pantsful of terror-based soft-serve shit? That’s how I felt the day when I was fourteen and being hunted by a cannibalistic rabbit.

I was ambivalent when my brother Ryan won the fight against our parents, the one where every seven-year-old begs, pleads, promises, swears that they’re responsible enough, that they’ll feed it, that they’ll scrape the shit off the floor and pet it and hold it and love it forever and forever, until my parents cried uncle and allowed him to bring home a rabbit. He chose a standard black and white cow-spotted one and after quickly conferring with me, the all-knowing Big Sister and thinker of The Best Names EVER, the final choice for the new pet’s name was Rudy, after one of the kids from Monster Squad, a Kelly Family classic.

Rudy was a motherfucker. We kept him in a large cage in the garage, where he would gnaw at the flesh upon our fingers every chance he got. Feeding him was a nightmare, and I began to fear it more than church. My mom, trying to shove a carrot in between the grid of his cage, was left with a shaving of thumb skin dangling in the air, exposing the bright pink under layer of her hand. And that was only a sampling of the damage Rudy could cause.

That summer, my dad bought a hutch for him; we thought perhaps being one with nature would soften his temper, maybe the birds could do some social-workin’ on his dingleberried ass. But evidently, the great outdoors amplified his testosterone level and Rudy just kept growing more violent and more bloodthirsty.

One fateful day, Rudy squeezed his way out of the hutch when I was attempting, nervously. to toss some slop into his bowl. I was almost relieved, figuring instinct would send him hopping for the woods at the edge of our yard. Instead, he set his beady evil eyes hungrily on my legs. His nose twitched devilishly. For one frozen moment, we stood in tense stances: Rudy, hunched over awaiting to pounce; me, half-twisted at my waist, anticipating the start of a chase. Almost as if a gunshot fired, Rudy and I unfroze at the same time and I began sprinting wildly and blindly through the backyard, Rudy hot on my heels. I wasn’t sure if my appendages were going to be used as a humping post or a dinner buffet, but neither sounded very savory to me. I screamed in vain for someone, anyone to come to my aid. Preferably the Crocodile Hunter.

Bring a shotgun! I don’t care!

My dad was in the garage, engaging in a leisurely afternoon phone conversation, when I whizzed past him, followed closely by a black and white streak of unbridled fury.

Hysterically, I screeched, “Daddy help me! Before he kills me! Daddy help!”

An outsider might have mistaken my screams for over-dramatics. But my dad was no stranger to the extent of injury we feared Rudy could cause, and so he abandoned the telephone in favor of a broom, then quickly joined the frantic chain of hunter and the hunted.  My dad gained on him and began swatting with frenzied heroics, but it was all for naught: Rudy was too quick and agile for me, his paws powered by the wrath of Hell, and soon had me tackled to the freshly mowed grass.

Rudy’s sharp bucked teeth pierced through the flesh on my ankle. I swung and kicked my leg around, like I was the bull at the rodeo, but his fanged clench abated. My dad finally unlatched him with one hard smack of the broom. I’m against animal cruelty, but Rudy earned no tears from me that day.

Later that summer, even though I vowed to never speak to Rudy again, I didn’t think twice about coming to his aid when our dog, Dazee, chased him into the neighbor’s yard before grabbing his neck with her gnashing jaws. When I reached the scene, Rudy lay unmoving under a pine tree. Luckily, I was in the middle of summer health class, so I grabbed my notes and embarked in a relentless series of CPR attempts.

Sadly, Rudy was a goner. I think of him every time I look at the scar on my ankle.

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Oh dear Lord, I found this old post from Mother’s Day 2007 when I was looking for something and I haven’t publicly made a mockery of Henry in so long, like an entire month maybe, so excuse me while I indulge in a re-post.

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It had quickly become my dying wish, this one thing that I wanted last week. The desire for this favor was so great, like I could die from the sheer want of it all. The extremity of it had far surpassed my dream of starting a jump rope league, and was at least on par with the Robert Smith / Lydia Lunch personal journal conquest of 2001, where my insanity had reached such high summits that I was ready to sell my car to finance the purchase.  If I had to put it in terms that the rational populace might understand,  I might liken the obsession to dreams of aquiring a new house or the incessant need to check yourself for venereal diseases.

This obsession overtook each of my senses: a palpable vinegar pool of yearning swirling on my tongue; the sneering visage of an undulating Satan dangling my dire longing before my eyes; a needling Siren song of excruciating taunt engulfing my ears. And Henry was the only one who could make it go away.

When I initially presented him with my proposition on a Monday, Henry seemed perplexed, probably from his deep-seeded inherent fantasies surging forth. To camouflage his interest, he instead scoffed and rather quickly became sucked back into Food Network. Broaching the sensitive topic on Tuesday resulted in an equivocal “We’ll see,” which I’m truly talented at converting to the far affirmative side of the Erin Gets Her Way spectrum.

By that Wednesday, he was putty in my hands. It could have been over and done with in a mere two minutes, the butterfly finally in my net, but I had to push my luck as usual.

“Why don’t we take this outside for a second?”

When he reluctantly agreed, I pushed further.

“Across the street and by that tree.”

And the foot came down.

We didn’t talk for nearly an hour.

Using Mothers Day as leverage, I finally got what I wanted.

Hey, if you got the legs to rock it….

Notice the stark contrast between the ones where he was pushed out of his comfort zone and this next one, where he was clearly in his Pretty Girlie Sue Sue element and patiently waiting his turn to strike a pose on the catwalk, as Robert smiles down some moxie on him from the background.

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Today I annoyed hung out with Alisha, who brought up Phipps Conservatory at least fifteen times because she is apparently wildly obsessed with weeds. I let her babble on about all her exciting trips there, and then I remembered the one whole time I went. It was two years ago, and it was with Kara, who doesn’t live her anymore so I feel compelled to repost this since I don’t have any fresh examples of torturing her.

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Learning About Plants & Kara

Originally posted August 21, 2007

There I was on a dreary Sunday, sitting around in just Henry’s underwear and watching instructional knitting videos, when Kara arrived to hang out. I started to get up from my filth to fetch her a particularly swiss-cheesy pair of underroos, when she stopped me. It seemed that in lieu of festering in Henry’s waste and eating freezer-burnt bonbons while watching 70s horror porn, Kara was in favor of actually leaving the house and going to that place where people go — I think it’s called the outside. Outdoors? Public? Slaughterho—no wait, I’m thinking of something else.

She seemed desperate to wile away her afternoon at Phipps Conservatory, where a riveting Chihuly glass exhibit was underway. Not wanting to get in between her and culture, I agreed. It gave me a reason to use my rainbow backpack that I bought specifically for Warped Tour but then left it hanging on the knob of the bathroom door.

Did I mention the adorable unicorn appliqué on the backpack? I hoped people would think I was a lesbian. A lesbian with an enviable collection of black light-sensitive felt unicorn posters in a day-glo array.

Flowers and non-flower plants don’t really get my fancy very tickled, but I was pleasantly pleased to discover some new species that I had never heard of.

1. Creepy Laughing Male:

Balding on the crown of his head and clad in an army jacket, this species will creep up behind you and molest your ear drum with his scandalous laughter, which feels like a big wet tongue and makes your shoulders raise to your earlobes in hopes of acting like a condom, before whipping out his camera and turning his molestational instincts onto the helpless plants. He is accompanied by his presumed paramour in a striped shirt and he will later make you recoil when he appears to be snapping perverse shots of a random baby in a carriage. Later you will learn that the baby is really his and his companion is his father, not paramour. But watching him slouch in his seat in the cafe still doesn’t make you feel like planting his seeds in your garden.

More angles of Creepy Laughing Man:

2. Witch Disguised as Pedestrian:

Slipping into a pink sweater does little to camouflage this white haired witch’s natural aura, especially when she is incapable of denying her vast knowledge of every spice and herb growing in the outside garden. Your first reaction will be to assume she’s planning on making a brew that will eradicate the entire elf population of Western Pennsylvania, and you’re ashamed when you find out that really she’s just planning on whipping up an aromatic stew for her dinner guests that evening. Way to be prejudiced. You’re probably also the kind of person who would slide over a chalice of bat juice to a witch without actually taking their beverage order, when maybe they’d have preferred a nice White Russian in a frosted high ball.

But yeah, you’re right. She does have some magical locks.

3.Thai Food Aficionado:

Can be found predominantly in the tropical gardens of Phipps’ Thailand Section, monopolizing the employee inside a kiosk displaying samples of Thai spices. He will pressure her until her eyes water in fear, demanding to know every last datum of curry until she eventually fakes the need to blow her nose continually, causing him to shrug and leave. If you have the misfortune of finding yourself ogling a lotus while he is within earshot, do not speak poorly of it, for his female companion (wife or mother, relation is unknown) will sneer at you and lambaste you about the sweet, sweet balm the lotus secretes, causing Thai Food Aficionado to radiate death waves from his robotic eyes as he brusquely chimes in that lotus root is best served as a tempura. Interaction with Thai Food Aficionado learns you that it’s about as savory as spending an afternoon under a willow reading Chaucer with some stink weed.

Here, Thai Food Aficionado is deciding if the pond fish would taste delicious with a nice curry. Later, you hear him spinning yarns of pad Thai and lemon grass.

To my delight, I also learned some new things about my friend Kara:

Kara doesn’t like orchids; they are ugly and gross and they scare her.

Kara is scared to death of butterflies and will pull all kinds of exaggerated faces to convey her dismay while trapped in the butterfly room. She explains that it’s “like bugs crawling all over [her].” Hopefully, Kara’s first born will be a butterfly.

Kara thinks star fruit is gross and ugly.

Kara will yell “Ew!” as if she has just put her hand in a jar of eyeballs, when really she has only touched a soft leaf called a Lamb’s Ear.

Kara hates lotuses and they remind her of worms and make her protectively cover her boobs.

I had to double check my ticket to see if I was in Kara’s Haunted House.

Kara was also kind of cranky and surly. She admitted it was probably because she was hungry and in a very strange and disorienting moment, I realized that it was almost like hanging out with myself. If that’s the case, then damn, I’m annoying. Wait, don’t people tell me that all the time?

In typical Erin fashion, I ignored the fact that there was a finger print on the lens. It gives the pictures character. Charm? No? Ok.

Thingies.

Life would be worth living if these were what eyeballs looked like. Or nipples.

When penii party.

Would suck to fall on.

Kara’s fortress will protect her from all the scary flowers and sinister butterflies, but I fear she’s on her own with that foreboding sky.

Afterward, I fed Kara’s face in the cafe, where Creepy Laughing Man had been joined by his wife and kid and that dude we thought was his lover but really was his father. It was kind of comforting, even though I kept hearing him laughing and it was really like having my ear fingered, which kind of made me blush and wish I had a rosary to nuzzle.

Right before we left, Thai Food Aficionado stamped in with his mother-figure and proceeded to ask the girl behind the counter what every dessert tasted like. Kara and I tried to hold back squeals when they chose the table next to us. His companion, having fallen in love with her cake, made the life-or-death decision to go back and get another hunk, which she paid for in exact change. She then cut it right down the middle, employing an enviable steady-handed precision. I took it upon myself to imagine the dialogue exchanged was akin to her telling him that he just hadn’t lived until he prayed with the Tibetan monks, but instead it was really, you know, tasting some crappy cafeteria dessert. Thai Food Aficionado, well on his way to becoming Stale Dessert Connoisseur, speared his half with a fork and raised the entire chunk to his mouth. He gnawed off a large portion, swallowed, and then engulfed the rest.

I hope there was at least some coconut milk in it.

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Many moons ago, when I was a spry sixteen year old, I went to my neighbor Jessy’s house to color Easter eggs. Not knowing Jessy very well, I had to censor the ideas I had for my eggs. It’s never wise to draw pictures on the eggs with wax crayon depicting Jesus molesting young boys when you haven’t officially tested the waters surrounding your company. She may have been a Bible jockey – what did I know? So our eggs were your standard fare – brightly colored, some boasting our names and superlatives expressing the magnitude of our undeniable coolness.

As we marveled over our freshly colored eggs, Jessy shared with me a tradition from her childhood. She encouraged me to select my favorite egg from the batch and then told me to take it home, place it somewhere dark and dry, and eventually it would shrivel and become hard as a rock. I would be left with an unbreakable souvenir of that year’s Easter. She said her grandma did it every year, so I had a lot of confidence in her.

I went home and chose a porcelain container situated in the hutch in our dining room. Carefully nestling the egg inside the dark compartment, I gave it one last loving stroke for good measure and replaced the lid.

After an uncertain amount of time, my mom decided that she was going to clean. Typically, when my mom said she was going to clean, it entailed clutter being kicked and shoved under furniture and into drawers that already were resisting closure [note: this is where I learned my housekeeping ethics]. But on that day, something had possessed her to go all out and dust the dining room.

All was calm and quiet in the house; the muted din of cartoons mingled with a cacophony of chirping birds from outside. Suddenly, my mother’s piercing shriek could be heard ’round the neighborhood. I ran into the dining room just in time to witness my former pre-birth vessel, frozen in terror, holding the lid to the porcelain jar while an army of maggots swarmed around it, undulating and looking generally disgusting.

I was in trouble.

Since then, I’ve learned that there’s an entire process that needs to be followed in order to preserve Easter eggs. And it’s too much work for me.

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Four years ago, in an effort to really immerse ourselves in the Easter spirit, Henry and I invited Alisha over to indulge in some adult egg coloring. And by adult, I mean to say none of this wholesome “I Love God” egg-dyeing bullshit. My eggs were billboards for unsavory epithets like Fucknoodle and Dickshitter. This was the way eggs were meant to be. This was art.

I had huge dreams of making a Porno Series, in which we would enhance each egg with paint so that they would depict naked nymphos, ready to get it on. I had this highly ambitious endeavor of creating an entire storyboard from it which would propel me into stardom.

I could sense the fear that Henry was emanating. It smelt of nachos and the Service, circa 1984.

“Um, so what exactly is this going to entail, this porno egg thing?” Henry questioned as he nervously rubbed his arms. I’m afraid that he was picturing some grandiose scene of us shoving freshly-colored eggs into his ass while paying spectators watched from behind a red-velvet rope. So paranoid. But that would make for some classy performance art.

Everything was progressing normally until Alisha plopped an egg into a mug of dye and ogled over the unusual sludgy color. Henry, always needing to stick his nose into everything, came over to inspect it as well.

I haven’t dyed eggs probably since the previous story unfolded, so I assumed that maybe Paas was trying to be all hip by not discriminating against colors and they were maybe slowly introducing ethnic shades into their color line. Personally, I thought it was a huge leap forward for the future of egg-coloring.

Alisha swished and swirled her egg around in the brown dye a few more times before announcing that nothing was happening. That was when we realized it was my coffee. It took three of us to come to this conclusion. College has made a huge impact on me so far!

The eggs turned out splendidly, especially my blue and yellow variation, but unfortunately the eggs in my Porno Series did not come out as expected. The … male genitalia that I drew with tongue-protruding concentration and accuracy dried to resemble a smiley. I remembered that we had glitter egg paint, so I demanded that Henry drop trou and model for me as I attempted to paint over the failed weener. He refused and opted instead to Google images for me. Because I’m Amish.

The result was still terrible and looked more like an elephant. Much respect for Michelangelo. However, the boobs I painted on the female egg came out perky and voluptuous, rivaling any silicone-enhanced pair crafted by the hands of a Beverly Hills surgeon. Well, almost.

And I made a very special, Henrydandy egg that will surely be cherished by a certain someone for years to come.

[Henry used to wear a bandanna and have long hair, FYI. (Not FTW.)]

There was no hiding of eggs in dark, dry places yesterday after Alisha and I painstakingly turned the ordinary stark shells into glorious masterpieces. So this Easter, while some people were in church learning about the Resurrection of Christ, I was learning that coffee does not adhere to eggs and that I shouldn’t go into business painting weeners.

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I’m hoping that tomorrow night, when I try my hand at egg-dyeing once again with Alisha, it will be so much fun that Jesus will rise a day early to dunk his junk in some green Paas. I mean, egg. To dunk his EGG. Oh, and Blake will be here too, so maybe, if all goes well, the night will veer into  STD Cookies: Ovum Edition.

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Thoughts are being gathered over here at 3021 Pioneer, so have an oldie (but probably not really goodie) for today. Originally written August 13th, 2007, and apparently on that day I felt compelled to call Chooch by his actual name.

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I’m not sure Henry’s and my relationship was much stronger the last time we were there , but in an attempt to recapture some of the magic we painted smiles upon our faces and stuffed the child into the car and headed out to the Living Treasures Animal Park. It’s about an hour drive from Pittsburgh, and we managed to arrive without a single episode to cause me to stare out the window in protruding-lipped angst. A good sign.

Of course, with Riley being the wild man that he is, it wasn’t exactly the casual hand-holding stroll beneath Victorian lace parasols in Kensington Park, but more like running a relay race in an attempt to chase around your child in near-90 degree heat, trying to make sure he doesn’t end up leaving with another family, shoveling rogue rooster poop into his mouth, or falling into the duck pond. When you’re drenched in clammy-handed sweat there’s no way do you want to be holding the hand of your partner who just got done feeding a cow and the entire three-ring fly circus he’s hosting upon his back.

For the most part, it was what you would imagine from a small zoo.

Animals shitting, lions sleeping with their backs toward you, asshole kids cutting in front of you while their asshole parents talk on their asshole cell phones like the asshole Ray-Banned yuppies they are. And all my child cared about was this one fucking duck over in a gazebo and finally I was like, “I didn’t just spend $20 for you to sit here and throw shit at a duck when we could have driven five miles from home and done this shit for free so now you’re going to come with me and look at a monkey and fucking like it” and then he melted down into a full-blown display of histrionic fireworks, complete with real, plump tears, and it was a nice little glimpse of the next eighteen years of my life. (And also the last 27 of my own, I guess I should add.)

I splurged on the large bag of feed and of course, with the exit in our sight, half of the bag still remained. Not wanting to waste it, I spent some extra time with the dromedary camels. Henry kept yelling at me to keep my hand flat, and I was getting angry. It was flat! I’m quite capable of reading signs, I’m in college, remember?

So I’m standing there, grimacing and dry heaving over the thick and sticky saliva being lacquered onto my hand, when suddenly the one camel started to inhale my entire palm into its large vacuum of a mouth. I was so horrified that I actually choked on my scream. I was wrist-deep in this motherfucker’s jaws and it was starting to apply pressure with its flat teeth. I tried to yank myself back out, but the camel clamped down harder.

Hysteria renders it impossible for me to relay every detail, but I’m fairly sure I roared something to the effect of, “Get it the fuck OFF OF ME!“

You know the situation has reached emergency status when Henry forgoes the eye-rolling and nearly drops our child to come to my aid. I had to squint to see it, but I do believe I detected a trace of panic filling in the lines of Henry’s weathered face. But by this point, I was losing consciousness, so what do I know.

Great, soon I’ll be attending tea parties on a cloud with Steve Irwin, I thought pitifully.

Luckily, Henry used his big manly muscles to rip out my arm with force, postponing my tete-a-tete with the Crocodile Hunter.

It was the closest we came to hand-holding all day. Aw, thanks camel.

I was afraid to look at what mangled flesh and bone remained. I held it up, with my non camel-molested hand wrapped around it, stroking it lovingly and swearing to never place it in such compromising situations again. When I finally peeked at it, there were red splotches here and there, presumably broken blood vessels, and my one fingernail was black underneath.

I shoved my camel-battered hand in Henry’s face and screamed, “Look at what that asshole has done! He’s murdered my hand!” Henry seemed alarmed at the blackness of my nail and urged me to show it to one of the staff members. I inwardly gloated at the fact that the son of a bitch actually gave a shit, waited a bit for his concern to balloon into hospital bill horror, and then admitted that it was really just paint souvenirs from my weekend of furious and maniacal art therapy.

Apparently, by ‘flat,’ what the signs really meant is “Don’t feed these fuckers, else you’ll be devoured up to your elbow until you’re fisting this Satan-spawned beast’s hay-stuffed colon. And if, by chance, you’re still conscious when that happens, grope around a bit and see if you can find my wedding band.  – The Handless Management.”

All of the fond memories I harbored of riding camels in Morocco have flown out the window. Ahoy, Aversion Island.

And thus, the tone of the day was set. We went to lunch after we left the farm of maim, where we ate to the tune of my whines. “It’s growing worse by the minute!” I’d sob. Henry would make exaggerated efforts to lovingly squeeze my hand from across the table; I’d scream out in pain.

Feigning concern, he would ask, “Oh, was that your camel hand?”

I really wished he would stop calling it that because it made me feel like I was wearing an ill-fitting glove.

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Since last weekend was all about cucpakes and game night, I find it apropos to repost an old LiveJournal post about the same subjects. And hopefully sometime Capn’ Cusspants will let Mommy have a fucking minute to sit down and write about the recent game night. If not, Doctor Nyquil might have to make an appearance. (KIDDING.)

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Originally posted January 21, 2007

 Bathing in a tub of warmed pistachio pudding with buoyant sponge caked-rubber duckies.

Traipsing through a field of peanut butter-covered bubble wrap while Robert (or Elliott) Smith warbles love songs down golden rays of sunlight while perched on a nearby cloud.

Swimming in a chambord pie with lesbian mermaids.

These are the sensations I imagined would wash over me while I tackled the cupcakes last week. I did not feel any of these things. Instead, I felt tired, bored, agitated. All the things I normally feel when spending time with Henry.

First, he quickly talked me out of the “from scratch” mindset and set me free in the baking aisle of Giant Eagle, where I bought three boxes of cake mix and decorative thingies and neon food coloring. There was so much more I wanted to buy but I don’t know where to go to get the good baking stuff. I wanted to encrust my cakes with edible diamonds and sugared seaweed, but time was fleeting.

My cupcake-baking enthusiasm quickly waned as I struggled to mix the batter, but interest was regained when Henry took the blending-reins and set me free with a kitchen-full of ingredients to plop into each pocket. He lingered close-by, though, to make sure that everything I used was edible. Just because I had hoped to fill the innards with mud, grass, thumb tacks and soiled baby wipes, I guess. Henry was disgusted and even remarked that I have the audacity to wonder why I can’t keep friends. And here I thought it was because of my wicked mood swings and inability to trust!

Here is what I learned:

• Cheerios shrivel and get very hard when baked
• Fruit snacks don’t melt; they still stick to your teeth even after being baked into batter
• Fistfuls of marshmallows should not be allowed inside a cupcake because then Henry has to use a knife to cut the finished product out of the pan. And then your guests think that one was nibbled on by your cats. And then you feel like shit because people think your house is unsanitary and they start holding cupcakes up to the light to inspect further.
  
• Maraschino cherry sauce sinks and congeals at the bottom for a bloody good-looking finished product
• Janna will eat her weight in cupcakes flavored with blueberry preserves, and won’t even notice that a well-concealed olive is awaiting her beneath a cap of green icing
• Chopped dates blend into cake batter and come out the other end of the baking process undetected. Seriously, who ate the one with the dates? No one knows
• When Henry urges me to only fill each baking cup halfway, I should listen

The next morning, Henry and I stood in the kitchen staring at two dozen un-iced cupcakes. We marveled over their non-uniformity and I grabbed the next box of mix.

“Whoa! Oh no. You are not making anymore. Are we looking at the same cupcakes here? You got two dozen disgusting cupcakes sitting here and let me tell you something: once your little friends find out what’s in them, ain’t no one going to be eating them. We don’t need any more cupcakes going to waste.”

I was enraged, yet relieved. Baking is tiring business, you guys. It’s not fun like it looks like on TV. I couldn’t even read the directions on my own. I tried, but words blended together and it started to look like a word problem which angered me because numbers just don’t belong in sentences with words because it makes my brain seize up a little. But I ate a lot (a lot) of batter and felt like it might have been my last day on earth.

So instead of boarding the baking train, we (read: Henry) whipped up some butter cream icing which was then separated into several bowls so I could get all Picasso with my food coloring.

“Just put like, two drops in,” Henry advised as I meat-fisted the small vial and sent at least fifteen droplets splattering into the icing.

We made purple (regular flavored), pink (amaretto), lime (almond), blue (marshmallow) and then I got bored and ditched Henry. He used this quiet time to concoct his own icing: bright green flavored with a hint of red pepper, which left a pleasant warmth in the mouth. It was my favorite, but none of the game night attendees noticed and had to be told what was happening. Sometimes I wonder if Janna’s mommy has to accompany her to the potty since Janna seems to need dialogue added to her every action.

“Now you’re passing a corn-studded turd through your anus. Here it comes! Plunk! That was the sound of it dropping into the toilet water! Now wipe yourself good, Janna. Front to back!”

Honestly. She probably didn’t notice the olive because I wasn’t giving her a play-by-play.

After I finished slathering my disfigured cupcakes, it was finally time to decorate them! Except that I didn’t give a shit anymore! I half-heartedly dusted each one with sprinkles and plopped a cherry on some of them. I was kind of over it. I mustered enough energy to impale two of them with toothpicks in order to create a two-story cupcake shanty.

It’s a shame really, because I had big plans of desecrating each iced dome with obscenities and unmentionables and maybe even using a piping bag to scrawl out some of Janna’s dirty secrets, but my belly ached from the fingerfuls of icing I had scooped out–behind Henry’s back–and jammed into the back of my throat like an orphan eating porridge. (I’ve been obsessed with porridge all weekend.)

I guess baking wasn’t the worst thing for me to find out I don’t mesh with. It could have been something dangerous, like knife-fighting. (Which isn’t to say that’s not a hobby I’ve flirted with in my head.)

For some reason, my guests actually ate all but five or six, forcing Henry to eat his words. There were several murmurings of “What is that sticking to my tooth?” but I really think that Henry’s delicious icing (ugh) overpowered my misuse of creative baking license.

Granted, two of my guests were stoned, but hey–I’ll take it.

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Here. Enjoy an old LiveJournal entry while I continue digging my grave. Thanks.

Where Erin Finally Gets Her Breakdown

Originally posted August 6, 2007

For my birthday, I made the four-and-a-half hour trek to Cincinnati, where I got out some of my teenage angst at Warped Tour with my best friend Christina. I left Ohio the next morning with plenty of time to get home, chill for an hour or so, and then go to work. With the Pennsylvania border nearly in sight, my asshole car decided to curiously stop accelerating, no matter how loud I childishly shrieked while stomping on the pedal. A few more rounds of that, and I’d have been Flinstone’in it.

Even curious-er, the warning lights on the dash, each and every last one, began lighting up and blinking like an arcade game. Before my common sense had a chance to wallop my crown with a mallet, I took it upon myself to ease the car off the highway and onto the shoulder, where I then bashed in the button for the flasher with the heel of my hand.

First I laughed, because of course I would break down. Of course. Why not? The laughter was cut off by shock. I stared straight ahead, mouth agape, and reached for my phone without blinking. I dialed Henry. As soon as he answered, the tears flowed freely.

“No you did not. Nuh uh,” he stammered. I was surprised he could even hear me without having a dog translate. While waiting for him to say the magic words to make the car miraculously re-start, I became unnervingly aware that I was unable to pull off as far as I probably should have to avoid impending vehicular manslaughter. Each semi that passed sent the car rocking and swaying perilously. Even smaller trucks and cars made their presence known as they barrelled by. I considered exiting the car and stepping back to safety, but then my suicidal tendencies rose to the occasion and I screamed out loud, “Hit me! Come on, hit me! I welcome it! My flesh begs to become one with the road!”

I then sent my pal Lauren a suicide-drenched text message, to which she promptly responded via real time phone call. She suggested I try to push the car further back onto the shoulder and I started whining about not wanting to defile the white shorts I was wearing and as my luck goes, my period would probably burst through the gates, like Old Faithful looking festive for Valentine’s Day, leaving me to moon all the lewd truck drivers with a sanguine bull’s eye.

Because of course I’d be wearing white shorts that day. Better than the latex sundress with the human hair fringe, I suppose.

I sat there in the ninety-degree heat for about an hour, fluctuating between crying, kicking the tires with my flip-flopped feet, rage-dialing Henry, and happily rifling through my Warped Tour swag; it was a very Sybil roadside display.

Toward the tail end of my towtruck wait, the heat began to make me forget the value of life and I floated away on a daydream’s wings, imagining a pair of hill dwellers emerging from the woods near my car and dragging me back to their dirt mound where I would spend the rest of my life frolicking around in a frayed potato sack, guzzling moonshine with my breakfast of stranded roadside traveler’s roasted left buttock, and shootin’ at the highway patrol with a makeshift archery set.

Unfortunately, the dashing (scruffy) young (middle-aged) man (man) operating the tow truck glided to a halt in front of me, bursting my savory fantasy into shards of disappintment. Wiping away tears, I informed him that I wanted to kill myself, and, taking in my disheveled and sweat-soaked appearance, he awkwardly cleared his throat and suggested that I go sit in the truck and cool off. And that’s what I did, too; it was me, the AC, and the loud notes of Wheeling, West Virginia’s finest country music station ricocheting twangingly through the cab. The AC was on full blast and kicked around my sweaty tendrils with its icy breeze, a temporary relief until the driver entered the cab and we embarked on a ride grappled by awkward silence.

He only had to drive me about a mile or two up the highway, where he dumped me off at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center, but not before pestering me for payment that one would think Henry would have handled for his poor, stranded girlfriend (who was too busy skirting past suicide’s calcified nails), before continuing on to the Wheeling Nissan dealership. Incidently, this is where my broken carriage still sits in a heap.

I was left to maunder around the welcome center with my giant purse, bright green tote bag, and that motherfucking red Vincent Black Shadow plastic shopping bag from Warped Tour. I looked like a fucking runaway, my skin slick and oleaginous with an amalgamation of sweat, gritty dirt, and failure.  I’d have sloughed it off with a white rag, but I was too busy flying it high above my crown in surrender.

Prior to the towing, I had already called work and informed them of my plight, so they knew I would be late. Standing in the middle of a tractor trailer-dominated parking lot, I glanced at my cell for a time check, which made me choke on the fact that the possibility of being late had quickly turned into a reality, and if there’s one thing that pin pricks the ulcer, it’s being late to work.

Struggling to find a proper balance with all of my bags, I staggered inside the welcome center, where I was assaulted by a throng of happy travelers, bustling to and fro like crows during a midnight scavenge.

Hooray for Pennsylvania!

Oooh, brochures!

Coffee from a vending machine; oh the wonderment!

You know that scene in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, after he discovers his bike has been stolen? And he’s skulking down a dark alley in the rain, hissing at anyone who passes? That was me in the welcome center, trying desperately to eschew the probablity that someone would mistake me for a homeless hooker and try to read me the word of the Lord. Luckily, the fusion of the aforementioned hiss and the fact that I smelled like the entire Warped Tour was rotting under my arm pits, like bodies of punks in Ed Gein’s garage, was enough to make like Moses and part the horde of smilers.

Freshening up was futile, if you consider the fact that my deoderant had melted in the heat. So my sprucing consisted of peeing like I had downed a six-pack at the rib fest, followed by several strategic water-splashes. And by strategic I mean: in my face with cupped hands, so really — not that strategic.

I passed by Vending Alley and salivated over shiny packs of HoHos and Doritos and refreshing cans of Mountain Dew and Slice, wishing I had some money and realizing that it had been a long time since cold wet beverages coursed down my gullet. Dejected, I leaned down for a squirt from the water fountain, mis-gauging the stream and getting water up my nostrils.

On my way back outside, an elderly couple stopped dead in their tracks, blocking my route to the door. Then they turned toward each other and struck up a leisurely conversation with each other. With bags slipping down my shoulders, my own body stench fluttering up my nostrils and hypothetical service station dollar signs spinning past my eyeballs, do you really think I was in the mood to watch these fucking aging yuppies, all gussied in their Eddie Bauer Senior’s Collection golf shorts and polos and holding their vending machine coffee cups with extended fingers, pause and chat like they’re sitting in a fucking jazz club?

NO. Mama was tired and angry and her fucking TOES hurt from repeatedly bending her car tires like Beckham, so get the fuck out of Mama’s way.

I utilized the universal Move IT DICKSHITTER hand motion and growled, “Come on!” which inspired them to smarten up by sidestepping and I bowled past them, muttering heart warming names like bitchcunt and AIDS-eater. Have fun at your condo on the lake, assholes.

I selected a picnic table further down from the welcome center’s hotbed of activity, and slammed all of my belongings down around me.  My friend Merry had the good fortune to call me at that exact moment, as I swiped away sweat beads from my brow and snarled at a fanny-packed lady walking her dog. It was not one of my finer telephone moments.

Thankfully, I only had to dodge eye contact for thirty minutes or so before Neighbor Chris pulled into the lot, with Henry and Chooch in tow. Chris ran into the welcome center without even waving hello to me; I assumed he had to pee really bad. Since it took them about an hour to get there (Ed. Note: it would never take me that long), Henry let Chooch out of the car seat so he could stretch his legs, and I don’t know, reunite with his mother whom he hadn’t seen in two days. When Henry pulled him out of the backseat, I was delighted to see that he looked like he had just rolled down the hills of West Virginia: his face was a collage of his meals and activities, his clothes were stained, and he was barefoot. A telltale sign of what goes on when Mommy’s out playin’.

We stood around and talked about the car, Henry being all optimistic while I was saying things like, “It’s a goner. It’s one dead motherfucker, Henry. Fuck that piece of shit, you know? Fuck it all the way in its asshole while its sucking Satan’s dong.”

I realized Chris had been gone a long time. “What, is there a spa in there that I don’t know about?” I asked disgustedly. I wanted to go home, take a cold shower, and go to work. Yes, I wanted to go to work! I welcomed the subarctic temperatures and the muted pallet of the cubicles. It’s like an eight hour massage for my brain. No bright lights, no loud noises, no Henry to fight with about the unknown state of the car.

“Oh, he’s looking for fishing maps,” Henry said, matter-of-factly.

“I’m out here half-dead, probably in need of a blood transfusion and shock therapy, and Chris is looking for fishing maps?” I yelled. We went inside to fetch him. He was really sad that he couldn’t find what he was looking for. Then Henry asked me if I had any change so he could get a drink and my inner Pazuzu nearly erupted from my mouth and skull-fucked him.

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Foreword:

I had a quick flashback of staking out in a mini-snow storm to video tape some pizza delivery guy whom I was stalking for God only knows what reason, and I decided, “Hay ya’ll, that was a fun yarn, let’s all reflect on that right now, ya hear.”

---

 Originally a LiveJournal post from November, 2005.

The Jimmy Set-Up

One night while taking a leisurely stroll with Henry, I insisted that we walk past the pizza place which employs the latest delivery guy that I’m stalking (I have a thing for pizza guys: Exhibit A / Exhibit B). His name is Jimmy. This I know because last week as Henry and I were ambling past, Jimmy was sitting in his car, waiting to pull out when another employee of Pizzarella came running out, yelling, “Jimmy! Jimmy, wait!” Alas, Jimmy didn’t hear him and pulled out into traffic with a squeal of his tires, the Pizzarella sign adorning the top of his car. “Huh, there goes Jimmy,” I said as we looked on.

Big deal, right? Well, on our way back from our walk that night, we were crossing  the street. All was clear, but suddenly, while we were in the middle of the road, a car came flying up over the hill, forcing me to run the rest of the way. I was clutching my stomach and yelling, “Don’t hit me I’m pregnant!” (LOVE playing that card), when I happened to toss a glance over my shoulder and I saw that it was Jimmy in his dinky white sputtering car with the Pizzarella sign on top. “Aw, it’s Jimmy!” I yelled, as I tugged on Henry’s arm. He didn’t care.

One block over, and it was time to cross the street again. We had just stepped off the curb when another car came barreling at us. I started to yell threats about being pregnant when I stopped and screamed, “Hey, it’s Jimmy again!” His window was down and he clearly heard my zealous exclamations of his name; they were rather orgasmic. Henry was embarrassed. So I decided that it was fate; I mean, obviously. Maybe there’s supposed to be a movie made about us, I suggested to Henry. A romantic comedy!

I began to outline the premise for Henry. Man drives recklessly around town with the intent of running over any and all pregnant women he comes across, because he hates babies and the vessels which bear them. One fateful night in November, he sees me walking with Henry. Henry selfishly dives out of the way, leaving me in the headlights of Jimmy’s car. He hits me, but unfortunately for him, I survive, and so does the baby, which ends up being his, so he spends the rest of his life hunting down me and the kid, trying to kill us with his pizza delivery car.

“How is that a romantic comedy?” Henry asked. Well, maybe it’s more of a thriller. Or it can be a dark comedy and we’ll just have Pee Wee Herman doing something occasionally.

Ever since that night, no matter what Henry and I are involved in, I make time for Jimmy. “Hey, remember Jimmy?” I’ll ask. “No,” he’ll say. Maybe his lack of a Jimmy memory is because he’s trying to trick me into having sex at that particular moment or he’s too engrossed in “Good Eats,” but I know deep down there will always be room for Jimmy’s memory in Henry’s heart. Someday, maybe he’ll be secure enough with his manhood to admit it.

Unfortunately, Jimmy wasn’t at the shop last night. However! As we walked past, a man exited the pizza shop, carrying a precariously-stacked tower of trays. We watched him walk over to his parked Audi and struggle with the opening of the passenger door.

I’ve never seen Henry move so fast in my life. “Here, let me get that for you!” And then an awkward exchange of “No, it’s cool, I got it” and “Are you sure, man?” followed by “Yes, thanks man” and ending with “Oh, OK, bud!” ensued. I was able to hold it in long enough for Henry to rejoin me on the sidewalk, but then it all came tumbling out of the loose cannon.

“Oooooooh! Henry’s new boyfriend!”

He wouldn’t talk to me after that and even tried to walk me into a sign.

Anyway, I’m going to order from Pizzarella this weekend, but only after I make sure Jimmy is working. Then when Henry is paying him, I’ll be hiding by the window, taking his picture. You just wait, Jimmy.

---

The Jimmy Fake Out

But I don’t even like their food, I thought, after I urged Henry to place an order to Pizzarella that Saturday night. And when Henry brought up that tiny detail, I of course lied and said, “You must be thinking of another place, buddy. I love Pizzarella. It’s like being in Italy. With all that real Italian food. Mmm. Trevi Fountain, holla.” Indigestion brought on by sub-par Brookline Italian fare was a small price to pay in order to lure Jimmy to my doorstep.

Thirty minutes later, Henry began pacing back and forth in front of the window, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Wow, I thought, Henry is nervous too!

Turns out he was just really hungry.

When I heard a car pull up to the house, I lurched for the camcorder and yelled, “Is it him!?”

It wasn’t. It was some worthless piece of shit who could never match up to Jimmy’s talent for pizza slinging.

My pasta tasted like poison. I ate bitterly as I reflected on how Henry refused to grant me permission to cut him earlier that day. Just one little slice across his chest with a box cutter, it was all I asked; a small token of our love, I begged. “Shed your blood for me, you son of a bitch,” I hissed with my fingernails at his throat. If he really loved me, he’d have let me. So now I can add this to the list of his other vetoes: me vomiting in his mouth; him dressing as Michael Myers and raping me (I would have loved to one day tell my child that that’s how (s)he was conceived); allowing me to take a Danish lover; and the list goes on, my friends. The list goes on.

And so I start thinking. I don’t have the money nor the appetite to continue ordering shitty food every day in hopes of drawing Jimmy to my front door; I would just have to go straight to the source. I begged Henry to give the night one more chance by walking with me to Brookline Boulevard, where we would have a real life stake out.

“Either do this or let me cut you”: a proposal in which I win either way. I suggested that we pack a small bag full of sustenance, maybe some crackers and peanut butter, because there was no telling how long we’d be gone.

“Oh, we won’t be gone that long,” Henry mumbled as he zipped up his jacket. I tucked the camcorder snugly into my pocket and pulled my hat down low over my eyes.

It was time.

****

There was no sign of any of the Pizzarella delivery cars as we walked past the shop the first time,  me giggling uncontrollably and Henry telling me to shut the fuck up. When I’m giddy, I walk like a drunk, forcing him to grip my arm hard to pull me out of the way of other pedestrians. I hoped it would bruise so I could show the cops, but it didn’t. Damn those cold-weather layers. I plan on battering myself in time for my sonogram next week so all fingers will point to Henry.

We passed this guy Brice who used to stalk me, and his dog took a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. He acts like he doesn’t even know me now, I thought, as my wave and bright smile were met with a vacant stare. I looked at Henry in disdain. It’s all his fault. All of my stalkers retreated with their tails between their legs once Henry came barreling into my life, disrupting the natural order of things. (Gas station grocery shopping, inviting people over from chat rooms, blind dates, roller skating in the house. This list deserves its own entry. Or book.). I walked in silence for a few seconds, shedding invisible tears for stalkers past. Tossing a quick glance over at Henry, I felt a thousand pounds of hatred as I watched the way he scrunched up his shoulders to block the wind; the way he looked like a hoodlum with his hood pulled up tight around his fat face. Look at what he’s done to me, I thought, thinking of all the fun he’s driven out of my life. Maybe he can give me some STDs too, to ice the cake; make sure no one will ever want to stalk me again. No more Brices or Gothic Carls or Johnny Blazes. I’ve been tainted by domesticity. What stalker in their right mind would risk peeping into my window only to catch a glimpse of Henry traipsing around in his underwear? Who wants to stalk a boring quasi-housewife? (If you answered “I do” to that, my address is available upon request. I can also send pics of Henry’s bare legs to requested parties, as well.)

Luckily for Henry and the fate our unborn child, I distracted myself from further thoughts of running away by making zombie noises. The first one I did was the best, but then I couldn’t remember how I did it and I began to try too hard, which resulted in me sounding like I had emphysema. Still, I practiced on and on, relentless, because I’m no quitter. Plus, I wanted to test it out on unsuspecting passers-by.

“Was that it?”

“No.”

“Was that it?”

“No.”

Finally, Henry stopped answering me altogether, but it didn’t matter since we were now across the street from Pizzarella. I dusted off a spot on a retaining wall and made myself comfortable.

Cracked my knuckles a few times, blew on my finger tips, punched Henry in the crotch — you know, all the things people do when they’re preparing to undergo some heavy surveillance.

While I was getting nestled, two young kids pedaled past on their bikes, so I hit them with my zombie sounds. And then I laughed about it for a few minutes and kept saying, “Hey Henry, remember when those kids rode by and I made zombie noises at them?” He wouldn’t answer; that happens sometimes. I guess it’s because he’s old.

As luck would have it, right when I got the camcorder all set up (you know, extracted from my pocket and turned on), a drunk old black man came from our right, slightly staggering with his head down. So I taped him, with Henry whispering, “Don’t. That’s not nice. Stop.” See what I mean? I am so oppressed. Too bad Henry then started to laugh. Mr. Fucking Humanitarian. This is the same guy who comes home from work and brags about seeing prostitutes fighting and a woman wearing white pants with a menstrual Rorschach pattern on her crotch.

But I’m cruel for videotaping a wino.

While I was fully immersed in this anthropological specimen, Henry jabbed my arm and pointed across the street. A delivery man had returned. I swung the camera in his direction and began squealing, “Oh my god it’s Jimmy! It’s Jimmy!!” The butterflies were ricocheting all over my stomach as my laughter shook the camera, and then Henry said, “Oh wait. That’s not him. Jimmy had a white car.”

What, daddy? There’s no Santa?

I was crushed. Even more so than when I lost the Alternative Press “Number 1 Fan” essay contest last year. (I lost to some cunt in California who wrote something similar to this: “OMG I DON’T HAVE AN OLDER BROTHER BUT THANK GOD I HAVE AP BECAUSE YOU ARE LIKE AN OLDER BROTHER WHO SHOWS ME GOOD MUSIC.” How does that make her their number one fan? I would say that makes AP her number one imaginary friend. Fuck you and your non-brother, you fucking slut. Of course, I didn’t follow the rules and my essay was about three hundred words — give or take a few hundred — too long.

In any case, I know that girl’s name and where she lives. And in one of my lowest and darkest moments, I even tried to find her on LiveJournal so I could flame her. There, I said it.)

You see, we don’t actually know what Jimmy looks like; just his car. Still, I really think I’m in love with him.

I really am, I think.

We waited a little longer, huddled together against the wind. “Sweetie, I don’t think he’s working tonight,” Henry said as he patted my head. You know it’s dire when he calls me sweetie.

But then the clouds parted and another delivery car pulled up.

“That’s not him. That’s the guy that delivered to us earlier,” Henry said with authority because he excels in all things pizza and vehicles. But while Henry was shooting me in the face with his smugness, he totally missed the delivery guy emerging from his car. Suddenly, one of his legs completely gave out, like it was made from putty, and he fell back against the side of his car. I laughed, and I mean laughed, with enough volume and zest for him to hear and look over at me. This made me laugh even harder and I’m going to admit something here because I’m honest: I peed. Yes, I pissed my fucking pants, right there, sitting on the wall. Erin urinated. Granted, it was the tiniest dribble, maybe the size of a gum ball at best. But it was enough to feel warm and uncomfortable.

Look, I’m pregnant, OK? This shit happens. And by shit I mean piss.

This was the final straw for Henry and he urged me to get up and start walking home with him. Also, he was pouting because he missed the stumbling delivery man.

“Wait,” I said. “Not until I know for sure. Give me change, I need to make a call.”

And so I walked a half of a block down to the gas station and called Pizzarella from the pay phone, because I’m proud to be part of the world’s 10% without a cell phone. While I dialed the number, Henry stood beside me but I pushed him away because I didn’t want to laugh. I needed privacy for this one.

A girl answered and, while my mouth was wide open, there was this ill-timed delay in my speech. I almost hung up but didn’t want to waste the fifty cents. (Fifty fucking cents to use the pay phone now? It’s been a long time since I had to use a pay phone. Jimmy, my man, you’re raping my pockets.)

I had it all rehearsed in my head. A simple, “Hello, is Jimmy working tonight?” would have sufficed. But instead, I ended up sounding like a head gear-wearing 12-year-old Bobcat Goldthwait making his first prank call at a slumber party.

“HI!!!! [pause to bite back laughter] IS JIMHAHAHAHAPFFFFFFFFT WORKING TONIGHT!?!?!?”

“Who?” She was clearly annoyed. I hoped it wasn’t his girlfriend.

“Jimmy.” I wasn’t laughing now, but rather trying to hold back more spurts of urine.

You know how hard it is to manually shut yourself off once you’ve started!

And so I was informed that Jimmy was not working that night.

“THANKS” I yelled and slammed down the receiver. And then I laughed all the way to a stomach ache, while the urine burnt my thighs as it dried.

ETA: At exactly 2:20 PM, I was on my way to Pitt to schedule classes and I totally passed Jimmy and his white car on the road. It’s so on for tonight.

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