I went to a haunted house in Donora, PA last Saturday with my friend Cinn and her boyfriend Bill. I don’t get to see Cinn very often but she’s always been the big sister I never had, so when I do get to hang out with her, it never feels like a ton of time has passed. Every October reminds me of when we met in 1998, and we reminisced about that plenty in the car Saturday night (much to Bill’s chagrin, I’m sure, as he’s heard the story a thousand times by now).

Two years ago, I wrote an essay for a writing class about the event that solidified our friendship, and I guess because it shines a big, embarrassing spotlight on my softer, more sentimental side, I never posted it here.  But I don’t know, who cares. Here it is.

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       “Stop, you’re making me choke on Skittle juice!” Cinn screamed from behind the steering wheel. A long ribbon of highway unraveled in front of us and I grimaced when Cinn said we had at least two hours left in our journey. I tickled our ennui by flirting with the driver of every vehicle that had the misfortune of passing us, only exciting the burly and unwashed-looking men manning the gigantic semis that made compact cars like Cinn’s sway perilously.         

       Two days earlier, I was meeting Cinn in person for the first time after several encounters in a gothic chat room called DarkChat. She arrived at my apartment, her shocking red locks were closely shorn to her pate and jutted out in spikes here and there, and we went off to buy our costumes for the upcoming Type O Negative show and Dracula’s Ball in Philadelphia. I knew nothing about her but that she was twenty-eight to my nineteen and lived only a short jaunt away from me. I didn’t even know she was married until that weekend, when I arrived at her house at the designated departure time, but somehow the particulars didn’t seem to apply to this friendship – we had somehow managed to connect based on something entirely more intrinsic than a/s/l.

       Agreeing to go on this trip was just what I needed, coming off the heels of a tumultuous summer filled with break-ins, having my wallet pilfered and car stolen (and then ever-so-thoughtfully returned hours later) by people I thought were friends.  It was a summer that started off strong, full of parties and crushes and a bounty of alcohol, but by the end, it had become a twirling tailspin of depression, loneliness and the stark reality that 99% of the people with whom I shared my apartment weren’t going to be there when I needed them. I had taken to living as a near-recluse, keeping my heavy curtains perpetually drawn, even on sunny-skied days. During this self-imprisonment was when I stumbled across the chat room. At first it was nothing more than a release for my pent up aggression, a place admittedly to flame and mock the suicidal Goth kids; but then I began noticing that there was interesting conversation scrolling past the screen, people gushing about bands that I liked. Before I realized what was happening, I was being sucked in to this strange realm of pale-faced misfits. And I fit in because I was a misfit too.

                                                   ***

       Our dresses hung like black-laced shrouds from the garment hooks in the back of Cinn’s car. The plan was to check into a hotel when we arrived in Philadelphia, change into our off-the-Hot Topic-rack gowns and meet up with another DarkChat user, Your Druidess. I had never chatted with this lady before, but Cinn confidently assured me that she would be standing outside of the Trocadero with our free tickets to the Type O show. Here I was, recuperating from a summerful of broken trust, only to turn around and hand over what little left I was able to scrape up  to this strange woman who I essentially knew nothing about. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider, at least once, that this woman with her Simon LeBon coif was a real vampire, luring me to a sinister abattoir for Internet chat room newbies under the guise of some gothic jamboree. Maybe I might have second guessed some of her innocent sidelong glances, seeing them instead as the shifty glance of a nervous Internet predator.  I would later learn that she was nervous – of what I was furiously scribbling in my vacation journal.

       Her real name was Allison, but she preferred to be called by her online moniker – Cinnamon Girl — and preferred to call me by my chat handle, too – Ruby. Conversation flowed easily between us, even though we had engaged in minimal chat room interaction, and I diligently noted in my journal that she kept count of every cemetery we passed, had an eye for spotting majestic trees, and churned out a myriad of cheesy one-liners, such as “Call me a bitch, but call me” and “Boobage is like mileage,” which I still don’t really understand even a decade later.

       My friends thought I was making a mistake by coming on this trip. Meeting people on the Internet is bad idea, some of them said, trying to deter me. This isn’t going to end well. You don’t even know her. Do you even like Type O Negative? Aside from a cover of “Summer Breeze,” I knew little about Type O Negative, but Cinn changed that with a nonstop Type O curriculum in the car. I’ve been a fan ever since, though it’s a wonder I didn’t wind up abhorring them.

         But that wasn’t the point. It could have been any band, it could have been Anal Cunt, and I still would have said yes. It was something that at nineteen years old, after the reality of the summer’s end had set in, I felt I really needed to do. It would be an experience, something to write about, a story to tell.  I wasn’t in college; I wasn’t living in a dorm and going to frat parties or spending semesters abroad. It may have been just a trip to Philly, but it was more than that to me.

                                                   ***

       “We’re not going to have time to find a hotel,” Cinn said, exhaling a heavy sigh of defeat. We had finally reached the city only to be met with gridlocked traffic. “Start putting your makeup on.” She tossed me my bag from the back seat and I bedaubed my eyelids with a layer of glitter thick enough to make a drag queen proud and possibly get some change tossed at me if I stood on a corner.

       “Do I have to wear these fake eyelashes?” I groaned, tumbling the plastic package over in my palm, in search of instructions. I had already managed to squirt glue in my eye before she had a chance to say anything, but in my journal I wrote that she physically forced me to adhere them to my eyelids else I’d sleep on the streets that night.

       We squeezed into our slutty Morticia dresses in the tight confines of a dingy gas station bathroom. The fluorescent white track lighting made my normal complexion look legitimately sallow and I wished I could achieve that look at the ball. Cinn made that wish her own reality by heavily coating her entire face with white powder, a measure I was unwilling to take. Cinn accidentally dropped a ten dollar bill in the commode.

                                                   ***

       Your Druidess never showed up.

       We stood dejectedly outside the Trocadero for an hour, watching hordes of Type O fans bustling into the sold out show, clutching onto hope so fleeting, it was like cocaine sifting through our fingers. I silently breathed a sign of relief though, because I wasn’t 100% on board with donning my ridiculous Goth uniform anywhere other than Dracula’s Ball. Cinn was openly weeping over this  imbroglio when a big-wheeled pick-up truck sped past, Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” blasting ironically at high volumes from the windows. I shot my fist into the air and saluted.

       Your Druidess is a stupid name, anyway.

                                              ***

       Refusing to let Your Druidess’s blunder ruin our trip (she was probably a fifty-year-old fisherman, anyway), we decided to make the best of it and seek out the Dracula’s Ball, which we had planned to attend after the show. Driving through Central City on Halloween night, past loading docks and alleys full of shadowed forms, I began to understand why the Fresh Prince’s mom made him move to Bel Air. It didn’t seem like we were in the right place and my old friend Panic began to rise again up my esophagus, like a recently ingested model’s salad. It burned.

       She’s going to stab me with her fake fangs and roll my body into the river. But before I let my paranoia get the best of me by hurling myself from the moving car, I spotted an undulating line of poorly dyed raven locks, billowing capes, and sparkling neck-bound crucifixes. We had found the Dracula’s Ball. In my head, I rejoiced with the Tabernacle Choir.

                                                   ***

       This is high school all over again, I thought as I came precariously close to being engulfed by the obnoxiously large black velvet couch on which I sat, like a shell-shocked Alice at a tenebrous tea party, while Cinn was over at the bar getting refreshments. My feet dangled inches from the floor, the chair was that ludicrously oversized. Cinn came back with a beer, which I grabbed for desperately (and I don’t even like beer), but she handed me a glass of Coke instead, mouthing off some spiel about not contributing to minors.  And here I thought we were bros.     

       We were the first people to be let in, having been hand-picked in front of everyone by Malachi, Philadelphia’s Baron of Goth. I never did find out who he was supposed to be, but I know that girls swooned when he neared them and men shook his hand with great respect shining in their eyes. A top hat nestled stately upon the carefully tousled kohl hair framing an alabaster face; a tailed tuxedo suitable for Marilyn Manson to wear to the market and a cane imprisoned within the grip of a white-gloved hand finished off his meticulous look.  He could be a vampire. He could really be a vampire. When he approached us with an extended palm, every girl gasped in envy. Murmurs of our luck resounded around us as we advanced to the doors, leaving everyone to reapply their black eyeliner in disgust.

       It smelled like a clove and anise cocktail inside the Ball, with a slight trace of sweat and smoke coalescing to provide an acrid after-scent.  Black velvet and gossamer draped from rafters, chandeliers, and limbs, like gauze on an unraveling mummy.                                                                                                                   

       Tall, emaciated boys in high-collared shirts with frilly sleeves strutted to and fro, arms akimbo, feet stuffed into thick-soled black Creepers, while girls spiraled dream-like around the dance floor, giving off the illusion that they were floating above the ground as they skipped in staccato patterns, yet managed to retain their fluidity; cupping their hands into cordate offerings, they contorted their arms in hypnotic patterns which a friend would later tell me he dubbed “Passing the Ball of Energy.” Every third girl had some variation of fairy wings clipped to her back and none returned my smiles.

       You know those stares you get when you leave the house accidentally still wearing the skin-suit you fashioned from your last murder victim? It was like that.

       I tried to tell a girl I thought she danced beautifully and she all but hissed in my face while dripping gobs of glitter much like the molten blobs of wax that plop from tilted taper candles. And here I thought I had escaped the Prom two years before; this must have been Thomas Jefferson High School’s revenge. The girls could see right through my façade, sniffing the scent of my dress’s cheap threads and knowing that it wasn’t purchased in some Elizabethan boutique, branding me a poseur. The acceptance I once felt in the Goth chat room was all but shattered when I was forced to stare this culture in the face, without the shield of a computer monitor.

       Feeling safe with my roots in the wall, my aphasia and I remained sidelined for most of the evening.                                                    

                                                   ***

       “What’s an egg cream?” I asked Cinn, scanning the menu at Silk City Diner.

It was 11:30PM and the diner was sprinkled with several other Ball escapees. Cinn said that we would see how we were feeling after we got some food in our stomachs, that we’d decide then if we were going to go back to the Ball. Under the table, I crossed my fingers for a vomitous outburst, an exploding appendix, an arm severing spontaneously.

       Minutes later, the waitress had convinced me that egg creams were quite possibly the most delicious refreshments one could ever want to flow down their gullet; I imagined Jesus ripping himself from the cross and striding purposefully into the nearest diner and ordering a tall glass of creamed eggs. “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get down from that cross, Jesus?” “Get myself a nice cold egg cream, friend.” And how could Jesus be wrong?

       The waitress slid a tall glass of egg cream along the Formica table top. I should have known I couldn’t ever agree with Jesus. It was disgusting. A foaming cylinder of soda water and chocolate syrup, essentially. I didn’t know what eggs had to do with it, but there must have been a lot of courage infused into that vile libation, because I felt recharged and feisty, like the Erin I was before my generosity and effervesence had been wringed dry like an old ratty dish rag. Mounting the sparky-vinyl booth, I shouted, “Can I have your attention? We’re from Pittsburgh and I’d like to take your picture!”

        In a surprising twist, everyone graciously obliged. It was like an awakening for me, a reclaiming of that spark that had been robbed from me that summer, the lack of which had quickly shoved me into a shell. I felt rejuvenated from my moment of bravery and decided that I wanted to go back to the Ball.

        But first I had to wait for Cinn to emerge from under the table.

                                                   ***

       She introduced me to the man with red irises, long and slick black hair, and two sets of fangs, saying his name was Tom and that she had met him earlier in the night, during her quest for beverage which should have taken five minutes, not thirty. Suddenly oblivious to my presence, they began making out and I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time their tongues met that evening. I rolled my eyes and wandered around the building, curious what I might find on the other floors.

       The basement was a crypt for kegs and an astringent aroma of cloves and mildew which made my nasal passages feel unwelcome. The second floor seemed dandy until I entered a room that was like walking into a bathroom at Studio 54. Sickly Goths lounged languidly around tables of blow. I had a feeling that probably wasn’t the best room for me to be loitering. I’m a very addiction-prone girl.

       Not really feeling comfortable anywhere inside (except Vendor Alley, where I threw down fifty dollars on a red leather bat choker with wings so salient they bore small holes into the skin of my throat while I wore it), I relocated to a stoop outside, taking solace in my pack of Camels and scribbled furiously in my journal. I began panicking about where I was going to sleep and how I was going to get home, because I realized I had no idea of Cinn’s intentions.  I felt threatened by this man Tom. Women get weird when men enter the picture. I hoped that I wasn’t about to get ditched, although it wouldn’t be the first time.

       I returned the raucous salutations of inebriated passers-by, declined offers of rides and wild nights, and accepted a stamp pad which I promptly tossed to the side, afraid it might be laced with acid or whatever hallucinogenic was popular on the streets of Philly. A homeless man sang in my face until I silenced him with a crumpled dollar.

       As I lit my fifth cigarette with cold-shook hands, I heard a shrill voice reverberating down the sidewalk on a wave of the pulsating beat of Electric Hellfire Club.

                                                   ***

       Every October, I feel nostalgic for that music. I fill my autumns with a rotation of goth-rock bands like Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death; I remember the way those people danced and looked so free, and still wish I could fit in with them. But instead, I listen to this music alone, this time in the warmth of my house, and not from a curb outside of a club, on a cold hemorrhoid-incubating slab of city concrete. Not only am I fake Goth, but a seasonal one at that.

                                                   ***

       “Jesus Christ, I’ve been looking all over for you! I thought you had been stolen, and I was so scared. And then I kept thinking about your damn journal and all the made-up stuff you were writing about me, and what would the cops think—-” She roughly pulled me into her, hugging me tight and petting my hair. It was a scene straight out of a crowded department store at Christmastime, except that I wasn’t a crying child silently thanking Santa for helping her Mommy find her, but a nineteen year old girl with rogue specks of glitter scraping her eyes and a sleep-deprived surliness.

       Tom was still saddled protectively to her side.

                                                   ***

       “Are you sure you’re not hungry? We can stop there,” Carl said, jabbing a finger out the car window at some fast food chain. “Or there.” It was the third time he suggested this supposed good intentioned pit stop. I was seated awkwardly in the passenger seat of his truck, my dread-filled eyes staring straight ahead, glued to the back of Cinn’s car.

       Tom had invited us back to his apartment and devised a brilliant plan which put him in the driver’s seat of Cinn’s car, while I was pawned off on his friend Carl, who appeared to be an amalgamation of Ozzy Osbourne’s and Michael Bolton’s genetic markers. Translating this to mean that Tom and Cinn wanted to spend time alone, I acquiesced – but not without a loud, throat-scraping exhale, the kind that every teenager perfects, to illustrate my annoyance — and joined the lascivious Carl, who was desperate for an excuse to stall our reunion with the others.

       “No, really. I’m not hungry. I just ate two hours ago. A lot. I ate a lot. Four courses, at least.”  My gaze remained indestructible, refusing to let Cinn’s car out of my sight.  “Maybe even eight,” I mumbled in an undertone. I’m going to be so pissed off if I get raped tonight, I thought bitterly.

                                                   ***

       Tom’s apartment was what you’d expect for a man convinced he was a vampire: no matter where you placed your ass, an animal print of some sort was promised to be underneath; black pillar candles occupied every free surface area; Egyptian relics and religious tchotschkes gave the room a very underground Pier 1 ambiance.

       I was trapped on Tom’s couch for three hours, during which I suffered through a painfully awful vampire movie (Vampire Journals), and even worse, Tom’s lame attempt at humorous commentary; a photo op for Carl, in which I appeared to be shrinking back inside of myself while Carl ravenously leered over my shoulder (a photograph I treasure to this day); and Tom’s guided tour through the technological wonderments of WebTV.

       While Tom was searching for a better ankh image to embed in his email signature, I slipped out to Cinn’s car where I proceeded to collapse into frustrated tears in the passenger seat. It was 6AM and I wanted to sleep, but not in Tom’s perverse lair. Cinn came after me, and I sobbed about not knowing what Tom keeps under his floorboards and not wanting to sleep in the same room, building, state as Carl, and I complained of the searing pain I was feeling in my eyebrow. I had just had a new ring put in days before, by a husky goliath in a piercing parlor who looked like he could have just shimmied down Jack’s beanstalk. The gauge was all wrong, but he forced the purple hoop through the miniscule holes in my brow. When I awoke, I was supine and groggy on a couch, and he showed me the paper towel drenched with my blood.

        “I need to wash my face,” I wailed, hiccupping on tears. “This glitter is really making my piercing hurt.”

         Probably scared of what fabricated tale I was bound to weave inside the purple cover of my vacation journal, Cinn placed her hands on my shoulders and promised we would leave right then. She was true to her word. She drove all morning, stopping near Hershey to feed me a nutritious breakfast of raspberry Danish and strawberry muffin.

                                                   ***

        After that weekend, Cinn and I forged a sisterly relationship, which isn’t always a good thing, but I know that she would save my life if she could. We’ll go for months, sometimes years, without speaking, but underneath it all, it was like we survived a train wreck together, a Gothic train wreck of spider-webbed carnage and fish netted limbs, anise smoke and novelty fangs, and that alone bounds us together, no matter our differences or penchants for running off with mysterious strangers. I still haven’t found my place in life, an accepted membership into some snobby subculture, but I’m OK with that. I like being the girl with a cover no one can judge.

                                                   ***

              The night after I returned home found me in the emergency room, with a doctor surgically extracting my eye brow ring, barely visible amongst the swollen patch of eyelid that caused people to mistake me for a mongoloid.  “Look at all the puss that came out!” he lectured me, while two nurses vowed to never let their daughters get pierced.

                       I still have a scar.

12 comments

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.

10 comments

Before I regale you with the story of our (not so) debaucherous trip to the Westmoreland County Fair last Wednesday, I feel that it’s prudent to backpedal and preface that yarn with another tale that is absolutely wrought with horror and gore.

It all happened in the wee hours of Sunday, August 23rd, 2009. My man-steed and I had gone a record of three hours without bickering and decided to call it a night while we were ahead. Ascending the stairs in tandem, Henry did the most unthinkable, unspeakable act of betrayal: HE BROKE MY TOE. I screamed louder than Paul Sheldon.

Let me try and  recreate the “accident” for you: As I was lifting my fragile, tender right foot off the step, Henry’s big fat ogre foot came thundering down from the red-skied heavens and plowed into the step with timing so perfect he managed to clip my delicate, wonderous pinky toe. Unable to stop the momentum, my foot continued its flight to the next step, which turned my pinky into the Stretch Armstrong for podophiliacs.

I’m not sure if your Bible ever told you this, but toes for some reason are not molded from Silly Putty and are not meant to be pulled taut like taffy.

Probably you think my first reaction was to decorate the atmosphere with the gyrating notes of my blood-curling scream and bulge my eyes out a la Loony Tunes. That was secondary. What happened first was that my body petrified into solid shock (I think a crumb or two of my person even fell off) and I locked eyes with Henry for what seemed like three entire Degrassi episodes as I witnessed the worst sound ever (on par with Jessica Simpson’s country effort).

Try to remember that time you were in Milwaukee, visiting your friend Jeffrey Dahmer, that dapper cannibalistic prince. If your memory is nimble, you’ll surely remember sitting on his plaid La-Z-Boy watching the Wheel of Fortune, while he was busy in the kitchen doing prep work for the dinner party you were co-hosting later that night. And how could you forget when you heard the snap, crackle pop of what you assumed at the time was Jeffie cracking crab legs but later learned it was actually the soundtrack orchestrated only from the cleaving  of cartilage and breaking of bones that can and will occur when yanking off human toes with a nutcracker? Is it all coming back to you now? Are you fingering the zipper-like scar left on your asscheek, a treasured curio on your flesh from when Jeffrey tried to make an after dinner Andes Candy out of a sheath of your epidermis?  Well, stop that and go back to thinking of the sound of that dead body being mutilated on the cutting board.

Because that’s the sound my toe made.

I remained paralyzed on the steps for a half hour, wincing and cowering like an abused mutt each time Henry attempted to hook his arms under my pits and drag me up to bed (he taffied my toe, remember). And then I proceeded to act like a cripple for a fortnight (I’m lying; I don’t even know what a fortnight is. I’m dumbzzzz), refusing to leave the house and hopping to and fro on my left leg.

And now you are fully informed and brought to date.  Fairwell  now.

It was 4pm on Wednesday and we were getting ready to depart for the fair. Nothing aside from an air cast had even so much as grazed my right foot since The Accident, and I was still limping, but nothing was going to stop me from stuffing my feet into regular street shoes. And of course I chose my sparkly silver Converse with the narrow toe, not “sneakers” like Janna suggested right before returning her attention to her collection of vintage After School Specials.

That actually said “nipples.” Seriously, deep fried nipples are way better than you’d think, if you can get past the fact that the one you’re eating could be the leftover areola of a murdered stripper. Same texture as cheese curds.

After completing my mono-ped voyage down the steps, I collapsed into a sniveling heap at the bottom. “I can’t go!” I wailed. “It hurts too much to wallllllk!!!”

And then this scintillating exchange occurred:

Henry: “Wear the air cast.”

Me, with arm slung across forehead: “NO THAT’S SO DUMB!”

Henry: “Well, at least you’ll be able to walk.”

Me: “I would rather be in pain.”

Henry: “You worry too much about how you’re going to look! No one is going to care if you’re wearing a boot on your foot. When I’m out and I see someone in a cast or something, I don’t think it’s funny or anything like that.”

Me,considering this and then upchucking a laugh that stirred Satan from his afternoon Poker tourny with Hitler, Judas and Sarah Palin (she has a visitor’s pass):  “Oh. Well, I do.”

Henry, throwing his hands up in defeat: “WELL THEN YOU DESERVE IT.”

In the end, I wore my Converse and spent the evening hobbling around the fairgrounds in excruciating pain and perpetually chanting “Ow, ow” because god forbid some beer tee-sporting hick with a prison tattoo might think I had a club foot.

Now I’m tired of typing so ciao for now.

 

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I’ve been really stressed out lately so my Aunt Charmaine sent me some free zoo passes, assuming that taking my wild child out to a public place would solve all my problems. I never would have taken him by myself, because I’m not too proud to admit that I know how much I can handle, and that is not one of those things. Luckily, there were four passes and Alisha had off work on Friday.

Blake expressed interest so by Friday morning, we had put together a quaint little zoo expedition.

The only thing missing was Henry the Chooch-Wrangler, but I figured with three sets of capable hands, we’d be fine.

Yeah, right.

It was a rainy day. I hoped deep down that would deter most people from coming out.

Yeah, right x2.

It was more crowded than I have ever seen the zoo. So crowded, in fact, that we were banished to some gravel lot riddled with tall weeds, empty Newport boxes, and probably if we looked hard enough, a syringe or two.  I hoped Blake and Alisha would be all, “Fuck it, let’s go to a strip club instead” but no, they were under the impression that braving solid human walls was worth it since our passes were free.

Chooch refused to pose for this picture because we wouldn’t let him scramble to the top like he wanted. So he posed for this pouting shot instead.

0.5 seconds after this photo was taken, he kicked mud all over my shoes and ankles, which was very refreshing. My pink Converse looked so plain without wet sod splatters all over them, anyway.

Blake was super worried about his hair getting wet and washing away scene points, so he hid under Alisha’s umbrella the whole time. Alisha hid under her hood, while I braved the rain, allowing it to jeri curl my bangs. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because rain or not I’d have still been drenched with sweat from chasing Chooch around. Jesus Christ, that kid does.not.stop EVER. He’d approach an exhibit, glance at whatever was behind the fence, and say, “Aw how cute, OK let’s go” and then all we’d see was a flash of his shirt as he jettisoned deeper into the crowd.

And speaking of the crowd — sure, there were small pockets of people huddled together at each animal exhibit we came upon, but nothing as bad as I was anticipating, which made me wonder where the fuck everyone was because judging by the parking lot, half the city was out ogling wildlife. Of course, there were the obligatory fanny-packed wide asses that shove their way past and stand in just the right position to block your view with their frizzy heads.

Aside from all the people-ogling, I’d have liked to have stopped to gawk at the elephants a little but that wasn’t on Chooch’s agenda.

Running through the monkey house was, though.

That’s what Chooch looked like the whole time: a blur. Even with three of us, it seemed like all we did was bolt after him. It’s time to invest in a leash, a taser, and a straight jacket.

Blake spent $2 on a zoo key so he could jam it in the box, make some annoying animal song play in the key of 80s power ballad, and then walk away after twenty seconds of it. In this particular photo, he was lamenting that no matter what side of the key he plunged in, the box would only spurt out animal facts AND NO SONG. I bet if he was on Twitter, his followers would have felt tremors.

Later, when we arrived at the aquarium, it was clear that THAT’S where the contents of every parked car was. It took all the braun and crowded room-germ alert endurance I had within in me just to snap a quick photo of the penguins, and it was only dire to me because of the Penguins banner.

Chooch would have nothing to do with anything in the aquarium, yet later on when we asked, “Hey Chooch, what did you see at the zoo?” he’d spit out, “Nuffin’! FISH.” And then roll his eyes in disgust that we had the audacity to bother him with such asinine questions.

On the way out, Chooch walked ahead of us and I hoped that maybe that could be his new family. Like if I could just sneak him inside that woman’s bag.

As we were leaving down the steepest escalator in the world, Blake wistfully said, “I wish there was a CD with all those awesome zoo key songs on it” and no more then fifteen seconds later, a recording came on through the speakers in the escalator, informing us that a CD of the zoo key songs could be purchased in the gift shop. At that moment, I was so relieved that I wasn’t Blake’s parent and therefore under no obligation to take him back to the gift shop and fork over some exorbitant sum for a CD with songs about what zebras eat for dinner.

Why I continue to go to the zoo is beyond me. I mean, you think I would learn my lesson by now. [Ex.1. Ex.2. Ex.3.] I love animals, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t like people, and I don’t like humidity, and I especially don’t like these things while I’m chasing after my child, making sure he doesn’t become a snack for the lions or the Silverback’s new bouncy ball.

So at the end of the day, was I any less stressed out?

No. But I guess it was still kind of fun. A little bit. Hey, at least I saw a Penguins banner?

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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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Maybe I might be attempting to compile some of my crappy stories into a book, tentatively titled “My Dumb Book of Stupid Stories (Count the Typos!)”. In order to do that, I have to recreate some of the random photos I’ve used courtesy of Google images, because I’m not trying to shit all over copyright laws.

What this means is that I will probably take a few more half-assed pictures and then get bored/exhausted/frustrated with the whole process, give up, and then find another data entry job.

HOWEVER. Janna, Alisha and Henry promised to help me and they are reliable people who will probably beat me with bamboo switches if I quit.

Right now, the project is still in the novelty stage. I needed a picture of a girl in a denim jacket and after holding a bunch of things over Alisha’s head, she agreed to pose. It’s for a story I wrote called “That Fucking Denim Jacket.

“

Blake was with us, and he’s a whore for the camera, so we got some more gas mask action in.

I could probably fill an entire book with just pictures of Blake, I have enough of them. Blake, you camera ho!

Chooch was all, “Me too, plz.” Taking pictures of Chooch requires deft back-peddling skills and a good sense of balance.

He totally couldn’t see.

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A few weeks ago, I sent out an urgent Tweet begging for advice on how to turn ordinary bread into delicious cookies. The general consensus was, “Honey,just  toast it and sprinkle it with sugar & cinnamon.” This was no good, no good at all. “Nice try,” I thought, “but that’s just TOAST and probably the fanciest thing my mother ever made me for breakfast. So no.”

I was thinking about it again earlier tonight, and,  feeling particularly ambitious, I exclaimed, “Hey, Chooch let me enter the kitchen and bake you up some cookies, child.” And he was like, “Hold on, I’m inviting viruses onto the computer.”

Let me break this down for you in Pretentious Food Blog-style, because I want to make sure everyone gets to experience this culinary delight.

1. FIRST, get out some slices of bread and tear it a new asshole. I used some sort of Roman wheat bread bullshit.
2. Pretend like you’re making boobs out of Play-Doh and roll your bread pieces up real good. You can leave the crust on; I did. For some.
3. Next, think of things that taste real good and sweet to you. (Preferably things that are not a part of someone’s anatomy, because I’m not so sure that would bake well and I don’t know any cannibals IRL to call up for advice. Unless Jeffrey Dahmer had a cookbook?)
4. Once you got some sugar plums dancing in your mind, rummage through the cabinets and see if you have that shit. In my case, I pulled out the SUGAR, CINNAMON and HONEY, what what. Do not overthink it with measuring apparati! JUST DUMP THAT CRAP IN A DIABETIC HEAP.
5. Roll your yeasty ballsacks into it. And now, roll the bread, too. Knead the fuck out of it like it’s the new sexual black dress of 2009. If you have to, think of the last porno you watched. Just get it done.

After you scrape the excess with your fingers and do some deep-throating, the bowl might look like this:

Oh shit, and at some point you should do that pre-heating thing. I wasn’t sure what to set the oven to, so I just cranked it all the way up. Like fast food, bakery edition. I’m unsure what # to make that step, but I have faith that you will persevere. Or have your purse severed.

6. Splat the accessorized balls onto a COOKIE SHEET. I didn’t do anything to the COOKIE SHEET because I wasn’t sure if I should use butter, oil, or parchment paper, so we went bareback for this one.

It might look like this when you’re done with that:

7. While you’re doing this culinary miming, let your child graffiti a dining room chair with Jesus band-aids. It keeps him from accidentally Plath-ing himself  or adding things to your Etsy shopping cart, like a Santa’s Workshop wall-hanging.

8. Open the oven after two minutes to see how glorious and glistening your bonne bouche looks.(And yes, I called it that. Out loud. Coupled with kissing noises.)

9.  Panic because the cookie sheet is missing from the oven; figure it must have been the basement-dwelling vagrant who thieved it when you were wrenching the knife from your child; realize you never put the cookie sheet in to begin with.

10. Put the cookie sheet in the oven.

11. Take it back out three minutes later because you have no patience.

12. If  your teeth involuntarily twinge and ache just from the proximity, and it looks like the vagina of Jabba the Hut’s wife, they are baked.

13. Try to dislodge the confections from the cookie sheet; note that McGyver might want to add hot-ass honey into his superglue repertoire.

14. Do not be surprised when all of your hard work and ingenuity is summed up honestly by a three-year-old:

“This is not a cookie. This is toast. I can’t like that, dorkbitch.”

Apparently, Jesus I’m not. Though probably it would be better if I used different bread next time. And marshmallows. Why didn’t I add marshmallows.

 

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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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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.”

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 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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Although horror is my absolute favorite genre of TV, movies, art and books (and sometimes even music), I get all spastic and overly-paranoid when it comes to movies that are based on or inspired by true events. So while I’ve been wanting to see The Strangers since it came out, I’ve been putting it off.

I tried watching it alone Thursday afternoon before work. The sun was out, Henry and Chooch were napping, I thought I could do it. I lasted maybe twenty minutes. Nothing had even happened yet, really, but Liv Tyler’s character was alone in the house while Ben from Felicity (RIP my favorite WB show) went to get her cigarettes and the suspense was literally making my veins pulse and my heart was beating so fast that I was starting to not breathe properly, so I paused it and woke up so he could be my audience as I repeatedly screeched, “I CAN’T WATCH IT I’M SO SCARED I CAN’T WATCH IT PLEASE COME DOWNSTAIRS I’M GOING TO DIE THEY’RE COMING TO GET ME I’M HUNGRY MAKE ME A SANDWICH AND WHERE’S MY DIAMOND RING IT’S BEEN SEVEN YEARS.”

That night at work, my boss Dave took a side job as Heart Attack Giver and had me clutching my chest every fifteen minutes. He fucking gets off on terrorizing me with loud, booming noises and one of these days, I’m going to be seeking workman’s comp because of him. Then I mistakenly told him that I was even jumpier because I had tried to watch that movie, so that gave him even more ammo and I began wishing I had a periscope to guide me around corners.

I looked in the rear view mirror every two seconds on the way home that night.

Last night, with big strong Henry by my side, I managed to watch that damn movie from beginning to end, biting off my pinkie nail in the process and taking mental note of all the ways some asshole could conceivably break into my house. It didn’t do any favors for my blood pressure.

As I tried to fall asleep afterward, I told Henry for the twenty billionth time that I would really like to buy a gun. “One of those tiny girly ones. With diamonds.” (I feel like we’ve had that conversation before.)

“Yeah right,” Henry mumbled into his pillow, which is coincidentally the same thing he says when I ask for a ring, and we fell asleep.

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Burning a hole in my wallet were some free zoo passes, given to me by my co-worker Lindsay at my last job. Henry came home from work early yesterday morning and we decided to take advantage of the seventy degree sun, even though it had only been a few months since I last spat ire at strangers at the zoo. And really. is it ever too soon to go on another hate-mongering rampage, am I right? I swear, every time I go to the zoo, the majority of the people there looked like they were born from a white wine-influenced one night stand between the LL Bean catalogue and Ann Taylor Loft outlet store. I bet their Cabela-bought backpacks are stcoked with Evian and organic cheese sandwiches. I bet their kids don’t swear.

Immediately, I disliked this one broad with two kids (one of which plays hockey; I know this because we parked next to her hockey league-decal’d $50,000 Mom Van). She hogged the view of a young playing tiger from the rest of us peasants while she took shot after shot with her obscenely gigantic lens through a finger-print streaked glass window, like she was some fucking safari journalist. Then just as she was about to leave, some douche in a STEELER jersey (nauseating) took her place with his equally ridiculous camera and I just stood, mouth agape, and said to Henry, “Seriously? This is the Pittsburgh Zoo, not the fucking Outback. They’re taking pictures through GLASS. Snot-smeared GLASS. Go take your John Holmes lens to the goddamn STEELER game where it belongs, Hometown Hero.”

All I wanted to do was see a fucking tiger gnaw on his rubber chew toy. OK?? 

Chooch seemed more aware of what he was spectating this time and spent less time trying to climb under fences and pick up rocks. He ooh’d and ahhh’d at the lions and tigers and at one point was so overwhelmed and amazed at what he was witnessing, that he let out a wonder-tinged “oh shit” in hushed tones.

Luckily, none of the LL Beaners were around.

In the Elepehant House, Henry attempted to play the role of Educator by saying things like, “Look at the big ears on those elephants, son! And wow, what big eyes!” which was only negated moments later when I laughed, “Holy shit, Chooch, look at their BIG POOP!” Of course, that’s what Chooch chose to repeat. “Big poop?! EW!” he screamed, wrinkling his nose. “BIG POOP, MOMMY, LOOK, BIG POOP!”

“OK, let’s move on,” Henry mumbled.

Chooch highly enjoyed the monkey house this time around. laying on his stomach at each exhibit to get a better view.

While it’s awesome that Chooch is shaping up to be so independent, it takes twice as long to walk when a two-and-a-half year old insists on pushing his own stroller. And god forbid you should tell him which way to go. We ended up side-by-side with a couple whose young daughter was trying to push her sister’s stroller, as well. Her mother pointed to Chooch and said, “See how he’s pushing the stroller all over the place and running into people? That’s what you’re doing too.” Fortunately for her, her daugher quickly dropped the reins when she saw how out-of-control she must have looked. Thanks for using my reckless son as your example, Fellow Mother. Asshole.

Chooch took this picture himself, when the camera was resting on the dirty, flu-dispensing table. His pink-painted nails are so shiny.

I have to eat every hour or else I’ll die. Unfortunately, the only food place there that served something without meat products was closed, so my only option was french fries in a Dixie Cup. Supposedly they had salads, but they must have been tossed with that new lettuce from Argentina.

You know, the invisible kind. Because I didn’t see it. So while Henry and Chooch chowed down on chicken tenders and a cheeseburger, I sulked at the sticky blue table and ranted loudly for all to hear about how absurd it is, in the year 2008, for a ZOO, a fucking piece of shit ZOO, to not have any herbivore-friendly sustenance. FRENCH FRIES ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I swear to God, the place that supposedly vends pizza has not been open once in the last six times I have gone to the zoo.

I AM WRITING A LETTER.

“I’ll buy you some Dip’n Dots,” Henry offered, trying to talk me down from the roof I was about to mount with my rifle. Fuck a Dip’n Dot, Mustache. I want LUNCH.

Henry gets nervous when I’m angry, and even more anxious when I’m hungry on top of that, so he ate without chewing and we quickly left for Denny’s, where I enjoyed a veggie burger and cottage cheese.

I might go back to the zoo in five years. MAYBE.

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My daughter lives above a BAIT SHOP??

One of my favorite movie quotes is from a 1980’s b-movie called Back to the Beach. I’m not sure if that was the start of it, but I’ve long been infatuated with bait shops. I’ve never been in one, I’ve never even gone fishing. But I’m obsessed with the gritty imagery that my mind conjures when I think of a bait shop.

Sometimes, I accompany Henry to his place of employment. On the way there, we pass this dingy shanty-like bait shop marked by a hand-written sign that boasts “Live bait. Worms. Fishing Suply.” I’ve been staring dreamily at this bait shop for four years now, and not once in those four years has anyone corrected the spelling of “suply.” It’s endearing.

My new job is a block away from Henry’s, and the fact that I drive past it every day on my way there might just be a coincidence to some; but to me, it’s kind of like a stripper swirling down a pole, her pasties flashing IT’S A SIGN in bright pink LED.

Bait shop, you’re calling my name. I do not know why. Maybe I was a fisherman in a past life, or bait, or maybe I was killed and buried behind a bait shop. But what I do know is that I want to go there, talk to its proprietors. (I believe it’s a husband-wife force; I saw the husband weed-wacking yesterday and I’m unsure of which hurt the weeds more: the brutal annhiliation served up by the weedwacker, or the vicious verbal rampage the husband appeared to be hatefully funneling at them.)

I had this great idea that I should go there and ask to shadow them for an hour or two, get up to my elbows in bait shop grease. Find out what makes a person go into the baiting biz – carrying the family torch? Addicted to the slithery squishiness of worms? Easy to snag a job after bait school?

I’d probably lie and say it’s for school (my classic excuse) so that I can take pictures of them, too. And maybe I’ll get lucky and snag a sound byte from this seven foot homeless man who loiters in the vicinity. You all know how much I love the homeless, maggots in their beards and all.

But Henry thinks this is a horrible idea. Like, they’ll be so aghast and threatened by my request that they’ll fillet me on the spot and sell my toes as bait. Of course, that’s the kind of diarrhea-inducing anxiety that makes me want to do it all the more.  I have this sick desire to do things that make me uncomfortable, and then complain and whine about it to Henry.

Plus, the bait shop sits haphazardly right above a river bank, so it’d give me an opportunity to be within feet of the sickening river, maybe conquer a fear or two.  Or see a dead body washed ashore, who knows.

Oh, and there’s a pier in their backyard, and I’m kind of obsessed with that shit, too. I don’t know, all these things add up to a big cream-filled YES to me.

EDIT: I just found out why Henry doesn’t want me going there. It seems that the husband-owner stepped in front of Henry’s car one day and yelled at him for going too fast (I asked Henry how he would be able to stand in front of our car if Henry was driving that fast, and Henry said “Exactly.”) so now Henry’s dickie shrivels in fear at the thought of the bait shop.

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I really want to change my name to Erin Appledale. I mean, consider how many Erin Kellys there are in the world. There were TWO OTHER Erin Kellys going to Pitt the same time I was. So that’s at least three Erin Kellys that I know of in this city alone.

Besides, Erin Appledale sounds so down-to earth, like I’m someone you’d approach without hesitation and suddenly find your arms wrapped around my back. Then I’d pluck a lollipop from my Longaberger basket and tweak your cheek.

So the other day, when Henry was putting together the lamest portfolio* you ever did see, and he asked, “What do you want to call this?” I was like, “Duh. Erin Appledale’s Ugly Photography.” He left out the “ugly” but kept the Appledale. And I stared at it for a good long while, making love to its sweet farmland charm.

I think people will take to the change. Maybe not my family. My dad might be a little scorned at how disposable his surname is. And besides, it’s been two months now since this seed was planted and I haven’t changed my mind yet. That’s huge.

It was either that or Applebottom.

* So, I placed this ad on Craigslist, offering to take free publicity shots of local bands. I figure, it’s a hobby that calms my nerves and (sort of) keeps me out of trouble, so it’s a win/win. Plus, I’m not a professional and would not feel comfortable charging poor bands for something that I only want to do for fun. Like, a photoshoot with a purpose.

Then a local hiphop group answered my ad and I was like, “Oh shit, this is scary.

Now I really have to do this” but they asked to see my portfolio and I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ll get that right to you. HENRY MAKE ME A PORTFOLIO??!!!” And that is why I now have a portfolio for no good reason.

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My new job has been really great so far. I’m working in the evenings as a biller for a large shipping company. I won’t name names, but you know them. There are four other billers, all older women, who only work two nights a week. I like working with older women because they mother me, and we all know how I like that. When I first met one of those women, I was immediatley charmed by her bubbling, down-home personality. Then she sat back down at her desk and asked, “Where’s my clipboard? Where’s my FUCKING clipboard?” It was awesome.

However, it only took one evening there for all the flashbacks to come pouring in. This environment has so many striking similarities to a job I had in my early twenties – the Bad Job, the one that gave me no choice but to retreat to the EEOC, the one that left me with a stuttering problem, an obliterated self-esteem, an inability to enter the workforce for almost three years. Just like at that place, I’m working in a testosterone-driven environment. I’m working around drivers with bad tempers, foul mouths, and inappropriate behavior. I’m being trained by a woman who reminds me so much of my old office-mate at the Bad Job, that I have to shake off the flashbacks and snap back to the present.. I’m listening to the squeal of fork lift wheels and dock workers hounding us to hurry up with the bills. I’m listening to my boss shout “Where you AT??” from the dispatch room and suddenly I’m sitting at my old desk, in my old leather chair, thumbing through invoices.

I never, in these past four years, thought the day would come when I would find myself missing a place that has plagued me with countless nightmares and panic attacks. But I do. I miss the drivers and the meat cutters and one of the salesmen, and I miss kicking the copier and being a perfectionist when making the weekly flyer, even though I knew no one gave a shit about its aesthetic appeal. Sometimes I even miss working with Henry – that’s the place we met. My new job is making me nostalgic for the things that didn’t suck about that job. And there were a lot of things that didn’t suck. Basically, the only things sucking were the owners of that job, and the unfortunate part was that it was my life on which they were sucking.

So last Saturday, I decided I was ready to go back. Four years seemed like a long enough time to heal, and I really needed some sort of closure. So Henry called the office that morning, made sure the owners weren’t there that day, and we stopped by with Chooch. The only person working that day whom I knew was Gary, my favorite salesman. There were days when it seemed like Gary, out of everyone in that office, was the only one on my side. He saw firsthand the way I was treated. Sometimes he was treated the same way.

Gary let us into the upstairs offices and we sat around in the break room, catching up. Everything smelled the same: walls embedded with the lingering aroma of too many chickens fried, too many cigarettes puffed, sweaty stench of too many loitering drivers. Everything looked the same: putrid hue of puke splayed across the walls, microwave circa 1972, coffee-stained counters, misspelled names on lockers.  Everything seemed the same, except for my office: walls bare of Robert Smith’s mug, comics I drew out of mad cocktails of rage and boredom, magazine articles of my favorite bands. My old office is bland now, no personality.

Mainly, I sat there in the break room and smiled, tried to act like it wasn’t bothering me. But it was fucking surreal and brutal, like being donkey-kicked in the belly by a gnome on steroids. So I sat there, listening to Henry and Gary dish about the meat business, and I looked around at all the lockers and considered slipping notes into the ones of the drivers I knew, but for some reason, I couldn’t make myself walk into my old office to get a post-it. For some reason.

Chooch ran down the hallway at one point, forcing me to follow him. He stopped right in front of the door to the conference room, where my replacement was sitting at the computer. We made eye contact, and time was suspended in a horrifying abyss, like a body hung up by hook-pierced flesh. I smiled tightly and gave him a curt “Hello” then whisked Chooch back down the hall.

We left after Gary was summoned to the cooler. In the car, I promptly put on my sunglasses so Henry wouldn’t see that I was crying. It was harder than I imagined, and the nightmares have returned. But I just had to know, I had to see it again. Like an ex-boyfriend that you need to see for closure, but end up seeing his new girlfriend too and it just tears the wound open all over again.

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Rainy Saturdays usually make me miserable and grouchy, but this past Saturday turned into one of those days where every single thing had me squatting in laughter. I really needed a day like that.

First, Blake and Janna joined Henry, Chooch and me for a quick jaunt to Bloomfield’s Little Italy Days. It’s essentially just a small street fair, with a portion of the road blocked off and stuffed with food vendors and craft booths.

Henry’s mood soured immediately when we passed a voter registration booth with clip-boarded volunteers doling out Obama stickers. Too bad for Henry, but the rest of us like Obama so we made an executive decision to slap supportive flair to our chests. Henry continued pushing Chooch down the block while we stood around and fraternized with the enemy.

It wasn’t until later that I realized they said, “Italian Americans for Obama.” I scoffed and said, “Great, we’re not even Italian!” but Janna said, “Well, actually, I am.” I don’t know why, but it gave me more incentive to make fun of her. And not because I’m some closet racist plotting to bomb Italy. I love Italy! I love those fiesty pasta-slingin’ peeps! It’s just that it’s Janna. And judging Janna is my #1 hobby. I think she has come to realize, after nearly 20 years, that this is her role in life. Which is why, later, when she asked for Splenda for her iced tea, I took it upon myself to make her a sweetener bomb (Splenda, Equal, and SweetnLow). And she drank that shit too. BECAUSE IT’S HER PLACE ON EARTH.

Henry wouldn’t buy us cookies or brownies and Janna wouldn’t buy me jewels, and the clouds were black and heavy with precipitation, but nothing, NOTHING could ruin Little Italy Days for me. And oh, the sights I would have missed had I let some unfortunate weather and stingy asshole furrow my brow!

I might have missed this sweetheart of a nun, with her adorable hell-damning visage. And then I would not have known such lovely edelweiss fashion still existed in these States.

Bloomfield’s own Elvis-Wayne Newton hybrid might have flown under my radar.

And I wouldn’t find out about Gene Simmons going marachi until VH1 decided to make a show about it. Also, that waving broad is exactly the type of classy dame I strive to grow into. Imagine the lamé she has packed in her closet.

And if I had let Henry’s conservativism cloud my personal sunshine, I wouldn’t have thought to subject Blake to yet another of my impromptu photo ops.

We only putzed around the streets of Bloomfield for an hour before Henry herded us back to the car. He later complained that he had wanted to stop and fill up on the many Italian concessions waiting to bloat bellies, and when I asked him why he didn’t indulge his pretty little desires, he muttered something about “all you damn kids acting like idiots” or some such completely absurd variation. I know it was the whole Obama sticker thing. He felt left out and out-numbered.

As we drove through the back streets of Bloomfield, I caught a glimpse of a scene so horrific, it forced me to shriek loud at a volume high enough to make every occupant in the car jolt in their seats.

“WHAT?” Henry shouted, probably wondering if he had driven over the unconscious lump of a homeless man blitzed from chugging turpentine in a boot.

“Something was going on back there. There were two army guys holding GUNS and approaching a house!” I cried.

“Are you sure they weren’t cops?” Henry asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

“No, they were definitely armies.” This made everyone laugh and I was angry because this was a very serious situation. “We have to go back there and save a life!” I screamed.

So Henry did. He actually turned around, but not without lip, until we drove past the street in question.

As I shouted, “THERE THEY ARE!” Henry, Janna, and Blake (in unison so harmonious it could have been sung by angels on high) groaned, “They’re playing PAINT BALL.” And we all laughed.

After that, we dicked around on Mt. Washington, taking Chooch on his first ride on the incline. It started raining really hard by that point, so we went to dinner at King’s, where Chooch burped out “Asshole!” with all the charm of a Tourette’s sufferer, and Blake and I reminded Janna repeatedly that she wasn’t a part of our family. It was more fun than doing a speedball in the Champagne Room.

To add a dollop of whipped cream to a day full of giddy antics and newly sprouted grays on Henry, Blake declared that we should make cookies.

“Oh, we should!” I encouraged. “STD cookies!”

Henry got all foot-planty and spat, “If I’m making cookies, then YOU’RE going to the store to buy what we need.” Thank God he sent Blake along to make sure I didn’t fuck shit up. You know me, send me out for flour and I come back with a non-descript bag of dildos.

So while Henry slaved away on the kitchen, Blake performed serious Google image searches on various STDs while I bossed around Janna and basically sat around being cute. Then Henry realized he didn’t have corn syrup or some shit for the frosting, so while he was out we had a tea party and it was awesome because it was yet another thing that Henry wasn’t invited to. During our tea party, Blake ridiculed Janna’s selection of Earl Grey by saying that, “Earl Grey is for assholes.” My selective hearing heard, “Let’s race for abstinence” which had me squatting on the floor, squeezing back pee drops. Of course, no one else thought it was that hilarious, which only made it harder for me to not need to slip into a fresh pair of Depends. At some point, we were talking about egg harvesting and I tried to convince Blake that it was as easy as lounging in a tubful of ice, wielding a melon baller, and then creating a Craiglist post. Hopefully, he will teach all the girls at school this method.

My mug, Skelly, indulges in some delicious diseases fellatio. Look for it in the December issue of Bon Appetit.

For my cookies, I mainly stuck with the theme of Vaginal Maladies, such as menstruation and yeast infection. This one, Popped Cherry with Lone Tear Drop (added for extra sentiment), was my personal favorite. Lost virginity never tasted so delicious.

Hey, there’s some yeast in your pink. Or perhaps a fresh load. Whatever whets your appetite.

Later, I laughed at the realization of what a great role model I must be. Send your teens to my house, Parents, where we make jokes of serious matters and look at pictures of diseased vaginas.

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