The directors of our department chartered a Just Ducky boat for our group last week, so a bunch of us signed up to go on a boat tour of Pittsburgh after work. We were allowed to bring our kids, so I stupidly said that I would be bringing Chooch, and then remembered that he was going to be on a boat with a bunch of my co-workers and that could potentially not be that great.

To double my doubts, Henry completely set him off before bringing him downtown to meet me, by opening Chooch’s report card and pretending it said he had to repeat second grade (literally every person I told this to believed it, so now I’m wondering how dumb they think my child really is). Obviously this was a joke, because Chooch once again got straight As (sorry, but I don’t count that B he gets in handwriting every time because HANDWRITING IS NOT A SUBJECT). But Chooch fell for it and started crying really hard, apparently.

So by the time Henry brought him downtown to meet me, Chooch was totally acting bipolar and saying stupid shit like “Me five days old” to my freaking BOSS after I was like, “HERE IS A LIST OF PEOPLE TO JUST NOT TALK TO, OK? JUST DON’T TALK TO THEM AT ALL.” Because sometimes I’d rather certain people think I have a mute son than a jerk.

And then BARB had to go and ask him about his report card, which made him start SOBBING and then people were like, “LET’S GET A GROUP PHOTO OF ALL OF THE CHILDREN!” right smack in the middle of Chooch crying and I was like, “PLEASE JUST STOP CRYING AND GO GET YOUR FUCKING PICTURE TAKEN DON’T EMBARRASS ME OMG.”

In hindsight, he was honestly just acting like a tired, cranky kid and everyone was like, “Don’t be stupid, he was fine” but I guess I’m just used to Chooch the Adult, which is what I get from him at home. So anytime he acts like a typical brat-kid, I get weirded out and feel like an awful parent.

Finally, the stupid boat came and picked us up and Chooch managed to not say anything offensive during the whole trip, probably because he was too busy pouting.

Henry didn’t go on the tour because I didn’t ask him if he wanted to, HA.

SAD BABY.

One of the directors of our department was sitting in front of us and she kept playfully trying to take Chooch’s picture, which apparently is now a thing that he hates and of course it’s all my fault, so he started crying again but luckily she didn’t notice.

So this is one of those tours that starts out on land and then plows right into the river and it’s actually pretty scary. One of the boat people told Chooch to keep his foot over a hole on the floor to keep the water from coming in and because we’re both idiots, we believed it. Finally, I was like, “Wait, I don’t think you have to keep your foot there, really.”

Here’s when I pleaded with him to act like Normal Folk with me and allow me to take a picture of ourselves having “supposed” fun on a boat.

We learned stuff but mostly it was just an hour’s worth of really dumb jokes. Like, “LOOK THERE’S A PITTSBURGH CROCODILE!” which really annoyed Chooch.

“It’s just a STICK,” he muttered in disgust.

There are over 400 bridges in Pittsburgh, apparently. That sounds familiar, like someone might have tried to teach me that before but like all information about this city, my body rejected it. Or if we were told something that I actually HAD remembered, I would scoff and say that I had already learned that on the haunted walk I did in May with Wendy, Evonne and Jeannie.

As soon as the boat tour came to an end, Chooch’s mouth started up again and I was bursting blood vessels in my head brain in an effort to psychically beat him.  And then on the trolley ride home, Chooch made sure EVERYONE knew about what a horrible prank Henry played on him with the report card and WHAT KIND OF FATHER SAYS THAT TO HIS SON?!

I wanted to die.

Meanwhile, Henry was excited to tell me that while he was sitting on a wall waiting for us (exactly what I figured he would be doing, by the way), he saw three people that we saw at the Circa Survive show earlier that week, and that while he was eating dinner at Five Guys in Market Square, some girl came in and she was wearing an Emarosa shirt. COOL STORY, HENRY-BRO.

Anyway, Chooch ate a burger once we got home and then immediately crashed. Hunger and exhaustion: what a lethal mix.

I think the moral of this story is to not let my kid tag along to any upcoming work functions.

It all started out innocently enough. Henry, Chooch and I walked to the Boulevard on Sunday afternoon for some ice cream. Typical.

I got birthday cake and red velvet. I spent the morning barfing (not pregnant, don’t even!) so I earned two scoops.

Usually, there are Young People scooping out ice cream with a moderate dose of disdain, but on this day, it was an old lady who used to make occasional appearances back when Scoops was known as (the beloved) Boulevard Ice Cream. She asked me if I wanted the kids size or regular, and I was like, “REGULAR. I’M A GROWING GIRL, DUH” but my regular scoops looked suspiciously on par with Chooch’s kids sized scoops so I don’t know if I should feel offended, ripped off, or both.

And then Henry ordered the octogenarian delight of Spumoni.

“We’re out of spumoni,” Elder Scooper spat with not even a fleck of remorse.

“OK, um…” Henry stalled, squinting at the chalkboard list of flavors behind her.

“Don’t look at that list!” she scolded. “Look at the cases.”

Chooch and I lost our fucking minds over this. It was the funniest thing ever, Henry being deprived of the one flavor he really wanted.

I don’t even know what he ended up getting. Chocolate almond or something, who even cares.

We sat on a bench outside, enjoying our ice cream, while Chooch openly criticized a man for delivering ice cream cones to his caravan (I’m not joking, he rolled up in minivan that was stuffed to the gills with children) as each cone was made, instead of bringing them out all at once.

“Do you even know how hard that would be to carry them all at once?” Henry yelled, probably thanking his stars that he only has two needy children to serve and not a whole van like Mr. Avuncular Abductor over here at Scoops. “Not to mention, all the ones that were first made would start melting!” But Chooch didn’t want to hear it and continued to run his mouth every time the man walked RIGHT PAST US. Not awkward at all. Finally, we had the bright idea to get up and start walking before a scene was caused.

We crossed the street and Chooch said, “Hey Mommy, I’ll race you to that ATM sign.”

I looked up ahead at the sign and considered it. “No, I don’t want to race. I don’t feel well today.” Then I waited until Chooch wasn’t paying attention and took off. That’s my M.O. and it’s not cheating! It’s being a smart competitor.

So Chooch is all, “Hey wait up!” and I can hear his dumb feet slapping the pavement behind me and then all of a sudden: extreme pain in the back of my right arm and stars in my eyes.

I’VE BEEN SHOT! I heard myself say in that slow-motion, underwater voice I’ve been hoarding explicitly for when I get shot. I knew it was just a matter of time. A list of suspects blew before my eyes: Purple Pants. Cheerleader Girl. Tourette’s. Happy Post Office Worker. Any number of Catholic School parents. And in that same instance, a bottle of Gatorade ricocheted off my arm, coating the sidewalk with a small blue tidal wave as it exploded against the pavement.

I stopped. I assessed the scene. I hadn’t been shot after all. Someone’s asshole son had hurled a bottle of blue drank at me in a vicious attempt to slow my pace. Oh wait—-MY ASSHOLE SON.

“Why would you do that!?” I cried in that scary high-pitched almost-dog-whistle tone that mom’s get when they’re torn between red levels of hostility and wanting to cry fat tears of self-pity. I hesitantly touched my searing, throbbing wound to check for blood or a protruding bone.

“Because he’s crazy,” mumbled an old man who had just happened to be walking over the scene of the crime to get to his apartment. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

Chooch shrugged. “I just wanted you to slow down.” He had that nervous trill to his voice, like he wasn’t sure if I was going to extract my witch’s broom from my asshole and start beating him with it in public.

Oh, speaking of “in public”: We were in public. There were enough people milling about that I was trying to keep it classy, but I couldn’t help it. I am sensitive! Physically and mentally! He hurt the tender part of my arm right above my elbow and more importantly: he hurt my feelings and my ego, you guys!

With the tender moment we shared when Henry was denied spumoni fading away faster by the second, I hissed, “I hate you! How could you do that to me!?” to him like he had literally stabbed me in the back. I started to storm off before he could answer, while Henry was all, “You shouldn’t say that to him” in a bored “I’m reading this from the book I wrote about all the things you do wrong as a parent” cadence.

I spun around on my heels and glared at him. “HE HURT ME ON PURPOSE!”

“No he didn’t,” Henry sighed in tandem with Chooch’s maniacally defensive squeal, “NO I DIDN’T!”

“YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY IS CANCELED!” I empty-threatened.

I started to storm off again. We walked past all of the happy people happily eating their happy tacos on the sidewalk at Las Palmas and I hated them and all of their stupid un-Gatorade-injured happy bodies. Then we approached Pitaland and Henry hesitated at the entrance.

“I thought we were going in to get dates?” he asked.

“GO FUCK YOURSELF,” I cried as more people leisurely strolled by. If I could have climbed out of my body at that moment, I think the sight of my deranged woman-on-edge self would have made me die of embarrassment. But basically, it was a good day for fitting in in Brookline!

“What did I do?” Henry asked.

“YOU JUST STOOD THERE AND DIDN’T CARE THAT YOUR SON TRIED TO MURDER ME WITH GATORADE!”

I mean, what if that big, dangerous bottle had hit my head and I got a concussion, or worse: KNOCKED OUT A TOOTH? I couldn’t believe how lightly Henry was taking this terrible situation. Who knows who will be next on Chooch’s list! Hide yo kids, hide yo Gatorade, guys.

“I told him to apologize. He didn’t mean to do it. What else do you want me to do in the middle of Brookline Boulevard!?” So then Henry did that thing that he does where he gets mad at me for being mad at him, and then I get more mad because I was mad first and now he’s trying to encroach on my bubble of madness, so then we were all mad and Chooch was like, “This is stupid, guys; let’s move on” but I hadn’t been able to fully perform my tantrum yet, so I sped up real fast and walked home a full block ahead of those motherfuckers, with my arms crossed and lips in full-fledged pout-position. I might have been crying too, but you’ll never know.

(Unless you were driving on Pioneer Avenue around 3:00 on Sunday.)

I eventually calmed down, maybe it was the sweet Mormon missionaries and their impeccable timing at handing me a prayer card on my walk home. I kept trying to keep up my mean-muggin’, but then I would start to laugh because I can’t stay made at those assholes for long, even after one of them assaults me with sports beverage. But I wouldn’t let those two forget about what they did to me.

“Oh excuse me, but why was it OK for you and Chooch to fall to the ground in laughter after he kicked me in the crotch last week?” Henry cried after my 87th reminder that he failed me as a fake-spouse/parental-partner today.

“Well, that’s different,” I shrugged. “That’s basically part of your life now and it’s not my fault you haven’t accepted it.”

And then he looked at my arm and sighed, “Oh my god, there is nothing even THERE.”

Yeah...yet.

I mean, aside from that and the aforementioned puking session, it was a great fucking day. And most importantly: I won the race. Cheaters always win, y’all.

************

“And somewhere, on someone else’s blog…” was Barb’s response when I was recounting the whole gritty story to her today.

(My arm is BRUISED and it HURTS today, in case anyone not named Henry cares.)

[ed.note: before anyone criticizes my mothering, let me just say that having objects chucked at my person by my child is not standard practice in our house. This was just one of those things, you guys, and he sincerely apologized to me numerous times before I finally accepted, ha ha. OMG bad days happen! Parenting isn’t perfect! Who knew?!]

Ugh, look at my dopey face.

I got my first tattoo in 1997. I was 18 and obviously put zero thought into it, but, you know, OMG I’m 18 and can get a tattoo now! I was still in a relationship with Psycho Mike at the time and we decided that we would get our first tattoos together so that we could have yet another terrible memory to put in our stupid scrapbook.

(YES WE KEPT A SCRAPBOOK TOGETHER. It was awful. One page was an actual list of all the times we were approached by cops while banging in the park at night. Keeping it classy, always.)

In 1997, tattoos were entirely too affordable for asshole teenagers. And even if I didn’t have an American Express card that my mommy paid the bill on, I made enough at my crappy telemarketing job at Olan Mills to be able to waltz into some tattoo shop and pick the dumbest piece of flash out of the binder and think to myself, “Yes, this is what I want to carry around with me, deep within my flesh, everyday for the rest of my life.” Some stupid heart getting shot in the asshole with an arrow, it can be yours for $65.

I was drunk in this picture, but I sadly can’t use ‘inebriation’ as the reason I got such a dumb tattoo. And then once I got older and it started to blur, that’s when it really looked fantastic. Most people thought it was a farting heart. Because that’s what shitty tattoos turn into you guys. Farts.

But even worse for me, it wasn’t what it looked like, but what it represented. Anytime I would catch a glimpse of it in the mirror, especially these last few years, I would be reminded of a shitty relationship. It just made me so sad, but the idea of trying to get it covered up seemed so daunting. After 15 years, it was basically just this oblong red blob on my arm and I couldn’t imagine someone trying to cover it up.

During the summer of 2012, Andrea was here visiting and she decided she wanted to get a tattoo. She has like a million of them and I was so worried about taking her to a crappy place, but I knew that my friend Stacey’s brother was really good, so we went to his place. Of course he wasn’t there (turns out, he had left that place), but Andrea was like, “Fuck it I want teeth on my wrists” and asked one of the available artists—Josh—if he had time to bow to her whims. He did, and he turned out to be really awesome, so thank you for not giving my friend a shitty Pittsburgh souvenir.

I showed him my dumb heart and he said he could cover it up easily, but of course I had zero dollars and told him I would get back to him once I found a lucrative corner to stand at.

A year passed by and I randomly found Josh on Instagram and totally fell in love with his style. Finally saved up some money and made a consultation appointment in January. Basically, I was like, “I’m obsessed apples, and the quote ‘the sweeter the apple, the blacker the core’ applies to me.” Two sittings later, and now I have apples on my arm and there’s no trace of a farting heart! (Alhough, Josh saved that for the very last part, so every time I looked over, I could still see those stupid cartoon eyes staring up at me. But man, when he was done, I had to fight back tears because I was so happy it was gone.)

Sorry this is such a shitty picture (blame Henry), but this was taken right after and now it’s in the lepresy-stage, so I won’t be taking a new picture for awhile.

And that’s the relatively uninteresting story of how I literally let someone color over a shitty memory. Thank you Josh from Artisan! I usually have a black cloud over my head when it comes to tattoos, but this was a really good experience.

Henry and Chooch both went to bed right after “The Walking Dead” on Sunday, leaving me alone with my boredom. Since I had just finished a custom painting for my friend Alisa, I was still in my fake art state of mind. So I decided to just paint a bunch of Henry’s faces, because how much would he love/hate that?! I got as far as the first photo before finally getting tired; I tried showing Henry the picture on my phone, which involved me having to awaken him first, which always goes over super well. Much like earlier that night when I woke him up to show him that the new singer of Emarosa had favorited one of my tweets, he rolled over and went back to sleep without saying a word.

Chooch, however, was still awake and gave me validation on the picture I posted of it on Instagram. Thanks, son.

I finished it yesterday, just in time for Henry to come home and take me to work.

I call it “Faces of Henry (Frowning, Yelling At Us, Frowning, Sleeping, Frowning, Frowning)”. I laughed so hard the whole time I made this that it’s actually amazing it didn’t turn out more fucked up than it did.

Henry of course sighed when he saw it.

“DO YOU LOVE IT?!” I cried.

“Yeah, it’s great Erin,” he mumbled as he threw together a sandwich, shrugging my hyper, bouncing self away as he went along.

“Where should we hang it?”

“The closet,” he said around a mouthful of his meat sandwich. (Literally just a sandwich filled with deli meat, not multiple blow jobs performed in tandem.)

Wendy has big plans for Henry’s face.

“You know who would LOVE this? TOKYO. Henry could be the next Hello Kitty!” she cried in her office yesterday. “You’ll have to make shirts and toothbrushes with his face on it! AND HATS! HATS LIKE HE WEARS!”

Hello Henrys? He would would fucking kill me. (All the more reason to do it!)

UPDATE: Henry came home from work and insinuated that I don’t like him, so I threw wild gesticulations toward the painting on the wall, at which point he made a series of “Yeah, exactly” noises.

Two years ago, I made a whole series of these little cards to help promote my dumb blog. Why? WHY NOT. Did it work? Probably not. But at least the same 3 people are still reading! Still, they’re fun to casually leave behind on the trolley and church confessionals, so I made some new ones. Besides, it’s a fun way to be pushy and whiny about wanting people to read my haphazardly-strewn words.

These reviews may or may not be based on real enemies/people and events.

If anyone would like a stack, email me at butgavincantdance@gmail.

com and I will hook you up like this is some half-assed street team or something.

My brother Corey and I have had plans for several weeks now to  take a tour of Nemacolin Castle on Sunday. I was really excited because it seems like the kind of place perfect for giggling in corners while old people on the tour finger doilies and say things like, “Oh my!” when given historical facts. Also, we were going to have lunch at a place where we could also buy a firearm and have our computer fixed.

However, when I went to Nemacolin’s website yesterday to verify that I knew where the hell we were going, I was met with large red letters that stated:

Nemacolin Castle is Currently Closed While It Retools For Christmas Candle Light Tours!

Whomp whomp.

I texted Corey, who was equally as devastated, but we refused to give up. We tossed around ideas of touring a mine and some park in West Virginia that has rusted farm equipment strewn about. “What about a winery?” Corey suggested and I was definitely on board with that. There is one that’s actually in the same area as Nemacolin, but Corey called and they aren’t doing tours because some asshole had to go and leave town.

Then I found one closer to Pittsburgh and nothing about it really seemed all that revolutionary or postcard-worthy, until I found it. The Picture.

And then this happened:

So then it was determined for sure that the Narcisi Winery was going to have to show these two motherfuckers around its facility. Because now we were OBSESSED. It HAD to be this winery! No other!

I called this morning, because I learned on the website that 48 hours advance notice was needed for a tour. When I was greeted by an elderly woman, I knew, JUST KNEW, it had to be Broad.

“Tour?” she repeated me in a very WTF tone. “Oh, I don’t know anything about that.”

I insisted that I saw it on the website, and at that point I could hear her shuffling papers around.

“Oh, I don’t know what the hell happened,” she disgruntedly sighed, and then began asking me normal reservation-ish questions, such as “how many people?” and “will you be having lunch also?” so I began to feel hopeful. “OK, Roberto will call you back and either confirm or, I don’t know, tell you otherwise, I guess,” she said, and suddenly my Boob of Hope started to sag a little. In the meantime, Corey and I were having a texting flurry.

“This sounds very promising that Broad will be there,” he said, “and possibly a guy named Roberto.” So then we suddenly also became obessed with Roberto.

Dorothy called me back herself and I knew it was going to be Bad News Bears when her tone had suddenly changed from Harried Wine Pourer to Sympathetic Grandma. Turns out no one was going to be there on Sunday to give a tour, but there was one tomorrow at the same time. I told her I’d have to call back after discussing with Corey.

And when I did, a very bored-sounding guy answered and was like, “That’s great. You’ll have to talk to Roberto.” AND THEN I GOT TO TALK TO ROBERTO!

Mean Amber2 told me that she’s been to this winery numerous times and, in her typical “You’re a dummy!” tone, she said, “I DON’T THINK THAT THEY GIVE TOURS THERE, ERIN.” She loves making me sad. But too bad Sandy and I had just had a conversation about this and SANDY said that her mom recently went there on a bus with old people and that she had a wonderful time and the winery provided lots of fun activities for them.

So now obviously Corey and I are hoping that we get to play wine BINGO.

“I hope there actually is a tour,” Corey texted me after I told him about Mean Amber2’s tour-ignorance.

“There better be,” I replied. “Roberto made me pre-pay.”

Anyway, Mean Amber2 knew exactly who I was talking about when I asked her “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OLD LADY.” Mean Amber2 insists that we should see Broad as soon as we walk in, because she’s the wine pourer.

“She’s always there,” Mean Amber2 said. “If you don’t see her—”

“—she’s DEAD!” I interjected.

“Um, yeah. Or, she’s just NOT THERE,” Mean Amber2 said meanly.

She didn’t know Roberto, though.

Later, she even emailed me a picture of her from the website and asked “Is this the woman?” No, that’s the BROAD, Amber. God.

So. yeah. The whole point of this is that my brother and I will be going to a winery next Sunday, but unlike normal people who visit wineries for the wine-tasting and wine-learning, we are going for a broad, Roberto and a fucking Tuscan sundae.

And potentially BINGO.

The Law Firm is doing this Global Days of Service thingie where we can sign up to do volunteer work one day next month. I didn’t think anything of it when I replied to the email a few weeks ago and said, “YES COUNT ME IN” because I have to fill my suck-up quota somehow.

But then today I came to work and found out that I had to go up to the scary 28th floor and register for a charity and time-slot. I immediately started begging people to go up there with me because GOD FORBID, you guys. Just, god forbid. Luckily, my buddy Natalie offered to accompany me even though she had already gone up earlier in the day to register. This is why working a weird mid-day shift often sucks.

Anyway, once I had a substantial, internal freak-out session over what charity to pick (I settled for the Food Bank), I happily loaded two October-flavored cookies onto a plate and Natalie escorted me safely back to our department. Crisis averted!

So, I texted Henry and of course took the altruistic route by BRAGGING THAT I WAS GOING TO BE A DO-GOODER for a whopping two hours out of my lifetime.

“Oh, boy I hope someone takes pictures of that,” Henry texted back. “I hope it’s manual labor, lol.”

What a dick! So I cried to Barb and Debby S. about it which is something that I do very rarely so they took it seriously.

“Maybe Henry should not spend so much time making fun of you and instead volunteer himself!” Barb said, so I of course relayed this message to Henry because ha-ha-ha Barb’s sticking up for me!

“Tell Barb that I have spent the last 12 years of my life volunteering for a charity,” Henry texted.

Oh OK, good one Henry. (No, really, that was a pretty accurate response.)

Anyway, other than picking up hitchhikers and being friends with Janna, I’ve never done any real charity stuff before, so this should be really interesting. I hope I don’t have to talk to people. Or wear a hair net. Barb and Debbie have me really concerned about hair nets now.

Hey, Blog. Remember how two weekends ago I wrote on your skin about how I was going to do a pie pop-baking practice run? And you didn’t tell me I was being ridiculous?

Well, fuck you.

In my head, it seemed like such a great idea! So smart and sensible. Henry will take on the regular-sized pies for the upcoming pie party, and I will undertake the legion of tiny pies on sticks that, also in my head, seemed like they would be so darling to bake. I even looked at a lot of pictures on various food blogs and every single one of them screamed ERIN PROOF! One blogger even said, “Hi, my 8-year-old niece made these, they are THAT EASY.”

And that’s what I needed to know. That idiot children could accomplish this feat and wind up with an edible disc on a tiny pie-rod. So two weekends ago, I mentally prepared myself for lots of flour inhalation and…other baking stuff.

But first, I needed to go to the asian market to see if they had persimmon, because I have been deadset on Henry baking me the most sumptuous pie out of that shit for months now. Persimmon is my jam. I’m sorry to all of the apples out there, but I have to say that persimmon is my favorite fruit of all time.

Too bad it’s so elusive.

If anyplace would have it, it would be the asian market though. And of course, they didn’t. (They did have the best goddamn kiwis I’ve ever masticated this side of Fruit Mastication Street, though. I think they were Golden Kiwi? What a joy for my tongue.

I decided when we were checking out that Henry and I should inquire about persimmons, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the young Asian girl in her lens-less black frames and Abercrombie hoodie started laughing. I mean, this bitch had her head thrown back in laughter. This was legit laughter. This was the laughter reserved for stupid crackers, that’s exactly what kind of fucking laughter this was.

“Oh no, hahaha, no no no! There no persimmon in September! Hahahaha! That winter fruit! Hahahahaha!” And other shoppers were craning their necks to see what was going on up at check out (I’m sure they figured it involved a fat caucasion fruit-retard) and I pretty much wanted to fork my fingers and spear her eyeballs Labryinth-style through her stupid hipster glasses that she doesn’t even need!

Friends, don’t make the same mistake I made. There are no persimmon in September. Don’t even bother asking, unless you enjoy being laughed out of the Alamo, OK?

So, I guess no persimmon pie at the pie party, my persimmony pie party peeps.

Totally defeated, we went and got ice cream, I got totally sick from spray paint fumes, and then finally I decided I better try that baking thing before the weekend was officially over. Except that there was a Penguins pre-season game on that evening.

“I’ll just do it during intermission,” I said to Henry. “Get everything ready for me.”

Henry had already gone to the regular people grocery store earlier that evening and bought all of the pie supplies, plus cookie cutters and lollipop sticks. Henry then cleared off the dining room table, rolled out the flour, washed the cookie cutters, prepared various pie fillings in some bowls, and made the egg wash. Then it was the first intermission and I had to actually do foody things which turned out to be so terrible, I can’t even find the words, it’s like my brain is literally sending death threats to my fingers to prevent them from typing out the brutal memory of last Sunday evening.

“Are you kidding me?” Henry sighed during one of his supervisional trips to the dining room table.

“This is so hard!” I wailed. “And booooring!”

“Did you actually read the recipe, or did you just look at the pictures?” And when I didn’t answer right away, he spat, “That’s what I thought.”

And then I tried to get all fancy, which is not something a baking invalid like myself should EVER TRY TO DO, by doing one of those crisscross crust thingies that disgusting grandmas do to their cherry pies so hobos will want to stick their dicks inside once they see how moist and pus-like the innards are. A little bit of a sultry, seductive pie peepshow never killed anyone. (Just maybe stained some already dirty weeners.)

Give me Sculptey and I will crosshatch the shit out of it. Construction paper? Sure, I got this. I was even pretty diligent back in the day at making potholders by criss-crossing stretchy things on a small metal loom.

But give me pie crust and I am all thumbs. And not just normal people thumbs, but medical malady thumbs. Maybe even some monkey thumbs are up in there, too, and everything I try to hold just collapses into me. I also apparently forget what “criss-cross” looks like and this is what happens:

And then something happened, a lightbulb went off, a burning pie pop sent smoke signals to my brain, something happened: I realized that I just really, truly, absolutely dislike baking. Like with my entire being. I hate it. It makes me feel tired, angry and pretty much like my whole world is ending. So why keep trying? Discovering I’m actually a baking phenom is pretty likely never to happen. I just honestly do not enjoy it! It’s actual mental pain for me and I get bored immediately after I start. And it wasn’t very fun (or tasty) eating uncooked pie crust, but I kept doing it just because Henry kept telling me to stop. It was just a real bad time, you guys, like taking a tour of Snooki’s gynecological history. Like being trapped in a car with someone you can’t stand, except the car is a table and the person you can’t stand is Henry amidst a pile of crappy ingredients.

(Looks like Henry’s To Do list for the pie party has just grown exponentially!)

Finally, after hearing enough of my bitching and moaning and general dramatics (so out of character), Henry released me from the confines of baking and things went back to normal: me leaning forward on the couch screaming at the TV while Henry calls out from the kitchen for the score of the hockey game.

Ah, normalcy.

There have been two times in my life when I was so scared I thought I could die, really honestly fucking die:

• In 1998 when I caused an FBI to flip his car over on the highway. I can still feel blood draining from my face when I think of that day.
• In 2006 when I arrived at the hospital for my C-section.

But then on Saturday, August 17, 2013, I went to the Lawrence County Fair and accumulated one more for that list.

Everything was great for the first hour. It was a fair we had never before been to so it was nice to see some new things, like the Grand Wheel, which was beautiful. (From the ground. From the top, not so much.)

I mean, what DOES make Henry smile these days? WHO THE HELL KNOWS.

I was terrified the entire time we were stuck on the Grand Wheel; it just seemed like it went faster than normal ferris wheels, I don’t know. And no, this was not what made it to #3 on my SHIT THE PANTS list.

I approved of the interesting carousel animals.

And then disaster struck. OK, luckily for me it stopped just shy of being a legitimate disaster, but it was still enough to inflict some hardcore emotional damage.

I saw the Vortex before we even pulled into the parking lot of the fairground and got pretty excited because these don’t pop up at the fairs we typically visit every summer. But it was a different midway company supplying the attractions for the Lawrence County Fair, which was one of the reasons I wanted to go. Because I’m a midway dork, OK!? I found this out one night at work when Gayle told me she was going to be selling her jewelry there and I googled, “WHAT MIDWAY COMPANY PROVIDES THE RIDES FOR LAWRENCE COUNTY FAIR?!” because this is what any normal person would do. When I saw that it was the MIDWAY RIDES OF UTICA, I texted Henry and said, “IT IS A MIDWAY COMPANY THAT WE’VE NEVER ENCOUNTERED SO WE HAVE TO GO.”

Anyway, the Vortex was a big pull for me. I hadn’t seen one of those sons of bitches in years and I was pretty excited to ride it. Chooch was 2 inches too short, but he didn’t really give a fuck because there was some stupid bounce-house nearby and he’s still a three-year-old when it comes to that shit. So he and Henry walked away while I stomped up the steps to ride alone.

I should have trusted my gut, you guys. But then again, my gut is usually telling me to eat 5,000 grilled cheeses. The carnies at this fair did not seem interested in their jobs at all. Oh I know, that whole carny stereotype! But actually, even though I poke fun, the fairs we typically go to employ carnies who pay attention to what’s happening on the rides. Their teeth might be falling into your lap when they speak to you, but at least they’re dilligent with safety harnesses, seatbelts, latches.

I sat in my seat and buckled the seatbelt—which was attached to the botton of the shoulder harness—into the thingie on the seat between my legs (NOT MY VAGINA, YOU GUYS, GOD), then pulled the harness down. It sprang right back up, so I thought that probably it just wasn’t time for that yet. The gate to the ride was still open, and kids were slowly trickling in and filling up the rest of the seats. No one ended up sitting in the seat next to me and eventually one of the non-English-speaking carnies came over and pulled down the gate, trapping us into a veritable metal cage. I motioned for the carny to look at my shoulder harness.

“It’s not locking!” I shouted, pushing it away from my body to demonstrate.

The carny gave me the thumbs up sign and laughed. THEN THE RIDE STARTED AND MY HARNESS WAS STILL NOT LOCKED WHAT THE FALALALALALALALALA-UCK!!!!!!!!!

I was like, “YO! WAIT UP HOMIE! DON’T START THE—–”

Boom. Too late. That first revolution around, I honest to god thought to myself, “This is it. This is how I die. OMFG IS THIS REALLY HOW I DIE!?” I went upside down, the harness dropped away from my chest and my body was 100% off the seat. The only thing keeping me from being thrown around inside a cage like a scene kid rag doll was the fact that the seat belt was still fastened, at least. But there was so much slack on it that every time we went around, my head was literally about a centimeter away from slamming into the top of the ride. I kept trying to bear-hug the harness into me, and had my legs spread out with my knees locked in an effort to keep myself as still as possible, but it was futile: every fucking time we went around, the harness dropped and I followed.

After the 14th time, I finally reasoned with myself that I was not going to die, probably. Even if the seat belt were to snap (and I know I’m Chubs City, but somehow I think that seatbelts are built to withstand weight even greater than my own), I wasn’t going to fall out.

Probably.

But then I started to maniacally storyboard all of the different ways I could lose a limb, get concussed, LOSE MY MEMORY, GET SCALPED.

I caught the attention of the kid in front of me. Through the grated partition I called out to him, “SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT, LOOOOOOK!!!” and I showed him how the harness was essentially just flapping in the breeze and that kid’s eyes got all bulgey. Even a kid knew that I was going to perish, maybe!

My heart was beating at a methodical FRIGHTENED RABBIT pace. Then I lost my voice for awhile. I would open my mouth to scream and…nothing. Just a hoarse cry. Like I had lost the will! And what would it matter? Those fucking carnies were probably down there mapping out their rape spots for the night, and definitely not paying attention to the HORROR ABOVE THEM.

And then, oh-ho-ho and then it changed directions and this time, going backward, it was even worse somehow. By this time I was flowing through some fucking mean yoga poses, something that maybe Takasha Shimizu would choreograph if he suddenly decided to leave the horror movie industry and become a Yogi.

Long story ridiculously-lengthed, the ride stopped and my body was freezing cold. And damp with perspiration. When the one carny came over to lift the gate, I shouted at him, “THIS WASN’T LOCKED THE ENTIRE TIME!!!” and angrily threw the shoulder harness up into the air.

HE LAUGHED AT ME.

“No. No, this isn’t FUNNY. That was not a GOOD TIME!” I cried, pointing up into the air at what was now a really sick memory that I get to replay over and over whenever I need to decide whether or not I want to become housebound for the rest of my years.

*****

When I found Henry, I was still yards away and he knew something was wrong. He said he’s never seen me look so white, and I was trembling really bad. I could barely even feel my lips and had some pretty fucking cold sweats going on. I told him what happened and you know it’s a Situation when Passive Henry gets involved. He set off to find a supervisor.

Speaking of carny supervisors, KIRK NEVER WOULD HAVE LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME!

And then I just kind of stood there in the middle of the field, while the rest of the fair swirled around me. I wished I could have went back to ten minutes ago and decided not to go on the Vortex when we realized Chooch was too short. I wished I had trusted my gut, but I didn’t, because my gut is usually always dreadfully wrong. (Because it is lined with paranoia.)

Henry returned with this short fucking troll-lady who made me go back over to the Vortex with her while she shouted indecipherable grunts into a walkie talkie. I did not want to go back over to this ride, but I had no choice. I didn’t want to see someone else get hurt, no matter how much I rant about hating people. She made me point out which seat I was sitting in and then she climbed up onto the ride platform and started yelling at the carnies in Spanish while giving the harness a basic physical.

When she returned to me, she had a laundry list of excuses for me, such as:

• “Well, you must have made the safety latch release by pushing in and out too many times.” (UM, IT WAS NEVER LOCKED TO BEGIN WITH AND IF THAT’S HOW THOSE THINGS ARE DESIGNED, THERE IS ONE REALLY FUCKING RETARDED ENGINEER OUT THERE IN THE WORLD.)
• “You weren’t going to like, fall out or anything.”
• “We actually just had a meeting with the guys this morning about how they need to make sure they check everyone before starting the ride.” (SO IN OTHER WORDS: NOT HER FAULT.)

And then she tried to indulge me by reaching out to give me a half-hug.

I pulled away and said, “Don’t touch me.”

“I know, you were so scared! But honestly, you were safe up there. There are like 4 different brakes that will come on before anything could happen to you.”

And then she said that this happens all the time and then LAUGHED ABOUT IT!

OK, but the main issue here was negligence and I was super pissed with the way it was handled. I was in a major state of shock so at first I said I didn’t want to leave. We walked around for a little bit, me feeling like a ghost, Chooch scolding me for not listening to him when he said I shouldn’t ride the Vortex, Henry hoping to emerge from the fair without hemmorhaging money.

Then Henry pointed out a sign that said “Cowlick Milkshakes, the Best at the Fair” or some other superlative, and I don’t know why, but at that moment I had to have a fucking Cowlick Milkshake. I wasn’t even sure what it was because my brain was still trying to piece itself back together, but I knew that if anything was going to help me heal, it was a Cowlick Milkshake.

Turns out a Cowlick Milkshake is just a regular milkshake in your standard milkshake flavors of chocolate, vanilla or strawberry.

“I thought it was going to be a cowlick flavor,” I said in a pouty tone when we walked away with two chocolate shakes.

“Ew, why would you think that? How could ‘cowlick’ even sound like a good flavor?” Henry asked with a disgusted look wrapped around his moustache.

BECAUSE I WAS NOT THINKING RATIONALLY OK. Maybe I was confusing it with a Cowtail candy thingie. Cowtails are good. I imagine a Cowtail milkshake would be as well. But probably not a Cowlick Milkshake; you’re right, Henry.

About two hours after we left the fair, the shock wore off and I started to cry. I was in total Final Destination mode for the rest of the weekend after that.

Gayle texted me later that night and said that they had stopped running that side of the Vortex, which tells me that this probably happened again to some other dumb asshole!

****

The next morning, I woke up feeling like I had been bench-pressing a car. I had some fucked up Indian brushburn under my left arm, my right shin was screaming, and I had a piercing pain in my right shoulderblade anytime I leaned against something.

I told Henry that I’m done. I’ll never go to another fair or amusement park again. And I HATE that I feel that way. I hate that I’m practically a bubblewrap burrito now, because these were things that were fun for me, and now this one shitty experience could ruin it all for me. What will summers be like without riding shit like this until I get sick? Without getting excited because the Big Butler Fair has a new ride? Without at least one spin on the Zipper?!

I hate this. But I think I might be done riding things, for real. At the very least, I’m DEFINITELY never going anywhere near a carnival or county fair hosted by MIDWAY RIDES OF UTICA. They can suck a fucking dick. MIDWAY RIDES OF UTICA SUCKS, PASS IT ON.

(Um, I might still go on this ride though, if I ever come across it again.)

****

I will now address some FAQs that I have been getting ever since this happened:

Do you actually expect to go to county fairs and be safe??

While I try not to “expect” anything in life, yes, I do go to the fair with some sense of being safe. This is what state laws and regulations are for. This is why rides are required to be inspected. This is why you don’t hear news reports of thousands of people dying at the county fair every summer. Freak accidents can and will happen, but most of this shit can be prevented by the diligence of trained ride operators, which is what I hope to find at these places.

Don’t you know you shouldn’t ride the rides at the fair?! Only amusement park rides are safe!

We aren’t “safe” anywhere. In one weekend this past summer, seven people were injured at Cedar Point when the log flume tipped over while it was ascending a hill and at a Six Flags in Texas, a woman was flung to her death from a roller coaster. Dude, a toddler died after contracting e.coli from a PETTING ZOO at one of the fairs. Last year, some guy was shot OUTSIDE of a county fair. It’s not just the rides. A bitch can get killed pretty much anywhere.

Don’t you think you’re being dramatic?

Look, I was pretty certain after a few seconds that I probably wasn’t going to die, but if you honestly think I’m blowing it out of proportion, well, just pray that something like this doesn’t happen to you someday.

How were you able to squeeze your fat ass into a ride like that to begin with?

An ass-corset made of strategically-placed industrial strength Ace bandages, Spanx and a wreath of tiny elven butt-huggers.

****

On the brightside, before we left the fair, Henry bought me a pretty necklace that some Ugandan broad made out of paper. I wanted two of them, but I guess my near-death experience wasn’t worth $30 to Henry. Oh well, it will be a nice accent for my new bubblewrap suit.

We weren’t even on the boat yet, and this is what Henry looked like.

The fact that I was so dead set on taking a boat tour of Cleveland is kind of weird for a number of reasons:  I hate river water. Lake Erie scares me. (HOW CAN A LAKE LOOK SO MUCH LIKE THE OCEAN!?) Being on a boat makes my mind reel with impending cataclysm. ASSHOLES take boat tours. But the biggest weird reason is: what is there even to see on a Cleveland boat tour?!

But for some reason I had fond memories of taking this same tour on the Goodtimes III in 2004 with Henry, which is odd in and of itself because how many fond memories of Henry do I really have from back then?

So you might be able to understand Henry’s confusion when I was like, “WE CANNOT LEAVE CLEVELAND WITHOUT BOATING IT UP.” I just vaguely remembered that there were cool bridges along the Cuyahoga, some of which swung out to allow boats to pass, others of which raised in a drawbridge-esque fashion. Even though bridges also terrify me, I though that perhaps Chooch would enjoy this.

I even bought tickets for the last tour of the day from my phone because I was so afraid it was going to sell out before we arrived. WHO AM I?!

Anyway, after Henry nearly killed us by turning the wrong way down a one-way street in the middle of downtown Cleveland, we finally made it to the boat area place and Chooch and I were practically throwing elbows at people trying to get to the will call window to claim our tickets. Somewhere along the way, we lost Henry. But Henry or no Henry, Chooch and I were still going on this fucking boat. It was my dying wish.

Henry found us sitting on a bench, watching the people from the earlier tour stream off the Goodtimes III, which had just docked. I asked Henry where the hell he went and it turns out he was helping some delivery driver back up his truck. Of course he was.

“And then I had to pee,” he continued over top of Chooch’s and my raucous laughter. He helped some guy back up his truck?! Why does he even tell us these things!? And then he mumbled something about how “assholes” like me and Chooch kept walking behind the poor guy’s truck while he was trying to back up and he couldn’t see. Go be a Good (Driver) Samaritan somewhere else, Henry. You’re stinking up my air with all your do-goodery.

“I helped some guy back up his truck. What’s so funny about that?!”

Finally, it was time to board so some nautical person barked into a megaphone that wasn’t very mega for everyone to form a single file line. Chooch and I raced to get into line, going out of our way to cut people off, while Henry just walked casually, like a person who doesn’t feel the urgency of boarding a boat.

When we finally crossed the plank-thing, Chooch and I ran for the upper deck. And it’s a good thing too, because there were approximately…..four other people up there. But gradually, more people made their way up to our deck and I quickly began to rack up entire families to hate.

The worst of which were the Ralph Laurens—my polite pet name for the Von Moneyfucks taking up two rows at the front. The patriarch came complete with a sandy toupee and a white sweater tied around his shoulders. At one point, they had a crew member take a group photo of them and their yuppie spawn so they could retreat to Chateau le Douche and show their staff that they slummed it up with their blue-collared people.

“Muffy dear, I couldn’t find the pâté de foie gras, but I procured us some of this bourgeois delicacy that the commoners enjoy at the ball game. I think this might be quails egg yolk on top.” This is what I imagined he was saying in his pompously bombastic tones as he returned from the snack bar with a plastic tray of nachos. CHORTLE CHORTLE, MOTHERFUCKER.

I guess their yacht was in the shop.

Separating the Von Moneyfucks from us were two couples who weren’t too annoying at first. The one couple was older, the wife was maybe in her early 40s and the husband looked like he was in his 50s and praying for a quick death. They had what I can only imagine was an adopted toddler boy thing. The other couple were in their early 30s and the guy took pictures of EVERY FUCKING THING WE PASSED with his wannabe professional camera while the wife sat there making the older lady feel like shit for being a disheveled mother.

The only real highlight of the tour was when we cruised past an area where a shit ton of murders happened and Eliot Ness couldn’t solve them. Of course the area was some sketchy lot strewn with giant ant hills of garbage and old tires. (To be honest, I actually missed this entire part and only started paying attention when I heard “Eliot Ness” so then Henry had to tell me.)

At one point early on, the mom turned into Speedy Gonzalez and starting making loud ay yi yi arriba arriba noises at her toddler who looked extremely horrified by this and proceeded to sleep for the next three hours probably just to put his mom out of her misery.

NOTICE I SAID THREE HOURS. This was only supposed to be a 2-hour tour, but after an hour into the tour, we were very nearly Gilligan’d.

So, remember those aforementioned bridges? Well first of all, Chooch didn’t give a FUCK about them because he was too busy obsessing over the snack bar and all of its contents which Henry refused to purchase. Second of all, some dude behind us was deviating from the recorded narrator to tell his kids all the insider info about them, which was ANNOYING AS SHIT at first until I realized that he works for a bridge-building company and then my ears started to perk up because maybe that means he has some money to spend on me. Third of all, the very last drawbridge-esque one we cruised beneath turned out to be quite the motherfucker.

Right after the last bridge, the boat had reached the turnaround spot, and I rejoiced because the last half hour had been total bullshit, all this industrial spanse that no one cared about. “Here is where the city gets their rocks.” NO ONE CARES. So of course, it would be on the most desolate part of the river where something would go awry.

We were headed back to that last bridge, which had JUST WORKED 5 minutes ago, but now the bridge wouldn’t raise. The captain had to brake (?) the boat while the moron bridge operator tried to get the goddamn thing to go up and it just wouldn’t budge. So we had to sit there and watch as all these lucky bastard cars got to cross the bridge while laughing at the sadsack tourists who were now stuck in muddy-brown river water, buoying methodically with nothing to look at but GAS TANKS on the left and I don’t know, piles of dirt on the right. Somewhere nearby, someone was probably getting stabbed over a drug deal gone south. It was that kind of area and I was hoping that I wouldn’t get caught witnessing any wrongdoings by a Mexican drug cartel.

The captain came on and explained that there was a “situation that only happens once in a blue moon, probably just a blown fuse” and that the electrician had been called, so here, just enjoy some crackly AM classics* and please try not to kill one another. We’re just going to keep floating here for another 20 minutes and then everything will be fine, you’ll see.

*(I guess this is the back-up for when the boat reaches the end of the river and there is nothing left for the ancient cassette tape to narrate. At one point in the BEGINNING OF THE TOUR, the tape got all fucked up and you could hear someone frantically rewinding and then fast-forwarding, trying to get it to match up to our location. This trip was doomed from the start.)

Oh at first it was funny. Watching the rich people cuddle to “How Deep Is Your Love”; Henry getting all nostalgic over “Muskrat Love”; laughing alone at “Afternoon Delight.” But then 20 minutes had turned into 45. The captain interrupted “Night Fever” to let us know that the electrician had arrived and you know, it should hopefully be any day now.

Ironically, “Blue Moon” came on and that poor toddler woke up just in time to witness his haggard mother dancing to it. “I wish she’d put her hat back on,” Henry mumbled, because her stupid baseball cap covered half her face and it was nice then. The less we had to see, the better. Then the younger of the two couples started drinking beer and apparently thought they were being HILARIOUS drunks. Mmm…maybe to fans of Dane Cook? Tyler Perry?

Chooch started to stress-cry at one point. I jokingly said, “Gee, Chooch. You just HAD to take a boat tour!” and I half-expected him to pick me up with his rage-muscles and punt me off the side of the boat.

He was, um, pretty pissed that I said that.

Mysteriously, the bridge-worker who was once behind me had disappeared. I wondered if he was on a lower deck, poring over blueprints.

Or getting fired.

Meanwhile, we kept catching glimpses of a hard-hatted man pacing along the top of the bridge like Bob the Fucking Bridgefixer. Unfortunately, it took him quite a while to fix it so the assholes in front of us started searching the boat for a deck of cards. Blue Moon Dancer came back and said that there was apparently one deck on the entire boat and someone beat them to it. Finally, a small victory for me. I don’t think I could have handled watching them play cards, but I also didn’t want to move from my seat because I was certain I would get ill. OH AND MY PHONE HAD DIED. I had to sit on this fucking boat with a dead phone. Motherfucker. (Henry’s was dead too and Chooch’s was in the car, waaaaaaah.)

After a while, I started having some pretty dark thoughts. I watched an airplane fly above us and began to imagine it crashing into the river, so now not only will we be stuck on a fucking boat, but now we’re stuck on a boat floating among plane crash carnage. I started imagining a storm coming in from Lake Erie (there actually were storms on the horizon, it looked so scary) and tipping the boat over. I started imagining that the Von Moneyfucks up there had mob ties and their fortune was primarily drug-money, probably some blood diamonds too, and now we’re about to get shot at from a rival Don who wants Sandy Toupee out of the game and THAT IS HOW I KNOW THE BRIDGE BROKE ON PURPOSE OMG.

I snapped out of my nightmare hypothesis mode when the captain came back on to tell us that the bridge had been successfully repaired, but it was temporarily operating on something that would only allow the bridge to literally creep up. Which meant we still had a good 25 minutes to continue to sit there, watching it raise like Huge Hefner’s penis.

Of course, I didn’t get to capture the entire boat exploding with cheers and applause when we were finally able to pass beneath the bridge and make our way back to the dock—which was another hour out of the day. Nearly 4 hours total, I was so pissed, and also slightly delirious.

“They could at least give us our fucking money back,” I cried angrily to Henry.

“Why? It wasn’t the boat’s fault,” was Henry’s rational response.

“I’M GOING TO WRITE A LETTER!” I bitched.

“To who*? The bridge?!” he asked sarcastically.

YES, MAYBE.

*(Henry doesn’t like saying “whom.” It makes his blue collar itch.)

It was after 7PM when we got off that fucking hostage boat, and nearly 10:30 by the time we got back to Pittsburgh. I can’t wait to add this to the evergrowing list of things Chooch likes to throw back in my face whenever we have an audience. “Remember that time that MOMMY made us take a BOAT TOUR and then the BRIDGE BROKE AND WE WERE STUCK FOR WEEKS WITH NO FOOD?! Oh how I hate her.”

Probably the last boat tour any of us will be taking in quite some time. Maybe even forever. Take THAT, boat tour industry.

The day I left for vacation, one of my Gerber daisies perished. Amber1 left me a distraught message about it on Facebook and said she wasn’t sure if it was Rhoda or VOLTRON, but that she felt really bad. Amber2 suggested it was due to stress since I had relocated their pot behind Gayle before I left, so that they wouldn’t have to be alone.

When I came back to work yesterday, it was sad seeing the empty stem that was once Rhoda, but I was pleased to see that VOLTRON survived in my absence.

UNTIL TODAY.

As soon as I got to work, I noticed that he was wilting, almost in mourning posture and it made my heart break. I watered him, thinking maybe he was thirsty? I don’t know!! I’m new at parenting plants. Well, apparently watering him exacerbated the situation, and by late afternoon, he had bowed even lower.

Nate came to offer his assistance, and together we fashioned a splint out of a plastic knife.

However, I think this might have made things worse and humiliated poor VOLTRON to boot. Nate, grasping for straws (literally—a straw was his first suggestion when we were about to MacGuyver handicapped accessories but he ended up not being able to find one), even said a little prayer for VOLTRON.

(“dear god, save VOLTRON” is how I think the religious spell went.)

(Jeannie witnessed our awkward gardening experiments and shook her head accordingly. Jeannie hates daisies, pass it on!

)

Alas, VOLTRON bit it by that evening. I tried to adjust his knife-splint and three quarters of his petals fluttered to the ground like really pretty dandruff. Sue stopped by for a consult and confirmed that yes, VOLTRON had expired. She advised me to chop off his head*, so I did. I lopped it off with my fake blood-coated scissors like I was Winona Ryder and he was Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

And then I made a Gerber daisy Glenn to add to the RIP wall. :(

*(New ones might grow? Reanimated daisies?)

I feel like I may have already introduced my new flower, Rhoda, to the Internet, but my blog has been such a pit of despair lately that I can’t bring  myself to check my recent posts. So, here she is (again, maybe). I made Henry buy her for me at some roadside produce stand because suddenly I’m Little Miss Erin Flower Keeper. The last time I had a flower was right after Chooch was born. I was determined to prove to, who? Myself? Henry? LiveJournal? that I could multitask keeping a newborn baby AND A FLOWER alive.

Well, the flower only lasted about a week. Mostly because Speck kept eating it. And also a little bit because I forgot it was there.

Before that was the Great African Violet Bed Shitting of 1985. First of all, who buys a 6-year-old an African Violet?! Oh, my mom when she’s trying to placate me at Arcadian Gardens. Fuck, I hated that place.

Anyway, I was all excited to take Rhoda to work after Memorial Day. I carried her with me all gently on the trolley. Lots of old people smiled at me. Flowers make old people happy. Then I took her around the office, excitedly introducing her to everyone. “I’m going to raise her all on my own, without Henry’s help!” I kept saying. And that wasn’t a lie, although at the end of the week, I discovered poor Rhoda on my windowsill and thought, “Oh shit, I forgot she was there.” So I ran her over to Amber2, who has A LOT of vegetation on her desk because she understands what plants need to flourish, and she taught me how to water Rhoda.

I was feeling pretty good about myself after that, much like you would after throwing a sockful of peach pits and Chuck E Cheese tokens at an orphan, and promptly forgot about Rhoda’s existence again. Much like you would an orphan after throwing a sockful of peach pits and Chuck E. Cheese tokens at one.

But last night at work, I was shuffling papers at my other desk-thing, which is what I do sometimes when I want people to think I’m busy, when I noticed that:

(a) Rhoda was still sitting there obediently

(b) Her other bud-thing had hatched and now I had TWO!!!

(c) The dirt was dry as FUCK. (Something Snooki probably has never said about her kooka. I just imagine it’s a perpetual swamp down there.)

This was exciting because my work-friend Nate had preemptively named the bud VOLTRON but in my head I was like, “Shit, maybe we shouldn’t have named this yet. Doesn’t the farmer’s almanac say it’s bad luck to name a fetus-flower?” So then I was secretly angry at Nate for aborting my bud before it even had a chance in this cruel world.

Luckily, Nate has been taken off my List.

FOR NOW.

Internet, meet VOLTRON!!

OH I JUST LOVE HIM!

Today was shaping up to be a pretty ordinary Thursday. I was in a so-so mood when I strolled over to Barb’s desk around 2:30 today for a visit. Nate and Debbie S. were there too, and what we were talking about wasn’t very note-worthy, just some mild banter.

And then Glenn walked by.

“We should start a rumor that Glenn is a lesbian,” Barb said. I don’t recall any overt hysterics from Nate or Debbie over this suggestion, but I fucking DIED. I was laughing so hard I had to walk away. Then I realized I had walked into a dead-end, so I turned around and had to find the nearest chair to sit in to keep from showering my co-workers with gleeful urination.

“THAT IS THE BEST IDEA EVER!!” I squealed once I was able to speak again. I can totally picture him in a flannel and skinny jeans at a Tegan and Sara show, can’t you?!

So, I was walking back to my office-thing and saw Glenn sitting all lesbianly at his desk and I lost my shit all over again. Amber2 looked concerned because when I get this giddy, it oftentimes appears that I am under some sort of duress, the kind of red-hued scrunched-up face one might put on immediately after learning of the death of a loved one or Corey Haim. Unfortunately, this is also my Ugly Laugh face.

I tried to explain to her what was going on, but this only resulted in my having to SQUAT DOWN and bury my face in my arms. Every time I opened my mouth to talk, I could only manage to vomit out incomprehensible, muffled sounds.

“I’ll just email you!” I wheezed. Even better is that there is a new processor who just started last week and she sits right in front of Amber2, which is unfortunately pretty close to me, so she gets to overhear all sorts of weird things that may or may not have something to do with weird things and me.

This uncontrollable laughing alone carried on for over an hour without reprieve (for me or those in direct vicinity of me). And then I started telling more and more people (most of whom were like, “That is not really that funny”) so eventually, Glenn was all, “Ha-ha, what is going on?”

This only made the remainder of my sanity expire in a mushroom-cloud explosion of tears and laughter and I had to literally run away from him.

Finally, I emailed him and said, “Barb just wanted to know if you like the Indigo Girls” which confused him even more.

I can’t even look at him now without hearing “Come To My Window” in my head. I tried to get my friend Natalie, whose office is right next to Glenn’s desk, to walk by him while singing the chorus but she was just like, “I hate you.”

I printed this out and taped it to his desk.

This is the best rumor ever! Does anyone have an “L Word” DVD I can put on his desk?

I had plans to go roller skating this past Saturday with my friends Sandy and Elizabeth. This was monumental for several reasons:

1. I hadn’t been skating since Chooch’s birthday party a year ago, what the fuck?!
2. This was going to be my first time hanging out with Elizabeth, with whom I became blog-friends through Sandy. (Though we did technically meet very quick-like at the Big Butler Fair last year, long enough for a handshake, and then the Wacky Worm pulled me in another direction.)
3. CHOOCH AND I WERE GOING WITHOUT HENRY.

Henry, who has been pulled all over the great state of Pennsylvania nearly every weekend lately, decided that this would be the perfect chance for him to finally get some shit done around the house.

At first I was like, “OMG WE CAN’T POSSIBLY DO THIS WITHOUT YOU HOW COULD YOU ABANDON US LIKE THIS YOU MONSTER!” But then I thought, “Wait….I get to go skating and then come home to a clean house? Tell me more. No, wait — STFU and just start cleaning, motherfucker.”

I think that the fact that Sandy and Elizabeth were going to be there made Henry feel a little more confident in his decision to usher us out the door, nary a compass nor bag of breadcrumbs. Not even a helmet for our precious heads!

Before we could even think about leaving, though, Henry had to go and put gas in the car, make sure we were properly monied-up, and then remind us of our respective skate sizes. It was a pretty large undertaking, but soon Chooch and I were on our way — and I didn’t even need directions!

Sandy and her daughter Elena were already there when we got there, and I proudly told her that Chooch and I had made it there all on our own. Sandy has worked with me for three years now so she is fully aware of my crippling dependence on Henry so it was all Blame Henry up in that parking lot for about 5 seconds and then my excitement for rollerskating eclipsed my abandonment issues.

*****

Parenting

I will say that skating-up took way longer than it would have if Henry had been there. Because when Henry is there, he laces both mine and Chooch’s skates before worrying about his own. Sandy would not do this for us, so Chooch wound up with his skates on the wrong feet, forcing me to rub my Care Bear belly-stretchmarks to radiate some of my dormant maternal magic upon the situation. (At least I put my skates on the right feet.)

I won’t even get into Chooch’s lacing-skills. Anyone walking by would have thought for sure he was an inbreed based on his skate-lacing alone. Jesus Christ.

(Sandy even took a picture of me fixing Chooch’s skates for parenting proof.)

We had barely begun skating before Chooch was all, “I’m hungry, feed me.”

I panicked briefly until I remembered that there was change from our rink admission. So I balled it up into Chooch’s hand and steered him toward the snack room. Thank god he is way more self-sufficient than me and was able to procure his own food. However, he summoned me from the doorway and made me sit with him, which was really annoying because seven-year-olds should be able to eat by themselves. But instead, I sat with him, straining every few seconds to hear what AWESOME POP SONG we were missing but sure to hear 87 more times throughout the day, thanks a lot for having the audacity to be hungry, kid.

He shared his nachos with me, at least.

*****

Socks & Socializing Attempts

Sandy forgot to bring socks so it was either wait for Elizabeth to bring her a pair or pay $2.50 for a pair at the skate shop and god only knows where they get their socks. This was such an epic subplot to the day—would she wait for Elizabeth or go sock-commando and risk contracting some fatal strain of Athlete’s Foot?!— that I might create a Twitter handle* for it.

*(SandysSocks, obviously.)

But then Elizabeth and her husband Mike arrived with a spare pair of socks before Sandy had to resort to wrapping her feet in snack bar napkins. Elizabeth informed me later that it was kind of a big deal that Mike agreed to come because he had some terrible spill at a skating party in 6th grade which was caught on tape and he has never quite healed. So I scratched his name off the adult supervision list.

The problem with meeting friends at the skate rink is that skating isn’t conducive to conversation. At least not for me anyway. Because I like to skate FAST. Too fast to talk!

Sometimes I will slow down long enough to comment on the current song situation though. Like when “Call Me Maybe” was playing, I had to make sure that everyone knew Chooch and I requested it. “Didn’t they already play this?” either Sandy or Elizabeth wondered, and I can’t remember which right now because every time I close my eyes to try and re-picture the scene, all I see are blurs because I skate SO FAST REMEMBER.

(I actually wasn’t skating at Turbo Speed on this day. I didn’t want to die! And god help the poor soul that would have to help lift me off the rink, seriously.)

We mutually decided that maybe next time, we will go out for drinks, fancy food, all of the above.

*****

Roller DJ Reunion

Before I could even consider skating, I had to get my obligatory chastising by Roller DJ out of the way. I mean, he gets angry when I take a season off, so I braced myself for the scathing I was about to get for being AWOL an entire year.

I made up some on-the-spot excuse about scheduling conflicts and sicknesses, and by that I meant, like, the flu, but I guess Roller DJ took it to some terminal level and gasped, “Oh no, I’m sorry to hear that!” So I just kind of ran with that because at least he wasn’t making me feel like a skating poser for dipping out of the scene. He was probably picturing Henry cloistered in a darkened infirmary run by monks, finally succumbing to some disgusting disease he contracted when he was in the SERVICE. Fucking Panama!

Or maybe that’s just me who would picture that.

On the outside of the DJ booth is a big neon-lit sign that boasts DJ Big Will.

“That’s new!” I observed, and Roller DJ beamed.

“I just had it made!” he shouted proudly over throbbing basslines. “You have to like my page on Facebook!” Oh, you bet I will!

Sadly, Roller DJ’s ‘fro is no more. Maybe I should make a Twitter handle for that, too.

*****

Falls

I have to be honest here — I was scared when I first stepped out into the rink. I thought for sure, being out of the groove for a year, that this was going to be the day when the rink transformed into one consecutive banana peel and I was going to have all sorts of bones protruding from my limbs and poor little Elena was going to proficiently skate past this writhing mass of contusions and shrieking curse words and be utterly traumatized for at least the next three years and then will probably forget about it until one day in her twenties when she hears Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and the Beat” on some oldies station in a grocery store and wonders why she wants to puke more violently than people typically do when they hear any song by that dickstick.

Oh, that’s just the repressed images of Miss Erin’s “Grey’s Anatomy”-caliber rollerskating injury that the Biebs is helping you to re-see, Elena.

And oh god, can you imagine if I sucked in front of two people who BLOG? They would have a field day with their “ERIN FELL! READ ALL ABOUT IT!” blog posts. But I wasn’t as rusty as I anticipated! I mean, like Sandy said, I wasn’t wrapping my legs around my head or even at the very minimal doing the jumps during the Cha Cha Slide, but I could probably beat most of you turkeynoodles* in a race!

*(This was my attempt at cutting back on the swears because my vulgarity came up earlier today and now I’m feeling extremely self-conscious about it, fuck. The old Erin would have called you all cuntnoodles. I miss Old Erin already!)

The best part about this particular session is that it wasn’t crowded — it looked like one birthday party was going on and then a handful of inoffensive people. There really wasn’t anyone there that got on my nerves!

Just kidding.

There was some semi-chubby 10-year-old girl in head-to-toe spandex and blond ponytail and I don’t know what it was about her, but she rubbed me the wrong way.

Maybe it was because she reminded me a little bit of myself.

She fell during the Hokey Pokey and I had to summon every last morsel of restraint within myself to keep from publicly heckling her.

One perk of leaving Henry at home is that I was able to freely glide around the rink like the graceful swan that I am and no one could say, “You’re an OK skater, but DAMN—Henry can skate, y’all!”

Henry, Henry, Henry! — whined in the stylings of Jan Brady.

UGH! It gets pretty cold living in Henry’s shadow.

But seriously, aside from all of the skate guards and the two junior derby broads, I was totally the best skater there. Although, there was some older guy in a Clyde’s Auto Repair shirt and feet stuffed into fancy quads who was doing some moderately slick moves, but he fell A LOT and was pretty wobbly even when he wasn’t falling. I mean, I’m sure he was probably real sick in his day, but is pretty washed-up by 2013’s standards. Sorry, bro. I’m better than you.

(This is based solely on the fact that I didn’t fall, even though Chooch kept trying to tell Henry that I did.)

In fact, you can tell that I must have skated without break the whole time based on the fact that I only have one picture from that afternoon. (No phones on the rink, duh!)

There was another dad-type there who flipped over the wall, which was incredibly hysterical and I hope Elizabeth’s husband saw it because that’s gotta make him feel better about his own vintage roller skating birthday party blunders.

You know who else fell a lot? My damn kid. Jesus Christ! I don’t know how we didn’t cap off the day with a Children’s Hospital visit. This is how I learned that I would be a terrible skate guard because I struggled every time I had to help him pick himself back up.

Plus, the whole “lacking compassion” aspect.

Meanwhile, Elena was diligently skating around the rink relatively independently with a skate gate to aid her. (Sadly, she seems like she’s way more independent than me in most life situations. And she’s only 3.) “You skate better than your mom!” I yelled at her encouragingly as I skated past. “Yeah!” she yelled happily. She fell a few times, as kids do, but considering she is already so low to the ground, none of these falls produced any tears. Still, Chooch was all concerned about her every time and had to check for himself to make sure she was OK.

I don’t know where he gets that! Two years of Catholic school, maybe? Nah, those people were dicks.

Maybe if the rink had offered those skate gates two years ago, more people would have skated at my birthday party.

*****

Music

So, my music tastes are definitely pretty off the grid, varying from 80s goth to screamo, synthpop to post-rock, but I do really enjoy pop music. And really, nothing is better to skate to than some bubblegum-poppin’ Top 40. Therefore, I requested “Heart Attack” by Demi Lovato without a single ironic fuck given.

“I don’t have that,” Roller DJ said without apology.

“Seriously?!” I cried. I mean, that joint has constant radio rotation!

“Is this it?” he asked, playing Trey Songz.

“No,” I sighed with attitude.

“Are you sure?” he pressed on. Meanwhile, Chooch had fallen on his hip right outside of the DJ booth and I was struggling to pull up 70 pounds of dead weight while assuring Roller DJ that I was positive it was not the song because that was a man singing and Demi Lovato is A GIRL.

“This is the only ‘Heart Attack’ I have, so it’s gotta be it,” he argued.

OMFG! One is R&B, the other is Pop!!! I was like, “Just forget it!” and skated off.

A few minutes later, the Demi Lovato version came on and Chooch and I cheered. I gave Roller DJ a thumbs up when I whizzed past him and he gave me one of his scary, sly smiles.

Pop music is just really the best music to skate to — it’s fun and energetic and even if it’s fucking Katy Perry, I can usually tune out her shitty vocals and focus on just the beat. I have an unapologetic love for hot pop songs, you guys.

But then the opening notes of the next song trickled out onto the rink and there was a collective groan, which salvaged some of my faith in humanity.

It was Mackelmore’s “Thrift Shop.”

“THIS IS MY SONG!” Chubby Spandex Tween shouted to all of the friends that her parents bought for her. “I ASKED FOR THIS SONG!”

God, I knew I should have heckled her when she fell during the Hokey Pokey.

I don’t know what it is about “Thrift Shop” that makes me want to scream. That’s a lie. It’s the horns, it’s the beat, it’s that obnoxious child voice. I don’t dislike the other Mackelmore songs that I have heard though, just this one.  And besides my hatred for this song, it is really not a good song to skate to.

I guess everyone has that one song (or 50) that they absolutely cannot stand. Janna used to HATE that Billie Meyer’s song, “Kiss the Rain.” I purposely bought the CD (I think this was 1998 maybe?) and put that song on repeat one day when she was at my apartment because that’s how awesome of a friend I am. I even sent her a YouTube video of a live “Kiss the Rain” performance for her birthday the other day.

You know what other song drives me nuts? That fucking monotonous Icona Pop “I Love It” song which of course was played during Saturday’s skate session. Chooch loves that song though, so we always argue about.

“I wish she would crash her car into a bridge,” I muttered after hearing it for the 87th time one day.

“Why?” Chooch asked. “She won’t care.”

OH SNAP, SON.

*****

“So, don’t you and Chooch ever go anywhere together without Henry?” Barb asked me at work the following Monday, when we were sneaking hot beverage and conversation together over by the kitchen.

“I mean, if we have to, but….why would we?” I said with a shrug. Barb made some sort of “Yeah, really” expression and that was the end of that conversation.

Friends: If you were at a restaurant with Chooch and me, and you realized our waitress was someone with whom you went to high school, would you tell us?

I DIDN’T THINK SO.

(It’s funny when I ask people this in person, their eyes get all big and they say, “Um, NO. God, no.”)

But Henry did just the opposite last Saturday night when we went to Eat n Park after the Pierce the Veil show. Now to be fair, I was hyper because I had just come from a concert and had a few glasses of wine earlier; Chooch was hyper because it was almost 11pm and he was delirious from an evening at his grandma’s cable-free apartment.

“I used to go to high school with her,” Henry said in a hushed tone. “We rode the bus together.” He was referring to our waitress Dawn, who definitely seemed like someone Henry would have “loafed” with (that’s what my dad always says, and I imagine Henry’s generation probably used the same term): super skinny, stringy dishwater blond hair, sunken cheeks, probably a meth addict. She had a really rough voice and called us all “hon,” and stood sideways, looking over her shoulder at us while taking our order. Also, and this is kind of hard to explain, but she had the swagger of a drag king, the way she moved her hips while talking. IT WAS BIZARRE.

So, you know, totally in Henry’s wheelhouse.

I snorted as soon as he told me. I LOVE IT WHEN HENRY BRINGS UP HIS PRE-ERIN LIFE! He gets so pissed when I laugh about his past and he recently yelled, “You act like I didn’t exist before you met me!” But come, did he really exist? Am I not basically his sole purpose for living? He basically won’t tell me anything at all anymore, so it’s surprising that he let this particular little nugget of blackmail slip out.

Then he went up to the salad bar* and I reiterated this to Chooch.

*(“Ew, he went to the salad bar at 11 o’clock at night?!” my co-worker A-ron exclaimed when I was telling him this story last night. Yes, Henry is disgusting and eats old, congealed food from the Eat n Park salad bar after hours. Henry does disgusting things.)

“Chooch, did you hear that? DADDY WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH OUR WAITRESS!!”

“With DAWN!?” Chooch, for whatever reason, had immediately taken to mocking her from the get-go, saying things like, “OK, Dawn” and “Dawn doesn’t know anything!” every time she would walk away from us. He had zero respect for this lady. (Pro Tip: Don’t ever wear a name tag around Chooch.)

“You totally have to tell her!” I encouraged him, and we both started laughing so hard that Chooch literally almost threw up at the table. People were turning around and gawking at us. An entire table of elderly black women in particular gave us very disapproving Church lady scowls.  Henry returned to two children completely turned inside out with giddiness and looked utterly apprehensive.

“What?” he asked. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

“Nothing!” I squealed, tears streaming down my face from all of the laughs.

“I’m telling Dawn that you went to school with her!” Chooch blurted out, cracking up all over again.

“I don’t care!” Henry spat defiantly, digging into his nasty Saturday night salad to mask the nervous twitch his moustache had acquired.

But you know he totally cared. He REALLY did not want this conversation to happen. Too bad Chooch was chomping at the bit to unleash this cannon of intel. Dawn came back with our check (I mean, at least this happened toward the end of dinner, right Henry?) and Chooch nearly gave up the ghost in his attempt to scream out, “YOU USED TO RIDE THE KIDDIE BUS WITH HIM!!!” while lunging across the table and pointing furiously at Henry.

Dawn seemed confused. Nay — Dawn seemed perplexed. She laughed nervously and asked, “What?”

Chooch was laughing so hard, the same deep-throated giggles that I too employ, that I had to explain to her what was going on.

She gave Henry a scrutinizing once-over and then said, “I’m so sorry hon, but I don’t remember….”

HAHAHA SHE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER HIM, BEST FUCKING NIGHT EVER!

So then Henry had to explain to her who he was and I’m pretty sure she was just pretending to recognize him at that point to get us out of her section.

“I mean, it was 30 years ago,” Henry rationalized for Dawn’s inability to remember the forgettable doof in the bitchin’ Adidas shirt and tinted glasses, which only made it better for me — THIRTY YEARS, HAHAHA!

“Have a nice night, DAWN,” Chooch seethed in faux-annoyance as we were getting ready to leave (Henry had already left us at the table, that’s how embarrassed we were apparently making him) and I had to SQUAT DOWN to keep from peeing.

“You two are fucking idiots,” Henry sighed tersely, shrugging away from us when we caught up with him at the register while he waited to pay.

And then this happened before we even left the parking lot:

My favorite part is when Chooch calls Dawn an asshole and it sounds like Henry is about to get all TOUGH PAPA on him, but then all he says is “Shut the door” for the third time. He was REALLY all about having the door shut.

(Side note: I rarely post videos of myself because when I get giddy—and I am often giddy—I wind up sounding like Bobcat Goldthwait and ain’t nobody got time for that.)

Shit, Chooch and I rode the Dawn horse all day Sunday (“Remember DAWN!?” we would ask Henry and then collapse in happy laughter); I came to work yesterday and told the story to anyone who would listen to me (some people walked away). Glenn asked me if Henry drinks a lot and I have NO IDEA what kind of question that is.

So, I think it’s safe to say that we will probably never go back to that Eat n Park.