I bought Chooch some Aquasaurs for his birthday, this intriguing kit of “prehistoric water pets.”  We apparently can’t have normal pets in this house.

The first batch of “eggs” I dumped into the water never hatched. I bitched for awhile about how they were duds, but then Henry tried the second half of the batch and the eggs flourished, so of course it was all my fault and he gloated about it for a few seconds before I kicked him in the stomach.

At first, the baby Aquasaurs were little flecks, the same way sea monkeys start out in this scary world, but after about a week they pretty much began doubling in size overnight.

Every night.

There are some in the tank that are so gigantor, I have to turn away in fear, cupping my hands over my mouth in case the dry-heaving escalates to something more fruitful. (Literally; I have been eating a lot of melon these days.) One is at such a maximum girth that I promise you he casts a shadow over the room when he swims to the front of the tank.

The fact that I’m so freaked out over these bastard sea monsters only makes Henry and Chooch like them even more. Last week when I was at work, Henry emailed me a video he took with his phone. I assumed it was going to feature our child doing something douchey, I mean adorable, but no. No, it was the FUCKING AQUASAURS.

I coughed deeply and violently, swallowed my tongue briefly, and then deleted it.

THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY. I didn’t believe Chooch when he said, “Mommy they’re even bigger today!” BUT THEY ARE EVEN BIGGER TODAY.

Some of these fucking nasty, slimy, forked-tail pieces of sea-shit are rivaling the size of standard goldfish. (I JUST SHUDDERED AND I CANT EVEN SEE THEM FROM WHERE I AM SITTING.)

MY FEAR AND DISGUST OF AQUASAURS VALIDATES MY USE OF CAPS-LOCK.

The only bright side to this whole pet debacle is that at least this isn’t something that can be extracted from the tank and thrust at my face in a taunting fashion.

I mean, I think Chooch knows that. I HOPE Chooch knows that.

I was in Wendy’s office earlier tonight, trying to explain to her these obnoxious “scientific delights.” She went to YouTube and proceeded to find the most revolting Aquasaurs videos known to man.

Like this one:

Some of my work friends are grossed out by the sea monkeys on my desk but I guarantee, once they watch this video, the sea monkeys will seem like cuddly kittens to them. I very honestly do not even have my feet on the floor right now because I’m so afraid one of them is going to escape and slurp up my leg and turn me into an incubator for a new species and OMG NOW I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT.

I wasn’t looking for love at Soul Skate. It was hotter than Snookie’s kooka in that joint and really all I was focused on was not melting into a flesh-puddle while rollin’ to Justin Timberlake’s “Summer Love,” which I never realized just how truly anthemic that song really is until I had quads laced to my feet. (Also, Alicia Key’s “I’m Ready” made me almost consider giving Henry a sex-coupon, which never would have happened outside of a roller rink.)

And then I saw him: the rink lights bouncing off his smooth-shaven pate, the slick way he b-boy’ed around the rink with the best of the soul skaters, spinning tricks and commanding attention.

Holy shit, he was exactly my type! Which is: not Henry.

AND THEN HE DID A SPLIT, YOU GUYS.

To put it simply, motherfucker had it going on. (Does anyone still say that, other than En Vogue fans circa 1993?) I started imagining all the scenarios in which we paired up for couple’s skate, our roller passion so undeniably palpable that disco balls and T’Pau records birthed between us.

Of course, I told Henry immediately. I always alert him when there is someone within close proximity that I want to reverse-rape. He has the extreme misfortune of not only being my boyfriend, but also best friend, and sometimes those lines get a little more than blurred.

Since the rink was doubling as a sweat-tent, I had to take generous breaks to stand by the open side-door and wring out my tank top which was already the sheerest material I could morally get away with wearing in public, but skating around that rink on a ninety-degree day made me feel like I forgot to leave my burqa at home. I was sitting on the bench, across from the open door, tweeting faux love notes about this totally skilled skater when I looked up and saw him.

He was standing across from me by the door.

He smiled.

I smiled back.

He said something indecipherable, presumably about the heat, and I laughed and nodded, which is my go-to when I have no clue what’s going on. In my mind, I pretended he was wondering out loud why a hottie like me was ringless. And in my mind, I was saying back, “You think you’re sweaty now, baby?” The next thing I knew, Henry was sidling up next to me and my prey skated away.

“DID YOU SEE HIM TALKING TO ME?” I squealed.

Henry rolled his eyes.

“If he asks me to skate with him, will you let me?” I pleaded, adopting my best whiny-daughter tone.

Henry’s reaction is as follows:

We were still sitting there when Roller Crush skated by backward. He smiled at me, and I smiled back coyly then buried my head in Henry’s belly to smother my laughter.

“You know he’s been going out of his way to skate near you,” Henry mumbled. NO, I DID NOT KNOW THAT! God, Henry is a good wing-man.

So that was fun for awhile, making eye contact and then looking away bashfully, like suddenly I was in 3rd grade again with my big blond ponytail, flirting with boys from other schools at skating parties. (I was decidedly not cute at all anymore after third grade, so good thing I got in all that pre-teen flirting while boys could still look at me without vomiting.)

But about 45-minutes later, Henry and I were taking another break when Roller Lover came over, stood right beneath the pulsating speaker, and started talking to me as though Henry was completely invisible. (Which is completely acceptable, actually.) Again, I could barely hear what he was saying, but I heard enough to make me want to punch all those lustful feelings right back up into my ‘gina. He opened his mouth and braggadocio projectiled out on waves of squirrel-voiced bullshit. Through snaggled teeth, he told me about how he can “skate with the best of them” and how he and his ex-girlfriend were basically the King and Queen of shadow-skating. (Minus-87,000 points for bringing up an ex-girlfriend in the first sentence. Christ, that was annoying, a total turn-off.)

(Oh, look at me, acting like my boyfriend of 10 years wasn’t sitting right next to me.)

He said he goes to all of the Rollers’ parties, but this was the first time I have ever seen him.

And then he splashed sweat on me.

Henry at this point had completely checked-out of the conversation and was staring wistfully over my shoulder. I kept trying to make eye contact with him so he could bail me out, but I have a feeling he was purposely ignoring me. He does that sometimes, like all the time.

“You know what song I love to skate to? Return of the Mack,” Roller Disappointment said, almost smugly, like he was hoping to stump me.

“Um, yeah, that’s only like the best song ever to skate to,” I returned in my own smug tone.

“I’m going to see if the DJ will play it for us,” he said excitedly, and skated off. I was going to mention that Roller DJ ALWAYS plays that song and shouldn’t he know that since he comes to all of the soul skates, but I let him go because that was my way out. I slipped back onto the rink so fast, I almost fell backward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Roller Braggart was now sitting down by the rest rooms, changing t-shirts. I imagine his other one had to be half-dry by then, since he wrung most of it out on me while we were talking. A drop of his sweat even got near my lip and just typing that out made me dry-heave all over again.

Now that my skating goggles had been forcefully adjusted, I began to see that he actually had no rhythm at all. Sure, he could stunt better than most of the guys on the rink that night, but he had no flow whatsoever. Total skate-jam foul. (Look at me, like I’m some fucking Beyonce-replica on quads.)

Roller Doof sniffed me out later when I was standing by the door, letting the breeze blow under my shirt. During this painful conversation, I learned that he’s from Wheeling, which is apropos because it’s “WHEELing, GET IT? ROLLER SKATES HAVE WHEELS?” he shouted at my face. Yeah, I got it, Roller Perspiration, now back up off me.

Henry was clear on the other side of the rink, looking at the skate display that hasn’t changed since we started going there in January.

“Return of the Mack” came on just then.

“There’s our song!” he yelled, smiling all goofily. And that is how I ended up skating with a man who was not Henry. I can’t not skate to “Return of the Mack!” That’s the epitome of roller skate theme songs. So if it just so happens that some crazed man is skating alongside me, then so be it. I put myself in my Professional Skater zone and cruised along, muttering several “I bet!”s every now and then in reply to his tall tales. Then I noticed Henry back on the rink so I slowed my pace, and Roller Creeper kept going, not noticing my absence.

“What the fuck!” I yelled to Henry when he caught up with me. It was like he just came back from an “I Told You So” facial. Every last inch of his visage was silently admonishing me. Finally he said, “You asked for it.”

The rest of the night turned into a cat and mouse chase. Roller Stalker would literally cut across the rink just so he could skate beside me, causing me to panic and increase my pace, wedging a wall of soul skaters between us. I’m totally going to just stick with the black people from now on.

Here he is, in his third t-shirt of the night. My hand-drawn heart oozes sarcasm.

We could have taken the night, been a tour du force under the rainbow track lights, and then rode home together on the back of a Ke$ha-sponsored unicorn. If only he hadn’t opened his mouth.

And now I leave you with Mark Morris’s seminal hit “Return of the Mack.”

Recommended: watching your co-workers react to someone’s water breaking. It’s exhilarating, high-energy drama.

It all started around 4:30 on Wednesday. I was REALLY BUSY, working HARD and DILIGENTLY, when Sandy walked over to my desk, looking all pale and scared-rabbit. All I managed to decipher from her hushed tone was “bathroom” and “water broke.”

I immediately started to panic because we have two pregnant girls in our department, and neither of them should be walking around, breaking water.

But then I heard “travel office” and my compassion dulled a bit, because it was just one of “Those People” who share the same floor as us but aren’t cool enough to be a real part of our department, yet they like to swipe our food when we have parties like that’s going to infuse them with our Awesome.

Sandy, Barb and Sue were all in the bathroom together, probably saying disparaging things about me, when the owner of the broken water called out from behind a stall that she needed someone to get one of the travel office ladies. Right now, I’m picturing the “Fuck off” look that likely had taken over Barb’s face, until she learned that this poor girl was pregnant and splashing around back there in amniotic fluid.

Somehow, Sandy was able to slink back over to my desk to tell me what was happening.

“I’m really bad in emergencies,” she said in a small voice. So now I know that Sandy and I would make the worst superhero team in the history of comic books. In the background of each cell, you’d see Sandy, paralyzed and pale-faced with her emanating fear blending into the gray background, while I’m throwing up all over my cape.

It didn’t take long for a small crowd to form by the bathroom. Kristen stopped by my desk, having just broken through the crowd of birth fans. “I’m the girl you want in an emergency,” she said, all smiles, as if there wasn’t some pregnant lady spilling baby juice all over the department. “But, I’m going to Starbucks!” There’s our third superhero, drinking a latte while the world collapses around her. Sometimes I go out for drinks after work with Kristen and Sandy, and now I’m starting to rethink this. I feel so unsafe!

Meanwhile, Sue was marching all over the floor with her game face on. I’m not sure where she was marching to, but I know it wasn’t to pilfer through Barb’s snack drawer like it usually is. She was going to call 911 but said the girl had asked her not to because she didn’t want to ride in an ambulance. Sue disappeared around the corner, and I assumed she was going to her office to retrieve her forceps. And Barb was running around, looking for spare clothes to give the girl who was apparently pretty drenched. She was going to steal Wendy’s gym clothes but thought better of it and ended up giving the girl a pair of her own sweatpants.

All this fuss over spare clothes when someone could have just asked Gayle. She could have crocheted something right quick with a nice Navajo pattern. She probably would have given the girl matching earrings too, and maybe even thrown in a floral headband for the baby.

DO NOT FORGET THAT SANDY WAS THERE TOO! Barb re-worked the script every time she recounted the bathroom horrors to other co-workers, completely writing Sandy out of it. If you ask me, that’s discrimination against scared people and I don’t think Sandy should stand for it.

I bet when Barb tells her non-Law Firm friends about Waterbreak ’11, it entails her ripping the door right off the bathroom stall and delivering one of “those babies” right then and there with her auxiliary knapsack of obstetric apparati.

Something like an hour had gone by before Sandy finally snapped out of it and realized she had a towel that she could contribute. She walked by later, triumphantly holding up the soggy towel in garbage bag. She was going to take it home as a souvenir, but Sue convinced her to throw it out, which I think is rude because people should be allowed to collect the things they want to collect.

Me? I just sat there and watched all the adults handle business. It was exciting. I’m glad no one asked me to help. I mean, YES—I was a Girl Scout, but the only thing that taught me was how to dance to NKOTB’s “Funky, Funky Christmas” and to Quick! Find a man to do everything for me. (Couldn’t find a man, but Henry will do.)

Later that evening, the travel lady we dislike the most came over with her scary, soul-piercing eyes to tell us that the girl’s husband had come to pick her up and she was currently en route to the hospital.

“I’m going to have nightmares,” Barb said after the travel lady walked away. She was probably talking about the entire odyssey, but I was still shivering from the icy-penetration of travel lady’s eyes. All I could picture was a stork with travel lady’s head on it, so I told Barb about it in hopes of planting the image into her subconscious and it growing into some gnarly night-terror.

And then, because catastrophes totally wind up my giddy-box, I laughed about this so hard that I started crying at my desk.

[I didn’t want to post this until I knew for sure that everything was OK. Travel Girl had the baby that night; she was 2 months premature, but they are both doing fine. Barb prefaced her email to me about it with: “I know you don’t care, but…” I do care! Kind of!]

I’m taking the day off. (Because I do SO MUCH on here, you know.) So here is an oldie about littering and cops, and cops who litter.

Another Reason to Hate the 5-0

May 2007

It was the middle of a lazy Saturday afternoon in Hamilton, Ohio. Christina and I were lounging around her room and I was making her cry by talking about how I hate God. I suppose I should have been penciling in a time for church in my day planner since “He” evidently spared our lives the night before when we got caught in the midst of a hail storm on our way from Pittsburgh to Ohio. It was probably the single most terrifying moment of my life and it took place right after I had been talking about Hell.

Over top of Christina’s mighty exaltation for her love of all things Christ, I heard the squelch of a siren from behind her house. We ran over to the window and discovered that there were two police officers on the street behind her house and they had pulled over a man in a truck. It seemed like it was just a traffic violation and I was quickly becoming bored. Luckily, I hung around long enough to witness the most appalling act of crime I have ever seen with these green eyes.

The officers were beginning to wrap things up and as the one cop made to get into the passenger side of the patrol car, he poured out the remainders of a can of what appeared to be Pepsi and then deliberately tossed the empty can into Christina’s back yard.

“Oh no he didn’t!” I exclaimed to Christina, right before shaping a makeshift megaphone with my hands and shouting “LITTERER!” and then ducking, leaving Christina framed alone in the window looking like the sole perpetrator.

Stomping over to her bed, I grabbed my shoes and sat down hard.

“What are you doing?” Christina asked nervously.

“I’m going out there.” I walked out of the bedroom and bounded down the steps, leaving her pleas in a cloud of my dust. She caught up with me before I made it to the back door and grabbed my arms.

“Look, I really don’t think going out there is a good idea. The cops around here are dicks.” She had thrown herself between me and the door so I knew she meant business. I walked dejectedly back into her kitchen as she explained to me that her neighborhood is kind of bad and that the cops are always looking for a reason to, well, be cops and that she really didn’t want to have to make that call to Henry.

“Henry!” I exclaimed in remembrance of my boy-toy in Pittsburgh. “Let’s call him for legal counsel.” And of course he wasn’t home. I left a message and that dickshitter never called back because he figured it was “something stupid” I was calling about, as I would later learn.

The cops had left by then, leaving me alone with a heightened sense of extreme community failure. I didn’t want it be over yet so I continued pacing and spouting vulgarities until I finagled Christina into calling the police station. “We have their patrol car number! Do it, Christina, for all of us civilians. And the environment. It’s God’s will.” I knew that would clinch it.

Christina finally relented, only because she didn’t want me making the call because supposedly I’m too “hot-headed.” But I would have used words like ‘reprehensible’ and ‘detestable’ to convey to the sergeant how appalled I truly was. And I would have thrown in the words ‘law’ and ‘suit’ somewhere in between mention of dying babies and that our earth is God’s playground (HAHA).

But Christina still wouldn’t hand over the phone; she was eventually dispatched through to Sgt. Ebbing (a man I will never forget, bless his heart). Explaining the complaint, she actually said, “Sir, I know this may seem trivial.”

Excuse me, trivial? Are you kidding? That prick littered in her back yard. He did something that people like us would get fined for. Oh, I was livid. She was being too nice and congenial during the phone call and my body was burning. I started to envision what would have happened if I had managed to get out of her house while the cops were still there. They don’t scare me. Plus, I have big boobs.

This was when I decided that I really, truly, and legitimately hated that littering officer. My ears were roaring with the sound of large, wavering sheets of metal and my heart was pounding like I had just run ten yards after ingesting fourteen fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches and an eight ball. I imagined scratching his face (out of malice, not passion) and striking his nose with the heel of my palm in an upward motion, just like Mr. Miyagi taught me. Then I would retrieve his discarded aluminum can and crush it against his jock.

Oh heaven, I have finally reached you through my fantasies.

Christina ended the call and jolted me out of my daydream. She explained to me that Sgt. Ebbing was going to call her back once he reprimanded the officers and that he also informed her that she could go to the courthouse and file for a citation, to which she said would not be necessary (I would have done it – fuck the police). I felt a tiny bit reassured and calmer but Christina was a little leery that Sgt. Ebbing had asked for her full name and address. “I’m a pot head! What if they’re going to be watching me now?”

“What do I care? I live in Pittsburgh.” And then I laughed. And if you know me, you know that laugh, and are probably wanting to bitch-slap me just at the mere thought of it.

In the meantime, we called Henry to fill him in. “You didn’t go out there, did you?” was the first utterance from his fat mouth. I began to feel a complex developing and asked, “No, I didn’t go out there but would it really have been so bad if I had?”

“Uh, yeah!” he answered. “With your temper? I don’t need to be bailing you out of jail.” I have to say I’m a little insulted that I’m not trusted to handle situations such as this one on my own. But Christina was happy because Henry shared in her apprehension.

Sgt. Ebbing called back about two hours later (presumably because he was banging broads in the drunk tank), at which time Christina’s sister Cynthia answered the phone and yelled to Christina, “I don’t fucking know who it is!” The sergeant (I don’t trust him, by the way; I think he’s a cocksucker to be honest with you) relayed the disciplinary action that was sanctioned, and might I add it only entailed asking the officers if it was true and then telling them to come back and pick up the can.

But he lied to us and I know it. Sgt. Ebbing, you’re a lying cocksucker. He told Christina that the officer admitted to tossing the can, which was purportedly an “illegal can of beer” which was confiscated from the man who had been pulled over. In the midst of the confusion while they were making an arrest, it must have slipped the officer’s mind that he had littered.

Except that I didn’t see them make an arrest. I saw the man get back in his truck and leave. What did they say, “Just meet us at the station”? Oh, I don’t think so.

In other words, the sergeant wanted us to think that it was admirable of the officer to be honest about the littering, but at the same time he tried to make us feel guilty or ashamed that these men were in the throes of serving justice and that they should be excused of such a trivial act.

“I’m going out there to wait for them to come pick up the can,” I announced as I ran for the door. Christina came with me and we discovered that the can was no longer there. That asshole sergeant waited for them to come pick it up before calling back because he knew that I was about to get all Firestarter on their asses. I just know it!

I don’t feel like justice was served. And I didn’t get to swear at anybody.

I’m going to pay one of her neighbors to let me slice their baby with a Pepsi can and then pretend it happened on the one in the Christina’s backyard. THIS IS FAR FROM OVER.

[Ed.Note: Obviously, it was over. Christina plied me with pie and the day quickly turned into “Sgt. Ebbing who now?”]

Get fucked.

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

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

Because solid chocolate is too easy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

%&*%*^$*^%

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

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

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

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

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

God, I hate doing things.

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

A few months ago, someone was trying to get my work friend Kaitlin to buy a lamb-shaped cake pan that they didn’t need anymore. Included in the email he sent to her was a picture of what the finished product could conceivably look like, so she sent it to Barb and me because it was so horrific-looking.

Of course I took to it immediately and tried to convince her that she really needed this cake pan, in spite of its exorbitant cost.

“Not for that price I don’t!” she assured me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it though and even found one that was much more reasonably-priced. I didn’t buy it though because I figured it would just be another thing to nag Henry about.

“Clean the house.”

“Do the laundry.”

“Cook my dinner.”

“Propose to me.”

“Put this makeup on.”

“Bake me a fucking lamb cake.”

A lamb cake just might be what it takes to break Henry’s back and leave me single and helpless.

Anyhow, I dropped it, but the use I had for it was always still in the back of my mind.

***

For some reason today, I brought up the fact that Henry dropped the ball for my thirtieth birthday. I have some pretty deep-rooted esteem issues, so this isn’t something that I’ve gotten over yet. Probably won’t, either, without a hearty helping of therapy.

“You couldn’t even get me the only thing I wanted for my last birthday, a fucking black forest cake!” I cried petulantly.

“I couldn’t find anywhere to get one!

” Henry yelled back.

“I gave you two months notice that I wanted one! You could have BAKED one, motherfucker.”

I was still bitching about how he didn’t even love me enough to bake me a stupid birthday cake when I arrived at work.

Feeling utterly sorry for myself the whole 10-floor elevator ride, I walked around the corner to my desk only to find a large box with a post-it that said Open Carefully.

“She’s here!” Barb announced, and people started coming out of their offices and crowding around. I couldn’t imagine what was going on.

It wasn’t my birthday.

It wasn’t my workiversary.

Was I getting fired and they were trying to soften the blow?

To throw me off even further, Chris chimed in and asked, “Did you get your hair cut?

” and I found myself bracing for another one of Those Episodes where I slightly modify my appearance and everyone swarms around me with spotlights.

Apprehensive is one way to describe how I felt. There were maybe six people watching me expectantly. I reached for the box lid, because that’s what they kept probing me to do, and we all know I do as I’m told. But then Barb commanded me to wait as she hit play on The Whiffenpoof Song, so now not only did I have a surplus of hungry eyes feasting upon me, my every roboticly awkward movement was to the tune of singing Muppets.

Please don’t let it be a crappy spreadsheet, I thought, as I eventually buckled and ripped the lid off like the proverbial bandaid it was starting to become.

It took a few good seconds for it to sink it, that awesome pins-and-needles sensation of being sufficiently stunned. Then I laughed. Then I almost cried. Then I laughed some more.

Apparently, this had been in the works for awhile. Barb placed an in-house classified ad and found someone who was willing to lend her the cake pan. Kaitlin baked the cake and then some of my friends here helped decorate. Anytime one of the less in-the-know co-workers would inquire about the reason for the cake, they were told it was told for Chooch.

Because everyone here knows my kid is weird. It’s me they think is normal.

This, after the babyish argument I had just instigated in the car with Henry. Fuck you, Henry. SOME PEOPLE are willing to bake this bitch a cake. Even now, I keep pausing to look over at it adoringly. People kept suggesting I wrap it up and I was like “I AM NOT COVERING THIS, EVER!” (But apparently it’s because they thought it was actually going to be eaten. As if. I want this thing to petrify and sit on my fireplace mantel for the rest of ever.)

I’m just so unbelievably touched that my friends here would do this. It has officially become so much more than just a lamb cake, and I’m beyond stoked to put my plan into action this weekend. STOKED BEYOND BELIEF.

Oh Lamb Cake, mama’s got big plans for you.

We were on our way to take family photos in Mingo Park when Blake told me.

“Craig was kicked out of Chiodos,” he said from the backseat.

I laughed.

“No seriously, my friend Gavin just read it on MySpace.”

“No,” I said with firm disbelief, but I doubted my tone, like a wife being told her husband is cheating with the 17-year-old nanny.

It was hard to imagine a Chiodos without their charismatic singer, but I’ve had since September 24th, 2009 to prepare for what was to come. Chiodos have since acquired a new singer, Brandon Bolmer, and released a new album (Illuminaudio, which I reviewed here with all the emotion of a girl being stood up for prom). Craig has moved on to front and release an album with a veritable super group of sorts, Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows (D.R.U.G.S.). Both parties have seemingly moved on (“seemingly” being the operative word), so I knew I should, too, yet I kept finding reasons to avoid seeing this neo-Chiodos every time they rolled into Pittsburgh since that fateful fall.

“Oh, they’re with The Used. I just saw The Used last month.” (Weak.)

“Yeah, but it’s a week night. I’d have to call off work and I don’t have PTO yet.” (Lame.)

But then Chiodos announced their tour with Emarosa and the Pittsburgh date happened to be on a Sunday night in February. There were no excuses. I had to get this over with.

Then the D.R.U.G.S. album was released, so I had been listening to that pretty much ad nauseum in the days preceding the Chiodos show. Overwrought with guilt because of this, I began to cry in the car.

“You’re allowed to like both bands, you know,” Henry said, knowing exactly why I was crying. “It’s not cheating.” I’ll keep that in mind when I start seeing other people.

In a weepy little girl whine, I cried, “But it just feels so wrong! Craig belongs with Chiodos! THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!”

***

Watching Chiodos that night in February at the Rex Theater proved that. I was already perplexed, a little off-balance even, after watching Emarosa take the stage beforehand without Jonny Craig, (a scenario which I only had a few hours to prepare for). Now I was watching another of my favorite bands with some impostor at the helm. And that guilt came back, because I was there to give Brandon a chance. I loved the new album, so why was my heart leaking poison into my veins? Why was I acting like one of those pernicious, fickle scene kids who turned their backs on Chiodos the moment Craig was gone? I was better than that, I was there for the music, not politics.

At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself.

I tried to fixate on Bradley lurching about like a crazed Frankenstein’s monster behind his keyboard, and the perpetually shoeless Jason in his spot stage-right, hoping that this would bring me some comfort and familiarity, but it wasn’t the same now that they were flanking some other guy at center stage.  I kept turning around and making sad eyes at Henry, who shrugged and gave me sympathetic smiles.

And the crowd! Smallest crowd of any Chiodos show I have ever been to. Scene girls were ominously scant at this Owens-less Chiodos show. Although I did see one that looked like Snookie.

And then they would play old songs, like “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute On the Creek,” and my chest hurt like it was being wrenched open by screamo dwarves and flooded with the memories of the last six years. Memories of being pregnant and listening to “Baby…”,  of the first time I saw Chiodos with Christina at Taste of Chaos, of Chiodos asking Chooch to be their mascot in Columbus. Warped Tour. Mr. Small’s. The Basement. Club Zoo. So many memories they’ve turkey-basted into my heart over these last short six years.

I didn’t want Brandon singing those songs. I didn’t want to hear him sing the words on my arm, words that aren’t his.

It was like walking in on your mom having sex with her ceramics instructor. You can’t undo it, you can’t unsee it, you can’t unHEAR it, and you know nothing will ever be the same again. But you’re torn, because part of you likes the ceramic instructor. She helped you make that shitty jack o’lantern when you were in fifth grade, after all.

Shitty jack o’lantern be damned, it filled me with aggression, this intense desire to start a fight. I set my sights on the fat screamer from the shitty local band that opened the show, but Henry kept giving me chastising head shakes.

“But I hate that fucker!” I yelled.

“Stop,” Henry kept calmly saying, until eventually, I did. Mostly because I was afraid he wouldn’t buy me a hoodie after the show if I kept acting out. And also because that screamer-fuck could have potentially killed me with one swift plow-drive.

I’ll be fair, Brandon did kill it up there with Chiodos. He’s got a fierce, solid voice and was just on. I’ll continue to support them, I still love every track on Illuminaudio, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to feel like a cavity being drilled every time he sings one of Craig’s songs.

It was pouring down rain when we left the Rex that night, and I inadvertently stepped in a shin-deep puddle, which seemed eerily apropos.

***

For the next week and a half, I experienced a post-show depression worse even than what past Warped Tours have inflicted upon me. I felt somewhat traumatized, like an orphan being taunted with the promise of adoption only to have her face coated with laugh-induced spittle. “We shouldn’t have gone,” I said over and over to Henry. “We just shouldn’t have gone at all.” I moped around listlessly for days, sliming everything I touched with my malaise.

I’ve had since September 24th, 2009 to prepare myself for this. But I guess it wasn’t enough time.

There was a drowning today in the sea monkey tank. We tried to stop it, I swear.

Pre-infant suicide, I caught one of the sea monkeys writhing around on the hood of one of the pink cars, like it was caught in some sort of Whitesnake video.

The other sea monkeys didn’t seem very impressed at its poor Tawny Kittaen impression.

I was embarrassed for it.

I realized on Sunday that I miss football season. It kept all the idiots inside on Sundays and let me enjoy life without the promise of asphyxiating on humanity. And apparently, the skating rink is where all the people want to be when suffering football withdrawal, because that fucking rink has been packed tighter than Clay Aiken’s asshole for the last few weeks. In fact, the one week we went, the parking lot alone was so crowded that we promptly left and went bowling instead.

This past Sunday, we decided to grin and bear it. I knew as soon as we walked in that it was going to be bad news; maybe it was the immediate and shrill cacophony of dolphins on a sugar rush which tipped me off to that.

There were kids everywhere, and they were fucking HYPER, like eight orphanages had planned a field trip on the same day and then set off porridge bombs and false hope of adoption. Totally unacceptable. There was almost nowhere to sit, and some kids were sprawled out in the middle of the walkway like they fucking own the joint, which made me tremble with territoriality.

And of course, they all came paired with douchey parents. Before my skates were even laced, I had already made twenty-three enemies, unbeknownst to any of them. No, you are NOT excused, you mom-jeaned tart.

I made it around the prepubescent slalom course six times at best before slowing to a stop next to Henry (who was patiently pulling Chooch along near the wall) and saying, loud enough for all to hear, “I’m done! There are way too many kids here. THEY ARE RUINING IT. KIDS RUIN EVERYTHING. FUCK!” Henry just looked at me patiently, waiting for me to put a cork in my effervescing rant bottle. I expected him to concur, to say something like, “Yeah, fuck these bitch ass kids. Let’s string ’em up in the corn field and let the Lord take over!” But there was no massaging of my neuroses, so I skated off the rink in a huff, staked out an empty spot on the bench to squeeze my fat ass into, and proceeded to vent to all of my imaginary friends on Twitter. I did a lot of angry exhaling too, because I needed everyone around me to know that I was extremely disgusted by their infiltration of my roller rink, which I purchased 49 years ago in a secret sale before I was even born, that is how awesome I am.

At one point, I happened to look up just as Henry and Chooch idled on the rink across from where I sat. Chooch pointed at me and laughed while Henry pantomimed a crying fit.

Fuckers.

In the middle of my stew session, Roller DJ (who actually gave us a super warm welcome since he hadn’t seen us in like three weeks so that in and of itself made me feel like I belonged there more than any of these other motherfuckers) announced in his signature lackadaisical drawl that it was time for Couple Skate. Sometimes, Kim and Chris will chill out off-rink with Chooch so I can chase Henry down and skate-rape him, but they weren’t there this particular afternoon because Kim hasn’t been feeling well. (And let me add that it sucked not having a partner with whom to plow into small children). So, I stayed on the bench and played into the role of downtrodden single hag while Henry and Chooch couple-skated. And of course, this would be the one time Roller DJ actually played a song worth couple skating to.

Paula Abdul’s classic sex jam, “Rush Rush.”

MOTHER FUCK.

So instead of fake-holding Henry’s hand while telling him about all the boys this song made me want to make out with in middle school, I sat unloved and alone on the bench, witnessing a verbally violent domestic quarrel between the human versions of the Gorgs on Fraggle Rock who were seated across from me.

King was very upset and bellowed loudly, “WHY DON’T WE JUST FUCKING LEAVE THEN?” while Queen sat there acting all Appalachian and shouting back at him to shut up and leave then. I tried to piece it together, maybe he caught her in the back alley fucking a chicken leg, and goddammit this is the LAST time she’s gon’ fuck some greasy chicken leg behind HIS back, so good luck finding another man with a gas station attendant job as good as his who can also fill the role of dead beat dad as adequately as he did.

But no, it was because he done got himself the wrong size roller blades.

“YOU AIN’T LEAVIN’ ME HERE ALONE WITH THESE TWO,” Queen hollared back at him while giving the two youngest ragamuffin spawn a neglectful flick of her thick wrist. “WHY DONTCHU JUS’ GET A NEW SIZE?”

I didn’t even try to pretend that I wasn’t watching. How ya’ll gon’ argue while “Rush Rush” is playing, anyway?

In the end, he ended up getting a new pair of roller blades and I can only hope they went home later and fornicated on top of a week-old pizza box while Jeff Foxworthy did some stand up on the tellyvision behind them.

Realizing sitting it out was more detrimental to my nerves than actually fighting the masses on the rink, I decided to give it another go-around. My patience hadn’t improved much during my short hiatus and I found myself flat-out yelling at children because fucking RINK REF wasn’t doing his job. What a motherfucking waste of a striped shirt and whistle. Then a parapet of inexperienced wheeled grade schoolers forced me into the wall and your fucking mother could have easily steamed some goddamn succotash on my face after that. I resumed skating with locked-arms and hands balled into fists.

When 18+ skate was announced, I legit cheered. Loudly. There was a vigorous Roof Raise connected to it. However, it didn’t take long to figure out that even 18+ skate was going to be a bust. The rink was full of honky doofs that day. I watched some older man attempt to do a split in the middle of the rink, only to fall on his broad cracker ass. Bring back the black people!

We left shortly after an hour and a half, and Henry had to buy me a shamrock shake to cheer me up.

The ratings company sent some awesome swag in the mail yesterday: A whole booklet of decals. Because slapping a picture of the American flag on my personal meter will make it way less embarrassing to carry on my person!

I chose this one though:

“Too bad there isn’t one with the Steelers logo,” she said around chunky bites of sarcasm.

That might even be my next tattoo, right smack on my left jug. Obviously I’d have “Mom” added to the banner.

Or “Nascar.”

The next show I go to, I’m going to have the band sign my meter, OMG.

Additionally, the ratings company was so kind to send a catalogue of “fashionable” meter accessories, such as an elegant pleather holster and my personal favorite, the meter sock:

There’s even an accessory to turn the device into a NECKLACE, which I was just thinking the other day would be the next logical move from shamefully stuffing it in my pocket.

I was so excited to show off my newly haute couture’d meter to everyone at work last night.

And by everyone, I mean the two people who have been mocking me ever since I was dumb enough to tell them about it.

I was contacted through the mail last year by some ratings company asking me to fill out a short survey. Included in the envelope was a dollar, and apparently that’s enough to buy me off because I filled it out with zeal and sent it back the same day.

A week later, they sent me a thank you letter and a ten dollar bill. Now I can feed my child! I thought happily, hugging the crisp bill to my chest.

This happened again a few weeks ago, except instead of a survey to send back, it was conducted via phone. It only took about five minutes, and they sent me another ten dollar bill for my time.

Two weeks ago, another letter came from them but there was no money in it so I didn’t read it. However, Henry did and he informed me that I was selected to go to the next level in the world of media ratings. There was a pamphlet inside, explaining that there would be small cash awards at the end of each month, with a $50 bonus at the end of 90 months. Also, every weekend, I’d be entered in their sweepstakes. Henry only cared about this because in the literature it said that any household member ages 6 and up could participate and he was dying to be part of something great, I guess. He’s always trying so hard to keep up with me.

So he kept hounding me to call them and opt in for the both of us.

Now we have to wear these fucking pager-things on our person at all times, except while we’re sleeping. It picks up TV and radio signals (and probably bowel movements, too) and the longer we wear them, the more points we rack up which will determine if we’re eligible to be entered in the sweepstakes at the end of each week. The lady I spoke with asked what names I wanted on the devices, and it took every last ounce of my maturity to say “Henry” and not “Lola Sausagesucker” or “Peddy Filer.” He really owes me for that. It was a pretty big deal.

“We should just watch porn for two years straight. Really fuck with them,” I suggested to Henry, who gave me no argument on that one.

Henry and I rack up points while the device is off the charger. Of course this means I’m in heated competition with Henry. The problem is that he gets up for work around 3:30am so he clearly is wearing his device way longer than me, and the points reflect this. I’m really stressing myself out over it. I even goes as far as to throw myself at him in an intimate embrace, distracting him long enough for my hand to slip down to his pocket and unclip his device.

The other morning, I even forced myself to get up at the same time as him so I could take my own device off the charger and go back to bed with it.

AND HE STILL ACCUMULATED MORE POINTS THAN ME.

I only wore it to work once, on that first day. (It came with another $10, holla! Henry got $10 too though so now he thinks he’s a part of the club or something.) I felt so conspicuous though, like a drug dealer from the ’90s, so I eventually took it off and clipped it the side of my purse. Two days ago, I forgot to take it off when I got there and still had it clipped to my waistband, which made my shirt jut out as though I was pregnant with a pack of cigarettes. Keepin’ it classy as always. I caught it within my first hour at work, at least, and tossed it into my purse while muttering.

Meanwhile, Henry wears his with pride, like he WANTS people to notice it and think he’s an outdated weed-slinger. And he still has so many more points than me! I can’t stand it! It’s literally all I think about. I even cried about it the other day and screamed, “I QUIT!” which made Henry laugh and tell me I was sad. It’s easy to laugh when you’re WINNING.

“God help me if I ever win one of the sweepstakes,” Henry nervously laughed. “You’d probably kill me.”

Competition is pretty much what I excel at in life. I have little other talent.

I’m going to start wearing this thing on my person again and telling people it’s my organ transplant pager.

Get some sympathy out of this gig, you know?

[This little guy was just adopted last weekend, so I thought I’d post his story as a going-away tribute thingie.]

It wasn’t so bad at the orphanage after Sister Nutbuster’s interest in birds piqued upon receiving a sign from God. She had always paused to admire squawking woodcocks and bobbing robins, even as a small leg-braced girl, but now that she knew their feathers were saturated with the holy spirit, she spent hours at a time in the courtyard foraging for loose plumage to rub over her pious undercarriage.

This meant less time for Sister Nutbuster to crack the grubby orphans on their ruddy bottoms for sneezing, missing a bead on the rosary, and communicating with Satan through cracks in the bathroom tile.

Eventually, avian mania reached its apex when God told Sister Nutbuster to steal the money from the chicken pox vaccination fund and build a lavish aviary, one with gilded gazebos and fountains bloated with holy water and fenced with statues of big-titted Greek broads.

Trayvon, a ten-year-old orphan whose broom closet bedroom was stationed next to the aviary, really reaped the rewards from Sister Nutbuster’s obsession.

At first, the incessant chirping made it hard to sleep; but after a few days, the birds began telling him important facts like how to build a bomb using pulpit dust and communion wafers, and cooed lullabies to him every night in the style of Gwar.

For the first time since he was dumped on the front steps of the orphanage, Trayvon felt content, like he finally had a family.

A few weeks later, Trayvon expired from bird flu.

It was around 2:00AM by the time we finished with the last EVP sessions. George wanted everyone to split up for one more round; Kim and I found ourselves back with Jimmy Wenger. I don’t know why, call it a cop-out, but I was adamant on making the gym our last destination. It was the only room where I didn’t feel scared and after our adventures with George, I was kind of looking to end the night on a note that didn’t include phantom faces leering through windows, mischievous laughter and inexplicable piano plunking.

But as we all crowded outside the door of Base, gathering our bearings and adjusting our headlamps, Kim suggested we ride the coattails of Christine and Tiny, who were about to ascend the staircase to the second floor classrooms. Her reasoning was that they had been having shit happen to them all night, so maybe we would reap the rewards of being in their presence. This was exactly why I didn’t want to go with them! Which is pointless, considering I was there that night to have an experience. My inner chicken-shit was not on board with this at all, but Jimmy agreed to join them so there I was, being dragged along like I was on my way to get a root canal.

“Get fucked,” I whispered to the Shadowman Room and his equally-eerie neighbor across the hall. I was relieved when Christine and Tiny kept walking to the other end of the hall. We would be starting out in the Little Girl’s room again.

The vibe was immediately different, being with these two. They both made themselves comfortable, each choosing a desk to sit in while getting acclimated with their surroundings, while I continued on with my now-signature EVP stance –  up against a wall with a rigid spine, nervously suckling a strand of hair.

Right away, Christine asked us to kill our headlamps, preferring to work in a pitch black environment. It was so dark that I could no longer even make out the nebulous mist of my breath. Almost immediately, my ears began to pick up the slack for the paycheck my eyes no longer had to earn, and my head was beginning to fill with ringing and static noise.

The EVP session started; Christine and Tiny had a more relaxed, conversational way of communicating with the dead. Their questions piggy-backed each other and didn’t come off sounding disjointed like when I chimed in. They had environmentally-centric queries, such as, “Were you a student here? Who was your favorite teacher? Were you a teacher? Can you write your name on the board for us?” They weren’t  shy about asking the spirits to do things for us, such as completing the series of knocks that Tiny made on the desk in which he sat.

Nothing happened.

He rapped his knuckles on the desk a second time, and both he and Christine asked, “Did you hear that?” Jimmy, Kim and I did not. But those two evidently heard  answering knocks coming from the coat rack behind me. I took several giant steps into the center of the room.

“Thank you,” Tiny called out to whomever (whatever) had supposedly completed his parlor trick.

“I didn’t hear anything, did you?” Kim whispered to me. She sounded annoyed, and I didn’t blame her. Not being able to pick up on everything was frustrating.

“We’re going to the next room now,” Christine called out, and at first I thought she was talking to the rest of us and was immediately irritated by her patronizing tone. “You can follow us if you want, we’d like to talk to you some more,” she added, and I realized she was still talking to some dead person. The thought of some evil school kid drifting around the school with us made me  feel weary and about 10 degrees colder.

The room across the hall was the computer room. “This is where I heard the piano!” I excitedly reminded Christine and Tiny, neither of whom responded. Being the jejune newbie was really hindering my credibility.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the empty floor, Christine once again asked for all lights to be turned off.  Jimmy would light up the room with an occasional camera flash, and Kim was talking in loud whispers; Christine’s bristling irritation was nearly palpable. No one had ever set any ground rules but it was clear that Christine had her own firmly planted preferences and Kim wasn’t having it.

“I’m going to the gym,” Kim said, standing in front of me. “Do you want to come?”

I did. But at the same time, I kind of wanted to see what was going to happen with Christine’s game of Duck Duck Goose. So I stayed. Jimmy tried to get Kim to stay too, by reminding her that we weren’t supposed to go off on our own, but she said, “I’m not scared!” and pretty soon she was far enough down the hall that I could no longer hear the swishing of her snow pants.

I peed in my pants a little on her behalf.

Meanwhile, Christine was still trying to lure a ghost into playing Duck Duck Goose with her. I was standing there, knees knocking together, listening to her do that while Tiny tried to tempt a ghost to have its picture taken, and my mind was ready to explode.

I was standing in the dark.

With perfect strangers.

In a haunted school that felt like a freezer.

My nose was so cold, a stream of snot could have been bubbling out of it and I wouldn’t have known.

My fear of the dark had taken on tangible fists and was pummeling away at my psyche.

It only got worse a few minutes later when we heard Kim and her snow pants sloshing back down the hall, and Jimmy poked his head out of the door to talk to her. They exchanged muffled words and the next thing I knew, Jimmy had joined her, closing the door behind him, shutting me in a room with my crippling paranoia and two people who were oblivious to my presence.

“Is everyone gone now?” I heard Christine ask Tiny.

“No,” I stammered. “I’m still here. Me, Erin.” I wondered if they were disappointed that they were still going to have to drag around my dead weight.

Tiny heard something from the back of the room, a voice? I don’t know, no one ever really told me. So what did Christine do? SHE FUCKING SCOOTED CLOSER TO THE BACK OF THE ROOM. I’m standing there, ripping my nails nearly all the way off their beds, hand reaching for the doorknob, ready to bolt, and this broad is moving closer to the source of the noise.

“Come on, come play with me!” she kept taunting in a sing-song voice. Are you fucking kidding me? I tried to imagine being a ghost and watching this play out. I imagine it would be hard not to say, “Yeah, I’ll play with you. Duck, duck, duck, duck GOOSE, bitch!” as I slam her on the head with a sledgehammer. But that’s just me. I have a feeling I might make an angry ghost.

You might be shocked to find out, but no one took her up on her Duck Duck Goose offer. Maybe because that game is fucking lame? Just a thought.

During the EVP prepping back at Base, George told us to make sure we verbalize for the tape recorder if we accidentally make a noise, such as coughing, bumping something, stepping on something. Even if our stomachs growled, we were told to state for the recording that it was indeed our stomach growling.

I had to do this at least 12 times. It was a little embarrassing.

“That was just my stomach again. Sorry guys,” I said sheepishly for the eight time, prompting Christine to assure me that she used to have that same problem but had since learned to fill up before embarking on a ghost hunt. I ate a sandwich before I left home, and it was pretty amazing that I was even able to get that down my gullet, what with the waves of emotion my nerves had crashing against my stomach lining. Jimmy Wenger’s glazed donut and a few handful of barbeque chips were the only vegetarian options down in Base, and I had ravished some of those in the beginning of the night, but as the groups got smaller and the rooms grew blacker, food was pretty much the last thing on my mind.

Apparently my stomach thought otherwise.

“OK, we’re going to be leaving this room now. Do you want to come with us? Show us around some more?” she suggested.

(Oh god, please don’t.)

With my arms wrapping myself into a big, walking hug, I followed them reluctantly to a classroom in the middle of the hall.

The door wouldn’t open.

“It feels like it’s being pulled back from the inside,” Christine said to Tiny, who took the knob and tried for himself.

“It’s not catching on anything,” he pointed out, and meanwhile, I’m inching back. I don’t know about you guys, but that seemed like a pretty good GET THE FUCK OUT warning to me.

The door was eventually wrenched open and the two ghost soldiers marched right over the threshold while I opted for a more timid, dainty tiptoe.

There was a toy truck on the floor; small and wooden. Christine sat down in front of it and launched her pleas for play while Tiny chose to squeeze his decidedly non-tiny body behind a desk.

Me? Oh I just stood near the door as usual.

I was colder than ever in this room. Maybe because it was nearly 3AM by now? Maybe that room had some broken windows? Maybe my own cowardice was causing my blood to coalesce into icicles? I really didn’t want to consider that it was because I had spirits swirling around my torso, blowing on my hair, looking for an opening to enter me and fuck my world up.

And the next thing I know, I’m hearing Christine say, “Erin has a kid. I bet she would like to play with this truck with you.”

There was an awkward silence, which I chose to fill with the even more awkward addition of, “Yeah, I have a four-year-old. We play trucks all the time.” (THIS IS A LIE. We do not play trucks. We do, however, play Zombies out in the front yard, but hello, I’m not suggesting THAT game to a fucking ghost kid.)

I stood there, squinting through the darkness at this stupid toy truck which just sat there, immobile. An overwhelming sense of pity (for myself) washed over me. I wanted very badly to open that door and leave. I was cold, the coldest I had been all night, and it was painfully uncomfortable. My toes burned in those goddamned uninsulated galoshes, my lower back ached from standing erect with trepidation for the last five hours. I couldn’t stop thinking about the comfort and safety of my home, my home that had heat and electricity and (hopefully) no spirits waiting inside cubbies to jack my world up. I don’t know if it was exhaustion, my sense of sight being stolen from me, or if there was honestly something inhuman in that room, but I felt awful. Just completely horrible, uncomfortable, completely oppressed, like the atmosphere of this particular room was heavy enough to crush my chest. I sensed things all around me; whether there was really something haunting that classroom or not, I’m not the one to verify that. I was honestly seeing shit though–wispy shadows? I’m not sure what it was. It could have been my eyes struggling to adjust to their new unlit surroundings, maybe overcompensating by creating images that weren’t really there? I don’t know, but I was fucking frightened. I felt unsafe and I wished Henry was there with me, so you know something inside my brain was awry.

You know in The Blair Witch Project, they start out all happy-go-lucky? Full of jokes and excitement? And then as their time in the woods lengthens, and shit starts happening, they sort of just break? Get all whimpery and paranoid? Oh, could I relate. Turning off the lights and hearing these phantom noises had me on the Autobahn to a psychological snap. My eyes started to well and I panicked because I didn’t want my tears to cause my contacts to freeze. I already couldn’t see!

But I stayed in that room. Mostly because I didn’t want these hardcore ghost chasers to think I was some spineless weakling (even though that’s exactly what I am).

Tiny launched into his knocking experiment again, and this time I fucking heard it. The answering knocks, more like taps, came directly from my left, where a metal cabinet sat in the corner.

“Thank you,” Tiny called out. I was glad that he brought his manners to the ghost conference.

“Is there something you want out of that cabinet?” Christine probed. “Do you want Erin to open it for you?”

DO NOT BRING ERIN INTO THIS. I backed away with such zest that I nearly lost my balance.

Meanwhile, Tiny had picked up some sort of scent, so Christine and I joined him in the middle of the room.

They both decided it smelled like burning wood, but all I could glean from the air was the stench of industrial cleansers.

It seemed like hours had passed since Jimmy and Kim had left, hours since we all left Base in one group. I wasn’t sure how much I could handle. Actually, I was sure, and it was this: not even one more second in another darkened room. So as we left the room, shutting the door behind us, I cleared my throat and asked, “Is it OK if I go back down to Base?” Once they made sure I knew how to get back (it literally involved walking down one flight of steps; even someone as directionally incompetent as myself would have a hard time getting lost), I left them behind as I did a ridiculous shuffle-run down the hall, past the Shadowman Room (I refused to look at the door), down the short flight of steps and then ripped open the door to Base.

Brittany and Lynnette, who had opted to stay back for that round, looked up in alarm.

“I COULDN’T DO IT ANYMORE I WAS TOO SCARED OMG AREN’T YOU GUYS SCARED?” I squealed, planting myself in a chair under the kerosene lamp. They didn’t seem very scared, and said that they hadn’t seen anything on the monitor either.

I wasn’t back for more than a few minutes before the other groups returned. Christine and Tiny were the last to come back, staying upstairs for a good fifteen minutes longer.

Lynnette and Brittany mentioned to the group that they would be leaving soon. I looked at my phone and saw that it was nearly 3AM. I grabbed onto their coattails and said that I would be bowing out as well. George said all that was left was a walk around the premises and the playground, and one last free-for-all around the inside of the school. I already made it way longer than Henry’s guesstimation and if we’re being honest, I wasn’t sure that on a purely emotional level, I could handle much more.

So I was firm in my decision to leave.

But first, I was entertained by Chris and Kim bickering over who is the biggest skeptic (they are constantly making me laugh!) and then, at George’s insistence, we all posed for a group photo.

l. to r.: Joel, Nick, Lynette, Tiny, Chris, Christine, me, Brittany, Jimmy, George

Kim is worse than me when it comes to pictures (and unrightfully so!) and purposely used Christine’s head to shield her face. I still don’t know who was giving me bunny ears–Kim or Jimmy. Jerks, both of them!

It was a good group of people and I was happy to meet them all. I hope that they didn’t think I was an idiot or too wussy to be a part of their group, though. I did take it seriously, even if it might have been difficult to see that through my veil of fear.

By 3AM, I was on my way home with the heat blasting, after having Kim and Chris walk me up the snowy lane to my car. (I half-expected it to not be there.) I called Henry and woke him up, making him talk to me while I drove the mostly desolate streets, too afraid to be alone in the car.  He didn’t seem very interested in any of my experiences, only that I had left his flashlight at the site.

“Don’t worry!” I begged. “Kim and Chris are still there! They’ll get it for you!”

Then he laid in bed and smirked while I spastically told him more of the night’s details. He of course had an explanation for everything.

***

The next afternoon, we were on our way to the roller rink and I had to endure Henry’s endless castigation on the subject of Flashlight.

“That goddamn flashlight could be in the same place for YEARS, and the moment the lights go out, it’s gone,” he fumed. “Everything was fine until my kids and YOU entered the picture,” he added, casting an accusatory glance upon my soul.

It’s just a flashlight.

“And of course you’d leave it there!” he continued, flashlight maniac that he is. “I never should have expected anything else from you!”

But Kim and Chris met us at the rink, and Henry was reunited with his precious fucking flashlight. Never mind the fact that his girlfriend had spent the entire night risking her life inside of a HAUNTED SCHOOL.  Let’s ignore that and have a fucking Welcome Home party for a goddamn battery-operated torch.

***

After rehashing the events over and over again since that  night, I believe that I was offered enough proof at Broughton Elementary to believe that there is definitely some shit out there. Just writing these recaps, in an empty house in broad daylight, has been enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck and fill me with that dreaded sensation of being watched. I’ve screamed outright on several occasions while lost in typing-mode, always because of something stupid – a beeping car, my phone ringing, one of the cats slowly pushing open the basement door. I’m worried of the impact this might have on my cemetery walks, if I’ll be too sufficiently freaked out to go there on my own now. I hope not.

Would I do it again? I think I would. Only, with my own flashlight.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Video] [Part 3] [Video]

Kim and I wound up with George for the second round of EVPs.

“Great, this is like being with the boss,” Kim complained in my ear, trouble-maker that she is.  I was nervous because I could only imagine how potentially intense it would be, standing next to an expert like George while he conducted his EVP session. I had an image of him standing in the middle of the room with his arms spread open like Jesus Christ, summoning the spirits out from the floor boards, naturally ending with one of them using his insides like a Holiday Inn and spitting their disembodied voice out through his mouth.

I really hoped that wasn’t going to happen.

Chris, who was still reeling from being rejected for Jimmy Wenger, purposely ditched us in favor of Christine and Joel. When I found out they were going to the boiler room, I was suddenly pretty happy to be going to the second floor classrooms with George. Tiny and Jimmy stayed back in Base for this round. I believe Nick, Brittany and Lynnette went to the gym.

We started out at the far end of the hall, in a classroom to the left of the staircase leading to the gym. This was the room everyone in the know kept calling the Little Girl’s Room, but I was too scared to ask why.

“Do you smell that?” George asked when we crossed the threshold. I smelled nothing more than the musty scent of a rotting school and a bouquet of my own fear and anxiety. But Kim said she smelled something, like lavender or lilac, and George seemed pleased with her answer. Apparently, he and Tiny had been detecting wafts of old perfume in one spot of that room all day.

I pulled in a deep drag of stale air through my nose and wasn’t rewarded with anything other than the need to sneeze.

In that room, I saw the name of one of Blake’s friends written on the chalkboard, verifying that the Blake-centric graffiti I had seen earlier  definitely belonged to Henry’s son. I momentarily felt a little relieved at the notion of Blake being there and making it out of the school alive. Maybe I would, too.

We lined up in front of the row of windows, which now seems like a dumb idea—I could have been grabbed and pulled through!—and began recording our session. My brief sense of relief dissipated.

Spewing out questions to a roomful of nothing is about as awkward and idiotic as it sounds. I realize this. But every time George would open up the floor to me, my pulse would quicken and I would get a terrible sensation of stage fright. I didn’t want any spirit motherfuckers making fun of me, you know? But my questions were so lame. “Hi, how are you?” [Dead.] “What’s your name?” [Your mother.] “Friend me on Facebook?” [Decline.] Presumably speaking with the dead in an abandoned school at 1:00 in the morning is pretty terrifying.

The whole point of recording EVPs is not that we expect to hear a spirit answer us right then and there, but hopefully something will be able to be detected on the recording later. I hoped that whomever I was communicating with didn’t turn out to be some asshole.

Suddenly, something echoed down the hall.

George and Kim thought it sounded like a cough. I was certain it was a laugh. No one else was assigned the upstairs classrooms with us, but George made a note to ask the others later if any of them had coughed. (Or laughed, goddammit! It was fucking laughter!) We heard it a second time before crossing the hallway to the computer room to fire off another round of questions.

“Does anyone hear that?” George asked. I was already standing stalk-still, which had become my signature ghost-hunting stance, but George asking that made me clench and tense up even more, all of my muscles ensconced in imaginary braces.

Kim and I shook our heads. All I heard was my heavy breathing and the rustling of fabric as I shoved my hands deeper inside the pockets of Henry’s Faygo jacket, searching for warmth.

“Here,” George said, removing his headphones. “Put these on.” They were attached to some sort of parabolic amplifier, which George held in his hand.

Headphones clamped against my frozen ears, I strained to hear something, anything, but all I could pick out was the sound of dirt and broken glass crunching under my feet as I shifted my weight to curb the pee sensations that this creepy moment was stirring up inside me.

I frowned, was shaking my head and lifting my hand to remove the headphones, when I heard it.

“Wait,” I whispered, pressing the headphones harder against my ears. It was coming from the right side, it seemed. A high-pitched, but extremely faint sound, like a child singing a word, a falsetto “ahhhh.” I heard it two more times before removing the headset and passing it over to Kim.

“You heard it too?” George whispered excitedly. “The piano?”

“I thought it was a voice,” I started, explaining to him what it sounded like to me. But then I considered this piano theory, and realized that it could have definitely been the sound of a lone key plunking in very slow, random succession. The more I thought about it, the more it sounded like a piano. I remembered what had happened to George’s girlfriend, when she had heard the piano playing so loud in her head that she had to leave the school.

“There’s no piano in this building,” George pointed out, and I was really ready to leave that room.

Kim didn’t hear it and was pretty pissed about that, but I reminded her that she smelled the perfume and I didn’t. My hearing is way more sensitive than my sense of smell. I’m usually the last one to notice if someone in the room farted. But my hearing is so tweaked that it drives Henry nuts. I can detect the most faintest of bass lines coming from my neighbor’s side of the house and I will go on a rampage because other people’s bass goes right through me. Hate it! Can’t stand it! Love it at a concert, though. And in songs, I will pick out the most random sounds that most people might not even notice, and force Henry to listen over and over to my “favorite” part. Half the time, he has no idea what he’s listening for in the split-second sample I’ve given him. Then there are times when we’re on the couch watching TV, and I’ll point to the ceiling and say, “Ooh, my jam’s on!” and Henry’s like, “How the fuck can you hear the bedroom radio?”

Even so, it took me needing headphones and a parabolic amplifier to hear that piano note.

I remembered this one afternoon last year when I was over Alisha’s with our friend Evonne, attempting to use the Psychic Circle (similar to the Ouija board, but used for good, positive spiritual contact). Alisha and Evonne had many experiences with the Psychic Circle, but with me there that day, nothing was happening. “Are you nervous, Erin?” Evonne asked. I showed her that my hand was shaking a little bit, and she said that it was possible my anxiety was affecting the Circle, and that we would have to try it another time.

I wondered if my fear and nervousness was closing me off to bigger experiences in the school. I tried to calm down, which was futile. You try getting your knees to stop knocking when you’re standing in a dark classroom, trying to get a ghost to tell you their favorite color.

There were several classrooms on the second room that George pointedly skipped. He seemed to know which ones held hot spots and didn’t waste any time on the rest. “This is the Shadowman Room,” George said, leading us into the classroom at the far end of the hall, above Base. This was the part of the hall where we heard the laughter. (Not coughing!)

I asked why it was called the Shadowman Room, and immediately regretted not waiting until later, when we weren’t standing in the middle of it.

“Because we keep seeing a large shadow drifting in and out of this room,” George answered nonchalantly, like it was no big thing. (My fucking phone just rang and I had a full-body convulsion; now my cat Don is laughing at me.)

“I feel like it’s way colder in this room. I’m the coldest I’ve been all night,” I shared with George and Kim. The ghosts born from my breath made up for the ghosts that weren’t showing up in my photos.

We heard something in this room. All of us heard it, a sound like movement from the back corner. I took two giant steps to my right, positioning myself for a quick escape. Then, a sound like rustling came from the front of the room, by the door. George’s camera had inexplicably died while we were up there, so he asked me to snap a picture in that general area. I did, but along with all the other photos I took that night, nothing spectacular showed up on it. Just some trash bags and “BLAKE.” And part of George’s parabolic amplifier. (I just like typing that as much as possible because it makes me feel like I’m smart.)

I couldn’t wait to peace out of this room. Standing in there made me feel awful, real uneasy and tense, like anticipating your drunk dad to come home raging from the bar.

The last room we covered with George was the classroom directly across the hall. I wasn’t too happy about this, because where did the Shadowman go when he left his room? PROBABLY STRAIGHT TO THIS ROOM.

“My friend Erin is here with me, and she is really wanting to experience something. Can you show yourself to her?” George called out to the empty room as I sucked in my breath. Don’t go bringing me into this, buddy.

We heard that noise again, the one I swear was mischievous laughter but George and Kim insist was coughing? That noise. Only this time, Kim thought it sounded like a growl. Fucking outstanding!

George asked me if I wanted to say anything. After Kim basically insinuated that the Hounds of Hell had joined us? No, not really.

“I’m afraid of making them mad,” I admitted, biting a hole through my lip.

Hesitating a little, George said, “You won’t make them mad.” OH OK BUT I’VE SEEN AMITYVILLE HORROR! Besides, I’m not so naive that I believe all ghosts are floating around, turning somersaults in the air and falling in love with Christina Ricci.

So I flat out asked, “Are you angry that we’re here?” and was immediately grateful when the windows didn’t blow out and the floor didn’t rumble.

However, it was a little disconcerting when George spoke into the recorder, “Check the tape for face looking in the door at [insert time].”

“You…you saw a face looking in the door?” I asked. Kim didn’t seem fazed by this, but by then, I was standing in half Eagle pose, trying to plug the impending pee that wanted to trickle down my legs.

“Yeah, right through that window,” George answered matter-of-factly, pointing at the door to the classroom.

FUCKING AWESOME.

Satisfied with the session, George deemed it was time to head back to Base. I couldn’t run down those steps fast enough. Those last two rooms left my nerves sizzling and hissing like live wires.

Warming up under the kerosene lamp after Round Two.

Back in Base, Chris, Christine and Joel told us of their activity-laden time in the boiler room. Chris felt something tug at his jacket; Christine felt something press up against her back, as though she were leaning against a wall; and all three of them saw something float past them and drift off up the steps. It was at that point I decided I had developed a life-threatening allergy to the boiler room and ain’t no way, no how, anyone was going to drag my ass down there.

“I heard the piano!” I offered excitedly, but no one really seemed all that impressed.

George walked over and stuck his camera in my face. “Look,” he said, pointing to the symbol on the screen depicting a fully-charged battery. “I knew that battery was fresh, but it just completely died up there in that room.”

Warmth of the kerosene lamp be damned, I felt a chill percolate all the way down to my toes.

[Ed.Note: I honestly cried at one point while writing this. I need to stop doing this when I’m home alone!]