The Gamers

• Blake
• Barb
• Wendy
• Sandy
• Kara and Harland
• Lisa and Matt
• Lauren and Randy
• Gina
• Kim and Chris

Hey, I guess I should write about Game Night while it’s still the same year in which it occurred! Two very important things that I learned this time around are: never throw a party a week before Christmas, and get Chooch a fucking babysitter.

Also, invest in torture devices and cages so that people will be too afraid to say, “No, let’s just play Catchphrase from now until the end of time!” when I suggest a new game. Catchphrase is a great game and it forces people to interact, this is true, but I feel like it must emit some electronic cocaine waves that confuse people into thinking they can’t live without it and that it’ll help them get skinny.

Blake wouldn’t tell me what the letters on his hat meant because I’m too OLD. I was really upset about this. I know what it means now, though. Oh, but I can’t tell you. You’re too old.

Some of my work friends came and I was very happy about this! Although, after the incident with Barb and the Travel Lady, I made it known that I was gunning for her that night. She hadn’t been there ten minutes before I snidely asked, “Hey Barb, what will you do if we’re playing Catchphrase and you get zebra or giraffe? Your head will probably explode!” Because Barb confuses the two, you see! My plan is to compile as much information as possible about her (like the fact that she doesn’t “do” gum) and turn it into some sort of weapon. I’ve already led her into thinking that I write a secret blog solely about her.

Everything was fine in the beginning while Matt played Memory with Chooch, who was annoyed that Harland is still a baby and kept asking Kara, “When is he going to be a KID?”

Kara is usually a Catchphrase Nazi. I’ve seen veins throb on her that I’m not even sure are where they’re supposed to be, that’s how angry she gets. So angry that her anger MOVES VEINS. So everyone should be happy that Harland was there to distract her. She went from being, “OVER MY DEAD BODY YOU’LL GET A POINT, THE ANSWER WAS MAC AND CHEESE AND YOU SAID MAC N CHEESE, MOTHERFUCKER!” to “Oh who cares, just give Team 1 the point. Lady Gaga is close enough to Tammy Faye Bakker.”

In reality, it was less game night, more Foods Made with Cream Cheese Night. Holy shit, there was some good snacks on that table. Kim brought over some chicken salad sandwich croissant thingie that everyone seemed to inhale and Lauren made a popper dip that was so amazing, I was considering eschewing the dipping chips and just dunking a twisty straw right up in there. Wendy and Henry both made cheese balls, Barb brought salsa and cream cheese dip and Henry made some rich and creamy crab dip that grew me a new set of back-boobs, thanks Henry. Lisa had the ingenious notion of pouring a mixture of raspberry preserves and pepper jelly right over a solid block of cream cheese. I was scared of it at first, but damn that was like breaking open a pinata on my tongue. So surprising!

Henry didn’t play a single game because he was too busy strutting around, hoping someone would notice his new look Thrice fan/New England fisherman look.

And then Chooch hijacked Catchphrase. I like how Gina is seriously considering what the answer could be. It had to be either:

• Stupid Daddy
• some Star Wars character
• one of the kids in his class

Because the dynamics of Chooch and me are very akin to those of brother and sister, I was not very pleased about this turn of events and kept pleading with him to go away. Then I would cry, “Henry, he’s ruining game night!” and everyone would said, “No! He’s fine! This is fun! He’s so cute! CHOOCH FOR PRESIDENT! CHOOCH RULES, ERIN DROOLS.”

Lauren and Kim are too cool to play games! But that’s OK, because they brought food. (And it turns out they used to work together!) Plus, Lauren gave me a cigarette, which I smoked with her on my front porch with no jacket on, shivering and hunched over under the weight of guilt, not wanting Henry or Chooch to know that I was out there smoking. Unfortunately, Chooch’s internal buzzer goes off .00005 seconds after the slight detection that I may have left the room, and soon it was all, “MOMMY MOMMY WHAT ARE YOU DOING? MOMMY MOMMY!” and I came back in just in time to see that he had just finished pulling on his socks and shoes to come outside and inspect. Nosy fucker.

Kim, Chris, Lauren, Randy (I was only able to get a picture of his KNEE and I am very sad about this) and Wendy stuck around and we talked about ghosts and ate more cream cheese.

Finally, Chooch was in bed, and it was just me, Henry, Kim and Chris, sitting around and talking.

“Now, was that the same Barb from your blog?” Kim asked, pointing to where Barb had  been sitting on the couch earlier in the night.

After I nodded, she exclaimed with slight incredulity,  “And she still came to game night? I thought you hated her!” It made me wonder if Barb herself found herself unsure of where she stands with me, but I was there when she read that post on my blog, and she was laughing. But just in case, let me go on record saying that Barb is pretty much the best part about my job. She’s the best!

Somehow the subject of Sandy Duncan came up (but really, who doesn’t enjoy a good Hogan’s Family episode every now and then?) and Chris mentioned that there used to be a band called Sandy Duncan’s Glass Eye, which I thought was the coolest thing ever.

“You know she didn’t really have a glass eye, right?” Chris asked.

“SHUT UP!” I yelled, fumbling to bring up wikipedia on my phone and by golly he was right. All these years I thought she had a glass eye. Talk about shattering  my reality.

I was really happy with the crowd that night. There was no drama, no one angrily calling each other fucking retards, no Gay Ryans…I think it may have been the first gathering of socially-capable people I’ve had in my house in years. Well, with the exception of myself of course.

Leaving the cemetery, I began to feel anxious, which is not an emotion that should be prevalent on Christmas day.

Jessy invited us to spend Christmas at her house, with her family, and that seemed like a fine idea to me, especially considering the fact that my mom had barely even spoken to me since Thanksgiving. But then Corey mentioned that our mom had put up the tree and seemed to be sort of trying to put together some semblance of a decent Christmas for us. I had sworn after this last Thanksgiving that I was tired of watching everyone go through the motions, sitting in my mom’s dining room and barely even conversing on holidays. It’s strained, with my brother Corey and I typically being the only ones talking.

Whatever. Driven by guilt as always,  I adjusted plans because God forbid we should  have the audacity to make plans that don’t involve that stomach-churning cruise down Gillcrest Drive. In my mind, I said that I was doing this for Corey, not my mom.

The plan was to stop at  my dad’s house first. It was around 5:00, and I called him to make sure it was OK, since he was on call for his  job with the gas company  all day.

That was not a very pleasant phone call. He had apparently just gotten called out, in the middle of starting dinner. He sounded harried and put-off by the idea of us stopping over. I promised him that I didn’t want to get in the way, just wanted to give him his gift. That was all. We were only a few minutes away, so he (unconvincingly) acquiesced and I hung up. I had planned on spending about an hour there and then shooting straight to my mom’s, who lives quite honestly about two minutes away. But this threw a wrench in my plans, because my mom wasn’t having dinner until 6. We would either have to drive around, killing time, or pray that she let us come early.

In normal families, this would be a non-issue.

As I dialed her number in the car, my hands shook a little and my stomach clenched. I never know what I’m going to get with her. Especially on holidays.

I tried to sound as pleasant as possible when I asked if we could come over earlier than 6. I heard somewhere that most daughters can just show up at their mothers’ house whenever they want. I wonder what that’s like.

Over the phone, my mom huffed a little. “Like, how early?”

“I don’t know…a half hour?” I cautiously broached.

Lots of irritated sound effects exploded from the other end. Her voice took on that high-pitched, teetering-on-the-edge tone that I grew up with and still makes me want to punch myself in the throat. She started screaming about having to leave the dog outside for even longer in the case of having the nerve to crash her house any earlier than the set time. (She always uses “the dog” as an excuse for everything, like the time I found a painting I made for her one Christmas shoved in the back of a kitchen cabinet, and it was all, “Oh, that’s because THE DOG was trying to eat it.” OH OK.)

“You know what?” I shouted into the phone, cutting off her unwarranted histrionics. “Just fucking forget it. It’s clear we’re not wanted there!

”

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT GOES ON ON MY END!” she screamed like a crazy lady.

A sure sign that she could take her goddamn forced holiday obligations and fuck herself with it. I disconnected the call, refusing to entertain one second more of her guilt-pinning. I sat for a few seconds, holding my breath while tears  stung my eyes, and then gasped to Henry, “NO ONE WANTS US.” That’s one fucking awful feeling, like we’re pestilence-coated vagrants roaming the streets, looking for discarded soup cans to scrape out with our tongues.

Meanwhile, we had just pulled into my dad’s driveway. “You knew what to expect,” Henry said calmly. “You go through this every year. We’ll find something to do.”

“We’re not supposed to go to Jessy’s until 8 now!” I whined. “And it’s only 5!” It would be senseless to go back home, since my dad lived halfway to Jessy’s. I yanked my dad’s growler of vanilla honey apple cider–which, twenty-four hours ago, I was so excited to give him–from the trunk, told Henry and Chooch to stay in the car, and then walked dejectedly inside my dad’s house.

I could tell he was in a shitty mood as he stomped around the house, getting ready to leave for work. “I didn’t even get to start the goddamn turkey!” he spat, shaking his head in disgust. I tentatively handed him his present and said that I’d get out of his hair.

“No, that’s stupid,” he said, losing some of the angst after I told him what my mom had said. “You guys are more than welcome to hang out here, even though I have to work.” My brothers were sitting in silence, watching one of the Bourne movies (Corey said our dad is currently obsessed with the trilogy, but hopefully it’s not as intense as the Great Reinhold Caramel Carabou Ice Cream Infatuation of  1999), so I waved in Henry and Chooch from the car. My dad made Chooch a mug of hot chocolate and then left for work.  We stayed there for about an hour, for most of which Ryan was asleep on the couch, and I at least got to give Corey his presents and fill him on the latest wave of drama.

Sharon called while I was there and I nearly snapped back my thumb with all the aggression I aimed on the decline button. Leave it to my mom to sic her psycho sister on me.

Piggy-backing that call was one from my mom herself. She left a curt voicemail in a wavering, staccato Sally Struthers cadence, saying that I can grab the turkey from Sharon’s on the way down to her house. Just like that, as though the previous phone call hadn’t happened. No apologies, no warmth in her tone. Just a very mechanical, sterile demand left on my voice mail. I relayed the message to Corey and Henry, and, with my heart rate quickening a little, I said, “No. No, I’m not going over there! I’m not going to let her rule me like this!” She thinks she can just flip out of me whenever her stilted reality calls for it, and that I’ll still come back and bow to her, to continue walking on eggshells around on her. And then I thought to myself, “When was the last time she asked me how I was doing? When was the last time she didn’t call to ask  to borrow money or my car or to make the audacious requests that I ask my co-workers for LEGAL ADVICE on her behalf, when she hasn’t even bothered to ask me what I do at my job?” Then I looked at my kid, acting like a complete hellion yet somehow not arousing Ryan from his nap, and I made the firm decision that my mother was not going to have the privilege of seeing my kid on Christmas.

I walked into my dad’s kitchen and called Jessy, who said we were more than welcome to come over early.  Just like that – no groaning and grunting to aurally convey how put-out I was making her; no adopting terse tones to relay how inconvenienced I was making her. Just a short and sweet, “No problem, babes. See you when you get here!”

On the drive there, I asked Henry, “Do you think it’s wrong of me to not go over my mom’s?”

He shook his head without even considering it. Because Henry has been around for nearly a decade of holidays at my family, and a lot of those holidays were quite literally “canceled” by my mother. It was only two years ago that we had Thanksgiving at our own house because my mom wasn’t speaking to me because I had the nerve to tell her to stop texting me racial jokes. And then poor Corey got caught in the crossfire because he was ballsy enough to eat dinner with the blacklisted. I thought back to all the Christmases growing up where I would storm out of my grandparent’s house because someone in my family (back then, usually my dad) was treating me like shit; for the longest time, I associated Christmas with TV dinners and Star Wars marathons, roiling jealousy and slamming doors, a dining room table decorated with snide comments and a cloud of blubbery tension.

“I’m done,” I said to no one in particular.

***

At Jessy’s, the house was full of warmth and loud laughter. Tommy wore the Elmer Fudd-inspired hat we bought him all night long and Jessy practically had Christmas spirit oozing from her pores. It was the most relaxed and happy I had seen her in awhile, and that was enough to alleviate all the stress I had compacted in the last hour. Jessy’s mom and her husband were also there, along with her brother and Pap. They welcomed us with bigger arms than anyone in my own family ever has. And every couple of minutes, Jessy’s mom would turn to me and say, about Chooch, “He is just so damn cute.” I was glad that someone appreciated him.

“Did you guys eat yet?” Jessy asked after everyone exchanged presents (those two spoiled the shit out of ALL of us), and I was already near-attacking her with my hungry “No!” before she even finished asking. She took us into the kitchen and brought out the leftovers for us to make a plate. I didn’t even heat mine up; I just stood there shoveling various types of potatoes into my rumbling belly, pausing only to rip into a biscuit with my gnashing incisors.

“You can sit down, you know,” Tommy said, watching me stand there, feeding from a paper plate like it was my first brain as a zombie.

Corey sent me a text saying that while Ryan obediently showed his face at our mom’s, Corey opted out and stayed at our dad’s, prompting our mom to call him and hysterically accuse of him and him alone of ruining Christmas and that she threw all the food in the trash.

“I’m done,” Corey texted me, having no way of knowing that I verbalized the same sentiment an hour earlier.

She never called me though, not after spewing her detached ambivalence all over my voicemail.

I know, I should cherish these years with my mom. Who knows how much longer either of us will be around, right? I know this. I consider this always. But she makes it so hard to care sometimes, when I am consistently the only one making an effort. I have my own family now, and that’s the one I won’t be taking for granted. The others had their shot. They (mainly my mom and Sharon) have proven time and time again that I am nothing to them unless I have something that they need. Maybe it’s selfish, but I wanted to have a good Christmas, and I know it was the right choice because not once did I get that nagging feeling that we were overstaying our welcome or that Chooch was giving someone a headache or that Henry was in pure taste bud hell having to eat a turkey cooked by Sharon.

Besides, at my mom’s house, no one plays Pass the Buck, but it’s tradition in Jessy’s family and it just so happens that not only was it my first time playing, but I walked away with the pot, motherfuckers! I ran into the living room to tell Jessy, who retreated in there to watch “Despicable Me” with Chooch once she was out.

“I know, babe,” she laughed when I told her I won.

“I heard.”

Maybe I was a little overzealous about it, but I beat her BROTHER and he’s basically a professional, with a string of fingers around his neck taken from all the fuckers who’ve tried to swindle him out of his money in the past. He’s pretty hardcore about it. Don’t play him unless you have regenerating digits.

The night wound down as we lounged around the couch, talking and laughing, watching Chooch get near-mauled by a dog 1/4 of his size. I looked around and thought, “This is where I wanted to be from the get-go.”

I actually almost left my FIVE DOLLARS AND TWENTY FIVE CENT winnings there that night, but Jessy was kind enough to remind me to take it.

“I’m putting it in my savings account,” I said, and everyone laughed. Little did they know I wasn’t kidding! I’m really that much of a hoarder.

It was after midnight by the time we got home, and I was still smiling. I will always remember this as the Christmas where someone else’s family loved me more than my own, and where I learned I like black olives penetrated by a sliver of sharp white cheddar, like a stinky, aged penis.

***

The next day, my dad called to apologize once more for being so abrupt when I stopped by, and to thank me again for the cider. I’m certain I won’t hear from my mom for at least half a year, and it will be me breaking the ice.

It’s whatever.

“It’s nice to know you made a sandwich for you and Chooch, but not me,” Henry said, peeking inside the Iron Man snack pack Chooch uses for school.  Hey, I never promised him a ribbon-topped box of consideration for Christmas. Chooch and I waited impatiently for him to make a sandwich and then we finally set off for our (my) favorite cemetery on the Northside of Pittsburgh.

Henry was worried that our car would get stuck on the unplowed cemetery lanes, which is his way of saying, “I think this is the dumbest tradition ever and sandwiches don’t taste good when eaten while my dick is getting frost-bitten.” I knew that the dead people wouldn’t let ourcar get stuck.

NOT ON CHRISTMAS! Who the fuck else is going to visit these old, forgotten bones?

Chooch loves going to the cemetery on Christmas.

I  mean, I used to always just  assume he did when he was too young to really have a say, but now this brat is so strong-willed that I know he would be all, “Oh hell no!” if he really didn’t want to do something. Because that’s what he says.

“I don’t look pissed off enough,” Chooch said. “Take another.”

A much better depiction of my child

For the forty-five minutes we spent amongst the dead, I was completely at peace and stress-free. But there were family-obligations looming ahead, so I should have known that wouldn’t last long.

I woke up Christmas morning to some Prince video marathon on VH1 Soul. It was Purple Rain-era, so I left it on, because nothing says Christmas morning quite like velvet blazers, jheri curls and lewd guitar stances. Finally, I couldn’t take the anticipation any longer and decided to coax Chooch out of slumber.

“Santa was here!” I yelled, pushing him back and forth on the bed with one impatient arm.

He mumbled some string of slurred profanities at me, shrugged me off and rolled away from me, falling back asleep.

What non-orphaned child doesn’t want to wake up on Christmas morning!? I went back downstairs and watched more Prince videos.  We had moved from “When Doves Cry” to CREAM-era by the time Chooch and Henry finally decided to join me. I was a little annoyed, but determined not to let it ruin the day.

He tore open gift after gift like a forgotten Looney Tunes character, arms blurred and paper shooting out behind him in a discarded pile. He needed no reminding of Christmas morning protocol.

I thought it was really sweet that my far-away friends thought of Chooch and sent him gifts. He got a Thing doll and some Ben 10 comic books from Bill and Jessi, causing him to rejoice in that high-pitched way children are wont to do.

I kept waiting for Henry to emerge from the kitchen with a silver tray stacked with hot cinnamon buns and some mimosas. But I guess he would have had to lift his old man bones up off the couch in order for anything short of cereal-pouring to happen.

Andrea got him a Jason wall grabber, which I can’t wait to use to cover the Sharpie art on his bedroom wall.

And then my Floridian friend Octavia saw this pull-apart zombie doll and thought of Chooch immediately. It arrived a week before Christmas, so we all had to sit around and stare at this odd-shaped package; she wouldn’t even tell me what it was. Torture!

Chooch accidentally opened Marcy’s gift, so I tried to dupe her by sliding Speck’s under her nose. She looked at me like, “You think I was born yesterday? Nice try,” so I had to unwrap it for her. And remember how Henry only bought two packs of cat treats because “Only two of the four cats eat the fucking things!”?

Yeah, good job, Henry. Because we all know how awesome cats are at sharing.

I’m so glad I bought the little fucker a Wii, when a fucking $10 Zombieland DVD elicited the biggest response from him. Seriously, it was like giving a blind bastard back his eyesight, he was so amped.

I had to beg him to put pj bottoms on so he wouldn’t be half-nude in all  the pictures. It nearly started a war, until I desperately yelled, “IT’S SANTA’S RULE, NOT MINE!”

The entire Series #5 of Homies! Next year’s gingercrack house will be even more balls out. We’ll probably have enough left over to make a manger scene, too!

Zombie loot.

Henry knowing his role on Christmas morning. Prince videos in the background.

The most adorable renditions of horror movie stars.

Halloween wristlet from Bill & Jessi; more awesome makeup from Andrea!

After all of our (Henry’s) hardwork was ripped to shreds and left in a wilting, used heap on the floor, Chooch was busying himself with his new Imaginext playsets, the Prince marathon had graduated to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince-era, and Henry and I were relaxing on the couch.

“Isn’t this the cutest thing ever?” I said, holding up Chooch’s new “10 Little Zombies” book.

“No, you are,” Henry said, and it seemed sincere! It totally made up for his failure to buy me a Christmas present.

Almost.

On the night of Christmas Eve, we went to Henry’s sister’s house for some holiday hootenannies. We passed out gifts to all the kids and then Henry’s mom Judy asked, “Where are the spinach pies?”

Henry looked at me like I was going to tug them out of my g-string, but unfortunately I forgot to stuff them in there. It’s tough when my pimp doesn’t remind me to stow sundry down my pants like a human pantry. Besides, spinach pies were Henry’s duty, and he evidently failed. Judy seemed very sad about this.

Toward the end of the night, Henry was in the living room watching the kids play video games, while I sat in the kitchen drinking wine with Judy and Henry’s sister Kelly.

Henry walked through the kitchen at one point to grab some food and I made an off-hand remark about how I’ve been trying to get him to dress a little better, and they both said they had noticed and thought he looked nice. Once he left the room though, the atmosphere got very heavy and Judy leaned in and, with her face drawn into a grave expression, murmured, “You know the reason why my son doesn’t dress nice, right?”

Because he got the domestic piece of the gay gene and not the sense of style slice?, I wanted to say. Instead, I shook my head and said, “No, why?”

“Oh, that girl he dated after the Service!” Judy exclaimed, hand on her chest.

I gave her a blank look.

“You don’t know about that girl he was going with?” she asked, clearly astonished that Henry left that chapter out when divulging his life story to me after a night of cheap drinks and bad karaoke at McCoy’s.

I looked over to Kelly for some help, expecting for her to chime in and say that their mom was losing her mind—which typically is Kelly’s role in these conversations, to say that Mom is batshit crazy—but she too had gone all somber.

“No, I guess I don’t know about her,” I said, wondering what the story was since Henry has told me some Pretty Big Secrets in our time together.

“She was awful!” Kelly spat, looking completely repulsed. “I don’t know what he ever saw in her!”

“He met her at Jack’s, right when he got out of the Service,” Judy regaled. “They were always together, going out drinking. Oh, when he found out she was gay, he didn’t come out of his room for three months.”

RECORD SCRATCH. My ears were practically fluttering off my head, this unbelievably moist wad of gossip sending them into overdrive.

HENRY HAD A GAY GIRLFRIEND? Oh, how rich.

At this point, I was pretty sure Judy was trying not to cry. But the more I let it sink in, the less it seemed like a verified Henry Story to me, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I kept trying to imagine him, fetus-curved on a twin bed in a mostly non-descript bedroom that maybe had one lone Dukes of Hazard poster on a wall, hugging a pillow into his chest and sobbing because some broad left him for the vag, while the whole family convened out in the hall on suicide watch, fruity tones of Air Supply wafting out from under his door like so many homosexual farts. These images didn’t come as easily as maybe you’d like to think. But I really, truly wanted this story to be legit. More than anything, that would have been the best Christmas present ever.

“What are you talking about?” Blake asked, who was sitting with us at the table messing around with his new camera. I didn’t even think he had been listening.

“Nothing!” Judy snapped, waving him off. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I hated her,” Kelly continued in hushed tones, after making certain that Blake wasn’t listening. “Chrissy, I think that was her name.” Henry’s mom nodded in recognition. “Yeah, she was always telling him what to do. What to wear. Where to go. She was so controlling. I was like, ‘Why are you letting this girl control you?’ I couldn’t ever understand it.”

Just as I was thinking this broad sounded an awful lot like me, Henry walked into the kitchen. Judy made lip-zipping gestures and acted all awkward and suspicious. I locked eyes with Henry, smirked, and shook my head.

“What?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.

“Nothing!” his mom shouted. We waited for him to grab another handful of chips and leave.

“Don’t tell him I’m telling you this!” Judy pleaded. “He was so upset when this happened. If he hasn’t told you, it’s probably because it’s too painful for him to talk about.”

Henry texted me just then: “What is my mom telling you?”

I replied: “Oh, we’ll be talking later. I can’t believe you’ve been withholding from me.”

Judy wasn’t done.

“I’ve never seen my son so upset!” she continued, face still pulled taut in that expression of utter seriousness. “They didn’t date for long but she really hurt him. He hasn’t bothered dressing nice since her. I guess she ruined him, I don’t know.” By this point, I was chewing on my inner cheeks, trying not to laugh. I just didn’t buy it. It didn’t seem like something he would purposely omit from his oral history, but you better believe I was thinking of all the ways I could use this to fuck with him.

***

A few minutes later, I was in Kelly’s living room, sitting alone on the couch with Henry.

“So I just heard a terribly devastating story about you,” I baited.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Henry mumbled, not taking his eyes off the Wii game he was playing.

I started to sprinkle out little hints but he honestly kept saying he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“So you mean to tell me you never dated some broad who wound up being gay, plunging you into a downward spiral that left you house-bound for three months?”

“What are you talking about?!” he asked, looking at me for the first time. I filled him in on what his mom and sister told me. They told me not to, but it was too good! I had to chide him, at least a little.

“That girl?! I never dated her! She was just my drinking buddy.” I asked him what her name was, as a test, and he said he couldn’t even remember. I could tell he wasn’t lying.

“Oh, yeah. Chrissy,” he repeated absently after I told him. “Where the hell did my mom get that story from?” he asked mostly to himself.

According to Henry, he used to “loaf” (that’s what old people say instead of “hanging out,” you know) with her and some gay guy named Kenny.

“Oh my god, so you were dating BOTH of them?” I gasped obnoxiously.

“NO! They were just my drinking bud—-SHUT UP!”

The most I could get out of Henry, who is playing the Bad Memory card, is that she was “mannish and had short hair.”

I let it go for awhile, but in the car after we left I filled Blake in and together we rode him like a down-trodden mule all the way home.

“Nothing sexual was going on!” Henry swore.

“Hahaha, Henry said ‘sexual’!” And Blake and I cracked up even harder.

I asked him what ever happened to Chrissy, and all Henry could muster was that he “thinks” she moved to Florida.

“Yeah, you know that because you creep her Facebook profile on the daily,” I needled away.

“I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER HER LAST NAME!” Henry cried, the heat of the situation making him tug at his collar.

***

Today, we were in the car when I noticed that the skin beneath Henry’s bottom lip was bulging, like he was pushing his tongue down in front of his bottom teeth.

“Did you used to dip when you were dating Chrissy?” I asked.

“What? No. Why? AND I NEVER DATED HER!” He quickly tacked on to the sentence.

“Because I’ve never seen you do that with your bottom lip before, thought maybe all this talk of Chrissy was bringing back some old tics.”

“I’m going to kill my mom and sister,” he mumbled.

Maybe they were just that mad over the spinach pies.

Of course we still had shit to buy on Christmas Eve, but luckily we were both off work. (This is almost never the case for Henry.) We hit up Arsenal Cider in Lawrenceville first to grab a growler of vanilla honey cider for my dad. Good thing we got there exactly when they opened, because within five minutes, the small room was quickly filling up with their douchey hipster clientele. Seriously, I find this is the worst thing about the place. But the cider is good enough to keep me coming back.

Afterward, we hit up Salem’s Market in the Strip District to pick up some spinach pies for Henry’s mom and sister.

Chooch thought everything looked disgusting and wasn’t afraid to say it to the faces of the men behind the counter. Meanwhile, I got a lentil soup that was quite delightful.

Outside of Salem’s Market, posing next to a Gorbachev quote.

We came home to a box of presents from our awesome Michigan friends, Bill and Jessi. We stowed them all under the tree, except for the one that said “open fast!” beneath Henry’s name. We tore it open and found a half dozen Faygo cupcakes from Just Baked bakery in Livonia, Michigan. I have now learned what Henry can use in lieu of Viagra, should his future ever call for it. (For those who don’t know, Henry works for a beverage distributor here in Pittsburgh that deals with Faygo. He’s kind of like a God to all of my friends in other states who long for the taste of generic ‘hood-distributed soda but can no longer find it in their local shops. Henry will hook them up every time. Pretty much, it’s all he’s good for.)

This is what ravaged Faygo cupcakes look like.

They were damn good cupcakes. Even after being frozen preventatively by Bill and Jessi and then jostled and man-handled by so many in the shipping industry, they were still world’s better than those crappy abominations that Dozen here in Pittsburgh tries to pass off as cupcakes. These suckers were moist, the frosting was the perfect texture and consistency, and I could totally taste the Faygo. It was remarkable experience for my mouth. Next time we visit Bill and Jessi, I will definitely be stopping at Just Baked.

It was exhausting (watching Henry) wrapping all those presents. We were up most of the night on Christmas Eve getting shit done.

I collapsed on the couch pretty early on.

“What are you doing?!” Henry yelled, breaking a sweat in his attempt to wrap a large open-front trapezoid box.

“Taking a break,” I answered in my teenager-approved “duh” tone.

“After wrapping TWO presents?”

Hey, those cat treats were a bitch to wrap, OK?

Speaking of which, Henry only bought two packs of cat treats when we have FOUR cats!

“Now two of them are going to be left wondering what they did to make Santa diss them,” I whined, considering all the possibilities.

Now they’ll DEFINITELY pillage my body if I die in the house.

“Don and Willie don’t even eat cat treats! They just stare at them!” Henry argued.

Yeah, well guess who the first one was to eat some after I helped Marcy open her present? DON.

And then Marcy was like, “This is some fucked up Christmas bullshit that I have to SHARE my motherfucking holiday cat treats” and Christmas was pretty much ruined after that. What a fucking disaster; thanks a lot Henry.

(My next post will be about my fantastic Christmas Eve and the incredible secret I learned about Henry, straight from his mom’s lips!)

For a self-proclaimed harbinger of social anxiety and awkwardness, I’ve really been enjoying reuniting with old high school friends lately. A few weeks ago, I met my friend Kim at Mad Mex, after having not seen her since 7th grade (she tried to argue that it was 6th but she forgot that she came back to visit in 7th grade after moving to Indiana & we ran into each other at a football game – notably the only football game I have ever attended. Hail hockey!). It was awesome seeing her, and I am still kicking myself for forgetting my camera as it was way too dark in there for an impromptu iPhone photoshoot.

I will always associate Kim with telling me my first dirty joke in elementary school, and I am completely let down that she doesn’t remember listening to the Lolliwinks record in Mrs. Metzger’s music class.

Then last Sunday, after a month of rescheduling, I wrangled my old high school friend Stacey into going out to dinner. I figured, I’m on a roll with these reunions, catching up with Stacey via Facebook has been awesome (I even snagged hockey tickets off her last year & got to see a Sidney Crosby hat trick, holla!), and I’m finding that surrounding myself with people lately has been very prudent for my sanity not taking too many sudden dips.

I arrived at La Hacienda a little early, and hid inside the cold vestibule. Seeing Stacey approaching from the parking lot, I ran outside to meet her and admitted that I was afraid to go inside by myself. I was like this in high school too, so I figured she might be charmed to know that I hadn’t much changed.

She laughed and asked why, but she would soon find out when we both attempted to tell the Spanish-speaking host how many people were in our party and his inability to understand us was projected as utter disgust for stupid white women and I was scared.

It was my fault really. I confused him when I explained that there were two of us right now, but soon we would be three. He probably thought I was trying to fuck with him, like, “Yeah right, honky. What, I need to splash water on you and then your ignorant Americana flesh will sizzle and bear more stupid white women?” He had to call for back-up and some broad finally sat us in a booth, laughed when Stacey tried to order alcohol, and then promptly forgot about us for 35 minutes. That’s OK – we were too busy getting drunk off gossip.

Then Lisa arrived and got to wow Stacey with her complete lack of rememberance for 90% of what went on within our class all throughout high school.

Conversation went like this:

Us: “You know who she is!”

Lisa: “Did she have red hair?”

Us:  “No, blond.”

Lisa: “Oh, was she the one who had the brother who ate gerbils and then got killed by that bearded transient?”

Us: “WHAT HIGH SCHOOL DID YOU GO TO.”

My favorite part was when Stacey asked Lisa why she moved back to Pittsburgh from Colorado and before Lisa could even hug her lips around the first syllable of an answer, I blurted out, “Because she missed me!” and then rested my head on Lisa’s shoulder in the same breath. It was fun watching Lisa try to deny this.

“Remember that video we made in English—-” Stacey started.

“LONGFELLOW!” I finished for her. That video clearly made a lasting impression on me. I told her the other day that I still have a copy on video so she better stay super sweet to me because there’s this thing now called the Internet and I bet our Longfellow video would feel right at home in a cute little sublet on YouTube Boulevard.

Stacey made a comment about how annoying it is when you just get married and people immediately ask, “So when are you going to have a baby?” For some reason, I emphatically said, “Oh my god, I know!” Like I am married and as though anyone in their right mind ever tried to hint around that I should have a baby. Ever.

Then we all had dessert. Stacey had a sopapilla, which that Mexican host probably rubbed on his genitals first. Lisa and I both had flan, which looked nothing like the over-pixelated photo on the dessert menu and had frozen blackberries in lieu of the FRESH assortment of fruits we were promised. However, it was definitely stewing erotically in its own sweet sauce, just as the description warned. I feel bad that Lisa had to get saddled with the “sweet sauce” as well when she had no parts of offending Jorge up there at the host podium.

Overall, it was great food, great company, great gossip, capped off with some sleazily delicious dessert. I hope that Stacey will hang out again!

I’m sitting in a church, waiting for the roof to collapse, and also for Chooch’s fucking class to get their asses out here and sing Jingle Bells so I can peace the fuck out of this God structure.

There are a lot of obnoxious parents here.

One of them is in front of me with her screaming baby and she is seemingly under the impression that he is precious; well, I’m here to tell you that he is not. And Henry is next to me, trying to crack jokes, but my only response is hissing.

His mom is here too. She asked me what I do at my job and I was like, “You wouldnt understand.”

My inner Grinch is suffocating my will to fake smile.

The sole purpose of this post is  just that I wanted to be able to say I blogged from church.

Arguably, 2007 was our best year. Sylvia had thrown herself into the arms of some other butch broad, and I know it made Christina want to eat her arm out of jealousy even though she herself had been trying to date other women (upon my encouragement!), especially when her friend Steve thought he heard Sylvia on the radio, prompting Christina to send me this email:

ok so get this- steve just texted me and said he
thinks he heard sylvia on the radio the other day. i
was like, oh what was she requesting some heartbreak
song or something? and he said that no, he missed the
very first part, but he is pretty sure it was her
voice and that she was saying something about being in

love with a woman, but that she thinks she is PREGNANT
by some guy!  after i told her about my date with that
chick because i was like… i want to not have to lie
to anyone about anything anymore.. she just told me
yesterday that about christmas time, she had sex with
this black dude terrance- it all makes sense.

she just can’t stop making herself look horrible and
like a lying piece of shit. also a whore… and a
slut, and a trashy skank. among other things.

i feel really sorry for that kid if she is.
god knows i’m not gonna play daddy for her…
even IF the kid is gonna be nigbino.

“i want to not have to lie to anyone about anything anymore” – Oh, if you could hear my laughter right now at this moment!

Whether or not that was actually Sylvia on the radio, we never found out (though it’s plausible considering Sylvia’s vagina was an Ohio hot spot; who the hell knows why though), but her preoccupied affections for this new girl was like a motherfucking Cheerios diet for the stress levels and dramatic episodes of our friendship. And since Sylvia was doing the domestic thing elsewhere, Christina was actually able to spend more time in Pittsburgh. She even bought a car so she didn’t have to rely on the Greyhound anymore. The memories we made that year are the only ones I can look back upon without regret or disgust burning a hole through my stomach like so much battery acid.

I didn’t give Christina her Christmas present until the following March, when I visited for a weekend of coconut cream pie milkshakes (for real, this is not some lesbian innuendo) and the Taste of Chaos show in Dayton. I wanted to get her something that had meaning, like the memory box she made me, but also something obnoxious that we could joke about because our friendship had had too many serious moments up to that point. This was the year we would find our roots again and go back to being two grown-up children, causing a commotion in public, being assholes on the Internet, and laughing until we cried.

Liberace Would Have Loved It

March 25, 2007

As she readied herself to go out to dinner before the concert, I thrust it at her, in all of its unwrapped glory.

“Oh cool! A Used necklace!” The Used is her favorite band, so what would make a better present than a large pendant to help proclaim her love for the band without her ever having to open her mouth?

“Aren’t you going to wear it?” I asked, as Christina started to toss it onto her nightstand. Because really, what would be even more super than wearing the band’s t-shirt to the show? A crystal-encrusted pendant with dangling things on it!

I noticed a slight flush spreading across Christina’s cheeks. I’m sure she had other plans for the necklace, like say, as car ornamentation, and she nervously fingered the chain in her palm.

“I mean, it’s a great gift, Erin. Really, it is. But um, I’m afraid I might lose it there.” She once again started to discard it.

“Oh, so you don’t like it.” I was prepared to turn on the tears. “That’s cool.” I hung my head. “I guess I could always give it to Janna.”

“Fine, I’ll wear it.”

Another victory for me!

“Oh yay, and look at that heart, dangling from a chain. Wow, that is…so….cool,” she sang in drawn-out monotone torrents. I imagine Christina was envisioning getting jumped by all the scene kids at the show and having every epithet for “gay” flung at her every time she utilized the restroom with the 16-year-olds who were way more scene than she was with her hokey necklace.

“I thought you said you wore necklaces when I asked you!” I whined.

“Well, yeah…because I thought you meant a chain. Not a big—” She stopped when she noticed my protruding lip. “—but COOL, pendant.” She raised a finger to the heavens to emphasize the fact that she had not forgotten how cool it was.

We ate dinner at Hyde’s, where we were waited on by a chatty fellow named Lawrence, who likes Elvis and found it odd that I’m from Pittsburgh and don’t like football. When he asked us what show we were going to, Christina started listing the bands on her fingers. “And the Used is headlining,” she finished. When he said he hadn’t heard of them, I nearly smashed my grilled cheese into my chest when I lunged across the table and yelled, “Like her necklace, see!”

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were Christina, I’d be more self-conscious of the misuse of that apostrophe on my shirt. (Figures that the shirt was a gift from Sylvia, who is not known for her punctuation prowess.)

When we arrived at the Ohare Arena for a night of exploding nodes and boys in skinny jeans, I gleefully looked around to see if anyone had noticed her necklace. I kept reaching over and jiggling it, which made her angry. She was like the Flava Flav of the screamo set with her large, buoyant medallion flopping against her chest with every step.

“Oh good, thanks for reminding me!” she would sardonically enthuse. Then she would murmur things like, “Oh he definitely saw it, and her too” as we shoved our way inside the arena, past the amassment of confiscated studded white belts. I laughed.

Throughout the evening, I would be sure to yell things like, “Geez, your pendant is so cool! I bet you are the Used’s number one fan!” and she would cower inside herself.

Once the bands started playing, I momentarily forgot about Christina’s plight and enjoyed my night of not being a mom. I was doing really well, blending in with the undulating crowd, until Evaline took the stage. The singer summoned the mom in me back to the surface as he twirled around the stage wildly and did a daunting flip over his keyboard. Unable to control it, I found my hand slapping across my chest and intense pleas of “Oh honey, watch yourself!” swam maniacally through my hand. But that was quickly overshadowed by a roaring, “Fuck yeah! Do it again, motherfucker!”

It was fun watching the stage lights reflect and shimmer off the crystals of Christina’s pendant. But I kind of felt like I was its bodyguard, having to perpetually check its safety.

I should have bought one for myself, too. My love for it blossomed throughout the night.

In between sets, my eyes would travel back to Christina’s chest, frantically ensuring that her amulet was still securely fastened.

“Would you stop calling it an amulet?!” she yelled, with just a tiny undertone of amusement. “I feel like it’s getting bigger.”

But it kind of looks like something sought after by Dracula, am I right?

At one point, I feared that I was having a stroke. Chiodos was introduced by a man in a rabbit suit, which pleased me greatly as it added a Wonderland aura to the show. When I tried to ask Christina if she thought the rabbit was going to come back out, my brain and mouth were at odds.

“Rabbot…robbit….rabbi….FUCK! Bunny!” This probably wouldn’t have happened if the amulet had been around my neck.

30 Seconds to Mars was the second-to-last band to play, and Jared Leto yakked through 80% of every song. It was ridiculous. At one point, Christina leaned over and said, “I feel like he’s giving a Grammy speech.” I kind of felt like he was some crazy religious leader trying to get us to follow him on a pilgrimage, and it didn’t set well with me. Just because of that, I wouldn’t do anything he said, not even a half-hearted fist-raise. Their set was so long, and I felt like we never even got to hear an entire song. When they left the stage, a good 25% of the crowd left as well. As a horde of young girls filed past Christina, she screamed, “You saw your boyfriend, now get the fuck out!” A young guy in front of us turned around and nodded his approval at her outburst, inspiring her to lean forward and talk to him and about the Used. When she sat back, I said, “Wow, that guy probably wished he had an amulet just like yours!” She slapped her hand over it and sighed. “Damn, I forgot I was wearing this! He probably thinks I’m an idiot.” She started to catch herself. “I mean, I think it’s a great present, Erin. It really is. I guess I just kind of wish it wasn’t so…big.”

“I wish it was bigger.”

“If it was any bigger, it would be an outfit.”

I did manage to have her hold it up high when the Used were playing though. I think at that point, she had finally accepted its brilliance and bore it proudly. I mean, it was probably the most ambitious piece of fan flair there that night. We probably could have used it to get back stage. Hindsight, I suppose.

After the show, she stopped at a gas station for direction, and while she was inside, I noticed that she somehow managed to remove it and hang it on her rear view mirror without me even noticing. She claimed it was because we were in a seedy area and she didn’t want to get mugged for it.

I was appeased.

***

It was broken in the box when she returned it to me during the spring of 2009, as if that was the instrument she used to fuck our friendship up the ass, and not her selfishness and inability to be honest. I threw it away, along with everything else associated with her.

If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have gotten a Christmas tree. It’s just not a big deal for me and the only reason we even had one last year was because my mom took us out and bought it for us. I’m cheap; I’d rather use that money to buy gifts. (Read: drugs. Read also: drugs as gifts.)

But then I remembered Chooch and realized I need to consider him. Especially when he’s been acting all perplexed over where Santa is going to put his presents if we didn’t have a tree.

So the three of us finally went out to some roadside tree lot near our house on Sunday, where some fucking gross Christmas spirit penetrated my heart and I went from not caring about a tree to desperately needing to find the most majestic one imaginable, preferably equipped with a nest of fornicating Keebler elves.

Before I was even all the way out of the car, I was instantly ensorcelled by the young guy who approached us with his offer to help us find the perfect tree.

“I’m in love with this guy,” I whispered to Henry, who was quick to point out that this charming lad was essentially just being a salesman and this treatment was definitely not as special as I wanted to believe, and why couldn’t I see the strobing Christmas light-strung dollar signs in his eyes?

I guess when you’ve been fucked over by as many prostitutes and wives as Henry, skepticism is the only hat that feels right on your head.

Eventually, Henry tossed his say in the situation up in the air, watched it blow away on a cloud of pussy-whipped emasculation, and then proceeded to make passive aggressive comments about my choice of frosted fir.

Perhaps if he didn’t want to get saddled with one of the most expensive trees left on the lot, he may want to refrain from saying things like:

• “It’s up to you”
• “Whatever you want”
• “I left my balls in the Service”

The tree guys, after securing our new over-sized cat toy on the roof of our car, asked if Chooch wanted to help them sell trees for the rest of the day. I wanted to let them take him, so badly.

Once we got home, Henry sent me off to the attic with explicit instructions to return with the tree base, only the tree base, but by the time I got up there, I forgot what he wanted and just brought down the ornaments. I let Henry do everything else in an effort to help him grow some length back to his weener.

“I had these put away all nice and neat last year, then some ASSHOLE had to pull them out and take pictures of herself with them.

”

It took Henry a good twenty minutes to detangle the lights while I sat on the couch and did important things like play on my phone and watch the NHL Network. Chooch was a lot of help, I’m sure Henry will agree.

“Stop with the fucking pictures,” Henry yelled. “I’m not taking any,” I swore, as I partook in an uploading frenzy on Facebook.

As magnificent as last year’s Liberatree was, we all mutually agreed to 86 the tinsel and opted for some gold garland and purple beads instead. It’s not as flashy, only half as gaudy, and definitely needs more garland, but I present to you the Mediocritree:

When I told Henry the tree’s name, he looked at me dumbly (not uncommon).

“Because last year it was the Liberatree,” I reminded him, in a snide teenagery tone

“It was?”

“Oh my god, don’t you read my blog?” I yelled. I know he doesn’t!

Chooch and I fought for the entire hour it took to hang ornaments. Someone tell him you can’t put four ornaments on one goddamn bough. TELL HIM. Ew, it’s like Chinese water torture for my OCD. This kid is like the little brother that I’m much too old for. He knows every button to push.

I’ll admit, it’s nice having a live tree usurping our living room once again. Even if I can’t put down any presents without living in fear of the fucking cats pissing on them.

Nicotina. (See also: Speck, Pickles, Breakfast Nook, Chooch’s Ragdoll)

In other Sunday happenings, I have game night hangover. There was not much game-playing going on last night but it was still a fun time. My stomach hates me for turning it into a cauldron of wine and Strongbow and then plunging so many savory, cream-cheesy dips into it.

I guess we’re getting our Christmas tree today, so that should be annoying.

I might need to go puke a little first.

Tonight is Game Night which means Henry is grumpily cleaning the house and threatening to kill me and Chooch. Scary times. In order to build the dam against impending bloodshed, Chooch and I went to the craft store so I could get more wood blocks for my bathroom plaques and candles to mask the perpetual cat stench in our house. What really happened was that I offered to go to the grocery store to pick up stuff Henry needs for his spinach dip; when I suggested this, Henry’s face went slack and practically served as a projector screen of the montage of me fucking up that was spooling through his memory. So we mutually decided on me sticking to a store I couldn’t get lost in or accidentally purchase sardine juice.

In the car, I was playing the new Circa Survive Appendages EP.

“Who is this?” Chooch asked from the backseat, carefully forming the words around the protruding candy cane which he acquired from the cashier at the liquor store after successfully managing to not touch any daunting pyramid displays of wine bottles.

(Mostly this was due to the fact that every one of his fingers was stuffed into finger puppets, preoccupying him while I calculated the ratio of how much I like my friends : how much money I wanted to spend on wine.)

“Circa Survive,” I answered. But god forbid I should stop there! “The singer is Anthony Green. You know who he is. He’s in that picture with Craig [Owens] that I have hanging on the wall behind the chair.”

“Oh,” Chooch mumbled. “Yeah, I know Anthony.”

“Daddy hates Circa Survive,” I instigated, hoping this could be something that Chooch and I could join forces on in order to make Henry’s life even more miserable.

“Yeah well, I’m going to take Daddy to see Circa Survive and then tell Anthony to punch him in the face,” he spat aggressively.

I don’t know where Chooch gets his aggression,  but I honestly thought he was going to cut me the other day when his person lost on Hell’s Kitchen and my person won.

Excited that Chooch was expressing interest in this, I blurted out, “Do you want to watch Circa Survive videos when we get home?”

“No,” he said haughtily, as if he couldn’t believe my audacity to suggest something so lame to him.

I’m placing an ad on Craigslist today for a friend who will sit around and watch music videos with me.

I’ve really been phoning it in around here this last week. I have lots to say, just been preoccupied with some custom paintings, that child-raising thing, preparing for tomorrow night’s game night. But most importantly – watching hockey and staying up late, forcing Henry to digest Soulphrodisiac on VH1 Soul while I relive my yo-girl years and act all dramatic and wistful. He loves that.

We were watching the premiere of HBO’s 24/7: Penguins and Capitals series the other night. Clips from the Capitals 7-0 loss to the Rangers from last Sunday night was part of it, and Henry made some surprised comment, like this game was news to him.

“Dude,” I said to him.  “I had that game on Sunday night. Where were you? Oh yeah, baking cupcakes.”

He is seriously such a domestic pussy. I hope someone got him a Donna Reed apron and curlers for Christmas.

I should probably check him more often for a vagina.

***

In work news, I was very angry with Barb yesterday.

Our desks are near the travel department, which for some reason is just there, in the middle of our floor, but not considered a part of us and are not invited to any of our office parties. (Not like I have much room to gloat – by time I get there at 4:00, food is already getting put away and everyone is back to work.)  There are only a handful of women who work in the small space, and Barb calls them “Those People.” Anytime something is amiss in the kitchen, she likes to blame it on them.

Mostly, they keep to themselves. Occasionally, I will bump into one, all clad in a headset, when I’m on my way to break things in the kitchen.

We will then exchange forced pleasantries.

There is one I just DON’T LIKE. AT ALL. The other day, I reluctantly allowed her onto the elevator with me after my frenetic thumping of the CLOSE DOORS buttons proved futile and was then awarded for my courtesy with the privilege of listening to her talk loudly on her cell for the entire 10 floors.

During the evening, she will slither out of the travel office with her fucking headset clamped against her stupid bitchy hair and proceed to ask me questions that I just flat out don’t know the answers to. Or, she’ll ask things of me, like if I could please let them know if there is ever an evacuation or some devastating email regarding our building, because Those People are not privy to any information tips. So I guess if the building is ever on fire and they’re too stupid to notice, it’s on me.

One time she came over and mumbled something that sounded like, “Do you know about the printer jam?” I assumed she meant did I know the status of when the copy center was going to send someone down to fix their printer, so I said no. Turns out she was actually asking me if I knew how to fix her printer jam, which I do and in fact, one of the processors and I recently won a war against our copier using nothing more than salad tongs, a butter knife and blind ingenuity;  now I’m doubly glad I played stupid because bitch, be your own fucking hero.

Anyway, my point is that every time she asks me a question, I always give her the classic Stupefied Erin-look and say, “I don’t know.”

Seriously, she probably thinks I’m the department retard, like I’m on work release or something.

Yesterday, while Barb was still there, this same broad comes over and (to me!) asks, “Do you know the number for the help desk?”

BY GEORGE, I DO! I thought, and frantically ran my finger down the phone list taped to my monitor, until I found the four-digit number I had scribbled in green ink.

Just as my lips parted, all a’quiver with the excitement of finally proving that my brain actually does cradle an iota of knowledge, fucking Barb rattled off the numbers behind me.

I waited for the travel lady to thank her and retreat back into their mysterious travel office before spinning around in my seat and shooting Barb a menacing glare. “BARB! I actually knew that answer and you ruined it!”

Barb just laughed. I was appalled. First, she steals my moment. Then, she laughs about it!

“I swear, that whole department probably thinks I’m some goddamn mute or something!” I cried, while Barb continued to laugh her self-righteous, know-it-all laugh. She is evil!

Later that night, the same travel lady shuffled over to my desk, leaned in and whispered, “Hey. Are you busy?”

What a loaded question. I actually wasn’t busy. I was carousing Etsy and listening to the post-hardcore station on LastFM. The air between us was pregnant with anxiety and somersaulting question marks while I  considered my options.

Finally, I said, “Yes…sort of?” Because why start now with answering her questions with any sort of conviction?

“Do you know how to add a listing on the Firm’s classified page? I have Steelers tickets—”

“I don’t know,” I answered.  I doubt she was very surprised.

Probably on my desk I should plant a Rubik’s Cube and some casually-strewn Mensa literature.

We got HBO just for this 4-part series, and last night’s opener proved that it was worth every penny of our astronomical cable bill. I’ve watched the whole show three times already. Now go grab your sac and compete!