Chooch is being especially entertaining today. Meanwhile, Henry is pretending to be sick so he doesn’t have to put up with me and Christina.

Some girl working at Goodwill called me a genius.

She was like 17 though, so it doesn’t count.

This weekend rules so hard.

Henry was pillaging through Chooch’s bag of Easter candy from his class party and unearthed a bag of Jesus Promise Seeds. We both had this “Is time totally standing still for you, too?” moment before I started loudly laughing and snatched it from him.

Scripture Candy, are you kidding me!? This is beyond fantastic! I love candy, but I love clever candy even more. Went to their website and the selection is incredible. Jesus candy for every holiday! I’m totally buying this shit in bulk to send out with my non compos card orders and maybe to pass out on the trolley so I’ll fit in more.

Obviously I’ll keep some in a bowl on my desk at work, too. Maybe even in an urn.

***

I just learned yesterday that I’ve been using the word “macaronic” incorrectly. Apparently, it means:

adjective

1.

composed of or characterized by Latin words mixed with vernacular words or non-Latin words given Latin endings.

2.

composed of a mixture of languages.

3.

mixed; jumbled.

 

I know you must be thinking, “But wait — I’ve been using it to describe objects that bear macaroni-like characteristics.” I know right, me too!  It makes me feel better to know that you too have been saying things like:

 “Your cock tastes macaronic today. No, don’t wash it! It’s good, I like it.”

 

or

 

“Baby, please. All my ex-boyfriends’ weeners are macaronic compared to your XXL conchiglie, big guy.”

All this time, we’ve actually been talking about verbose, yet confused, genitalia.

 

***

 

Jeannie just brought me an alread-sliced apple! God, my co-workers make it so easy for me.

 

 

Weird Al (& his macaronic pubes) would like to wish you a Happy Friday the 13th.

 

[I feel like I got brain matter all over this blog post. I’ll just get Henry to clean it.]

 

I feel like this is what I look like every time someone at work tries to talk to me while I’m eating my apple, which is EVERY TIME because evidently there are some people who just physically can’t speak to me unless I have a wad of apple mush lodged between my teeth and uvula. And I’m like, “Really? Because you’ve had SEVEN HOURS where there was nothing in my mouth but perhaps a jellybean and disturbing commentary fighting to break loose.”

Speaking of apples, Aaron walked past me around 6:30 yesterday and said, “There’re apples in the fridge.” I was like, “Um, OK great, but everyone knows I brought a Jonagold today.

” And then I turned to my right to lovingly stroke it BUT IT WAS GONE.

I frantically pawed around my desk drawers, my purse, gave the surface of Lee’s desk a cursory glance, to no avail.

Then I replayed Aaron’s announcement and it occurred to me that he said, “YOUR apple is in the fridge.” So I ran to the fridge where I found my little baby shivering on a shelf.

Aaron told me later that Chris took it as payback for the Great Orange Ball Kidnapping, but Aaron felt compelled to tell me because he is supposedly my ally but IS HE REALLY?

One time a few weeks ago, he told me I was his best friend, but then kept narrowing it down so it became “in the department” and then “in this quadrant” and then “in this quadrant but only while Barb is out on medical leave” and then “in this quadrant but only after everyone else goes home at 5:30 because you are the type of girl a person can only be secret best friends with due to all the shame.”

I’m making most of this up now. Because I am HYPER! I am HYPER because Christina is coming to visit this weekend for the first time since October 2009! I have reason to believe it will be a little less angry and tense as when we spent the afternoon together in Columbus last month trying to see if we could be in the same city without my anger dismembering her. It went OK. I think this weekend will be better, though.

UPDATE: Chris said he did NOT take my apple last night and I’m inclined to believe him.

Fuck. Xiu Xiu has been one of my favorite bands for the last 8 years, and still remains one of the all-time best shows I’ve ever been to, but their new album has totally taken them to a new level in my heart. Jamie’s voice is what the murmuring in my head sounds like, in case you ever wanted to know.

I wish he was laying next to me, whispering Urban Dictionary entries and autopsy reports to me every night as I drift off to sleep, I fucking love him so much and maybe I have had too much coffee already today or likely am beginning to ascend the roller coaster hill to Ultra Mania, but I can’t stop laughing all guttural and sinister-like.

Also, I think this is a sign that I need to start eating apples like Jamie Stewart. He obviously wanted me to see this video so that I’ll know I’ve been doing it ALL WRONG.

I make mp3 CDs when I’m feeling this manic and have already been mapping out a springtime track list in my head.

If you’d like a copy, say so! I like mailing things. (Read: I like giving things to Henry to mail.

)

ETA: Here is a picture of Henry’s reaction when I made him listen to “I Luv Abortion.”

This picture freaks me out.

One more for good measure.

Speaking of Chooch, watching him play Draw Something has become my #1 favorite past time.

Last night, I was watching him draw “fishing,” but focus more on the race of the fisherman, which he changed three times before settling on a bald black man.

My friend Sandy came over to me at work the other day and said she feels she deserves an award guessing Chooch’s drawings.

“Bowser? Seriously?” she cried. I actually watched him draw that one and she’s right—she does deserve an award.

Last night, I also watched him completely complicate “bubbles.

” I think that one was actually for Sandy too, and probably REALLY stressed her out.

Sometimes he’s so good! He drew a really lovely coffin for Amelia, complete with a bloody corpse and gravestones in the background, but then other times I have no idea what he’s doing and I get all pageant mom on his ass. Like last night when he drew just a line at the bottom of the screen for “rug.”

“He really phoned that one in,” Amelia said.

But I mean, look at his penguin!

I was so totally proud of him! Too bad he was supposed to be drawing a rhino, though. Clicked on the wrong word, poor guy.

I like to take screencaps of some of mine so I can rub them in Henry’s face because he sucks so bad.

Sometimes I have a harder time trying to guess Henry’s drawings than Chooch’s. Maybe I’ll start collecting some of those for my next Draw Something post.

Even I phone it in at times, so I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on Chooch.

I’M STILL BETTER THOUGH!

I like to incorporate Jonny Craig in as many of my drawings as possible. This one was for Macbook, which was perfect since Jonny scammed his fans last year by selling non-existent Macbooks for drug money.

I get so much joy out of this game, but most of the joy comes from imagining my friends running their hands through their hair in frustration as they try to guess Chooch’s artistic impression of the word “noob.”

Other than that, I’ve just been busy bracing myself for hockey playoffs.

Henry completely rushed me out of the house before work today and in my haste, I forgot to grab an apple. Luckily, Gayle offered to split her gigantic orange with me. I’m making Saint Rita watch me eat it.

In other “Henry Ruined My Life” news, I had a mini crisis a few minutes ago at work as I regaled to Lee my hot dog nibbling scandal from Saturday.

“If Henry really loved me, he would have stopped me,” I whined.

“Wow, I can’t believe you took it there,” Lee, who is ALWAYS on Henry’s team except for when Faygo comes up, said.

We did what any other sad-sack family does on a holiday when they have nowhere else to go – went and got sushi.

Chooch kept dunking his lo mein into his glass of lemonade (“What? It makes my noodles taste like lemonade and I like it.”), so now you’ll never again have to wonder why I have a strict no-share policy when it comes to my son and beverages.

Aside from Chooch shouting, “I just want to be able to recognize what they’re saying!” and then counting in Spanish to try and “fit in” with the Pan Asia waitstaff, it was a nice, drama-free Easter dinner. Since it was still early and nice out, we took Chooch to the playground afterward, where I made him cry because I’m better at sliding down slides than he is. Seriously, this happened. I’m even competitive at sliding down slides.

Henry just shook his head and sighed.

Then he convinced me that I should not take a left-behind bottle of Diet Mountain Dew even if it was unopened.

While I was swinging (better than Chooch), the parallels between that and my recent emotions were not lost on me. One simple text message received February 24th at 12:22AM and everything has been swinging out of control, my heart has felt like a fucking Elmo pinata at some dumb 4-year-old’s birthday party, and for as hard and as stubbornly I’ve been trying to slam that door in her face, for as many awkward (supposedly) last words we’ve had over the last month and a half, she is still the only one who called me on Easter to talk to me about how I was feeling, to comfort me, to remind me that I’m a better person than my family has ever given me credit for. So what am I doing. For the last two and a half years, I have had this emptiness in my heart and would constantly ask Henry things like, “Do you think I’ll ever talk to her again?” and “Do you think she still cares about me?” and then she finally gets the chance to come back, but for every brick she knocks down, I’m busy laying down five more; busy listening to all the naysayers, letting other people confuse me, when I should have been listening to myself, and to Henry who has literally only been wrong a total of 4 times in the 11 years we’ve been together. But I’ve been too fucking bull-headed, resistant and cowardly to admit that I want to be friends with Christina again (there, her name has officially been written), to have that person in my life who I can call to get a second opinion when Henry tells me not to take some stranger’s unopened bottle of Diet Mountain Dew, in spite of all the supposed “closure” I was trying to convince myself I could achieve by putting all of our sordid past out in the open for everyone to read.

And if it takes swinging on a swingset in South Park on the day that Jesus provided a lifetime of wet dreams for George Romero by rising from the dead to make me realize that maybe the ending doesn’t feel right because the story isn’t over yet, then so be it. I just know that I can’t keep having these psychopathic arguments in my head anymore; I need to make a decision and stick with it before anyone gets even more hurt. And I don’t want it to be a secret. No more texting a nameless Cincinnati phone number. Either her name goes back in my phone or I need to walk away from this for good—no more Limbo. I officially don’t give a fuck what anyone else has to say about that.

There was a middle-aged blind lady swinging next to me and it was the single most amazing thing that happened all day. She was so happy. We should all be that happy on the playground.

Totally stopped pouting after that. (Until later that night, of course, when Henry chose his words poorly, which is like the worst thing in the world for an already hyper-emotional girl.)

I found Henry standing on a tree stump, counting its rings. Apparently that was his favorite thing to do as a child after completing his daily paper route.

Went home and ate coconut cream pie (with NO meringue!), which is really all I wanted to do all weekend, although maybe in my fantasies it involved more of a swan dive into a pool of it, less spooning it into my mouth.

Thank you Henry and Chooch for salvaging yet another holiday. How can I be lonely when those two jerks are always up in my face, anyway.

I’m ready for things to be OK now. It’s like I’m punishing myself and I just don’t know what for.

When Henry and I were out doing legwork for the Easter bunny Saturday night, Henry mentioned that he wasn’t sure if we still had Chooch’s regular basket, which is this large, heavy basket that is entirely too bulky to be used to hold Easter bounty, but I bought it for Chooch’s first Easter, when he was still an angel and deserved these things. Nowadays, the thought of putting a jelly bean in a thimble isn’t far from my mind.

Anyway, Henry bought this small “just in case” basket at Target, but we ended up finding the traditional basket later that night.

Both baskets were sitting on the table over night, because I was too tired from a late evening of watching scary Islamic men on public access rant about how caucasians are always trying to take credit for the invention of every language in the history of the universe.

“Chooch never wakes up before me,” I reasoned, remembering two Christmases ago when I could not for the life of me get the little slug to wake up and was left to amuse myself all morning with some Prince video marathon on VH1 Soul. “I’ll hide it in the morning,” I told Henry, who shrugged and followed me upstairs to bed.

[Side note: before Chooch went to bed Saturday night, he and I were sitting on the couch and the front door was open. “Oh shit, I see him across the street,” Chooch said all calmly. When I asked him who he saw, he said, “Jesus” and I FELT SO SCARED.]

And of course, Chocoh woke up at 8:30. We were awake, but still in bed, so I had to call him into our room to stall him from going downstairs.

“Cuddle with us!” I blurted out, which is totally not something we tend to do together. He looked confused, but climbed into bed. Then I said I had to pee, but really I flew downstairs with him hot on my heels. I made it down there in enough time to grab the basket, dump it between the couch and chair and toss a blanket over top.

The first thing Chooch saw when he reached the bottom of the steps was the back-up basket, sitting on the table, completely empty.

He looked at it in horror and then we locked eyes.

“THE EASTER BUNNY HAAAAAATES ME!” he wailed, face turning red and eyes starting to well.

I was about to assure him that there was another basket, but I stopped myself. “Let this play out for a few more seconds, Erin,” the Devil on my shoulder pressed. He’s such a permanent fixture, he’s practically just a large mole at this point.

If there is one thing I love in life, it is pranking people, ESPECIALLY my kid. But this wasn’t even intentional, which made it that much more perfect.

After a few seconds though, he realized that this was probably Case #789696 of Mommy being a dickhead, and continued his search for the real basket. But my god, I couldn’t stop laughing. That’s what he gets for scaring me with that Jesus shit.

Henry and I used to divvy the candy up into plastic eggs, but now we just toss entire bags of it into his basket. We are so traditional.

“Holy shit, the Easter Bunny brought me a SKYLANDER?!”

The kid loves his damn Skylanders, whatever the fuck those are.

We were about to leave to go visit Speck’s grave, when Henry got all hush-hush and held up his arm.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, staring at the front door. “Your aunt’s out there.”

But of course she didn’t knock. She just dumped an Easter basket on the porch for Chooch. Inside, there was a card from her and Val (aka my “mom”), which said a bunch of lies about how much they love him.

“They sure have a funny way of showing it,” Henry mumbled. I wish that they would just not do anything. I’d rather have a real relationship, not just “stuff.” But that’s always been the easy way out for them.

So not only did I have major Speck-sadness (first Easter in forever that she wasn’t attacking the basket and pillaging for Easter grass), but then I had the typical “Ugh, it’s a holiday and I have no family*” nervous breakdown.

(*Yes, I have Henry and Chooch, but that is a family that I had to make on my own. Sometimes I wish I had teh normal mom/dad/siblings/grandparents set-up that so many other people could to enjoy and often take for granted. Living like this might keep the drama out of my life, but it is not always amazing.

)

Totally emotional at the pet cemetery. The assholes there completely lost the temporary marker on Speck’s grave, so we had to guess where to leave the flowers. I’m so angry about this and can’t wait until it’s been a year so I can finally buy a real bronze marker for her. Total bullshit. Chooch was so upset that he ran away from us and laid down on the grass alone. It was completely heartbreaking to watch. Then I started sobbing and Henry had to stand there, hugging me/holding me up. We’re not even close to being healed, clearly.

Luckily, we had moustaches to play with when we got home, so the afternoon wasn’t as somber as the late morning was.

And then Henry drew this on the sidewalk, which made Chooch’s head explode. I was in the house but I could hear him outside, frantically trying to get the neighbors to look.

But since I don’t have concrete proof that Henry himself actually wrote this, no one will believe me. You can all pretend it says “I love meringue” which actually isn’t a far stretch considering we had an argument about that Friday night after he went to Giant Eagle and bought a coconut cream pie to fulfill my (non-pregnant!!!) cravings, only to buy one capped with MERINGUE knowing that I HATE MERINGUE OH MY GOD.

Good thing we bought a real coconut cream pie the next night at Bob Evans.

God, what a fucking emotional start to the day.

Today is Chooch’s last day of Easter break so we went outside under the pretenses of doing “normal” child activities.

Writing inoffensive slogans with sidewalk chalk kept Chooch busy for approximately 5 minutes.

And then we played with what I hoped would be Thingie Ball 2012, but it is sadly a cheap imitation of my beloved Thingie Ball set from 2010, which I have been unable to find in Target ever since.

We gave up after I screamed, “THIS SUCKS, I HATE IT & NEVER WANT TO PLAY AGAIN!” Chooch was like, “God, calm down Mommy. We’re outside where people can see AND hear you.”

Finally, Chooch could contain himself no longer and we spent the rest of our time outside playing zombies.

Flexible Zombie.

Then the FedEx guy came to deliver a package for our neighbor, which made Chooch cry REAL TEARS because I NEVER ORDER ANYTHING FOR HIM, WAAAAH.

Guess what, kid—Mommy likes getting mail too, so GET IN LINE.

1. He knows what silver sounds like.

My estranged (emphasis on strange) aunt Sharon dropped off a garbage bag-wrapped Easter basket on our front porch for Chooch. One of the items was a small plastic piggy bank, which Henry shook and said, “Wow, there’s silver in this.

”

“How the fuck do you know?” I asked.

“Because I know what silver sounds like! They stopped making silver coins in 1970—” but this is where I peaced out of the history lesson because I was laughing too hard.

2. Henry used to be a paper boy!

We’re currently en route to visit Speck’s grave, when Henry commented on the traffic.

“Easter sure is different nowadays. I remember when there was never a car on the road until after noon on Easter Sunday. I used to be able to ride my wagon of newspapers all the way across Lebanon Church Road—–what?”

I was wiping tears away at this point. “You were a paper boy?” I cried.

“Yeah, so what?!” Henry spat, glaring at me.

My laughter reached the precipice of hysteria at this point, imagining a freckled, knickerbockered Henry hurling the Sunday paper at empty milk bottles.

“That’s why I have such a good work ethic, unlike most of YOU people!

” he shouted defensively.

YOU PEOPLE? He must mean my awesome generation.

“You’re going to make me hate you today,” he just mumbled.

Chooch went to his cousin’s house today to dye Easter eggs, leaving Henry and I with a wide-open beautiful afternoon. And because it was so beautiful today, we decided to skip rollerskating in favor for a hot dog picnic in the cemetery.

I’ve been a fan of Pittsburgh chef Kevin Sousa ever since I had the great fortune of experiencing his memorable vegetarian feast at the Bigelow Grille. It remains, to this day, my all-time favorite dining experience. I’d even go as far as to say it was transcendent.

And when have you ever known me to say something like that? IT WAS TRANSCENDENT.

This is just a pretentious-worded way to say that we went Chef Sousa’s hot dog joint, Station Street Hot Dogs, to fulfill the food portion of our cemetery picnic.

“This is my favorite part of the day,” the super-friendly girl who took out order said as she popped off the caps of our Mexican Cokes.

That was so weirdly endearing to me and it kind of made me love her. Even if the food sucked, the people working there were so nice it would have negated any sour reviews. And you know how I love to write a sour review.

I remember when hot dogs cost fifty cents and Kristy McNichol wasn’t gay.

After we got our hot dogs and fries, we took it to the nearby Homewood Cemetery & masticated the shit of it while sitting on a rock near a pond.

Henry and I both got a chili dog, but mine was of the veggie persuasion. I almost got the Devil Dog instead, because hello–egg salad and potato chips on a hot dog sounds so disgusting it must be right.

But the chili dog had a bonnet of CHEESE CURD and that was enough to sway me. I’m coming back for you, Devil Dog.

Henry’s standard mastication pose.

I don’t know what came over me, but I started pining for the taste of a real hot dog and kept passive-aggressively begging for a bite of Henry’s while wringing my hands. Mine was so good, but the baseball stadium beef stench was wafting from Henry’s bun RIGHT INTO MY FACE.

“God, just take a bite. I’m not going to call the veggie police,” he mumbled.

AND SO I DID. OH GOD I DID. I took a bite and almost cried, it was so good, this Vesuvial eruption of smutty pleasure and smoked guilt on my palate. My first bite of non-soy meat since 1996. (But god only knows how many times my family minced some meat up into their so-called vegetarian holiday side dishes.)  MY WHOLE WORLD IS FALLING APART RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES.

Oh my god, I can’t believe I did that. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Thanks a lot, Ohio.

After I cried and vowed to repent later to my Saint Rita statue, Henry and I went for a walk around the cemetery; I was wearing Henry’s least favorite sweater boots, which make me shuffle my feet like a teenaged girl, so he kept calling me Captain Floppy Feet, but I secretly changed it to Fräulein Floppy Feet because I’m OCD for alliteration.

[ETA: Henry totally waved at a robin while we were walking around the cemetery, and then tried to deny it.]

Got to leave work around 6:30 because it was so slow, but Henry and Chooch were at Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party, so I had to take the dreaded trolley home. Almost not worth getting to go home early.

Sue kept trying to coax me into taking an entire box of pizza home and I was like, “I can barely carry myself on the T, let alone an XL pizza box.

So she gave it to the cleaning people.

But I blindly chose the correct one and made it all the way to my stop with little incident. Did overhear two hacky-sackers compliment each others dirty hats though.

Clammy Trolley Fare.

Then I arrived at my house only to learn that HENRY wasn’t home yet. HENRY who has the house key. Hot Naybor Chris invited me in since I looked like a poor, shivering sack on the porch, but I declined because I wanted Henry to find me in such state and feel bad.

He did not feel bad.

And that is how I kicked off my Easter weekend.

The other day, I asked Henry why he stays with me and he said, “Because of days like this.” Then he told me not to post that on Facebook because he doesn’t want anyone to know he likes me, but I figured most people will just assume “days like this” means days where he barely has to talk to me.

My world has been in some fucked-up, emotional upheaval the last few months, for a multitude of reasons, but Henry has been here, having my back and picking up the pieces through the whole clusterfuck. I know I’m always busting his balls on the Internet, but I really don’t know what I’d do without him. There. I said it. It will always be Henry, marriage or not.

Plus, the first thing he did when he came home from work yesterday was check to see if I used any expired food when I made lunch for Chooch and myself. He always has our safety in mind. (But if he REALLY had our safety in mind, he would make sure there was no expired food in the refrigerator to begin with. What? It’s a valid point!)

****

I have been listening to Armor For Sleep with some fucking urgency lately, like it’s 2005. Oh, 2005.

Sometimes the past really should just stay dead. But, I guess we needed to find that out on our own. One day, I will finish writing that story, and it will be better than any pathetic poem.

Now that I’m full time, I get to take a legit lunch break. I thought that perhaps this would be a good time to venture outside of the building and try to learn something about the city in which I’ve lived my whole entire life. I mean, at the very least it might help to know what street I work on. (And help snuff out future jury duty-spawned directional meltdowns.)

It was kind of a big deal. Several people even said out loud, with mild interest, “Oh wow. Erin is leaving her desk.”

Barb (SHE’S BACK IN CASE YOU DIDN’T CATCH THAT YESTERDAY) suggested, “You could go to [foreign place] to get a map.” But then after we stared at each other stupidly for two seconds, she added, “But I guess you would need a map just to get there in the first place.”

So today, Carey offered to take me under her wing. I guess I’m her new project, and I’m OK with that. I need all the help I can get.

Before I left, Nina wished me luck and then reminded me to take my phone in case I got lost.

“Don’t worry, Carey’s going with me!” I assured her, and she looked sincerely relieved.

In the plaza area outside of our building (which I’ve walked through once before I even worked there but had no idea!), Carey showed me places where I could stand and smoke if I ever decide to give back nicotine that old best friend charm.

Then we saw Pirates fans en masse and a half-demolished building, which was pretty nice. Carey promised me it’s not always that crowded out there, which is good because god only knows what picture Henry would submit to the milk carton people.

Carey deemed Market Square a good starting point, but I think it was just because she wanted to go to the gyro place. Boyz II Men’s seminal hit “I’ll Make Love To You” was pouring sexily from the ceiling speakers when we walked in, which seems like an awkward soundtrack for ordering lamb, but I think I was the only one noticing this.

“We’ll go back a different way,” Carey said, informing me what streets our building sits on. (I already forgot.)

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “There’s that half-demolished building again; I sort of know where we are!”

“Ok,” Carey said slowly. “But don’t use that as a landmark because it’s clearly not always going to be there.”

Oh yeah.

“You can see our building down there.” Knowing that I would need a little more than that, she added, “It’s big. And red.”

On Tuesday, we’re going to walk toward the Convention Center, whatever that means.

I feel like I should have bought some souvenirs while I was out, like an I <3 Pittsburgh pennant. But I wouldn't know where to go to get something like that. Back in the office, Carey's gyro stunk up the place, but all the meat-eaters kept remarking in sleazy porn-voices about how divine it smelled.

The public access channel on Saturday nights never fails to entertain. Henry and I usually watch belligerent Bible shows with our jaws slack, but on this night we were entranced by Moyé’s Hair Talk Show, which didn’t actually feature much talking but did have a wonderful Anita Baker-esque soundtrack going on.

The girl getting her hairs did was talking about how she is going to be in a fashion show even though she is actually quite shy, and that she is looking forward to walking down the catwalk in front of all of the rich people.

Henry was hyper-critical about the show’s name, as if that was the biggest thing wrong with it.

The next morning, I ditched Henry and Chooch in favor of a Blue Flame breakfast with Tommy and Jessy, where we had the best waitress ever who talked to me about my tattoo and Chiodos and Jessy was all, “God, just friend each other on Facebook already.” Then we went to the Perry Flea Market, where I didn’t really see anything too cool aside from a bin of vintage noisemakers going for NINETY DOLLARS and a buffet of multi-flavored whoopie pies, of which I bought two to share with Jessy, so now she can never say I haven’t done anything for her when I spent A BUCK FITTY on her, you guys.

I said we didn’t see anyTHING cool, not anyONE. This man had the most majestically out-of-place moustache in all of the east coast. I was frantic to capture his facial coif to treasure for all of eternity, but one of his daughters quickly caught on to what I was doing and saw right through my “I’m just taking pictures of my friend’s shoulder” charade. Considering this happened right when we got there, I decided to quit while I was ahead.

I let Tommy explain to me what was so special about this fishing bait bullshit because that’s what a sweet person I am, except that my intentions were stewed in sarcasm and irony. Jessy walked away immediately so she wouldn’t be bored to death, then we giggled about it later behind Tommy’s back.

When Tommy surreptitiously veered the truck onto a back country road upon leaving the flea market, I thought to myself, “Oh how nice, we get to enjoy the beautiful sunshine by looking at the countryside” which is completely out of character for me to think; approximately .0005 seconds later, my new thought was, “Wait — I think he might be driving us to our freshly-dug graves.”

Instead, he pulled into a junk yard (I LOVE JUNK YARDS!) to see if he could find a new handle for my car, because now we can’t open the drivers side door from the outside. Everything Henry and I touch breaks. When I go somewhere alone, I have to get in on the passenger side and pretend like I’m looking for something in the glove compartment while attempting to lean over and inconspicuously pushing open the drivers side door.

Our last stop was Marcell’s Pottery, which is this really iconic building that I’ve passed a million times in my life but have never stopped in because, well, it’s a pottery shop. However, as soon as I walked through the door, I was met with an icy glare. It took a few seconds for it to register, but I realized it was the Moustache’s Daughter.

I ran over and tugged on Jessy’s arm, hissing at her in a hyper-giddy squeal.

“What are the odds?” she laughed. I mean, the pottery is literally right down the road from the flea market, but we spent all that time, what seemed like an hour, driving around aimlessly, looking at country houses and cars propped up on cinder blocks.

Fought to get a good shot of the ‘stache, to no avail. His daughter was watching me like I was a hooded teenaged boy with Skittles on my person.

This place had the motherlode of religious shit though, so I was glad we stopped there.

And pupil-less Dutch kids!

The end.