You know how I bitch about being on the Prednisone and how it gives me a schizophrenic tummy (hungry? Not hungry, angry! Now hungry! Arrrgh! Splenda Head want four gallons of ice-cold chocolate milk or kill you now!) not to mention keeps me awake for about five hours past my normal bedtime? Yeah, well, there’s also a lovely side effect wherein I am cheerful and quick thinking and all sorts of hap-hap-happy to be me. And apparently, my underwear matching compulsion is taken to record heights. Earlier this week, I wore a tan v-neck shirt with jeans and black shoes with leopard on top and hence wore leopard print panties. Yesterday, it was a white button down shirt with silver metallic pin-stripes and Hello Kitty socks that had pink and silver metallic stars, so the lingerie involved pink with silver metallic pin striping. And today, it’s a white hoodie with light blue Tinkerbell shirt that has stars printed on it, thus is paired with light blue panties with white stars. Yes. Sometimes I cannot believe myself either.
Also, last night, Esteban and I had a rare evening with nothing on the agenda, so it was almost like playing house. We celebrated by going to the grocery store, ostensibly to get some chocolate syrup (because I took my codeine cough syrup back to the pharmacist and complained about the way it tastes like hairspray and he told me to follow the dosage with a spoonful of Hershey’s. Well, ok, if you insist) and also to procure some rotisserie chicken, as it was the only thing I could even consider eating at that moment. In fact, I even lobbied for a snooty store out in the suburbs rather than any of the stores near our house (and in fact, would not even accept a closer but older location of the same store) We walked into the store and were immediately confronted with 9 perfectly browned chickens sitting in what I like to call the ‘guilty working mom area’ conveniently located near the entrance.
‘There’s your chicken.’ Esteban pointed.
‘Yeah, I’m just going to wait until after we shop so that it stays hot.’
‘Don’t do that! They’re going to be gone and then you’ll make us go to another store! Because you’re high maintenance!’
‘I am high maintenance, but no, I wouldn’t do that. Besides, I’ll just get some of the fake Chinese food if it’s gone. But they have lots and we’re not going to be here for long, so it will be fine.’
We then proceeded to do a bunch of shopping, including a very fanciful discussion wherein I talked Esteban out of buying the store brand shell pasta which was ten cents less than Creamettes, which he prefers. This only minutes after he encouraged me to buy 100% bing cherry juice (because mmmmm’ cherry juice) despite the fact that it cost even more than my other juice splurge purchase, Pom, and then chiding me for depriving myself of something as stupid as groceries. Then, as I picked up some ice cream bars, I asked him if he wanted some as well. ‘No! Because then I’ll eat them and they are bad for me!’ while not a minute later, he grabbed for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. The man is a study in contradictions.
Later, we stopped in the wine department and pretended that we were actual adults but then owned up to the slutty teenagers that we are when we only bought vodka. It was snooty vodka because Esteban is too good to drink pedestrian Absolut. Apparently we are well ensconced in our thirties.
Although it occurs to me now that a vodka/cherry juice cocktail would be really really good. It would be a Slutty Shirley Temple or something. In fact, I’m totally going to make those for our GB MiniCon.
The wine department required us to pay for our liquor purchases there, so while Esteban took care of the purchasing (because he’s the MAN), I scurried back to the entrance to procure my rotisserie chicken, and was happy to see that there were two chickens left. Two chickens and two people reaching for them just as I rounded the corner. One guy was struggling with the extra bag they give you for the chicken, and I had a momentary moral dilemma in which I envisioned myself walking up to the heated table, grabbing the last chicken sans bag and then walking away as though oblivious. Except that I didn’t because that would be trashy and wrong and I’ve got enough things to keep me out of heaven, so I don’t need the Great Chicken Caper to be the thing that tips the scales toward eternal damnation. Then, while I waited for my fake Chinese food, Esteban came ambling over, carrying our alcohol, wondering what was taking me so long. And then saw the empty warming table and did his ‘You silly little girl!’ tsk and then was somewhat hard to live with until we were unloading groceries onto the conveyer belt, I found a bucket of mini chocolate chip cookies (which are Esteban’s kryptonite) tucked away beneath his box of Grape-Nuts.
‘Oh my!’ He said with much drama. ‘Look! Somebody must have purchased these and then left them in this cart and we didn’t even see it!’
‘Oh you’re right! We should put them back!’ I plucked them out of the cart.
‘No, no, we shouldn’t do that.’ He nonchalantly grabbed them back. ‘We don’t want to make trouble’ as he laid them on the conveyor belt.
‘But, if someone already purchased them, then why should we pay the store for them again?’ I pointed out.
‘That’s how the store stays in business.’ He said austerely, giving the cookies a pat as they traveled to the cashier, happy to help support capitalism while I was obviously a communist.
Which just makes me laugh.
Sometimes I just can’t imagine how I got to be so lucky. And then I think about him plucking his ear hair with my Tweezerman and I land back on the ground again. But all was forgiven after this, which I’m only going to share with you because I don’t want to forget it.
A few nights ago, I was having a hellish time falling asleep (another ‘sone story) and it was about two in the morning. Esteban was sitting in the living room, which is about as far as you can get from the bedroom, trying to catch up on his work backlog. I had just finished the entire bottle of Dasani I keep on the nightstand and was thinking about how much my throat hurt and how much I wished I had water to drink but how I didn’t want to get up to get some because I was starting to fall asleep and if I got up, then I’d just be wide awake again. And then I started coughing and coughing and coughing because my dry throat just hurt so much. A few minutes later, I heard Esteban walk into the dark room.
‘Honey,’ I rasped. ‘Would you mind please filling my water bottle for me?’
But before I even finished the sentence, he was standing next to my side of the bed, holding a glass of water.
‘Here, I heard you coughing. Poor girl. I’ll get you a fresh water bottle too.’ And then he wandered out of the room to fetch me some more water.
