So this weekend.
I think it’s been a lost weekend of slackerdom. It started out productive enough. I stopped and picked up a few DVD’s and then came home. The television in our living room has been having issues for the last few months where it will intermittently go to static for the video feed. Basically, you can hear what’s going on but you can’t see it. It’s very frustrating’ almost like watching scrambled porn. You start thinking that maybe you’re missing something really really exceptional only I’m just trying to watch Martha Stewart cut butter into flour or something. Thus, I came home from work and watched about fifteen minutes of television, ten minutes of which were static, and declared, ‘Let’s go buy a tv.’ Esteban, as with most things electronic, was game. Anything with a cord is money well spent for Esteban. Had I wanted a lovely Queen Anne cherry coffee table or something, things would have been different, but a tv’ now that’s an investment. Gah. Anyway, our tragic flaw in our plan was that we did not measure the opening of our entertainment center. You can see where this is going. We went to dinner, ending up at the Olive Garden, which was only because we were completely desperate for sustenance by that time. I had grilled swordfish and steamed veggies. Esteban had heartattack-on-a-plate Chicken Alfredo. Then off to the electronics superstore. After much deliberation, I decided upon a lovely 32-inch television, which we then brought home. The face was 29.5 inches. We took it home and before Esteban carted it into the house, I measured the opening of the cabinet. 28 inches. It’s enough to make one cry. By that time, it was 8:30 and the store was about to close. ‘Ok, I can either take this one back and get a 27-inch or I can go buy a stand or something for the tv. Your call.’ Esteban says, thinking in his head that he had to leave the house five minutes ago if he was going to get to the store before it closed. After a few minutes of deliberation (read: I decided that I didn’t want some fugly fake furniture stand thing to replace our fugly questionably-wood entertainment center.), he went out the door to get a 27-inch television. He tried to tell me that size doesn’t matter. Yes it fucking does. Those extra five inches would have maybe offered extra entertainment value that I will now never know. I will always be wondering if the other tv would have left me more fulfilled. Like, maybe I could see Buffy’s nose pores or something. I dunno.
So, that was dealt with. Esteban returned with a smaller, cheaper, and undoubtedly less capable television and then spent an hour being a guy and hooking it up. Finally, with much anticipation, we got to watch Orange County. Phew. Yeah. That was worth it. Actually, I almost burst a blood vessel laughing at one of the deleted scenes (the Annihilator one’ that totaled me. It was classic.) but all-in-all, it was sort of lame and had eerie moments where the main character kept morphing into Tom Hanks. Yes. I know it’s his son. That’s what I’m saying. It kept freaking Esteban out. We’d be sitting there watching it and suddenly he’d say ‘Whooa&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- right there. Jeez.’ Which got to be distracting. Maybe if the television had been larger, it wouldn’t have been so distracting. I’m just saying.
We woke up uber late on Saturday and went out to a truck stop for breakfast. Again with the restaurant angst that caused us to panic and make a bad choice. Then we tooled over to Club Parents for some pool time. Esteban invited Eric over, who swims like a fish and makes us all feel graceless and unathletic. He can swim underwater like’ well, like sperm or something. Not that I’ve seen sperm in action underwater but he was really fast.
(Eric, I’m sorry about the sperm metaphor but I’m a writer and sometimes these things come to me and I just have to write them down that way. I’m not saying that you are spermy or anything. I hope you understand. And still come to dig a hole and plant my tree for me. I have your beer all ready. And if it makes you feel any better, I have a videocap of Scotty Boom Boom’s ass that I’m about two seconds from posting a link to on this page so that tens of people will see it. And really, when you put it in that context, being compared to motile sperm isn’t so bad, now is it? Just forget about the sperm thing and let’s work from there, shall we?)
Anyway, we hung out in the pool until I had to pike to go and shower and get ready to go to the Journey concert. Carissa picked me up and then we swung by the bar to pick up Golf Chica Mary and her friend Renee. Renee is one of those incredibly beautiful, thin, blonde women who can get men to follow her around like little lambs. And she’s nice. I went to high school with her little sister. Mary and Renee wanted to leave their cars at the bar so that they would have a way to get home afterwards. We swung by and picked up Pretty Penny and then off we went to the Outagamie County Fair.
We parked in a hay field and then tooled into the fair. I had announced to everyone that I was going to have me a corndog, Operation Hottie be damned. Mary suggested that I’ve been so healthy lately that I deserved a ‘cheat day’. I didn’t really view it as ‘cheating&AO8AvwC9AO8AvwC9- I was just going to have a corn dog, that’s all. Being a fan of instant gratification, I immediately went to the very first corn dog booth I saw and got a dog. And inhaled it. It was a subpar dog and I was regretting it immediately, but by that time I was starving, having not eaten since breakfast. We continued to walk around the midway.
Wisconsin’s finest, the cream of the crop, the smartest, most beautiful people in the county’. Well, they must have all avoided this fair like the plague. I was stunned by the display of humanity out there. Orthodontia. The fair was only about 20 miles from Green Bay city limits and yet no one had apparently heard of orthodontia. And bras. The women were apparently very disillusioned by their apparent need for a bra. I saw more nipples poking out from beneath those tank tops with the shelf bras than I ever would have thought possible. I think if you’re over a B cup or over 40 with four kids, you probably need more than a shelf. Maybe you need a bookcase. I’m not certain but use some discretion. I saw one lady, obviously within spitting distance of her 50th birthday, wearing a blue tank with aforementioned shelf bra, only her breasts were sagging so far that you could see at least five inches of flat boob vertical. Her nipples were sitting around her waist. I mean, don’t get me wrong’ I own two of those tanks with the shelf bras in them too, but I SLEEP in them. No one sees me in the damned thing but for Esteban and the cats and for good reason. I give some hella cleavage, but honestly, that’s pretty personal, and not for your neighbors, carnies and the guys at the Kettle Korn stand to witness. Sadly, another woman had a black macram’ tank top on’ not a terrible fashion crime, merely a misdemeanor’ but she then wore a white Playtex bra beneath it. Blindingly white. Use some sense, lady! Penny thought that maybe I should have tapped her on the shoulder and mentioned it, but she looked strikingly like she might have been from my father’s side of the family and I don’t know if I could handle some kind of White Trash family reunion at the Outagamie County Fair. The guys were not without errors either. One man was walking around without a shirt on, complete with his fourth trimester beer gut sticking out. And his 32-inch waist pants down around his hips, leaving a good 2-inches of ass crack sticking out. I don’t understand that. I mean, if your gut creates a porch a good five inches away from your body, it’s probably time to buy bigger pants. Don’t just keep sliding them lower so that you can delude yourself that you still wear the same Levis you did in high school. Freaks.
Mary stopped at a fried cheese curd stand (Yes. Fried cheese. It’s a local thing. Don’t sneer until you’ve tried it. And yes, we understand the correlation between that and the fact that Wisconsin is the fattest state in the union, but thanks for pointing it out.) and waited in line. Carissa noticed that the corn dogs at this stand were cheaper and looked far better than the last stand. I was still pretty hungry, so I got a second one. I should have eaten something before I went to this thing. It’s my own damned fault.
I wolfed that down and it was very tasty. Ok. So that was basically supper now. I had been intending to get something more reasonable, but two corn dogs were good. Now, unfortunately, I wanted something sweet, so I got a freshly squeezed lemonade. And then I spotted a cream puff stand. That’s another Wisconsin thing, and one that I wouldn’t miss for the world. Fresh cream puffs, with real Wisconsin whipped cream’ when you die and go to heaven, it won’t get any better than that. Penny offered to split it with me, but I couldn’t really think of a way to cut a cream puff in half without ruining it, so I declined and got a whole one which they filled at least three inches thick with whipped cream. Then Penny split one with Carissa and demonstrated that you can twist them apart like an Oreo. Then I felt stupid. Stupid with a whole cream puff. I chomped that, covering my cleavage with powdered sugar until I looked a bit like a curvy round exotic dancer at a Charlie Sheen cocaine party. I even got it on my arm. It takes a special talent to get it on your outer arm. Oh but it was good! I wiped my mouth and then we tromped into the barns, looking for the horse barn. We never did find it. I did get to pet some sheep, which I think are adorable, except for the rampant pooing.
Then I started to not feel so good. We wandered back to the grandstand and got in line with Mary and Renee. Penny and Carissa wandered off to win a pink elephant, who apparently had mange because it kept shedding glitter over everything. I started to sweat profusely. After months of fruit and Luna bars, all of that saturated fat was having a little party in my unprepared digestive system. Gah. Never again. People kept walking by with fried foods too’ taunting me. I had to shield my eyes at one point. There seemed to be a parade of funnel cakes, too, which make me a little ill anyway. I have been haunted by the Ghost of Funnel Cakes Past since a rather spectacular outdoor festival the week of my 21st birthday, when I discovered German beers.
The concert was general admission and we claimed some prime seats in the grandstand. Penny was still hungry, so she went and got a pretzel while I tried consciously to avoid the veritable parade of cholesterol that was cruising before me. French fries, batter fried cheese curds, homemade potato chips, tempura, corn dogs’. It was like some kind of Dr. Dean Ornish purgatory in which I learn the evils of unhealthy eating and also learn a very valuable lesson, all set to the soundtrack of Enya or something. I kind of expected Susan Powter to pop up in long robes and give me some kind of opportunity to redeem myself nutritionally. Penny gave me a bit of her soft pretzel and I knocked the salt off it, gnawing on it until I began to feel better. I think it acted like a grease sponge.
Penny and Carissa then made me feel all squishy. Penny is in the middle of a divorce and was feeling unattractive. We were playing the ‘Who Would You Do?’ game and we had both decided that we wanted the man we dubbed ‘Goatee Man’. Because he, you know, had a goatee and stuff. I then told her that if he honestly couldn’t make up his mind between her and me that I would gracefully bow out and besides, I had that whole Esteban thing going on. I then spotted a guy who looked hot from afar but then when he got closer, he looked not so hot. I declared him a Monet and opted back to Goatee as my Hottie Of Choice. Penny then mentioned that she probably is a Monet too, which, by the way, she is not. She’s very lovely, both inside and out. I then opined that it does not matter how attractive people are on the outside, it is self-confidence that draws people to you. You can be the most attractive person in the world but if you don’t believe it, no one else will. Likewise, you might not be all that cute, but if you know that you are, at least to someone, then the world will think so too. And then we got all Afterschool Special and Penny told me that one of the things she really liked about me was my refusal to be knocked down by society’s assumptions of beauty. And then Carissa told me that she was honored to have me as a friend. And I told them that I was honored to have them as friends. And we weren’t even drinking yet. It was a beautiful thing. (sniff)
Then, weirdness. My Uncle showed up with my cousins, Skinny and Malnourished. Apparently Aunt Brumhilda didn’t want to attend. To prove a point, I asked Penny how old she thought Skinny was. Penny, knowing that I was making a point, guessed high and said ’13?’. Wrong. She’s 15 and a half but she looks maybe 11. Malnourished looks like she’s 8 or 9 and she’s 13. It’s just wrong, but thankfully, they actually looked as though they’ve been getting a bit more to eat. I think Aunt Brumhilda is losing the war as they get older. Or maybe someone’s sneaking them food. I made them go fetch me soda from outside of the grandstand, where it was cheaper and then gave them a tip. They’re such great kids. Skinny made us all feel old though when she said ‘I don’t even know who these guys are’ and then I realized that Journey had broken up before Skinny was born.
When Journey came out and started singing, we realized that we couldn’t stand up to dance without blocking the view of the people behind us who did not want to stand. Because we were in one of the very first rows, we would have caused this entire chain reaction of standing and blocking that I really didn’t want to be responsible for, so Carissa and I booked down to the ‘Standing Area’ in front of the stage. The ‘Standing Area’ was actually the racetrack where they do tractor pulls and demolition derbies and whatnot. It was covered with wood chips and they kept repeatedly warning folks to not smoke, since we were essentially standing upon kindling, but the hubris of inebriated rednecks won out and folks were smoking nonetheless. I kept getting a whiff of a scent that I couldn’t place and then I realized what it was. The entire place smelled like a hamster’s cage. A drunken hamster that smokes Marlboro unfiltereds and is demanding Pabst Blue Ribbon in his water bottle.
Journey was excellent, as was to be expected. However, due to what is my complete life curse, immediately a group of what might possibly have been genetic mutant people came and stood directly in front of us. I am, by no means, short. I am 5 foot 9 inches tall and I felt short next to these people. I came up to mid-shoulder on one guy. I think they were weaned on bovine growth hormone or something. Their women were Amazons. One girl had this enormous head. I think the other girl might not have been an actual girl at all, but rather one of those balloons that they carry around in the Thanksgiving parade. Maybe it was Underdog’s girlfriend or something. I dunno.
They also had a friend who was the ying to their freakishly large yang. He was roughly 4 feet tall and might have been actually a lawn gnome come to life. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned, and a goofy Gilligan hat, out from under which popped his comical goofy face. Apparently, there is no beer in the land of Gigantic People and Living Lawn Gnomes because he was very much enjoying the stuff. His entire purpose throughout the entire concert was to jump up and down and try to get the boys from Journey to notice him. I am not making that up. It was very important to him. Unfortunately, he would flail and spasm with little to no regard for the personal space of anyone around him. I almost caught his elbow with my face at least twice. What is more, as the concert progressed, he seemed to lose the ability to speak coherently. He could partially sing the lyrics to the songs ‘Someday’.love’ find you’ bind you’.touched and went’. Ways!’ and when he wasn’t singing he was either yelling ‘Jerry!’ or ‘Bomb’ Upon later discussion, Carissa and I determined that he probably trying to say ‘Journey’. We’re not really sure what ‘Bomb’ meant.
Later, we moved closer to the stage and the guy standing behind me was huffing on the back of my neck. Huff’ huff’. Yeah Baby!’. Rock!’. huff’huff. He was making me feel all dirty and used somehow. I almost got nostalgic for the lawn gnome.
When the concert was over, we headed back into the car and over to the bar. The bar of my doom. It’s a very very evil bar. Something about it makes me want to get drinky. I think because it is so very fun. This time, we saw absolutely no one that we knew, which was fine because there were five of us, so we were kind of our own little party. A very drunk goatee guy (a different one) wanted to dance with Penny, but she would have nothing of it. Carissa fell in lust with Buzz, one of the bartenders wearing red velvet jeans with the zipper open (it had broken). I immediately guzzled a Malibu and Diet Coke in a magical glowy cup and then switched to Blind Russians because the Malibu was going down too quickly. Big mistake. Three Blind Russians later and I was amazed by how incredible I could dance and how very cool I looked lipsyncing Hot Chocolates ‘You Sexy Thang’. I told Carissa ‘I can tell I’m getting schnocked again because I suddenly think I’m the coolest person in this bar.’ And she, in her wisdom, replied quite effortlessly ‘That’s because you are!’ Carissa is so my friend.
We stayed at Harry’s until I was requiring the assistance of the Magical Brick Wall to hold myself up. I’m not proud of that. Once again, I drank too much, too quickly. Penny and I were both a little in the bag. We were all wearing candy necklaces but our various parts were sticky because we had been sweating. Penny looked like a victim of domestic violence. I had wrapped mine around my wrist because last time I ended up with a disgusting sticky neck and amazingly, I was cognizant enough to not make the same mistake twice, but my hand then got all sticky and discolored. Carissa drove us to Taco Bell, where Penny and I were cracking up at nothing. I think I said that I had leprosy at one point. And I tried to explain the ‘Annihilator’ thing but I’m not sure if it translated well. It probably didn’t matter. Carissa was cracking us up just by looking at us sideways. While going out and getting drunk with sober Carissa is a lot of fun, going out and getting drunk with sober Carissa and drunken Penny is even more fun, because then we have her outnumbered and stuff. And we can laugh at each other.
We then went to Penny’s house where I washed my leprosy off my wrist and then inhaled my chili cheese burrito. And we told each other that we all loved each other. It was a drunken friend/sober friend bonding moment. Another Afterschool Special to frame the evening. Then Carissa drove me home and I was singing fairly badly off key and she was laughing at me, which was fine because I found it fairly humorous myself.
Note to self: don’t go back to that bar. You know that you’re getting old when you realize that you’re not an Afterschool Special anymore’ you’re now a Lifetime For Women Special Event. And that’s just sad. But my drunken mama would undoubtedly be proud, so there’s that. None of this would have happened if we had a bigger tv.
My wrist is still psychedelic though.
