Misc

Last night I did one of those terribly clichéd grown-up married things people do and I went out for a Ladies Night. I hate calling it that because it sounds like I took off my apron, sighed with the back of my hand pressed to my forehead, and giggled as the girls showed up and whisked me away to a tupperware party. It wasn’t like that at all, but don’t think I’m slamming tupperware in any way. OH GOD NO. Tupperware is what God intended leftover homemade beans to be stored in. You’d really love my beans.

Beth and our new neighbor Carol (FIRST MENTION) showed up at about 7:30, right after Jon and I had successfully cleared up at least a good three hours of TiVo space for the busy Thursday night TV line-up. Beth looked refreshed and radiant, and Carol (SECOND MENTION) looked as perfect as ever — let’s all just hate her for a moment — and I had washed the front section of my hair so that it would appear as if I had taken a shower. Now, for those of you who took my previous post about not showering for five days seriously, come on. I said it was possible to go five days without showering. I didn’t actually say that I had gone five days without showering. WHO WOULD ADMIT THAT ON THE INTERNET?

It’s only been three and a half days since I showered and I promise I’m going to shower right after I write this. And boy am I going to smell good. I have permission from my hairdresser, an Official Graduate of the Vidal Sassoon School in Santa Monica, to go more than a couple days without washing my hair. I live in a very dry climate, and washing my hair every day can damage the hair’s precious follicles. As for the rest of my body, THAT’S WHAT BABY WIPES ARE FOR.

I mentioned to the ladies that not only had I washed the front portion of my hair but that I had also put on lipstick for the evening. Beth, too, said she had put on lipstick, because she knows like I know that this occasion was an occasion for lipstick. We were going to get to be away from the house without the kids for, like, a WHOLE EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME. There would be no danger of Leta reaching up and grabbing my face and smearing the lovely pink tint across my forehead. Carol (THIRD MENTION) said that she couldn’t tell I had lipstick on, and I responded, “Well, then it’s doing its job, isn’t it?” I have read too many Seventeen magazines not to know that you’re supposed to look like you don’t have any make-up on. DUH.

Beth drove us up to a local cafe to have a small dinner and drinks. Beth drove because she doesn’t drink and because she has the fanciest and most awesome smelling car In The World. I won’t tell you exactly what kind of car it is, you’ll just have to use your imagination, but it still has that new car smell, and every time I get into it I almost reach orgasm. Last night I wanted to lick the leather seats and hump the glove-box.

At dinner I was of course the only one who had a full entire meal with actual food. In fact, I nearly ate the table I was so hungry. Beth and Carol (FOURTH MENTION) both had salads, and by the end of dinner I was eating Beth’s leftover LETTUCE, I was THAT hungry. Dinner conversation was as would be expected with one southern woman and two VERY VERY midwestern women, something that should have been taped and played on Spike! TV for its insight into the female psyche. Topics ranged from botched c-sections to life with toddlers to how I ended up dating that loser for two whole years (ANSWER: I was young and didn’t know any better) to how Dave, Beth’s husband who always ends up with half of his meal on his face, used to own a pair of shorts in college that were half cow-print, half acid wash.

I’ll repeat that last part: half cow-print, half acid wash.

If that’s not a testament to the love and devotion Beth has for her husband I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS.

After paying the bill we all headed to the bathroom for that after-dinner, I-just-drank-too-much- merlot-and-water pee session. Carol (FIFTH MENTION) beat us both to the bathroom and because she had to pee so badly, she SLAMMED the door in our faces. I had enough merlot in me that I did not pass up the opportunity to scream out loud in a restaurant in a very Mormon, conservative neighborhood, “OH NO YOU DI’INT, BITCH!” Lordy, that felt good.

While in the bathroom Beth apparently hit the wall she was so tired and the series of events that happened next are very blurry to her. Nothing much happened except that I discovered the automatic paper towel dispenser and proceeded to contort my body into various positions to get the thing to work. The sensor detected the hand-waving, but not the handstand. It also detected the jumping-jack, but not the flashing of the middle finger. Carol (SIXTH MENTION) was going on and on about how she uses her foot to flush the toilet, because she doesn’t want all those germs on her hands, and I was all, THAT’S WHY BATHROOMS HAVE SINKS AND SOAP AND AUTOMATIC PAPER TOWEL DISPENSERS.

And then we got into a debate about whether or not those awful fucking automatic flushing toilets are any good, and of course they aren’t! I can flush my own goddamn toilet THANK YOU VERY MUCH. They always go off in the middle of a pee session because the sensors are always messed up, so everybody waiting in line thinks you’re in there dropping WHO KNOWS WHAT into the toilet because it keeps going off and off. OR WORSE! The sensor never goes off and you’re doing everything you can to get it to go off, even getting on your knees and begging the toilet to PLEASE JUST FLUSH, but it won’t so you have to leave the stall with your belongings left behind.

The drive home was for the most part uneventful, except for the part where Beth and Carol (SEVENTH MENTION) got off on this whole Wisconsin/Minnesota “do you remember this?” whole thing where I was left out of the whole conversation, because I don’t say “concrete” like “KAHN-creet” or “Bacardi” like “ba-CAHHHR-dee.” And then Carol (EIGHTH MENTION, THAT’S EIGHT WHOLE MENTIONS), started talking about how this one time she had to stop parking her car in this one parking lot because it got taken over by some drunk people or some pimps, I don’t remember, and she was sad because she was just out of college and couldn’t afford to park anywhere else because all her money was going to the purchase of NYLONS for work. NYLONS? NYLONS? Who uses the word NYLONS? Where I come from we call them PANTYHOSE, and I tried to point this out to the two midwestern women in the front seat when Beth came to her normal searing senses, gave me a look of GO BACK HOME TO YOUR TRAILER, and said, “Hello, WAFFLEHOUSE.”

I so love my friends Beth and Carol (NINTH MENTION).

Carol (TENTH MENTION) early on in the evening bemoaned the fact that she doesn’t ever get a mention on my website or Beth’s website, which is PURELY FALSE because I mentioned her HERE, so I wanted to her know that I love her so much that I mentioned her, CAROL, ELEVEN FUCKING TIMES. Thank you, Carol, for providing Leta her entire wardrobe. She would be naked without you.

(Beth’s mention of Carol [TWELVE!] can be seen HERE.)