Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What happens when you're stuck in the house for seven days and then try to escape it

In an unfortunate but true situation, I contemplated being rude to children last night. But to explain why I came very close to yelling at two little boys, we must return to Friday evening.

After receiving some crappy news at work that I’m not going to go into expect to say, “Grrrrr,” I stayed late, ran to dinner with Jenny, ran home, threw clothes in a suitcase for Jersey, then ran to Beth’s house where I was spending the night to be closer to Union Station. Because my train was leaving at 5:30 AM on Saturday. But first I went to The Red and The Black on H Street. Fun bar. I went because Beth was singing with a friend’s band and I am a good friend. So upon arriving home around 12:30 and falling asleep around 1:15, I got very little sleep on Friday night. I slept in 20 minute increments for the whole train ride to Jersey. And when I arrived I plunged immediately into doing stuff. Breakfast with cousins, shopping for rehearsal dinner dress (Victory! I’ll be looking fly.), lunch with aunt and cousins, more shopping, dinner and drinks at cousins’ house until late, going to bed at 1 AM. I basically was almost up for 24 hours. You know what I realized? I’m not 21 years old anymore and this is not college. This is real life and I need sleep. I got precisely eight hours before I had to get up and do other stuff. Plus there are puppies at my aunt’s house and they don’t like it when you sleep a lot. Cousins come over, we watch movie, order food, hang out until late, color my hair, and sleep once again. And now Monday rolls around and there is more shopping, more hanging with cousins, and NOT A LOT OF SLEEPING. And so, as sad as I was to leave everyone last night at 9:00 PM, I was damn happy to get on a train and sleep. Which isn’t out of the realm of reasonable expectations when your train is at 9:40 and it’s a Monday night, right?

So these boys. They must have been 6 and 7. And there was a baby. I don’t usually get mad at babies because they’re babies. They’re not trying to be jerks; they just do what they do. But THE BOYS. Totally within age to know appropriate sound level. And I didn’t understand why their mother was so blasé about the whole thing. Maybe once every 30 minutes she’d tell them to be quiet in the least quiet voice imaginable. And I didn’t get it. Because they were yelling. And I was trying to SLEEP. And they kept saying STUPID THINGS. Example, and I swear this is a direct quote, “I AM MEGATRON!” Look kid, you are NOT Megatron. And if you were, Amtrak would probably have issues letting you on their train, so shut up. One of them also had a really bad cough. The kind of cough that would make my mother wince and bundle me up in all kinds of clothing because you can’t let a kid with the beginnings of croup (yes, I know the difference between kinds of coughs, this is what happens when you’re a sick kid) be all cold! And this kid is running around the frigid train (why not heat, Amtrak?) in a t-shirt. So I didn’t have much faith in this woman’s parenting skills in general but then it happened. They finally got off the train in Wilmington and the mother stands up and I see she has ear buds in her ears. Let me repeat that in the tone in which I meant it. BITCH WAS LISTENING TO HER IPOD WHILE HER CHILDREN TERRORIZED THE TRAIN. AND IT WAS LOUD. I’d heard it before but I assumed it was another passenger trying to drown out those damn kids and I couldn’t blame them one little bit. BUT IT WAS THE MOTHER. No wonder she wasn’t enforcing volume control. SHE WAS JAMMING. The level of my fury was high enough that I caught her eye in order to say something to her, but then I remembered that I didn’t know enough about her life to give her the verbal dress down she deserved and chose instead to just be thankful these children were off the damn train.

Also, would you like to see cab drivers be SUPER NICE? Just catch a cab from Union Station at 1 AM. They are all about letting you share rides, giving you fair rates, and just being nice in general. It was lovely.

In other news, I am sorry for the lack of posting in my life lately. On Day Three of Snow of Doom, my computer screen died and I exist in a sad state these days. How did the Snow of Doom go you ask? LET ME TELL YOU.

I had my groceries delivered the Friday morning and it was maybe the best decision I’d made ever. I didn’t have to deal with the lines at the grocery store that friends compared to bread lines in Communist Russia. I also avoided the cold. And I cooked. A lot. Because when you’re inside in a snowstorm, there’s something about making homemade, warm food that is super appealing.

On Sunday, Allie decided it was time to play in the snow. On Thursday we’d gone to Target, where she procured a giant sea turtle pool float complete with handles. She promptly named him Slippy the Sea Turtle. He would be our sled. On Sunday morning, Allie announces that she’s sure the only way we’re going out there is if we are drunk. So at 10 AM she looks at me and tells me I need to catch up and start drinking. I could only drink a beer and a half since, as I stated earlier in this post, I am no longer 21 and I didn’t even have a morning football game to inspire the drinking. Allie did not allow this to stop her dreams and so she instructed me to take shots of bourbon. Which I did. And chased them with beer. Now that we’re good and wasted around 11:30, we walk down to our sedate lobby, with the five foot long sea turtle in tow, and charge out into the snow.

We picked a site where you didn’t really know we were there until you happened upon us. This made for awesome reactions when people saw two girls trying to sled down a not-steep-enough hill on a giant turtle. Somewhere along the line, Slippy suffered an injury and began to deflate. This resulted in Allie sitting forlornly on the ground, trying to blow Slippy back up, while yelling, “I hate you, Slippy!” There might be video and photographic proof of all of this, but we made a pact not to ever confirm, deny, or share any proof that these things happened.

I don’t really know what inspired this next part, but I turned around and saw an undisturbed snow bank that was probably two feet deep. I told Allie that if she waded to the middle of it, maybe Slippy would go. Now, this snow bank had no incline and was really just a bunch of snow. Nonetheless, Allie wades to the middle and kind of jumps onto Slippy into the snow. And nothing happened. Except a small snow-plosion. And then Allie saying that she couldn’t get up. Now I’m laughing and can’t stop and I’m telling her to roll over. When she finally got out we decided this adventure was probably over BUT THEN we happened upon a man we’d seen earlier with a camera. So clearly we approached him and asked if he wanted a picture of Slippy. I don’t know what was funnier, the fear in his eyes or the tone of his voice when he asked what a Slippy was. Sir, clearly we are referring to the giant, deflated turtle we are carrying.

And then we walked back through our apartment building with a deflated Slippy and deflated spirits. And Allie kept kicking Slippy and saying, “I hate you.”

That was the best part of the snowstorm I think. We also went boozing on Tuesday night just because we could, but nothing crazy happened. Mostly, I’m impressed that we were in the house for seven days and didn’t kill each other. Go us!

That’s all for now.

Except that I got home last night around 1:15 and didn’t fall asleep until 2:00 or so. So if I’m punchier than usual, don’t ask why. Now you know.

2 comments:

CVilleFieldNotes said...

Slippy?? Hilarious.

Anonymous said...

Look kid, you are NOT Megatron.

That is my favorite part.