This past Saturday, I was in Magic Kingdom. It was all a part of the festivities of my sister’s wedding. Ok, she didn’t actually get married in Magic Kingdom (it’s $15,000 to get married in front of the Castle and that doesn’t include a reception, a photographer, that’s just a venue fee!), but on Saturday, the day after my sister strapped on the old ball and chain, the family that was in attendance took the little ones to Magic Kingdom.
My cousins, Brenton and Emily are nine- and six-years old. My second cousin (the son of my cousin, and yes, I realize that is extremely nuts that I have cousins that are six-years-old and cousins that are 35-years-old. Don’t shoot me, I’m just along for the ride) Drew just turned five-years-old in August. All three of them had yet to experience the magic of the Magic Kingdom.
Now, I could give you a chronological detail from the trip over to the theme park in the bus from the hotel (The Boardwalk – amazing! Highly recommend it) and end with the group photo in front of the entrance on our way out of the park, but that would be boring. So, I’m going to highlight the trip and turn this into quirky little travel piece on how to get the best out of your visit to Magic Kingdom.
1. First off, you need the proper ratios established. When we went, we had three kids: Benton, 8; Emily, 6; and Drew, 5. We then had a laundry list of adults. There was of course me, the LB, and Andrea. Kevin’s girlfriend (also an Andrea to be known as GF Andrea) was there, my friend Ryan, and my cousin Jamie and his wife Kendra (Drew’s parents). We had nine adults for a ratio of 3 adults to 1 kid.
You do not want to be outnumbered by kids at Disney. Extra adults mean that someone will be able to take a break from the kids. The only drawback (if it is a drawback), is that someone, at some point may think a child is lost. For instance, Melody went to buy drinks when we were close to a line for a ride. The kids took Kevin, Kendra, and GF Andrea into the line. Melody turned around, didn’t see her kids, and had a mild panic attack at having possibly lost her kids in the throng at the theme park. Then she saw them in the ride line. She felt better because she was then able to rest while the kids waited for the ride.
2. Another big plus is to go after a night of a sweet, undisturbed eight hours of sleep. If you’re taking kids to the park for the first time, it is bound to be a big day and even on the light traffic day (the park was filled to 10% capacity in the morning and gradually had traffic filter in) there will be waits for your favorite Disney characters. Even those kind of creepy characters like Pinocchio get children excited enough to stand in line and wait for an autograph and a photo.
I suggest at least an eight-hour sleep for all attending the park. Please, please, do not attempt going into the park on four, possible three hours of sleep unless you are a psychotic (which I clearly am). You will be tired and if you’re mother is taking some of your luggage home with her that day, you will probably still leave behind quite a bit of shit in your sleepy haste to meet your family members and get to the park.
3. Sobriety is also given two thumbs up at Magic Kingdom. Yes, I knew that the perky, peppy, spunky employees, the heat, the crush of people, and the prices could make anyone grab for a drink, but please refrain. You will need your wits when dealing with kids. Sobriety isn’t the only rule of thumb you should follow, but being in a non-hung over state would also help. Those same things that drive you to drink, they are augmented tenfold in a hung-over state (trust me, I know).
How do I know being drunk in the park is a bad thing? Well, despite the fact that alcoholic beverages are not sold in the park (something my cousin Jeremie who wasn’t in attendance knows), a member of our party still showed up drunk. I’ll leave the person’s name out of it, but I can vehemently deny that it was I. I was hung-over, not still drunk and my head made sure I knew it.
Sure, things with the person started out fine, but some rides can really mess with your head. Take for example the tree house of the Swiss Family Robinson. Once you start climbing that big, old, faux banyan tree up sixty-feet in air, you won’t want to look down. This is also equally dangerous to do in a hung-over state as other members of our party can attest too.
4. The Disney Pin Trading is not just a money pit; it is money quicksand. I first glimpsed the madness of the pin trading a year and a half ago when I went to a camping conference that was held in Disney. Because the conference started at bright and early at 8 a.m., my co-worker and I arrived the day before. We both wanted to go into the park, so we took the earliest flight out and enjoyed Magic Kingdom, a park I hadn’t been to in nine years and fed my pirate fetish and lust for Jack Sparrow.
While there and in the park, I saw kids trading pins like crazy. They traded on the bus with the bus drivers, with the bellman at the hotel, with employees in the park. It was utter pin-trading hysteria.
I knew about the hysteria a year and a half prior to our family visit. Yet I didn’t think that hysteria would stretch to my young cousins. So, I naively bought them both a lanyard to wear around their neck and a pin to put on the lanyard. My funds only stretch so far.
The kids went crazy when I came back to breakfast (we were waiting on several latecomers to the park who called certain family members nuts about not being at the park, and yes, one of these latecomers was the still drunk member of the party) with their lanyards. My aunt Melody even had me show her where I bought them and then bought the kids more pins to trade. Then, my uncle Chris decided that he wanted me to take him back so he could get little Drew some pins of his own (so he could have one waiting for him when he arrived).
It didn’t take long for the hysteria to hit Brenton. He even found out from some of the employees in the park about the pins with the “hidden Mickey’s” which were collectibles. Me, being such a mature adult, decided I needed to get some lanyards too and bought one for me and one for the newlywed bride, my sister.
This still isn’t the end of the pin hysteria. After getting off the Pirates of the Caribbean (Yes, I saw Jack Sparrow. Yes, my heart did flutter!), Brenton was watching Andrea strap on the old ball and chain. Literally. The gift store had one of those old dungeon type ball and chains for sale. Chris yelled at him to get up front because the employee had a ton of “hidden Mickey’s.”
Kevin, Andrea, GF Andrea, and I all laughed because the hysteria was affecting Chris in a big way. We made our way to the front. Melody was waiting up there for us and laughed about her husband, my uncle Chris with us.
“I’m going to buy him his own so he can leave Brenton alone,” she said. She then had Kevin buy the starter kit and give it to Chris. Chris wasn’t the last person to get into the pin-trading hysteria, although he certainly was the craziest about it. Even the Little Brother bought a set.
Kevin, Andrea, and I all got into pin trading if we happened to see cool pins we liked. We did get some “hidden Mickey’s,” but it was more to stick it to Brenton and Chris who were lagging behind. We’d suddenly find ourselves missing two of our party and see the two of them fifty feet back trading like crazy.
The best was when we got off Space Mountain. We were exiting only to be met be a line of people waiting to get out. It seems that the moving walkway had stopped and the employees were trying to get it back up and running. Two minutes later, we were slowly moving forward when Brenton shot back, disappearing into the crowd behind us. Melody yelled at him.
“He has pins, Mom!” Brenton yelled.
Chris disappeared back there to get his son, and I’m sure he traded some pins too.
Moral of the story, pin-trading is addictive. And costly. Bring your reserve stash to the park because you will need it. And make sure to buy the cheap-o jank pins so you can trade for the good ones! I promise you, the employees have the good ones! ;-)
5. The squirt bottles with the fan seem great on a hot, sunny day, but may not be a wise purchase unless you’re willing to purchase one per child. My sister decided to buy one. Emily then grabbed for the bottle and wasn’t about to let any other family member near the spray bottle. However, we could get a spray if we so desired. Let me tell you, it’s wonderful to have a six-year-old hold the fan two inches from you face and then douse you with water.
But that wasn’t all. Brenton and Drew wanted to hold the spray bottle too. They may have been easily subdued with some more Disney purchases until Emily squirted Drew in the face with water. Apparently, Drew really freaks out about water in his face and the seemingly good child had a mini-meltdown after Emily sprayed him in the face.
My suggestion would be to buy spray bottles ahead of time. And to probably not let the kids hold onto the things.
6. Another thing to remember is that you do not want to try to intimidate or scare in anyway a worrisome child about the Haunted Mansion. Knowing the Haunted Mansion is more fun than scary, I tried to get all of the adults to call it simply “The Mansion.” Drew had already freaked before Thunder Run Railroad, but Jamie had him ride it anyway. Drew loved it (as did the other two), and all three of the kids took us back onto the ride for a second time.
However, the “haunted” part of the mansion leaked out. Brenton asked about how scary this was and then proceeded to brag about being in a haunted house in Gatlinburg complete with a chainsaw-wielding maniac at the end that chased people. It seemed like he would do okay in the Haunted Mansion.
Then we were all inside when the foyer began to “stretch.” Brenton flipped out. He cried, he wanted to leave, he was completely panicking. He ditched me to run to his dad who carried him and told him that everybody made it out of the ride okay, that it was just a ride, and that Disney was “a scam” and if they got hurt or didn’t make it out of the ride, then Disney wouldn’t be able to make any more money.
Drew also was a little apprehensive. In a heart-breaking voice he asked “Are we going to be okay, Dad?” Jamie answered him that yes, we were.
As for the third child, Emily felt no fear. And at the end, we all twelve made it out alive and the kids felt much better and laughed about the “hitchhiker” at the end. Moral of the story, if you want to enjoy the mansion, simply call it The Mansion and don’t tease the kids. No one wants to get peed on when the room “stretches.”
7. When you’re getting onto a ride, look for the lines! Our group observed this rule in effect when a group of seemingly Muslim people walked in the exit and simply sat down in seats. Nearly every person in line went more than a little nuts because of the line-jumpers until the ride operators escorted the line cutters out of the seats and placed them at the back of the line. Disney visitors can be vicious when cut in front of. On another note, it’s nice to see that Disney treats people alike regardless of race or religion.
8. Fast passes are miracles! However, miracles have their limits. Remember, Cinderella had to be home at midnight. The best thing to do is to have a course of action and arrive early. Sleep be damned if you have to! We were at the park at 8 a.m. which is when the park opened for guests at the many Disney resorts and hotels. Once every showed up around 9 a.m., we took off for Adventureland where there were no waits for Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise.
Then we trucked into Frontierland and found no waits for Splash Mountain and Thunder Run. After that, we made for Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion where the wait was minimal.
Next, we went to Fantasyland. There was a 40-minute wait for Peter Pan’s Magic Ride so we got fast passes and made for the Dumbo ride and Snow White’s Journey plus the carousel. The thing with the fast passes is that you can only have one fast pass at a time. So we couldn’t get another fast pass until the time period expired for Peter Pan’s Magic Ride. That didn’t prove to be a problem so we ventured over to Space Mountain. There was another 40-minute wait so we got fast passes then took the kids to Toontown where they went through Mickey and Minnie’s House and got their pictures taken with the happy mouse couple. After that, we claimed our fast pass tickets and went through Space Mountain, a ride both Emily and Brenton loved! Drew wasn’t yet big enough to ride, unfortunately. Our game plan worked perfectly and the kids got to ride a ton of rides!
9. It may seem like a waste, especially when the kids want to see a creeper like Pinocchio, but remember that you’re only young once. Sure, the lines suck, but seeing a child’s face when they hug those characters (both creepy and loveable) reminds you exactly why the park is named Magic Kingdom. When you go, be prepared to do the right thing and let you kids meet all the characters they want. You’ll be rewarded in the end and you’re kids won’t carry a grudge like some people who are still sore over the fact that they never stayed in the monorail hotel and got to eat pancakes with the Mad Hatter (Thanks, Mom!).
10. Allow me to be corny here at the end (Yes, I know I got cheesy in that last paragraph, but Disney has away a shedding the sarcasm from even the most surly of skeptics (which I surely am). You can’t take back that first trip your kids make to Magic Kingdom. As a parent, it is up to you to make the experience memorable. Let your kids have fun. It doesn’t take spending lots of money (ok, maybe it does when it comes to the pins), it’s the rides, the atmosphere, and of course the characters. You may be an adult now and the parade may seem lame, but think like a kid. Those things are magic to them. Don’t let your attitude spoil it for the kids! I guarantee you’ll be rewarded when your children’s smiling faces!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Chapter 4 - The Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan
Nothing says sisterhood and togetherness quite like a Cosmo does. Because of its status on Sex and the City, single and married women from high school age to forty-something had elevated the Cosmopolitan to the It drink to have on a night out with the girls.
Jazz might not be one to follow the crowd, she preferred to set her own trends, but not even she could escape the trendiness of the Cosmo. Many afternoons were spent rehashing a night’s events and dissecting dates and men’s coded behavior.
That being said, I wasn’t surprised to see her standing outside the bar on Sunday afternoon. There was no doubt in my mind that she wanted to discuss The Date.
“About time,” she said tapping her foot for full effect of her exasperation. There was one thing I could say about Jazz, you always knew where you stood with her. She wasn’t one pretend anything.
“Sorry, some of us had to stay up late working on Saturday night.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “You poor thing,” she said as I unlocked the door for us. She followed me inside and turned on the lights for me.
With the lights on, we took up our normal places. Jazz was on a bar stool barking orders while I stood behind the bar and pulled down a glass and checked it for spots and other dirt. I then grabbed a shaker, Stoli’s vodka, triple sec, and mixed it with cranberry juice, thoroughly shaking the hell out of so Jazz couldn’t complain about how it was blended. As much vodka as Jazz liked in her Cosmo, it was amazing she could “taste” an unblended Cosmo. She claimed there was a difference and she had to order it strong to set her apart from the trend-followers. It was a typical Jazz response.
Jazz grabbed the lime wedge I offered her and squeezed juice into it. With a stir, she blended it into the drink then took a sip. “Perfect,” she said and smiled. “You’re the only one who can make them right.”
I smiled at her. “That’s only because you want to be difficult.”
She glared. “Speaking of difficult, you haven’t even begun to discuss Friday night. So, let me know. Was he divine?”
I rolled my eyes. “Divine? Really, Jazz? Have you been reading trashy romance novels?”
Now it was Jazz’s turn to roll her eyes. “Well, you did, didn’t you?” she asked.
“She did,” Eddie said strolling in through back entrance.
“What!” Jazz shouted. “You told Eddie!”
“I didn’t tell Eddie anything. He’s speculating.”
Eddie held my gaze. “You’ve been in awfully good mood.”
“That is a myth!”
“Whistling?” Jazz asked.
“I caught her a time or too yesterday whistling.”
Jazz squealed. “That means it was good too, Eddie!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said patting Jazz’s arm and trying to pull her down to earth. “It was great and scary all at the same time.” Jazz looked at me as if she thought I was crazy. “Scary? How exactly is it scary? You’re not a virgin, so it’s either good or it’s bad.”
I sighed and chewed on my words. Then I saw Eddie waiting for my response. “Eddie, chicken fingers,” I said. He gave me a long look, but dutifully vanished back into the kitchen.
The sad thing was that he would still be able to hear every word of the conversation. Banishing him was simply a matter of etiquette. In our bar, the cooks and bartenders had a standing rule that what was said in the kitchen stayed in the kitchen. So if the bartender overheard the cook talking about something, she could file the information away, but not make a comment on it until the cook finally spilled face to face. The same was true in reverse. When the bartender was talking and the cook was cooking in the kitchen, the words the bartender spoke had to go unnoticed until the bartender decided to tell the cook. Ridiculous, I know, but people obeyed that one unwritten rule to the letter.
“You know he can hear,” Jazz said.
“I know,” I told her but didn’t volunteer any more information.
Jazz looked at me expectantly. “Details, please.”
“Aww!” I said with sarcasm in my voice. “You said please.” Jazz gave me a dirty look. “Okay, okay,” I said and then began to spill the details of the date. I told her about dinner, about our margaritas, and then about going back to his place. Then I told her about the morning after and my brief spazz attack.
“I can see where it would be scary to learn to like other people. You’ve always been such a misanthrope.”
“Oh fuck you,” I said.
“Wow! The first f-bomb was not from Jazz!” Eddie yelled impressed.
Jazz laughed. “Other than that terrifying experience of realizing just how much you let someone in, I’m glad it was good.
Now, I need three words to describe him.”
I stopped drying a glass and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. “Well…Patient.” Jazz nodded. “I mean, it was a month before I let him take me on an actual date. Not only that, but I made it blatantly obvious I wasn’t attracted to him. But he was patient and wore me down and even watched bad movies for me.”
“Is that patient or tenacious?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “Maybe a little bit of both. My second word is considerate. I mean, he’s came by to check on me, asks if I need anything. He even brought me some leftovers from an evening meeting by the bar for me. And when I started flipping this morning, he seemed to genuinely care. He made me promise I was just worked up over the whole lack of double protection thing.”
“And you lied to him,” Jazz pointed out.
“Of course I lied to him!” I snapped. “Do you really think I should have said well, I got a little freaked out because I haven’t let anyone get close to me for a couple of years because I’m not strong enough to deal with…” I paused and took a deep breath. I was learning to let people in, but there were still things I wasn’t ready for apparently. “Should I have confessed that, Jazz?” I asked.
“Point taken,” Jazz said softly. “Trying to get a raise out of you, Sunny. But a different kind of raise.”
I smiled. “I know. Ok, the third word…” I paused and thought. “Confident. Yes, he was patient in his chase of me, but had he not had confidence, he never would have come to the bar. And there’s something really sexy about confidence.”
“Sure,” Jazz said.
“Confidence just always brings me these daydreams of these ‘take charge men.’ Men who take what they want. It’s barbaric and disgusting and yet I’m strangely drawn to these men.”
“You want to be dominated.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Who doesn’t? There is something so sexy about being dominated. Like when you’re in bed and he starts ordering you around and the sex just becomes so good!”
“Easy, Jazz, my stomach isn’t strong enough yet.” Eddie yelled from the kitchen. Jazz flipped the middle finger in the direction of the kitchen. “You’re flipping me off aren’t you?”
“Yep!” I yelled back.
“Whatever, Eddie,” Jazz said and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Men were meant to dominate women between the sheets. We have to submit to them to do the deed. So, a man with confidence that inspires barbaric thoughts…” A far away dreamy look suddenly crossed Jazz’s face. It was quite possible she was remembering sex with Radio. “Very, very scrumptious. And to prove my point, Eddie helpfully pointed out that you have been whistling.”
I glared at Jazz. “So…maybe you’re right.”
“Fingers up,” Eddie said and delivered Jazz’s lunch. He then rolled his eyes at Jazz and returned back to the kitchen to get it in working order for the day.
Jazz grabbed a ketchup bottle and poured some on her plate and then grabbed a chicken tender and dunked it. “Nice to know someone is getting quality sex. Speaking of sex, I got a text message at 11:30 last night.”
“Really?” I asked a little intrigued. Jazz was allowed to ask for a booty call, but no one else could request one of her.
Her men all knew they could not ask her of this too. Jazz had a complex about them. Her thinking was that when women agree to the demands of a booty call, they were devaluing themselves and would never be seen as anything beyond a midnight toast. Jazz liked to say that he wasn’t serious if he couldn’t call at a decent hour.
However, Jazz could call at an indecent hour and if they did not jump when she commanded, they were dropped. Also following true to form, Jazz was not serious about them if she called at an indecent hour. I t was one of the many duplicitous rules that Jazz followed and made those pursuing her follow.
Jazz nodded her head. “Rainbow texted me.”
Playing the part of the dutiful bartender, I nodded and said “Uh-huh.”
“I stayed in by myself and made margaritas. I get a text telling me I am unbelievable. So text back ‘what the fuck.’ Anyway, he says he has a new movie he wants me to see. I asked him if it as a porn and apparently offended him. Remember, he always had that complex about coming straight out and saying sex. I’m blaming it on Catholic school. Anyway, I finally did get him to admit that sex would be nice. I then said I had a very nice vibrator to cap off an evening of margaritas. He fucking offered to get me a cab to come by his place!
“Seriously, Rory, what the fuck! A cab? Who in the hell does he think I am? And if I did come over – which I wouldn’t because it’s a total booty call – I would demand a cab once the sex was all said and done because I don’t ever spend the night.”
“Wow, Jazz. You still haven’t gotten over that eccentricity? I can’t imagine why you’re single right now.”
Jazz glared at me. “Tease all you want, they’re apparently begging me to come back. And that is after I’ve tried to set them up with my friends and have told them that they will never ever get to experience the joy of sex with me ever again.”
“You have a way with words.”
“I do, don’t I.”
“So who is the current Man du Jour you are focusing all your intensity on bending to your will?”
“He is a very nice specimen. Truly he is.” I was quiet and waited for her to continue. “He’s a doctor. Recently divorced, recently moved to the area, and without kids. Now, tell me what about that situation sounds bad?”
“Well, let’s see. He has been married, so he can take orders. He just moved to the area so he hasn’t heard of your reputation yet, and he has no kids which goes without saying. Plus, he’s a doctor so he’s rich. Daddy will approve and not accuse of him of dating out of his social class to get Armani suits.”
“Ugh,” she said and rolled her eyes at my reference to one of her college boyfriends who wanted to be a painter. He was nicknamed J.P. after Jackson Pollack. “Anyway, we have talked on the phone and sent cutesy, flirty text messages back and forth. He asked me out, but I declined.”
“First time or second time?” I asked. Jazz did not agree to a date until a guy asked her three times.
“Second. I was out of town this weekend,” she said. “Visiting college friends.” I rolled my eyes. “He asked if any of those friends would happen to be an ex. I let him draw his own conclusions.”
“You are the Queen of Games.”
“A title I gladly wear,” she replied graciously.
“Still, despite you’re ability to play games, you’re without a ring.”
“Which of those men would’ve made good husband material? None. I found out and promptly ditched them.”
I furrowed my brow in concentration to think about all of Jazz’s men. Ok, Rainbow Brite seemed somewhat normal from the start. She knew Radio wouldn’t work, but was enticed by Buffett, she blew things with The R.N. because she liked his nickname too much, and The Gecko…well…that was toxic from the get-go and she had her reasons for not ending it sooner.
“So describe him,” I said.
“Nope, nope, nope. Not yet. I want to hear about 501 some more. Like the three negative words.”
Jazz has always stressed the importance of balancing out the positive and negative. Her mom says this is because Jazz was born on the Virgo-Libra cusp and a part of her craves balance. I attribute her balance when it comes to guys on one of college boyfriends.
Back when Jazz and I were college freshman and cultivating our dating rules and credos, Jazz dated a pre-med junior who played soccer. Brains, beauty, body, sarcastic and witty, he was every girl’s dream. Jazz noticed he had wandering eyes right off the bat. She was always attentive to a guy’s attentions, and figured she’d be safe as long as she kept him happy and busy. She was wrong. Since then, she insists on listing three negative characteristics to see if they are deal breakers. Unsurprisingly, wandering eyes is a deal breaker.
“I’ll tell if you describe.”
Jazz looked momentarily stricken for a minute. That was a little strange, but she agreed, so I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal.
“The first word would be tenacious.”
“A deal breaker? Really?” Jazz asked incredulously.
“I know, I know. But Jazz, I keep asking myself, why put yourself through that kind of drama and pain for a girl who at first had no interest in you. I’m well aware that I’m not without, that some might consider me a catch, but at first glance, at the first meeting, why would someone go after me so determinedly. I’m cute, but not about to grace Vogue magazine.
Jazz waved her hand in the air as if I was being completely obtuse. “You have one of the best asses ever. Ever. And in that outfit you had when we went out…well, there was a reason I grabbed your ass as we were walking out to the car.”
I rolled my eyes at her but moved on. “He drinks screwdrivers,” I said.
This time Jazz did wrinkle her nose in disgust. “Ok, that is appalling. First off, he’s a man, hasn’t he heard of beer? Second off, he’s an adult. If you must drink a cocktail, make it masculine like whiskey and coke or whiskey and water. That’s just classless.”
“Deal breaker?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You’re a bartender. You’re in a good position to move his taste to better things on the sly.”
“Ok,” I said mulling over what she said. “The last thing would be that he’s too perfect.” Again, I received another look of incredulity. “He just…he answers when I call, he’s thoughtful, appreciative, listens to me…that’s not normal, Jazzy.”
Jazz let out a breath. “It’s not normal, Rory, but it’s how it should be. It is quite possible that Levi is a genuine decent guy.”
“It’s possible that he in a month’s time he will be completely over me.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “He’s treating you the way you’re supposed to be treated. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Fine,” I said. “But be prepared for the day I tell you I told you so.” Jazz rolled her eyes. “Now, details about the Doc.”
Jazz sighed. “He is positively gorgeous, Sunny. He is really into running and has this amazing body despite…well…I’ll get to that.” I looked at her curiously, but she continued. “He has thick dark hair, a great smile…I mean looks wise, he’s perfect. I never would’ve thought I’d be attracted to him though.”
“Ok, what’s the defect?”
“It’s not a defect. Just an abnormality in my tastes.” I stared at her waiting for her response. “He’s forty-seven.”
My jaw dropped. “Forty-seven? Jazz, he could be your dad.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” she hissed. “God, I didn’t plan on it. I don’t like dating men more than ten years older than me, let alone two complete decades. But dad and I met with him to look over his accounts and make suggestions for tax exemptions. I thought he was attractive, but that was it.
But then I got to know him. He’s spastic and crazy, so hyper and full of life. His energy is so contagious. When I’m around him, I just feel so…like my body is humming with anticipation. And not just sexual anticipation although I’m wondering what that is like.”
“So how did this start and why I am just now hearing about this?” I asked her.
“I’ve been a little embarrassed. Dad knows something is happening, and he’s been such a jerk about it. I mean…I guess I understand. He is older than my dad’s brother. But then again, my dad’s brother was born ten years after him which isn’t exactly normal.
“I just…don’t know what to make of the attraction I guess,” Jazz said and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bar, her head in her hands.
“So what of the attraction? What has happened? Have you talked about the divorce? Why he doesn’t have kids?”
“Well, it started out at our first meeting. Dad left to take a call from my mom. Some ridiculous crisis, I don’t know. We just started talking and I asked about the divorce. He didn’t come out and tell me the details then, just said things drove them apart and I made the comment ‘I’d work extra hard to keep you near me.’ It just came out of nowhere. I had no idea about the attraction, really, just thought he was nice looking, but old.
“The comment caught him off-guard, but he did manage to volley a comment back at me by saying he thought a nice girl like me wouldn’t have any problem keeping a man interested. Things grew from there. The next thing I knew, we were sending each flirty text messages and he was asking me out.”
“What were the flirty text messages?”
“Oh he went to Chicago one weekend for a conference. I told him that he could find some cougars at a bar and he said he was happier being a sugar daddy. I said he could be whatever he wanted with his looks. The next thing I know I’m wearing barely-professional skirts with sexy pantyhose and dangerous stilettos. Kind of hard to keep that from my dad and he soon discovered the common denominator.”
“And you’ve kept this from me?”
Jazz sighed. “I was just…It’s so completely different and out of character for me. I’m still trying to figure it out, Rora. But hearing you so happy, it was as contagious as The Doc’s enthusiasm.”
“So is he McDreamy or McSteamy?” I asked referring to the popular nicknames of two of the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy. I hadn’t watched the show with my work schedule but had heard plenty about the show from my customers.
A dreamy looked appeared on Jazz’s face. “Salacious. He kissed me a couple of weeks ago and since then, I’ve had dreams.”
“Dreams?”
“Sex dreams.”
Eddie yelled from the kitchen, “Is this going to continue much longer?”
“It’s sex dreams, Eddie!” I snapped. In my opinion, sex dreams could be some of the best. Especially if climax came, something I had experienced one time. It was so good and delicious that I was in a great mood for the complete week. It was so real. And the best part was that there was no risk of pregnancy or disease. Amazing.
He mumbled something from the back which Jazz and I promptly ignored. Jazz then spilled the imagined pleasured the doctor was giving her. Eddie banged pots and pans around to try and drown out the sound and to show us how annoyed he was.
“So, the kiss,” I said. “You heard about my date, about how he pled his case…I want details now!”
Jazz sighed and bit into another chicken tender. “Fine, fine, fine. It was two weeks ago,” she said. “We had sent the flirty messages, and I had begun to dress for him. My dad was out meeting with a client and hadn’t got back to the office yet. I was finishing a phone call. The Doc was early. When I got off the phone, I told my secretary to send him in. I figured there was no harm, I could get my stuff together, talk some shop with him – okay, flirt – before my dad got back.
He came into the office and walked around behind me as I was gathering my files. I stopped what I was doing and straightened up. His arms came around me and his hands landed against my hips. I felt his lips nuzzle my neck right where my shoulders meet. I turned my head to the side to meet those lips. And it was amazing. He made Radio look like a complete novice. “
Her eyes closed for a brief moment. I knew she was reliving that moment too. “Oh, Rory. His lips right there, kissing me breathless, and then his hands so very nearly there, but not quite. Damn, girl.”
“So, what happened?”
“He looked at me and told me that he was sorry, but he had to know if I was playing or for real. Of course, that only made it all the more real for me. He then asked me out for the first time. I said that I was busy and didn’t elaborate.”
“And a week later he asked you out for the second time?”
She smiled devilishly. “Yes. And I was visiting college friends. I’m terrible.”
“Yes you are,” Eddie yelled from the back.
I waved Eddie’s comment off. “So when am I meeting the good doctor? You know, if he’s new in town, he needs to be introduced to the city’s most legendary establishment.”
She was saved from commenting by a knock at the door. I looked over prepared to tell the overzealous patron that we were closed, but I saw it was Levi. Jazz gave me a sly look, but grabbed her cell phone and pounded away at the keyboard while I opened the door. I was willing to bet money that she was texting Dr. Feelgood, maybe even telling him she wasn’t wearing panties. That was Jazz.
“Hey,” he said when I opened the door and drew me into his arm for a hug. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”
Still enveloped in his arms, I looked up at him and said, “Well, I got some rest and then worked, then came home and collapsed again. Wonder why I was so tired.”
He grinned cheekily and then gave me a quick kiss before I could lead him inside and lock the door. I reintroduced him to Jazz and then called for Eddie. Levi ordered a burger and fries. Eddie mumbled something, probably annoyed at my friends for popping in and setting him to work before we opened, but did as I asked.
Jazz’s phone beeped. She glanced at it and big goody smile spread across her face.
“What does it say?” I asked her.
“Three times!” she squealed. “Only, I’m not sure I should say yes.”
I rolled my eyes. Jazz and her rules. “Why not?”
“Well, technically it is the third time he has asked, but it’s last minute.”
Levi looked at me questioningly. I ignored him for the time being. “What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Well, he wants to drive me over to New Haven Square and have a picnic. He has also has a nice bottle of red wine. “
“All right, get out of here,” I said. Jazz didn’t move. “Text him and tell him to pop an extra Viagra and go with him!”
“Viagra? Really, Aurora, that is just rude. Besides, you know my policy.”
“Policy?” Levi asked.
“If he doesn’t declare his undying love for her, she won’t have sex with him.”
Jazz snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk must four weeks and no less. That’s the one policy of yours that I adopted. However, I must make sure I have my chapstick.”
I laughed and watched Jazz leave.
“Four weeks?” Levi asked.
“My standard dating procedure. I like to know the men I sleep with and know that they are serious about me.”
“I’m guessing I passed,” he said. “So what was that other stuff about? Third time but last minute?”
I laughed. “Jazz has more policies than the U.S. Congress. She likes to be pursued, thinks that men get more interested when they have to pursue a little harder than normal, and therefore, she doesn’t agree to a date until the third time a guy asks. Likewise, she never agrees to a last minute date. Last minute refers to any evening date that is discussed after noon.”
“Good lord,” he said. “Does she make them walk the tight rope too?”
“No, I make them do that.”
“No, you make us jump through hoops on a tight rope,” he teased.
I laughed. “Forgive me. It’s been awhile since someone was interested.”
“I doubt that’s true. I’m sure there have been people that are interested. They just have a hard time getting through your amazingly prickly demeanor. I should call you porcupine!”
I glared at Levi and said, “Funny.”
Levi stayed through opening and finally took off around four as we were starting to pack. When he left, Eddie came out and made some comments about Levi. Eddie may not have been Jazz, but his opinion did matter. We were close, but more than that, Eddie was here. He saw things with Levi unfold firsthand. Jazz only heard about things secondhand and not just secondhand, but from my point of view. Of course my viewpoint was somewhat skewed and couldn’t be relied on because I had a bias. My bias was of course that I ended up liking Levi.
Eddie said some things that made me start to think his “perfect” flaw wasn’t a flaw like a believed. Funnily enough, he agreed with Jazz – I made sure and point out that this was probably the first time ever – that there were some men out there who could see past my bristly demeanor. Either that or they liked a challenge.
Insightful or up for a challenge, it didn’t matter because I deserved a good man. That wasn’t just my ego talking, that was straight from Jazz and Eddie. Sure, they were my friends. But they were enough of friends that they would tell me if my attitude wasn’t quite up to snuff. I had to agree with their lining thinking for a number of reasons:
First off, I was attractive. Jazz liked to say I had a nice ass. I knew it was true in high school, and because I liked to swim and run, it was still true now. Eddie agreed that my ass was nice, but also said my looks were more than I gave them credit. A sultry temptress I may not be, I may not be about to grace Victoria’s Secret any time soon, but I had an “every girl” appeal he said. I looked cute and fun and low maintenance, three traits every man was interested in.
Secondly, I was a good person. I was always there for my friends whenever they needed me. I even talked Jill into working a shift for me when Jazz called upset and emotional after a certain fight with The Gecko. At Thanksgiving and Christmas time, I had food drives and toy drives for families in need. I worked and worked hard for a living, and only cheated on my taxes a little bit.
Third, was that it was time my lucked changed. I hadn’t exactly had a string of bad luck, but I had one majorly traumatic event – The Unmentionable – and very nearly gave up. It took months for Jazz and my aunt to coax me back to the land of the living. They were patient, they were understanding, and when need be, they were brutally honest and forced me to rejoin society.
Okay, so I hadn’t exactly rejoined society all at once. It was a gradual, gradual process. It began with me reconnecting with people and eventually I convinced myself to work again. Slowly I began to live again, to take chances on life and everyone around me. Living didn’t guarantee good things were bound to come your way, but it was damn sure time some good around me happened.
I could go on listing all of the reasons why I needed a good guy, but the biggest reason was simple: I was a good girl; I should attract a good guy; I shouldn’t settle for a bad guy.
If for anyone reason Levi’s adoration of me began slipping, Eddie agreed that it was within my best interest to kick him to the curb. Eddie proclaimed that “I was named after a princess and should be treated accordingly.”
I had to agree with him. Hell, a few of my regulars sitting at the bar drinking from their beers even agreed with him. One even proposed a toast to me once it was agreed upon. I rolled my eyes good-naturedly, but very nicely provided them with free shots of Red Stag.
Closing time came quickly. It always comes quickly on a Sunday night, the one night we close early, at nine. During the week we close at midnight and on the weekends we close at three. We’re well aware that we could probably stretch our hours on Sunday, but none of the staff wants to work much later than nine. Depression or not, our profits aren’t exactly lacking, so instead of lengthening our Sunday hours and making more profits, we hour given a bit of a Sunday evening to enjoy.
And enjoy my Sunday evening, I certainly did. Before I left, Levi made me promise that I would be by after work, to even send him a text message when I was on my way. He said it was necessary for me to go over to his place immediately because he hadn’t heard from me at all on Saturday and wanted to make sure I was of sound mind and body.
I knew what he really wanted, what “sound mind and body” was code for and wasn’t about to object. It may have been hard getting back on that dating horse, but now that I was up there, I was going to ride the horse for as long as possible, reaping all the benefits that I could. Sex was definitely something I had missed.
Despite getting there around ten o’clock, Levi had dinner for me. He was putting the finishing touches on a pasta dish. Dinner was met with much fanfare from my stomach. It promptly growled when I smelled the tomatoes and spices in the air.
Levi smiled at me, got my plate ready, and even served me dinner. We sat in the kitchen and watched a Seinfeld rerun while we ate and drank from a nice bottle of red wine he had on hand. It was very nearly a perfect evening.
I say very nearly because I ended up passing out on the couch leaning up against Levi. I still wasn’t recovered from the lack and sleep and stress (which was completely my doing because I am ridiculous like that) from Friday night. The wine only added to my exhaustion. The morning, however, was very notable.
Nothing says sisterhood and togetherness quite like a Cosmo does. Because of its status on Sex and the City, single and married women from high school age to forty-something had elevated the Cosmopolitan to the It drink to have on a night out with the girls.
Jazz might not be one to follow the crowd, she preferred to set her own trends, but not even she could escape the trendiness of the Cosmo. Many afternoons were spent rehashing a night’s events and dissecting dates and men’s coded behavior.
That being said, I wasn’t surprised to see her standing outside the bar on Sunday afternoon. There was no doubt in my mind that she wanted to discuss The Date.
“About time,” she said tapping her foot for full effect of her exasperation. There was one thing I could say about Jazz, you always knew where you stood with her. She wasn’t one pretend anything.
“Sorry, some of us had to stay up late working on Saturday night.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “You poor thing,” she said as I unlocked the door for us. She followed me inside and turned on the lights for me.
With the lights on, we took up our normal places. Jazz was on a bar stool barking orders while I stood behind the bar and pulled down a glass and checked it for spots and other dirt. I then grabbed a shaker, Stoli’s vodka, triple sec, and mixed it with cranberry juice, thoroughly shaking the hell out of so Jazz couldn’t complain about how it was blended. As much vodka as Jazz liked in her Cosmo, it was amazing she could “taste” an unblended Cosmo. She claimed there was a difference and she had to order it strong to set her apart from the trend-followers. It was a typical Jazz response.
Jazz grabbed the lime wedge I offered her and squeezed juice into it. With a stir, she blended it into the drink then took a sip. “Perfect,” she said and smiled. “You’re the only one who can make them right.”
I smiled at her. “That’s only because you want to be difficult.”
She glared. “Speaking of difficult, you haven’t even begun to discuss Friday night. So, let me know. Was he divine?”
I rolled my eyes. “Divine? Really, Jazz? Have you been reading trashy romance novels?”
Now it was Jazz’s turn to roll her eyes. “Well, you did, didn’t you?” she asked.
“She did,” Eddie said strolling in through back entrance.
“What!” Jazz shouted. “You told Eddie!”
“I didn’t tell Eddie anything. He’s speculating.”
Eddie held my gaze. “You’ve been in awfully good mood.”
“That is a myth!”
“Whistling?” Jazz asked.
“I caught her a time or too yesterday whistling.”
Jazz squealed. “That means it was good too, Eddie!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” I said patting Jazz’s arm and trying to pull her down to earth. “It was great and scary all at the same time.” Jazz looked at me as if she thought I was crazy. “Scary? How exactly is it scary? You’re not a virgin, so it’s either good or it’s bad.”
I sighed and chewed on my words. Then I saw Eddie waiting for my response. “Eddie, chicken fingers,” I said. He gave me a long look, but dutifully vanished back into the kitchen.
The sad thing was that he would still be able to hear every word of the conversation. Banishing him was simply a matter of etiquette. In our bar, the cooks and bartenders had a standing rule that what was said in the kitchen stayed in the kitchen. So if the bartender overheard the cook talking about something, she could file the information away, but not make a comment on it until the cook finally spilled face to face. The same was true in reverse. When the bartender was talking and the cook was cooking in the kitchen, the words the bartender spoke had to go unnoticed until the bartender decided to tell the cook. Ridiculous, I know, but people obeyed that one unwritten rule to the letter.
“You know he can hear,” Jazz said.
“I know,” I told her but didn’t volunteer any more information.
Jazz looked at me expectantly. “Details, please.”
“Aww!” I said with sarcasm in my voice. “You said please.” Jazz gave me a dirty look. “Okay, okay,” I said and then began to spill the details of the date. I told her about dinner, about our margaritas, and then about going back to his place. Then I told her about the morning after and my brief spazz attack.
“I can see where it would be scary to learn to like other people. You’ve always been such a misanthrope.”
“Oh fuck you,” I said.
“Wow! The first f-bomb was not from Jazz!” Eddie yelled impressed.
Jazz laughed. “Other than that terrifying experience of realizing just how much you let someone in, I’m glad it was good.
Now, I need three words to describe him.”
I stopped drying a glass and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. “Well…Patient.” Jazz nodded. “I mean, it was a month before I let him take me on an actual date. Not only that, but I made it blatantly obvious I wasn’t attracted to him. But he was patient and wore me down and even watched bad movies for me.”
“Is that patient or tenacious?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “Maybe a little bit of both. My second word is considerate. I mean, he’s came by to check on me, asks if I need anything. He even brought me some leftovers from an evening meeting by the bar for me. And when I started flipping this morning, he seemed to genuinely care. He made me promise I was just worked up over the whole lack of double protection thing.”
“And you lied to him,” Jazz pointed out.
“Of course I lied to him!” I snapped. “Do you really think I should have said well, I got a little freaked out because I haven’t let anyone get close to me for a couple of years because I’m not strong enough to deal with…” I paused and took a deep breath. I was learning to let people in, but there were still things I wasn’t ready for apparently. “Should I have confessed that, Jazz?” I asked.
“Point taken,” Jazz said softly. “Trying to get a raise out of you, Sunny. But a different kind of raise.”
I smiled. “I know. Ok, the third word…” I paused and thought. “Confident. Yes, he was patient in his chase of me, but had he not had confidence, he never would have come to the bar. And there’s something really sexy about confidence.”
“Sure,” Jazz said.
“Confidence just always brings me these daydreams of these ‘take charge men.’ Men who take what they want. It’s barbaric and disgusting and yet I’m strangely drawn to these men.”
“You want to be dominated.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Who doesn’t? There is something so sexy about being dominated. Like when you’re in bed and he starts ordering you around and the sex just becomes so good!”
“Easy, Jazz, my stomach isn’t strong enough yet.” Eddie yelled from the kitchen. Jazz flipped the middle finger in the direction of the kitchen. “You’re flipping me off aren’t you?”
“Yep!” I yelled back.
“Whatever, Eddie,” Jazz said and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Men were meant to dominate women between the sheets. We have to submit to them to do the deed. So, a man with confidence that inspires barbaric thoughts…” A far away dreamy look suddenly crossed Jazz’s face. It was quite possible she was remembering sex with Radio. “Very, very scrumptious. And to prove my point, Eddie helpfully pointed out that you have been whistling.”
I glared at Jazz. “So…maybe you’re right.”
“Fingers up,” Eddie said and delivered Jazz’s lunch. He then rolled his eyes at Jazz and returned back to the kitchen to get it in working order for the day.
Jazz grabbed a ketchup bottle and poured some on her plate and then grabbed a chicken tender and dunked it. “Nice to know someone is getting quality sex. Speaking of sex, I got a text message at 11:30 last night.”
“Really?” I asked a little intrigued. Jazz was allowed to ask for a booty call, but no one else could request one of her.
Her men all knew they could not ask her of this too. Jazz had a complex about them. Her thinking was that when women agree to the demands of a booty call, they were devaluing themselves and would never be seen as anything beyond a midnight toast. Jazz liked to say that he wasn’t serious if he couldn’t call at a decent hour.
However, Jazz could call at an indecent hour and if they did not jump when she commanded, they were dropped. Also following true to form, Jazz was not serious about them if she called at an indecent hour. I t was one of the many duplicitous rules that Jazz followed and made those pursuing her follow.
Jazz nodded her head. “Rainbow texted me.”
Playing the part of the dutiful bartender, I nodded and said “Uh-huh.”
“I stayed in by myself and made margaritas. I get a text telling me I am unbelievable. So text back ‘what the fuck.’ Anyway, he says he has a new movie he wants me to see. I asked him if it as a porn and apparently offended him. Remember, he always had that complex about coming straight out and saying sex. I’m blaming it on Catholic school. Anyway, I finally did get him to admit that sex would be nice. I then said I had a very nice vibrator to cap off an evening of margaritas. He fucking offered to get me a cab to come by his place!
“Seriously, Rory, what the fuck! A cab? Who in the hell does he think I am? And if I did come over – which I wouldn’t because it’s a total booty call – I would demand a cab once the sex was all said and done because I don’t ever spend the night.”
“Wow, Jazz. You still haven’t gotten over that eccentricity? I can’t imagine why you’re single right now.”
Jazz glared at me. “Tease all you want, they’re apparently begging me to come back. And that is after I’ve tried to set them up with my friends and have told them that they will never ever get to experience the joy of sex with me ever again.”
“You have a way with words.”
“I do, don’t I.”
“So who is the current Man du Jour you are focusing all your intensity on bending to your will?”
“He is a very nice specimen. Truly he is.” I was quiet and waited for her to continue. “He’s a doctor. Recently divorced, recently moved to the area, and without kids. Now, tell me what about that situation sounds bad?”
“Well, let’s see. He has been married, so he can take orders. He just moved to the area so he hasn’t heard of your reputation yet, and he has no kids which goes without saying. Plus, he’s a doctor so he’s rich. Daddy will approve and not accuse of him of dating out of his social class to get Armani suits.”
“Ugh,” she said and rolled her eyes at my reference to one of her college boyfriends who wanted to be a painter. He was nicknamed J.P. after Jackson Pollack. “Anyway, we have talked on the phone and sent cutesy, flirty text messages back and forth. He asked me out, but I declined.”
“First time or second time?” I asked. Jazz did not agree to a date until a guy asked her three times.
“Second. I was out of town this weekend,” she said. “Visiting college friends.” I rolled my eyes. “He asked if any of those friends would happen to be an ex. I let him draw his own conclusions.”
“You are the Queen of Games.”
“A title I gladly wear,” she replied graciously.
“Still, despite you’re ability to play games, you’re without a ring.”
“Which of those men would’ve made good husband material? None. I found out and promptly ditched them.”
I furrowed my brow in concentration to think about all of Jazz’s men. Ok, Rainbow Brite seemed somewhat normal from the start. She knew Radio wouldn’t work, but was enticed by Buffett, she blew things with The R.N. because she liked his nickname too much, and The Gecko…well…that was toxic from the get-go and she had her reasons for not ending it sooner.
“So describe him,” I said.
“Nope, nope, nope. Not yet. I want to hear about 501 some more. Like the three negative words.”
Jazz has always stressed the importance of balancing out the positive and negative. Her mom says this is because Jazz was born on the Virgo-Libra cusp and a part of her craves balance. I attribute her balance when it comes to guys on one of college boyfriends.
Back when Jazz and I were college freshman and cultivating our dating rules and credos, Jazz dated a pre-med junior who played soccer. Brains, beauty, body, sarcastic and witty, he was every girl’s dream. Jazz noticed he had wandering eyes right off the bat. She was always attentive to a guy’s attentions, and figured she’d be safe as long as she kept him happy and busy. She was wrong. Since then, she insists on listing three negative characteristics to see if they are deal breakers. Unsurprisingly, wandering eyes is a deal breaker.
“I’ll tell if you describe.”
Jazz looked momentarily stricken for a minute. That was a little strange, but she agreed, so I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal.
“The first word would be tenacious.”
“A deal breaker? Really?” Jazz asked incredulously.
“I know, I know. But Jazz, I keep asking myself, why put yourself through that kind of drama and pain for a girl who at first had no interest in you. I’m well aware that I’m not without, that some might consider me a catch, but at first glance, at the first meeting, why would someone go after me so determinedly. I’m cute, but not about to grace Vogue magazine.
Jazz waved her hand in the air as if I was being completely obtuse. “You have one of the best asses ever. Ever. And in that outfit you had when we went out…well, there was a reason I grabbed your ass as we were walking out to the car.”
I rolled my eyes at her but moved on. “He drinks screwdrivers,” I said.
This time Jazz did wrinkle her nose in disgust. “Ok, that is appalling. First off, he’s a man, hasn’t he heard of beer? Second off, he’s an adult. If you must drink a cocktail, make it masculine like whiskey and coke or whiskey and water. That’s just classless.”
“Deal breaker?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You’re a bartender. You’re in a good position to move his taste to better things on the sly.”
“Ok,” I said mulling over what she said. “The last thing would be that he’s too perfect.” Again, I received another look of incredulity. “He just…he answers when I call, he’s thoughtful, appreciative, listens to me…that’s not normal, Jazzy.”
Jazz let out a breath. “It’s not normal, Rory, but it’s how it should be. It is quite possible that Levi is a genuine decent guy.”
“It’s possible that he in a month’s time he will be completely over me.”
Jazz rolled her eyes. “He’s treating you the way you’re supposed to be treated. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Fine,” I said. “But be prepared for the day I tell you I told you so.” Jazz rolled her eyes. “Now, details about the Doc.”
Jazz sighed. “He is positively gorgeous, Sunny. He is really into running and has this amazing body despite…well…I’ll get to that.” I looked at her curiously, but she continued. “He has thick dark hair, a great smile…I mean looks wise, he’s perfect. I never would’ve thought I’d be attracted to him though.”
“Ok, what’s the defect?”
“It’s not a defect. Just an abnormality in my tastes.” I stared at her waiting for her response. “He’s forty-seven.”
My jaw dropped. “Forty-seven? Jazz, he could be your dad.”
“Don’t you think I know that!” she hissed. “God, I didn’t plan on it. I don’t like dating men more than ten years older than me, let alone two complete decades. But dad and I met with him to look over his accounts and make suggestions for tax exemptions. I thought he was attractive, but that was it.
But then I got to know him. He’s spastic and crazy, so hyper and full of life. His energy is so contagious. When I’m around him, I just feel so…like my body is humming with anticipation. And not just sexual anticipation although I’m wondering what that is like.”
“So how did this start and why I am just now hearing about this?” I asked her.
“I’ve been a little embarrassed. Dad knows something is happening, and he’s been such a jerk about it. I mean…I guess I understand. He is older than my dad’s brother. But then again, my dad’s brother was born ten years after him which isn’t exactly normal.
“I just…don’t know what to make of the attraction I guess,” Jazz said and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bar, her head in her hands.
“So what of the attraction? What has happened? Have you talked about the divorce? Why he doesn’t have kids?”
“Well, it started out at our first meeting. Dad left to take a call from my mom. Some ridiculous crisis, I don’t know. We just started talking and I asked about the divorce. He didn’t come out and tell me the details then, just said things drove them apart and I made the comment ‘I’d work extra hard to keep you near me.’ It just came out of nowhere. I had no idea about the attraction, really, just thought he was nice looking, but old.
“The comment caught him off-guard, but he did manage to volley a comment back at me by saying he thought a nice girl like me wouldn’t have any problem keeping a man interested. Things grew from there. The next thing I knew, we were sending each flirty text messages and he was asking me out.”
“What were the flirty text messages?”
“Oh he went to Chicago one weekend for a conference. I told him that he could find some cougars at a bar and he said he was happier being a sugar daddy. I said he could be whatever he wanted with his looks. The next thing I know I’m wearing barely-professional skirts with sexy pantyhose and dangerous stilettos. Kind of hard to keep that from my dad and he soon discovered the common denominator.”
“And you’ve kept this from me?”
Jazz sighed. “I was just…It’s so completely different and out of character for me. I’m still trying to figure it out, Rora. But hearing you so happy, it was as contagious as The Doc’s enthusiasm.”
“So is he McDreamy or McSteamy?” I asked referring to the popular nicknames of two of the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy. I hadn’t watched the show with my work schedule but had heard plenty about the show from my customers.
A dreamy looked appeared on Jazz’s face. “Salacious. He kissed me a couple of weeks ago and since then, I’ve had dreams.”
“Dreams?”
“Sex dreams.”
Eddie yelled from the kitchen, “Is this going to continue much longer?”
“It’s sex dreams, Eddie!” I snapped. In my opinion, sex dreams could be some of the best. Especially if climax came, something I had experienced one time. It was so good and delicious that I was in a great mood for the complete week. It was so real. And the best part was that there was no risk of pregnancy or disease. Amazing.
He mumbled something from the back which Jazz and I promptly ignored. Jazz then spilled the imagined pleasured the doctor was giving her. Eddie banged pots and pans around to try and drown out the sound and to show us how annoyed he was.
“So, the kiss,” I said. “You heard about my date, about how he pled his case…I want details now!”
Jazz sighed and bit into another chicken tender. “Fine, fine, fine. It was two weeks ago,” she said. “We had sent the flirty messages, and I had begun to dress for him. My dad was out meeting with a client and hadn’t got back to the office yet. I was finishing a phone call. The Doc was early. When I got off the phone, I told my secretary to send him in. I figured there was no harm, I could get my stuff together, talk some shop with him – okay, flirt – before my dad got back.
He came into the office and walked around behind me as I was gathering my files. I stopped what I was doing and straightened up. His arms came around me and his hands landed against my hips. I felt his lips nuzzle my neck right where my shoulders meet. I turned my head to the side to meet those lips. And it was amazing. He made Radio look like a complete novice. “
Her eyes closed for a brief moment. I knew she was reliving that moment too. “Oh, Rory. His lips right there, kissing me breathless, and then his hands so very nearly there, but not quite. Damn, girl.”
“So, what happened?”
“He looked at me and told me that he was sorry, but he had to know if I was playing or for real. Of course, that only made it all the more real for me. He then asked me out for the first time. I said that I was busy and didn’t elaborate.”
“And a week later he asked you out for the second time?”
She smiled devilishly. “Yes. And I was visiting college friends. I’m terrible.”
“Yes you are,” Eddie yelled from the back.
I waved Eddie’s comment off. “So when am I meeting the good doctor? You know, if he’s new in town, he needs to be introduced to the city’s most legendary establishment.”
She was saved from commenting by a knock at the door. I looked over prepared to tell the overzealous patron that we were closed, but I saw it was Levi. Jazz gave me a sly look, but grabbed her cell phone and pounded away at the keyboard while I opened the door. I was willing to bet money that she was texting Dr. Feelgood, maybe even telling him she wasn’t wearing panties. That was Jazz.
“Hey,” he said when I opened the door and drew me into his arm for a hug. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”
Still enveloped in his arms, I looked up at him and said, “Well, I got some rest and then worked, then came home and collapsed again. Wonder why I was so tired.”
He grinned cheekily and then gave me a quick kiss before I could lead him inside and lock the door. I reintroduced him to Jazz and then called for Eddie. Levi ordered a burger and fries. Eddie mumbled something, probably annoyed at my friends for popping in and setting him to work before we opened, but did as I asked.
Jazz’s phone beeped. She glanced at it and big goody smile spread across her face.
“What does it say?” I asked her.
“Three times!” she squealed. “Only, I’m not sure I should say yes.”
I rolled my eyes. Jazz and her rules. “Why not?”
“Well, technically it is the third time he has asked, but it’s last minute.”
Levi looked at me questioningly. I ignored him for the time being. “What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Well, he wants to drive me over to New Haven Square and have a picnic. He has also has a nice bottle of red wine. “
“All right, get out of here,” I said. Jazz didn’t move. “Text him and tell him to pop an extra Viagra and go with him!”
“Viagra? Really, Aurora, that is just rude. Besides, you know my policy.”
“Policy?” Levi asked.
“If he doesn’t declare his undying love for her, she won’t have sex with him.”
Jazz snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk must four weeks and no less. That’s the one policy of yours that I adopted. However, I must make sure I have my chapstick.”
I laughed and watched Jazz leave.
“Four weeks?” Levi asked.
“My standard dating procedure. I like to know the men I sleep with and know that they are serious about me.”
“I’m guessing I passed,” he said. “So what was that other stuff about? Third time but last minute?”
I laughed. “Jazz has more policies than the U.S. Congress. She likes to be pursued, thinks that men get more interested when they have to pursue a little harder than normal, and therefore, she doesn’t agree to a date until the third time a guy asks. Likewise, she never agrees to a last minute date. Last minute refers to any evening date that is discussed after noon.”
“Good lord,” he said. “Does she make them walk the tight rope too?”
“No, I make them do that.”
“No, you make us jump through hoops on a tight rope,” he teased.
I laughed. “Forgive me. It’s been awhile since someone was interested.”
“I doubt that’s true. I’m sure there have been people that are interested. They just have a hard time getting through your amazingly prickly demeanor. I should call you porcupine!”
I glared at Levi and said, “Funny.”
Levi stayed through opening and finally took off around four as we were starting to pack. When he left, Eddie came out and made some comments about Levi. Eddie may not have been Jazz, but his opinion did matter. We were close, but more than that, Eddie was here. He saw things with Levi unfold firsthand. Jazz only heard about things secondhand and not just secondhand, but from my point of view. Of course my viewpoint was somewhat skewed and couldn’t be relied on because I had a bias. My bias was of course that I ended up liking Levi.
Eddie said some things that made me start to think his “perfect” flaw wasn’t a flaw like a believed. Funnily enough, he agreed with Jazz – I made sure and point out that this was probably the first time ever – that there were some men out there who could see past my bristly demeanor. Either that or they liked a challenge.
Insightful or up for a challenge, it didn’t matter because I deserved a good man. That wasn’t just my ego talking, that was straight from Jazz and Eddie. Sure, they were my friends. But they were enough of friends that they would tell me if my attitude wasn’t quite up to snuff. I had to agree with their lining thinking for a number of reasons:
First off, I was attractive. Jazz liked to say I had a nice ass. I knew it was true in high school, and because I liked to swim and run, it was still true now. Eddie agreed that my ass was nice, but also said my looks were more than I gave them credit. A sultry temptress I may not be, I may not be about to grace Victoria’s Secret any time soon, but I had an “every girl” appeal he said. I looked cute and fun and low maintenance, three traits every man was interested in.
Secondly, I was a good person. I was always there for my friends whenever they needed me. I even talked Jill into working a shift for me when Jazz called upset and emotional after a certain fight with The Gecko. At Thanksgiving and Christmas time, I had food drives and toy drives for families in need. I worked and worked hard for a living, and only cheated on my taxes a little bit.
Third, was that it was time my lucked changed. I hadn’t exactly had a string of bad luck, but I had one majorly traumatic event – The Unmentionable – and very nearly gave up. It took months for Jazz and my aunt to coax me back to the land of the living. They were patient, they were understanding, and when need be, they were brutally honest and forced me to rejoin society.
Okay, so I hadn’t exactly rejoined society all at once. It was a gradual, gradual process. It began with me reconnecting with people and eventually I convinced myself to work again. Slowly I began to live again, to take chances on life and everyone around me. Living didn’t guarantee good things were bound to come your way, but it was damn sure time some good around me happened.
I could go on listing all of the reasons why I needed a good guy, but the biggest reason was simple: I was a good girl; I should attract a good guy; I shouldn’t settle for a bad guy.
If for anyone reason Levi’s adoration of me began slipping, Eddie agreed that it was within my best interest to kick him to the curb. Eddie proclaimed that “I was named after a princess and should be treated accordingly.”
I had to agree with him. Hell, a few of my regulars sitting at the bar drinking from their beers even agreed with him. One even proposed a toast to me once it was agreed upon. I rolled my eyes good-naturedly, but very nicely provided them with free shots of Red Stag.
Closing time came quickly. It always comes quickly on a Sunday night, the one night we close early, at nine. During the week we close at midnight and on the weekends we close at three. We’re well aware that we could probably stretch our hours on Sunday, but none of the staff wants to work much later than nine. Depression or not, our profits aren’t exactly lacking, so instead of lengthening our Sunday hours and making more profits, we hour given a bit of a Sunday evening to enjoy.
And enjoy my Sunday evening, I certainly did. Before I left, Levi made me promise that I would be by after work, to even send him a text message when I was on my way. He said it was necessary for me to go over to his place immediately because he hadn’t heard from me at all on Saturday and wanted to make sure I was of sound mind and body.
I knew what he really wanted, what “sound mind and body” was code for and wasn’t about to object. It may have been hard getting back on that dating horse, but now that I was up there, I was going to ride the horse for as long as possible, reaping all the benefits that I could. Sex was definitely something I had missed.
Despite getting there around ten o’clock, Levi had dinner for me. He was putting the finishing touches on a pasta dish. Dinner was met with much fanfare from my stomach. It promptly growled when I smelled the tomatoes and spices in the air.
Levi smiled at me, got my plate ready, and even served me dinner. We sat in the kitchen and watched a Seinfeld rerun while we ate and drank from a nice bottle of red wine he had on hand. It was very nearly a perfect evening.
I say very nearly because I ended up passing out on the couch leaning up against Levi. I still wasn’t recovered from the lack and sleep and stress (which was completely my doing because I am ridiculous like that) from Friday night. The wine only added to my exhaustion. The morning, however, was very notable.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The LB Invited the Bird Into the House
My little brother…well…at a young age, his curiosity all got the best of him…
He wasn’t in kindergarten yet and nearly caught the house on fire when he put a Pop-Tart in the microwave with the foil wrapper still on it and then turned the dial all the way around (to the 45-minute mark).
And then a year later, he burned the motor up in the garage-door opener by clicking the remote and watching the door go up and down, up and down, up and down.
He broke trophies that belonged to my sister and me when he climbed a four-foot-tall chest of drawers because he “wanted to see what was up there.”
He had to have stitches in his foot when he got into my mom’s make up and broke a bottle of foundation and stepped on it.
One summer, we had a bird stuck in the chimney. Mom closed the damper so the bird couldn’t get into the house, and then proper the little fence that was around the fireplace at the mouth of the fireplace as a further precaution against the bird.
Somehow the bird managed to get into the house.
Upon further investigation, we found out Kevin opened the damper. He “wanted to see what was up there.”
Fast forward now to present day. Kevin is twenty-three. While he has managed to get his curiosity under check, old habits still die hard apparently.
You see, tonight (4/20/2010), Kevin once again let a bird into the house.
I have posted about the bird before, but let me explain. For the past three years, we have had a bird nesting on the wreath on our door. You think we’d get rid of the wreath, but we haven’t for whatever reason. I’m going to say it’s probably because it never gets old watching the bird get spooked by friends and random door-to-door salesman coming on the walk. When the bird gets spooked, he flies from the nest.
A few heads have been clipped by the bird.
And…more than that has happened.
An unfortunate family member came home one day and got pelted by feces by the baby birds that were beginning to fly.
Anyway, back to tonight.
We had just got watched Kate-bad-mother-of-eight get voted off of Dancing With the Stars and were a happy mood. Since nothing else was on TV, Andrea then turned the Deadliest Catch. We talked a little bit until the brother decided he needed to go Target for something. He asked us if we needed anything.
“Uhhh…” Andrea said thinking.
“She’ll want Haribo’s gummy bears,” I said.
“Yeah!” she said at the same time Kevin said, “I know that’s what she was going to say.”
Kevin finds his keys and stands up to leave. Andrea and I return our attention to our computers and TV.
Kevin opens the door.
Suddenly, I hear a scream!
“THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE, THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE!” Kevin screams from where he is laying on the floor thrashing back and forth.
Right, you read that correct. My brother, my 6”1 brother weighing around 200 pounds FELL ON THE FLOOR and began SCREAMING about the bird.
It was so unexpected, so not what I ever pictured happening in a million years, that it took me a minute to connect that Kevin was lying on the floor convulsing and screaming because the bird had actually flown into the house!
In fact, Kevin’s tantrum was so completely out of left field, that I didn’t put the words together and understand their meaning until I saw the bird fly up to our ceiling.
Andrea sprang into action and grabbed a mop and began to try to corral the bird off of the ceiling and out the door.
I opened the sliding glass door to the backyard.
Kevin continued to convulse and scream.
“Close all the doors!” Andrea yelled. “Where’s a bucket?!”
“Close all the doors!” Kevin asked finally able to stop his thrashing limbs and climb to his feet.
“To bedrooms!” Andrea hissed.
In our, the living room, dining room, foyer, and kitchen is one big room. The foyer is off of the kitchen, the kitchen looks into the dining room, and the living room is one giant room to the side of the kitchen and dining room. The bird flew from the ceiling in the kitchen to the dining room. He came close to flying out the sliding door. Like I said. Close, but no cigar.
With our Mac, our Brittany Spaniel (and a dog who has brought us birds before) getting a little curious about the bird, the bird flew back into the kitchen, finally going through the door that led to the laundry room. The laundry room opens into the garage.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. “Trap him in the laundry room.”
“Trap him?” Kevin asked.
I began running around like a crazy person trying to find keys to get into the side access door of the garage.
“Yeah,” Andrea said. “We can get him into the garage.”
I found my car keys and ran out the front door, crossed the driveway, got to the door, and unlocked it. Feeling my way in the darkness of the garage, I managed to make it to the garage door and open it.
The bird sat in front of the door that opened into the kitchen. He didn’t move.
I poked at him with a broom handle.
No movement.
I began to flip out that the bird was dead.
He moved his head.
Now I began to flip out about getting the bird out of the house. I envisioned him flying straight at me in some Alfred Hitchcock-type scenario where the bird scratched me all over and got his disgusting germs all over me. At the very least, I picture getting shit on.
I poked the bird again.
Nothing.
For about five seconds, I completely panicked.
Then I found the bucket I bought from the movie theatre for free refills from December 2009 to March 31, 2010.
I gently tiptoed into the laundry room, prepared for the bird to fly right smack dab into my face.
Nothing.
I turned the bucket over and slowly lowered it over the bird.
Nothing.
Now the bird was trapped under the bucket. Not exactly a solution.
I picked the bucket up, braced for an attack. No attack. Now I tried to scoop the bird into the bucket. The bird didn’t move. It took a bit of maneuvering, but finally the bird was in the bucket. He didn’t move.
I ran out of the laundry, out of the garage, back to the front door where the bird’s nest and her unhatched egg awaited her. I deposited her in our landscaping and ran back inside through the garage.
“Is it gone?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah,” Andrea said.
With that settled and Andrea and I laughing at our brother, he grabbed his keys to finally head to Target.
“Better go out the garage,” Andrea said.
He wasn’t in kindergarten yet and nearly caught the house on fire when he put a Pop-Tart in the microwave with the foil wrapper still on it and then turned the dial all the way around (to the 45-minute mark).
And then a year later, he burned the motor up in the garage-door opener by clicking the remote and watching the door go up and down, up and down, up and down.
He broke trophies that belonged to my sister and me when he climbed a four-foot-tall chest of drawers because he “wanted to see what was up there.”
He had to have stitches in his foot when he got into my mom’s make up and broke a bottle of foundation and stepped on it.
One summer, we had a bird stuck in the chimney. Mom closed the damper so the bird couldn’t get into the house, and then proper the little fence that was around the fireplace at the mouth of the fireplace as a further precaution against the bird.
Somehow the bird managed to get into the house.
Upon further investigation, we found out Kevin opened the damper. He “wanted to see what was up there.”
Fast forward now to present day. Kevin is twenty-three. While he has managed to get his curiosity under check, old habits still die hard apparently.
You see, tonight (4/20/2010), Kevin once again let a bird into the house.
I have posted about the bird before, but let me explain. For the past three years, we have had a bird nesting on the wreath on our door. You think we’d get rid of the wreath, but we haven’t for whatever reason. I’m going to say it’s probably because it never gets old watching the bird get spooked by friends and random door-to-door salesman coming on the walk. When the bird gets spooked, he flies from the nest.
A few heads have been clipped by the bird.
And…more than that has happened.
An unfortunate family member came home one day and got pelted by feces by the baby birds that were beginning to fly.
Anyway, back to tonight.
We had just got watched Kate-bad-mother-of-eight get voted off of Dancing With the Stars and were a happy mood. Since nothing else was on TV, Andrea then turned the Deadliest Catch. We talked a little bit until the brother decided he needed to go Target for something. He asked us if we needed anything.
“Uhhh…” Andrea said thinking.
“She’ll want Haribo’s gummy bears,” I said.
“Yeah!” she said at the same time Kevin said, “I know that’s what she was going to say.”
Kevin finds his keys and stands up to leave. Andrea and I return our attention to our computers and TV.
Kevin opens the door.
Suddenly, I hear a scream!
“THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE, THE BIRD’S IN THE HOUSE!” Kevin screams from where he is laying on the floor thrashing back and forth.
Right, you read that correct. My brother, my 6”1 brother weighing around 200 pounds FELL ON THE FLOOR and began SCREAMING about the bird.
It was so unexpected, so not what I ever pictured happening in a million years, that it took me a minute to connect that Kevin was lying on the floor convulsing and screaming because the bird had actually flown into the house!
In fact, Kevin’s tantrum was so completely out of left field, that I didn’t put the words together and understand their meaning until I saw the bird fly up to our ceiling.
Andrea sprang into action and grabbed a mop and began to try to corral the bird off of the ceiling and out the door.
I opened the sliding glass door to the backyard.
Kevin continued to convulse and scream.
“Close all the doors!” Andrea yelled. “Where’s a bucket?!”
“Close all the doors!” Kevin asked finally able to stop his thrashing limbs and climb to his feet.
“To bedrooms!” Andrea hissed.
In our, the living room, dining room, foyer, and kitchen is one big room. The foyer is off of the kitchen, the kitchen looks into the dining room, and the living room is one giant room to the side of the kitchen and dining room. The bird flew from the ceiling in the kitchen to the dining room. He came close to flying out the sliding door. Like I said. Close, but no cigar.
With our Mac, our Brittany Spaniel (and a dog who has brought us birds before) getting a little curious about the bird, the bird flew back into the kitchen, finally going through the door that led to the laundry room. The laundry room opens into the garage.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. “Trap him in the laundry room.”
“Trap him?” Kevin asked.
I began running around like a crazy person trying to find keys to get into the side access door of the garage.
“Yeah,” Andrea said. “We can get him into the garage.”
I found my car keys and ran out the front door, crossed the driveway, got to the door, and unlocked it. Feeling my way in the darkness of the garage, I managed to make it to the garage door and open it.
The bird sat in front of the door that opened into the kitchen. He didn’t move.
I poked at him with a broom handle.
No movement.
I began to flip out that the bird was dead.
He moved his head.
Now I began to flip out about getting the bird out of the house. I envisioned him flying straight at me in some Alfred Hitchcock-type scenario where the bird scratched me all over and got his disgusting germs all over me. At the very least, I picture getting shit on.
I poked the bird again.
Nothing.
For about five seconds, I completely panicked.
Then I found the bucket I bought from the movie theatre for free refills from December 2009 to March 31, 2010.
I gently tiptoed into the laundry room, prepared for the bird to fly right smack dab into my face.
Nothing.
I turned the bucket over and slowly lowered it over the bird.
Nothing.
Now the bird was trapped under the bucket. Not exactly a solution.
I picked the bucket up, braced for an attack. No attack. Now I tried to scoop the bird into the bucket. The bird didn’t move. It took a bit of maneuvering, but finally the bird was in the bucket. He didn’t move.
I ran out of the laundry, out of the garage, back to the front door where the bird’s nest and her unhatched egg awaited her. I deposited her in our landscaping and ran back inside through the garage.
“Is it gone?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah,” Andrea said.
With that settled and Andrea and I laughing at our brother, he grabbed his keys to finally head to Target.
“Better go out the garage,” Andrea said.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Things Not to Do to a Customer - Call Them Stupid!
I knew it was going to be a good morning when I was awoken by my mother who told me that the garbage men did not pick up our trash today. She laid a check and the bill on my nightstand, told me the bill wasn’t late and to deal with it.
Yeah, could’ve dealt without on that.
Not only that, but I struggle to a sit, sniffling and snorting, as I tried to suck oxygen in through my nose. I wasn’t succeeding, coughed a few times, and finally drew a breath into my nasal cavity that hit finally hit my lungs.
I rolled over and looked at the bill and check. Mom was right. The bill wasn’t due for another two weeks and yet they decided to skip by our house. Interesting.
Even more interesting was the spring-cleaning my mother and I did. We cleaned out the garage, scaled back the shrubbery, and cleaned out closets. Our house looked like one of those backwoods hillbilly hideouts with all the shit out in front. The only thing missing was a dilapidated loveseat, some rotting wicker furniture, and beer bottles scattering the law, preferably of the Natty Ice labeling variety.
Anyway, I knew what I had to do. I had to call and find out what the hell had happened, berating and belittling if need be.
I’m great at berating and belittling. Ask the cable company. I had to call them and impersonate our mother when our cable went out DAYS before the 2008 summer Olympics. This was heart stopping for me and completely unacceptable. Sure, we all get into the Olympics and like watching it, but this year, the Olympics were personal for me. My old gymnastics coach had a gymnast on the USA Olympic team. No, she wasn’t Shawn Johnson or Nastia Luikin, but she still won a silver medal for the team competition (and a gold the previous year at the Worlds). I was able to watch my coach’s gymnast.
Need more proof of my endless tirades and rants? See previous entries titled “A Bunch of Crooks – My Insurance Company,’ “Round 2: I’m Taking Back Control,” “Verizon is the Devil and my Scapegoat,” and probably many others I’m leaving out…
Anyway!
Our trash needs to be picked up. It just flat out needs to go. It setting there are Clampett-like is just UNACCEPTABLE. Now, I have two weapons in my arsenal. One is a check for the total bill that I am looking at and the other is the bill itself that says when the bill is due – April 20 – so you do the math.
I call and impersonate my mother (like I have so many times before because of my berating abilities) and tell them our garbage did not get picked up today.
“Let me check,” says the operator.
I get put on hold and listen to some really bad elevator music. After listening to bad music long enough to drag my laptop into bed, open it, check my e-mail, log onto Facebook and get onto Sorority Life (yes, I’m going to admit it) and bank my money before people attacked me, going to back to my e-mail and reading my grandmother’s forwards (there were five in total), the operator got back to me.
Now, it’s going to get a little bit tricky here. I am playing my mother talking about me, so please try to follow.
“The bill wasn’t paid in December.”
This is so fucking a lie. I drove all the way to BFE, the northeastern most border of the county, past farms, farm equipment dealers, and over an interstate to get there, paid bill and even asked for a damn receipt.
“My daughter paid that in December. The beginning of the year at the absolute latest. She gave me a receipt.”
“Let me check,” the woman says.
The bad elevator music once again descends over the line. I click back over to Sorority Life, go to the spa, and then fight some people. I think about the forwards and decide to brighten some people’s day by sending three of them on (one is about politicians, one is about funny bumper stickers, and one is about Tiger Woods).
Finally she comes back. “There was a balance of $40 unpaid on the account, if you look at the bill…”
This is so the first that I am hearing of this. Nowhere on the receipt was a balance listed and no word was uttered about a balance.
“Ok, I said, so…if it’s on my bill…and my bill isn’t due until April 20,” I’m saying this slowly so it sinks in, “why is my service stopped now?”
“Because the $40 was due in December,” answers this woman. This conversation is fastly going south now.
“Ok, well nothing was said to my daughter and no notices were sent to the house that service was going to be suspended. I’m sending my daughter up with a check, I just want to know that the truck is going to be able to pick up my trash today.”
“I can’t guarantee that, ma’am,” she said.
“Well, I can guarantee you that no one said anything about $40. I can guarantee you that most people get a head’s up before service is suspended. If we had a head’s up, we wouldn’t have cleaned up the garage.”
“I didn’t tell you to clean out your garage,” she said. She is so asking for it.
“That may be true, but I don’t understand why you send a bill with a due date on it when you intend to suspend service before that bill is even due.”
Now, read very closely. This is where she really fucks up.
“Service was suspended because of the $40 that was unpaid.”
“The $40 that is tacked on here-“ I start to say but she cuts me off. SHE CUTS ME OFF!
Cutting me off is SO a mistake, but her bigger mistake lies in what she says next…
“Well, ma’am, it’s common sense that if you don’t pay your bill your service is suspended.”
Now, may be I got just a little bit worked up here in this next part, but I don’t think so because this woman has just called me out and said I was stupid. Saying I had no common sense is a very nice euphemism for saying I was STUPID. Me! Stupid! I have two college degrees! Tutor children! Have taught children! I’ll gladly cop to being a bitch, a bit neurotic, a chocoholic, and a control freak, but I am not stupid!
“Did you just call me stupid!?” I asked drawing the stupid out as much as could to make it sound more like two separate words – “STOO – PID”
“No ma’am,” she said.
“You did! You just said that I was stupid!”
Now she’s trying to backtrack. “I said common sense.”
“You meant is as a synonym for stupid! Meaning I was stupid.”
“All I was saying,” she says trying to squelch my tirade. Tirade squelching so does not work on me. I like my tirades, my rants, and I take great pleasure in finally releasing a rant. To try to delay it is like standing in front of a charging elephant with a plastic toy gun. You’re going to get hurt.
But before she finally gives in to my inevitable tirade, she gives me way more ammunition by saying, “I did not say you were stupid, I just said that services are stopped when people do not pay their bills.”
“So not only are you saying I’m stupid, but you’re judging me because you think I’m some white trash hillbilly who doesn’t pay their bills? Who are you to judge me and say I’m stupid. I’ll tell you what, since you’re not going to pick up my trash, I’ll have my daughter drop it off to you guys when she pays her bill! How about that!”
There’s more interruption. She tries to tell me I can’t take my trash to them.
“Don’t shush, me!” I said. “Listen. I’m the customer. All I want is my trash taken care of. If you won’t pick it up, I’ll bring it to you!” I said.
“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” I said.
“Good!” I snapped and hung up the phone.
With the check and bill, I drove to the office and told them I wanted to speak to a manager. A woman came out and I told her my name.
“Were you the one my mom was speaking to?” I asked.
“No, I was not, but I did hear some of the conversation,” she said. “She probably could’ve handled the call a little bit better.”
Yeah, she should have. She needs to nix talking about common sense with customers that are irate.
She brings out the bill and I calmly explain that a heads up would’ve been nice, that I paid the bill (I’m no longer playing my mother,) and nothing was said to me about a balance. I was then told that calls were supposedly made to my mother’s cell phone last week and messages were left about the suspension of service. My mother never received such calls and doesn’t check her voicemails (I don’t either. It’s way too tedious and time taking. If it’s important, people know to text me).
I explain our problem. That we cleaned our garage out and if we don’t get the trash pick up this week, then we’ll have trash left behind next week because in addition to that trash we’ll have another week’s worth of trash.
And now comes the revelation that could’ve saved EVERYONE a lot of pain and heartache.
“Well, we don’t have the drivers go back anymore for pick-ups for free,” she said. “We had people taking advantage of it.”
“So if it’s not for free, you do have pick-ups? How much do they cost?”
“Five dollars,” she said.
“Well, all right,” I said and dug a five-dollar bill out of my purse, handed the checks to her and waited while I got receipts and VERIFIED that the account was up-to-date.
It was.
And a few short hours ago, the trash man came back around and picked everything up.
Yeah, could’ve dealt without on that.
Not only that, but I struggle to a sit, sniffling and snorting, as I tried to suck oxygen in through my nose. I wasn’t succeeding, coughed a few times, and finally drew a breath into my nasal cavity that hit finally hit my lungs.
I rolled over and looked at the bill and check. Mom was right. The bill wasn’t due for another two weeks and yet they decided to skip by our house. Interesting.
Even more interesting was the spring-cleaning my mother and I did. We cleaned out the garage, scaled back the shrubbery, and cleaned out closets. Our house looked like one of those backwoods hillbilly hideouts with all the shit out in front. The only thing missing was a dilapidated loveseat, some rotting wicker furniture, and beer bottles scattering the law, preferably of the Natty Ice labeling variety.
Anyway, I knew what I had to do. I had to call and find out what the hell had happened, berating and belittling if need be.
I’m great at berating and belittling. Ask the cable company. I had to call them and impersonate our mother when our cable went out DAYS before the 2008 summer Olympics. This was heart stopping for me and completely unacceptable. Sure, we all get into the Olympics and like watching it, but this year, the Olympics were personal for me. My old gymnastics coach had a gymnast on the USA Olympic team. No, she wasn’t Shawn Johnson or Nastia Luikin, but she still won a silver medal for the team competition (and a gold the previous year at the Worlds). I was able to watch my coach’s gymnast.
Need more proof of my endless tirades and rants? See previous entries titled “A Bunch of Crooks – My Insurance Company,’ “Round 2: I’m Taking Back Control,” “Verizon is the Devil and my Scapegoat,” and probably many others I’m leaving out…
Anyway!
Our trash needs to be picked up. It just flat out needs to go. It setting there are Clampett-like is just UNACCEPTABLE. Now, I have two weapons in my arsenal. One is a check for the total bill that I am looking at and the other is the bill itself that says when the bill is due – April 20 – so you do the math.
I call and impersonate my mother (like I have so many times before because of my berating abilities) and tell them our garbage did not get picked up today.
“Let me check,” says the operator.
I get put on hold and listen to some really bad elevator music. After listening to bad music long enough to drag my laptop into bed, open it, check my e-mail, log onto Facebook and get onto Sorority Life (yes, I’m going to admit it) and bank my money before people attacked me, going to back to my e-mail and reading my grandmother’s forwards (there were five in total), the operator got back to me.
Now, it’s going to get a little bit tricky here. I am playing my mother talking about me, so please try to follow.
“The bill wasn’t paid in December.”
This is so fucking a lie. I drove all the way to BFE, the northeastern most border of the county, past farms, farm equipment dealers, and over an interstate to get there, paid bill and even asked for a damn receipt.
“My daughter paid that in December. The beginning of the year at the absolute latest. She gave me a receipt.”
“Let me check,” the woman says.
The bad elevator music once again descends over the line. I click back over to Sorority Life, go to the spa, and then fight some people. I think about the forwards and decide to brighten some people’s day by sending three of them on (one is about politicians, one is about funny bumper stickers, and one is about Tiger Woods).
Finally she comes back. “There was a balance of $40 unpaid on the account, if you look at the bill…”
This is so the first that I am hearing of this. Nowhere on the receipt was a balance listed and no word was uttered about a balance.
“Ok, I said, so…if it’s on my bill…and my bill isn’t due until April 20,” I’m saying this slowly so it sinks in, “why is my service stopped now?”
“Because the $40 was due in December,” answers this woman. This conversation is fastly going south now.
“Ok, well nothing was said to my daughter and no notices were sent to the house that service was going to be suspended. I’m sending my daughter up with a check, I just want to know that the truck is going to be able to pick up my trash today.”
“I can’t guarantee that, ma’am,” she said.
“Well, I can guarantee you that no one said anything about $40. I can guarantee you that most people get a head’s up before service is suspended. If we had a head’s up, we wouldn’t have cleaned up the garage.”
“I didn’t tell you to clean out your garage,” she said. She is so asking for it.
“That may be true, but I don’t understand why you send a bill with a due date on it when you intend to suspend service before that bill is even due.”
Now, read very closely. This is where she really fucks up.
“Service was suspended because of the $40 that was unpaid.”
“The $40 that is tacked on here-“ I start to say but she cuts me off. SHE CUTS ME OFF!
Cutting me off is SO a mistake, but her bigger mistake lies in what she says next…
“Well, ma’am, it’s common sense that if you don’t pay your bill your service is suspended.”
Now, may be I got just a little bit worked up here in this next part, but I don’t think so because this woman has just called me out and said I was stupid. Saying I had no common sense is a very nice euphemism for saying I was STUPID. Me! Stupid! I have two college degrees! Tutor children! Have taught children! I’ll gladly cop to being a bitch, a bit neurotic, a chocoholic, and a control freak, but I am not stupid!
“Did you just call me stupid!?” I asked drawing the stupid out as much as could to make it sound more like two separate words – “STOO – PID”
“No ma’am,” she said.
“You did! You just said that I was stupid!”
Now she’s trying to backtrack. “I said common sense.”
“You meant is as a synonym for stupid! Meaning I was stupid.”
“All I was saying,” she says trying to squelch my tirade. Tirade squelching so does not work on me. I like my tirades, my rants, and I take great pleasure in finally releasing a rant. To try to delay it is like standing in front of a charging elephant with a plastic toy gun. You’re going to get hurt.
But before she finally gives in to my inevitable tirade, she gives me way more ammunition by saying, “I did not say you were stupid, I just said that services are stopped when people do not pay their bills.”
“So not only are you saying I’m stupid, but you’re judging me because you think I’m some white trash hillbilly who doesn’t pay their bills? Who are you to judge me and say I’m stupid. I’ll tell you what, since you’re not going to pick up my trash, I’ll have my daughter drop it off to you guys when she pays her bill! How about that!”
There’s more interruption. She tries to tell me I can’t take my trash to them.
“Don’t shush, me!” I said. “Listen. I’m the customer. All I want is my trash taken care of. If you won’t pick it up, I’ll bring it to you!” I said.
“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” I said.
“Good!” I snapped and hung up the phone.
With the check and bill, I drove to the office and told them I wanted to speak to a manager. A woman came out and I told her my name.
“Were you the one my mom was speaking to?” I asked.
“No, I was not, but I did hear some of the conversation,” she said. “She probably could’ve handled the call a little bit better.”
Yeah, she should have. She needs to nix talking about common sense with customers that are irate.
She brings out the bill and I calmly explain that a heads up would’ve been nice, that I paid the bill (I’m no longer playing my mother,) and nothing was said to me about a balance. I was then told that calls were supposedly made to my mother’s cell phone last week and messages were left about the suspension of service. My mother never received such calls and doesn’t check her voicemails (I don’t either. It’s way too tedious and time taking. If it’s important, people know to text me).
I explain our problem. That we cleaned our garage out and if we don’t get the trash pick up this week, then we’ll have trash left behind next week because in addition to that trash we’ll have another week’s worth of trash.
And now comes the revelation that could’ve saved EVERYONE a lot of pain and heartache.
“Well, we don’t have the drivers go back anymore for pick-ups for free,” she said. “We had people taking advantage of it.”
“So if it’s not for free, you do have pick-ups? How much do they cost?”
“Five dollars,” she said.
“Well, all right,” I said and dug a five-dollar bill out of my purse, handed the checks to her and waited while I got receipts and VERIFIED that the account was up-to-date.
It was.
And a few short hours ago, the trash man came back around and picked everything up.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Something a LIttle Different Part IV - The Irish Car Bomb
The Irish Car Bomb
Whenever someone orders an Irish Car Bomb (ICB), I feel like bowing down to them. That is, if they actually have balls enough to take the drink like a shot – in one big ass gulp. Anyone can drink a beer, but few can drink an ICB.
Not a lot of people request an ICB. The crowd that is most likely to be an ICB is the frat-boy crowd, men celebrating a bachelor party, or the athletes at the university after a win.
I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging if it’s going to be an ICB night. If there are a lot of pretty boys channeling Jersey Shore with the popped collars and spiked hair on a Thursday night, the cheap beer will turn into Guinness and shots of whiskey dumped into the cups and then chugged. I hate to admit it, but frat boys can drink. They may be first-class tools, but they keep the coffers full.
Bachelor parties are easy to spot. There’s normally a group of guys (some do pop their collars) all sitting together and girls dressed in really skanky clothes. Sometimes I do wonder if the girls are just random slutty chicks that someone knows or if they are strippers. They all gather around a single man (the groom-to-be) and begin to force alcohol down the single man’s throat. Not many bachelor parties end without an ICB being consumed.
The athletes, they are by far the easiest to spot. Before I start serving ICBs, I’ll get a handful of fake IDs. I make sure those individuals are escorted out before we can get hit with fines. You’d think the rest of the team would leave, but no. The Strauss is a legend. College athletes have come into this bar to have a drink for over a century. Under-age friends will not keep the rest of the team from enjoying a beer to celebrate a victory in the bar. Before they know it, a few beers have turned into shots and soon enough, the guys will make their way over to the bar and begin to order ICBs.
I have imbibed an ICB a total of five times. Each time, I was completely drunk out of my mind. I had to be in order to drink Guinness. It took me years drinking the hard stuff and paying more until I finally forced myself to down a brew. I chugged it and gagged and since then, I’ve been a big fan. I’ve just never been able to drink the dark stuff. I’m a light girl all the way.
After those five times drinking an ICB, I can say that my morning wasn’t exactly storybook. I did my first ICB on a dare from Jazz. I did the other four also on dares from Jazz. Those five morning-afters, I awoke in a strange bed with a badass headache that only intensified when I opened my eyes to the extremely brilliant sunlight streaming through the windows. It always took me a good five minutes to distinguish the room as Jazz’s.
As if that wasn’t enough, it seemed like something completely random and out of left field always happened. One morning, I even had gum in my hair. Another morning, my bra was wrapped around my midsection. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was the morning that I awoke with my underwear only around one leg. Jazz swears no men accompanied us home on both of these nights. On another morning, I even awoke to the DVD title screen of My Little Pony, a DVD set that I gave to Jazz for Christmas one year as a gag gift. The last time I drank an ICB, I awoke with a big bruise down my spine and my t-shirt was ripped. We’re still trying to figure out if we were playing WWE and I was channeling Hulk Hogan.
The point I’m trying to make is that when ICBs get involved, things happen that wouldn’t normally happen. If my headache wasn’t enough to make me regret the night’s binge-drinking fest, then the roiling, queasy feeling in my stomach certainly was. Every morning after I grieved my decision to drink. And yet I answered Jazz’s dare a total of four more times knowing exactly what was in store for me. Glutton for punishment? I most definitely was.
“So you’re going to do it,” Jazz asked me on Thursday night, the night before I was to go on a very important date with Levi.
“Yes, Jazz. I called him Tuesday and told him I had Friday off for him to impress me.”
“I think he certainly has earned it,” Jazz replied. “The boy did watch Bring It On for you. I’ve never been able to get a male to do that for me. Ever. I’m a bit jealous.”
I laughed at Jazz and then laughed even harder as a male co-ed elbowed his way through a throng of college kids to order a fifty-cent draft. She gave the kid a dirty look. The look was clearly lost on the kid. His eyes roved over my friend from top to bottom, taking in her cleavage and finally settling on her face.
“Need a drink?” he asked.
“Do I look like someone who drinks cheap-ass beer?” she snipped.
The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Who doesn’t like beer?”
I flashed her a look. The boy was right, who didn’t like beer. Jazz certainly liked beer. Jazz just didn’t like fifty-cent draft night. Unfortunately, fifty-cent draft night was the only night Jazz could get to the bar to go over the details of the date and the night that Levi’s benefits would finally kick in.
“Do I look like a fucking cougar to you?” Jazz asked letting her first f-bomb of the night fly. She waited thirty minutes; I was impressed. The boy stared at her, shocked into silence. “Mature men are like fine wines,” she said turning back to me and ignoring the college kid. He stared daggers at her. “Hard to fine and rich as hell. This one, he’s a dime a dozen, a Natty Ice.”
“Hey!” he shouted clearly not happy with being called common and poor. The common part was probably true, but I doubted the poor part. College students at our local Jamestown University were anything but poor. Locals got in on scholarships, but a good number of kids were from out of state and paid big money to get into the private school.
“Walk on, kid,” Eddie said materializing from the kitchen. He looked at me and then looked at Jazz. “F-bomb disposal unit reporting for duty,” he kidded.
“Thanks, Eddie,” I said.
“Pain in the ass little frat boy,” Jazz muttered. “Why don’t you go iron your shirt collar, there’s a part that’s starting to fall.”
“Jazz,” Eddie remonstrated when the boy turned around and glared at her.
“What?” she asked, the complete picture of innocence.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “I didn’t sign on for this tonight,” he huffed. “I’m going back to the kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll listen for more f-bombs.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” I said and waved at him. I turned back to Jazz. “Behave yourself.”
“Behave myself? Please. It’s college fucktard night. It is completely impossible for me to behave myself.”
I laughed. “You know, I love how when we were in middle school, we laughed at the fifth-graders. And then when we were in high school, we laughed at the middle schoolers. In college, we couldn’t stand high schoolers, and now that’s we’ve graduated and are working we-“
“Hate everyone else. Fifth graders, middle and high schoolers, college students, and parents.”
“Parents? Really, Jazz? You hate parents.”
“Yes, I do. With a passion. More than I hate Mr. Jersey Shore back there who tried to pick me up.”
“Pray tell, why do you hate parents?”
“Simple, they think they’re better than me. Like having a kid suddenly makes you a worthwhile member of society. Well, you suck, and your a kids douche and will be a drain on society. Looks like I’m the one winning, bitches.”
“That’s only you’re second martini for the night. How have you gone off the deep end already?”
Jazz gave me a dirty look. “All I’m saying is that I pay my taxes, I own my own condo, I pay for my pretty little Maxima out there. I may not have a kid, but I have an amazing wardrobe.”
“If Daddy accountant could you hear now.”
“I’m ignoring that because I’d much rather discuss wardrobes. Your wardrobe in fact. What are you wearing tomorrow night? Evaluation night always means you need to look stunning.”
“Do you no longer trust my judgment?” I asked her.
She narrowed her eyes at me. I knew that look well enough, and it meant she did not trust my judgment. “You do own a pair of Seven jeans, do you not?”
“Aren’t those a bit…pretentious?”
Jazz shuddered. “You’ve been hanging in this bar too long. No, they are not pretentious. Wear the Seven jeans. They’re dark and I like that top you got from Express last spring. The hot pink cotton tube top with the fitted bodice and three long ruffles. Gold shoes. Do I need to bring by a pair of my shoes? I have some gold Kenneth Coles you can wear.”
“I think I can manage, Jazz.”
“Well, where are you going?”
“He has reservations at Lakeside at seven. Then he said something about that new chocolate and wine shop that opened. I don’t know though. I’ve never been able to do chocolate and alcohol without getting sick.”
“And tonight is not a night to get sick.”
“Exactly. I think it would be fun to play putt-putt golf or something. I haven’t done that in awhile. Or go to Los Pesos for margaritas.”
Jazz smiled. “Margaritas do mean good nights.”
I nodded my head and filled another fifty-cent draft. “Good nights, but bad mornings.”
Jazz waved my words away. “It doesn’t take alcohol to make a good night a bad morning. You do realize that I’m going to want details.”
“Sunday afternoon?” I asked her.
“You know I will definitely be here for this!”
I nodded my head and began to wonder about Levi and these past four weeks. This, whatever it is that this is becoming, I forgot about how the nerves could wrack me. I was nervous, excited, and fearful all the same time. I wanted to get the night over with, and yet I wanted to savor it too. Evaluation night is one great big oxymoron of feelings.
That night, dressed to the nines in the outfit Jazz handpicked, my hair blown out to perfection, and my make-up hiding my imperfections, I excitedly and nervously awaited Levi. He was picking me up at my house. When my doorbell rang, I nearly ran into my bedroom and hid under my big goose down comforter.
But I was a big girl. I was a big girl letting someone else into my life, something I use to be able to do with no problem. Yet as my hand turned the doorknob, I paused halfway between an open and a locked door. I breathed in deeply. This could be a wrong decision. It could very well be a bad decision, and yet, I would survive. I had Jazz and my aunt and Eddie said I even had him.
I opened the door. Levi stood there in a pair of chinos and a thin blue merino sweater, his sleeves rolled up onto his forearms. I hadn’t bothered to notice before, even when we were cuddled up on his couch together watching movies, but Levi did work out.
“Hi?” he said nervously and his dark hair flopped across his head. My nerves seemed to match his. “I never thought I’d get you to consent to this. For a minute, I actually believed you had changed your mind and decided to work.” He smiled though to show he was joking. Probably half joking, anyway.
“Nah,” I said stepping out into the spring air. “Besides, Jazz would kill me if I did.” He looked at me quizzically, but I didn’t elaborate. He led me to his car, a Jeep Cherokee and even opened the door for me. “Wow,” I said thoroughly shocked by his actions.
He looked over at me from the driver’s side seat. “And my momma said I’d never learn my manners.”
“Well, if she starts harping on you, I’ll tell her otherwise,” I said as he put the car into gear.
The drive over was nice. We both talked about our week and various things that we had in the works for the future. It was a little different making small talk with Levi. In fact, thinking about it, we had never really made idle chit chat like this before. Majority of the time, our conversations were heavy with sarcasm as we debated different things like Ilsa’s motives and that a libertarian was a real political affiliation and not me rebelling against societal constraints.
We arrived at Lakeside and Levi grabbed my hand. Holding hands, we walked into the restaurant together, very nearly a real couple. I found out that he had a table reserved on the veranda. It was late spring and the rays of the setting sun were touching the lake, the namesake of the restaurant, and before long it would be dark. Once it was dark, a piano player would begin playing old school classics that everyone would know.
The piano would be later. Now I was focused on the menu. Lakeside was known for its fish. I don’t know where the first comes from, but its never bad. And as long as it doesn’t come from the lake or the river right outside city limits, I don’t quite care where it does come from.
When the waitress came I ordered lemon pepper tilapia with butternut squash. It was my favorite dish, the light, flaky tilapia covered in lemony goodness and then that pepper! Oh it was always a pleaser. Levi ordered salmon in teriyaki and steamed vegetables. To cap off the evening, he also ordered a bottle of Chardonnay for us to enjoy with the meal.
Dinner was great. The wine was the perfect compliment and by the time the bill was brought, I had a nice happy buzz. I quickly added the numbers together and realized that Levi was probably paying a hundred for this meal.
With a one hundred-dollar dinner, watching movies I like no matter emasculating they may be, visiting me at work, and being patient for our first date, Levi’s evaluation was going along quite nicely. Not that I had expected him to fail. But still, a scorecard is a scorecard, and I really wanted him to score high.
After dinner, he tried to persuade me to visit the chocolate bar, but I stood by my decision to not mix chocolate and alcohol. When he heard my reasons why, he quickly saw my point of view and swept me off to Los Pesos.
Los Pesos was a popular Mexican restaurant and bar with the Americanized favorites and wonderfully strong margaritas. Once upon a time, Jazz and I were regulars here. Such regulars, in fact, that a good number of the servers knew our exact order and within one minute of sitting down, a litter of strawberry and lime margarita would be sat down at our table before they did confirm the dinners we always ordered.
Around 9 p.m., Los Pesos was still crowded, but starting to thin out. A booth in the back was open, and Levi and I decided to go ahead and sit there. He surprised me by going against the grain and sitting on my side of the booth with me. As soon as our drinks were ordered, I felt an arm landed around my shoulders. I turned and looked at him.
“Sorry, but I’ve been wanting to do this all evening.” I smiled and cuddled into his shoulder. “Actually, for longer than that.
When you’re behind a bar tending to everyone’s needs, it makes it hard to cuddle you.”
“Because I’m so cuddle-able.”
Levi laughed. “Oh get over it. The girls with hard shells are the mushiest on the inside. It’s just a matter of cracking them.”
I stared up at him and raised my eyebrows. “A nut, I am?”
“Nuts make life interesting,” he said. “Anyway, I think my sanity is clearly up for debate after watching Bring It On.”
I started to laugh, but stopped once I felt Levi’s lips crush my own. I knew we were in a restaurant, but it was a back booth and the waitress had just left. Knowing that, I tangled my hands in his silky hair and didn’t mind indulging myself in his kisses.
Levi was a good kisser too. I thought it the first time he kissed me outside in the parking lot beside my car with the streetlight illuminating the empty, darkened lot. It was a brief kiss, caught in between a peck and some tongue, but it was nice. I was ready to make the kiss last longer, but Levi pulled away. I believe he knew exactly what he was doing, knew that leaving me wanting more from him gave him the leverage. Well, it gave him leverage for the moment anyway. It was after the kiss that I persuaded him to watch Bring It On.
Later, our kisses consisted of heavy make out sessions on his couch. Those were nice. We’d started cuddled together, both with a beer in our hands as we watched TV, a re-run of the The Office or perhaps Millionaire Matchmaker if I didn’t feel like expanding his filming-industry horizons. Then we’d finish our beers and cuddle closer. At some point, we’d forget what was going on and lose ourselves in each other, kissing and squirming on the couch until my body began to tell me to screw the month-long wait. Once that point came, I’d pull away and remind him we still were strangers getting to know one another.
I pulled away and thirty seconds later, as if our waitress knew what was going, the margaritas were deposited on our table. They were as good as I remembered. After two drinks, Levi paid the bill and suggested a stop at the movie store. I picked out Dazed and Confused. It was a movie we had both seen which meant it wouldn’t matter that we weren’t going to watch it.
And we didn’t watch it. Levi went through the pretenses of putting the movie in, but as soon as we sat down together on his couch, the movie was completely forgotten, clothing was discarded, and I was carried to his bedroom, my legs wrapped around his waist.
The next morning, feeling fuzzy headed and a little queasy, I opened my eyes and nearly had a heart attack. I was lying naked in a bed that was not my bed. I looked around trying to get my bearings. This bedroom did not belong to Jazz either. I was…I was…I wracked my brain trying for the life of me to remember last night. I didn’t have to remember for too long because Levi’s hand landed across my body and tugged me against him.
The entire evening suddenly unfolded in my brain and I had brief moment of panic. I had finally done it, finally succumbed and let another person into my world. At the moment I was still alive, unhurt and unscathed. It didn’t matter; the future was a blank slate. The happy endings that the movies show you are fake, completely fake. Because those happy endings that the movies show, they are just stories that haven’t yet been written. In real life, things just end. They run their natural progression and that’s it. It’s more sad than happy to see something die like that.
“Sunshine,” Levi asked using his new nickname for me. He decided to call me it after I told him that Aurora meant dawn.
“You’re so tense. Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to tell someone that I was having second thoughts. Especially when those second thoughts were because I was a neurotic head case. Levi would never believe me; he’d think it was something he did last night when everything he did was so completely right.
That meant I had to lie. “I’m not on anything,” I blurted out. Well, it wasn’t why I was so tense, but it was a truth.
“I wore protection, Sunny,” he said and I could see the smile gracing his lips, lips that kissed me senseless last night.
“I know but I just…I can’t get pregnant,” I said well aware how crazy and bumbling I looked. “I’ve got to go…go get that…yeah, that stuff….the morning after,” I babbled and threw the covers back. I just have-“
Levi grabbed my arm and drew me back onto the covers. “Rory, I picked you up.”
“Right, I’ll call a cab.”
“Sunny,” he said in a slow, patient voice and as pulled me closer to him. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is I can’t get pregnant. I’m not ready; I’m sure you’re not ready. I just need to get that stuff, Levi, I need it and the sooner, the more effective it is,” I said struggling to move back to a sit.
Levi held me reassuringly close. “Okay, okay,” he said and glided his fingers through my hair. “I’ll get dressed. But you have to look at me in the eye and promise me that you’re only worked up because you’re not on any birth control.”
“Yes,” I said in a rush and then bit my lip.
Levi regarded me for a moment and then brought himself to a sit. “Let me get some clothes on,” he said and swung his legs over the bed.
I watched him stand up, hunting around the floor for his clothes and suddenly wanted to pat myself on the back for my excellent choice in men. Levi did have a body. It was all lines and contours and all of my doubt suddenly fled.
So what if it was a mistake? In the grand scheme of things, nearly every action we took led to an ending of some sort. I knew that things with Levi would end. I just hoped that this particular mistake might hang around longer than I had anticipat
Whenever someone orders an Irish Car Bomb (ICB), I feel like bowing down to them. That is, if they actually have balls enough to take the drink like a shot – in one big ass gulp. Anyone can drink a beer, but few can drink an ICB.
Not a lot of people request an ICB. The crowd that is most likely to be an ICB is the frat-boy crowd, men celebrating a bachelor party, or the athletes at the university after a win.
I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging if it’s going to be an ICB night. If there are a lot of pretty boys channeling Jersey Shore with the popped collars and spiked hair on a Thursday night, the cheap beer will turn into Guinness and shots of whiskey dumped into the cups and then chugged. I hate to admit it, but frat boys can drink. They may be first-class tools, but they keep the coffers full.
Bachelor parties are easy to spot. There’s normally a group of guys (some do pop their collars) all sitting together and girls dressed in really skanky clothes. Sometimes I do wonder if the girls are just random slutty chicks that someone knows or if they are strippers. They all gather around a single man (the groom-to-be) and begin to force alcohol down the single man’s throat. Not many bachelor parties end without an ICB being consumed.
The athletes, they are by far the easiest to spot. Before I start serving ICBs, I’ll get a handful of fake IDs. I make sure those individuals are escorted out before we can get hit with fines. You’d think the rest of the team would leave, but no. The Strauss is a legend. College athletes have come into this bar to have a drink for over a century. Under-age friends will not keep the rest of the team from enjoying a beer to celebrate a victory in the bar. Before they know it, a few beers have turned into shots and soon enough, the guys will make their way over to the bar and begin to order ICBs.
I have imbibed an ICB a total of five times. Each time, I was completely drunk out of my mind. I had to be in order to drink Guinness. It took me years drinking the hard stuff and paying more until I finally forced myself to down a brew. I chugged it and gagged and since then, I’ve been a big fan. I’ve just never been able to drink the dark stuff. I’m a light girl all the way.
After those five times drinking an ICB, I can say that my morning wasn’t exactly storybook. I did my first ICB on a dare from Jazz. I did the other four also on dares from Jazz. Those five morning-afters, I awoke in a strange bed with a badass headache that only intensified when I opened my eyes to the extremely brilliant sunlight streaming through the windows. It always took me a good five minutes to distinguish the room as Jazz’s.
As if that wasn’t enough, it seemed like something completely random and out of left field always happened. One morning, I even had gum in my hair. Another morning, my bra was wrapped around my midsection. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was the morning that I awoke with my underwear only around one leg. Jazz swears no men accompanied us home on both of these nights. On another morning, I even awoke to the DVD title screen of My Little Pony, a DVD set that I gave to Jazz for Christmas one year as a gag gift. The last time I drank an ICB, I awoke with a big bruise down my spine and my t-shirt was ripped. We’re still trying to figure out if we were playing WWE and I was channeling Hulk Hogan.
The point I’m trying to make is that when ICBs get involved, things happen that wouldn’t normally happen. If my headache wasn’t enough to make me regret the night’s binge-drinking fest, then the roiling, queasy feeling in my stomach certainly was. Every morning after I grieved my decision to drink. And yet I answered Jazz’s dare a total of four more times knowing exactly what was in store for me. Glutton for punishment? I most definitely was.
“So you’re going to do it,” Jazz asked me on Thursday night, the night before I was to go on a very important date with Levi.
“Yes, Jazz. I called him Tuesday and told him I had Friday off for him to impress me.”
“I think he certainly has earned it,” Jazz replied. “The boy did watch Bring It On for you. I’ve never been able to get a male to do that for me. Ever. I’m a bit jealous.”
I laughed at Jazz and then laughed even harder as a male co-ed elbowed his way through a throng of college kids to order a fifty-cent draft. She gave the kid a dirty look. The look was clearly lost on the kid. His eyes roved over my friend from top to bottom, taking in her cleavage and finally settling on her face.
“Need a drink?” he asked.
“Do I look like someone who drinks cheap-ass beer?” she snipped.
The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Who doesn’t like beer?”
I flashed her a look. The boy was right, who didn’t like beer. Jazz certainly liked beer. Jazz just didn’t like fifty-cent draft night. Unfortunately, fifty-cent draft night was the only night Jazz could get to the bar to go over the details of the date and the night that Levi’s benefits would finally kick in.
“Do I look like a fucking cougar to you?” Jazz asked letting her first f-bomb of the night fly. She waited thirty minutes; I was impressed. The boy stared at her, shocked into silence. “Mature men are like fine wines,” she said turning back to me and ignoring the college kid. He stared daggers at her. “Hard to fine and rich as hell. This one, he’s a dime a dozen, a Natty Ice.”
“Hey!” he shouted clearly not happy with being called common and poor. The common part was probably true, but I doubted the poor part. College students at our local Jamestown University were anything but poor. Locals got in on scholarships, but a good number of kids were from out of state and paid big money to get into the private school.
“Walk on, kid,” Eddie said materializing from the kitchen. He looked at me and then looked at Jazz. “F-bomb disposal unit reporting for duty,” he kidded.
“Thanks, Eddie,” I said.
“Pain in the ass little frat boy,” Jazz muttered. “Why don’t you go iron your shirt collar, there’s a part that’s starting to fall.”
“Jazz,” Eddie remonstrated when the boy turned around and glared at her.
“What?” she asked, the complete picture of innocence.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “I didn’t sign on for this tonight,” he huffed. “I’m going back to the kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll listen for more f-bombs.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” I said and waved at him. I turned back to Jazz. “Behave yourself.”
“Behave myself? Please. It’s college fucktard night. It is completely impossible for me to behave myself.”
I laughed. “You know, I love how when we were in middle school, we laughed at the fifth-graders. And then when we were in high school, we laughed at the middle schoolers. In college, we couldn’t stand high schoolers, and now that’s we’ve graduated and are working we-“
“Hate everyone else. Fifth graders, middle and high schoolers, college students, and parents.”
“Parents? Really, Jazz? You hate parents.”
“Yes, I do. With a passion. More than I hate Mr. Jersey Shore back there who tried to pick me up.”
“Pray tell, why do you hate parents?”
“Simple, they think they’re better than me. Like having a kid suddenly makes you a worthwhile member of society. Well, you suck, and your a kids douche and will be a drain on society. Looks like I’m the one winning, bitches.”
“That’s only you’re second martini for the night. How have you gone off the deep end already?”
Jazz gave me a dirty look. “All I’m saying is that I pay my taxes, I own my own condo, I pay for my pretty little Maxima out there. I may not have a kid, but I have an amazing wardrobe.”
“If Daddy accountant could you hear now.”
“I’m ignoring that because I’d much rather discuss wardrobes. Your wardrobe in fact. What are you wearing tomorrow night? Evaluation night always means you need to look stunning.”
“Do you no longer trust my judgment?” I asked her.
She narrowed her eyes at me. I knew that look well enough, and it meant she did not trust my judgment. “You do own a pair of Seven jeans, do you not?”
“Aren’t those a bit…pretentious?”
Jazz shuddered. “You’ve been hanging in this bar too long. No, they are not pretentious. Wear the Seven jeans. They’re dark and I like that top you got from Express last spring. The hot pink cotton tube top with the fitted bodice and three long ruffles. Gold shoes. Do I need to bring by a pair of my shoes? I have some gold Kenneth Coles you can wear.”
“I think I can manage, Jazz.”
“Well, where are you going?”
“He has reservations at Lakeside at seven. Then he said something about that new chocolate and wine shop that opened. I don’t know though. I’ve never been able to do chocolate and alcohol without getting sick.”
“And tonight is not a night to get sick.”
“Exactly. I think it would be fun to play putt-putt golf or something. I haven’t done that in awhile. Or go to Los Pesos for margaritas.”
Jazz smiled. “Margaritas do mean good nights.”
I nodded my head and filled another fifty-cent draft. “Good nights, but bad mornings.”
Jazz waved my words away. “It doesn’t take alcohol to make a good night a bad morning. You do realize that I’m going to want details.”
“Sunday afternoon?” I asked her.
“You know I will definitely be here for this!”
I nodded my head and began to wonder about Levi and these past four weeks. This, whatever it is that this is becoming, I forgot about how the nerves could wrack me. I was nervous, excited, and fearful all the same time. I wanted to get the night over with, and yet I wanted to savor it too. Evaluation night is one great big oxymoron of feelings.
That night, dressed to the nines in the outfit Jazz handpicked, my hair blown out to perfection, and my make-up hiding my imperfections, I excitedly and nervously awaited Levi. He was picking me up at my house. When my doorbell rang, I nearly ran into my bedroom and hid under my big goose down comforter.
But I was a big girl. I was a big girl letting someone else into my life, something I use to be able to do with no problem. Yet as my hand turned the doorknob, I paused halfway between an open and a locked door. I breathed in deeply. This could be a wrong decision. It could very well be a bad decision, and yet, I would survive. I had Jazz and my aunt and Eddie said I even had him.
I opened the door. Levi stood there in a pair of chinos and a thin blue merino sweater, his sleeves rolled up onto his forearms. I hadn’t bothered to notice before, even when we were cuddled up on his couch together watching movies, but Levi did work out.
“Hi?” he said nervously and his dark hair flopped across his head. My nerves seemed to match his. “I never thought I’d get you to consent to this. For a minute, I actually believed you had changed your mind and decided to work.” He smiled though to show he was joking. Probably half joking, anyway.
“Nah,” I said stepping out into the spring air. “Besides, Jazz would kill me if I did.” He looked at me quizzically, but I didn’t elaborate. He led me to his car, a Jeep Cherokee and even opened the door for me. “Wow,” I said thoroughly shocked by his actions.
He looked over at me from the driver’s side seat. “And my momma said I’d never learn my manners.”
“Well, if she starts harping on you, I’ll tell her otherwise,” I said as he put the car into gear.
The drive over was nice. We both talked about our week and various things that we had in the works for the future. It was a little different making small talk with Levi. In fact, thinking about it, we had never really made idle chit chat like this before. Majority of the time, our conversations were heavy with sarcasm as we debated different things like Ilsa’s motives and that a libertarian was a real political affiliation and not me rebelling against societal constraints.
We arrived at Lakeside and Levi grabbed my hand. Holding hands, we walked into the restaurant together, very nearly a real couple. I found out that he had a table reserved on the veranda. It was late spring and the rays of the setting sun were touching the lake, the namesake of the restaurant, and before long it would be dark. Once it was dark, a piano player would begin playing old school classics that everyone would know.
The piano would be later. Now I was focused on the menu. Lakeside was known for its fish. I don’t know where the first comes from, but its never bad. And as long as it doesn’t come from the lake or the river right outside city limits, I don’t quite care where it does come from.
When the waitress came I ordered lemon pepper tilapia with butternut squash. It was my favorite dish, the light, flaky tilapia covered in lemony goodness and then that pepper! Oh it was always a pleaser. Levi ordered salmon in teriyaki and steamed vegetables. To cap off the evening, he also ordered a bottle of Chardonnay for us to enjoy with the meal.
Dinner was great. The wine was the perfect compliment and by the time the bill was brought, I had a nice happy buzz. I quickly added the numbers together and realized that Levi was probably paying a hundred for this meal.
With a one hundred-dollar dinner, watching movies I like no matter emasculating they may be, visiting me at work, and being patient for our first date, Levi’s evaluation was going along quite nicely. Not that I had expected him to fail. But still, a scorecard is a scorecard, and I really wanted him to score high.
After dinner, he tried to persuade me to visit the chocolate bar, but I stood by my decision to not mix chocolate and alcohol. When he heard my reasons why, he quickly saw my point of view and swept me off to Los Pesos.
Los Pesos was a popular Mexican restaurant and bar with the Americanized favorites and wonderfully strong margaritas. Once upon a time, Jazz and I were regulars here. Such regulars, in fact, that a good number of the servers knew our exact order and within one minute of sitting down, a litter of strawberry and lime margarita would be sat down at our table before they did confirm the dinners we always ordered.
Around 9 p.m., Los Pesos was still crowded, but starting to thin out. A booth in the back was open, and Levi and I decided to go ahead and sit there. He surprised me by going against the grain and sitting on my side of the booth with me. As soon as our drinks were ordered, I felt an arm landed around my shoulders. I turned and looked at him.
“Sorry, but I’ve been wanting to do this all evening.” I smiled and cuddled into his shoulder. “Actually, for longer than that.
When you’re behind a bar tending to everyone’s needs, it makes it hard to cuddle you.”
“Because I’m so cuddle-able.”
Levi laughed. “Oh get over it. The girls with hard shells are the mushiest on the inside. It’s just a matter of cracking them.”
I stared up at him and raised my eyebrows. “A nut, I am?”
“Nuts make life interesting,” he said. “Anyway, I think my sanity is clearly up for debate after watching Bring It On.”
I started to laugh, but stopped once I felt Levi’s lips crush my own. I knew we were in a restaurant, but it was a back booth and the waitress had just left. Knowing that, I tangled my hands in his silky hair and didn’t mind indulging myself in his kisses.
Levi was a good kisser too. I thought it the first time he kissed me outside in the parking lot beside my car with the streetlight illuminating the empty, darkened lot. It was a brief kiss, caught in between a peck and some tongue, but it was nice. I was ready to make the kiss last longer, but Levi pulled away. I believe he knew exactly what he was doing, knew that leaving me wanting more from him gave him the leverage. Well, it gave him leverage for the moment anyway. It was after the kiss that I persuaded him to watch Bring It On.
Later, our kisses consisted of heavy make out sessions on his couch. Those were nice. We’d started cuddled together, both with a beer in our hands as we watched TV, a re-run of the The Office or perhaps Millionaire Matchmaker if I didn’t feel like expanding his filming-industry horizons. Then we’d finish our beers and cuddle closer. At some point, we’d forget what was going on and lose ourselves in each other, kissing and squirming on the couch until my body began to tell me to screw the month-long wait. Once that point came, I’d pull away and remind him we still were strangers getting to know one another.
I pulled away and thirty seconds later, as if our waitress knew what was going, the margaritas were deposited on our table. They were as good as I remembered. After two drinks, Levi paid the bill and suggested a stop at the movie store. I picked out Dazed and Confused. It was a movie we had both seen which meant it wouldn’t matter that we weren’t going to watch it.
And we didn’t watch it. Levi went through the pretenses of putting the movie in, but as soon as we sat down together on his couch, the movie was completely forgotten, clothing was discarded, and I was carried to his bedroom, my legs wrapped around his waist.
The next morning, feeling fuzzy headed and a little queasy, I opened my eyes and nearly had a heart attack. I was lying naked in a bed that was not my bed. I looked around trying to get my bearings. This bedroom did not belong to Jazz either. I was…I was…I wracked my brain trying for the life of me to remember last night. I didn’t have to remember for too long because Levi’s hand landed across my body and tugged me against him.
The entire evening suddenly unfolded in my brain and I had brief moment of panic. I had finally done it, finally succumbed and let another person into my world. At the moment I was still alive, unhurt and unscathed. It didn’t matter; the future was a blank slate. The happy endings that the movies show you are fake, completely fake. Because those happy endings that the movies show, they are just stories that haven’t yet been written. In real life, things just end. They run their natural progression and that’s it. It’s more sad than happy to see something die like that.
“Sunshine,” Levi asked using his new nickname for me. He decided to call me it after I told him that Aurora meant dawn.
“You’re so tense. Are you okay?”
I didn’t know how to tell someone that I was having second thoughts. Especially when those second thoughts were because I was a neurotic head case. Levi would never believe me; he’d think it was something he did last night when everything he did was so completely right.
That meant I had to lie. “I’m not on anything,” I blurted out. Well, it wasn’t why I was so tense, but it was a truth.
“I wore protection, Sunny,” he said and I could see the smile gracing his lips, lips that kissed me senseless last night.
“I know but I just…I can’t get pregnant,” I said well aware how crazy and bumbling I looked. “I’ve got to go…go get that…yeah, that stuff….the morning after,” I babbled and threw the covers back. I just have-“
Levi grabbed my arm and drew me back onto the covers. “Rory, I picked you up.”
“Right, I’ll call a cab.”
“Sunny,” he said in a slow, patient voice and as pulled me closer to him. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is I can’t get pregnant. I’m not ready; I’m sure you’re not ready. I just need to get that stuff, Levi, I need it and the sooner, the more effective it is,” I said struggling to move back to a sit.
Levi held me reassuringly close. “Okay, okay,” he said and glided his fingers through my hair. “I’ll get dressed. But you have to look at me in the eye and promise me that you’re only worked up because you’re not on any birth control.”
“Yes,” I said in a rush and then bit my lip.
Levi regarded me for a moment and then brought himself to a sit. “Let me get some clothes on,” he said and swung his legs over the bed.
I watched him stand up, hunting around the floor for his clothes and suddenly wanted to pat myself on the back for my excellent choice in men. Levi did have a body. It was all lines and contours and all of my doubt suddenly fled.
So what if it was a mistake? In the grand scheme of things, nearly every action we took led to an ending of some sort. I knew that things with Levi would end. I just hoped that this particular mistake might hang around longer than I had anticipat
Monday, March 15, 2010
A LIttle Something I Just Started Working On Part III - Champagne
We don’t serve champagne or any mixed drinks like a Bellini or mimosa. The Strauss is not a nightclub, a dessert bar, or a wine bar. The Strauss is nothing fancy. Our patrons know we’re nothing fancy and during my tenure as a bartender I have yet to hear someone order a bottle of wine let alone a glass of champagne. Beer and liquor, that’s our modus operandi.
So when a semi-regular named Lenore Wilde walked in with a $200 bottle of Krug, I was more than a little surprised.
“Got any nice glasses?” she asked in a depressed voice that didn’t match the celebration of the champagne.
“I can scare up something,” I replied and turned back.
We had a total of four goblets. I reached for one and began to clean it out, but Lenore, or Elle as she liked to be called, stopped me.
“I don’t care,” she said and reached for the glass and poured, filling her goblet to the top. “Grab a glass.”
“Oh, Elle, I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could,” she replied to me.
“That is a $200 bottle of champagne.”
“No, this is a $500 bottle of champagne that was given to me for my new demotion that was disguised as a promotion. Now, drink,” she said holding the bottle ready for my glass.
I grabbed a glass down and placed it on the bar. Elle began to pour. “Not so full,” I told her. “I am working.”
She nodded her head and took a long gulp of the wine. I was a bit shocked. I figured Elle would do the whole production of looking at the light, smelling, and lightly tasting before committing to drinking. “If this hasn’t been the shittiest fucking month,” she said. I nodded and remained quiet. I could feel that she was on the verge of a rant. “I should have seen this fucking demotion coming. I should have. But when I found my fiancé cheating on me on my thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, I lost a bit of my focus.”
I looked at her shocked. I had no idea she was – had been – engaged.
“Don’t look so shock. I had to buy myself the ring.”
“Elle,” I said because what did you say when one of your patrons told you she was demoted at work and caught her cheap, penniless fiancé cheating on her.
“I’ll be okay,” she said and quickly finished off her glass. “Especially after I finish this bottle. Douche bag tools,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll marry you, Elle!” Eddie called from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Eddie,” she replied and braved a smile. “What do you think of the champagne?” she asked me.
I raised the glass to my lips and took a sip. Immediately the heady feeling of tingly bubbles filled my head. No matter how well conditioned my liver was, one sip of wine immediately brought me to my happy place. It was a mystery how a single sip of champagne could render me as incapacitated as three beers within an hour, an extremely stiff Long Island, or two shots of bourbon.
My happy place was the memory of my first sip of champagne. My junior year of college, Jazz and I turned twenty-one in September and November, no more than five weeks apart. That New Year’s was our very first New Year that we were able to drink legally.
To honor our newfound adult-dom and begin to entice Jazz into the family business, Jazz’s dad invited us to his accounting firm’s New Year’s Eve party. Every New Years, her dad started the New Year and the last free minutes of his life until April 15th with a party for his clients. It was a tax deduction. Being an accountant, Jazz’s dad was big on deductions.
Jazz and I had not missed a New Year’s together since we first met in third grade. My parents would drop me off at Jazz’s house for the evening. They were always crazy busy on New Year’s Eve. Jazz and I would watch her mother get all dolled up in make up, gorgeous diamond-encrusted jewelry she hardly ever wore, and these amazing dresses with her hair chicly piled on top of her head. One year, she was especially proud of Jazz’s dad for buying her a real Armani dress when he went to New York for a conference.
At some point, a sitter would come to the house. Jazz’s parents would leave with kisses for the two of us and instructions for the sitter. During the evening, Jazz and I would giggle and watch movies, driving the sitter absolutely nuts while we waited for the Big Apple to drop in Manhattan. The sitter had strict instructions to whisk the two of us off to bed as soon as the clock turned 12:01 a.m., but we couldn’t help but lay awake in her bed and think about what her parents may be doing.
We were positive that the party was a glamorous affair with glitter, balloons, magnificent fountains, and a live band that went absolutely nuts at midnight when everyone would wave their party favors and honk their horns. One such daydream of Jazz’s had her parents arriving in a gilded pumpkin carriage to dance the night away. Prince Charming was very disappointed with them for not brining their beautiful daughter and her daughter’s friend. What can I say except we loved our imaginations.
Needless to say, when Jazz’s father told her that we were both more than welcome to see what actually happened at the glamorous event, we were more than happy to make our thoughts and daydreams a reality. Like he did for her mother, Jazz’s father bought her an exquisite dress. It was a black Juicy Couture cocktail dress. I also had a surprise on Christmas morning. Jazz was in touch with my parents and they were more than happy to provide me with a black cocktail dress by Nicole Miller.
I spent the night at Jazz’s place the night before the party so we could get up early to work out. I still maintained my athletic discipline by running three days a week, but Jazz wasn’t one for sweating. Still, she was sure she’d look my like a size four than a size six if she ran. After our workout (which went better for me than for Jazz), we had our appointments for hair and nails. My nails were painted Midnight in Moscow, a dark blue that looked nearly black. Jazz’s nails were Va-Va Voom Red. With our manicures in place, we then skipped over to the hair salon. Jazz had a sleek chignon and mine was done in a loose French twist.
We had three hours to kill before we would leave for the party by the time we were done with all of our appointments. The time was spent drinking diet Coke and musing over friends, male friends, and boyfriends, conversations we thought high society women would engage in. Jazz said it was a pity that we weren’t married with children and spouses to complain about.
And then it was time for the party. We expected a limo to pull up in the drive and escort us in style to the glamorous event. Instead, we rode with Jazz’s parents in their Yukon. That was disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two was the location of the event. We should’ve known that in this town there was nowhere posh enough for the shindig we had pictured in our minds, but we were still pissed when we realized the event of our New Year’s Dreams was taking place in the downtown Holiday Inn.
While the tables and chairs were draped in satin linens, there was no flowing fountain, no silver and gold balloons. In fact, the only thing ornate about the whole thing was the 15-foot Christmas tree draped with white lights and icicle ornaments. Pretty? Yes, but not fit for our imagination. So the decorations were extremely scaled down. That was disappointment number three.
Not satisfied with the decorations, we took to people watching sure we’d find some men for the night. But as we gazed around the room, we found disappointment number four. We were the youngest people here.
From there, the disappointments kept stacking up. The hors d'oeuvres were terrible. Having skipped dinner, we were miserable and starving while Jazz’s parents expected us to put on happy faces and greet everyone with them. Also, we did not receive one New Year’s Eve hat, horn, or noisemaker. But once the majority of guests had arrived, Jazz’s mother took us over to the bar and gave us a glass of champagne.
With one sip from the champagne flute, the night didn’t seem so bad. At school, Jazz and I could both drink like a fish, drink some of our boy friends to shame, but once the champagne touched our tongues, our heads lightened and the world began to dance. It no longer mattered that the event we had dreamed about didn’t live up to our expectations, it didn’t matter that we were starving because the food here sucked, and it didn’t even matter that everyone in attendance was middle age and not attractive in our eyes. None of that mattered because once under the magnificent spell of the champagne all that mattered was that we were young, glamorous, and having a great time.
It was amazing what one sip of champagne could do, especially when that sip came from a $500 bottle of Krug. Coming back to down to Earth, I realized that Elle was still venting and I had missed quite a bit too.
“Men!” she complained.
Men. The tingling bubbles sighed the word breathlessly and my thoughts went to Levi. I hadn’t realized it before, but the start of a relationship was a bit like drinking champagne. Both parties went out of their way to impress the other, dressed up, got butterflies, worried over the right thing to say. And once the initial attraction was clear, there was the build up to sex.
Ah, the build up to sex. I don’t believe it is any possible for a woman to feel more sexy than those few days, hours, weeks, maybe even months before you agree to consummate the deal with your partner. For me, the wait was always at least a month. I lived by the dating credo that you should treat a new partner like a new job. Therefore, all benefits do not kick in for one month from the start date.
The One-Month Plan is partly to keep my virtue and self-respect intact. The other part is because like my namesake and unlike my surly demeanor, I like to be treated like a princess. It may take awhile to convince me to take a chance on you, but once I’ve made that decision, I like to make sure, I made the right decision. Hence, I take great pleasure in being wined and dined. Dinner, movies, drinks, walks in the park, intellectual conversation, pointlessly random conversation, and any other activities are how I evaluate my date’s performance at the one-month mark. I take my evaluations very seriously too.
So far, Levi wasn’t doing too badly of a job. Dinner, movies, drinks, and walks were a bit hard to do with me working as much as I did, and despite it all, he still tried to get me to actually leaving the tending to others. I probably could have switched shifts, but it just wasn’t ingrained in my DNA to shirk my duties onto someone else. Still, he did do conversation of the intellectual and pointlessly random variety quite well.
Since he first watched Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest he had watched Apocalypse Now, Doctor Zhivago, Some Like it Hot, To Have and To Have Not, Dr. Strangelove, and Bring It On. Two of those, while I’ll admit I like, I mainly asked him to watch to see if he would indeed follow my advice. He did. He also made sure to give me plenty of shit for having him watch a movie about crazy, power-hungry cheerleaders.
We also discussed politics, a topic that is normally a no-no for me. He was a left-wing democrat and I am definitely a libertarian who believes people need to be held accountable for their own actions without the government cleaning up after us whenever something goes wrong.
From politics to cartoons, I was impressed he watched Transformers and had seen the movies as well. He also remembered the cartoon Jabberjaw, the Scooby Doo-esque great white shark that plays drums and foils many a villainous plot. Eddie laughed and said Levi was only agreeing with me to impress me. Like most people, Eddie believes this is a cartoon I have made up. I’ve told him numerous times to Google it.
With the one-month mark of my time with Levi looming, I decided that I would actually take a Friday night off so he could take me to dinner and let the activities begin. I hated to admit that Jazz was right. I didn’t mean too, but I had been hiding. I chose work over companionship. Work because it was there, it was solid, and it wasn’t leaving me. Companionship, no matter how loving and well meaning was always fleeting. While I wasn’t a person that could completely shut out the world, I could shut out the rest of the world, those people who hadn’t already barged into my little hidey-hole.
“I don’t even know why I try,” Elle huffed and all of those beautiful champagne bubbles began to pop inside my head. “I guess I didn’t believe that the glass ceiling was real, that I could possibly find the love that my parents have. I want to sit here and complain about fairness, but life isn’t fair. It’s something I have known. Had life been fair, things would…” her voice trailed off and Elle actually looked mournful. It was nothing compared to the anger and rejection she felt, and my mind began to wonder what she had left behind. Before I could wonder too much, Elle disrupted my thoughts, “My hard work, my loyalty…it’s all for naught.”
“Elle, I wish there was more…” my voice trailed off as I watched Elle begin to chug from a $500 bottle wine. Chugging from a bottle was never a good sign, but chugging from a bottle worth half a grand? That was a horse of a different color altogether. “Will you need a ride home?”
Elle laughed. “Am I that bad?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but you’re chugging champagne that costs five bills.” Elle was silent but did look at the bottle in amazement. She didn’t seem the type to act first and think later, but tonight didn’t seem to be quite her night. Maybe for tonight acting first was exactly what she needed.
“So I am,” she said half shocked half completed unfazed. “I can manage to call a taxi.”
“Look, I don’t do it for everyone,” I said. “But over in the corner playing darts is Jill, the other full-time bartender. I’m sure I can twist her arm for long enough to mix drinks for the next hour while I get you home.”
Elle looked in Jill’s direction. I wasn’t sure if she knew Jill, but she seemed curious. “I can manage fine on my own,” she said in an uncharacteristically petulant voice.
I gave Elle a thorough once over. She may have about five years on me, a better job, and better standing in the community, but she didn’t have my knowledge of people. “I’m sure you can manage fine on your own, Elle. I manage fine on my own too. But everyone now and then, it is nice to sit back and let someone else manage for you. It doesn’t have to be every day; it may only happen once a year. It doesn’t necessarily have to be to your best friend or some seemingly male soul mate. Just let someone else manage for a minute.”
Elle sighed and became engrossed in the champagne label. “I have two more of these bottles in the car,” she groused. “This one was from Hansbury, my CEO. He asked me out last month after he noticed my engagement ring was gone. I told him no. The other bottle is from Peter Hankinson, the CFO who is an absolute idiot and knows I think that. And then third bottle, that’s from board chairman Wes Roberts who hugged me and said ‘Honey, do us proud.’ I always thought he had a clear head on his shoulders and could see the number fudging that was going on, but…he has no idea! None! And Hansbury and Hankinson now have me out of the way.”
I laughed and Elle looked at me a little stunned. “If that’s true, imagine the scandal when that comes out in this economy. Do you really want to be surrounded by that?”
She mulled my words over. “Smart words for a bartender.”
“Don’t knock bartending,” I said and gave a smile. She had come into the bar enough for this to be a running a joke – me being too smart to be a bartender. My standard is to say that we come in all shapes and sizes and that I can pay my bills. Jazz mocks my standard answer.
She smiled at me. “I think tonight, I can let the bartender manage.” She nodded her head and stretched her arms. “I am going to need some strips. And how about a whiskey sour?”
“If the bartender is managing tonight, that whiskey sour is a beer.”
She wrinkled her nose at me, but relented. “Before that comes out, I’m taking a trip to the little girls’ room,” she said and then stood up. “Whoa,” she swayed and reached for the bar. Her eyelashes flicker a couple of times and then she righted herself. “Champagne bubbles. I always forget how fast they hit me.”
I answered her with a smile, “And they always seem to take you to a happy place.”
Elle laughed. “That they do. But so does a bottle of whiskey.”
I laughed as Elle walked, or more correctly stumbled a bit to the bathroom. Champagne and whiskey did make you feel happy. The problem was learning to say “when” to that happiness. Like all good things, the ending comes way too fast. In the case of whiskey and champagne, the ending came in the morning when the jury rendered its verdict on your indulgence. Indulge in too much happiness and you just might wake up to a sentence served out on the bathroom floor.
So when a semi-regular named Lenore Wilde walked in with a $200 bottle of Krug, I was more than a little surprised.
“Got any nice glasses?” she asked in a depressed voice that didn’t match the celebration of the champagne.
“I can scare up something,” I replied and turned back.
We had a total of four goblets. I reached for one and began to clean it out, but Lenore, or Elle as she liked to be called, stopped me.
“I don’t care,” she said and reached for the glass and poured, filling her goblet to the top. “Grab a glass.”
“Oh, Elle, I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could,” she replied to me.
“That is a $200 bottle of champagne.”
“No, this is a $500 bottle of champagne that was given to me for my new demotion that was disguised as a promotion. Now, drink,” she said holding the bottle ready for my glass.
I grabbed a glass down and placed it on the bar. Elle began to pour. “Not so full,” I told her. “I am working.”
She nodded her head and took a long gulp of the wine. I was a bit shocked. I figured Elle would do the whole production of looking at the light, smelling, and lightly tasting before committing to drinking. “If this hasn’t been the shittiest fucking month,” she said. I nodded and remained quiet. I could feel that she was on the verge of a rant. “I should have seen this fucking demotion coming. I should have. But when I found my fiancé cheating on me on my thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, I lost a bit of my focus.”
I looked at her shocked. I had no idea she was – had been – engaged.
“Don’t look so shock. I had to buy myself the ring.”
“Elle,” I said because what did you say when one of your patrons told you she was demoted at work and caught her cheap, penniless fiancé cheating on her.
“I’ll be okay,” she said and quickly finished off her glass. “Especially after I finish this bottle. Douche bag tools,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll marry you, Elle!” Eddie called from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Eddie,” she replied and braved a smile. “What do you think of the champagne?” she asked me.
I raised the glass to my lips and took a sip. Immediately the heady feeling of tingly bubbles filled my head. No matter how well conditioned my liver was, one sip of wine immediately brought me to my happy place. It was a mystery how a single sip of champagne could render me as incapacitated as three beers within an hour, an extremely stiff Long Island, or two shots of bourbon.
My happy place was the memory of my first sip of champagne. My junior year of college, Jazz and I turned twenty-one in September and November, no more than five weeks apart. That New Year’s was our very first New Year that we were able to drink legally.
To honor our newfound adult-dom and begin to entice Jazz into the family business, Jazz’s dad invited us to his accounting firm’s New Year’s Eve party. Every New Years, her dad started the New Year and the last free minutes of his life until April 15th with a party for his clients. It was a tax deduction. Being an accountant, Jazz’s dad was big on deductions.
Jazz and I had not missed a New Year’s together since we first met in third grade. My parents would drop me off at Jazz’s house for the evening. They were always crazy busy on New Year’s Eve. Jazz and I would watch her mother get all dolled up in make up, gorgeous diamond-encrusted jewelry she hardly ever wore, and these amazing dresses with her hair chicly piled on top of her head. One year, she was especially proud of Jazz’s dad for buying her a real Armani dress when he went to New York for a conference.
At some point, a sitter would come to the house. Jazz’s parents would leave with kisses for the two of us and instructions for the sitter. During the evening, Jazz and I would giggle and watch movies, driving the sitter absolutely nuts while we waited for the Big Apple to drop in Manhattan. The sitter had strict instructions to whisk the two of us off to bed as soon as the clock turned 12:01 a.m., but we couldn’t help but lay awake in her bed and think about what her parents may be doing.
We were positive that the party was a glamorous affair with glitter, balloons, magnificent fountains, and a live band that went absolutely nuts at midnight when everyone would wave their party favors and honk their horns. One such daydream of Jazz’s had her parents arriving in a gilded pumpkin carriage to dance the night away. Prince Charming was very disappointed with them for not brining their beautiful daughter and her daughter’s friend. What can I say except we loved our imaginations.
Needless to say, when Jazz’s father told her that we were both more than welcome to see what actually happened at the glamorous event, we were more than happy to make our thoughts and daydreams a reality. Like he did for her mother, Jazz’s father bought her an exquisite dress. It was a black Juicy Couture cocktail dress. I also had a surprise on Christmas morning. Jazz was in touch with my parents and they were more than happy to provide me with a black cocktail dress by Nicole Miller.
I spent the night at Jazz’s place the night before the party so we could get up early to work out. I still maintained my athletic discipline by running three days a week, but Jazz wasn’t one for sweating. Still, she was sure she’d look my like a size four than a size six if she ran. After our workout (which went better for me than for Jazz), we had our appointments for hair and nails. My nails were painted Midnight in Moscow, a dark blue that looked nearly black. Jazz’s nails were Va-Va Voom Red. With our manicures in place, we then skipped over to the hair salon. Jazz had a sleek chignon and mine was done in a loose French twist.
We had three hours to kill before we would leave for the party by the time we were done with all of our appointments. The time was spent drinking diet Coke and musing over friends, male friends, and boyfriends, conversations we thought high society women would engage in. Jazz said it was a pity that we weren’t married with children and spouses to complain about.
And then it was time for the party. We expected a limo to pull up in the drive and escort us in style to the glamorous event. Instead, we rode with Jazz’s parents in their Yukon. That was disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two was the location of the event. We should’ve known that in this town there was nowhere posh enough for the shindig we had pictured in our minds, but we were still pissed when we realized the event of our New Year’s Dreams was taking place in the downtown Holiday Inn.
While the tables and chairs were draped in satin linens, there was no flowing fountain, no silver and gold balloons. In fact, the only thing ornate about the whole thing was the 15-foot Christmas tree draped with white lights and icicle ornaments. Pretty? Yes, but not fit for our imagination. So the decorations were extremely scaled down. That was disappointment number three.
Not satisfied with the decorations, we took to people watching sure we’d find some men for the night. But as we gazed around the room, we found disappointment number four. We were the youngest people here.
From there, the disappointments kept stacking up. The hors d'oeuvres were terrible. Having skipped dinner, we were miserable and starving while Jazz’s parents expected us to put on happy faces and greet everyone with them. Also, we did not receive one New Year’s Eve hat, horn, or noisemaker. But once the majority of guests had arrived, Jazz’s mother took us over to the bar and gave us a glass of champagne.
With one sip from the champagne flute, the night didn’t seem so bad. At school, Jazz and I could both drink like a fish, drink some of our boy friends to shame, but once the champagne touched our tongues, our heads lightened and the world began to dance. It no longer mattered that the event we had dreamed about didn’t live up to our expectations, it didn’t matter that we were starving because the food here sucked, and it didn’t even matter that everyone in attendance was middle age and not attractive in our eyes. None of that mattered because once under the magnificent spell of the champagne all that mattered was that we were young, glamorous, and having a great time.
It was amazing what one sip of champagne could do, especially when that sip came from a $500 bottle of Krug. Coming back to down to Earth, I realized that Elle was still venting and I had missed quite a bit too.
“Men!” she complained.
Men. The tingling bubbles sighed the word breathlessly and my thoughts went to Levi. I hadn’t realized it before, but the start of a relationship was a bit like drinking champagne. Both parties went out of their way to impress the other, dressed up, got butterflies, worried over the right thing to say. And once the initial attraction was clear, there was the build up to sex.
Ah, the build up to sex. I don’t believe it is any possible for a woman to feel more sexy than those few days, hours, weeks, maybe even months before you agree to consummate the deal with your partner. For me, the wait was always at least a month. I lived by the dating credo that you should treat a new partner like a new job. Therefore, all benefits do not kick in for one month from the start date.
The One-Month Plan is partly to keep my virtue and self-respect intact. The other part is because like my namesake and unlike my surly demeanor, I like to be treated like a princess. It may take awhile to convince me to take a chance on you, but once I’ve made that decision, I like to make sure, I made the right decision. Hence, I take great pleasure in being wined and dined. Dinner, movies, drinks, walks in the park, intellectual conversation, pointlessly random conversation, and any other activities are how I evaluate my date’s performance at the one-month mark. I take my evaluations very seriously too.
So far, Levi wasn’t doing too badly of a job. Dinner, movies, drinks, and walks were a bit hard to do with me working as much as I did, and despite it all, he still tried to get me to actually leaving the tending to others. I probably could have switched shifts, but it just wasn’t ingrained in my DNA to shirk my duties onto someone else. Still, he did do conversation of the intellectual and pointlessly random variety quite well.
Since he first watched Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest he had watched Apocalypse Now, Doctor Zhivago, Some Like it Hot, To Have and To Have Not, Dr. Strangelove, and Bring It On. Two of those, while I’ll admit I like, I mainly asked him to watch to see if he would indeed follow my advice. He did. He also made sure to give me plenty of shit for having him watch a movie about crazy, power-hungry cheerleaders.
We also discussed politics, a topic that is normally a no-no for me. He was a left-wing democrat and I am definitely a libertarian who believes people need to be held accountable for their own actions without the government cleaning up after us whenever something goes wrong.
From politics to cartoons, I was impressed he watched Transformers and had seen the movies as well. He also remembered the cartoon Jabberjaw, the Scooby Doo-esque great white shark that plays drums and foils many a villainous plot. Eddie laughed and said Levi was only agreeing with me to impress me. Like most people, Eddie believes this is a cartoon I have made up. I’ve told him numerous times to Google it.
With the one-month mark of my time with Levi looming, I decided that I would actually take a Friday night off so he could take me to dinner and let the activities begin. I hated to admit that Jazz was right. I didn’t mean too, but I had been hiding. I chose work over companionship. Work because it was there, it was solid, and it wasn’t leaving me. Companionship, no matter how loving and well meaning was always fleeting. While I wasn’t a person that could completely shut out the world, I could shut out the rest of the world, those people who hadn’t already barged into my little hidey-hole.
“I don’t even know why I try,” Elle huffed and all of those beautiful champagne bubbles began to pop inside my head. “I guess I didn’t believe that the glass ceiling was real, that I could possibly find the love that my parents have. I want to sit here and complain about fairness, but life isn’t fair. It’s something I have known. Had life been fair, things would…” her voice trailed off and Elle actually looked mournful. It was nothing compared to the anger and rejection she felt, and my mind began to wonder what she had left behind. Before I could wonder too much, Elle disrupted my thoughts, “My hard work, my loyalty…it’s all for naught.”
“Elle, I wish there was more…” my voice trailed off as I watched Elle begin to chug from a $500 bottle wine. Chugging from a bottle was never a good sign, but chugging from a bottle worth half a grand? That was a horse of a different color altogether. “Will you need a ride home?”
Elle laughed. “Am I that bad?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but you’re chugging champagne that costs five bills.” Elle was silent but did look at the bottle in amazement. She didn’t seem the type to act first and think later, but tonight didn’t seem to be quite her night. Maybe for tonight acting first was exactly what she needed.
“So I am,” she said half shocked half completed unfazed. “I can manage to call a taxi.”
“Look, I don’t do it for everyone,” I said. “But over in the corner playing darts is Jill, the other full-time bartender. I’m sure I can twist her arm for long enough to mix drinks for the next hour while I get you home.”
Elle looked in Jill’s direction. I wasn’t sure if she knew Jill, but she seemed curious. “I can manage fine on my own,” she said in an uncharacteristically petulant voice.
I gave Elle a thorough once over. She may have about five years on me, a better job, and better standing in the community, but she didn’t have my knowledge of people. “I’m sure you can manage fine on your own, Elle. I manage fine on my own too. But everyone now and then, it is nice to sit back and let someone else manage for you. It doesn’t have to be every day; it may only happen once a year. It doesn’t necessarily have to be to your best friend or some seemingly male soul mate. Just let someone else manage for a minute.”
Elle sighed and became engrossed in the champagne label. “I have two more of these bottles in the car,” she groused. “This one was from Hansbury, my CEO. He asked me out last month after he noticed my engagement ring was gone. I told him no. The other bottle is from Peter Hankinson, the CFO who is an absolute idiot and knows I think that. And then third bottle, that’s from board chairman Wes Roberts who hugged me and said ‘Honey, do us proud.’ I always thought he had a clear head on his shoulders and could see the number fudging that was going on, but…he has no idea! None! And Hansbury and Hankinson now have me out of the way.”
I laughed and Elle looked at me a little stunned. “If that’s true, imagine the scandal when that comes out in this economy. Do you really want to be surrounded by that?”
She mulled my words over. “Smart words for a bartender.”
“Don’t knock bartending,” I said and gave a smile. She had come into the bar enough for this to be a running a joke – me being too smart to be a bartender. My standard is to say that we come in all shapes and sizes and that I can pay my bills. Jazz mocks my standard answer.
She smiled at me. “I think tonight, I can let the bartender manage.” She nodded her head and stretched her arms. “I am going to need some strips. And how about a whiskey sour?”
“If the bartender is managing tonight, that whiskey sour is a beer.”
She wrinkled her nose at me, but relented. “Before that comes out, I’m taking a trip to the little girls’ room,” she said and then stood up. “Whoa,” she swayed and reached for the bar. Her eyelashes flicker a couple of times and then she righted herself. “Champagne bubbles. I always forget how fast they hit me.”
I answered her with a smile, “And they always seem to take you to a happy place.”
Elle laughed. “That they do. But so does a bottle of whiskey.”
I laughed as Elle walked, or more correctly stumbled a bit to the bathroom. Champagne and whiskey did make you feel happy. The problem was learning to say “when” to that happiness. Like all good things, the ending comes way too fast. In the case of whiskey and champagne, the ending came in the morning when the jury rendered its verdict on your indulgence. Indulge in too much happiness and you just might wake up to a sentence served out on the bathroom floor.
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