The occupants of the bathroom froze.
"WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!"
"Something about Jesus."
"Shhhh!"
A voice was raised in song: "Hallelujah, Jesus is the God!"
Intense splashing, followed by heavy hammering on the door.
"Shut up in there!"
"I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't," the off-key voice caroled back. "We're having seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex!"
"KNOCK IT OFF! There are bubbles coming out from under the door out here!"
"He does this all the time," Rachel hissed. Her bathroom walls started shuddering from the pounding thumping going on downstairs.
"He really sings like that all the time?" I asked, disbelieving.
"Nobody's ever been here before," she said. "Who would believe this?"
The downstairs voice sang something about 'the pooper'.
"Does anyone want a turn sitting on the pooper?" Ryan asked, perched on the toilet.
"Pass!"
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeere is the butthoooooooooooooole?" echoed from below us.
"Oh, dear God!"
"Just wait," Rachel said, one finger raised. The kitty-corner downstairs neighbors commenced pounding on the downstairs front door, also trying to shut up the horrible caterwauling of Howard-Cosell Gregorian Chant Coitus happening below us.
"I'm the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTER of the BUUUUUUUUUUBBLES!"
Forty-five minutes later, we finally went to dinner. Neither Rachel nor Ryan nor I could meet one another's eyes. "Let's not have this be like war buddies," they said. "A horrible experience that means you can't be around the other people because it just reminds you of it. Let's use this to keep ourselves close."
I'm not gonna lie. It was a pretty good vacation.
As is requisite in anyone who wants to cultivate a reputation as being introspective but who consistently ruins it by laughing hysterically every time she sees Johnny Weissmuller in a loincloth, I've been making a conscious attempt to change a few things in my life. It's less from the fact that I don't like where I am at the moment than that I won't like where I am if it's exactly the same in, say, five years. Or three, even. Gotta keep evolving, gotta keep changing, gotta aim for that Ayn Rand Pie in the Industrial Grey Objectivist Sky.
Okay, maybe not.
But still, what're you gonna do? I mean, there I was driving back from the middle of nowhere with a friend. "I think I want to get my pilot's license," he announced.
"I'm not goin' up in a plane with you."
"Why not?"
"I'm not Buddy Hollyin' it with you," I said.
"What the hell would you be missing?" he demanded.
"Thanks very much, you just said that nothing in my life is worth living for!"
"Well..." he said, and shrugged.
Bastard.
Of course, this was also the friend who listened to me expressing my thoughts about something, and then said "I can't wait until we're in my car. I can't hear you whine over the engine." (Said engine is located in an early '70's bug with an extremely uncertain temperament.)
But in the interest of redeeming myself as an intellectual after a disgraceful exhibition over said loincloth, and also my inability to hear someone refer to "briefs" without snickering (a definite liability in my chosen career), it does beg the question: What would I miss if I croaked tonight?
I never conquered that red wool jacket I was knitting, with the crackwhore directions that led to one lapel in lapel-correct placement and the other neatly covering my navel. (It's been sitting untouched for almost two months.)
I just figured out what I'm going to do with that gorgeous, not-quite-peacock silk-and-wool combo yarn that I've been treasuring and stroking with Gollum-like devotion for the past six months.
My impending niece, little Delanie Regina (Pronounced Regiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiina, long 'eye' sound)(not her real name, according to her mother), still has not received her kimono ("A kimono for Delanie's what?" smart-mouth coworkers query), nor yet her stripey afghan. ("An afghan for your what?")
The black lace for the sleeves of my hug-me-tight got screwed up and must be redone.
Fine, so far all of that is knitting--"You know you're two cats away from a crazy cat lady," a coworker's husband informed me. Clearly I must needs find more reasons to live than yarn.
...
Well, books. When The Big One hits, that amazing earthquake that rattles down the faultline of the Great Salt Lake and its valley, I will no doubt eventually be found buried in the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks. The thing that will really piss me off, and will lead to my surly ghost kicking around ruins and refusing to rest, is that I won't have finished any of the Important and Mind-Expanding Tomes which I've collected and yet to read; no, no, when I cack it I'll be reading something tremendousy embarrasing, like trashy horror or a burning loins book. Maybe the latest YA fiction novel.
I suppose a truly frivolous person would argue that they haven't had a chance to properly prance about in the new Hall of Shame acquisition (because I cannot afford Anthropologie full price).
But it really does fit me well.
Fine, then. There might be very little in my life that I'd be missing, per se, but it's still my life. I like it.
Barring that as reason enough, there's always eavesdropping on the Master of the Bubbles.
So there.
"WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!"
"Something about Jesus."
"Shhhh!"
A voice was raised in song: "Hallelujah, Jesus is the God!"
Intense splashing, followed by heavy hammering on the door.
"Shut up in there!"
"I caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan't," the off-key voice caroled back. "We're having seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex!"
"KNOCK IT OFF! There are bubbles coming out from under the door out here!"
"He does this all the time," Rachel hissed. Her bathroom walls started shuddering from the pounding thumping going on downstairs.
"He really sings like that all the time?" I asked, disbelieving.
"Nobody's ever been here before," she said. "Who would believe this?"
The downstairs voice sang something about 'the pooper'.
"Does anyone want a turn sitting on the pooper?" Ryan asked, perched on the toilet.
"Pass!"
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeere is the butthoooooooooooooole?" echoed from below us.
"Oh, dear God!"
"Just wait," Rachel said, one finger raised. The kitty-corner downstairs neighbors commenced pounding on the downstairs front door, also trying to shut up the horrible caterwauling of Howard-Cosell Gregorian Chant Coitus happening below us.
"I'm the MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASTER of the BUUUUUUUUUUBBLES!"
Forty-five minutes later, we finally went to dinner. Neither Rachel nor Ryan nor I could meet one another's eyes. "Let's not have this be like war buddies," they said. "A horrible experience that means you can't be around the other people because it just reminds you of it. Let's use this to keep ourselves close."
I'm not gonna lie. It was a pretty good vacation.
As is requisite in anyone who wants to cultivate a reputation as being introspective but who consistently ruins it by laughing hysterically every time she sees Johnny Weissmuller in a loincloth, I've been making a conscious attempt to change a few things in my life. It's less from the fact that I don't like where I am at the moment than that I won't like where I am if it's exactly the same in, say, five years. Or three, even. Gotta keep evolving, gotta keep changing, gotta aim for that Ayn Rand Pie in the Industrial Grey Objectivist Sky.
Okay, maybe not.
But still, what're you gonna do? I mean, there I was driving back from the middle of nowhere with a friend. "I think I want to get my pilot's license," he announced.
"I'm not goin' up in a plane with you."
"Why not?"
"I'm not Buddy Hollyin' it with you," I said.
"What the hell would you be missing?" he demanded.
"Thanks very much, you just said that nothing in my life is worth living for!"
"Well..." he said, and shrugged.
Bastard.
Of course, this was also the friend who listened to me expressing my thoughts about something, and then said "I can't wait until we're in my car. I can't hear you whine over the engine." (Said engine is located in an early '70's bug with an extremely uncertain temperament.)
But in the interest of redeeming myself as an intellectual after a disgraceful exhibition over said loincloth, and also my inability to hear someone refer to "briefs" without snickering (a definite liability in my chosen career), it does beg the question: What would I miss if I croaked tonight?
I never conquered that red wool jacket I was knitting, with the crackwhore directions that led to one lapel in lapel-correct placement and the other neatly covering my navel. (It's been sitting untouched for almost two months.)
I just figured out what I'm going to do with that gorgeous, not-quite-peacock silk-and-wool combo yarn that I've been treasuring and stroking with Gollum-like devotion for the past six months.
My impending niece, little Delanie Regina (Pronounced Regiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiina, long 'eye' sound)(not her real name, according to her mother), still has not received her kimono ("A kimono for Delanie's what?" smart-mouth coworkers query), nor yet her stripey afghan. ("An afghan for your what?")
The black lace for the sleeves of my hug-me-tight got screwed up and must be redone.
Fine, so far all of that is knitting--"You know you're two cats away from a crazy cat lady," a coworker's husband informed me. Clearly I must needs find more reasons to live than yarn.
...
Well, books. When The Big One hits, that amazing earthquake that rattles down the faultline of the Great Salt Lake and its valley, I will no doubt eventually be found buried in the rubble of 15,000 paperbacks. The thing that will really piss me off, and will lead to my surly ghost kicking around ruins and refusing to rest, is that I won't have finished any of the Important and Mind-Expanding Tomes which I've collected and yet to read; no, no, when I cack it I'll be reading something tremendousy embarrasing, like trashy horror or a burning loins book. Maybe the latest YA fiction novel.
I suppose a truly frivolous person would argue that they haven't had a chance to properly prance about in the new Hall of Shame acquisition (because I cannot afford Anthropologie full price).
But it really does fit me well.
Fine, then. There might be very little in my life that I'd be missing, per se, but it's still my life. I like it.
Barring that as reason enough, there's always eavesdropping on the Master of the Bubbles.
So there.
