A Valuable Lesson To Be Learned

This evening, Stephen and I met Laurie and "the girrrrls" (as Stephen, in his Montgomery Burns voice, refers to Laurie's daughter, Sloan, and her best friend, Greta) for dinner at a new Mexican restaurant at Keystone. Afterwards, we went to Borders for coffee, book browsing, and chatting.

Other than finding a David Sedaris hard bound book for only $5.99, the other highlight was all of the freakshows we had the pleasure of admiring. First, there was the older lady who looked like her neck was trying to slowly swallow her head, who I probably really wouldn't have given a second glance at had she not done one of my biggest pet peeves - stepping into my personal space to look at the exact same thing I was looking at. ONE DAY I WILL SNAP, PEOPLE. Seriously, I'm one of the most impatient women on this planet, but if there's something I want to look at that's within a ten foot radius of what someone else is looking at, when the store isn't crowded, I wait my turn. I may tap my foot, sigh heavily, and mutter "you slow bitch" under my breath, but I will very patiently wait. After awhile, we finally found a small table that was open in the cafe area, but there was only one chair. This weird guy, who must have had a super-sized case of the crazies, was sitting at a large table with three extra chairs. Stephen waved at the man and mouthed, "can we use a chair?" The man appeared to look directly at Stephen, grinned, and nodded. Laurie went over and took a chair, came back looking a little weirded out and said, "I didn't even ask, I just took it because he creeped me out." Stephen shrugged and said, "It's okay, he smiled and nodded when I asked if we could use one." I looked over at the guy. Stephen, he's STILL smiling and nodding, not to mention also ROCKING IN HIS CHAIR. And he kept smiling and nodding and rocking while reading the latest issue of Modern Psychotic magazine the remainder of the time he was there. Between us and Mr. Cuckoo was the poster family for the Broadripple hippies. There was the unkept-bushy-curly-haired dad who looked like the older and uglier version of Rupert, the mom with a goiter on her neck with long, unbrushed gray hair parted down the middle, and their teenage daughter, who looked fairly normal despite her hippie clogs and unwashed, slightly dreaded hair. Finally, we saw the lady with hair down to her tooshie with poufy bangs circa 1989.

I'm not a total snot; I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm nowhere near being the most considerate person on earth, a beauty queen, or a trendsetter, but come on people. Laurie recently made the wisest statement I've heard in a long time: we aren't judgmental; we're merely pointing out the obvious and discussing it.

When I got home and looked in the bathroom mirror, I noticed three or four of my bottom teeth had spices from dinner jam packed in them. I don't know how on earth Laurie & Stephen didn't notice the bright red pepper and dark green parsley flecks covering the gumline and in between my teeth. Stephen is, admittedly, not the most observant person and does not easily detect things (I told him to look at one of the cats the other night, and I kid you not the first place he looked was up at the ceiling), so I believe he very well could have sat across from me all night long and not have noticed my speckled teeth. Laurie, however, is quite observant, but I know if she had noticed she would have told me because I highly doubt she would have wanted to be caught hanging around with Toothy Spice.

Anyway, I like to imagine the hippie family had a good laugh at my expense at the same exact time I was trying my hardest not to envision what the dad's breath must smell like. Because, I'll admit, I totally would have deserved it.