Grosssss

Andy, Quinn and I started going out to breakfast together every Sunday morning about two months ago. It forces us to get up and get moving instead of lying around all morning.

Today we decided to go for lunch instead of breakfast, and when we walked into IHOP (our usual restaurant of choice) a waitress passing by commented, "You guys are late this morning."

They still had the heat on at IHOP even though it was sunny and in the 70s today. On top of being stuffy, someone was wearing a generous helping of Calvin Klein's Escape. Plus it took about three years for our food to come, and by the time it did I felt hungover.

Speaking of hungover.

We took Quinn to this big ole playground called Fort McHenry today, after we finally got to eat lunch, and as we pulled into the crowded parking lot Andy said, "How many people are we going to run into that we know?" "None," I answered, but was quickly proven wrong.

Someone said hi to me, and I had no idea who she was until she lifted up her sunglasses and told me her name. She was someone I knew through a mutual friend, and I only really saw her during my late-college, early-working-as-an-adult years; she someone I knew primarily from the bars. As we made strained conversation, I had a flashback to one night in DeKalb where we'd gone to college.

We were out at a bar called Otto's, and she was whining the whole night that she was tired and wanted to go home and when were we leaving and blah blah blah partypoopercakes. The rest of us merrily ignored her, enjoying the usual Otto's special of $1.50 for a cup of Meisterbrau as big as your head, and maybe we had a few of those, because after one or two you can't taste the Meisterbrau and you can pretend it's name-brand beer, and finally this girl started talking to some young studly man. Suddenly, she was very interested in staying.

My old friend Midge and I found this turn of events highly amusing, and spent time doing things to horrify her as she chatted him up. For example, at one point, I ran in circles around them, with Midge riding on my back pretending to whip me. Or, when we found out his name was Gavin, we grilled him. "Where did you go to Captain School?" "Does it make you feel like a big man to put on that hat and steer the ship?" "Tell us Gavin...the kneesocks. Why?"

(If you don't understand these questions, we were referring to Captain Stubing, who was played by Gavin MacLeod on The Love Boat. And I'm ashamed of you that I had to tell you that.)

Eventually, she managed to escape our clutches and she disappeared with handsome and nautical friend, but she was a little annoyed at us for being so obnoxious. Which may explain why we never really clicked as friends outside the social setting of a bar.

So yeah, she came over to look at Quinn, we made more awkward talk, and she disappeared. Like Andy said over in Quinn's weblog, sometimes it's nice to live in McHenry and bump into people we know. Sometimes it's just uncomfortable.

Posted by Amy at April 13, 2003 11:21 PM