Having somehow survived the Pancake Theory [to this day, I’m not sure what that quack was on about; something about a population explosion in a bellcurve, depicted by this sort of flyingsaucer shape, which he’d decided looked like a pancake with butter on it], we escaped.
I’d cloned all her classes, of course. Except, by luck, that evil one at eight in the morning. English115; I took that one back when Michael Jackson was almost cool. Understand that, back then, no one retook classes. And, those who did weren’t able to replace their grades with the new results; if you got an F and then an A, you ended up with a C. Because people weren’t as fragile back then. And the road to college was uphill; both ways.
Just saying….
The good news is that, having survived Western Suck, we’re done for the day. Tuesdays and Thursdays have more classes; MWF was just that one horrid torturechamber, for me; she just had English at the crack of hell, which I was able to avoid. Not that I disliked English. I mean: here I am, using it with varying degrees of neologism. I just hate to repeat things.
We went to dinner.
Maxie’s. Twelfth and Grand in WestDuhMoines. That might also be gone by now. As of mumblemutter years ago, they opened and closed at odd hours with no warning or obvious system.
She’d got the fries. So dinner’s on me. Meaning that it’s on Dad’s MasterCard. Since I’m evil.
Of course, Maxie’s was a steakhouse, and Mary was a crazychick, so that had its complications. She was a vegetarian. I know: a vegetarian who worships a dead jew on a telephone pole actually piles on the satire where there should be no more room. But, she was stark raving mad; so it all made a weird sorta sense somehow.
She didn’t have the steak.
We ate and drank. And drank more. We drank a lot. Which is its own funny story. Here’s how cool I am….
Though I had my I’m in College Card, I never had to use it. They just decided that I was twentysomething. They weren’t so sure about Mary. So I pulled this…
‘Ah hell. I drove us here and told her dinner was on me, so she left her purse at home; my fault; but, I come here all the time,’ [I hadn’t been there in years] ‘so…can you just take my word for it?’
…and they fucking went for it.
Say what you will about Reagan: his country was cool.
Halfway to drunk, we left around ten or eleven, and Omnied off to her house in WestDuhMoines.
In case you’re waiting for a really cool happy ending: nothing happened. She’s got this boyfriend who paints cows. We sat on her front step and chatted for a while.
‘Are you getting tired yet?’ she asks.
‘Nah.’
‘How long have you been up?’
‘Twenty-three hours.’
‘That’s really long.’
‘I’m usually wearing less when chicks tell me that.’
‘Oh yeah. We should, like, stop now.’
‘The boyfriend.’
‘That, and my parents are awake in there.’
There were so many things wrong with that statement alone that I’m still counting them. Fortunately, the googolplex has become a number.
Back to the Omni, and back to my house.
I didn’t sleep that night.