Eddie and I sat behind four girls on the train who were pre-gaming, which is illegal to do on a train, but I suppose the brown bag over the bottle makes it legal. We watched as the girl a row ahead of us and across the aisle would slug back a few huge gulps from the bottle in the bag. Then her face would turn from fresh-faced-young-gal to scrunched-up-that-shit-tastes-BAAAADDDDD. Then she would gulp down the Sprite she had in the other hand. Then she would join the conversation for a few minutes before repeating this. At first, I thought, what the hell is the point of drinking something that you obviously don't like at all? Then I remembered, oh to get drunk. Duh.
Once we were in the city, Eddie and I walked towards Times Square. We had just begun our journey when we heard a man screaming and cursing quite loudly next to us: That's right! Keep walking, muthafucker! I'll fuck you up, muthafucker! You want to walk into me? I'll beat your ass, muthafucker! Fuck your mother, muthafucker!!!
I'm paraphrasing.
Eddie and I moved to the side and let the little angry man through. Eddie said to me that some guy on a cell phone had walked by and bumped into the man and didn't say excuse me and kept walking. I pointed out that while that is rude, the little angry man was walking away from the man he was yelling at and was now yelling at the air and at everyone else around him. Eddie pointed out the guy's drill and said, he probably had a long day.
Then when we stopped at a red light to wait for the traffic to go by, the little angry man with the drill ran across, playing human Frogger with the cars on the wide Manhattan street. We looked at each other. Maybe the guy was just an angry little man with a drill.
Birthday Checklist Item #1: Drill. For waving around when someone bumps you on the sidewalk.
After passing the bar and doubling back, we found the Irish pub to meet S and R and the rest of her crew. When I say Irish pub, I mean really Irish. One guy came out and said what I thought was "Right bar." Eddie answered, Yeah, we're waiting for people. Then the guy said something that I thought was "lasdkjfl;skjflgrjf" and Eddie said, Oh kind of--we're from Long Island.
Turns out that the very Irish man with the very Irish accent had said, "Great bar," and "Are you locals?"
Birthday Checklist Item #2: An Irish Accent translator for when Eddie isn't around to understand it.
S and R showed up after we had exchanged friendly waves and thumbs up smiles with some other patrons. We went in and started celebrating. Best mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers in the city. Hands down. We checked out the juke box. R played Chris Isaac dedicated to S (she hates Chris Isaac) and then we saw that Chris Isaac was on the top 8 played on the juke box. I think the juke box has a problem counting.
Birthday Checklist Item #3: Whoever made the food--he or she needs to come out every birthday.
We met some of S's other friends from work. Most of them ordered drinks in big glasses. The drinks were bright colors. Bright red. Bright blue. These were friends who were a bit younger than we are, and so they probably don't yet feel the effects of bright red and bright blue drinks the next day as we do. Seeing that Eddie's vodka tonic was all vodka, I'm thinking these other drinks weren't mostly juice.
We left to catch a train. I almost fell twice even though I wasn't drinking. We grabbed a cab quickly and got to Penn. We noticed that the fare meter wasn't working. The guy told us to pay what we thought we should. Eddie asked him how much it would have cost. The guy said Five bucks and we agreed. Then as we were getting out, the guy told Eddie, You know you look Moroccan.
Birthday Checklist Item #4: A Moroccan. To guarantee you don't get ripped off on cab fare when the meter doesn't work.
We caught the train that goes direct to our stop, which was really nice since my feet were killing from my shoes (and I don't know why since I use those shoes to go to work in and I never have a problem with them) so that meant less walking since we didn't have to change trains.
We both closed our eyes for a bit, but opened them when we heard two guys fighting over who was looking at whose cell phone. Then a woman started yelling, I've got my child here so you gotta back up! One guy was obviously trying to get away from the other guy but he couldn't because everyone was standing in the aisle to get off the train as we pulled into Jamaica. The guy was like, okay okay but just let me get through.
He was pushing his way through and another rather large man didn't like that he wasn't saying "excuse me" and offered to fuck him up for not saying excuse me.
Birthday Checklist Item #5: A book on ettiquette. Obviously the bumping and pushing into each other in the city needs to be smoother.
Finally they all let the guy through and when we looked back, the woman had a pair of pliers in her hand, mumbling to herself how she's not playing.
Let me say that again: She had a pair of pliers.
I don't know where they came from. I don't know where she was keeping them. I don't know why that's her tool of choice. They weren't even needle-nose pliers, you know, not pointy to cram into someone's eye. I could see how a knife would be too dangerous unless it was retractable. A hammer is heavier and I could see that being a better fit. But nope, she had pliers.
Birthday Checklist Item #6: Pliers.
The next day, we made a late birthday visit to one of Eddie's friends. They have a new baby so we were actually celebrating a day of birth, a little late since she was born a few weeks ago. I don't think I've ever seen a smaller baby. She's just so little.
Then we made our way to S's place where her fam was hanging out. We were barbequeing and breaking in her new dance game. Her newphew, who I think is 3, kept somehow choosing a song and making it start up. Then he kept handing me the remote. I had no idea how to turn it off, even after pressing all the buttons on the controller, so I did the dance. This happened twice. He kept choosing the long versions of each song. I was sweating, and so I decided that I needed to run away so I wouldn't have to dance again. I realize that I didn't have to dance in the first place, but I couldn't see letting a dance routine go to waste.
Birthday Checklist Item #7: Dance shoes for all the dancing.
We ate. We laughed. We sang. We had cupcakes and a rice krispie treat cake. It was all really good. It was all very celebratory. It was all very birthday-like. I like birthday-like. Happy birthday, S.
No comments:
Post a Comment