Over the weekend at a work-related team building exercise (thank you, coworker A) I had fun. Maybe that’s because we were exercising our team building skills at the Portland Beer and Wine Festival and the only thing it had to do with work is that I met some coworkers there. Actually…we started there. Around 2:00pm. And ended at a seedy Karaoke bar The Galaxy (I KNOW!) around 11:30pm. That’s 9 and ½ hours of beer/wine tasting…outright drinking…and wailing House of the Rising sun to a roomful of sketchy characters (who were surprisingly supportive of my “skills” as a chanteuse).
Oh how I laughed. And laughed. And then laughed a little more. On Monday evening, Marie and I attempted to recall what was so funny. We tried to remember conversations, jokes told…etc. Of course alcohol always helps make that jump from giggle to guffaw…but even without it, my friends and I laugh a lot. So much so, that when I’m introduced to new groups of people, I often feel the lack of gaiety instantly. You know, some people just aren’t laughers. Or they are, but they’re just not funny. Or they’re neither, in which case…boooo.
Anyway. I had completely forgotten about an instance at a large round table where our group (trying to fight off drunkenness by stuffing down some festival fare) insulted a member of The Greatest Generation beerfest volunteer brigade so badly that he left the table without finishing his pizza. It went down something like this (as far as we can remember): A, T, MM, B & Marie all sit at a large round table. There are three seats left. A dude of about 70 sits down with two pieces of pizza (I think) in one of the empty seats. I roll up with my quesadilla and sit next to him. Eat, eat, chatter, chatter:
Me to MM: Have some of my quesadilla. It’s fucking huge.
(hands plate to MM)
MM: I’ll have a little (or something like that)
Me: It’s good. It has sour cream on it. Sour cream makes everything ok.
MM: Sour cream does make everything ok.
Me: Yes. That’s what they told the Jews as they got on the trains.
(T then snapped a pic of me pointing a plastic fork emphatically at the air and the old man looking at me like I’m the devil)
Me: Too soon?
And that’s not even when he left! He stuck it out until Christians vs. Mormons were brought up and then he politely said “Excuse me” and took his still mostly full plate away.
Poor man. It’s a good thing he didn’t hear the “Jesus is bacon” convo later in the evening.
My point is…I didn’t even remember the particulars of this little interchange until Marie reminded me on Monday. We’re always overly amused by our own banter and always vow to write shit down…blah blah blah. Actually…one of our favorite phrases is “that’s going on a t-shirt”. Which is how my poor friend Kellie ended up with one that identifies her as a“Willowy Whore” and ty gets to walk around with ‘I am diseased” on his chest. This is as close as we ever get to writing this shit down.
What’s amazing about the timeliness of not-new realization is that I got a Dictaphone for my birthday. It’s snazzy and I haven’t yet figured out how to use it…which is why I haven’t. But Saturday is National Turn Your Lights Off Day or some hippie shit like that, so Jen (who would recycle clam shells if she could only find a facility to take them) is having a get together. Who knows what shenanigans we’ll get up to in the candlelight…but I’m bringing the Dictaphone. We’ll see what comes of it. It’ll be gold, whatever it is. Even if only to us.
But you unlucky bitches will have to suffer through it thanks to a little something I like to call “reciprocal linking”.
Rock.
You know, this compostable bag from Sun Chips is freaking awesome. It appeals to my hippie-side (it's innate, being Oregon-grown). I mean, I buy biodegradable garbage bags off the internet. I freak out on B when he throws his Aveeno face wash containers away instead of recycling them. And I bring canvas bags to the grocery store. I know what I am and I've accepted it.
