Chapter 73: Unappreciation

Last night I went to my Happy Place and Ada Giggles-worth was working. She asked me what I was doing tomorrow night (tonight) and at first I almost said nothing, our friend is in town for her “fall break” at school. I told her I had a date and Bull Dog was there, he starts picking on me in an unusually high pitched saying, “oh you’ve got a date.” I disregarded the urge to pick on him in return simply on the grounds of him sounding like a sissy. So, I proceed to explain to Ada and Bull Dog that this is not an exciting date, not even one I want to go on, and Bull Dog tells me that I need to call him up, tell him that I don’t have other plans, I just don’t want to go out with him. I told him that it of course makes sense, why waste everyone’s time, but I just couldn’t do it. Then he says, “Do you want me to call and pretend to be your older brother and say, ‘she’s really doesn’t want to go out with you’?” Um, no thank you. It’s just one date, not eternal marriage, so I think I’ll just get through it and that will be that. After that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to say, “You know what, magic creeps me out, so no.”
Background, on Wednesday night Mr. Collins called me to confirm plans for Friday night. I somehow missed the call (I really am interested in how since I had my phone on me. Am I sad about it? No.) So he left a voicemail for me to call him back so he could tell me the plans and I thought to myself, why not just leave them on the voicemail? I’d like as little contact as possible. Since Mr. Collins is under the impression that I still work my crazy job I find myself in no hurry to correct him. If he thinks I’m still working 11 hour days and mostly nights I feel more than willing to let him continue to think so.
Needless to say I didn’t call back until around 8 o’clock last night a good 24 hours or so. I’ve been busy, what can I say? So I finally call him back and he picks up on the first ring! Who picks up on the first ring!? When he picks up I can tell that he is somewhere public because of all the background noise coming through. We go through the usual greetings and then he tells me that he is at someone’s wedding. I knew about the wedding, but completely forgot and either way I didn’t know either of the participants very well to begin with so it wasn’t a heartache for them if I forgot. So I say, “Oh, forgot about that,” to which he says, “Oh were you invited?” Which pissed me off a little bit, invited? The whole ward knew about it, it’s not one of those things where it’s a by invitation only. Why does he think he’s so freaking special and “invited” to things that others are not? I think I have used the phrase socially inept before, not with him, but I’m certainly going to start. So I just say, “I don’t know, but I was just saying I forgot.” I let it go, on the surface at least, but he is inching closer and closer to being the single most burnt fry in the bunch.
So he tells me the plans, the park at 5:30, have some food with us to eat there (oh a picnic how disgustingly romantic…by the way I’m not a romantic individual so when someone tries to get me to do things that they assume all girls enjoy I get more grossed out…like the time that this kid in high school made me dance in the parking lot with him at night, it wasn’t romantic, the lack of music and the height difference made it awkward.) So I roll my eyes to myself a bit, I drop in, “so you just want to meet there?” to which he says, “Oh I was going to pick you up.” People tell me the right lines to say but not what to do with the other person’s response. Then he goes on that the park closes awfully early (my intention) and that maybe we should find something else to do afterward. I don’t do the marathon date thing but apparently he was planning on it. So he mentions going to the Byrd, the oldest theater in Richmond, I happen to like the Byrd and it’s a movie, no time for magic tricks or talking, so I say that might be cool. I also threw in there somewhere that Ducky and Bachelor #2 wanted to come along as well and I told them that would be okay. He asked, “Oh we’re turning this into a double?” and I said, “Yeah I guess so,” of course it could be a complete non-date as well and I’d be happy.
So Ducky comes over and I tell her the plans and she tells me that Bachelor #2 has to work until 6 and the earliest he could meet us at my house would be 6:30 so I text Mr. Collins and tell him that 5:30 isn’t going to fly because of Bachelor #2’s schedule. I rearrange the time to be 7pm (I’m happy because I have shaved off 1.5 hours from the date right there!) Then I also put in the text that we may have to forget the park. I tell him that we will go out to eat and then go to the movie. This eliminates the chance for him to do something romantic, like provide dinner. Now it’s just casual. So he calls me while Ducky and I are watching our show so I ignore it, no one calls me between the hours of 9 and 10 on a Thursday night! So I call him back when the show is over, he explains to me that he would have just texted me back but he was driving. The whole time I’m trying to talk to him I hear his little G.P.S. system speaking to him. I don’t know how I feel about G.P.S. systems…if you can’t find it on your own what kind of man does that make you? You need a little voice to tell you to take a right and drive 13 miles? It just seems like you can’t take care of yourself, you’d be completely useless giving directions. It just makes you seem less of a person that you have such a dependency on the G.P.S. I have to admit though that he isn’t as bad to deal with on the phone, he irritates me it’s probably because he can’t do any magic tricks for you. But I also hope that maybe I sounded disinterested enough on the phone, which I know that I probably don’t. I really think he pulls some kind of hypnosis or something. I tried to have awkward silent moments too during the second call. I’m used to feeling the need to fill the space, not last night. I sat their quietly for a moment and waited for him to end the call and he finally did.
In other areas of my life my mom had asked me to pick up Thorn from work yesterday and take her to the house for dinner, she also asked me to pick up dinner (which is why I was at my happy place). It wasn’t so bad, the drive from Thorn’s work to my parent’s house seemed a little long with her asking me all these questions and I swear that she repeated one of them once. I just answered it the same way I had the first time and wondered if she then realized what she had done…she probably didn’t. So we get the house and my dad was hustling, trying to get all the food on the table and get it done with. So I helped him out as best I could and then we sat down to eat. Now my mom wasn’t able to be there because she had to work late last night (hence the reason for me picking up Thorn from work). I got to see what life would be like without my mom at the dinner table and let me tell you, the room seems darker and no one is there to get everyone talking. My mother truly has a gift for gab and not in a bad or annoying way, but I realized that my dad isn’t a man of many words and while I knew that I had also assumed he could invite people into conversation. Not so much.
Since we had peace and quiet for dinner with the exception of Spam eternally embarrassing herself I was more clearly able to hear the annoying and disgusting way in which Thorn eats. She breathes through her nose as though she’s out of breath but trying to hide it as she eats just as sloppily as her children. In fact I think her children left less of a mess around their plates than she did. Not only did she eat that way but she continued to eat! Taking no thought as to the fact that my mom hadn’t eating and that’s all the food we had. I was glad I had decided to double my order though! She ate the two pieces that technically was allotted to everyone and then she gives Spam some more chicken though she shouldn’t have and maybe she should stop acting like her hard earned money was going into the meal and ask if it was alright if the little pipsqueak got another piece. When Thorn brought over the dish with the chicken Spam started freaking out because there was something on the chicken, thus solidifying the fact that she is an over reacted teenage drama queen (and she’s only 9) the air was filled with “ew”, “gross”, “get it out!” and then a slight gagging sound. I quietly looked at her from my seat with the, “Holy cow you’re annoying and if you don’t stop I will find a way to quiet you forever” glare. The only reason I didn’t say anything was because we had other guest besides Thorn. Thorn says that maybe it’s just BBQ sauce that’s gotten on there and Spam is squealing about how it’s not BBQ sauce, maybe its blood. I just rolled my eyes and said, “Maybe it’s a tomato!” and it turned out to be in fact a tomato. At this point Thorn gives Spam a wing and Spam freaks out that it’s a creepy looking leg, and I say, “Cause it’s a wing”. Finally we take the wing away from her because Thorn found a leg. Then Spam eats that leg and asks if she can have the wing back, to which I say, “No, she doesn’t appreciate it” and you would think since it was my money that provided dinner that I would have a say in it, but then you would be thinking wrong. Thorn gives her the wing and Spam simply complains about what it looks like and struggles to eat. Then Thorn asks Burrito if he wants to split a wing with her. So she pulls one in half and gives the larger half to Burrito who then lives in his own personal delusion that it is a small and slightly funny looking leg. I tried to tell him that it was a wing and not a leg and he tells me that it’s all attached to the foot anyway, and that’s when I stepped back from the conversation, it couldn’t end well, my IQ was the only thing in danger of dropping and I had to remove it from the situation. Then I hear Thorn ask Spam if she wants to split a wing with her. So she does this! The whole time I am thinking nasty thoughts that I won’t even write down here. But seriously Thorn could eat a whole chicken by herself and not see anything wrong with it. I limited myself to one piece of chicken since it’s obvious that Thorn may need to pack some more in (Oh I told myself I wouldn’t write such mean things). I get up to clear the table and then to pull out dessert for family and guests. Ice-cream. My dad asks me if I want any and since I am trying to see TDH (part of my new weight lose program, I can’t stalk TDH until I’ve reached a semi-goal in weight lose…doing pretty well this week by the way) I declined. But I got it all out for everyone else and Thorn wanted a cone instead of a pull. She made out with her ice-cream a little bit longer than everyone else took to eat it and all the while, the nasal, heavy, breathing. I tried to focus on something else but the only other noise was Spam making fun of the way someone speaks in her class. She makes it sound like he enunciates, so I asked her what was wrong with that, no one would have to ask him to repeat things like they do with her. She goes on about it some more, ignoring my insult, and then she says something about how he never repeats himself like she does. I wonder if for some strange reason she thinks repeating herself is a good thing. Any time you have to repeat something it can’t be that good, just ask Burrito about having to repeat Kindergarten. I just sat there thinking that while she may be “gifted” according to educational standards she is by no means intelligent, or mature, or special in any other way other than the fact that she test better than their unusually low standards expected. I just think education is dwindling to a sad state when someone like Spam can be considered for gift-ti-tude (like I’m one to speak, I make up words at will). She just bothers me, why make fun of another “gifted” individual, they should be tight considering they are all in the same educational basket.