Ditch the Kids at the Food Court, We're Going Gourmet!

During a trip to Washington D.C. for a cousin's Bat Mitzvah, my parents, grandmother, brother and I went to a local mall to get out of the rain. We did a little shopping and after a time my father asked Aaron and I if we were hungry. We replied, "Yes! Let's eat!" So he took us over to the food court and gave us some cash. Mom told us to get whatever we wanted. We both choose Chinese food (why, I cannot say) and got in line. After paying for the food and thinking the "adults" are getting their lunches elsewhere, Dad yells, FROM ACROSS THE HALL, "We'll meet up with you later! We're going to the Nordstrom Cafe! Call me on my cell phone when you are done!"

And then they LEFT.

We were stunned- they duped us into eating the cheap, crappy food and then made a hasty exit to the good restaurant without us. Why not pull us out of the line and say, "We don't like any of the options here- why don't we all go to the Nordstrom Cafe and have lunch together?"

No.

We were ditched by our parents and our grandmother. Who, along with my Mother, wasn't even in sight when my father yelled across the hall to alert us to their plan. We were convinced that if it had been up to the women, they would have left us without a word! No two children felt more like Hansel and Gretel that day in that mall than we did. To add insult to injury, the food was some of the WORST slop imaginable. We couldn't even eat it and ended up going hungry for the rest of the day. Poor Sarah and Aaron. Boo-hoo for us.

Mowing the Lawn for Esthetic Reasons....

There's a 24 hour diner in my neighborhood that I once found myself sitting in late one night having a cup of coffee and a cookie and listening to two of the most inane conversations I've ever heard in my life. In the booth next to mine were two youngish girls. The first one, Christine Wilson ( I know her name because her friend kept yelling, "Christine Wilson! Get off the phone!"), was on the phone with her head leaning against the window as if this would help her get further away from her friend who was yelling at her. She was talking to some guy on the other line and telling him that she wants to "move back there" and asking him if he smells. Then after getting what I can only assume was the answer she was looking for, she tells this guy, " I mow the lawn but only a little and only for esthetics reasons." I almost choked on my cookie. I was a good 6 feet from this girl, maybe more, and I could hear that clear as a bell. Then her friend gets a call and starts talking to whomever called her about hair plugs and asking if the new hair piece is working out.

What is wrong with people? Don't they realize that their conversations are not private? Why are they sitting together to share a meal if they are just going to sit across from each other and talk on their phones? And not even to each other? I hate cell phones- they turn normal people into rude, selfish assholes.

The Moaner Down The Hall

In my first apartment in New York, I lived with a friend from France named Laurence. For our first New Year's Eve together we went out, had a good time and went to bed around 3 AM. At about 5 AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and Laurence was up and totally freaked out. She told me that some guy was yelling for help and that it had woken her up. I was still half asleep, so naturally I assumed that she was talking about the sound coming from outside her window. But as I went to her room he started yelling and moaning (not in a "I'm having sex and letting the whole building know" way but in a "I'm in pain and disoriented" way) again and I realized it was coming from outside the apartment in the hall. I opened our door and looked down the hall- he was still moaning and yelling so I crept out and walked down the hall and peeked around the corner. The guy was moaning and yelling "Help me!" slowly in a deep guttural voice. I thought someone was in the apartment with him and was possibly hurting him, so I decided that calling 911 was the only logical course of action.

The cops showed up pretty quick for New Year's Eve. They banged on the guy's door and told him to open up but he wouldn't. They talked to him for a while through the door (we were around the corner eavesdropping) and after some time, convinced him that when they said they'd break the door down, they weren't joking. We heard them ask him what was going on and if he was alone. We didn't hear what he was saying, but the cops kept telling him he had to be quiet and go to sleep and that he was disturbing the neighbors. I guess he was giving them a hard time because they started threatening to take him to Bellveue (the local NYC state mental hospital- totally medieval and scary). They told him they'd take him if they had to come back that night. When the cops came back to us, they told us that the guy was alone but just extremely drunk and not in any danger. We were relieved.

Later, when we would see this guy in passing, neither of us could look him in the eye or even say hello. We were afraid he knew it was us who called the cops on him. He even seemed embarrassed when he saw us. He was a nice enough guy and after some time I got over my nervousness and started chatting with him. I am now convinced that he probably doesn't even remember that night.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

One day my cousin Joshua was walking down the street in his neighborhood on the UES (that Upper East Side to you non-New Yorkers) and he soon found that he was walking next to a crazy homeless guy. This one was ranting and raving total nonsense and Joshua did what all New Yorkers do, he ignored him. But as they both came to a corner and stopped, the cazy guy turns to Joshua and in a moment of lucidity, says, "You know what we're having for dinner tonight?!......Pussy!"

And with that, he crossed the street and was gone.

After School Special

I was watching one of those after school specials when I got the idea to pierce my nose. I did it with a starter earring and some ice. It hurt but the worst was that I pinched a nerve and it made my left eyeball twitch when it was cold out for years. Eventually the piercing got infected because my Mom wouldn't let me wear it around her and so I'd take it out at home and wear it at school. This was in 1990 before piercing became so trendy. A few months later I dyed my hair pink and shaved the back of my head from ear to ear so that I could wear a pony tail and everyone could see how cool I was or I could hide it when I was around the parents. The pink dye was nixed fast- I bleached it out but I had the skater/Red Hot Chili Peppers hairdo for a while.

I thought I was so punk rock and cool.

Sunflower Seeds

A few years ago, when my brother Aaron was still in the Coast Guard, I drove with him to his new post in Seattle from San Francisco. During our drive through Oregon he introduced me to the art of sunflower seed eating. The basic idea, he said, was that you jam a bunch in one side of your cheek, getting them nice and soft with your saliva and then you crack 'em open with your teeth on the other side to get to the itty bitty meaty center. What to do with the shell? Well, you just spit them out the window of course!

He advised me that the best thing to do would be to start with a small amount and then work my way up to more. So I took a few and popped them in my mouth. However, my impatience resulted in lots of tiny shards of sunflower shells in my mouth. After a few attempts, I finally got the hang of it and started spitting the shells out the window. Little did I know that the wind was flying them right back inside the van and hitting Aaron in the head. So here I am enjoying myself and having a grand old time and he's covered in spit shells. You would think he would have said something. But being somewhat of a stoic and overall zen kind of guy, he just grinned and bore it. Well, "grin" maybe is not the right word. By the time I turned to him to say, "Hey aren't I so cool?" he was covered in shells. They were in his shirt, his hair, stuck to his face and all over the seat. When I asked him why he didn't say anything, he replied, "I don't know."

Yes, that's my brother.

My Bucket Hat

Yesterday I had lunch with my friends from my old job who are all fashion designers. Just before we left the table I pulled out my new hat and put it on. It's a white bucket style hat with a cute buckle around it. I thought I looked extra snappy. Apparently I did not. The second I put it on my friends started laughing at me and said, "Oh Sarah! We miss you! You're so funny!"

I failed to see the humor.