Saturday night in the city

Oh, wait.

Indiana doesn't have cities.

I went to Jennifer's apartment Saturday night, because that's what I do when there's nothing else for us to do on the weekend, which means that's what we do every weekend.

She mentioned that if she could decide what I did for a living, it would be this. Writing semi-amusing blogs or columns that I dispersed to various people in exchange for tons of money, enough to let me go to Europe whenever I wanted.

What Jennifer fails to realize is that she is the only person reading this blog, most days. Certainly she is the only person I know who reads it on a regular basis, and definitely the only person who talks about it with me later.

That makes me wonder...why do I write these when I could just call Jennifer and tell her what I have to say?

And the answer to that question is this: I am funnier on paper (or computer screen).

So, if you're reading this and not my friend Jennifer, welcome to the blog. If you're reading this and are Jennifer, thank you for giving my writing purpose. If not for you, I may as well be sitting in my kitchen melting plastic in the microwave instead of writing these blogs every day.

But it is for you others that I write this post. It seems to me that other people, City Folk, might not realize how boring a night in the country can be for a twenty-something pair of single girls. So I will enlighten you.

8:00 p.m. Laura arrives in "town" after having called ahead to the Chinese place in town, pre-ordering her food in advance of arriving in town by pressing a button on her cell phone, because she has the restaurant on speed-dial. Birdie, the owner of the restaurant, doesn't take Laura's name because she recognizes Laura's voice on the phone and because there are never multiple identical to-go orders at any given time.

8:05-8:10 p.m. Laura pays for her food and makes small talk with Birdie.

8:11 p.m. Laura arrives at Jennifer's apartment, peels off multiple layers of winter wear (mostly hand-knits) and puts her food on a plate. Jennifer has already eaten. Both sit down to watch an early episode of The Andy Griffith Show. They ponder which episode it is, then accurately predict the story-line even though neither had seen the episode before. Then they wait to see how right they are.

8:18 p.m. Laura finishes eating her Chinese food, using chopsticks, despite the fact that the order of food covers the extra-large dinner plate completely and is still piled pretty high. She comments to Jennifer that she should not have eaten that much and that she shouldn't eat anything else during the evening, repeatedly.

8:19 p.m. Laura washes her dish. While she does so, the identity of the mysterious stranger in the episode of Andy Griffith is revealed. Jennifer, sitting in the room in front of the television, fails to notice this. She then asks Laura as Laura re-enters the room. Laura tells Jennifer she did not hear. Both are disappointed.

8:25 p.m. The two finish the episode of classic television, then turn to their laptops. Laura finishes uploading pictures and posting them to her blog. Then she publishes it (Note: the blog says it was published at five, but that is by another time zone. After all the changes we've had in Indiana over the past few years, I really have no idea what time zone I live in, so I never changed it from the default).

8:35 p.m. Jennifer puts in a disc from the first season of Sex in the City, which is the closest to a happenin' social life either one of us will ever get. She then mutes the television a few minutes in so that we can listen to Hugh Jackman sing. Jennifer is clearly disappointed to find that he is a tenor, and is vocal on the subject.

8:47 p.m. Jennifer finds a picture of Hugh Jackman for her desktop background. She was inspired to do so by Laura's desktop background which is of a sweater Laura wants to knit from Criminal Minds. Laura took a screenshot of the sweater in order to have it as a background, and she tells Jennifer this as she tries to pretend it isn't pathetic to have a sweater as a desktop background and not a hot guy. Although the guy wearing the sweater was a model before he became an actor, and is rather attractive. So Laura supposed that it wouldn't be pathetic to have it as a desktop background if she didn't mention repeatedly that the picture is there because of the sweater and not the guy. Even though that is the truth.

9:30 p.m. After watching multiple episodes of Sex in the City, Laura decides that, because Culvers will close in approximately a half-hour, it is imperative that the two young women leave the apartment in order to purchase custard.

9:42 p.m. Jennifer and Laura buy custard, and Jennifer buys broccoli cheese soup, because broccoli cheese soup goes so well with mint chocolate explosion custard. Laura comments on this. Then the two begin to laugh hysterically while discussing the semi-attractive guy who works in the electronics department at Walmart, who Jennifer smiled at a few days earlier only to find later that she had something black stuck in-between her front teeth. It was certainly there during the smile, she surmised. The two then laugh hysterically at Laura's mother discovering porn at Dicks.com, and again at Laura's grandparent's house.

9:50 p.m.-11:00 p.m. The two consume their food, Laura repeats her assertion that she should eat nothing else that day. This time she actually doesn't. They also watch many, many episodes of Sex in the City. They ponder what year the show began, and presume that it must have been in the 90's. Laura then decides she must go home.

11:05-11:15 p.m. Laura goes to Walmart, although not to seek out the semi-attractive electronics salesman. She buys dish soap and feminine hygiene products. Then she leaves, although not without being hit on by several teenage boys. This happens every time Laura enters a Walmart alone after dark, and she always finds it humiliating.

11:16 p.m. Laura begins the drive home, hoping to wash off the shame of being hit on by the obviously stoned teenage boys by turning on the radio and cranking up the volume. However, the horrible music from the eighties only reminds Laura how much older she is than the obviously stoned and visually impaired teenage or pre-teen boys, who shouldn't have been let into a Walmart after dark or let loose from their parents in order to hit on poor unsuspecting young women driven out to Walmart only because she is allergic to the only dish soap in her house, meaning she could wash no dishes.

11:46 p.m. Laura arrives home. She talks to her mother and shows her the pictures of the bloody torso in North Manchester.



Then she condoles with her mother about the porn incident. Both express regret that the nice meat market they like in Elkhart is no longer in the same location, so Laura's mother could not purchase the apple sausages they wanted.

12:17 a.m. Laura goes to sleep, after watching a M.A.S.H. episode. She reflects that they don't make TV like that anymore, not noticing until the next day at 9:48 p.m. that she sounds like she was old enough to have watched the show when it first came out.


So you see Jennifer, when you imply that you won't mind me telling the world about your life, I take you literally. And now it is too late to stop me.