call of the wild

Last night I went to Columbus to visit my friend Kate. We went to a couple bars on High Street. First we went to Betty's, which had a Vote Kerry sign in the window. Yay, Betty's! While we were there, I had a drink called The Betty Ford and the best spinach artichoke dip I've ever tasted in my life.

Then we went to The Short North Tavern. There was a band there, playing cover songs. I don't really remember any of the songs except that one song that the rapping granny sang in The Wedding Singer. We got a table by the huge window that looks out to the street, so we had a lot of fun watching drunk people stumble down the street. We saw a bunch of middle-aged people practically fall out of a limo, and one of the women kept doing the running man.

Proving once again that I have the smallest bladder in the world, we had to stop at a Shell Station on the ten minute ride back to Kate's house so I could pee. The moment I entered the bathroom, I almost considered turning around and taking my chances, but the need to pee was too much. It was by far the sketchiest bathroom I've ever seen, and I've seen some sketchy bathrooms. I'm not going into details, because I'd prefer to wipe them from my memory.

When we got back to Kate's house, we were sitting around watching TV (and eating toast and drinking water, of course). Both of us were starting to lose our voices, so we started making strange screechy/howly noises. Her dog, Lily, kept doing that thing where dogs cock their head to the side like they're trying to understand what you're saying. Eventually, she just started howling and Kate and I thought it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen. This went on for about 10 minutes. I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't breathe.

Today I went to a cookout at my aunt's house. Sometimes I wonder where my cousin Sammy came from. He is by far the weirdest child I've ever met. I don't know if I can properly convey just how bizarre he is, but he cracks me up. He's in first or second grade (I forget) now, and I keep thinking maybe he'll outgrow his weirdness. Thankfully, he hasn't yet.

When he was a little younger, he and his brothers were all in the backseat of the car. They were messing around and fighting, like brothers do. Suddenly Sammy yells, "Hey, you hit me in my crouch!" His older brother, Zach, laughs and says, "It's not your crouch, it's your crotch." And Sammy, wonderful, strange, Sammy, goes, "Crotch? I call mine The King."

This is the same boy that, while I was babysitting, danced around the living room in his underwear singing, "I love my weiner! I love my weiner!"

And I guess if he named it The King, he really, truly does.