2007-07-18 - 12:19 a.m.

I wasn't even going to go to Smiley's. But I just hung up with Monique and now I'm walking in to the place I wasn't originally going to go and I think about how good that turkey sub will taste. I order my sub and I walk down the ramp towards the back of Smiley's. I walk slowly through the last aisle and debate whether I want Vitamin Water (which Monique has scared me away from, despite the fact that she drinks it), Gatordae (ditto), Iced Tea (yet again, ditto), water ( . . . ok, water checks out) or Moxie. Ok, not actually Moxie. That's foul. And that's when I see an old Frond debating about drinks too! It's Becca!!! A.K.A. - Beaker, Beccer, Tyrannosaurus Bex! She double takes. "Friend!" "Friend!" I notice Friend has "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" in her hand and I exclaim that I can't believe I didn't make her read it long before now. She insists I DID! She just likes to reread it. I'm glad. Friend informs me she's living in Dover now and now Friend is a stonesfriend, I mean a friendsthrow away from me!! Suddenly, a man walks up behind us. I turn around and he's asking me if I work there. An understandable question since I'm wearing my Diamond Mines shirt. Idiot. Becca just turns red. That's what Becca does. The man is in his late 50's/early 60's, is wearing a yellowed wife beater, and he looks like he hasn't showered since the last time Jason showered. I tell him neither of us work there and he conspiratorially leans in towards us and points to a 30-pack of Budweiser as he whispers, "Wouldn't I like to take that home with me!" I say, "Yep." Becca says, *NOTHING*. Aren't you paying attention?? Becca just gets more red. "You know what," he begins to ask us in that tone of of-course-you-don't-know-what, "I think I'm gonna have a party tonight!" Good Lord, I'm thinking, I'm on the precipice of having someone slip Beaker and me a mickey and kidnap us to his secret underground redneck lair. "Guess who I'm inviting?" he creeps at us. "Uh . . . um." I stutter. "Cough," Becca reds, with a follow-up of, "uh . . ." "I'm a-gonna have me some Shania Twain, Pam Anderson, Faith Hill . . . well, do I want Britney there? Maybe if she loses some weight first." he illuminates us with. "Gross," I shoot back. "Britney is gross." Boy, I show him. Becca and I nervously eye each other in a "where's the nearest exit sort of way". "You know what the best part about my parties is?! EVERYBODY COMES!!!" He starts to laugh. No, he CACKLES! He chokes a bit on his phlemy spittle. He lugs his two 30 packs of Bud to the register. "Friend, you need to know that kind of stuff NEVER happens to me. Only to you. The only reason that ever happened to me is because you were here!" Becca exasperates.

This is Summer.

It's been real,

Platform Jumper

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