| beanery. journal. of sorts. 8/4/02 "Sleep is for the weak, and so we are made of iron..." Had a good time last night, totally alcohol free. Wow. Beka came over, with her little brother Evil Pete. (That's what he calls himself. I call him Peevil.) We hung out forever, making tapes for our upcoming road trip and playing video games. They went home at about five thirty AM, and I headed out to use a phone at about six, worried that I would have to work that day at the radio station. I hop in the Merc and head downtown, and what do I see in the middle of the street but Beka and Peevil, so insane with insomnia that they laid down in the middle of the road in such a position that my tires would run over each of them. I keep driving. And keep driving. I get closer, and still, they don't move, grinning like goons. Finally, I jam on the brakes and they leap up, laughing, hopping into the Merc, Peevil in the back, Beka riding shotgun. They've got a coffee cup full of change. Time to go get donuts and coffee and orange juice at the drive-up bakery at Affiliated Foods. Beka and I hop out of the Merc and go to the drive-up window. The girl behind the window is in high school in town; we both know who she is and bullshit awhile. Dawn is coming on brighter by now, but the sky is still cold, kind of gray yet, and the light from inside the bakery is downright golden. The air wafting from the open window oozes warmth and that wonderful bakery smell. Glazed for Beka, chocolate longjohns for Peevil and me. I get black coffee, Beka gets the juice. I ask the girl as she pours my coffee into a non-biodegradable styrofoam cup what it's like to work in a place that smells that good. "It's tempting," she replies. I just love it when people around here say that word, as if it's an evil thing to be tempted by a cookie or a muffin. OH MY GOD!! BEWARE THE EVIL MUFFIN OF DOOM! It will steal thy soul and drown it in a soft, moist, delicious BURNING POOL OF DAMNATION! hee-hee. Anyway. Back to the Merc, more driving around. Deciding that the confectionery wasn't enough, we head to Subway and Beka and Peevil order breakfast sandwiches. I order (for some strange reason that I don't quite understand yet) a six-inch seafood and crab on parmesan oregano with lettuce, pepperjack cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and black olives. It's about a quarter to seven now, and I can't help but notice how completely washed out the lone "sandwich artist" looks. As if she's really coming down from something, or as if she were drowned and brought back to life via CPR. Anyway, we eat and by now Peevil is totally wired and rushing around examining everything that isn't bolted in place. We go outside and sit at a green mesh picnic table to smoke and finish coffee. There's a payphone on the wall right next to us. "Hey guys," I said. "Ever call random 800 numbers, just for the hey of it?" That started a chain reaction of prank phone calls that went on for an hour or more. I knew of this number called the Nine Line from my random phone happiness, a "crisis" line that doesn't believe you when you tell them anything. I had Beka call them and pretend that she slashed her wrists. She did. A guy answered. "Nine Line." "Yeah," she said into the heavy black reciever, "does slashing your wrists qualify as a crisis?" The guy said yes, and to tell her about it. She went into a very sincere spiel about her father killing her cat, and not accepting responsibility when she blamed him for it. He yelled and threw her out of the house, and she slashed her wrists. The "crisis" guy didn't believe her, and told her to come back when she had a real crisis. We were all heavily insensed. How could he dare assume that she wasn't telling the truth?? What kind of "crisis" are they talking about? "Yes, Nine Line? Oh, thank God!! I'm trapped in a small steel box with an A-Bomb and seven angry tigers! Is that a crisis?" Shit. Get yourself a crisis, real or imagined, and then call the assholes at 1-800-999-9999 and give them a piece of your brain when they don't believe you. And then we called Hooked on Phonics, and Peevil talked to a lady named Barb, who hung up on him when he asked her "Where's my dad?" and spent the rest of his turn trying to get her back on the line. He also called an answering machine by accident, which told him "It will be our pleasure to return your call." Peevil's message went as follows: |