7 Things You Didn't Know About Me: 6-7

6.) I had a pet chameleon when I was in eight. His name was Abu and he was so noble and adorable that I want to vomit everywhere just thinking about him. 

My family had mixed emotions about old Abu. Becca was a straight-up hater (speaking of our shitty relationship growing up) because I had adopted him from Olney Elementary's third grade this-is-how-you-take-care-of-a-lizard unit...that apparently happened. Five years prior to this adoption, Becca asked if she could adopt her class' lizard and our parents wouldn't even entertain the thought. Five years later I asked and our family gained a new beloved pet. Similarly, Becca wasn't allowed to have an American Girl doll because our parents thought that they were laughably expensive and frankly, you've got some stones for even asking, missy. But me? Proud owner of both Samantha and Kirsten. Is this evidence that our parents love me more? One could certainly make that argument.

My father, on the other hand, was a big Abu fan. I might even go as far as to say that he was Abu's best friend...? In the whole world...? When I first got Abu, it was very much a FINE, BUT HE'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, YOUNG LADY situation, but somewhere down the line he stole Richard's heart and my dad spoiled that damn lizard rotten. Every Friday he'd go into the pet store he passed on his way home from work and buy Abu some new top of the line lizard accessory or gourmet bag of crickets the store clerk promised you couldn't find anywhere else. To give you an idea, Abu came to us in a small plastic fish aquarium and left in a giant glass habitat with mahogany detail, deluxe electric heat rock, and his choice of five high-res images of the Grand Canyon to serve as a backdrop, depending on his mood. (Although he didn't have an American Girl doll, so: Abu: 1, Meg: 1, Becca:...it's questionable.)

As far as pet's deaths go, Abu's was pretty traumatic. (Not as bad as the time Rachel killed my cat when we were in Hawaii and I missed the luau because I couldn't stop crying, but hey—we all make mistakes.) Like any other morning, I woke up, spritzed some water onto the side of his habitat and waited for him to scamper over and PFFFT! PFFT! PFFFT! it up with his little missile tongue. Instead, Abu, who was noticeably struggling to breathe, could only manage to turn his little lizard head towards the water and stick out a tiny portion of his pink little tongue before he collapsed completely. This image is scorched into my memory. This happened 18 years ago and I can still remember what pajamas I was wearing and what was on that bookshelf. It was almost as bad as the Christmas morning my family sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast and our neighborhood fox walked up to the deck and dropped dead. Almost. 

Back in 1993, I freeeeeeaked the fuck out, burst into tears, ran to get my mom and made her call pretty much every veterinarian in the state of Maryland until she found one who'd be like, "A one-year-old shitty little class chameleon? THAT'S AN EASY FIX! Bring 'em on in!!!" But she never found one. SHE NEVER. FOUND ONE. Instead, my mom sat me down on the living room couch and very sweetly explained to me that all the vets she talked to agreed that one year is an impressive amount of time for a chameleon like Abu to live and maybe this was just his time to go. Holy shit. It was horrible.

I blamed myself for Abu's death for months afterward because I was also babysitting Teresa's chameleon at the time, and instead of putting hers in a separate room, I put him on the table across from Abu so they could see each other. I thought he died of jealousy. How tragic is that??

Oh my God. Why did I choose to tell this to you this story? I feel like I'm about to cry and all I want to do is call my mom, but it's 5 o'clock in the morning and I feel like she'd disinvite me to Hanukkah dinner and Lord knows she only makes those sweet, sweet latkes once a year. I am completely miserable, San Diego.

7.) This last one isn't so much a piece of trivia as an anecdote Dan's been trying to get me to tell on the blog for a year now but I've been resisting because it makes me seem...well, racist.

Growing up, I lived a few streets over from an African American girl named Amber who's father was a police officer. A few years ago I somehow found myself having a conversation with a co-worker about how cops are assholes. My co-worker made the point that although yes, most police officers are assholes, it's also a really mentally and emotionally draining job that in the long run can have damaging effects. 

"So many of these cops," she said, "are put in a position where they have to shoot someone on the scene because it's a matter of public safety, but afterwards, it really fucks with their head and they're never the same. Nobody really thinks about that."

"Oh my God, I know exactly what you're talking about," I told her, "My friend Amber's dad was a cop and he had to pull a gun on someone one day and it totally fucked with him. He came home and got his hand stuck in a pickle jar and I remember he lashed out at Amber's mom and she was like, 'It's not about the pickles, is it? You had to pull a gun on the job again today, didn't you?' It really does affects family's lives."

After I said that my co-worker continued on with our conversation, but in my head I stopped and was like, "Huh...I wasn't really that good of friends with Amber. How do I know all of that? Specifically the pickle jar thing. Why can I see that happening so vividly...?" And that's when I realized that that in no way happened to my friend Amber's dad—I was thinking of a plot line from Family Matters. I had just confused the black family in our neighborhood with a cop for a dad with THE WINSLOWS.

I immediately turned beet red and all I wanted to do was acknowledge what had just happened, but I didn't really know this girl well enough to be like LOL RACE LOL!, so I had to just stand there like an asshole and finish having this conversation about my "friend" who's "dad" got his "hand stuck in a pickle jar" and then he and his neighbor got in the "Sexy Urkel Machine" and "Laura" was suddenly "interested" and it was an important "life lesson" about how it's what's on the "inside" that counts.

A year has passed since I told this story to Dan, who has since moved halfway around the world, but I still regularly get text messages from him being like, "I just thought about how you told someone your friend Carl Winslow got his hand stuck in a pickle jar and laughed-out-loud in a meeting," and all I want to do is melt into a puddle and slither out of the room Alex Mack style because it's so fucking mortifying.

So, 7.) I am a racist asshole.

A Seven Locks kind of Valentine's Day

Three things that seemingly have nothing to do with each other:

1.) I keep having nightmares about snakes and lizards, which according to five minutes of intense Internet research means that something "senseless" and horrible is about to happen, AND/or someone in my inner circle will betray me.

2.) As devoted readers know, I love Dr. Dre and The Chronic 2001 more than anything or anybody in this entire world. I listen to that album with the regularity of a bible thumper reading scripture—shit just never gets old. One of my favorite tracks is the emotional roller coaster ride that is "What's the Difference", featuring Eminen and Xzibit.

I love everything about this song, but specifically, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the exchange between Dre and Eminem at about 2:35, which, in case you work somewhere that doesn't support blasting gangster rap in your cubicle at 10 o'clock in the morning (sell out...), is the following:

Eminem: STOP THE BEAT A MINUTE! I got something to say. Dre, I want to tell you this shit right now while this fucking weed is in me.

Dre: The fuck?

Eminmen: I don't know if I ever told you this, but I love you dawg. I got your motherfuckin back, just know this shit.

Dre: Riiight? Slim, I don't know if you noticed it, but I've had your back since day one, ni*ger. Let's blow this bitch.

Eminem: I mean it dawg, you ever need somebody offed—whose throat is it?

Dre: Well if you ever kill that Kim bitch, I'll show you where the ocean is.

And then Eminmen goes on about how if he were to kill his ex-wife, he'd want to drive around for a while with her dead body in the front seat honking and waving to people, which sounds suspiciously like the plot to Weekend at Bernie's to me, but my point here is this: I love it. I love it because whereas we live in an era when Cam'ron can't even ask someone to pass him the nut bowl without adding a paranoid PAUSE or NO HOMO, ten years ago Dr. Dre could stick Eminem saying "I don't know if I ever told you this, but I love you" to him in the middle of one of the most aggressive tracks on his album without anyone even batting an eyelash. Why? Because they're friends! And friends love each other. Sure the entire thing is padded with some good old-fashioned hypothetical wife-killing, but the sentiment remains the same: it's OK to tell your friends that you love them. To quote Bun B after the untimely passing of Pimp C: "[...] [I]f you really love your homie, don't feel like you can't tell him you love him. Because when things happen, you're going to wish you had said it. You're going to wish you said it louder." PREACH.

3.) Being obnoxiously broke has seriously adverse affects on my friendships: I can rarely afford to go out; I never have people over for dinner because I never eat dinner; I bring cheap booze to parties; and I can't afford to give birthday, wedding, shower, housewarming gifts. Not to mention I keep weird sleeping hours and don't answer texts or emails until 3 o'clock in the morning, so it always seems like I'm blowing you off. What I'm trying to say is: I'm fully aware that it can be a giant pain in the ass to be friends with me. With that in mind, I decided to make my friends Valentine's this year as a small token of gratitude for putting up with me. It took me all of 36 seconds in front of a blank Illustrator file to think of the perfect way to say "I love you": via Dre and Em in "What's the Difference". With that in mind, I designed a 5 x 7 card with their conversation from "Stop the beat a minute..." to "...Let's blow this bitch" on the front, and "You ever need somebody offed—whose throat is it? HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!" on the back:

Then I tied the card up with red and white baker's string and popped it in a red A7 envelope:


Now, it was right around the time when I let go of said envelopes and they started tumbling into the mailbox when I realized that not everybody has been listening to The Chronic 2001 once a day for the past ten years, and not everybody has an oddly specific interest in, and knowledge of platonic signs of affection in hip-hop music and culture. Both of those things might just be a "me thing". And it was around when I started walking back to my apartment when I calculated that only three out of the 25 people I had just sent that Valentine to are going to recognize its contents as lyrics from "What's the Difference" and not as Dr. Dre/Eminem slash fiction that I had just cooked up myself and felt the need to physically mail to them. And finally, it was when the apartment door closed behind me that it finally sunk in that in a matter of days, 91.7% of my closest friends and family might think I'm a wee bit of a flagrantly racist, misogynistic, would-be murderer.

SYNTHESIS OF #1-3: To all of the people who received a Valentine's Day card from me this year: I am not a flagrantly racist, misogynistic, would-be murderer. It's from the Dr. Dre song "What's the Difference" featuring Eminem and Xhibit. I did not fabricate that conversation, I do not normally drop hard N's in my holiday cards, and I don't actually fantasize about "blowing this bitch"—please do not betray me by reporting me to the local authorities. I was just trying to say I love you. No homo.

If my door gets egged this weekend, something tells me it won't be related to Halloween...

Uhhhhh, guys. Something a little bit horrifying slash mostly hilarious slash no, really it was more horrifying just happened. But before I tell you, let's first get the old T.G.I. Hagman out of the way:

As of 5:01am on October 29, 2010, Larry Hagman is...alive! Sign, sealed, delivered; he's yours.

OK, so it's currently 2:04 in the morning and about a half an hour ago Dan and I scuttled over to Baja Fresh for a midnight taco run (lies. I got a Diet Coke because I'm still full from my lunchtime fish taco/Percocet make out session and Dan got a burrito.) (Don't judge us and our lifestyle.) and on our way back into the apartment, I checked my mail. Mixed in amongst the usual past-due notices and depressing bank statements was this sketchy-ass envelope:

Dan and I got in the elevator with a middle-aged gentleman who lives in my building and I looked at the envelope and said, "Uhh...who do I know at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova University?"

"Ooo! Maybe someone's trying to kill you!" Dan said, with genuine interest and excitement.

"Well that is serial killer handwriting if I've ever seen it." Dan snatched the envelope out of my hand and I asked him to open it. Mostly because if there was anthrax it in—roses are red, fire is hot, I'm holding my breathe and you, sir, are not. Dan opened the envelope and took out a folded piece of lined notebook paper.

"Oh Jesus God. Dan, it's a single piece of notebook paper in handwritten pen. Someone is going to kill me. Dan, someone is absolutely going to kill me."

As the elevator stopped on my floor, Dan unfolded the paper, squinted at what it said and read aloud:

"Evie...Yang's...na na na na na na shrimp fried rice?"

[As it turns out, that's just a little racially charged, Evie-based inside joke/caricature from Tulane Chris. I always forget that he goes to Villanova and has a penchant for sending me comical mail every now and then, that skamp.]

Now, what I failed to mention up until now is that the middle-aged gentleman in the elevator with us was an Asian gentleman. Which means that Dan pulled out a sketch of my parent's Tonkinese cat wearing a paddy hat, squinting and saying "dericious!" over a plate of shrimp while he deadpanned, "Evie Yang's na na na na na na shrimp fried rice" about six inches away from an Asian man. The second after "—rice?" flew out of his mouth, he realized what had just happened, made a "guhhhh" noise and sprinted out of the elevator before collapsing in front of my door in a little puddle of embarrassment.

So basically what this means is that I have now officially offended all two Asians in my apartment building. Every last one of them now thinks that I'm racist. Or have extremely racist friends. I hassle them in the lobby for my food and get amateur Klan art in the mail from Arab/Islamic scholars in Pennsylvania. But if you need to borrow a cup of sugar as racially pure as fresh morning snow, Lord knows I'm here for you.

Sigh. Moving on. So Halloween weekend, huh? Right on. As I mentioned yesterday, Tulane Chris will be visiting this weekend. We're going to do a 2b1b investigation, write a post together, drink a lot, emote, go to Target, emote some more. I'm pretty excited. The culmination of this weekend, however, will be waking up at an obscenely early hour on Sunday morning to cheer Becca and Geoff on as they tackle the Marine Corps Marathon, or their "long distance jog" as I like to call it because belittling my sister's running career is a Facebook interest of mine. It comes from a place of pure jealousy, of course. She sets goals for herself and has the discipline to train for months to accomplish a physical feat, whereas I opened up my umbrella the other day a sugar packet fell out. (That's not a joke, by the way. That happened. I assume I threw a sugar packet in my bag when I got coffee and it got wedged in my umbrella somehow, but still. She did the Army 10K last weekend for funsies and it's literally raining Type II Diabetes on me.)

I realize I could just take up running too, but, you know, effort. I'd prefer to put all of that energy into good old fashioned projecting! I want to make a sign to cheer Becca on, but I can't decide which motivational slogan to go with:

- JOG SLIGHTLY FASTER!

- THAT DOESN'T LOOK THAT HARD.

- I DID THE ELLIPTICAL FOR 30 MINUTES THIS MORNING!

- NOBODY WOULD JUDGE YOU IF YOU PEED YOURSELF!

- IF YOUR NIPS AREN'T BLEEDING, YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!

- COLLEGE GIRLS WITH POOR BODY IMAGE DO THIS EVERY DAY!

- REMEMBER WHEN YOU GOT EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA IN ARIZONA? HA HA, ME TOO.

I guess I could always just make seven signs? Either way, I'm pumped. If you'll be in town for the rallies this weekend, I hope you enjoy yourself! And if not, I hope you have a great Halloween weekend wherever you are! To kick the weekend off right, here's a quick little recap of last week's "Jersey Shore" finale I owe you from when I was out sick. It's late, but meh. Something tells me we'll all live.

"Jersey Shore", Season 2: THE FINALE!

Yes, it's the finale. It's time for our Zelko soaked heros and heroines to return to the tri-state area from whence they came. But not before they go on a wacky road trip to the Everglades to see, quote Pauly D, "crocodiles and alligators, or whatever you call them." You shockingly had it right the first time, sir. Although Snooki refers to them as "crock-o-dillios" which immediately makes me hope I'll be reincarnated into a rapping crocodile so I can dub myself the "Crock-o-Dillio" and release an album called, "What the Crock-o-Dillio??" But, yes. They go to see the gators. None eat them; world weeps. Afterwards they go to a little country cafe where they eat fried frog legs. Ronnie is deeply disturbed, J-WOWW is nauseated. On the car ride home, The Situation gets car sick and pukes frog legs up. Wakka, wakka.

I'm sure you're all wondering what ever will happen to Pauly D and Vinny and their little Miami wifies, right? Well, nothing. They take 'em out to dinner (Vinny's gal is 45 minutes late. Or on Meg time, if you will,) make out with them in the street, tell them to K.I.T. and call it a night. Sorry, both dates were incredibly uneventful. I wish I had more for you. Although I will say that Pauly D's lady has got a pair of hooters on her. So. They'll always have that.

Ronni and Sammi go out for one last Miami dinner and—shock!—they get in a fight. Here:

Good enough.

On their last night out, the gang heads to BED where two girls (both of whom I would describe as "atrocious about the face") are all over Vinny and offer to have a threeway with him. And by "offer to have a threeway with him," I mean scream, "Are we fucking tonight, baby??" and "You're gonna have the threesome of your life!" to him over the thumping Enrique Iglesias music. But alas, he can't stop thinking about Ramona and turns them down. Which is when The Situation swoops in, takes them to the John and makes them forget all about Stepfathers 1-3. Bless his heart.

On their last night in the house, the gang has one last family dinner and then retires to the living room to hand out superlatives. It starts out all innocent and light-hearted like "Most Likely to Get Skin Cancer" hahaha LOLZ all of us! but takes a serious turn when The Situation says Vinny should get "Most Likely to be a Follower." Then guess what happens? Correct: escalate, escalate, escalate → full-blown fight. This was one of the most confusing fight sequences yet, so let me break it down for you:

The Situation rags a little too hard on Vinny for being a "fake" "follower", so J-WOWW puts an end to it by telling The Situation that he's the fake one and storms out of the room → While she's gone, The Situation says she's the fakest one in the house → Abiding by "Girl Code", Snooki tells J-WOWW that The Situation said she was fake and that Pauly D nodded his head in agreement → J-WOWW confronts The Situation and says, "If I'm fake, then Pauly D is fake because he talks shit about you behind your back," → The Situation confronts Pauly D → Pauly D goes into a roid rage and pops a blood vessel or two → He confronts J-WOWW → J-WOWW says she told The Situation that because she heard that he agreed with The Situation that she was fake → He asks her who told her that → Snooki makes an "eep!" noise, implicating herself → Pauly D yells at Snooki for a while → Snooki gets mad at J-WOWW for making her look like an asshole → Snooki cries → Everyone's like J/K!!! We're such a family: we hate each other but we love each other and I'm going to miss you guys so much even though we have a shit ton of promotional stuff coming up and Season 3 around the corner, omg we're such a family.

FIN!

And yes, it was just as anti-climactic for me as it was for you. Welp! Have a great weekend guys and we'll see you next week! Buy-bye.

I was Accidentally Racist #235234

Ok. So. Don't judge me. But...I was accidentally racist again (or again. Slash again. And again.) last night. BUT! Before we get to those highly embarrassing details, there's another local Jäger Ball I need to tell you about!:

Boston!


Kate and Jenna organized this one and you can hit them up on Twitter if you have any questions or email Kate at katemotter@gmail.com! Despite today's post, people of all races, creeds, religions and ethnicities are welcomed, I promise. ALSO, REGARDING JÄGER BALL DC: Just to clarify—drink specials end at 11, not the party. That goes way past 11. It's not a school night bitches; let's get crazy with it! Co-Blogger Chris and I plan on sleeping on a pile of melted ice in the alley of the bar. So there's that. Now, let's get to some good old-fashioned hardcore American racism, huh?!

Yesterday Boss #2 and I hosted a late lunch meeting to show off our new line of furniture (read: Boss #2 gave the presentation, I hung up coats and played Snood in the bathroom.) After our group left, it was my job to go in with a damp rag and clean the surface of everything because a.) we can't have any fingerprints on anything, ever and b.) I'm the office's bitch and that's the kind of stuff I do. As I stood there a-scrubbin', I marveled at the ungodly number of ridiculous fingerprints on everything. "God. There are fingerprints everywhere," I said to Boss #2, "Where did these people come from? A fried chicken conference?" Sigh.............

.............The group we had just hosted was the Congressional Black Caucus.

But! Before you call the ACLU on me or show up at my office with pitchforks and torches, here me out. The following was my thought process:

[Man. There are lots of fingerprints everywhere. This is irritating. You should complain about this.]
"God. There are fingerprints everywhere."

[Hmm...On second thought, you probably shouldn't have done that. Complaining about your job to your boss is never a good idea. You should crack a joke to lighten the mood to show how easy-going and charismatic you are. Because easy-going and charismatic people get raises all the time.]
Where did these people come from? A...

[OK, now think. What gives you greasy fingers? Oh, I know!]
fried chicken—

[Now we need a location. What would have a comically ridiculous amount of fried chicken?]
Conference?

That was my thought process. And there wasn't a hint of irony or malice in there, I promise! The second it flew out of my mouth, I realized exactly what it sounded like and made a noise that can best be described as "offfffffffffffmgahhhh!" So altogether it came out: "God. There are fingerprints everywhere. Where did these people come from? A fried chicken conferenceofffffffffffffmgahhhh!" I turned bright red and said, and I quote myself, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean that in a racist way; I meant that in a chicken way!"

I meant that. In. A. "Chicken Way." What's worse is that I don't even think Boss #2 even heard me in the first place. She was like, "Hmm, what did you say? Just use some Windex if it won't come up" and walked away, leaving me to wallow in my own pile of self-mortification. I would have felt so much better had she heard, judged me, listened to my explanation and decided that I'm not racist in the end. It's like when you trip up the stairs and no one's there to see it, so you end up feeling even more stupid somehow. Right?

In conclusion: I am not racist. I enjoy African Americans and Asians and wish only good things for people of those persuasions. Kthnx.

Hey honkey! It's Drinking Game Friday!

Before we get to DGF, I want you to do the following:
1.) Pat yourself on the back for being so attractive. Feel that? That was from me to you.
2.) Click this website
3.) Scroll 3/4 of the way down to "Best Local Blog" under the "Home & Away" section
4.) Click "Other"
5.) Write in 2birds1blog
6.) Scroll to the bottom and click "Submit Your Vote"
7.) Tell a few friends to do the same
8.) Feel really good about the decision you just made

Now, if there's anything I learned from the Blogger's Choice Awards Shitstorm '09, it's that you won't vote for me unless I do something for you. Besides writing this blog. Every day. For free. Thereby compromising my job on many an occasion. (00O0o0O feel that baby?! That's just the burn of Jewish Guilt. Should clear up in about 2-3 weeks.) Unfortunately for both of us, I'm in the middle of a big 2b1b re-design and haven't gotten to new stickers yet, so I can't bribe you with those again. However, shoot me an email: meg@2birds1blog.com. Tell me what you want. We'll see what I can do. Or just vote because it takes five seconds and it's the nice thing to do. Kthnx.

NOW. Let's get racist and booze!

Anna reminded me in the comments section of Tuesday's post about what we lovingly refer to as "The Black Purse Debacle of 2004." BPD '04 is probably one of my all-time favorite incidents of accidental racism in the history of accidental racism. Ever. And (surprisingly,) it didn't involve me. It involved Anna, my sister and my sister's friend's boyfriend. Seeing how I was only a witness (and thank Christ I was,) I didn't think it was really my story to tell. However, it's just too good to keep to myself. IT'S JUST. TOO. DAMN. GOOD. So I hope Anna's OK with me sharing it here with you now. (Unfortunately I can't ask her because she's currently at cruising altitude en route to Miami. So fingers crossed.) Here we go:

Every year my sister and our friend Rachel throw a Kegs 'n Eggs party the day after Thanksgiving. It's a magical event full of delicious foods and day drinking, and it's pretty much all I live for. Being only 19 in 2004, an all-you-can-drink day event was particularly exciting to me and my friends and we rolled up ready to party.

What you need to know:
1.) My sister didn't really know Anna very well at this point. Although Anna and I went to high school together and she was best friends with literally all of my best friends, we were never that close. Shocking because now she's my lesbian lover, I know. Why weren't Anna and I friends in high school? Frankly, I was intimated by her. One day during Sophomore year, my biology lab partner, Bruce Tran, made a list of the 10 hottest girls in our school. I distinctly remember him being like, "OH MAN! That new girl Anna is so fucking hot. She's definitely in the Top 5!" So when Anna joined my group of friends a few years later, I was all, "OH GOD. It's Anna. Of BRUCE TRAN'S TOP 5 FAME!!!1 I'm scared so I'm not going to talk to her, ever!" I understand this is quite possibly the dumbest reason to not be friends with someone, but it happened. And I'm not proud. I lost a solid year of friendship with Anna and frankly Bruce Tran, I blame you and your list. My point is Anna and I only got close Freshman year of college and therefore Becca didn't know her as well as my other friends, who I had known since middle school.

2.) There were two other important people at the party that day: my sister's co-worker "June" and June's boyfriend, who we shall call "Andre," as they brought Verdi to the party, which was my first (but definitely not last) experience with malt champagne. There's really no delicate way to say this, but it's an important part of the story so I'm just going to go ahead and say it—June and Andre were ghetto. Lovely people! But ghetto as the day is long. They brought Verdi unironically. They stood out like sore thumbs in a sea of preppy white kids in Glover Park. During the course of their friendship, Becca never gave June a ride home due to honest-to-god safety concerns. Again, two of the nicest people you'll ever meet and I'm not judging. I'm just saying theyz was G-H-E-T-T-O. Moving on.

The party was fantastic. My friends and I ate and drank our little 19 year-old faces off. I liken our first experience drinking malt champagne to the first time a vampire drinks blood on True Blood. At first we were a bit skeptical and weirded out, but once that first drop of Verdi hit our lips—there was no stopping us. We were ripping the bottle away from each other's mouths and chugging like we had been wondering the Gobi desert. It was glorious.

As the party winded down, Anna and I stood in the doorway of Becca's bedroom talking, probably having a drunk heart-to-heart about Bruce Tran and the perils of high school while my sister helped her guests gather their coats and said her goodbyes. Suddenly Becca ran up to us and asked, "Has anyone seen a random black purse??" Just then, June's boyfriend Andre walked by. "Oh, THERE HE GOES!" Anna exclaimed, pointing directly at Andre.

Time stood still. My sister's mouth dropped, Andre kept walking and Anna, genuinely excited that she had helped my sister find the party's random black person, continued to point at Andre. Becca made a half-gasp/half-laugh noise and walked away stupefied. "WHAT?! What's wrong?!" a confused Anna asked me. Between gasps for air as I rolled around the floor hysterically laughing, I explained to Anna that my sister was looking for a random black purse, not a random black person.

Anna was mortified. 100% mortified. She was convinced for years that my sister hated her and thought she was racist. I can honestly say that Becca never hated Anna, but she miiiiiight have thought she was questionably racist a little bit, no matter how many times I tried to explain that Anna doesn't refer to all black people as "black purses."

And now every Thanksgiving when we're going around the table saying what we're thankful for, I thank God this mix-up happened. Because it has enriched my life in ways that you will never be able to understand.

Fin.

In keeping with this week's racially charged theme, I give you the Crash Drinking Game! (And no, not that Crash Drinking Game...)


Rules:
Drink When:
- Someone says a racial slur
- SOMEONE DOES IT! ("It" being sex)
- Sandra Bullock says something racist and it's shocking because she's Sandra Bullock
- Someone dies
- Someone gets finger banged
- St. Christopher is referenced
- A gun is drawn
- Ludacris rants about how it sucks to be black
- UTI. We've all been there. We feel for you old man.
- A grown man cries
- Ryan Phillipe. I said God damn.
- Graham's mysterious brother is referenced
- An Asian person struggles to properly pronounce their L's (THIS REALLY HAPPENS! I'M NOT JUST ASSUMING!)

As always, thank you so much for reading, preaching the 2b1b word, twittering, facebooking and writing us in here. We really, really appreciate it. Have a great weekend and we'll see you all back here bright and early Monday morning! Later!

I was Accidentally Racist: Asian Edition!

So...I was accidentally racist again last night. This time may have been the most mortifying thus far. I don't know why this keeps happening to me (again and again and again...) but I hate it. I would take this time to prove to you that I'm not racist, but I feel like people who say racist things and then work overtime to prove how not racist they are actually the biggest racists on the planet. So I'm not saying I'm not racist. But I'm also not saying I'm not, not racist. Walk with me...

As I'm sure you've picked up by now, I've been in a bit of a way recently. I'm one of those people where if one aspect of my life is going downhill (i.e. work...in a big way) then everything else seems like it's going downhill too and I just sit here all day thinking about how everything is spiraling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it except turn off the lights, put on The Smith's Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want and dramatically writhe, writhe, writhe, check my email, writhe, writhe, change into comfy pants, writhe. You know. I'm That Guy.

I decided to skip the gym last night and instead curl up on the couch with a bottle of wine, an order of pad thai and my lap top to do some extensive job hunting. Having already taken off my pants the minute I got home (per usual,) I ordered Thai food to be delivered. I was told that my order would take about 40 minutes and decided to take that time to return a phone call to College Roommate Danielle. Like clockwork, I got a call 40 minutes later from the Thai food delivery guy saying that he was downstairs and I needed to come down to get my food. Right off the bat I was irritated. If I have to go through the trauma of putting my pants back on and physically moving myself downstairs anyway, I might as well have gotten carry-out, but! whatevs. I was just psyched my food was there.

I hung up with Danielle, begrudgingly put pants back on and went downstairs and there was no one in the lobby. "Have you seen a Thai food delivery guy?" I asked our doorman. "Well, there was a food delivery guy just here but he said he was looking for **** New Hampshire Avenue, which doesn't exist." God damnit. They got my address wrong. I live on **** 20th Street, not **** New Hampshire. The smell of sweet, sweet Thai food was still wafting through the lobby and I drooled on the pants I resented so. I thanked the doorman, went upstairs and called the delivery guy back. I gave him my correct address, he giggled, I wept and he said he would be there in five minutes.

Five minutes later, I went back downstairs and waited for another 15 minutes. Finally I got a call from the delivery guy, who was at **** N Street. Gah! 20th street! Not N! COME ON DELIVERY GUY! You're cutting into my precious, precious writhing time! I corrected my address for him (again) and he assured me that he'd be there in 20 minutes. I sighed, went back upstairs and poured myself a glass of wine.

20 minutes later, feeling famished, tired and slightly buzzed, I returned to the lobby where there was a young Asian man waiting. Still slightly irritated, I walked up to him, motioned towards the plastic bag in his hand in a miffed tone said, "Hey. I think that's mine." He shifted his eyes around the room and stared at me inquisitively. I motioned a twenty towards him, "For Meghan, right?" I asked impatiently, "Pad thai and crispy tofu?" He paused and then in an accent that may have been from New Jersey said, "Um. I live here."

Oh. My. God. This was not the delivery guy at all. This was just some random Asian kid who lives in my building who I was shoving a twenty dollar bill in the face of and demanding the contents of what I could now clearly see was a CVS bag from.

I turned bright red. A wave of nausea rocked my entire body and I literally hid my face behind my hands as I cried, "OH MY FUCKING GAWD. I AM SO. SO. SO SORRY." He didn't laugh, but he didn't get mad either. He just sort of nodded at me like, "Yeah...this must be really embarrassing for you," which kind of made it worse. "I'm so sorry! I saw— I thought— I've been waiting and I just thought—" I mumbled. He nodded again. Just then, the real Thai food delivery guy walked in, waved and pointed to the receipt on the bag. My eyes lit up and I motioned towards the Thai food guy and then back at my neighbor and said, "SEE?!"

What I meant by "SEE?!" was that I really was waiting for Thai food and wasn't just assuming that an Asian person has an order of pad thai on him at any given moment. However, directly after I stopped motioning between the two of them, with a "RIGHT?!" look on my face, I realized that I was coming off a little too "SEE?! ALL YOU SQUINTY FUCKERS LOOK ALIKE TO ME!" Which is really, really not how I meant it.

I tipped the delivery guy $10 and in the truest definition of the word, ran back up to my apartment.

I have never been so mortified in all of my life. But in my defense, I was fucking starving. I saw an Asian man in flip-flops carrying a plastic bag—I assumed it was dinner time. A + B = C. Do I think I was wrong in this situation? Of course I do. Do I think my neighbor wasn't exactly helping himself? Maybe.

The ultimate irony here is that the entire reason Danielle called me in the first place was to tell me about something embarrassing that happened to her that day because she knew of all people, I would be able to relate. After we hung up I legitimately thought to myself, "Hmm. That's odd...something senseless and mortifying hasn't happened to me in a month of Sundays...Welp! Looks like someone's turning over a new leaf!"and strutted off all cocky-like to go to ask my Asian neighbor how tending the rice fields is working out for him.

Guess I should look for a new apartment as well as a new job tonight...Greeeeat.

Ooo. That was a little Don Imus of me.

OH GOD. I accidentally said something racist yesterday to Boss #1. My bad.

I got my hair cut Monday night. It was much needed. My hair was getting a little too "Horse Lover" for my liking. It was long and scraggly and every time it brushed against my back I'd shutter and be like "oh god my name should be Misty."

So, after work Monday night, I jogged over to Bang and hacked it all off. Madeline Kahn a la Mrs. White in Clue was my inspiration:


Russell-the-Co-Worker was the first at work to see my new do. "You...cut your hair." Yep! "...Did you ask them to cut it like that?" Uh, yes. "Oh. Well. It looks...nice." Thanks. I think?

Boss #1 came in later that afternoon and was much more receptive to the change. But then this highly unfortunate conversation happened:
Boss #1: So has Russell seen your hair yet?
Me: Yeah, he was in earlier.
B1: Did he like it?
M: Honestly, I don't think so. I don't think he meant to hurt my feelings or anything but he was all, "did you ask them to cut your hair like that on purpose?" LOL! Ohhhh Russell!
B1: Pshh! Don't let that bother you.
M: Oh, I'm not.
B1: I just think that men don't like change. That and I think they like long hair. Like, my husband won't let me cut my hair shorter than my shoulders, you know? But he'll get used to it.
M: Yeah, well, I'm not really that stressed about it. Russell isn't exactly the demographic of man I'm going for, if you know what I mean.
*ZACK MORRIS STYLE TIME OUT!* Now of course, the demographic of man that I was referring to was older, married men. Why would I go for Russell? Look at him; he's happily married, has a giant flock of kids and is old as fuck. The fact that he's black has nothing to do with anything, I swear! *TIME IN!*
B1: [Nods understandably] Gotcha. Have you ever tried dating a black guy? Had a bad experience or something?
M: No, although I did have a big crush on my morning Caribou barista who's bla—wait a minute...Oh! Oh, god! You thought I meant Russell isn't my demographic because he's black! *ZACK MORRIS STYLE TIME OUT!* Oh Meg. Why couldn't you have just let Boss #1 just think you're a giant racist? She's kind of a hillbilly, you know it didn't bother her. Why did you have to start digging a giant hole for yourself and then awkwardly try to climb out of it? Bless your heart...*TIME IN!* Because that's not what I meant. When I said "demographic." I meant he's married. And old. Not that he's old, old. Because you're probably the same age. [Boss glares at me] I just meant older. Than me. And married. And Russell. So he's not who I'm going for. I don't care that he's black. Because I like black people. A lot, actually! Haha...hah...I think I'm black on the inside. What's that called? An inside-out-oreo? Inside-out-twinkie? Oh no, that's as Asian thing. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH ASIANS. Although I've never dated an Asian either. Mostly I date white Jewish guys. But not on purpose! I don't like, profile or anything.
B1: Ok... [shifts eyes around and walks away]

BAHAHAHAHA! I out-overshared the Queen Oversharer! Yes, with accidental racism and then an embarrassing amount of effort spent trying to prove that I'm not racist, but still! I made her uncomfortable. Hats off to this girl.

Next step: talking about my snatch.