7:00 am: *ring, ring* (actually, more like my Lady Gaga ringtone).
I look over at my cell phone. It's my Mom.
Ignore.
7:01 am: *beep, beep* (I've got a voicemail).
7:05 am: *ring, ring*
Mom.
Ignore (again).
*ding*
Text (1) Mom: Where are you?
I go through this process about 50 more times, until I think it’s an acceptable hour to get up and begin my journey to Buffalo, NY (around 2pm).
To spend 4 days with my mother and step-father.
My mother is perhaps one of the least sane people I know. She has her Masters in Social Work, and worked in the field for about 3 days, until she met her 4th husband, who happens to be a psychiatrist. She now devotes her time to charity work (does it get more WASP than that?), and splits her time between America and their new castle in Ireland.
If you are wondering where I get my poor boundaries, impulsivity, and shopping addiction from, your curiosity will dissipate once you have met my mother.
So that brings me to Buffalo, NY.
7 hours from civilization (specifically CT).
The drive consists of one farm, after another farm, after another one.
“GOD why is this so far?” I think so myself. I glance at the clock, and realize I've been driving for about 10 minutes.
6 hours and 50 minutes to go.
FML.
Halfway through the drive I stop at rest area...mmm...McDonalds. I haven’t had a Macwrap in, oh god, give or take about 24 hours. I order about 15 dollars worth of food (all of course while pretending it’s for my “family” and make my way back to to the car.
As I am carefully carrying my 2 bags of McDoanlds and large DIET coke back to the car I feel my grasp slip on my soda.
“No, no, no,” I think.
*crash!*
I drop the soda.
As I realize in horror my pink tutu (what else do you wear on a 7 hour car ride?) and sparkly flip flops and sopping wet I pick up the empty container and stand up to see a crowd of the hottest men I have ever seen in my entire life staring at me.
That was subtle.
To continue on the route of subtly I sprint back to my car and peel out of the parking lot at 80 miles per hour.
I arrive 4 hours later in Buffalo, NY.
The locals drink Genesee beer (or Labatt's if they are feeling classy), and may or may not be missing some teeth.
So here I am. Stuck in the house with my mom and step-father for 4 days.
I walk in the house. Rip of my tutu and put on JEANS. Ugh. I immediately sprint to an undisclosed location and retrive the hidden stash of alcohol (see, sister, ex-wino).
I make a G&T and sitdown to relax.
*Ring. Ring* My cell phone.
Seeing that I don’t recognize the number I promptly ignore the call.
*ding!* Voicemail.
I begin to listen to my voicemail, and suddenly I choke on my G&T. “Hi Amanda, this is Lauren. I know you hate me, but I just thought I would tell you what DB did to me and what and asshole he is. I just thought you would find it amusing. Call me if you want to.”
I listen to it again. Did the love of DB’s life, the girl he left me for because he had never felt this way about anybody just call me to tell me what HE did to HER?
I resist the urge to call her...for now. (More on this later)
I pop a couple Xanax and focus on online shopping.
At this point I’m about 4 minutues away from a complete mental break. Oh I hope they send me to Betty Ford. God I will need a whole new wardrobe. I would definitly meet my 2nd husband there. It would be so glam. Him a recovering coke addict, me there for some much needed “rest”. Our wedding would have to be dry but that would be okay because we could just tell everybody about our amazing journey together in recovery. Him from coke. Me from psychotic phone calls.
I google Betty Ford.
Fuck.
$26,000 for 30 days. God that is like...a lot of Swarvoski Crystal cuffs. Maybe if I sell everything I own I could afford it? It would totally be worth it because my future husband will be rich if he can afford it. Unless he spent it all on coke and his parents paid for it.
Plan B. The bar.
I never thought a drive to the local bar could sound so heavenly, when my mother suggestes that we go out for a "night on the town".
We get into to the car to leave for the bar and start driving.
We arrive 2 and 1/2 minutes later.
Well...that's convienent.
I drop my mom off because she sees someone she simply "must" catch up with, darling.
I pull up to the bar and see a Tiki Bar set up on the grass...oh I hope they have Peach Sangria!
I realize there is no valet. I consider offering 5 bucks to the 50 something year old guy who is standing outside of the bar and appears to be drinking something out of a paperbag to park the car, but think better of it.
However, he does politly inform me to park "in the back" aka on the lawn that also homes somebody's cozy trailer.
I drive slowly to "the back" and realize that I have now made quite a walk for myself, in heels.
I begin the walk to the bar. Each step I feel my heels sinking deeper and deeper into the grass. Until finally I realize I am barefoot. My left shoe has gotten stuck in the mud and slipped out of my foot.
Fuck!
My pedi!!
I gracefully (and when I say gracefully, I mean without falling) bend over to retrive my heel. As I stand up I realize there is a game of 20 something hotties have stopped their game of horseshoes and are now staring at me.
As I survery the scene I realize that in retrospect, 2 coats of my Lady Gaga lipstick may have been wasted to go and watch the locals drink Genesee and play horseshoes.
I see my mom at the bar (duh) already scoping out single men for her single daughter.
Just as I'm about to I tell her that her body launguage is making me nervous she whips her head around and immediatly begins chatting up the seemingly single 20 something male, who has approached the bar.
In something out of a bad social skills training group she bluts out, "Do you know the name of the band?"
"Uh, no. I think there are flyers floating around somewhere."
"This is my daughter Amanda."
At this point, unlike my mother my body language is very closed. It basically says, "if you talk to me I will politly repsond while thinking about shopping and waiting for the apporirate time at which I can excuse myself to use the restroom."
Come to find out, reading social cues are not one of his strong points. Which is surpirsing given the amount of time he appears to have spent getting wasted in local bars being rejected by women.
He buys me a Bud Light, which in Upstate New York is practically an engagement ring and persistantly chats me up.
After a few more beers I find myself talking candidly to this nice young man (MIke? Mark?) behind a shed. Am I at a bar or a frat party? All of a sudden in a very bad Sandra Bullock romantic comedy but not way he says, “I’m going to kiss you” and does.
At one point in the evening I glance over to the local band and I THINK I see my mom on stage playing an insturment and dancing, but I'm not sure (aka praying I am delusional).
As I leave the bar with my mother, in the backseat of a car that is being driven by a homicide detective, I realize that Betty Ford doesn’t hold a candle to Buffalo, NY.
Except that my heels probably wouldn’t be ruined if I was at Betty Ford.
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