I made copies.

So, for once, I was going to do Trav's Memoir Mondays. But since I'm a tard, I forgot that it was picture time. Anyway, I wrote this for you, Papa Bear.







Sometimes a song can take you back. When I think of a song taking me back, most of the time it's something romantic. Meaningful.

Not this time.

I heard this song last night. And before you make any judgements, this song is officially on my 'songs of shame' list, circa 2001.

Anytime I hear this song, I can feel the ghost of hangovers past, even if I've had nothing in the world to drink.

At that particular point in my life, I shared a house with two of my cousins.

One was kickass, my best friend in life ever, and the other was...and there's no nice way to say this-- a cuntessa.

Me and B (the good cousin) would go out, get shitfaced, and come home. The cuntessa was heavily into all kinds of boy bands. Aaron Carter, Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, Britney Spears, and their associated candy ass friends.

So, after we'd spent the night getting our drunk on, the cuntessa would wake us up to one song. One song was the soundtrack to all of our hangovers. It was the Backdoor Boy's Larger Than Life.

She even had a kind of weird ritual with that song. I remember how the beginning of the song would inCREASE in volume, to just short of ear-shattering.

I remember the canned laugh that's in the song, and how everytime I heard it, it would bring me fully awake, bleary, red-eyed, dry of mouth, and resentful.

I had to give it to bitcherella, she had perfect timing.

On this particular morning, I remember B using her sweetest reasoning skills. "Turn that off, or I'm going to kill you!"

The song finally ended, after bitchy macdickerson had played with the volume awhile, and finally got tired of our weary acceptance of the song.

----

Me and B worked at the same place, where we were both waitresses. We got paid minimum wage plus tips, which was pretty awesome, because our checks covered our bills, and whatever tips we made fronted our necessities. Beer, mostly.

I remember at the start of every shift, she'd give this big, weary, put-upon sigh. Her shoulders would slump, and I knew she was thinking of the next eight hours we had ahead of us. That was my cue to give her 'the talk.'

The talk was like the pep talk a coach would give you before the start of the game. If done right, it would pump you up, and you'd carry a little bit of it with you throughout the night, when you needed it most.

My talk went something like this:

B. I know our shift is just starting, but just think of it this way: whatever money we make tonight, that's ours. We can do whatever we want with it. Ponies, cowboy hats, dinosaurs, chocolate milk, sparkly stuff, or, beer.

I know you're going to make at least, at least fifty dollars tonight. You can do it. You look hot. You're gonna sell that shit, but first [and this is the point where I'd reach toward her white button up shirt] I'm gonna help you out a little.

I know you hate this part, but it works, doesn't it? She'd nod her head, and then I'd unbutton the top three buttons of her white shirt, because she was a fucking breastasaurus rex.

I never knew her exact bra size (she refused to tell me) but I knew how embarrassed she was when we'd go try on bras, so I had it figured out that her bra cup would fit mostly over my head, yarmulke style, with a little grazing the top of my ears. (This saved lots of changing room embarrassment incidents, because I had no problem putting bras on my head in public.)

Once we'd done the unbuttoning, we had the talk, we were ready to be charming, sexy waitresses, and make our money.

Before we left the bathroom, we always had one final ritual. We'd say to each other, in unison "Make that money, gurrrrl." And then we'd laugh, and go to our night.

----

The difference in B's waitressing style, and my waitressing style was that she somehow managed to find the guys who wanted to get handsy.

I never had that problem.

She asked me once how I did it, and I tried to explain to her that it was a fine line. You had to be charming, a pinch of sexy, heavy on the sarcasm, while somehow giving a 'no touchy' vibe.

For me, that came easy.

For B, she was forever dodging restless hands.

Anyway, on this particular night, I think I ended up with about $80, and she had about $20. Even though B always made less in tips than me, she earned that money probably twice over.

We always put our money together. That's what I remember best. There wasn't really any 'my' or 'yours', it was 'ours'.

When I counted up our money, I smiled and said "We have $100. J.R.'s having a party, wanna go?"

God, I miss her. Her answer to any sort of 'do you want to have a good time/lots of laughs' type of question was always yes. I didn't have to worry about who was gonna be there, because she was one of the most easygoing, low maintenance friends I've ever had. We both pretty much got along with everyone, which made for a lot of kickass social gatherings.

So, we went. We stayed a little while, decided that it wasn't really where we wanted to be, then went to punch our clock, because it was Miller time.

That particular night, we parked the car, and walked two blocks to this little park that no one ever went to. It had this gigantic tire, where we'd sit, take off our backpacks (each heavy with beer) and drink.

Those were the best times. Me and her. Beer.

We'd sit on that old tire, and laugh about everything. We'd mostly laugh about the dumb stuff we'd done in grade school, high school, and more often than not, last week.

When our backpacks were light, and we were both pleasantly buzzed, we'd walk back home.

On this particular night, we went back to our house, and somehow managed to talk the cuntess (who was a non-drinker, for the most part) into drinking a few with us.

That night, I decided that maybe I'd been too hard on bitchzilla. Beer brought out the best in her. She was affable, joking, and when B started singing, she decided to make a request. A Patsy Cline number that B belted out with gusto, but not much else.

The three of us ended up falling asleep in our living room (without the aid of the Backstreet Boys, I'm happy to report.)

----

The next night, B and I invited the cuntessa out with us, which she declined with as much hauteur and bad grace as she could. In other words, she was being herself.

We left the car, choosing to ride with one of our friends, and we both told her to leave either the front or the back door open.

----

When we finally got back that night, we were both laughing, happy, and ready to just watch some tv.

The front door was locked.

So was the back door. And the cuntessa wasn't answering our knocking.

I'd kind of foreseen this, so before we left, I had unlocked our window.

I remember looking at B, and saying, "I left our window unlocked so we could get in." She looked at me like I was Jesus, and we walked around back to our room.

Right beside the house was this old ass exercise bike. I stood on that, while opening the window, and pushing the blinds aside.

While I was trying to ease into the window, I saw her. Bitchzilla was watching me climb into the window, and didn't offer any kind of help.

Instead, she had the remote to her stereo in her hand, and I heard her start the current tape in the deck.

What happened next was possibly the best incident of my life.

Right as I was leaning into the window, I heard B singing Patsy Cline's Crazy. No, it wasn't B standing behind me, randomly bursting into song. The cuntess of bitchingham had taped B singing that song, the night we all had a few beers together. She had taped it and probably had this evil scheme in her mind, even as she sipped beers with us.

When sober me heard drunken B belting out Patsy Cline, I lost it. I was halfway in, halfway out of the window, and I just kind of fell, my stomach slamming into the window ledge.

The cuntessa decided to rewind the last part I heard, where B's voice was all over the musical map. I was laughing so hard, that I couldn't move. My top half was warm from the heat, my ass was freezing from the cold, and all I could do was laugh.

I would probably still be there, laughing, if B hadn't shoved my legs through the window, screeching at bitchingham to STOP THE GODDAMN TAPE!

I was to that point in my laughter, that I couldn't stop. It didn't help that the cuntessa was rewinding the part where B sings "Wondering what in the world did I do?" over and over and over.

B finally managed to crawl through the window, and when she did, she ran right for the tape. The cuntessa made no move to stop B when she ripped the tape apart.

"It's okay," she smirked, "I made copies."