(crs) Enjoy your drunk friend's ravings vol.4

Happy President's Day! Nothing like a national holiday I have to call in sick to enjoy to really perk up the mid-winter blues. How did you spend your day off? If you're like me, then you spent half your waking hours trying to find SOMEWHERE that would accept a personal check in exchange for booze. That's right, the saga of the fraudulent pizza continues - my card has been deactivated, I've spent all the nickels in my change mug on camel lights, and there was an unfortunate incident last night with my remaining worldly assets (I think I may have set my $10 metro card and what cash I had on fire in order to light cigarettes off of them. Why?). Thus, when I got in the mood today for some champagne to have with my bubble bath, it became more than a little difficult to procure such a necessity. Of course the banks weren't open. Their "only open when you have better shit to do" policy forbade that I be able to write a simple check to "cash". Thank god for my local Giant grocery store. With their cheerful help I was able to walk out with an eight dollar bottle of 2007 vintage Freixenet (cordon negro, thank you very much) and some parmesan basil wheat thins. A simple rule of thumb, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation: if they honor food stamps, they'll honor your checks.

So we're all back to work tomorrow. That means decision time for me. How fresh and relevant is "food poisoning" versus "a throat thing" or "that stomach bug that's been going around"? I know that in the end, you just have to be able to convincingly answer one question - "are you feeling better?" If you're able to vomit on command, it's a perfect time to do so (but only if you're sure that the disgorged contents won't reek of gin. No such luck here). I just remember to look touched that my boss asked, relieved to be feeling good enough to come in to work, and embarrassed to have shown such weakness in the first place. It works just fine - people don't really care about your health in the first place, they're just sniffing around because they're jealous that you got to have a free day with champagne bubble baths while they were busy filing all the folders that you hid in the corner last week. Ha!

Do you know that blood bounces on ice? It's a fun little tidbit I picked up from a Judy Blume novel (Superfudge, if memory serves), but it's pretty much all I have to contribute if the conversation turns toward hockey. I guess that and the fact that Avril Lavigne enjoys playing the sport, but only insecure fat girls and really queeny guys care about that, and when speaking with such an audience hockey is not likely to be discussed in the first place. Vomit, Blume purports, will also bounce on ice. I assume this is due to some sort of temperature differential. There, now you can roll with the hockey fans.

So I ended up writing a check to one of my roommates for some cash (thanks papi!). Having spent it all already on a pleasant sushi dinner, I'm left staring at a charred one dollar bill and an equally singed metro card and wondering how I'll get to work tomorrow. Drunk Chris is so crazy!

-Chris