Elaine's Diary, aka Turkey Drop

sunday, september 18

9:41am

                Guess how many days until Marc comes home??? ANSWER: ONLY FORTY!!! Forty days, that’s just like Lent! Easy! Well, aside from all the prayer and fasting and general unhappiness that goes on because, spoiler alert, Jesus dies at the end. But then, double reverse spoiler alert, he COMES BACK TO LIFE! What a cool guy.

                Basically what I am trying to say is that in a mere Lent-type time, Marc will come back into my very difficult and long-suffering life, just like Jesus.

9:50am

                Man, I sure have some crazy bedhead going on. I spent the night at Lydia’s with a couple other girls, and I must have been doing a headstand in my sleep because not even copious amounts of gel will make my poor follicles behave.     

9:51am

                I think the gel just made my hair worse, actually. Wow, it’s like a regular Trojan Rebellion up there. Or something.

11:00am

                On Friday, I spent my lunch hour in the WIH-ZUR section of the library again. The librarians were trying to teach a bunch of freshman delinquents how to read, or something. I listened in and the lecture went about like this:

Ms. Librarian: Here in the library, we have a bunch of really neat books that you all can read whenever  you like. We have every topic you can think of.

Young Delinquent: Do you have books on drugs and like being an alcoholic?

Ms. Librarian: Why… yes, I’m sure we have a couple of fiction books dealing with difficult topics. You can find them by using the Dewey Decimal System. Does anyone know what the Dewey Decimal System is?

Baked Hipster-Type: Is it… gaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?

Ms. Librarian: ………………………Well, it’s a way of ordering books by topic. Each topic has a number.

Future Prostitute: Is there a number for sex books?

Ms. Librarian: …………………………………………………………………………………………..Well, we do have a few fiction books that discuss adult topics, but fiction books don’t have numbers.

Gang Member: What if we can’t read?

                I did appreciate Ms. Librarian’s efforts, but she didn’t get very far with the anti-socials. Eventually she gave up and let them go check out books on their own. This happened right as I was putting my head down for a nap. Predictably, the Young Delinquent clique stood around me and debated whether or not to poke me awake, so I had to pretend to wake up and then I left the library.

later

                Got into a fight with Marc on the phone. He said that I had a cranberry pancake face for no reason! Well, aside from that I have a load of red spots hanging around my cranial area. But really. He didn’t have to say that I was a cranberry pancake. That is just insensitive, and it's really only because I keep forgetting to wear my Oobies.

he has a bit of a point, though.

               

         I forget what I said in return, but it was something bitingly witty, probably about his homosexual tendencies. Anyway, it was really good, but he can’t take a joke when he hears one, so he hung up on me.



two seconds later

                Long distance relationships can be hard. No wonder people are always telling us about Turkey Drop (that’s when a long distance couple breaks up around Thanksgiving.) (We’re not going to do that because Turkey Drop is even more stupider than having a pancake face.) (So I will just have to put up with this verbal abuse.)

later

                Went out for dinner with my mom and dad, since my siblings had Youth Group and the prayer group I’ve been trying to put together didn’t really show up after Mass. My father got a bit emotional because I am his first nest egg and I am turning eighteen in a week. “That makes you feel pretty old, doesn’t it?” I asked him.

                “It’s true,” he said. “I am 51 already.”

                This was a bit of a shock to me, since I always knew he was freakishly old but not dinosaur old. “Really?”

                “No, he’s 42,” my mother said.

                “Really?”

                “She’s lying,” my father said. “I’m actually 45.”

                “Really?”

                “No, he’s 39.”

                You can imagine what a state of confusion and general turmoil this put me in. Though I am brilliant, I am not the most competent with numbers. In the end, I figured out that he is somewhere between 44 and 52 years old, which is good enough for me.

9:04pm

                “Everybody says I look too young to have a seventeen-year-old,” my mother bragged later. “They say I must have gotten married young to have you.”

                “Did you tell them you were a child bride?” I asked.

                “She was not a child bride, don’t be ridiculous,” my father said.

                “You just don’t like that term because you were the gross old man who married her illegally,” I said.

                My father gave me a look that said ‘I am not sure if you are my daughter or a rhinoceros’.

   

9:11pm

                Then my father told me to go pick up my siblings from Youth Group. “Sure!” I said.

                He paused. “Wait, but… if you drive all three of my nest eggs in one car… what if you crack one?”

                “Well I can’t very well drive two cars at once, can I?”

                “But I want all my nest eggs to arrive home in one piece,” he said.

                “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’ve only gotten in five car accidents and they all happened when I first got my license. I haven’t hit anything for like four months.  Except for the trash can and that one didn’t count.”

                “Oh, dear,” my father said.

                “Dad, they were just little baby car accidents!”

                The end verdict was that I couldn’t pick my siblings up from Youth Group, because my so-called paterfamilias is paranoid.

9:17pm

                My father tried to make me feel better about being an ‘irresponsible teenage driver’ by telling me that I looked pretty. I knew this wasn’t true because I was wearing a sweater, jeans, and a scarf, but I played along.

                “Thanks Daddy, you know what they say, ‘modest is hottest’! So I’m looking SMOKING hot right now!”

                Both my parents stared at me.

                “Is that a real saying?” my mother asked.

                “Of course!” I said.

                “I don’t even… that's... I’m at a loss for words,” my father said.

                “Me too,” my mother said.

                They can be so strange.

9:45pm

                Went downstairs and showed my mother a few pictures of Marc that I have saved on my phone. “Aw, these are nice,” my mother said. “His hair’s getting longer!”

                “Yeah, I told him to grow it out,” I said.

                She gave me a Strict Look. “Did he tell you to grow your hair out, too?” But when she said these words, her tone of voice was saying, “Please grow your hair so you don’t look like a lezzy anymore.”

                I think she is just jealous of my fluffy little mane.