Friday We Went To The City And Dave Drew a Snowman on a Tablecloth

Yep.  It's a keeper. Note: The wine is purely medicinal. It's cold out there in the snow even if you are made of snow (at least that is what I've heard.)

You know, we don't get out much.  So we decided to get out of Dodge and go to the "big" city for the day. I use quotes for a very obvious reason.  The city I am speaking of is really not that big. And we didn't even go to the biggest more city-est parts of the city.  We basically went to a shopping center, and people who get excited about that are very sad individuals.  And we are.  They say that acceptance is key in any kind of recovery and we are recovering from chronic smalltownism.  What is Smalltownism you ask?  Well, let me quote the experts.

"Smalltownism is a condition found mainly in those who live in places with populations under 3,000 and at least twenty-five percent of those are married to a not-so-distant relative, and/or are over the age of 82.5 years.  The symptoms of this disorder are slow to present, and can be confused with other, more common conditions such as addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, LSD, or crafts.   Most of those who have diagnosed Smalltowism have very expensive cable packages and pets named Jethro."

I was pretty excited to leave SmallTown and drive to a place that requires more than 1/4 of a tank of gas.  The roads had multiple lanes and I think I even heard someone beep a horn.  It's was fabulous.  We made a mistake and pulled into the wrong shopping center but even that was exciting.  So many of the same kinds of stores, big stores with lots of things in them, stores that have people WE DON'T KNOW manning the registers!!!  No small talk.  No asking about someones kid or goat!  No laughing at jokes that aren't funny!! No Jokes!!  No Smiles!!  No comments on the heat/cold!!!

I was in heaven.  We first entered a large store that has nothing but shit for the house.  Yes, it was Decorating Heaven.  I was on some sort of natural high which simply means that my own brain was giving me a buzz.  Awesome! (and yet, don't get me wrong -wine is nice too. )  I started experiencing mild hallucinations  in which better-than-average grade Chinese products looked like fine pieces of fine art, and everyone in the room was using terms such as "must haves" and "open concept" "faux" "task lighting" and Feng Shui." I found myself throwing things into the cart, things like a colander because it was "cute" and "white," and towels because they were "white" and made out of a real fabric (I think.)  Dave added a box of large wine glasses to the cart, the kind that people who drink good wine use, the kind I like because when you use these glasses, you are always only having half a glass of wine.  Besides they look fancy and too big to slip out of your hands.  Why am I justifying this purchase?  Look, we bought wine glasses, Ok?  BIG ONES that hold LOTS OF WINE.  Whatever.  Shut up.

Then we were hungry and it was then that we realized that in this magical place were many places in which we could find food.  Yes, places that did not close down for the season in September!  Places that are so good, they are part of a CHAIN! Pub places that serve huge burgers with fancy things like avacado on them and arugula salads.  The kinds of places that are filled with STRANGERS - yes people who we don't know and will never know, loud drunk people we will never see again!!  YIPEE!!!!!

And then Dave grabbed the CRAYONS that are placed on every table to occupy a bored child, or to satisfy a musician's sudden artistic urge while obviously also under some sort of smalltownism discorder related hallucination in which he believes he is an artist.  He began to draw on the paper tablecloth that was placed on the table for just this reason.  Yes, he drew a snowman and no one noticed and/or told all their neighbors about it the next day!! So I drew a wine glass in the snowman's hand, thinking for SURE this would be the talk of the city, but NO ONE CARED AT ALL!!!  And then he took a picture of it with his phone and sent it to all his friends and family members via text message, and then  I did too.  Yes WE WERE TEXTING IN A PUBLIC PLACE and NOT TALKING  FACE TO FACE WITH ANYONE REAL ABOUT THE WEATHER OR FARMING !!!!! It was awesome !

Before we left I ordered a tall vanilla late at Starbucks, convinced as I was that this would make the buzz last longer, hopefully for the whole drive home, but something even better happened.  We got in a traffic jam for about 5 minutes and someone beeped a horn and made a gesture with his hand!  At that point I knew this day could not get any better, and even though we were heading back to our reality the memories of this day would live on forever.

and ever and ever and ever, ya'll.  Yup. It was right awesome.