Two Dumb Biyatches In the City (Episode 1)

Yesterday's tease gave minor information regarding a trip to Ikea and a Time Lapse.

There are many events that are recalled only by one or the other of us, so Elle will be here today helping me out. Say hey, Elle!


Hey, Elle!  (heh heh heh)

As you now know, Elle is a smart-ass. She'll be in RED today. I will remain black and neutral.

Elle and I seem to fall into these Lapses often. We occasionally "run to Target" and make it back several hours later. Maybe we browse, maybe Target filters some kind of Memory Erasing Gas into their air ducts. I dunno.

We did have a mission, initially, when we left for Ikea. Elle needs a box spring for her twin sized bed. See that, underneath? That would be a toddler mattress posing (and not well, either) as a box spring. Check this out.

Welcome to my room, yo!

We spent some time testing mattresses. It was all very scientific. I tested the spring resistance from objects (me) catapulting from five, ten and fifteen feet away. Elle's job was to judge how much the mattress jiggled when I jumped on it. Also, to be on the lookout for store employees. 

Readers, you have a task, If you have an Ikea near you, please immediately drop what you're doing (after reading the rest of the Adventure, of course) and run out. The two mattresses in question are: The Ikea Sultan Fossing, a foam mattress much akin to a Tempurpedic, but not as expensive and probably not quite as good. I require a king sized bed, as I have two tiny terrorist children that you've read so much about. They ambush me of a morning and I need to have room to fight back without worrying that they'll fall over the edge and break something expensive. Like a lamp or their back. But I digress! The cost of this mattress is $549. The catch? You have to buy the bottom part too, for an additional $200. The other mattress that I'm considering is the Sultan Hasbo. It's a mere $499 (plus $200 for the base) BUT! it's a spring mattress. I think it's smothered in foam as well, because it behaves much as a foam mattress would when overgrown women-children leap, screaming, onto the bed. What's this? You can buy a much cheaper slatted base? Quickly, Ikea Experts! What's better? Solid, more traditional base or a cheap Ikea slatted base? Foam or spring? I have an as-yet-not-in-my-bank-account tax return to spend!

Oh-kay. Now that Elle has both advertised for Ikea and hijacked my blog-

It needed some revamping. What? 

.....

Yeah. That's right. Hey, E, wanna grab a single drink at a restaurant bar not far from here? 

Yes. Back on track. So. We decided to grab a drink at a restaurant close to Ikea. I was fighting a headache and since it was Friday night, I knew any other place would be blaring bad music and I would most likely succumb to the involuntary urge to gouge out my ears. After three seconds deliberation, we decided to instead drive twenty minutes to the other side of town and hit our favorite (and most popular) Irish Pub in town, Kells.

A moment. You may not know this (and I'm judging Emily harshly for not mentioning this earlier) but our entire family is borderline obsessed with all things Irish. Is it because we're very Irish? You'd think so. We're Vikings for the most part, with a small percentage of Scotch-Irish. Doesn't matter, our entire clan was destined to live in castles and cottages in The Motherland, raising sheep and professionally drinking Guinness. Except Em. She's a disappointment to the Guinness drinking members of the family. 

I am not! I like Sparkly Drinks. Beer's just- You know what? I'm not doing this again.

She's also the only one who doesn't like beer. We're very generous, though, and we allow her to remain a slightly shunned member of the group. Also, we need someone to drive us home after a few too many car bombs at our favorite Irish pub. Yeah, I'm well aware how shameful it is to use my sister like that. I also don't really care about shame when it comes to finding ways to sample more delicious beers. Somehow I've slid off onto another tangent. IRELAND! We've been, we actually have a club. A club sporting tattoos instead of sweater vests or jackets. We're Club Ireland. (We're also very creative when it comes to naming things.) It was four years ago this March and we're all afflicted with a tangible yearning to Go Back Home. Home! Where the grass is always so green, the daffodils adorn every freeway, the signs are written in both English and Gaelic, allowing hours of entertainment trying to sound out the words. The land of goat paths lined by small mountains which allow no wiggle room and are traversed by semi trucks and actual goats. The land of the happiest people on Earth, where there are no outsiders, only friends you haven't met yet. Where the accents seep into your soul and before the first day is out you find yourself saying things like "feck" and "lass". And the ruins of castles! They're EVERYWHERE! It's like it's portrayed in the movies, people, but even better. So when that itch strikes, we set out to Kells to see if there are any visitors from across the sea to help dampen the desire to sell off everything we own and hop the next plane to Dublin. Usually all that happens is that we make the sickness worse and actually start setting up Craigslist ads on our smart phones. Bad idea when you're several drinks in. It's a good thing my smart phone outsmarts me nine times out of ten and nothing gets posted. PHEW! It would be difficult to explain to my ex how I sold the kids to a soccer ball factory in Indonesia for sixty seven cents American. "It seemed like a good idea at the time..." I tell you, drink and technology are not meant to mix.

So, Em and I set out to have our single drink. We did well getting to the block that Kells is located on, but then we remembered why we usually end up there on a Tuesday or a Wednesday night at 8 pm. Because downtown is crawling with bar flies. They're everywhere, and most of them think that because they're on foot they're somehow invincible when stepping in front of a six ton Soccer Mom Mobile. We learned them different. They can try to walk through the side of the vehicle, but solid steel ain't moving for no 124 pound five-foot-five white boy wearing suspenders and short pants. So after we peeled Hipster off the side of the car, we circled the block no less than forty-six times, sometimes turning left, sometimes turning right, but to no avail. At one point Em looked over and noticed that the bouncer outside of a bar had grown a beard since the first time we drove past. She then decided to turn left (consequently in the opposite direction we wanted to go) to find parking.

Me: "Um, Em, that's a bridge. You can't turn around on a bridge. You need to get off this, now. I have no idea where that bridge takes us." (there are millions of large bridges in town. I'm still looking for the one that will take me to Neverland.)

Em: "Crap. Ok, uh, here!" 

She whips over into the center of the road. Directly behind an enormous stone support for the bridge we're sitting under. 

Me: "Heh. Hey, Em, how's that oncoming traffic looking? It's on the other side of the freaking stone mountain you parked behind."

Em: "It's fine, I can see. It's clear." and she pulls out directly in front of a small car. There was much screaming, mashing of the accelerator and immediate stomping of the brake. Because she pulled into the tiniest "parking lot" I've ever seen. Good to know that she's got good brakes, though. 

So we circle back, feeling very much like a flock of vultures after.. parking? Sandwiches? Men? Beer? 

Em: "I love this city. That window, the one adjacent to the.. um.. gentleman's club, says "Jesus is Lord."

For the record, I did NOT almost kill us. I almost maimed us. There's a difference.

The rest is true.

We eventually parked in a 24 hour lot for $10 (rip off!). After parking and walking across the street to Kells, we noticed a parking garage just to our right for $4. Awesome. Looks like someone owes me $6, Elle.

We got wrist-stamped (867-5309! The doorman appreciated that I was apparently the oldest person in the joint because I laughed and he said, "Oh, hey! SHE gets it!" Like all night long no one knew why they were having phone numbers stamped on their wrists). Elle and I headed to the bar and tried to elbow our way in. Fortunately for us, Elle picked a prime spot between Geezer and Guy With No Filter. 

Look, Em, it was the only place with even a remote chance of getting close to a bartender. The rest of the counter was 5 people deep. And now we know why. 

Since I fired my bartender, Adam, I tried to get this bartender to re-create the magic (it did not go well AT ALL). I'll go ahead and cut out about 20 minutes of lame-sauce where GWNF chats up my sister and because she's nice, we're stuck for a while and I'll get to the part where GWNF buys me a drink that I swear had about 95% alcohol in it. Yay. My first drink bought for me by a guy who's about 20 years older than me, leans inappropriately and smells like gasoline. 

Elle and I gracefully thanked GWNF, I downed the drink and ran like hell for the ladies room.

Elle: What the-

Me: Yeah. We aren't going back there. New spot.

Which ended up being next to the doorway to the hall because during the four and a half minutes we spent in the girl's room, 957 people had apparently bum-rushed Kells and there was pretty much no place to go.

It worked out pretty well, as it placed us right near a clear spot at the counter. No matter that it was technically reserved for the staff to put orders in the computer and drop dirty glasses. It was clearly intended for our use. 

I scanned the bar counter and spotted GWNF and his buddy. I planted myself just behind a group of people where there wasn't a chance of being spotted.

And that's when we saw him.

He danced like a dream, completely betraying the laws of nature by effortlessly leaping hither and thither, his feet kicking like only Michael Flatly can kick. His green plaid pants contrasted his bright red Ultimate Tee shirt and the black beret could only barely hide the glint of the dim barlight upon his pale hair.

He was 75 if he was a day. And he was out-dancing every hot woman under 35 in the place! 

Elle and I dubbed him Flannegan. We decided he was authentic Irish (most likely he was not) and applauded his efforts to pick up a hot piece of woman in the pub instead of staying at home with his knitting.

He inspired Elle and I to actually dance when we were each dragged out onto the dace floor completely against our will (if you look in our high school yearbooks, you'll see both our photos under the listing "completely talentless and most likely to injure someone while dancing"). And by "inspired," I mean he physically hauled Elle out there and made her prance around (and she was good at it, too. Dangit!). 

He literally danced me out of my shoes. And then I went and got another Guinness to rehydrate. Dancing is hard work!

 That's okay. I was later inspired by a guy I like to call "My middle name is Martin" (because that's all I could understand due to the noise level in that place) when Elle shoved me from behind and I sort of flopped onto the dance floor. I made things better by warning Middle Martin that he would "most likely limp away from this with a broken toe."

And this is where I will leave you, good friends. I've got kids to put to bed and a house to run! But come back tomorrow, for it gets infinitely better after the dancing bit. And Elle danced more. I'll also tell you about my shiny new bartender and how he lit my fire. Sorry. My drink on fire. Elle was the one he actually lit on fire.

Well, not actually. Sometimes I get a bit dramatic.

See you tomorrow!