CARE

I left work Monday afternoon, placed my ear phones in, and made my way to my Jetta parked in a parking garage about 6 blocks away. Walking there is a fun, interesting walk... usually. My building is located next door to the City's Probation Office, so the riff-raff that usually builds up in outside of it (especially since there is a bus stop right in front: bus stop = public transportation = not white people friendly) is typically worth noting. There were various different colors of dark skinned people, pets, and insects. 4 female employees, all appearing to be divorced and miserable, stood out front having their hourly cigarette break, most likely bonding over how their pre-pubecsent teenagers recently discovered RedTube and YouPorn and there are no clean towels in the house.

I walked by them, head high, music loud. I passed Banana Republic, a staple brand in any white girl closet, and reached the stoplight where there are two options for me to reach my destination. I could either cross straight or turn left and cross. The turn left and cross was the most viable option, as the light was green. Now, while crossing the crosswalk, I saw two young white men in black polos and khakis standing in front of Popeyes holding literature. White people do not go into Popeyes, so I knew they something was off. I was about 100 feet away when the taller, more attractive one started smiling and waving excitedly. A few things crossed my mind: A. I met this smiley boy, but did not remember his face so I was going to have to pretend I remember when he tells me we met at Wendy's one fateful night, OR  B. He was a Jesus (a Jesus = a dumb, religious person attempting to convert all non-Jesuses) OR C. He was related to TCB, because he sure as hell reminded me of him and had the same mannerisms. Also crossing my mind was that I had my f*cking retainer in and this random boy is about to talk to me and I am self-conscious. I walked a few more feet and instantly started sweating because Waving Boy looked more and more like TCB and he hadn't texted me in like, 3 months, and he is supposed to be in some country Europe where I hope he gets the plague.

I got closer.

Waving Boy: WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO?

Me in my head: Is this really happening? Am I going to be converted to a Jesus today? I actually don't know what I'm listening to, just some indie music I downloaded two nights ago so I have something added to my iTunes that isn't Lady GaGa or Glee, so when people look through my iTunes they say I have great taste and I want me to burn them a mixed tape 

Me aloud: WHAT???

Waving Boy: What are you listening to?

Me: (Stopped in front of the two black polos boys and stare, wondering if I should speak or not because I DO have plastic in my mouth, along with a really bad speech impediment because of this plastic so I dunno if they really want me to speak): I am really freaked out right now.

Waving boy and friend: Why???

Me: Are you associated with Popeyes?

Waving boy: (laughs) No, no, we are with CARE. Defending dignity. Fighting poverty.

Me in my head: Do I have 30 minutes to spare? This is entrapment. I wonder if I should be rude and keep walking. I mean, really though, I just worked 9 hours saving children and I want to go for a run before it starts raining even though it feels like a swamp outside and I am already sweating in my pits. This boy is cute though...

Me aloud: Oh I thought you were with Popeyes. You guys shouldn't stand out front. People will get the wrong idea.

Black polos laugh.

Me in my head: Thank god he didn't pursue the "what are you listening to" question. I would have to look at my iPod and tell him I'm listening to the new Twilight soundtrack.

Waving Boy approaches me closer to get more intimate, obviously about to give me his CARE schpeel. 

Waving Boy: Do you like to travel?

Me in my head: He looks like TCB. I am nervous. 

Me aloud: Yes.

Waving Boy: Oh you do?! Where is your favorite place to travel to?

Me: Japan

Waving Boy: Oh wow Japan! What is your favorite thing about Japan?

Me: The food.

Waving Boy: Haha actually that is my favorite answer. I love the food too.

Me: I like sushi.

Waving Boy: Haha! So why were you there?

Me: My parents.

Waving Boy: How long were you there?

Me: Four years. Then I came here.

Waving Boy: Talks about CARE. Talks about women and children dying from childbirth, dying from starvation, dying from dying.

I listened intently.

All while this is occurring, I tried to appear as attractive as possible with a retainer in my mouth. I learned somewhere that arching your back is a mating call as is fluttering your eyelashes. Someone also once told me that when females touch their hair, they are sending off sexual signals, but I don't like my hands (man hands, gorilla like) and I didn't have mittens to cover them up with, so I didn't touch my hair. I sucked in my stomach, and tried as much as possible to smile without showing my teeth. I did that thing you do when you have braces where you cover up your teeth with your upper lip because you are embarrassed and think no one can really notice your orthodontia if you cover it with your upper lip when really everyone knows you have a metal mouth. I laughed as little as possible, and when doing so, I cover my mouth with my hand. Typically, my flirting is a cross between being a menstruating b*tch with a lot of wit and charm, and lots of laughing. Since I couldn't laugh freely, I tried my hardest not to be appear like a humorless b*tch because this kid was talking to me about dying people who I really did feel sorry for. 

About halfway through his speech (about 45 minutes later) it starts to rain. We had to move under the Popeyes awning to seek cover. 

Waving Boy: You see this woman here? (Points to picture of black woman on his literature) She was given two dollars and created a life by herself by creating a banana farm and sells bananas and employs her daughters to sell bananas. She paid for her education....

Me in my head: I would love a banana right now. I really need to go for a run. It's raining right now and I'm getting wet. Do you think I should say I'm wet? Would that turn him on? He has hazel eyes and freckles. Our wedding should be outside so our eyes catch the sunlight and people would say our children are going to have beautiful eyes.

Waving Boy: .... We try to encourage people to donate every month by cutting back on things. For example, we tell people to not drink bottled water...

Me in my head: Oh he would love me. I love my Camelbak waterbottle but F*CK where is it? Dammit left it on my desk. I wonder if my salmon filet is thawed out at home. I will have that and my leftover veggies for dinner. I could whip up some rice too.

Waving Boy:  I am a student. I have to pay rent and tuition. I've made sacrifices. So for only 30 dollars a month....

Me in my head: WTF WHITE BOY. Your DADDY pays your tuition and rent. You live in the DC area. If you really wanted to help out, transfer to an instate public institution and donate the money you would have spent going to a private school to the starving Africans. I  know your tricks.

Me aloud: Omg. I cannot afford that. I am going to have an anxiety attack paying $30 a month.

Waving Boy: It's totally worth it.... more babble I don't remember.

Me in my head: If I sign up, he will have my phone number on file, meaning there is a chance he'll call me and possibly Facebook me. What a cute way to say you met your fiance.

Me aloud: I'll do it.

Waving Boy: Really?

Me: Yes. Sign me up.

Waving Boy: Ok! Whips out iPhone.

Me: I enter it in there?

Waving Boy: Yeah!

Me: Ok.

He takes my information and I am nervous someone on the street knows me. There I was, standing infront of Popeyes, getting shuffled around by the Latinos trying to get in and out the fried chicken stand, getting wet and giving my credit information out to a stranger on the street with a folder with a large Indian woman head on the cover. My reputation and street cred were at stake.

After the exchange of my name, address, phone number, credit info, etc... we said farewell. I walked away, placed my pods back in my ears, and marched away feeling good I did something great for society. I got in my car, and did a drive-by, just in case black polos saw me and would think I was cool and outdoorsy because I drive a graphite grey Jetta with roof racks. 

It was only while I was running eventually, (swampland, I live in swampland hell; it rained on me during this run, just as I was passing a church - a church I used to go to - a church I was Confirmed at - a church my parents still attend - karma.) did I begin to think this was a scam and I needed to cancel my monthly plan. I called Julie and Kaye on my ride home and they freaked because, essentially, if this boy was not attractive, I would not have donated. I guess, in short, I paid $20 because I prayed there might be a possibility Waving Boy might call me. Then I thought to myself  I wear a retainer. I then started planning my life - alone.

Lacrosse Final Four

This past Saturday, a group of sorority sisters and I went to the Lacrosse Final Four in Baltimore. Baltimore is ghetto. I'm not talking about ghetto like you walk to 7-11 and you see some homeless man drinking a Hurricane asking for a Black and Mild. I'm also not talking about the ghetto you see in Northern Virginia high schools where, one cannot walk through a hallway without getting pegged in the face with an ice ball on the way to class, and having to be rushed to the security and nurse's office in order to file a police report, while everyone knows the perpetrator will not be caught because even though everyone knew who did it, the hoodlums are the mafia and keep quiet about who did the wrong-doings to the poor innocent white girl walking down the hallway.


No I am not talking about that kind of ghetto.

I am talking about the straight out of Precious ghetto; something you would reference to Biggie ghetto.

Our journey began when we met Maggie at her cousin's house in the first ghetto neighborhood of Baltimore I had experienced. Her cousin goes to UMBC, and strolled out of his townhouse dressed in a sombrero, board shorts and his UMBC lacrosse jersey. We were headed to their family's tailgate at Raven's stadium, and had to figure a way to get there. With us on this trip were Maggie, myself, Kathleen, MDav (our current Virginia Tech Homecoming Queen: see Sassy),  Maggie's boyfriend Ebs, Maggie's cousin who we will call Sombrero, and Maggie's cousin's friend who is unimportant because I don't remember him.

Our first obstacle this day, was figuring a way to get to the stadium. Our mission was to find the "Light Rail". Sounds like something out of Indiana Jones, and it should be considered into being made into a feature film starring Blake Lively as me (she would play me in a Window's 7 commercial for my imagination... FYI Steve Jobs thought of Window's 7), and I don't really know how Indiana would play a role in this mission, but I mean, I guess we could write him in.

Anyways, we decided that, since there were only 7 of us, we would just pile into Kathleen's Passat. No biggie. MDav sat on my lap in a crouched position mimicking a rollie pollie, and Maggie sat on Ebs' lap. It should have been a straight shoot to this Light Rail, but it was not. Sombrero had Kathleen drive to his friend's house who he thought might know where this Light Rail might be. There are a lot of mights in this story. The friend was not home, as Sombrero proved after patrolling the house for any life forms.

We ended up getting on various different highways, going on a ghetto safari. It was fun getting a tour of a place I will certainly never end up again. We pulled over at a gas station, and I peed because it's me and I always have to pee. Even though I didn't touch one thing in this bathroom, I do think I am infected. Don't worry, I'm getting tested next week. The bathroom surely gave me an airborne disease, and I really don't want to risk it.

After we finally found this "Light Rail", we bought our tickets (which we ended up not needing because apparently they don't check tickets? Only in Baltimore) and we waited. This Rail track looked like a Busch Garden's ride for the pussy kids who think it's fun to ride on a fake train, when in reality it's not fun going 5 mph in a straight line with the "conductor" faking enthusiasm while he regrets his felony assault charges back in the 80's that brought him this low life of conducting a fake train for 6 year old niglets.

While waiting, another Light Rail customer showed up. Low and behold this wigger had an ankle monitor, and shouted at us to see if we had change for a five. B*tch please. I am not giving you five ones you will go and use on some clapping stripper. I know your tricks gypsy. Us non-wigger white people can see your bracelet and we know it's not something you get at Claire's.

Wigger.

So after getting on the "Light Rail" I made a note to myself that the title makers for this mode of tranportation got it wrong. It should have been called the "Dark Rail", if you catch my drift.

We saw every life form imaginable. There was a man behind us with two tear drop tattoos, and various other urban stereotypes. Fortunately for us, we sat behind three white people, all lacrosse fans, on their way to the games as well. Oh white people and their outdoor field sports.

Kathleen and me.

We arrived at the tailgate, and I for one, felt underdressed. This was not a place for the ugly, fat, or non-WASP population. Everyone was beautiful. Everyone played lacrosse. Every girl had a dress on, and every boy had their school's lacrosse jersey on. I wanted to film my interactions with these people, because frankly, the were all ridiculous. The most pathetic thing all day was the sole non-white person there was a black toddler, about 4 years old, running around with a lacrosse stick. I'm pretty sure he was lost, but I was not at work, so I didn't help.

Maggie's uncle, aka Sombrero's father, brought this large portable bar/trailer type thing, and we paid $25 for endless amounts of beer, wine, and food for the rest of the day. It was a very nice get-up. What tickled me silly was that, no matter what beer I chose, no matter what tap it came from or how they poured it, the beer was foamy. Slightly frustrating when all you wanna do is get drunk. We learned our lesson and started taking two beers at a time. We switched to wine at one time, but in all honesty, I didn't want to be that fruitcake drinking wine at a tailgate.

At one point, we were sitting down under a tent to avoid the sunlight (vampires) and from a distance, I see this short nugget of a man/boy/child. The only reason I noticed him earlier is because he was topless. Topless as in, he was walking around, showing of his perfectly lean, injected abdomen/shoulders/arms. Some might find that attractive -- I do not. I wanted to mess with his head. Obviously something was wrong either upstairs or downstairs -- compensating for a lack of mind or lack of peen. He started walking over to our tent because he knew someone in our circle. I kept staring at him. I had to get a picture. I went up and asked him. He laughed and said yes. I am 5'10. He was 4'10. Poor thing probably thought I was obsessed with him if I asked for a picture. Because of my downward angle view of his body, I saw his shaved back stubble. D.i.s.g.u.s.t.i.n.g. Funnily enough, I had purchased a coupon the previous day for 6 treatments of laser hair removal I will be using on my legs. I should have given it to him. After the picture, he started pissing me off.

I cut myself out. I am a beached whale. He is flexing, obvi.

Maggie has braces. I wear a retainer. Good for us for fixing our teeth. Well, Nugget Douche Bag (NDB), attempted conversation by flat out asking us "You guys look young. You still in college?" And we all shut him down. He then started on about how we all look young, listing Maggie as the youngest because of her braces. He then started bashing the orthodontia. All the while he was doing this, I had MDav's camera and snapped no less that 89 pictures of him. He then showed her his "beaver teeth" and told her he needed braces as well. From wearing a retainer, I know how people respond when you tell them you are fixing your teeth. They get self conscious. They then vent to you about how then need to fix this or that about their grill but they "don't want to get braces/retainer." Pretty sure having a perfect smile for the rest of your life is worth the money and time you put into it. That is just me though. Obviously NDB's priorities fell upon his body, whereas mine are my mouth. Our conversation dissipates and he goes to mingle with the lacrosse barbies. I catch him a few times looking over at me, pointing probably telling his bros I'm the piece who wanted to make his peen wet or some foul, boy talk word for me wanting him. Ha, what a fool.

The beaver discussing his teeth with Maggs. 

Hours go by, and instead of going to the game, we get hungry for some real food, so we venture into Baltimore. The nice parts are nice. After dinner, we walk back, but along the way we see these poor, helpless Chic-Fil-A workers trying to give away the new Spicy Chicken Sandwich. They had a cooler filled with them, but we had already eaten, so all of us were polite and turned them down. We started to walk away and I realized, they didn't want us to take them, they needed us to take them. By this hour, all the tailgaters had gone into the game. They were stuck in corporate pit of free giveaways. If they didn't give that whole cooler away, they would have to stay until the real vampires came out. Being the kind, generous soul I am, I told them I would help them out. I got all of us to take a sandwich, but I went further and took no less than 16 of the sandwiches and shoved them in my purse. I know they were grateful. I just increased their chances of survival by 50%, as I ended up taking half the cooler. I told them I would help give them away, but that idea got shut down by the Chic-Fil-A Nazi of the group who said that was illegal or some nonsense about corporate. I was tempted to put each sandwich back in their cooler because apparently, if I can't give them away, I would have to eat them. Is that their logic while I was shoving my bag with fried poultry? That I would eat every single one? I have the right mind to write a letter-

"Dear Chic-Fil-A,

I am a long time consumer of your products. I love your breading on your nuggs, and the pickles you put on your Grilled Chicken Breast sandwich. I love your signature Chic-Fil-A sauce and the way your fries resemble this weird necklace my friend JFed wears. But, all this aside, I do not like one of your employees. She was dark skinned, medium height, I think she had large boobs, and black hair. It is quite possible she is obese She works for you in promotions in some restaurant close to Baltimore. I tell you this because I am a good citizen. On Saturday, May 29th, I attended the Final Four Lacrosse Championships at Raven Stadium. This woman, along with 4 other employees, patrolled tailgates offering free Spicy Chicken Sandwiches. We encountered them at the end of their shift. To be kind, I offered to take 16 sandwiches off their hands. They obliged, and graciously gave us 79 free Spicy Chicken Sandwiches coupons in return. Upon walking away, I told them I would help hand them out. This worker in question, snapped and told me I was not allowed to do this. I am here to report to you Chic-Fil-A, that an employee of yours forced me to eat 16 sandwiches. How is one to do this? I do not know. Binging is an eating disorder. She encouraged me to be obese. I have two courses of action you could take for you to possibly, avoid a lawsuit. Fire this employee or open up on Sundays so we can enjoy your your goodness on God's day. You have been warned.

Sincerely,

Fat Patron"

I ended up taking those sandwiches to the tailgate, where I handed them out against evil woman's wishes. The largest, sweatest, loudest girl there took one, and asked me "Where is the mayonnaise?" I was speechless. NDB kept looking at me, and came up to me. I confronted him "You keep looking at me" he replied "THAT'S BECAUSE YOU KEEP LOOKING AT ME" Again, speechless at the douchbaggery. The same large, sweat girl kept telling me that he was her "best guy friend" or whatever and he is a really "good guy". That really just means she wants his D, and he won't give it to her. The same sweaty female came up to me 10 minutes later asking if any of us girls had cover up because she just "went to town" on the zits on her face. How nice of her to share.

After UVa lost (there was a game going on this whole time, Duke vs. UVa, I do not need to tell you who I was rooting for... it is a given), we went home. Same "Light Rail" ride (given we were coming from a lacrosse game, the "Light Rail" lived up to its name), different ride home. We were all very thirsty. Since I paid for Maggie and Kathleen's meal, Maggie decided to make it up to me by buying my drinks at 7-11. I bought three: 2 liter water, 1 liter Vitamin Water, and a Diet Pepsi. I downed that water between 7-11 and the 7 minute car ride home. On the way though, we stopped at a stoplight. There was a sign on the right side of the road that said "House 4 Sale 14K Call ###" Hrm. That sounds like a quality investment.

We get back to Sombrero's place, and we PTFO'd. The last thing we did before sleeping was munch on "Burger Cakes" that Kathleen bought. Going to bed with WASP-y memories from that day, while having the aftertaste of Burger Cakes ecstasy in your mouth really is underrated. You should try it sometime soon.

The End.