Yesterday evening, my phone rang. It was Ned.
"What are you doing?" he asked me. He'd been over here two hours earlier and we'd made out until he had to go. "I'm watching Andy Griffith," I told him. "Aunt Bee has just laid down the law; no more Opie going to the police station."
"Well, why not? His dad's there," said Ned.
"Yeah, but Barney gave Opie some handcuffs, which Opie took to school and used on some kid, and Aunt Bee feels like the police station is a bad influence."
"You know who's a bad influence is that Barney. He was good for nothing," said Ned.
"In a way, it was good he moved to Raleigh even though it made the show jump the shark. Did you ever see Barney when you lived in Raleigh? Did he ever arrest you?"
"Barney moved to Raleigh?" Ned was incredulous.
I don't know how anyone doesn't know that Barney eventually moved to Raleigh, but the point is after this pertinent discussion was through, Ned asked me what I had for dinner, as my food consumption and his own food consumption are the focus of his days. There has been more than one occasion when we're still eating and he begins to wonder what our next meal will be.
"I had a bagel with tomato on it and a peach," I told him. "You?" Turned out he'd had a tomato sandwich and corn, and we were both still hungry. The first person to mention neither of us had any protein gets shot with Barney's single bullet.
"You wanna go out somewhere and get a snack and maybe some water?" I forgot to tell you guys that I'm on this water thing. Faithful Reader LaUral told me about this woman in England who drank three liters of water a day, and I am so with you on the whole how much is three liters and can't we speak English for God's sake, not to mention the water-drinking woman probably spells it "litres."
It turns out three liters is 101 ounces. Which, wow. But this woman made only this change and look at her after four weeks.
Right? How much does that make you want to drink litres of water all day long? Guess who went out and literally purchased three-liter jugs of water immediately? I've been doing it since Monday and here is my progress so far.
Here's Monday. I look not at all insane. It's because I'm so dehydrated.
Here's today. So far I look exactly the same. And a tad psychopathic. Well, I guess in one my hair is actually dry.
Still. Ima keep going. God, I'm sick of water. I brought a bottle of water to the Prince movie the other night and halfway through I went to the concession stand and got another bottle. I peed three times during that movie. I waited till the Morris Day scenes.
Anyway. So Ned and I walked down to this place near him, and it was such a pretty night and we could have eaten outside, but there was the 44848392949459394th baseball game of the summer on, so we had to go inside. I got a pint glass of water and what I meant to order was just maybe something like chips and salsa, but they didn't have that. "All we have like that are nachos," the waitress said. So I ordered them, and Ned and I said, "We'll just eat some of them and take them home."
Twenty minutes later.
"God. Do you realize we just did a bang-bang?" asked Ned. A bang-bang is from the Louis C.K. show, the best show on earth. Louis C.K. and his brother sometimes go out for bang-bangs, which is where you go to one restaurant and order a full meal, and when you're done you get up and go somewhere else and order a whole other full meal.
The good news is I got in two pints of water. Then I went to Ned's and had a little water.
Today Ned left for the damn beach. I know. He asked me to go anyway, but I have to get back to work tomorrow. Today I'm getting the facial I won at my friend Charlie's fundraiser back in January. What kind of world is this where I take six months to get to a beauty treatment?
Before he could go, Ned had to make some more work calls. "I have to wait to call Kansas; they're an hour behind," he told me. "When you call them, are you going to tell them to carry on, my wayward son?" I asked him, holding my own hand tenderly.
"No, but I will remind them that all we are is dust in the wind," said Ned. "Oh, but I guess I could call Boston right now."
"You do NOT also have to call Boston!" I said, delighted. "When you call them, don't look back!"
I can't imagine leaving me behind while you scurry to the beach.
Anyway, he'll be back on Saturday, and in the meantime he left me his grapes to remember him by.
His raisins verts sans pépins. If this bag needs to have a giant American flag on it, why the French translation? And if the French call grapes raisins, what do they call raisins? You have to differentiate. Oh, I put raisins in the salad! Did you put grapes in there, or raisins? Because in one case, yay! In the other, get your disgusting salad away from me.
Okay, I have to go. I have to get my facial. I'll bet the facialist will notice I drink a lot of water.
Hydratedly,
June
