We were all on the porch yesterday, being Allison Portchnik. That's only funny if you're obsessed with Annie Hall, and even then it's not that funny. The point is, it was a beautiful day, but I had a blemish, so there was a whole debate about whether the world should have to see this blemish vs. taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't 900 degrees out thing.
Eventually, I chose to take my blemish on the town. We went on a hike. "Molly, my coworker, always goes to Lake Brandt and can't get enough of it," my blemish and I told Ned. "Let's go there."
"Oh, wow, you DO have a blemish," Ned finally said. I mean, how could you MISS it? This thing would frighten the very young and threaten the health of the infirm.
We stopped at a gas station to get water, even though we have 5,000 jugs of filtered water in the refridge, as Ned calls it, plus 39488492 water containers we could have taken. I wonder why we don't have savings? The point is, Ned also bought sunflower seeds while he was there. The package actually said, Eat, Spit, Be Happy on it.
"You aren't going to spit, are you?" my blemish and I wanted to know. Ned assured me that indeed, he would be spitting sunflower seeds all over yonder, just like baseball players do. Since I met Ned 3.5 years ago, I've watched more baseball than I ever have in the entire rest of my life combined, and he actually has the nerve to say, "I don't get to watch enough baseball anymore." I can't imagine how much more baseball one could observe without one's mind simply oozing out one's eyeballs, and melting onto the floor, but perhaps that's just me.
The point is, they all spit, baseball players do, and they all spit sunflower seeds. I have no idea why. Maybe they're planting sunflowers on the field, one seed at a time. Ned hates it when I say they "spitted." "It's not 'spitted,' June," he'll say, and as someone whose brain is seconds from oozing out his nose holes, I don't know that I can give his grammar lessons much credence. Or clear water. Or even a revival.
When we got to the lake, Ned decided to open his sunflower seeds forthwith, and could not open the bag no matter how hard he tried. He eventually got out his steely knife, and he just couldn't kill the beast.
"They must have a notch or something at the top of the bag, to make it easy to open," I said, because my blemish has a degree in packaging.
"They don't," said Ned, stabbing his sunflower seed bag. Attached please find Ned discovering, after he's cut his bag to ribbons, that it had an open-in-front thing.
Once we understood the complexities of the sunflower bag, we headed off and immediately saw Molly.
"I go on this trail to get AWAY from people," she groused. Honestly, it's a smaller town than I think. I almost always run into people I know, even on blemish days.
Speaking of which, my blemish had a lovely time hiking, and even saw a snake thanks to Ned, who can find a snake 800 miles away with his eagle eyes that somehow cannot grasp a bag, but really, can YOUR eyes grasp a bag? Because, creepy.
Because we both had on Fitbits, we know for a fact that we walked 78 minutes, and covered three point something miles. I tripped over tree roots 4843829492 times, and squeaked nervously at a snake once. How come Ned can hike and not have hair like a homeless person when he's done?
"Maybe we should name the blemish," suggested Ned, and then weirdly we both said, "Alice" at the same time. I have no idea how we did that.
Afterward, we went to Stake and Shake, because why be healthy? My blemish had a vanilla Coke and a steakburger that was delicious. I should take up a collection to get my nose done. Can I do a Kickstarter? Will that work?
A rare sighting of Ned in an unhealthy-food restaurant. You can see his moral dilemma. It's enough to make you spit sunflower seeds.
I will keep you posted on Alice, my blemish. Despite dousing it with 75 gallons of salicylic acid, it looks pretty much exactly the same today, and a good person would call in sick to work. I will not, though, because at least I have something to talk about all day.
Imperfectly,
Joooooon
