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Eternal Youth

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA -- casual conversation inside an everyday mall.
So Peetie and I are in Washington DC right now, making a visit to good ol' Janie (Bubba) Fulton. In deciding to make this visit, we figured we were commiting ourselves to an extremeley specific lifestyle that only Jane Fulton could achieve on a day after day - and we have not been disappointed. To credit janie, i should say that she has certainly gone through all the effort necesary to integrate us into her regular lifestyle, and if you know janie, this task is quite a feat. With janie's help, both peetie and i have joined her in sleeping late every morning, watching endless hours of trashy reality TV, seldom leaving the house, and surviving off a diet consisting almost entirely of chocolate, McDonald's, and a particularly abundant collection of store-bought eggnogs. Personally, i feel that Southern Comfort's vanilla spice has been the most appetizing of the eggnog flavors.

Along with this, janie's lifestyle includes a very specific way of keeping her room. This specific style is best described using the dorm room of your sterotypical college male, then throwing a few more pieces of mail on or around the desk, and viola! Janie's room! Peetie and i could stand watching TV all day, we could deal with a life devoid of the outdoors, we could even attempt to sustain ourselves on a diet consisting of 100% processed foods. But a poorly arranged living space was different. In response to this problem, peetie and i made a decision. Redocoration was eminent. Shopping was required.

Janie, peetie and i had been to quite a few stores before we entered the Bed Bath and Beyond in the main strip mall. It was for this reason that we were as tired and worn out as we were. Although obstensibly in a search for a pair of throw pillows, we were unable to keep to our mission, and immediately gave up once the massaging chair and set of matresses in the back of the store lured us towards them. During this prostrate visit to Bed Bath and Beyond, one of the store's workers discovered me lying on one of the display beds where i may have been inadvertently scrunching up some of their display pillows. Almost immediately, the tall black store employee accosted me.

Employee: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Trying to redecorate. We need throw pillows."
Employee: "You all here with your parents?"
Me: "No."
Employee: "You just wandered in by yourselves?" (I nodded in agreement) "What school do you all go to?"
Me: "Actually, we already graduated college." (i pondered the idea of telling him that i'm actually a mechanical engineer working on inertial confinement fusion reactors, but before i could do so, i realized that he hadn't caught my last statement and that he was still waiting for an answer to his highschool question.) "We graduated. We went to Gunn high school in Palo Alto, California."

After this comment had spawned a little conversation between the empoyee and one of his coworkers about their own high school experiences, i decided it was a good time to sneak away, snickering just a little. it immediately reminded me of the week before UCSD graduation when maddy, libby, and i were congratulated for reaching high school graduation by the cashier at Burlington Coat Factory. Mind you, Libby wasn't even in a student at the time. (She was 25 years old and engaged to be married.) On our way out of Bed Bath and Beyond, i told Janie and Peetie about the conversation i had with the employee. Peetie mentioned to me that i dress kinda young. i guess that's what i get for wearing a pair of jeans that i bought in 1998.

Anyway, janie's room still looks that same as it did when we arrived. Attempting to integrate myself into jane's usual lifestyle, i decided to ditch the idea of doing anything productive and intead, decided to update my blog while watching and hour long episode of VH1's "the Retro Sexual 80's". It's been fun typing this all into a column, but i kinda gotta run... i need to refill on eggnog.  ¶ 4:32 PM