phase two: dinner boogaloo

Saturday night I went out with Trina and Peter to Outback for dinner. We discovered that it is indeed difficult to consume two large cocktails, three loaves of freshly killed bread, (does anyone know why they serve it by impaling it with a machete? although if the McDonald's commercials are to be believed, impaling something with a steel object instantly transforms said object into an hors d'oeuvre...I should try that with several Republican senators) a giant fried onion, a plate of salad, and a hamburger the size of your face in a single sitting. Fries don't count.

I made it to about halfway through the burger and so did Peter... and Trina made it about halfway through her steak. Then all of our eyes sort of glazed over and we started moaning and sweating. We continued to hold the food in front of our faces, as though it would speed up our digestive process. I grabbed the waitress and begged her to take the food away from us before we injured ourselves. We of course had it wrapped up, which she brought to us in so much packaging that it looked as though we were going to load it onto our sherpas and take a trek into the Andes.

But we were honest as we slung the giant sacks over our shoulders and lugged our doggiebags out to Peter's car. We knew that as soon as we'd added Time into the equation of our evening, we'd be having Phase Two of dinner. I even stole a fork so we'd be prepared.

We went to the liquor store on our way back to my house for Phase Two and we saw these little half-size bottles. They were eerily small, as though designed for alcoholic midgets or perhaps children. Or an evening with me. They also had tiny bottles like the ones you see on airplanes. And that is how Trina came up with the best idea ever for how to be charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

Some of my loyal (read: five) readers may remember a photograph taken of me at Trina's high school graduation party. Her male relatives (actually, I think it was just her brothers and dad) went through about two cases of beer and the empty cans were strewn about the lawn. So we assembled them into a pile and then put me in with the cans and took a photograph that will live in infamy forever.

I think you might see where I am going with this.

Picture it. My son, whom I have given the name "Mortimer" because I was in labor for 37 hours, is lying in his crib, wearing the "Busted Condom" tshirt that his Uncle John purchased for him upon hearing of my pregnancy. I have a lovely cocktail in one hand and a bottle of formula in the other and I have sprinkled the tiny empty bottles all around him. Won't someone bring me my camera? This is one for the album...the one they'll use in court.