“What Meat Do You Want?!”: Free Food, Electrocution, Camping, and Other Things That Don’t Normally Happen But Are Occurring This Week

I was having some kind of out of body experience yesterday morning.

It all began at 5 a.m., when Soldier Boy texted me because he was sitting in Maine on a lay over on the way back from his latest stint in Afghanistan. At the time, I was all sorts of disoriented – I could comprehend that the text was from him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t read what it said. I groaned, rolled over, and started dreaming of Werebears and unmitigated violence against cubicles.

Then my alarm rang, because it was two hours later and time to get up.

In the shower, I was so distracted I couldn’t remember if I had shampooed my hair. There was something off. Someone had tried to contact me, and I suspected it was Soldier Boy, but I was kind of creeped out because dreaming about your exs is just not kosher. Finally, soaking wet and frustrated, I picked up my iPhone and discovered this:

Soldier Boy: “I know its early and I foot expect a response but boo!”

Umm. Well, I certainly felt better about not being able to read the damn thing. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Homeboy was either drunk, or more tired than I was.

I texted him back.

We ended up launching into a text message conversation that lasted the entire length of my before-work routine, and nearly caused my unfortunate demise.

See, while holding the iPhone in one damp hand, and the blow dryer in the other, I tried to plug in the blow dryer and somehow ended up with my wet fingers on the prongs when they made contact with the socket. I have never made this mistake before, no matter how disoriented.

OH MY HOLY HAIR STYLING.

I don’t think I’ve ever been electrocuted. Except for that one time on purpose in high school science class for a lab project. I had zero idea of what was going on, except that my right hand had acquired some kind of spontaneous disease in which it fell asleep and was stabbed a million times with a million invisible needles.

3.7527 seconds later, I was like, Oh holy fucking hell, I am a retard, I JUST ELECTROCUTED MYSELF.

Quite the Monday-morning shocker, if I do say so myself. (Haha, I just realized I made a pun. Go me.)

If Monday sets the tone for the rest of the week, than me electrocuting myself makes quite a lot of sense.

See, this Friday, I, Blonde Beyonce, and Culture are hitting the road to potentially be murdered on a vacant lot two hours away from Los Angeles. We know this totally awesome volunteer from work and she invited us to go camping on the property she and her husband own north of Santa Barbara.

We were all like, Hell yeah, we’ll go camping with you awesome volunteer lady whom we all adore!

And then, last night, The Source is like, Wait, who the fuck are you going camping with?!

And we’re like, it’s cool, she’s really bad ass! And she’s going to set up the tents beforehand during the day, so we don’t have to set up in the dark on Friday night!

Which means, of course, that we have to drive up there ourselves in my ancient Mercedes which hit an astounding 200,000 miles last night.

Why in my old car? Well, because Culture’s car is less powerful than my once-top-of-the-line Mercedes and more likely to get stuck when we DRIVE ON A DIRT ROAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO RENDEZVOUS WITH OUR VOLUNTEER BUDDY!

Plus, apparently, when we get there, the only cell reception we will have will be in the ocean.

So, in summary: We are taking an old high mileage car onto an isolated dirt road after dark to meet a woman we barely know, and the only way we can contact the outside world is by running into the ocean with our cell phones.

This is turning into another one of those serial killer posts.

It’s all okay though, I’ve got a plan. In the case our buddy turns out to be a murderer who has lured us unsuspectingly onto several acres of vacant property to stab us and throw us into the Pacific Ocean, one of us will grab the tent stakes, while I get the car – we will fight her off while we get into the Mercedes, lock the doors, and then floor it into the ocean, where we will call 911 and turn my car into a boat by using the tent as a sail – because her large four wheel drive vehicle will surely destroy us and beat us to the highway if we try to make a run for it.

[Obviously, I will be the first to die, since I am inside the halfway submerged vehicle. If your car is sinking, you have to wait until the pressure is equalized (aka, your car is full of water) before you can open the door to escape. Not my best plan.]

Brittany and Crew, 1. Serial Killer, 0.

Please, don’t doubt my ability to stay calm in the face of danger or take on serious missions. I have the determination of a college kid on Adderall the night before a final exam. In fact, today, I was so determined to eat breakfast that Culture and I sprinted out of the office while yelling, “We’re on a secret mission! Be back later!” and rushed to Subway because they were giving out free breakfast sandwiches and coffee before 11 a.m.

And, if there’s any fact you should know about my town of residence, it’s that the homeless population is larger than the population of people with homes. This means, when Subway announces free food, the place is instantaneously transformed into a mental health ward that smells of toilet-bowl moonshine and sweat.

Culture and I didn’t care. We stood 6 inches behind Smelly Toothless McGee and got our free breakfast sandwiches. When the Subway lady yelled, “WHAT MEAT DO YOU WANT?” to Smelly, he replied, “Ghhhharrrrg, myyantabal jusrter nuts!” and we nodded our heads like, “Yeah, get that dude some jusrter nuts! I’ll have sausage!”

[This is the part where you're like, wait, doesn't this blogger work in a homeless shelter and shouldn't she be nicer in her portrayals of homeless people? Okay, look, if you worked with homeless dudes, you would understand that I am being very fair and accurate. Plus, I have a true fondness for these smelly nut jobs because I've kept their shopping carts from getting stolen. That's more than you can say.]

And that, my friends, is why I’m not going to get murdered this weekend.

P.S. Thanks to Soldier Boy's cousin for telling me that "What Meat Do You Want?" would be a good blog title. Because, truly, it is.