Clareified

The thing they don’t tell you on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars, is that sleuthing is hard work. It was about five in the morning and Karol and I are knee deep in code that’s way above our heads.
“Man, I wish we had Mac. Right now, we’d tell her to plug in to the so and so database and give us a name and then in we’d be knocking on their doors in two hours!”
Yes, yes…Dawn watches too much TV. What’s new?
Anyway, I didn’t get to bed till after six, and when my mom called me at half past nine to ask how to turn off her desktop computer, I wanted to die.
“Hit it with a hammer, mom.”
Arrgghh. Thankfully, I went back to sleep fairly easily and when pearatty knocked on my door at around 1, I was feeling slightly more human.
“Hey, what time is the bar-b-cue?”
Oh, yeah! The infamous meatfest at the Jerk Castle was today. I don’t know how I ended up missing it last year, but after getting a taste of the grilling life this summer, no way was I missing it again!
“It’s at three…but I figure if we leave here at 3:30, we’ll be ok.”
“Good! I’m excited to meet Chugarte and his cornrows.”
I laugh and go back to sleep…I can deliver Chugarte, but the cornrows only exist in cyberspace now.
An hour later, the just-woke-up-from-sleuthing-Karol called.
“So, what time are you going?”
“Fourish.”
“Ok, perfect. I’ll come to Brooklyn, get my hair blown out and you can pick me up at my house.”
Mmmm.
I grudgingly agree and decide to call F-train to see when he was showing up.
It went straight to voicemail and I left him a message to call me.
Back to sleep.
My mom called again with news that the computer was off.
Awesome.
I decided to shower, dress and check the invite for directions.
I emailed the address to Karol’s blackberry for safe keeping and then tried to figure out what to do about the “bring something for the grill, dessert or on the side” portion of the evite.
“We can get Hebrew National hot dogs!” said pearatty, who, coincidentally will only eat Hebrew National hot dogs.
“Nu uh…I’m not showing up and handing them a package of hot dogs…that’s just tacky…”
“Hmm…well, I bought some grapes this morning…we could take that!”
“Uh…no…” Wait. My guest went shopping this morning??! Damn, I am a slacker.
I curse you Veronica Mars, curse you to hell!
I went online to see if I could pick up a schmancy cake from Baked, but no one was answering the phone.
“Seriously, Dawn…I’ve got graaaa—pess,” pearatty says in a sing song tone.
No, guy. No Grapes!
Ok, time to do what we always do under these circumstances…
Ring ring.
“Mommy, I have to bring something to the bar-b-cue…what should I bring.”
“Take a fruit platter!”
“Uhhh…I am so not telling that to pearatty.”
About ten minutes before I leave to pick Karol up, she calls to say there will be a change of plans. She’s meeting me at my house and we’re all going to the hair blow out together!
“I swear it only takes ten minutes…well, I’ll say fifteen so that you don’t start whining at minute 11.”
Dude.
Choosing to take my “dude” as a yes, she showed up at my place twenty minutes later and drove to the hair place.
I was starving.
All that sleuthing and sleeping makes Dawn a hungry, hungry girl. There was a grocery store next door to the hair place, so pearatty and I decided to shop for the bar-b-cue there. We settled on two Entenmanns’s cakes and a whole watermelon.
As we waited well into minute twenty for hair girl, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m getting a slice a pizza!”
“You’re going to ruin your appetite,” pearatty cautioned.
“Nah…I’ll just have a few bites…”
“Ooh…ok…then I’ll also have a few bites!”
I laughed and we split the slice in half.
“You know…when I first came to New York, I was always like ‘there’s nothing so special about this pizza. It’s just pizza!’ But ever since I’ve moved to California and go from place to place ordering pizza, I’ve come to realize, it only tastes good in New York.”
We finished eating, and Karol was finally done with the blowing. Not the sucking though. She still sucks a plenty.
“Man, this is the perfect day for a bar b cue,” she said getting into the car.
And she was right.
The sky was clear, the air crisp, temperature was probably in the high sixties.
Oh, this is going to be soo good!!
I’ve only been to the Jerk Castle once, so I was driving on a combo of feeling and impeccable memory.
“No! It’s a left turn at this light, Ms. Drive by feeling,” Karol yelled from the back before I made the right toward Coney Island.
Shut it.
“Hmm…I feel like it’s…left…but that’s a one way street…” I said ten minutes later as we circled Prospect Park.
“I’m pretty sure it’s like South of the park…so if we can get around to the South end…”
I heard groans from the back.
“No..no…we’re fine…if that’s Flatbush up ahead, we’re in good shape!”
In minutes, Flatbush came into view.
“Alright!”
We pulled up to the front and I immediately found parking!
“Hooray! OMG, this is going to be awesome!”
I pointed to the building’s exterior glass elevators and told them the story of how I followed F-train here once for a poker game and since he didn’t hear me calling his name, he only saw that I was behind him once he was in that elevator going up.
A woman pushing a stroller was walking into the building as we climbed up the front stairs.
The invite had said children welcome, so I figured she was going to the same place.
Sure enough, she pressed the button for our floor.
I then followed her through the double doors.
Except, she stopped at H and used her keys to open her own apartment door.
Ooops.
Oh, well…let’s look for i.
“Hmm…does that look like an i?”
“No…it looks like a one.”
“Yes…but in the context…it’s probably an i…right?”
We were agreed.
I knocked.
No answer.
“Well, they’re probably upstairs,” I reasoned, turning the doorknob and finding it locked.
“That is so weird…”
“Is there I bell?”
I started pressing various things on and around the door.
“NO! Don’t touch the mezuzah,” Karol said.
“The who what now?”
“The mezuzah, it’s a Jewish blessing for the home.”
“Well, what do I do now?”
“Now, you have to kiss it.”
“Kiss it?”
“Your hand. Once you touch it, you have to kiss your hand.”
Ok. Seems reasonable. I kiss my hand.
“Whoa…now you definitely have to walk through that doorway or it’s vaffles for you,” she says ominously.
I resume my knocking! Harder this time.
The neighbors open their door and quickly reshut it.
“What the hell!! This is all your fault!! You and your hair blowing. Now I am cursed by Methusalah!! (as is my understanding of the Jewish tradition.)”
“Relax, I’ll go upstairs and see if I can see anyone.”
Karol walks up the stairs and calls down to us “nope, it’s just an emergency exit.”
Pearatty is laughing hysterically now.
“Hey, Karol how much time do they give you to walk through the door after you kiss it?” she asks.
“I don’t know…probably not much though,” Karol answers.
Very funny, people.
I knock some more.
Karol sits on the steps.
“Are you sure this is the building?”
“Well, I emailed you the address, what’s it say.”
“Well, I know the building number, but is this that building?”
Pearatty asks if it looks familiar.
“Umm…I thought so…I don’t know…but they are Jewish and there’s a mezuzah here…so this must be it!”
Hmmm.
“Well, are you sure we have the right time?” pearatty asks.
“Yes, yes,” I say rapping on the door again.
“Are you sure it’s this weekend?” she asks further.
“Yeah…hold up…I didn’t get a reminder on my blackberry and I added it to my calendar,” Karol says opening up her blackberry.
“Well, what’s it say??”
“It says you’re a doofus, the thing is next weekend!”
OH NO!!
But the door…the curse…
Pearatty is laughing so hard now.
We turn and go back to the elevator.
“But…but…today was the perfect day for a barbecue!”
“Did F-train call you back?” pearatty asks.
“No…he did not…wait…let me check my phone.”
“If there’s a message there from him saying it’s not till next week, I am going to kill you,” Karol advises.
No. Instead there is a message from F-train pointedly saying he has no idea what I’m talking about and assuming that I was “invited to something that he wasn’t invited to.”
Crap crap crap crap crap crap.
“Ok, I’m starving and I need coffee. Where are we going?” Karol asks, suggesting we go to DiFara’s for pizza.
“Uh…are you up for more pizza, pearatty?”
“Sure!”
We decide to drive to DiFara’s and drown our sorrows in the best pizza in New York.
We wait on line for an hour, debating who is to blame.
“Well, I don’t know why I didn’t check,” Karol says, “I guess I just trusted you.”
A fact which made the decision for assigning blame easy for pearatty.
“It’s definitely Karol’s fault. She’s known you long enough to know that she needed to double check.”
“Yes! Karol’s fault! I’ll take it…heeeey…wait a minute…”
Oh well, it was the best I could do under the circumstances. A win is a win.
As we ate our pizza and cracked wise…I couldn’t help but think it might have the perfect day for a barbecue…but it did just as well for a meandering drive through Brooklyn and face full of four cheese pepperoni pizza.
Now, if I could just find a counter mezuzah spell, we’d be all set.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 2:10 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.