Clareified

You know, I have so many posts that have “don’t go anywhere with Karol,” “don’t do anything with Karol”, “avoid Karol at all costs,” as the moral, that I really don’t understand how I end up in these predicaments time and time again.
In my defense, I was groggy and just woke up and did I mention, I just lost a gall bladder?
“You’re taking me to Woodbury Commons!”
“I am?”
“Yes, get dressed and come pick me up.”
“Well, I do need new sneakers…wait, where is Woodbury Commons?”
“It’s an hour outside of Manhattan. Hurry up! I’ve been updating my facebook status about this all morning.” (Seriously, join! And add me as your friend…but don’t add Karol or Ugarles, because that defeats my plan.)
(8:56 am “Karol is thinking about going to Woodbury Commons.” 10:15 “Karol is not sure.” 12:15 “Karol is still not sure.”) Thank you Ben Franklin for giving us electricity so that we may know the every thought that crosses Karol’s lobes.
“Mmmm.”
“Hurry up!”
“I have to be back in Brooklyn by 6 or 7.”
“Sama ti 6 or 7, leave now, you’ll be back by five.”
(Now, do you guys already know where this is going? Because suddenly, as I type, it is all clear to me that none of this was going to work out and how is it that in the moment, as I was living it, I lacked this clarity? You playing along at home already know how this is going to end. And you haven’t lived it for eighteen years.)
Anyway, I get dressed and head to the Upper West Side of Manhattan to pick up my worser half.
I grab my bag to call her when I am a few minutes away and I realize that I have left my cell phone at home. Hmm.
You know how people are always saying things like “oh my god, what did we ever do before we had cell phones?” Well, let me tell you.
So, her highness Karol Sheinin does not answer unknown phone numbers to her cell phone. Nor does she check her voicemail. So, calling from a payphone was not an option, although I did find one in front of a movie theater! I pull into her driveway. When she lived on the Upper East Side, we had a running joke that her doormen hated me and my Honda because we were black and a Honda. I would pull up to the door and they would be all waving me by screaming “move it along, we don’t want none of what you’re selling lady.” But when Jake sent a limo to pick us up that time, her doormen were more than happy to have the limo chillaxing in the driveway. So racist. Anyway, if I thought the UES was bad.
The UWS? Oh, baby.
I pulled the car down to the far end of the driveway and got out. I barely had two feet on the ground before the doorman was all up in my grill with “how can I help you?”
“Um…I’m here to pick up my friend.”
“Pick up what?”
“A person…my friend…this girl…not a thing.”
“What apartment?”
“Um…”
Huh. Now that is a good question. Can I say ‘the one with the Mezzusalah on the front?’
“Um…I don’t know. It’s the I.C.’s apartment…can you look it up by name?”
“Well, you have to ask the front desk.”
“Okay, well, can you release my arm from behind my back and let me up from the ground so that I can go do that, Sir?”
He does. I dust off my clothing and walk inside. (I am wearing a red and green plaid skirt that I have had since I was 14 and that Karol has hated since I was 15. Ever since I have been able to fit into it again, I try to wear it whenever I plan to see her because it makes me laugh when she looks at me, rolls her eyes and says “really with that?”) The doorman follows me. The I.C. lives in a building which in any other city would be a hotel. Complete with like a dry cleaners and a concierge and an Olympic sized pool on every floor.
I walk up to the front desk —under the watchful gaze of the doorman – and repeat my “story” about a “friend” in this building.
“Apartment?”
“Yeah, I don’t know…doorman said you might be able to look it up.” I give him the names. He stares at me.
I resist the impulse to say “take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
The doorman asks me to describe Karol and the I.C.
I resist the impulse to say “all white people look alike.”
The front desk dude gets up and goes in the back.
He comes back with a box. He opens it and I see it’s got index cards and the alphabet. I repeat the name again. He starts looking under I for I.C. I tell him that’s the first name. He looks under C. Finally, he finds it and calls upstairs.
The doorman tells me to move my car out onto the street. He watches me as I do this. He continues to watch me as I wait half an hour for Karol to come downstairs.
I pay him no mind as I sing the Killers at the top of my lungs.
What? I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier. I thought he should know.
Karol finally gets there and she’s all “what took you so long?”
Well la di da and hello to you to.
“Okay, how do we get there?” I ask.
“I got directions from MapQuest.”
“Okay.”
We get on the West Side Highway, she is in full on manic mode about how she has to get a present for the I.C. for his birthday which is tomorrow and she had all these plans and they all fell through and now she has nothing and she has to find something and it’s already 2 p.m. and OMG how does she not have anything yet! (Oh yes, she said OMG. The letters. Not the words. Karol is officially a 12 year old girl.)
I was my usual empathetic, caring self. I listened sincerely and offered helpful suggestions and then I gently said “and now can you tell me which road we’re taking next as the highway is about to split?”
“Well, MapQuest says go right to I-80”
“But that sign says I-80 is on the left…right is the Palisades.”
“Okay, I-80.”
I am not on I-80 a minute, when we both have the feeling that we should be on the Palisades.
“This is going to Jersey…Woodbury Commons is not in Jersey…”
“Well, I guess we’re going to Atlantic City!”
“NO! I have to buy a present for the I.C. and his birthday is tomorrow and I can’t be in Atlantic City!”
Sheesh, it’s like he has the head of the last girlfriend that missed his birthday to play poker in Atlantic City and didn’t get him a present in their freezer or something. I’m kidding, of course. Especially, if he really does. And there is no mob.
Anyway, we try to turn around and get back on the Palisades. Unfortunately, this proves to be not as easy as it sounds.
“Pull into that Marriott parking lot.”
I do. She re-reads her MapQuest directions.
“Hey! Wait, where’s your GPS?”
“It died a while ago.”
“I’ve never heard of a GPS dying. What’d you do?”
Why does everyone always blame me for everything?
“Fred told me to turn left, I turned right. He got mad and yelled at me. I said dude, ‘I do that all the time, it’s just who I am’, he was all ‘I’ve had enough’ and then he killed himself. And now he’s dead. Happy now?” Wait, everybody names their inanimate navigation devices, right? Cause if that’s not normal, then scratch that last paragraph. I’m normal.
Yes, perfectly normal.
Oh, sorry, my story…where was I? Oh…the Marriott parking lot.
“Okay, well, I think I have GPS on my blackberry,” Karol said, still eyeing me suspiciously.
“Well, let’s GPS it up!”
Okay, it says to turn right on Winchester…so let’s exit the parking lot.
Unfortunately, this too proves to not be as easy as it sounds.
Every turn took us alternately, to another row of parked cars or cement dividers.
“What the fuck!!! I have to get to Woodbury Commons!!!!” said the crazy one in the car.
“Dude, give it up. We live here now. See all these cars? I bet they just turned in to the lot to get directions too…and now they’re here forever. Just like us. Make your peace with it my child. We live in a hotel parking lot now,” said the perfectly normal one.
“NOOOOOOO I have to get a present for the I.C.!!!!”
“Hey, you know what you can get him?”
“What?”
“Soaps and those mini shampoos they give you and you can use that mailbox to send it out BECAUSE WE LIVE IN THIS HOTEL NOW!!”
“No way, the I.C. would send a car to get us out!”
“Yeah, and then the driver of that car would be living here with us too. In fact, I bet cabbies know to stay away.” (We are, BTW, still circling this parking lot. Oh, Karol says BTW too. Not the words. The letters. Karol has officially gone full retard.)
Finally, we spot an opening in some hedges that they forgot to close up, I rev the engine and we turbo-boost out of there (new episodes of Knight Rider starting this Fall…)
We follow Karol’s “GPS” to an exit into Paterson, New Jersey. Now, apologies to anyone from Paterson…not for what I’m about to say, but just because I’m sorry you live in such a shithole. There were abandoned buildings, empty lots and tire fires everywhere. We saw one clothing store called “Barrney’s.”
“You think that’s a real Barney’s?”
“Yeah…they just misspelled the name on the sign…I’m sure the warehouse sale is going on right now!”
It’s one of those places that have the bootleg Kentucky Fried Chicken’s and the liquor store right next to the bail bondsman.
“Where the hell is that thing taking us!!?”
Karol still had faith.
“Well, the miles are going down…so this must be the right road…”
She held up the blackberry screen for me to see and literally there were lines in the directions that had arrows turning both right and left at the same time! Now, say what you want about my homicidal GPS that tried to get me arrested – but at least he never asked me to violate the rules of physics. You never know what you have till it’s gone.
We drive around for another 30 minutes before finding someplace where we felt only somewhat terrified about pulling over. I rolled down my window and Karol asked the gas station attendant how to get back on I-80. He told us, and then realizing we were not in the market for gas, he waved us away and waved in another car. The effect of which was that my car was now blocked in on all sides and Karol and I were facing the door of a port-a-potty.
Karol started to laugh that laugh that people laugh when they’ve suffered a nervous breakdown.
“Could things get any worse?”
“Yes. Armed gunmen could burst out of that bathroom and kill us.”
(Hmm…fun game, can you identify which one of us said each of those sentences?)
I finally backed the car out and we were back on I-80. The signs started to say “To New York.”
“Oh, thank god! We are getting out of this godforsaken place and going back to America!”
“NO! We have to”
I didn’t let her finish.
“We are not going to Woodbury Commons. It’s already 3 and I have to be back by 6.”
“You said 7.”
“I said 6 or 7.”
“That’s 7.”
“NO WOODBURY.”
“Well, let’s go to this other mall then…it’s close to here…you still have to get sneakers right?”
Grrr.
She and her “GPS” navigates us to a mall in Paramus. And by mall, I mean, construction site.
There were bulldozers and scaffolding and sheetrock everywhere. And to top it off there was a huge banner which read “Paramus Mall coming in 2009”
Now I started to laugh that laugh.
“NOOOO…wait, it says “mall open during construction.”
Sure enough we saw people walking out holding bags.
“A Filene’s bag! This is the best mall ever,” Karol said.
I parked. And we went inside.
We found the ‘you are here’ map, picked up our hard hats and started to walk around. I realized I was hungry.
“I’m hungry.”
“Me too.”
We went back to the map and noted our meal choices were Villa Pizza or Chucky Cheese.
“So, what’ll it be? Pizza or pizza?”
I voted for Pizza. And since I had never been to a Chucky Cheese before…
“Fine. But we’re not playing any games.”
“Oh, we’re playing all the games!”
We walked into the restaurant and the lady at the rope line said:
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Um…no…we just want pizza,” Karol answered, sidestepping the unasked question about why two grown thirty-something women were at Chucky Cheese unaccompanied by children.
We placed our order and went in search of seats. The place was packed. With children. Children everywhere. Black children, white children, orthodox Jewish children, Mexican children, tall children, fat children, skinny children (obviously, some of these overlap). Now, usually, I like children. But here…where I was so severely outnumbered by the children…they seemed menacing…dangerous even…Karol and I squeezed into a dirty two person booth on the far side of the room. I grabbed my tokens and went to play the games. The first game I played was a dance dance revolution thing. But I saw some four year olds eyeing me and I got scared and ran back to the booth. Best not to get separated. We waited an hour for our food.
“This is some booolsheeet,” Karol said “DiFara’s cleanliness, DiFara’s wait and we’re getting Pizza Hut quality,” she looked over at me “I blame you for this.”
“For what?”
“That I just paid EIGHT dollars for pizza and we’re sitting in Chucky Cheese!”
“Oh, that…”
Hmm…now that old regular blaming me Karol was back, I missed panicked spazzing out Karol, so I said.
“Have you figured out what you’re getting the I.C.?”
Done and done. Panic was back.
“Waa! No! I am the worst girlfriend ever!”
“Yeah, you really are…I think you should get him a subscription to j-date, so he can find someone better.”
“Waaaaa”
Heh. I am awesome.
We got our “food.” It was beyond disgusting. We left. I thought of all the pouting I did as a youth because I wanted to go to Chucky Cheese and my mother said we couldn’t go because we didn’t have a car.
Though, that ball thing looked fun…
We went to go look at men’s shoes in “Off Fifth” and then Karol spotted a Century 21.
“Century!”
As we walked towards the store, I laughed as I blogged the following line in my head:
“No matter where Karol says we’re going or what she says we’re going to do, we always end up shopping at Century 21. Just ask the Gibs.”
But whatever, I got some sneakers and trivets, in case pearatty ever comes back to visit…and by visit I mean make lasagna. And Karol bought some baking crap…none of which looked like a present.
On our way out the store, she started whining about what to get again and I spotted a display.
“Hey, you should get him a Tweezerman.”
“No, he doesn’t want that I already asked,” she said sarcastically.
“Did he know about the full array of products they offer? Huh? Does he? The arraaaayyyyyy?”
“Shut up.”
We got back to the car and she insisted that we find another mall.
The new mall beat the old mall, if only because it had walls and doors and a roof.
We went into a Williams and Sonoma and she found some olive oil from this town in Italy where they went on vacation.
“Yeah, you should get him that!”
She also bought some other ingredient type things for his birthday cake. We got to the counter and she pulls out a wad of hundreds to pay for everything. She starts to laugh and shake her head.
“What?”
“Well, that I’m paying for all this with his money is no good.”
I laugh.
“Dude. Six month subscription to j-date. Make it happen. You are the worst.”
We split up for a bit while I left to find some water to drink in order to prevent the Chucky Cheese from becoming the Upchucky Cheese. When we met back up, we hit the Godiva franchise. Karol ordered two chocolate covered strawberries. “No thanks,” I said assuming one was for me.
Yeah, apparently neither was for me.
She did then offer to buy me a peanut butter filled chocolate.
I glared.
We left the mall and promptly got lost in some other Jersey town…Passaic, I think.
Karol started to pout and complain like it was *my fault* that she updated her facebook page to say “Karol IS going to Woodbury Commons,” basically ensuring that we would end up having the day that we ended up having.
“Yeah…I guess…the moral of today really is you can’t say anything out loud like that,” she admitted.
Yes. That and Dawn is never ever to go anywhere ever with Karol. Avoid her at all costs.
And of course, I got back to Brooklyn at 7:30.
Oh, and Happy Birthday I.C. and sister.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm 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.