(Posted for the January 2012 Language/Place Blog Carnival Humor Edition, hosted by Christopher Allen)
I was surprised when Carrie called. We hadn’t seen each other in years. We’d been high-school friends, sure — the kind you don’t expect to see again after you’ve been pomp-and-circumstanced down the school stadium steps and the last D-Major chord has drifted out on the breeze. But I’d just had my first baby and she’d had her second, so she called for a mommy’s lunch.
At the upscale yuppy café (“my fave,” she gushed), I ordered a baked stuffed potato (the closest thing to real food on offer) while she drank protein-vitamin-water and pushed sprigs of delicately arranged arugula around her plate.
We caught up: the husband/house/job/childbirth list. She swooned about her offspring, who were home with the au pair, while mine nursed noisily in my lap.
I sought peace in my potato while she carried on about her dullard husband and her sterile McMansion. And her stupid onroad/offroad jogging stroller – the Landrover of strollers. “I prefer my 1970 Buick LeSabre model,” I offered, “which has seen my sisters through five kids. It’s named Blue Betty.” Carrie grimaced. My wee angel farted marvelously.
When she said she could not stay for dessert, I masked my elation as she air-kissed my cheeks goodbye. She sashayed out of the café just as my chocolate mint parfait arrived. I watched her go, musing on the contrast between her perfectly heart-shaped jogger’s ass and the green sprigs of lettuce stuck between her porcelain white teeth.
(originally written for the 52|250 challenge)
Lovely. I’d have let the arugula hang from her teeth as well.
Lovely!
She seems awfully mean-spirited. The woman invited her to lunch and didn’t do anything to her. She was trying to make a connection while MC was busy picking her apart. I would have left too.
On another reading, I guess the grimace at the carriage’s name wasn’t that nice, but I took it that she wished better for the MC than a hand-me-down carriage. Which is well intentioned.
The butt and teeth note at the end was funny though.