I'm Dirty, Sweet, and I'm Your Girl

My life has come down to massaging my own back pain while photocopying a chapter on ergonomics in the workplace. The irony is like a fart in an elevator: inescapable, unpleasant, and the only thing I can think about.

Even T.Rex's "Bang a Gong"--the cure for all ills that stem from self-pity--can't make me feel any better about being inside a windowless office on the first real spring day, with real sun and real cloudless skies, and even a lovely breeze, for Christ's sake.

I was going out of my mind by 9:15 this morning. That phrase "climbing the walls" never truly resonated with me until right now; I'm fighting the urge to actually dig my fingernails into the plaster and claw away for no reason besides sheer, endless, bottomless boredom.

But, should the literal trump the figurative and I were to actually succeed in climbing a wall, where would I be then? Still in my office. Sure, I could be dancing on the ceiling a la Lionel Ritchie, but I'm wearing a skirt and gravity is no friend to those sporting laundry-day undies.

I think part of the urgent desire to vacate my immediate premises has to do with an incident that occured last night while watching House, the newish medical drama on after American Idol. The problem with House is that each episode of the show revolves around a patient whose diagnosis is particularly tough to nail down. If you happen to catch the first five minutes of the show, there's no way around watching the remaining fifty-five because (if you're anything like me) you absolutely have to know why the ten-year-old collapsed while jumping rope and now her skin is rotting off.

Anyway, the story goes like this: I get back from the gym and my mom is watching House. Of course I'm sucked in, but I tear myself away from the middle of the show in order to take a much needed shower. Having missed a meaty chunk of plot exposition, I was still able to accurately diagnose the patient with Cushing's Disease before it was revealed because I HAVE DONE NOTHING FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS BESIDES LINE EDIT A SURGICAL BOARD EXAM STUDY GUIDE.

I should not know anything about medicine. The last time I took any kind of course in biology I was so young my mom still had to get me into R-rated movies. I have willfully neglected the sciences since then, and I'll be damned if they start leaking back into my life now.

The fact that the symptoms of Cushing's Disease are now taking up valuable long-term memory slots in my skull is infuriating. Who knows what they're kicking out? I swear to God, if my brain is replacing anything like my cache of New Kids On The Block lyrics (under-utilized, I'll admit, but nonetheless valuable) with the symptoms of endocrine disorders, I'll lobotomize myself.

It's almost lunch, and I'm sure as hell going out to get it. If I have to be here for another four and one-quarter hours, my full sixty minutes of alloted feeding time is gonna be spent in the great outdoors.

Like the New Kids said:

Step One!
(We can have lots of fun)
Step Two!
(There's so much we can do)
Step Three!
(It's just you and me)
Step Four!
(I can give you more)
Step Five!
(Don't you know that the time has arrived...

...for me to go to lunch.

(God. Sorry.)

I'm Tired of Rumors Starting

There's a rumor (mostly spread by me, and Brad, and some gossip blogs) that Lindsey Lohan is filming down the street. I was tipped off this morning by the dozen eighteen-wheelers full of lights and miles of electrical cords being unloaded up and down my block, a process supervised by several walkie-talkied, extraordinarily stylish production assistants.

I probably would've gone to investigate during lunch even if I didn't have an actual reason to leave the building, but as fate would have it I need to buy a birthday card. Since I have an errand to run that necessitates my walking past the movie shoot, I'm free to gawk at Linz's knockers like every other red-blooded American citizen drunk on Access Hollywood, safe in the knowledge that my alibi will protect me from harsh judgment by my co-workers.

I need to buy a card because today's my littlest brother's birthday. (A happiest of happy birthdays to Chris, by the way.) Would it officially make me the coolest sibling ever if I got Lindsey to sign his birthday card?

Although, with my luck it's not another teen romantic-comedy they're filming at all. It's probably an episode of Law and Order: SVU, or something. Getting "Raped Kid #2" to sign the card doesn't hold quite the same allure.

Chris is turning sixteen, which is utterly unbelievable. I swear to God, he was playing with Thomas the Tank Engine fifteen minutes ago. Now he's legally able to operate my vehicle. (Note to Chris: legally, yes. If you value your life at all: not a finger.)

(Joking. He's allowed to drive my car as long as I'm in it.)

(And he's in the passenger seat, and I am driving.)

Chris's birthday, the sudden spring weather, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album I'm listening to nearly a year after I took it out of regular rotation, and the distinctly collegiate smell of the laser printer right behind my desk all have me feeling very, very old. I suppose it's a good idea to kick my own ass into realizing almost an entire year has passed since I graduated college, but come on, a whole year? How is that possible?

It's not that I'm getting all Bryan Adams, those-were-the-best-days-of-my-life on you, it's more that I can't believe how quickly a year can pass sans virtually any interesting events to mark its passing. I used to wonder how the hell someone could work a single desk job for thirty years, but I get it now: they sat down. They blinked. Then someone was handing them a piece of retirement cake.

I could marvel at the poetry of Time for another couple hundred words, but I'm going to cut myself off. If I look like I'm thinking about anything too deeply when I meet Lindsey she won't want to be my best friend, or put me in her movie, or introduce me to her friend Ashton who's looking for something, let's say, a little more ripe for the pluckin' after a year of, well, let's call it "preserves."

A dusty, cobwebby jar of old, old preserves.

My Mom Found This

Easter bread.

Go Hug a Hardboiled Egg

On Saturday morning I took a spin around Yorktown Heights looking for Easter presents for my family. I had originally intended to buy them actual presents, but lack of insight into male taste (three out of four members of my immediate family are men, which for me renders holiday shopping on par with tooth extraction) barred me from finding suitable gifts for most of the targets of my holiday cheer.

Instead, I decided to buy my brothers the most inappropriate chocolates available. The chocolate shop in the mall offered little in the nudie genre, but I did manage to buy Chris a package of Godiva smokes, and Mike an assortment of "Schnapps Shots." Five schnapps-filled chocolates roughly equal an actual shot of liquor.

It seemed like such a fun idea until I realized I could easily visualize their fate: some Sunday night in the not-so-distant future, the liquor stores closed, a room full of beerless underclassmen will ravenously bite off the top of each truffle, suck out the schnapps with all the intensity of a famished anteater, and throw the remaing dark chocolate exoskeleton out the window.

My brothers' classy, gourmet palates taken care of, I went on looking for a gift for my parents. I decided to hit up the Italian bakery in town to buy them something special for Easter breakfast after three laps around the mall yielded nothing.

I walked into the bakery to find an ancient old woman and her geriatric son standing awkwardly in the middle of the tiny walkway to the counter. The woman was muttering something about how "terrible, just terrible" she felt, though her son was clearly exasperated with her and trying to move her out the door.

"MA! They'll have the Easter bread tomorrow!"

"It's terrible, just terrible."

"Maaah, they're just out for TODAY. They'll make more TOMORROW."

"It's terrible how you can't get the Easter bread anymore. Terrible. This is a terrible bakery."

"THEY'RE NOT A TERRIBLE BAKERY, MA. Can we go now? Ma! Come on, Ma!"

The bakery lady kind of chuckled and tried to talk her into some croissants or a black-and-white cookie instead, but the old lady couldn't be placated. At last her son succeeded in coaxing her (and her walker) out the door. I bought a coffee cake and likewise exited, only to find the woman and her son had progressed about six feet past the door. The old woman looked on the verge of tears, still muttering about how "terrible" it is that an old Italian lady can't get her Easter bread anymore.

I originally intended to file away the dynamic duo for later recount and and poking-of-fun-at in this very forum. In the car on the way home, though, I finally figured out what the hell the old lady was talking about.

My grandma on my dad's side, the Italian side of my family, used to get each of us Cacace kids an Italian Easter bread every year. It's a bunny-shaped loaf of kinda sweet bread, complete with raisin eyes and nose and a hard-boiled egg hugged to its middle by two golden-brown arms (paws? legs? any baker/anatomists out there?). I didn't even really like the bread all that much. With regiments of Peeps waiting in their cardboard barracks for immediate dispatchment to my stomach, a loaf of bread ranked kind of low on the list of festive Easter foods to consume. But three days after Easter, when all the Peeps were gone and combing the plastic grass in my easter basket yielded not even so much as a Hershey's Kiss, it was the last chunk of Easter to consume, ears first.

I'm twenty-two, but already most of my family's holiday traditions have kind of fizzled out due to a decreasing number of participants. I started off with one great-grandma and three grandparents, and most of my childhood holiday memories revolved around having to get properly scrubbed, dressed, and coiffed to go to their houses, ostensibly to eat and celebrate Jesus's doing something notable. Really, for me it was mostly about receiving candy and money when my parents weren't looking.

But by the time I graduated high school I only had one grandma left, and she passed away my freshman year of college. Without a place to go or anybody left to celebrate with, holidays have gotten a little--well, I don't want to say sad, so maybe half-hearted is more the word for it. I don't go to church anymore, and neither does my mother (for political and moral reasons, respectively) so neither do my brothers and dad (for not-wanting-to-sing-in-public reasons). So there's no reason to buy Easter outfits anymore, and no occasion to break out the camera.

We've managed to replace church-going with food-eating, however. Our meals have gotten increasingly larger for a decreasingly populous table. Our turkey and ham left-overs feed us for a week. If nothing else, I feel as though my family proves that it's not cleanliness next to godliness, it's gluttony.

So, anyway, as much as I wanted to call her a nutty old bat and drive away laughing, I kind of feel for the old lady in the bakery parking lot. If we don't have any grandparents, me and her, and we don't have any aunts and uncles, or cousins, or anything, could we at least get some damn Easter bread, even if it'll probably give her agita, and I pick off the eyes and nose because I'd rather die than eat a rasin? All we want is a friggin' loaf of bread, you croissant-y bitch, it's Easter.

TR_ L_V

Just got back from a lunchtime jaunt over to the Apple store and--just in case there was anyone else out there besides me who developed this theorem and was looking for definitive evidence of its validity--it's true. Mac people are hotter and cooler than PC people.

Don't get me wrong, I own a PC. But I'll totally sign over my next eight paychecks for a PowerBook if it truly holds the key to unbelievable hipness and excellent hair. Every guy in that store was a dream and every girl was at least a thousand...fathoms? inches? liters? cubits? cooler than me. That's fine, because I couldn't even be bitter about it. Mac people are nicer than PC people. I've never been in such a jovial line. And I've been to Disney World.

Steve Jobs, impregnate me with your utopian seed!

Also, ladies and gents, throw out your TrimSpa, because I've also discovered that the number of Mac products you own is inversely proportionate to your pants size. That store was filled with the sveltest of the svelte. Which, again, is fine, because I understand the secret now. Buy more Mac, and I'll be totally hot. (er). (As if that's even possible.)

Although, maybe eating something besides a bag of Andy Capp's Hot Fries and a box of Good-n-Plentys for lunch would have the same effect.

Whatever, I'm totally justified in eating as many Good-n-Plentys as I want because I joined a gym. It's such an out of character move I nearly crack myself up every time I walk through the New York Sports Club doors. I hand over my card, they beep me in, and I laugh over to the elliptical at the absurdity of the whole situation. I am the girl who worked at a gym for two years and never once touched a machine, not one single time. I didn't even know where the pool was when people asked me for directions. There was an Olympic-sized hole in the building and I was so uninterested I never bothered to find it, much less take a dip.

I joined after Kai brought me with her one night. It was the TVs that won me over. Every single machine has its own TV. With cable.

For $69 a month, I get to watch American Idol without hearing my mom screaming at her TV from a floor away. For $69 a month, I get to indulge a shamefully growing interest in The O.C. without judgment. For $69 a month, I can entertain the idea that I'm actually running towards Anderson Cooper as he oh-so-tantalizingly reads me the news at the end of my treadmill.

Not to mention the absolute freakshow that is the gym crowd. For a long time, I think I was really intimidated by the idea of going to a gym because I pictured everyone there as really fit, really young, really hot, and really like-everyone-who-ever-got-me-out-in-dodgeball-during-P.E.-class. Of course there's a certain crowd like that, but they mostly stand around in a group "spotting" one of their grunting number, a practice which involves more butt-touching than I deem appropriate or necessary. I'm just saying.

In actuality, there are a whole lot of normal people like me and just the perfect amount of my very favorite--the 21 Jump Street style body-builders whose tattoos are so terrible I nearly fly right off my treadmill trying to contain my laughter. There's nothing that can tear me away from Wheel of Fortune like watching a giant pulsing dragon ripple on a dude's bicep, and realizing (when he switches sides on his machine) that his opposite bicep bears the following explanatory tattoo: DRAGON.

Just in case that first tattoo proved obtuse.

You know, I just spent almost fifteen minutes trying to come up with a comparatively bad tattoo I could say I was interested in getting but I think I'm just too nerdy to invent anything as great as Senor Fire-Breather's bodyart. Everything I came up with just ended up being a bad, punny pickup line. Like, I could get this tattooed on me somewhere:

TR_ L_V

Just like that. And then whenever I saw a really hot gym guy, I could go up and show it to him, and then I could say:

"All that's missing is the you."

My Hero

I think I've discovered just what it is I want to do when I grow up:

"This historic occasion has less to do with finally being embraced by the fine-art establishment and is more about the judicious use of a fake beard and some high-strength glue."

Thanks a bunch, Banksy.

You Say To-MAH-to, you Jerk.

Half-full

Fantastically classy sight seen this morning: crushed can of Colt 45 with a drinking straw sticking out of it. I wholeheartedly wanted there had been a hot pink lip print on the straw...but I cannot tell a lie.

Fantastically delicious food just consumed: apple-cinnamon oatmeal.

Fantastically ingenious invention: the speakerphone, as used in office teleconferencing. I thouroughly enjoy being on the phone and in a meeting without ever having to say a word.

Fantastically insane websites: This'un.

Fantastically great sentence (taken letter for weird letter) from the page sitting on the desk in front of me: "...on physical exam, she is obese and has a buffalo hump and moon facies."

Half-empty

Terribly empty things: my animal cracker box, still.

Terribly undeniable truths: today is Thursday, and not Friday as previously thought.

Terribly annoying circumstances: lack of any pens in the office supplies which results in taking pencil from the copious quantities available, which in turn produces the Nobel Prize-worthy discovery that the suspicious overabundance of pencils is directly correlated to the lack of a pencil sharpener anywhere in this office.

Terribly unfulfilling books: NP by Banana Yoshimoto.

Po-tay-to

It's time for lunch! I'm off the leash for a whole hour!

Po-tah-to

It's time for another can of microwave soup and stretching out the last thirty pages of a crummy book long enough to avoid discussing how much my job sucks and how bad the American version of The Office is going to be. Whoop-dee-friggin'-doo.

Tough Cookies

I'm sure that most people are probably sick to death of hearing about the Terri Schiavo case.

Tough cookies, 'cause I'm fascinated by it.

I've spent every morning this week reading about Schiavo's parents' legal defeats and subsequent lightning-quick appeals. I knew there was something disturbing me about the case--or, at least, the case as I am able to access it through the media--and it wasn't until I read this Salon.com article that I was able to put my finger on it directly.

Everyone I've spoken to about Terri Schiavo's right to die has communicated to me exactly what the ABC poll cited in Eric Boehlert's article states: that Americans do not want to be kept alive by extraordinary means. Yet further than that, in a case where life-support alone is preserving a "persistently vegitative" individual, Americans overwhelmingly believe that a person's spouse should have the right to make the decision to let them die.

In this particular case, Terri Schiavo explicitly told her husband on several occasions that she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her husband held out hope for her recovery for a number of years, and when doctors assured him that such a recovery was impossible he chose to grant her wishes and allow her to die on the terms she had personally laid out.

A vast percentage of Americans polled cite Mr. Schiavo's very course of action as the way they would respond in this situation; mathematically, this majority seems to affirm that fulfilling a spouse's request to pass on naturally is in line with the "moral values" espoused by the "culture of life" segment of the American people.

Not a single article I've read until this morning quoted any of the number of polls Boehlert cited--polls that are widely available to news agencies. In reading article after article about the case, I did begin to question where my beliefs fell on the continuum of attitudes towards euthanasia when I had nothing to compare them to.

Not that I look to see a right-wing plot around every corner, but one has to wonder how these polls have neglected make it into virtually every major newspaper in the country. I can only speak from personal experience, but as I pretty avidly consumed news pieces about the Schiavo case and had no barometer of public opinion to measure my stance, I began to worry that my belief that Terri should be allowed to die was extreme, or even cruel. The media has denied people an accurate representation of public opinion while publishing photographs of right-to-life protestors on countless newspaper covers, which is a really effective way to shake the confidence of any individual willing to say "yes, let her die."

But besides that, the case is fascinating legally. I knew that Congress had intervened and passed a law which somehow gave Schiavo's parents the right to circumvent the Florida justice system and sue in a federal court.

What I didn't realize was that the law, signed into effect yesterday, says word for word that "any parent of Therese Marie Schiavo" has the right to take the case to federal court.

Call me a creative-writing-major-who-never-had-to-take-a-single-law-class, but it seems to me it may be a smidge unconstitutional (or illegal? at the very least, unethical) for the government to sign into effect personalized laws.

This is a great land. You can get almost anything with your name on it. As I child I owned both pens and pencils emblazoned with my moniker. I also had a "Kathy" eraser or two, a "Kathy" bracelet, some "Kathy" stationary, a tiny "Kathy" license plate for my bike, and an airbrushed powder blue "Kathy" t-shirt from my very first trip to Daytona Beach.

This whole law thing, though, this is blazing new personalized territory. I'm thinking about proposing a bill that states the following:

All persons named Katharine Maria Cacace, born on the fifteenth day of September, 1982, are legally required to be accompanied to any and all places of employment, entertainment, or residence by a troop of attractive, witty men. Expenses incurred by Ms. Cacace's troop will be funded through the Social Security Trust, because we're lettin' it go to shit anyway.

It's only fair that Georgie signs off on this one. Kindergarten rules apply, here; if you don't have enough time to sign stupid personalized laws into effect for everyone, then don't sign any at all.

I only have time to write three sentences.

There's no better way to start off your day than turning off your alarm in the dark, groping for your pants, blindly tying your shoes, unthinkingly packing your lunch [which, when you later investigate why your bag is clunking so loudly, turns out to be an entire unopened can of Campbell's tomato closed inside a recycled plastic wonton soup container], and stumbling into your car in hopes of straddling the edge of consciousness long enough to pilot your vehicle to the train station and board the 6:46 where you can steal another hour's worth of sleep, only to have your fragile morning constitution rattled before you even get out of your neighborhood when you have to swerve 2 Fast 2 Furious-style around some 2 gross 2 handle roadkill, which--for those souls sadly denied the sight of the rotting carcass on Rt. 202 in Yorktown--was probably at some point a deer, at least until it was decimated by a driver out even earlier than you, but you can't be entirely sure of the species because you were distracted from taxonomic accuracy by the way the dawn's burgeoning rays played delicately on the blood still glistening on its revolting, exposed ribcage.

One.

To make matters worse, when you do get to the station the crazy lady whose nutty clothes you enjoy so very much appears to have undergone an Oprah makeover and is sporting not only pinstriped pants and pointy black pumps, but a Louis Vuitton tote in place of the shopping bag she usually carries, and even though she's still wearing a fuzzy white newsboy cap, it now looks like the kind of strange accessory that's acceptable because the wearer is obviously filthy rich and understands style in a way that you couldn't even begin to comprehend because when you bought your shoes they were attached to each other with an elastic band to prevent theft, whereas when she bought hers they were placed on her feet by an attractive salesman while another served her an espresso, and try as you might not to hate her, you get on the train muttering "sell-out" at her in your head, but you put a stop to that when you find a great seat, I mean, a really great seat, put your hood up, close your eyes and begin to drift back into that deep blue oblivion your daily obligations so rudely part you from, only to be jolted once again back to this dreadful plane (but it's worse than that--you're also on a dreadful train) by a man emitting a snore so loud it is medically fascinating.

Two.

All this to get to work, and work is work; it's never anything but work, a fact that after six months you have grown to find almost comforting, until you remember how emotions besides "dire boredom" and "spiritual bankruptcy" feel and you check Hotjobs.com one more time just in case something was posted between midnight last night and eight-fifteen this morning, and though it hasn't, you can always hope that something really fantastic will be posted today, or, better yet, that a bus hits you on the way back to the subway and you sue the city for billions, write a book about your trials and tribs while they reconstruct your legs, and you collect whatever the product of "billions" times "book deal" is, an equation you can only hope equals "record deal" or "talk show," or, at the very least, "no more photocopying, ever" and "hot water that actually comes out of the hot water spout when all you want is a goddamn cup of tea, because otherwise all you end up with is cold beige water."

Three.

Sally the Camel Has...No Head.

If the gods will have it that I have to be at work today, and worse, that I have to make two photocopies of a six-hundred page manuscript one copy at a time, and even crummier, that Brad will leave today while I'm at work, and, lousiest of all, that my iPod is heartbreakingly M.I.A., then the least they could do is magically refill my box of Barnum's Animal Crackers while I'm not looking. I'm not asking for the transformation of my Poland Springs water into a nice merlot (or, less suspiciously, a solid half-liter of vodka), I'm only looking for a handful of miraculous cookies. I just ate the head of my last camel and I'm pretty sad about it.

My computer says it's 12:34, and as such it's time to make a wish: please, please let a couple of zebras and maybe a polar bear appear in this stupid box.

While I give that a moment to kick in, I'd like to recognize that perhaps the reason this cracker-muliplication miracle may not come to pass is because I flagrantly watched South Park and ate bagels during the hours which, in my childhood, would have been occupied by Palm Sunday Mass. To be honest, I didn't even realize that yesterday was Palm Sunday until my boss mentioned it this morning. I'm the ex-altar girl, ex-choir girl, and ex-Catholic who wandered around this Ash Wednesday wondering how the hell so many people managed to smear newspaper ink on themselves. Luckily, I curbed my urge to tell a woman on the subway she had "some shmutz on her face" long enough to figure out that it would've been religious persecution to do so.

A little crud on your forehead is nothing compared to Palm Sunday. Clocking in conservatively at a solid three hours, Palm Sunday Mass is Catholicism's answer to traffic school. When I was sixteen years old, I had to take a five-hour course in order to get my driver's license. During those five hours, I was shown five videos with tenuous plots about drunk driving brought to life by the most fantastically uninterested actors ever to grace the small screen. Palm Sunday's a lot like that, except you listen to a couple of elderly priests reinact Christ's condemnation to death.

I shouldn't overlook the fun of Palm Sunday audience participation, however. In a completely twisted yet wholly Catholic move, all churchgoers are forced to play pivotal role of "the Crowd", whose only line is Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

At least during the driving course I got a half-hour break to pop over to the Italian deli next door and pick up some antipasto. All you get on Palm Sunday is a wafer--which I suppose is technically more "fulfilling," but it's no tortellini salad.

My favorite thing about Palm Sunday was the unspoken contest amongst the congregation to see who could create the most elaborate sculpture from their Palms during the Gospel reading. Given that one's options were to either get really into playing the people responsible for your Lord and Savior's horrific death (weird), or try to poke your brother's eye with your palm from halfway down the pew (often foiled), or focus on handicrafts (apparantly acceptable), the choice seems pretty clear.

After a childhood of Palm Sundays, I was an absolute pro at the Palm Cross by the time I reached middle school. I succeeded in making a letter "k" a couple of times, which I suppose is technically vanity, but geez, lay off, ya Nazi. Try as I might, I was never able to complete the Palm Wreath. And once, just once, I saw an elderly gentleman leaving St. Patrick's with a Palm Easter Bunny. Aside from the fact that to the best of my knowledge the Easter Bunny is sadly absent from the New Testament rendition of Easter (but technicalities like "the Bible" weren't gonna stop this guy), I was amazed at how far he had stretched the Palm sculpting genre.

After Mass, like all good Italian Catholics, we hung the Palm Cross on the rearview mirrors of our cars lest other drivers forget how Jesus sacrificed himself as they cut us off exiting the parking lot you MOTHERFUCKING MORON ARE YOU DRIVING WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED OR ARE YOU JUST AN ASSHOLE.

Amen.

Take A Picture, It'll LAST LONGER

Scenes from Tony's Coffee Shop:


My name is Kathy. I have just ordered a mushroom burger. I can hypnotize the camera with my eyes.


Brad succumbs.


The even more hypnotic power of salad remnants mesmerizes my minions.

Scenes from Times Square:


I squinch.


You squinch.


We all squinch.


Squinching complete, I go home--squinchers in tow.

Scenes from Iron Chef Yorktown: You Got Served


Andrea, Iron Chef Milwaukee.


Brad, Iron Chef Cleveland.


Tart a la Yorktown. And the dessert she made!
Ba-zing!

Scenes from the most unsuccessful dying of Easter eggs in human history:


This egg may be ugly, but at least it's also sticky.

Scenes from Tuna Melt and Oil Change Day:


Andrea and me in our manicure outfits. No manicures were actually received during the wearing of these clothes.

Scenes from yesterday:


I met up with Brad and Andrea yesterday after work. While we were waiting on the corner for Andrea's friend Lauren to find us, a man with a lame tribal tattoo and this dog dressed in a festive St. Patrick's Day t-shirt emerged from the bank behind us. The man undid his dog's leash and, with a snap of his fingers, it took a running leap for the top of a mailbox--and slid onto the other side. Another two goes left the dog perched on top.

The man then walked around the corner. The dog waited for a few moments, began to look concerned, hopped off the mailbox and tore down the street after him.

They both returned a moment later. Again, the dog was coerced into leaping onto the mailbox. By this point there was a small crowd of people surrounding the dog and its owner. While people snapped pictures with the dog ("LOOK HONEY, in New York you can MAIL YOUR DOG! What a city!"), the man chatted up a lady chihuahua owner on the corner who seemed charmed by the whole performance.

I can only imagine what goes on in that man's head.

Well Rover, I thought the wicked awesome tat would get me up to my knees in poon, but no luck. We need a new plan, boy, a new plan...lemme think, here. Okay, so chicks wanna get married. Marriages take place in churches. Some churches are old. Old churches have gargoyles on them. That's it! I'll teach you to perch like a gargoyle on top of a mailbox, and the babes'll totally fuckin' eat it up! SWEET.

Urgent Fashion Alert!

Hipsters, your culture is dead.

There are legwarmers in the window of Chanel.

Life is like the Thrillhammer...

This retrospective on my miniature Spring Break ("Woooooo!") would and will be more exciting when I have the corresponding pictures to post, but until that point my winsome words alone will have to be enough to excuse my three day absence from greater electronic dialogue.

After what was possibly the most trying trip in human history between two points, Brad arrived at my house after midnight on Friday slightly worse for the wear but physically (if not mentally) intact. Bravely facing an inexplicably frozen bank account, the consequent shortage of funds, a Western Union wire transfer I may or may not have addressed to one "Cootie Boozemar", bald tires, and a suspicious burning rubber smell eminating from his engine, Brad crossed the five-hundred miles between Cleveland and my town with the tenacity of a pilgrim trekking to the Holy Land (read: yours truly).

After a restorative night's sleep on my floor, Brad was ready to brave suburban drivers and airport traffic to collect Andrea. We arrived at La Guardia a little early and passed the time eating pretzels and convincing an eavesdropping old biddy that Brad was Ashlee Simpson's drummer. He has formerly posed as a Britney Spears back-up dancer and, once, we both may have let a Detroit shop owner think we were with Justin Timberlake's tour.

Before we had determined what my role was in Ashlee's entourage (keyboard player? stylist? ventriloquist?) we spotted Andrea and hoofed it down to baggage claim. She had spent a few hours encapsulated on a plane with numerous children and enough people discussing the genius of beef-flavored pet water to drive a sane person mad. Have you ever had to coerce your pet to drink? No.

Shockingly, this is not the conclusion everyone reaches regarding flavored pet water.

After some unpacking, we hopped on the train down to the city to meet up with my friend Raha. Theoretically, we had a date with a karoke machine, but destiny confounded our plans again and again. We left that night with nary a note escaping our all-too-sober lips, but I don't mind. There's an unbelievable rendition of Journey's Don't Stop Believing living in my soul, and if you're there when it escapes, my friends, hold onto your brewskies.

Sunday was spent spending. Kai shuttled us to the good mall, home of the good H&M--so good, in fact, that we lost Kai mid-shopping trip and had to call her from within the store to locate her. Choice articles were aquired by all, including nearly matching pants by Brad and Andrea. A sign for "Peanut Butter Smidgens" set off my sensitive-to-words gag reflex, though the brief spell was nothing a plate of nachos couldn't remedy.

On Monday, my very first day of oh-so-paid vacation, Brad and Andrea and I headed down to the city again to drop in on a museum or two. One might think that three such intelligent and artistically savvy people might've visited the Whitney, or the Guggenheim, or perhaps even the new MoMA, again, even though it's an absolute madhaus.

Us being us, we went to the Museum of Sex.

On the whole, the museum wasn't quite as titillating (pun emphatically intended) as one might expect. Though the "Pin-up photography through the ages" exhibit was pretty cool (who knew Victorians like the beaver shot so very much?) and the cartoon porno from the twenties was undeniably great, I think the whole place would've been more exciting if genitalia still made me giggle. Or even cringe. I would imagine that a devout Catholic looking for a naughty (yet educationally sanctioned!)pre-bachelorette party locale could have a totally bitchin' time there, but for a couple of kids who spent a night bartending a fifteen-hundred person party (required dress: cover your nipples) in their underwear, it was a little less than shocking.

"The Thrillhammer" was, however, somewhat intimidating.

Tuesday was the no holds barred Iron Chef throwdown between Brad and Andrea, the two best cooks with whom I am personally acquainted. After a quick stop at a thrift store to pick up cooking outfits (style points were judiciously awarded for wardrobe, general demeanor, dance moves, and ability to totally "bring it"), we raided the local Stop and Shop for supplies. The battle ingredient was lemon.

Iron Chef Yorktown: You Got Served produced delicous pasta, mouth-watering spicy lemon chicken, scrumptious lemon and garlic potatoes, savory rosemary and lemon broccoli, and a (since I ran out of synonyms for "delicious" and kind of hate the word "tasty," let's just assume that there's another adjective I don't find repulsive) giant fruit tart garnished with a tiny pineapple we lovingly dubbed the "tineapple." It also produced more dirty dishes than I've ever seen in one place, but washing them was a small cross to bear in exchange for the incredible dinner.

Yesterday was a slow day. Originally intending to run some necessary errands and get manicures, Andrea and I put on our "manicure outfits" and, along with Brad, ventured into Yorktown. I looked like a colorblind Mrs. Cleaver and she looked like the entire year of 1988, but with the bright red lipstick we both found occasion to wear (and consistently reapply in public on matching plastic heart-shaped mirrors) we'd like to think it was fabulous. A few tuna melts, an oil-change, a new orange purse, a reduced price ACDC t-shirt, and a new pair of jeans later, we still hadn't gotten manicures but felt that the manicure outfits hadn't gone to waste.

And today, lousy day that it is, I returned to work. I'm listening to the Walkmen's Bows Plus Arrows album again, and intently staring at my gray cube wall slightly cross-eyed in hopes that a clever upholsterer has secretly hidden one of those Magic Eye pictures in the speckly pattern.

Nope.

I'm Not

Dead. Just so's you know. Update forthcoming.

Aromatherapy

I wouldn't classify myself as someone particularly sensitive to strange aromas, but the smorgasboard of odors that assault my defenseless proboscis on a daily basis is beginning to get to me.

I think the problem is that the buffet of weird smells I encounter is exactly the same each day. In the six months I've been commuting, working, and commuting again, I've been able to pretty nauseatingly match each strange odor with what it smells like, regardless of whether or not the smell is actually eminating from that source.

The train in the morning smells like a mouth.

Depending on its riders, the train in the evening alternately smells like a sneaker or the floor of a bar.

My car smells like wet newspaper.

My office smells like under-the-bed, with patches of vacuum cleaner.

The Spring Street subway station smells like a urine sample under a heat lamp, which is curious, because all suspicious puddles I've spied are sitting on freezing concrete.

My boss's office smells like a hair-dryer.

There are a few highlights, though, which include the Hot Dad, who smells like detergent and car exhaust--a hotter combination than one would imagine. There's also my house, which smells like a kerosene heater, dog, and garlic--a more comforting combination that one would imagine.

Brad (soap and slightly spicy deodorant)is coming tonight, I think. This a piece of information so great it will singlehandedly get me through my remaining five hours of permission requsting. Andrea (who I always associate with pineapple, after a long fruit-hat engineering session) gets here tomorrow. I'm taking three paid vacation days starting Monday, which--lemme break this down old school--means that my company gives me money not to be here.

If the equation Kathy + Work = Money is true, then it should be mathematically impossible for the equation Kathy - Work = Money to also be true. This means that paid vacation trumps logic, reason, and the general laws of nature, proving that there is a God, and He wants me not to go to work.

Last night Kai (hospital and flowers) and I went to Friendly's (onion rings, Pledge, vinyl) to celebrate the beginning of her spring break with six scoops of ice cream. It was no kegger in Cancun (I've never been, but I'm going to imagine it's something like Corona and balls), but I takes my kicks wheres I can git 'em. With the vacation time and the visiting friends, I feel like I'm on my own spring break, which means it's time for KATHY GONE WILD, motherfuckers, BREAK OUT THE VIDEO CAMERA BECAUSE HERE COME THE BOOBS.

Or, you know, I might go to the Guggenheim.

A Story With a Disappointing Ending

There's this woman at the train station who stands next to me every day while we wait for the 6:46. She's probably in her late fifties, and she's a very comforting degree of bonkers.

On the whole, the well-suited, polished-shoe, project-managing breed of commuter puts me on edge. This particular lady is thrown into high relief by the matching-tie-and-hanky types, and it's because she's so different from the rest of the train crowd that I've come to deeply appreciate her inappropriately fuzzy pastel newsboy caps. Approximately biweekly, I celebrate her Strange Embroidered Red Silk Pants Day like it's my birthday.

Red Pants isn't the kind of eccentric that makes you wonder whether she lives in a group home; she's the brand of loopy that makes you question why you ever started wearing beige.

So, the train station has this bumpy rubber strip lining the edges of the platform so you don't slip and crack your head open and then get stuck in between the train and the platform and get sliced in half but the pressure of the train keeps you from bleeding to death so you're fully conscious when the firemen discuss how moving the train even an inch will result in your immediate and painful demise.

Anyway, Red Pants has this system of poking the rubber bumps with her toe. She does this every morning the way a kid in a doctor's waiting room invents a game to pass the time before his booster shot [I'm gonna put all these books on the chairs and then I'm going to run in a circle? And then I have to pick all of them up? And I have to put them all back on the first chair and I have to do it all before the big fish gets from one side of the tank to the other or the FLOOR TURNS INTO LAVA.].

I was watching her poke the bumps today and my brain took this weird narrative hairpin turn and all of I sudden I wondered if she has kids [which I'm positive she does, though for no logical reason] and how bizarre it would feel for them to watch their mom do this strange, solitary, mindless thing. Does my mom stand around poking bumps in a clockwise spiral? Probably not. But does she tap out Gloria Estefan's Get on Your Feet on deli counters when waiting for her coldcuts? I'll never know.

I just read over what I wrote, and there's some kind of integral bit I'm missing in the story telling, and it's something about the camera zoom my head did. I guess what I'm trying to say is: every person is a whole weird, friggin' world.

Which, you know, is like, weird.

I guess that's the moral of the story. Sorry.

Fire in the Disco!

False alarm on the....seventh floor!

I was fixing credit lines for an orthopedics book for the fourth time and getting very into the new Fiona Apple album when a dissonant whoop made me question her composition skill. Turns out it was the fire alarm.

Maybe I'm nothing but a fireman's kid, but I always found fire drills very, very exciting in elementary school. There is nothing more thrilling than the idea of dropping everything, silently falling into formation and urgently, quickly, immediately evacuating, consumed by visions of your entire crappy school burning to the ground right in front of your very eyes, including your mathbook and any proof that you didn't do your spelling homework, and possibly even the bitch of an instructional assistant who once made fun of your paper snowman's feet. Yes they were both pointing outward, but which other way were they supposed to point? He was two-dimensional, for Christ's sake.

In a fire drill, it's perfectly acceptable for you to imagine her reduced to a nugget.

Grown-up fire drills aren't the same. Despite office workers' assignments as searcher or warden; despite the red emergency phone next to the elevator that connected us to no one when we called down to doorman to see if the short, strange alarm was a real fire, a drill, or just a malfunction; despite the increasing temperature of the stairwell as we proceeded downstairs, there wasn't one iota of urgency expressed by anyone in my office. We all waited while upper-level editors sluggishly donned their coats and rummaged for their wallets, then plodded slowly downstairs while mourning the lack of elevator. As we decended into the theoretical fire raging below us, we discussed whether we should go to Starbucks or back to work.

The consensus was Starbucks.

I'm an assistant. I'm back at my desk.

It's good to know that--should actual flames consume the six floors below mine, firey tongues lapping the soles of my shoes as they eat through the floor--if I should be immolated beyond recognition there will be no shortage of survivors, debit cards in hand, able to purchase a venti skim latte to pour on the curb as a gesture of corporate memorial.

Procrastinatrix

Super, super busy today. I'll try to post something if work calms down later, but if not, I'll definitely write something from home. S'ok? S'ok.

And the Award Goes To...

I, Katharine Maria Cacace, would like to present this 5000 Hits Achievement Pin to Katharine Maria Cacace. Katharine Maria Cacace will be accepting the award on her behalf.

Thank you, thank you.

I know I should probably write something really great, something just appallingly brilliant to mark the occasion. I have undertaken this Sisyphean task twice already today, and just when I get the proverbial rock rolling I'm swamped with another set of permissions to request or credit lines to update. Hopefully tomorrow will be quieter and I'll be able to finish the rather pretty thing I've been thinking about writing for a week now about how people are, in general, very strange.

Instead, let's play a game.

Truth or dare? In the comments section, leave either a question for me (which, I swear on Dolly Parton's bosom that I will answer totally truthfully--you can even leave the question anonymously if you wish) or a dare (provided that the dare doesn't get me fired).

Ready? Go.

Dirty Money: My Life in Crime

The reason I have a large, painful burn on my face is directly related to my stumbling upon a large amount of drug money this weekend.

The older of my younger brothers came home for Spring Break this past Friday night. Saturday morning, both my brothers were headed to the mall for no good reason besides getting out of the house. There was an album I wanted to pick up so I tagged along for the ride.

We got to the mall earlier than I've ever been there before. The stores were just rolling up their gates and the movie theater wasn't yet running its matinee show. My youngest younger brother had to pick up a new set of contact lenses, so we followed him onto the escalator towards LensCrafters.

Contrary to their future claims, my brothers both got on the escalator without a single glance towards the white envelope sitting at the foot of the first stair. I spotted it, noticed it looked a little thick, and picked it up.

I was almost to the second floor by the time I finished counting the money in the envelope. Seven hundred-dollar bills, four twenties, and a single, enigmatic dollar. I showed it to my brothers and started walking towards the mall office to turn it in. They hopped circles around me urgently muttering Kathy--wait, you gotta think about this---let's just stop and think about this for a second--if we split this three ways--wait! Kathy! Just think about this!

The mall office was empty, and in retrospect I'm glad it was. I briefly thought about handing it over to one of the mall security guards, but decided against it based on a broad and unfair judgement of the creepy mustache on the only guard in sight.

I put the money in my bag to think. My youngest brother went to get his contacts. My other brother and I went to the record store, where he erupted in an unpluggable flow of paranoid theories about where the money had come from, to whom it belonged, and how they would trace it back to him and break his kneecaps.

We decided to regroup in the pet store. Amidst the tropical fish, I placed a call to my house in the guise of looking for advice while secretly hoping for a parental benediction allowing me to keep the money guilt-free. No dice; they said to take it to the cops, which I basically already knew I should do.

After a quick stop so my youngest brother could pick up an Iced Fudge Ripple latte and my other brother could frantically text message me that we were being followed, we left the mall--at this point caving somewhat to the paranoia, given that I was carrying around almost a thousand dollars in cash-money that was not mine, even a little bit.

We booked it over to the police station, where my youngest brother accompanied me inside while the other sat in the car because he didn't want "to get involved with the cops." How he maintains delusions that virtually the entire free world--whether law-enforcing, -abiding, or -exploiting--has a hit out on him is beyond me.

I filed a report and, long story short, I get to keep the money if it goes unclaimed. [Note: does anyone know how long the wait is? The police didn't know, which makes me think that perhaps I should find out and follow-up.] The cops seemed to think it was drug money, though I can't imagine the situation would warrant exactly $781.00 in payment. [My brother: No, see, they WOULD put that much money in an envelope, to throw off the cops if they found it!]

I think the thing that really made me want to turn it in was the fear that it was someone's paycheck. $781.00 is almost two weeks worth of work for me, and if I cashed it and lost it--or, worse, if I was being paid under the table and had no recourse to get my money replaced--I would want to die. So, hopefully, if that's the case, whomever it was who lost the cash will think to call the police.

However, if it was a drug-dealer stupid enough to stage an elaborate transaction at the mall ["Yeah, I'd like um, you know, a kilo of...Orange Julius"] and then lose the profits, then them's the breaks, kiddo.

So, about this burn on my face.

This is the point at which I will stop telling the story if someone asks about it. If they choose to assume that the drug dealers found me and tortured me for my interference by grinding a cigarette into the delicate flesh of my visage, then so be it. I'm leaving them to assume.

Because, you know, they could just as easily assume the truth, which is that I celebrated my find by diving too early into a plate of microwaveable Totino's Pizza Rolls, the molten filling of which scalded my face.

It's not my fault if they think I was hit with a gun over and over until I told them what I did with the money and was forced to fight my way free with my hands cuffed behind my back.

Whichever. So long as they don't think it's herpes.

Suck My Crystal Balls

My life for the past three days can best be described as a series of eerie coincidences, psychic visions, and strange echoes in the long, existential hallway. Philosopy 101 style, if I am truly a brain in a jar somewhere then someone's tapping the glass.

It's all stupid stuff, though. I haven't tuned in any lottery numbers or urgent cries for help pinpointing the location of kidnapped minors. My powers didn't even send me a vibration not to leave my phone on my bed this morning.

I did however predict Kai's exact (and unexpectedly good) grade on her endocrine system exam. Twice I've known the number of new e-mails in my inbox before I opened it. I was positive the Hot Dad was going to be on the train yesterday, despite his strong statistical tendency not to take the 5:12 on Thursdays. I knew my boss would be out sick today. Small potatoes, I know, but I'll take what I can get when it comes to swami credit.

It's less the Madame Cleo stuff and more the strange coincidences that have me looking over my shoulder. Everything I do, hear, say, or see for the past couple of days seems to have its echo just a little while later. After talking to Brad about possibly flying to Cleveland this weekend--a plan aborted due to prohibitive cost and complete absurdity--I sat next to two high-school kids discussing their plans to fly to Cleveland to pick up a CD from a friend. After formulating a possible plan for moving out and looking for apartments in White Plains during work hours, the Hot Dad spent ten minutes on the train telling me about the eleven years he lived an apartment there. After discussing at length during lunch a particular two-year-old photo, Brad mentions in an online post that he'd just recently found the very picture in question and made it his computer background.

Honestly, I'm not kidding when I say the list goes on and on and on.

When telling Kai about the strange phenomenon, she explained to me the Jungian theory of "synchronicity." I told her I had just finished reading about Jung in Chuck Palahniuk's Stranger than Fiction a few minutes before she picked me up.

None of this, though, compares to the divine voicemail I received this morning.

I've been having computer trouble everywhere I turn. Any piece of complex technology I touch instantly turns to crap, a situation that's about as stinky as its non-literal description. My computer at home wasn't working and I had to perform some elaborate "system restore" voo-doo to get it back in order. Once I did, the wireless internet committed suicide. At work, I have strange, unpredictable access to a shifting array of communal drives. I can't get into the abysmal German database I loathe, but still very much need to use. On arriving home last night to find out that some network techician is coming to my house tomorrow to survey the situation, I found myself very earnestly pleading please, God, just let me have one working computer in my life.

This morning, I got to work and checked my messages.

"Hi, Kathy, this is Jesus. We've got your new workstation, so let me know when I can come up and drop it off."

Jesus gave me a new computer today. Not hay-zoos, even--the IT guy who dropped off my brand new hard drive pronounces his name gee-zus. Like, you know, the messiah. For a pretty adamantly agnostic ex-Catholic, I'm beginning to feel uncharateristically Joan-of-Arcy.

What does it all mean, folks, what does it all mean? I feel as though I'm moving towards water-into-wine territory, but I'm kind of stuck at water-into-seltzer. If I'm going to have all kinds of strange premonitions or prophetic dreams or uncanny coincidences, I'd very much like them all to point to something.

Other than possible schizophrenia.

I Promise To Commit No Acts Of Violence

The Interpol show surpassed all of my expectations. If you find yourself within a driveable, flyable, swimmable, joggable, or cross-country-skiable distance of one of their shows, get thee there without delay.

Not to sound like that girl [Interpol is the soundtrack of my depression, the depths of which no one could possibly comprehend. Leave me to cut myself.], but honestly, Interpol's stuff has been there for me through a rough patch or two. This fact, coupled with my going solo, poised last night's show to be a very personal, moving, it's-up-to-me-to-turn-on-the-bright-lights kind of experience. Which, to Interpol's credit, it mostly was.

Except for the two minor distractions. One was unquestionably the dudes on my right, and the second I cannot directly attribute to them although I have some weighty suspicions. How one gets drunk on a single eight dollar Radio City vodka and cranberry is a biochemical mystery I shall never unravel. Regardless, the guys to my right managed to get rip-roarin' shitfaced well before the opening band finished their set, which was convenient because the lead singer of Blonde Redhead may never have heard the staggeringly lewd comments they were shrieking at her without the sweet voice of Bacchus added to their choir.

During the half hour set change before Interpol took the stage, the guys took it upon themselves to harangue every concertgoer in our section about standing up during the rest of the show. Now, I'll admit, I've gotten stodgy in my old age. I've been to, worked at, and bartended enough general admission concerts in my vast twenty-two years to want to take advantage of a seat when I find one conviently and comfortably situated below me. I'd also been up since five-thirty that morning, and faced a two-hour commute after the show. I'm tired. I'm old. I'm boring. I was reading Faulkner between sets at a rock show for Christ's sake--pretentious, yes, horrifically so, but a quality I was willing to portray in order to deter unnecessary conversations with drunk douchebags. I could not have appeared any more unwilling to talk to them if I had been wearing a bag on my head, and still, they harped.

Of course, once Interpol took the stage everyone did stand up, so I had to stand up, and that was fine. However, midway through the second song, Distraction Two began wafting towards me in warm, pungent bursts.

For those of you assuming that Distraction Two is of the herbal variety, you are sorely mistaken. Distraction Two was less pharmaceutical, more gastrointestinal. I suppose I should be happy that the plastered duo wasn't throwing up, but I very nearly was.

Despite the company, the show was astounding. Like I said, snow-shoe, paddle-boat, mule train, spelunk to the nearest concert date.

I may post more after lunch, but right now I've got a slice of pizza in the fridge with my name on it. Literally. Theiving bastards.

Once Upon A Time

First and foremost, the new JUNK is up. Head on over there to read some rambling prose by yours truly, some excellent interviews with uber-hip musicians by Mr. Bradley "The" Walsh, or to sample an assortment of other text confections--but mostly go to ogle nudie pictures of a super-hot guy whose last name appears to be missing structurally significant vowels.

As predicted, yesterday was a snow day. The heavens defecated over a foot of precipitation on my house by the time the storm was over, so I had to "work from home," or, more accurately, "punch in, watch Ellen because Vince Vaughn was on the show, then watch a documentary about the National Spelling Bee, then go to the mall and buy a new outfit, then eat a grilled cheese, then punch out."

It was a long, hard day at the salt mines.

The new outfit part was a violation of my "work from home" rules so gratuitous that I almost couldn't do it, but in the end I was going to see Interpol today and had absolutely nothing I was willing to wear. Plus, I was charged by my mother with a crusade to bring back several Lindt chocolates for her immediate consumption. Facing both my mother's dire truffle emergency and a personal fashion crisis, there was nothing to be done about breaching protocol.

Like I mentioned, tonight is the Interpol show and if I were any more excited about that there would be liquid evidence on my seat. I am going by myself, but the outfit I bought is particularly bookish and I'm reading As I Lay Dying at the moment, so I'm thinking I'll work the Hot Librarian/I'm Too Into Literature To Need To Talk To You look. I'm also kind of looking forward to all of the pre-show eavesdropping I'll get to do. I'm betting it'll be annoying, blog-worthy, and quipped about tomorrow. See you there.

See, I was priding myself on the relatively coherent narrative flow of this post and now I'm gonna fuck it all up. Usually my paragraphs have nothing to do with each other, but I think I segued pretty effectively between all of the topics we just discussed. Then I remembered this thing that happened when I was at the diner with Kai last night and now everything's all shot to shit. Alright, let's pretend I just told a story about how I had a dream wherein Interpol challenged Princess Diana to a battle of the bands, except Princess Di couldn't find a bass player, so she asked me to fill in, and we lost the battle, but in the end we had a dance party and I did the robot with Carlos D. while Di was on the ones and twos.

Speaking of Princess Diana, Kai and I were at the Mahopac diner last night for dinner and found ourselves listening to a mother tell her children the story of Princess Di's death, except she was recounting it the way you would read Cinderella right before tucking in your kids and flipping off the light.

I tuned in somewhere around:

...and she was the most beautiful, kind Princess and everybody loved her. Everybody but her husband that is, the Prince, because he loved another lady. The Prince and the Princess finally stopped loving each other so much that the Princess took off. She was very sad for a long time until she found another man who loved her very much...until one night, when they were in a tunnel, and their car crashed. The Princess died, and now she's buried and everyone brings her flowers and cries, and that's why Elton John wrote that song that's in the jukebox. Now, are you going to get a hot dog or are you going to get chicken nuggets? You better choose because the waitress is coming over right now, and God help me I'm not gonna sit here while you deliberate about this...

And they lived happily ever after.