Silliest girls in England

***Figgy Pudding info can be found HERE***

Monday morning. Ugly Monday morning. We're on the couch, half awake, breakfast half eaten, sockless and tie-less, Colin Powell blah blah blah. And Phillip says, "Wanna call in sick?" And I seriously consider this, even though I haven't called in sick to work since my freshman year when I paid for tuition by injecting pure caffeine into the hardened veins of University of Washington grad students. Now that was a sucky job.

Topping off a lazy weekend was a wicked headache, the kind that originates after an hour navigating a Smart Car-sized shopping cart through the chaos of Costco, one that builds while reading the smallish print of the December Atlantic Monthly, nearly blinds you during 7 pm Mass, and deposits your trembling Jello-fied form onto the couch for an evening of self-medication consisting of Ocean's Eleven, an bottle of Excedrin PM, and a husband trying to funnel an entire gallon of water down your throat. In short, a span of several hours in which I felt as though some horrible and malicious person was slowly winding a rubber band around my brain. It wasn't a migraine, though, and for that I am thankful. I've had exactly one migraine in my life and that was more than enough, thank you Migraine Distributors. Migraines involve ten times more rubber bands and a dark, deathly quiet, and preferably padded room in which to weep without interruption.

Saturday, pre-Headache, was all right. Saturday involved a Brisk Fall Stroll, a veritable HEAP of French toast, catching up on The O.C., and some cursing at two-dimensional Halo 2 characters, but I try not to pay attention to that. Saturday also involved the following phone conversation.

BECCA: (giggly, like she's just snorted a Pixie Stick) Maggie! Maggie! We need you! We NEED you!

MAGGIE: (kicking into Wise and Not Visibly Panicked Older Sister Mode) What? What's the matter?

BECCA: We need you to do something! Katie! Katie, YOU tell her about our ISSUE!

(Phone is handed off with much whispering and giggling. MAGGIE is becoming Slightly Suspicious as BECCA does not seem to be in Grave Danger, only that she sounds like she has taken a drag or two from the potent Joint of Crazy. MAGGIE slowly reverses back to Uh, WhatEVER Older Sister Mode.)

KATIE: Hey Maggie! What's up? Whatcha doin'? Doing anything fun? Anything interesting? Are ya busy?

MAGGIE: I'm eating dinner.

KATIE: Right, well, we were kinda hoping you could drive us to, uh, Hollywood video-

MAGGIE: Drive you somewhere? (Glances out window: dark, rainy, yucky. Thinks about distance to BECCA'S apartment: freeway, stoplights, careening through sketchy University neighborhood. Checks internal stress factors: dangerously low on red wine. Then, suddenly, remembers an important detail.) ExCUSE ME?

KATIE: We were just hoping you could come get us and-

MAGGIE: Does Becca, perchance, remember what I did for her THIS VERY MORNING?

BECCA: (in background) Oh yeah...

MAGGIE: Does she remember how I picked her up at SEVEN THIRTY on SATURDAY morning, drove her to her four-hour Required-To-Be-A-Teacher exam, then RETRIEVED her sorry butt- in the middle of FOOTBALL TRAFFIC- and bought her a tasty and nutritious lunch before taking her HOME? Does she remember THAT?

KATIE: Dude, we were just asking.

BECCA: That Quarter Pounder was excellent, by the way.

MAGGIE: You are welcome to borrow my car, but I don't think I'll be chauffeuring you around this evening.

KATIE: But by the time we borrow your car-

BECCA: we might as well have just gone straight to the video store!

MAGGIE: Ah, dilemmas!

KATIE: Maaaaaaaaggie, pleeeeeeeeease???

BECCA: Mean! Meanie! Big fat meanie!

MAGGIE: Let me know if you want to borrow the car! Ciao!

(click) 

MAGGIE: (to PHILLIP) Un. Be. Lievable.

KATIE & BECCA: (feverishly plotting to take the bus to MAGGIE'S apartment, tie her up, gleefully jump up and down on the couch, and steal her Pride and Prejudice tapes AND the fresh pan of brownies for their sneaky Lazy Little Sister purposes. Also, a side discussion about how to persuade Mom and Dad to finally disown their mean and heartless oldest child.)

I was eating dinner (Grape Nuts- yummy!) and watching the end of a movie (The Stepford Wives, N. Kidman Version. Grade: Do not strain yourself, ever, to see this movie.) Could I be bothered to get back in the car? Obviously not.

Hi Becca! Still gonna let me borrow your big ol' fake diamond ring for the Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition? Awesome! You're a gem!

(HA! I called her a "gem". Get it? GET IT?)