Surprises don’t exist in my life. Neither does moderation when it comes to bacon, but bacon is only partially involved this time. I’ve ruined every surprise ever planned for me, usually by guessing ‘cake’ or ‘petting zoo’, but it’s even worse when I’m the one with the surprise.
This time, my surprise came in the form of a hot air balloon ride. I’ve always wanted to go up in one because it just seems like something a circus ringleader would do on their day off and since my goals closely resemble that of a circus performer, it sounded like the perfect Saturday morning activity. All I had to do was keep it under wraps for two days. I was pretty successful, until about the sixth hour after making the reservation. I had already slipped by emailing my boyfriend and telling him I was bursting about my surprise, but that was a pretty subtle pun so I was at least temporarily safe. Then he came home and I started telling him, in very selective terms, that I was flying high about this surprise and how much of a basket case I was because I couldn’t tell him. He finally ended what was turning into a very Life Goes On moment and said, “It’s a hot air balloon ride, isn’t it?”
With another successfully spoiled surprise under my belt, I was free to let my mind wander about how rough and tumble the pilot would be and if he had been involved in any hijackings. Unfortunately, what I ended up getting was a guy with a Nickelback ringtone and a decent knowledge of the crops that are grown in Napa Valley.
Despite having to wake up at 4am that morning, I was giddy once we finally got there. I was doing all of my best dances, trying to remember the lyrics to ‘Electric Avenue’ and making everyone around me wish that they could reschedule. Right as I was about to do what is admittedly a pretty weak Elmo impression, my boyfriend looks at me and says, “I can’t believe you’re allowed to have a credit card.” I thought about making him look like a total ass by listing the responsible things I buy on a regular basis, but all I could come up with was a sketchbook and even that is used solely for drawing cats eating different kinds of snack foods. Seconds after this realization, he unearthed the truth I was trying to hide and said, “All you use it for is candy and balloon rides.”
After promising to change my account passwords since he must’ve been looking at my statements, I finished my second muffin and boarded the van that was driving us to the lift-off site.
I wish I could say more about the balloon ride itself. It was like being in a marshmallow that sometimes emitted fire and everything below looked like a series of Josef Albers paintings. More importantly though, there was bacon at the brunch afterward, which is what I was paying for anyway.
Once I was done eating my boat of candied pork, I bought chocolate covered toffee almonds. Partially because I really wanted them, but mostly so my credit card company wouldn’t detect any unusual activity.
No one has ever been able to either spell or pronounce my name upon meeting me for the first time and in most cases, six months after that. Well aside from my mom, on occasion, but she’s obligated since she’s the one who gave me this verbal jockstrap of a name in the first place. I’ve gotten everything from Abry to Obree, and while all of those give me the same queasy feeling I had when I slowly realized that the porn I borrowed from my best friend in high school was actually about a step-dad fucking his step-daughter and oh my god he gets off to this and we share cheese fries at lunch, ‘Audrey’ is what ultimately makes me dig my nails in my palms and force a polite ‘I think I have a hemorrhoid’ smile.
When asked for my name at a coffee shop or cafe, I typically offer something short that couldn’t possibly be maimed in the way that I’ve become accustomed. Jen, Amy, and Kim are in the rotation right now, among others, but I’ll stop there and let Lou Bega have the monopoly on setting a Hooters employee schedule to music and claiming it as a creative process. Usually these names are ones I lusted after as a child because of their ability to be put in anyone’s mouth and, assuming they know at least half of the alphabet, not come out looking like boiled dog food.
There are times, however, when I forget or just simply want to amuse myself by learning all the new ways that my name can be turned into something Cookie Monster might say. But today, as I sat down with my $4 cup of justification to leech as much wireless and electricity as I want, I noticed that nothing was out of place. There was no missing ‘e’, no added syllables, and no reason for me to break their display case and carve my name into all of the pastries.
Now thoroughly on my way to developing superstition, I began retracing my steps so I could duplicate these results and abandon my life as ‘Audrey’ forever. Turns out it’s pretty simple – all I need is someone who can read and a credit card boasting an accurate spelling of ‘Aubrey.’
I’m still not optimistic.
It’s a bit of a habit of mine to pick up a stuffed animal or puppet on every IKEA visit I make once moving to a new city. I have a pretty decent collection so far – hippo, moose, some sort of ambiguous reptile, and now finally, a cat.
I guess I do it because moving is kind of scary and since I never developed a taste for alcohol, I need something to calm my nerves. Although, those sewn on nipples admittedly don’t do much for my peace of mind.
I found this ‘Heart in Oregon’ sticker today while packing. I bought it weeks after moving here with the intention of putting it on the rear window of my car just to show everyone how not insecure I was about being an outsider. Since I still had Florida plates, it sat unpeeled in my nightstand for months because I didn’t want to illicit any ‘wait a minute’ epiphanies from cops who could pull me over for not registering the car 30 days after relocating.
Eventually, I registered with the state of Oregon. The plates came in the mail a few days ago, nearly hours after making the decision to leave.
I’m still debating whether I should use the sticker or put it in my ‘what could’ve been’ box along with my unsent letters to Tucker Carlson and a VHS tape in which I perform the voices of a googly eyed banana and a unibrowed jar of Pace Picante Sauce in order to explain the dangers of drunk driving. It seems hypocritical to claim that my heart is in a place where I lived for less time than the duration of Freaks and Geeks, but in a lot of ways, it’s accurate. Oregon represents the first time I drove across the U.S. as an adult, the first time I irresponsibly blew a significant amount of money to go overseas, and the first time I realized that people will put venison in anything.
I hope we can be together sometime in the future, Oregon. Just know that I’ll always remember you for your fondness of seasoned tater tots, more breweries than I’ve had orgasms, and the abundance of unkempt but practical facial hair.
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. The reason for this is because when that fucking desiccated tootsie roll RUSHED out of those corn fields like they were on fire, my four-year-old heart couldn’t take it and from that point on, I would only watch movies that guaranteed carbon based characters or ideally, plots entirely absent of science. For years, E.T. haunted me. Every dark hallway or stairwell was an invitation for him to come hurdling toward me. To do what, I’m not sure. The most diabolical thing he ever did in the movie was befriend a 10-year-old boy and dress in women’s clothes. And while that’s unsettling for some, it’s not necessarily scary.
Still, I was petrified of him. A few years later, however, I saw a behind the scenes special that revealed the means of locomotion for E.T. – wheels. Even at eight years old, where my world allowed a reality in which The Muppets were living beings, I knew what wheels were. I knew they weren’t scary and even though there was a screeching uterus with a nose attached to them, I was able to watch the movie and meet E.T.’s beady eyes without turning away until the Reese’s Pieces showed up.
Despite my victory over E.T., I was ruined for any future interest in the horror genre. Movies that depend almost entirely on the inevitability that something is going to be forcibly removed by a sharp object or vagina dentata are not something my anxiety has the aptitude to deal with. The only horror movies I watch, understandably, are ones so bad that they reveal their parlor tricks as they go along. Films starring wrestlers or Gary Busey, usually. From the beginning, they admit to the fact that they’re full of shit, instead of attempting to peddle the idea that corn syrup and red food coloring are worthy of soiling yourself or more importantly, real.
I’m not a fan of severity, which is why I’m struggling with the fact that in less than two weeks, I’ll be moving. Again. A little over six months ago, I moved from Florida to Oregon. It was my ‘fuck you Southeast I’m going to live in the Pacific Northwest and eat fresh sustainable fish not because I like fish since I really don’t but just because I can‘ tour. It’s been successful so far, but I’m realizing that more than anything, I was simply proving to myself that I could escape from the straight jacket that manifested itself from the familiarity of my former surroundings. Somehow, I did it. But the point is, I’ve done it and I need to move on.
It’s uncomfortable to stare into a future so fertile with doubt and the unavoidable truth that I will ingest Nyquil at least once to comfortably fall asleep before 9pm. But since I have a poor sense of impulse control and an insatiable need to challenge the limits of a rapidly dwindling savings account, I will be Danny Tanner-ing it into San Francisco before January ends.
The way I see it, if I can overcome that creep E.T., I can do just about anything. All I need is for the situation to reveal its wheels.
