This morning I packed a lunch for both Elle and myself.

Elle followed my (sporadic) tradition of including a note on a napkin. Today she did this while I wasn’t looking and stuffed it into my lunch bag.

She makes my heart smile. Every damn day. So full of unconditional love.

Here are my thoughts in return: Dear Elle, thanks for teaching me that you can never give enough love, hugs and kisses everyday to the loved ones in your life.

Please notice the SDSU lunch bag…that conveniently fits a six pack of beer inside. I know, I used it for something way less fun. Except that sugar free pudding. That stuff must have crack in it. And the berries are divine too. Off to get my fix.

I’ve never done this before. (These days, I’m discovering that I don’t say that phrase often enough, but that’s a totally different issue.)

I’ve never had a guest writer. But I had an experience recently that caused my abs and cheeks to hurt from laughing so hard. Rather than me trying to recreate the humor and sound like I was just making fun of my friend, I offered him the opportunity to retell the story. This is the email message I got. Verbatim. Except for the comments in blue which are from me (starting now!).

Email message:

I think it may be too long.

HAHA – that’s what she said!

-Jeremiah

Blog submission:

For my birthday Susan took me out to lunch-or a ‘@susanmercedes’ as we call hours-long lunches that include alcohol. When we got to Wild Grape (yummy restaurant in Salt Lake City with a great wine selection and a fun staff…shown below) Susan made it a point to let everyone know that it was my birthday. Everyone. Which is fine if you’re the kind of person who is comfortable with a lot of attention, but I’m not. (Whatever, he loves it! Jeremiah, you’re officially a liar in print.) After what seemed like an hour of this, we were seated.

Susan’s personality is infectious (not like herpes or a staph infection, but like happy, fun, make you want to smile infection) and our cute waitress warmed up to her quickly. This never works out well for me because Susan likes to make jokes about my um, manhood, and my performance in the sack-despite the fact that SHE HAS NO CLUE. Our friendship is strictly platonic and always has been, but somewhere along the way Susan took a potshot joke and ran with it. But today was my birthday so she promised to be on her best behavior. And she was, at least until dessert arrived because at this point we were quite a few drinks in.

Waitress, setting down the goat cheese panna cotta: “Go ahead, try it. I’m in to reactions.”

Susan: “Oh yeah? Then you should totally have sex with him” (pointing to me)

The waitress laughed hard, her eyes shooting straight up as some people do when they’re laughing at something embarrassing.

Susan to the laughing waitress: “Yes, that’s exactly the reaction you’d have!”

Doubled over in laughter, the waitress managed to turn bright red despite her olive skin. I was in a similar state, laughing even though Susan had just told a perfect stranger that I was a joke in bed.

I’ve always been able to laugh at Susan’s jokes that come at my expense because quite frankly (Here comes Jeremiah’s chance to publicly tell the world about how wrong I am. Let’s see how he does.) I know the truth and she doesn’t. If I were self-conscious about it I might not be able to take the jokes, but as it is, I just think they’re funny. (That completely sounds like something a guy who drives a huge lifted Ford F-350 would say.) Somehow I’ve even convinced myself that her jokes would be endearing to other women and help my cause, though they certainly haven’t so far. (Hey ladies, he’s single. And I doubt that I am the reason.)

I’m pretty sure if I ever go back and get that waitress again I won’t be landing a date, but I *can* expect to be laughed at. (Jeremiah, is that so different from any other place you go? At least with me it isn’t.)

I realize that posting this may lessen my chances of getting more guy friends. But I don’t do this to all of my guy friends. Only Jeremiah. He’s special that way. *pointing below his belt*

A dear friend and I had lunch over the weekend. Since we both wanted a glass of wine, I convinced her that we should probably order a bottle. When I say convinced, I mean suggested. And she jumped at the idea. That is exactly why she is a dear friend. Anyhow, it went like this:

Me (to waiter): I’ll have a glass of chardonnay

Friend (to waiter): Me too.

Me (to friend): Maybe we should get a bottle. They are the small bottles.

Friend: Sounds like a good idea.

Me (to waiter): Make it a bottle of wine.

When the waiter brought the bottle of wine, my friend and I continued our conversation.

Friend: You said it was a “small bottle”. That is a regular size wine bottle.

Me: It’s mini small compared to the magnum bottles I buy.

Meanwhile the waiter was taking out the cork. I noticed he pulled out the cork and put it in the palm of his hand. And then he put the corkscrew back in the bottle and kept pulling a cork.

I was thinking he was an idiot. Seriously, if you’re in the service industry you should be able to pull a cork out in one piece. I was also thinking he was a maniac, because the corks used for this wine are plastic and IMPOSSIBLE to break.  Clearly he managed to break it. Nutty server.

Then he confessed that he wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t willing to believe him until he showed me proof. 

This wine had 1 1/2 corks in it. We took pictures to prove it. It’s something I’ve never seen before. Considering the amount of wine I drink, this is clearly super unusual!