humming along to ringtones ...

why am i in the fetal position, glued to an america's next top model marathon and demolishing a peanut butter and banana sandwich, you ask? i blame amazing grace, my favorite place to buy a sandwich bigger than my head.

when i stopped by for dinner last night, amazing grace was packed and the stock was depleted. the bread shelf was empty and the only flavor remaining on the board was honey wheat. honey wheat? this sandwich diva requires something with the word "pepper" or "cheese." preferably "three pepper" or "three cheese." so i walked upstairs to northern waters smokehaus, careful not to make eyecontact with any of the cheese -- specifically that brie-devil. the small store was crammed with couples double fisting chunks of cheese and two men ransacking a plate of smoked salmon.

that's when i realized that everyone in duluth was out and to not be out would be to deny my inner duluthian.

we walked to the roundup for karoake night, where the regulars were paying tribue to garth brooks and i sang "borderline" badly. i blame the dead microphone and a pingy version of the song that made it sound like i was humming along to a ringtone. "we don't get much madonna around here," the bartender said when i finished. i probably should have channelled reba.

outside i overhear a man telling a racist joke to a woman who is the race in his punchline. she laughs wildly and he continues the schtick back inside at at the table.

the roundup closes at 1 a.m. and the bartender says we are all headed to o'gilby's! so we file two blocks east and i realize that if pressed, i would not know the difference between o'gilby's and the roundup if i faced them in a lineup. they are exactly the same and filled with the exact same people. the only difference is that no one flushes the toilet at the roundup, and at o'gilby's one stall over a woman spent 8 minutes slurring to me that the door didn't lock, but she didn't care because she had nothing to be ashamed of and then got angry when a woman assured her that she wasn't going to bust into the stall.

then we walked home.
i don't think there is any reason for me to ever go out three times in one week ever again. amazing grace be damned.