Wading in the Velvet Sea

5:00 am-6:00 am

No, that’s not a typo. I got up at 4:55 am. On a Saturday. Too many things wrong already, I know. The combination of four hours of sleep plus the lack of daylight makes shaving immensely hard. Have to look good, I am apparently going on a UNICEF-sponsored night on the town and therefore things like ‘shaving’ and ‘not wearing flanel shirts’ is in play, damnit. I hop into my car about 5:40 am, bags in tow, a dozen CDs in my jacket pocket. Top off my gas tank, and by 5:55 am, I’m on Route 95 South.

Meanwhile, nearby, Kim Bauer gets attacked by a cougar and John Cougar Mellencamp. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

6:00 am-7:00 am

How refreshing, the weather is ‘cold, gray, and miserable’. This whole sunshine thing has been annoying me, all eight hours I’ve seen in the last month. Decide that my first wind is already gone, and caffeination is on order. Stop off at a rest area on the Mass Pike. One entirely too large, entirely too loud Pakistani family has usurped the Dunkin’ Donuts. They could NOT have been happier to be at a rest stop at 6 am. Just…ACK. Hit the Circle K instead, bought a 20 ounce Diet Coke. Again, with the UNICEF theme---I’m wearing some nice pants for later activity, and the thought of spilling coffee, coupled with the Bollywood version of the Brady Bunch, has led me to drinking Diet Coke at 6 am. As I get in the parking lot, I try to put my change in my pocket, and realize that, after giving the man a $10 for the diet coke, I got back some quarters, three crisp dollar bills, and a $5 that was cut at a 45 degree angle corner to corner. I just paid $6 for a Diet Coke. Son of a’.

Close to the scene, having escaped the cougar, Kim gets caught inside a Coca-Cola soda factory by cougar-wielding terrorists and Beyonce Knowles, who wants Kim to switch to Pepsi or ELSE. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

7:00 am-8:00 am

For a $6 Diet Coke, it doesn’t taste half bad. Coupled with the stereo blasting some ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, I ain’t doing so bad. I’m now on I84 in Connecticut, which is a highway built by people with AHDH. Just make up your mind, people---pick a speed limit and stick to it. Every 47 feet the speed limit changed. Dear God. This is making me hungry. Stop at a restaurant. A fast food joint. Won’t say what it was, lest I get sued, but it rhymed with McBonald’s. A nice young gentleman who was rapidly losing blood flow to his brain thanks to an entirely too-tight tie took my order. ‘Sausage McMuffin with Egg.’ Again, I’m slightly groggy. The Diet Coke is good, but c’mon, I got up at 4:55 am. I shouldn’t legally be operating a vehicle at this point. I get my sandwich and hop back in the car, anxious to make up lost time. I take out the sandwich, take a bit, and realize that I’m the first customer to ever receive an egg-less Sausage McMuffin with Egg. Least all my bills were in their complete form. Still. UGH. I want Blotchy Boy to suffer via tiny incisions via my 45 Degree Lincoln.

Somewhere, at the same time, Kim Bauer tries to call her father, who’s busy performing open heart surgery on terrorists using only a Swiss Army Knife and a copy of ‘US Weekly’. She of course hits herself on the head while dialing and falls down, unconsciously, into the egg patty once meant for my sandwich. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

8:00-9:00 am

God is angry with me. Didn’t enjoy my hateful thoughts towards Sweaty McBonald’s Man. So he holds a meeting up in Heaven. Asks the angels what he should do. By all accounts, a unanimous vote was held in which they decided to incur the scariest fog I’ve ever scene as I drive down the Palisades Parkway. I’m talking 20’ visible, maybe. I felt at times like I was in an airplane trying to get above cloud level. An entirely unnerving experience. I started talking to my traveling companion to calm my nerves until I remembered I was the only one in the car.

Cut to Jack Bauer, who just cut off someone’s head to extract a piece of gum that may or may not prove that the Cypress recording were false. Kim manages to sleepwalk into a Black Panther party and declare that ‘WHITEY TIME FOREVER’ was about to begin. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

9 am-10 am

Gotta love the Commander. Well, here you do, it’s Article #4 in the by-laws of the website. I’m reading his directions to get to his place, which I’ve read before, but they still crack me up. I’ll paraphrase:

‘So now you’re gonna go to a street. It looks like you wanna do X, but that’s just pain wrong. Yes, I know what it says. They lie. Oh how they lie. Do this instead. Trust me. And don’t cry too much.’

I dunno about you, but where I come from, if I sign on a highway says you’re on Road X, I’ll tend to believe it. Call me foolish. New Jersey likes to keep you on your toes. They’ll tell you you’re on the NJ Turnpike, but actually it’s just possible foreshadowing. I basically had to pull a Luke at the end of ‘A New Hope’, where I turned off my tracking scanner and used the Force, with Tim’s directions supplying the Obi-Wan ethereal voice-overs.

A few miles away, Kim tries to escape in a Go Kart, kills 18 members of the Black Panther party, and then through a series of mishaps, marries David Duke. Tony Almeda has no idea where she is. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

10 am-11 am

Again, Huzzah for the Commander. I arrive at his place, and lo, EGGS are on the menu for breakfast. Take THAT, God! HAHA.

OK, God called and smited me for that. Just a love smite tho. Nothing big. I’m already going to hell, there’s little He can do to me now.

Tim and I map out the day---he’s got a staged reading for ‘The Comedy of Errors’ (as another friend said, confused, ‘Do they really need to workshop that text?’), and I’m meeting Alissa for lunch and drinks until Tim’s free. All we have to do is get to Manhattan from his apartment. Easy. No problem.

Kim just sacrificed 150 chickens to satisfy Latonah, the new God that she and David Duke worship. Latonah roughly translates into ‘She Who is Adored by Those in Too-Tight Tank Tops’. In more disturbing news, Duke has borrowed some of Kim’s clothes. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

11 am-12 pm

I am wearing a pair of pressed chino’s, an ironed, button-down white long sleeved shirt, a woolen sweater, and my dress shoes. Tim is wearing a air of old jeans and a sweatshirt. I remark on how we’ve pulled a fashion-based Freaky Friday; Tim points out that these are his ‘before I even shower’ clothes, so what does that say about me? I then stab him in the eye with an egg-laced fork.

Everything but the fork is true, sadly.

President Palmer finds out that not only are their moles in his administration, but that Kim has been organizing a calling scam to make sure that Marine from ‘American Idol’ never gets voted off. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

12 pm-1 pm

OK, so pay attention. This is how NOT to get to Union Square from Jersey City to meet a friend for lunch. You go outside and miss the bus by 8 seconds. You then try to meet the next one, which is ten minutes late, after your host gets an annoying call from his ex. You make sure to wait in the drizzling rain. You then arrive at the PATH only to watch the train pulling away. You then try to get to Union Square from 14th Street, which is extremely easy unless you’re me, so you call your friend from 16th and 6th, and promptly mishear her directions, and call her 10 minutes later from roughly 10 feet from the spot of your initial call. Who needs a drink? After the 45 Degree Five Dollar Bill, the lack of eggs, the natural weather disasters, and my innate non-sense of direction, I sure do.

Kim Bauer manages to destroy true magnetic north. Thousands of sea-borne vessels instantly crash into rocks and each other. World-wide panic ensues. David Duke seeks an annulment. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

1 pm- 2 pm

Alissa is leading me through New York, because, well, she lives here, and I’ve already beyond the shadow of a doubt proved my ineptitude, directionally speaking. We end up at a place that still serving brunch. $17, for a starter and an entr’e. What a gyp, I think to myself. Alissa then points out that the $17 includes two glasses of OJ or two Mimosas. Instantly the deal is upgraded to ‘BEST BRUNCH EVER’. Still smarting from the I84 McBonald’s, I order a three-egg omelet. Now say it along with me, kids: ‘Mmmmm…mimosas.’ Two glasses downed. Alissa gets one. The counting becomes important, trust me. Our waitress has a kinda hot school-girl ensemble going on, but as far as I can tell, she’d win the ‘World’s Most Bitter Balkan’ Pageant. Youch.

Kim’s one-legged boyfriend cuts off his other leg after Kim tries to explain that, even though gas prices may be going up, she still went to the Mobil Mart and got $5 worth of gas, so what’s the problem? KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

2pm - 3 pm

We pay for brunch. Alissa asks the single most unnecessary question of the day: ‘So, wanna go to a dive bar and drink?’ Huh? Is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope’.Oh wait, I might have that backwards. Point is, YES. So we go to Dempsey’s, and the first thing I smell is…no cigarette smoke. Awesome. Cue the Simpsons Comic Book Guy: ‘Best…Legislation…EVER.’

Place is deserted. She’s drinking Bud Light, I’m drinking a house Irish Amber. I’d tell you what we talked about, but this is a PG-13 rated blog. Alissa’s a cool kid who I’ve known for two years; we sorta weave in and out of each other’s lives. She has an interesting theory on our friendship that I learn about in roughly six hours. But for now, we’re talking relationships---her current one, my past ones. So, 4 drinks for Ryan, 3 for Alissa.

Kim takes some DayQuil to relieve her cold symptoms and instantly gets alcohol poisoning. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

3 pm - 4 pm

Two more drinks apiece. You know you’re approaching insane drinking levels when the bartender starts giving you free rounds since you’ve already tipped her more than the worth of a round. Alissa gets super chatty. Having lumbar issues. So I get to give her a back rub in a dive bar while she bemoans the lack of equality in a certain part of her current relationship. For some people, if they could spy in on the scene, it would have looked like that ‘Scene Just Before The Kinky Sex’ is most late night Cinemax movies. Again, though, it’s me and Alissa, so that’s not the case, this is just how we interact. The Commander calls, and says he’s joining us. I love Tim, and I love Alissa. Most people would think this might end up like mixing oil and water. I’m half in the bag and Alissa’s all but taking a cat nap at this point though, so I don’t think about the possible ramifications until it’s too late.

Ryan: 6, Alissa, 5

Kim Bauer is bored and tries to start a book club for the daughters of CTU employees, and ends up by accident re-establishing the Symbionese Liberation Army. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK’

4 pm - 5 pm

Tim wants food. They have no food here. Ryan and Alissa want beer. We leave and go about 10 feet to a place that has both. MMMMMM…beer. And chicken parm subs. Tim and Alissa hit it off splendidly well, and start totally making out in front of me. OK, that’s a lie, but it made me snicker to type that out. We then play a fun round of ‘I Can Totally Top Your F#cked Up Relationship Story’ Game, followed by ‘Ryan Says the Most Inappropriate, Ideally Non-Sequitur Thing Possible to Make Tim Wince And/Or Hand His Head in Shame’.

Ryan: 7, Alissa, 6. Tim: 6...glasses of water.

Tony is still checking on Kim’s whereabouts. Michelle looks worried. Sara Gilbert fires her agent for her four-episode only role. President Palmer asks the Commander to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Tim sadly has a conflict with one of his productions of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and has to decline. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

5 pm - 6pm

More beer. More sex stories. Something about a C-cell battery powered rabbit. Kind of a blur. I’ve lost my third wind. Tim has lost all remaining innocence. Alissa has lost any and all ability to censor herself.

Ryan: 8, Alissa, 7.

Jack Bauer kills 146 people who might have known about the slaughtered chickens that Kim earlier slaughtered. Terri Bauer gets amnesia and forgets that she was killed last season. Kim is caught in a mouse trap, unable to move the massive four ounces of weight. Her mind is however occupied as she wonders how, if Teflon is non-stick, that it can stick to the pan. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...

Part Two coming later....