In which Bela had better restrain himself from feasting on my toes.orIn which Schmoobs gave up his testicles for 2 1/2 hours on Friday night.

So Schmoobliebuns left at 5 am to join his fellow Nerds Drum Corps compatriots out in the blistering heat of summer in the South and Midwest. But this stretch is only 3 weeks long, rather than the usual 2 months, which is great because:

a. I am a blubbering fool and can not help but throw hissy fits of Biblical proportions when facing the prospect of being without Schmoobs for the entire summer.

b. knowing Bela's penchant for snacking on my toes mercilessly when he has been deserted by Schmoobins for any extended period of time, an absence of 3 weeks instead of 2 months may result in me having at least 7 of my 10 original toes by the end of summer.

But in the meantime, I will be placating my loneliness by eating an excess of fried jalapeno poppers and cheeseburgers, so any and all of you should hop on a plane or go on an impromptu roadtrip at some point in the next few weeks and come visit me. Trust me, I would love to, myself, hop on a plane and visit all of you, but seeing as how upwards of 3 managers have been fired from my workplace in the last 2 months, I don't think now is a good time to be taking extended vacations. Harumph. 

***

Also: a couple-friend of ours - Eric and Jessica - went out this past Friday night for a double-date of sorts. The plan was to have dinner and see the new M. Night Shyamalamadingdong movie The Happening. However, upon closer inspection of various online reviews, it seemed that perhaps there were better movies out there to spend $10 each on for a ticket. So we decided to grab dinner and then see whichever movie was starting next when we got to the theatre. 

Partway through dinner, however, Eric, Jessica and I decided that we wanted to see the Sex and the City movie. Eric, being married to Jessica for a few years now, has been sufficiently trained to concede to his lovely wife's wishes every now and then without too much protest. Also, he is a casual fan of the show and was not opposed to seeing the movie anyway. Schmooblebuns, however, was a different story. For the entire span of dinner, he protested with every testosterone-filled fiber of his being, not giving in to any of our pleadings or reasonings.

As luck would have it, we got to the theatre and found that SATC was starting in 10 minutes and everything else that we would have wanted to see required a wait of at least 45 minutes. Despite this, Schmoobs continued to purse his lips, cross his arms and voice his protest for a few minutes. Until, that is, I threw in the one thing that I knew would silence his protests forever.

"But you're leaving and you're not going to see me for threeeeee whooooole weeeeeeks. Pleeeeaaase!"

And that was that.

To be sure, he went in begrudgingly, muttering under his breath how he and Eric were going to be the only males in the theatre (They were, of course, SO not. As if they were the only guys that would be dragged to go see SATC by their women on a Friday night. Please.) and refused to even crack a smile for 30 minutes. Even after Eric tried to psych him up by looking over at Schmoobs while throwing some manly fist pumps into the air at the start of the theme song. 

But rest assured, that we did, in fact, catch him smiling and, yes, even laughing at some parts of the movie. These parts involved jokes about pubes and one of the key characters crapping in her pants, but that's okay. It's a start.