The single most crucial moment in a budding romance is the first time one of you takes a trip without the other. Every single gesture, things otherwise unremarkable under normal circumstances, becomes rife with meaning. This year is the first time in my adult life that I've been single on my birthday. No presents no special romantic dinner. No feeling special. When you're single every birthday and holiday becomes a reminder of what you don't have. And no wrapped gift can replace the first I miss you phone call.
The I miss you phone call (n.)
This is a romantic gesture in which you pry yourself away from the new X factor long enough to call a special person that you have feelings for. In theory this phone call could be made at any time during the day but carries the most sentimental value when made during prime time television for a duration of longer than a commercial break. This symbolically establishes you as a higher priority than television, which the foolish young singles everywhere take for granted. See also: not looking at the phone on dates, texting you in the middle of the day for no reason, letting you eat the last scoop of ice cream.
For me this call never came, nor did the text, nor did the e-mail. Ordinarily I would analyze a missed romantic landmark into oblivion but the convenient thing about going on a trip is that it distracts you from anything going on back home. So while the absence of this call was noted I was also too distracted to make this call. In math two negative numbers can either cancel each other out, make a bigger negative or somehow create a positive number. In relationships, two negative actions just makes things worse.
See also: I'm not calling you because you didn't call me.
From divergent behavior to emergent behavior, my sister called us the day after my birthday explaining that she was going to die of stomach pain. My mother, who has a soft spot for my sister and her irritable tummy of course decided to err on the side of inconvenient and tell sister to take an ambulance to the nearest hospital.
Here is what the voice of reason (I.e. my voice) says:
Web MD will tell you that stomach pain indicates:
A. Cancer (.01% of instances)
B. Gas (80% of instances)
Ambulatory care: thousands of dollars, results in going to the nearest crappy hospital.
Taxi: tens of dollars, results in going to your preferred hospital.
So of course my sister took an ambulance, wound up at a shitty west Philly teaching hospital, was given Motrin fluids and two inconclusive ultrasounds and sent home with no diagnosis after 10 hours of me sitting in a waiting room wondering why this hospital employs 10 snide boxy legged nurses to every 1 reasonably attractive doctor.
After we spent a suitable amount of time (10 hours) waiting for a diagnosis of "possibly a ruptured cyst" (gas) the doctor finally released us back into the city. My mother had armed us with 20 bucks for a cab which I wholly intended on purchasing a round of drinks with. My sister looked at me in disgust,
"I just got released from the hospital. I still have my wristband on. And you want to go to a bar."
"Yes, that's the plan. I just wasted the whole day in the hospital to find out you had gas--"
"A cyst!"
"Well, now it's time to start my day, which is to say start drinking."
"Mom said to take me home in a cab."
"We can walk and parlay this twenty into our first round. Cosmos on mom tonight."
However, sister was not convinced. For whatever reason she insisted on taking a cab rather than walk three miles home (these people that live in Philly, geez.). Then the trouble of how, exactly do you get a cab in Philly. One would think on a major street, outside of a hospital, there would be an abundance. I'm starting to think that the motto of Philadelphia is, "No dice," or maybe, "Fat chance." I looked to my sister, as this was clearly her city, to get us a cab. She shrugged and gave me this look like how the hell was she supposed to know where the cabs are.
"Well can you call a number?"
"Like 911?" she asked.
"No, I was thinking a cab company would be more appropriate."
"You can call them?"
Just when I was ready to re-admit my sister to the hospital and hit the pubs some fortuitous grace brought us a cab down Broad street and back to whatever bumfuck west Philly college neighborhood she lives in. Her flat, sandwiched between two fraternities and a sorority was a fourth floor walk up that smelled like curry and clorox in the hallways.
Sister wanted to order food but I was feeling a bit stir crazy and decided it'd be better for me to walk somewhere and grab food (and drink). Plus I didn't want to spend one more second in the apartment of four college age girls. She directed me to some pizza place around the corner. I ordered my pizza and took a seat at the bar.
Population of the bar: 1
At first the bartender approached me like I was skittish runaway dog that would flee if she stepped too hard.
"Are you..did you want--"
"Do you have Hendricks gin?"
"I..what is?"
"Never mind, I'll have a Tanqeray dirty martini."
She stepped away slowly and frantically dug around in a bin for something, I assumed a taser, to take care of me. What she pulled out was a dusty old never-used martini shaker and held it up as if she had just unearthed the sword of camelot. I gave her a subtle nod to reassure her that she was doing the right thing. She picked up the bottle of Tanqeray in the other hand, I gave another nod. It was like watching a lunar space shuttle lift off. I saw a bead of sweat form on her forehead.
Then, when I saw the crusty old olive jar that she was about pour olive juice from I stopped her and said just a regular martini is fine. She pulled out the bottle of dry vermouth and poured and entire ounce into the shaker.
"What are you doing?"
"You wanted a martini right?"
"Yes, which really only needs the suggestion of vermouth."
"You suggest using vermouth?"
"No, what I meant was--that's just too much."
I'm going to interrupt this programming to explain how to make a proper
Dirty Gin Martini
Fill a martini glass with ice and water to chill. Add three ounces of gin and ice to a mixing glass. Stir thoroughly (Do not shake, stir enough to melt the ice slightly). Dump the water from the martini glass (this should cause the glass to frost up) and pour the tiniest splash of vermouth in the glass; slosh it around and dump the vermouth so only a light coating remains on the glass. Strain the chilled gin into the martini glass. Drizzle a small amount of olive juice on top of the martini. Garnish with two skewered olives.
She then dumped the entire thing in the sink and was about to start over when I just asked her for a scotch neat, and pointed to an unopened bottle of Glenlivet Nadurra. She had to pour at least 5 ounces of scotch in the glass, it was a ridiculous pour. Then she set a check in front of me for six dollars and fifty cents.
"Excuse me, I think you charged it wrong. Where I work this would probably cost eighteen bucks."
"Nope," she said, "That's what it costs." I looked incredulous. Maybe Philadelphia wasn't so bad. Sure the music was about ten years two thousand and late, the people dressed like the cast of Water World and apparently nobody in the state had heard of this new drink called the martini, but maybe there was something to this quaint little grotto in the armpit of North America.
Then the bartender said the sentence I've been waiting my whole adult life to hear, "The most expensive drink we have is seven dollars."
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