This originally appeared in The News & Observer:
If it's the second weekend of November, it means I'm in Myrtle Beach making a fool of myself during my annual Christmas-shopping extravaganza, which always involves an embarrassing amount of M&Ms and so many bladder-busting moments of hilarity that Depends were dispensed one year.
Seriously.
If you could hear self-described tone-deaf Cindy trying to hum "Wild Thing" during a rousing game of Cranium or see Marci imitating a volcano by repeatedly jumping and blowing kisses at the ceiling, you'd completely understand.
For well more than a decade, the four of us - my best friend Cindy and I; her sister, Shannon; and Shannon's friend, Marci - have left behind our collective nine children for a long Girls Weekend of unencumbered heaven. We read and sleep, we go when we want, we eat what we want.
The eating always includes two trips to our favorite seafood restaurant, where the wait staff never fails to entertain us.
(We discovered that they entertain themselves by keeping a tally of the day's ugly Christmas sweaters. You've been warned.)
Last year, when Marci was doing her "I found gray pumps I love" happy dance at the table, our waiter whispered: "I'm not weird or anything, but I like high heels."
We still don't know whether he meant he liked seeing them or wearing them.
Another year, our waitress stood before us at meal's end returning our credit cards. "Shannon? Here's yours. Cindy?"
It's always pretty clear when they get to mine - the confused stare, the furrowed brow. I just stick out my hand without waiting for my name to be mangled.
This gal was not dissuaded. "What? Do you think your name is hard to say? It's Bur-GEE-tah, right?"
No, darlin', that's not right by a long shot.
My father's name is Burgess (a-ha). So, for starters, it's a soft G, not hard. Except it's not really that, either, because my mother, who was 18 when I was born, decided the G would have more flair with a "zh" sound.
That means when I introduce myself, at least half the time I am asked whether my name is French.
"No, it's child abuse" is my reply du jour.
I love people who laugh without missing a beat. During a phone conversation with a Raleigh city councilman, however, he paused so long after the punch line that I thought my cellphone had dropped the call. The joke is still lost on him.
Lost is something we routinely become at some point during Girls Weekend. Anything north of where we meant to be we call "Virginia" because I once got lost on I-85 on the way to Hillsborough and nearly ended up ... in Virginia.
We've been to Virginia in Myrtle Beach three years in a row now. The driver (that'd be me, though I am not the navigator; see above) isn't sure that's funny anymore.
What I am sure of is that, this weekend, the three of us wearing white Jockeys and bras bought during the Clinton era will joke about the one who introduced us to the concept of "matched sets."
We'll laugh about my creaky cartwheels on the sand and my dopey dances in empty movie theaters.
And we'll giggle when the M&M bag is empty yet again.
No comments:
Post a Comment