Turds in the Punch Bowl (A Story of No Ordinary Friendship) Read Online Free PDF Page A

nodded at me. It was the first silent conversation between us, but it surely wouldn’t be the last.
    “Sake bombs!” The boys called out to the sushi chef behind the bar. Those two words were the beginning of the end that night, and our evening had only just begun.
    It wasn’t long before I was making friends with the mustache to my left. The boys were getting drunk and I was getting pissed. In retrospect, I do not possess even one faint memory of actually eating dinner that evening. I remember the drinks, the embarrassment, the open apologies I mumbled under my breath to the other patrons at the bar and my instinctual need to abort the mission. At one point, I even headed off to the bathroom to call my husband and beg for him to come and rescue me. If the other women in the room listened closely, they could hear my whimpering sobs echoing from the last stall on the left.
    “Hey,” I whispered frantically once my husband answered my call.
    “What's up?” he asked.
    “Can you come get me?”
    “Hahaha! What? That bad, huh?” His voice cracked as he laughed at my expense. He was more amused by my request than the reason behind it.
    “Steve, please. Don’t give me shit. It’s bad enough I have to call my husband to rescue me from a date from hell. Don’t ask questions, just come and get me. Please!”
    “Why are you whispering? Where are you?” He immediately went into covert operation mode with me, but only momentarily.
    “I'm in the bathroom. I don’t want to go back out there.”
    My husband laughed under his breath and paused. I could hear his gears cranking as he thought it out. I awaited his response as I shook my head in defeat on the other end, knowing full well that he was going to leave me to lie in the bed I had just made.
    “I don’t know, Jay. I would really love to help you out right now, but I don’t think I can bring myself to do it.”
    “But....but...” I went on to tell him about the awful Valentine's basket, the journal, the terrible cake and the lingerie. I admitted I had gotten myself into this predicament all on my own and that I would be ever so grateful if he were to help me out. To no avail. My husband, who had always been my best friend and also possessed quite the sense of humor, first teased me, and then wished me luck before he hung up the phone.
    I sighed hard and felt more like curling up into the fetal position right there on the floor of the ladies room than walking back out into the middle of Sake Showdown. Had I known anyone else in town, I may have sat in that stall all night making desperate phone calls until someone did finally come to rescue me. But as luck would have it, my husband was my one and only lifeline that evening. And to my dismay, he would rather watch me drown than to throw me rope.
    I had been in the restroom for well over forty minutes by the time my date even noticed I had disappeared. Banging on the door, he called in for me.
    “You alright in there?”
    He was slurring his words and sloppily throwing himself against the door from the outside, half opening it to sneak a peek inside the ladies room.
    “Where'd you go?” he asked, leaning on the handle as he poked his head in.
    I kicked the handle of the toilet with my heel and flushed it. I stepped out of the stall and walked toward him holding my belly.
    “Diarrhea,” I told him as I grinned, slipped past him and headed back to my seat at the bar.
    An hour and seven sake bombs later, I apologized to the mustache once more before departing the restaurant with the inebriated crew. I imagined the staff and patrons were more relieved than I was that we were finally leaving. As I reached the front door, I looked back one last time at the ‘stache hoping he would hear my silent cries and offer to rescue me himself. Perhaps he had a boat, a first mate and a small place below deck for a stowaway such as myself. Ahoy matey! But alas, he only waved and spoke his goodbye with a clueless, elderly grin that