Scratchy called me up the other morning, ebullient with self-granted freedom.

“I’m playing hooky!” she sang. “Want to go to brunch?”

Brunch…indulgent. Leisurely. I looked down at myself and saw that I had showered and wasn’t covered with any byproducts from Mommy’s little cheeserancher. Phenomenal! She did hork on me this morning, though, as I was putting some dishes in the sink. I think I was accidentally squeezing her too hard after 45 minutes of boob nibbling.

“BLOORP! YARF!” Cheeseranched! Saliva, milk, and curds ran down my front and covered the cabinet I was standing closest to. This is glamorous, glamorous shit here, people. You should all get pregnant tomorrow. No…yesterday!

“Did you hold her over the sink?” my sister asked, later. I think my sister has good instincts. After all, we were raised by wolves by a woman who would attack you with her sock if you had a snotty backseat face-explosion, seeing-as-how there were no paper products in the car, despite the fact that we were out to fast food at least three times a week. And if that isn’t a run-on sentence, then I am the ghost of Lindsay Lohan’s missing breasts. R.I.P., dirty pillows, R.I.P.

So…brunch. “Yes!” I said. “Come on down!”

We ended up at this cafe I inexplicably love. I love it because it’s in Eastlake, the very first neighborhood in Seattle I lived in. I wasn’t even on the lease because I wasn’t 18 yet. After my first week in town I decided two things: one, to give up smoking, because cigarettes cost twice as much here, and good god, Seattle had hills on top of that, unlike most of B.F. Illinois. So I was wheezing in addition to being charged a boodle for my fix. Secondly, I decided to secure work within walking distance of my new house.

Well, the Eastlake cafe was hiring a dishwasher, and being SUPREMELY unskilled (unless you count being able to hit a bong, eat a taco, drink some Snapple, and shift into third all at the same time a skill, which frankly, I do, albeit an unmarketable one) I thought my best course of action was to apply for any crap job that would take me.

I got called for an interview at the cafe, put on some reasonable clothes, and showed up on time. The owner, who still lurks there, took me into the back and looked me over, arching her evil heavy black eyebrows at me.

“Hmm, nope,” she said. “I need someone stronger. I need someone who can lift fifty pounds. Can you lift fifty pounds?”

“My sister weighs fifty pounds,” I said. “I can lift her.” At the time, my sister was seven.

“No, this won’t work. I need a boy. Dismissed!” The interview ended.

I told Scratchy this story as we were waiting for our breakfasts.

“That’s sexist discrimination!” Scratchy said.

“It’s her,” I said, pointing to the petite, heavily-browed sexist terror swooping around her cafe.

“How’s everything?” Petite Terror asked, swooping past our table with a coffee pot.

“Fine,” we said, and smiled.

After we were finished, we paid up front. I was holding Strudel, who was snappily attired in her stretchy suit with the darker- and lighter-blue alternating stripes.

“Oh, he’s so cute,” blabbed Petite Terror. “How old is he?”

“She’s five months old,” I said, as Scratchy said as an aside, to me: “Still sexist, I see.” I ate a chortle that turned into an uncomfortable snort.

“Oh,” said Petite Terror. “The blue stripes had me fooled. Makes me think of that movie, that ‘O Where Are Thou Brother.'”

“Ah ha ha,” I managed.

We turned away and Scratchy tsked, “Sexist, and now calling your child a convict.”

“And yet I keep coming back,” I said.