Lucy's Little Handicap, Part 1

After living with me for many moons, The Roommate has really learned how to push my buttons. Some days it's confusing to me who is actually pushing the buttons here, Lucy or her Freaky Cat Keeper Lady (aka The Roommate). Other days, it's just confusing to me where the phrase "pushing my buttons" actually came from, because normally I have positive associations with button pushing--it was a favorite pastime for me as a child, for instance. So the whole turn of words gets a little muddled in my mind once in a while.

Let's get back to the button pushing at hand, though. 

One night shortly after I started this blog--which was not so many moons ago, mind you--the roommate and I were reclining on our (her) mutual couch, painting our nails (I was painting mine silver, she was painting hers gold, in case this is an interrogation). Normally, this is a time when we catch up on the latest contemporary events and global issues, such as: what does it really mean when the nice, funny, long-distance runner guy working at the coffee house--whom I'd only met once before, briefly--picks up my tab and spends his break sitting at my table and chatting? And proceeds to do roughly the same thing each time I come to the coffee house? BUT NEVER ASKS FOR MY NUMBER?! What does this mean?!?! (Based on a true story, cue somber music, give audience time to ruminate.)

Also, the Roommate and I discuss the fiscal crisis in the European Union, and usually we tackle world hunger at some point. (cue upbeat, "getting stuff done" type music.)

But last week.... Oh, last week. I don't even know where to start, it is that tantalizing. Sometimes, when one writes, it is every bit the daunting process of sculpting a fine statue out of marble--one must painstakingly file away the stone,allowing the shape to slowly emerge out of the stone like a frozen angel rising up out of a frigid, icy sea of marble.  Other times, however, the story flies out of thin air like a ferocious psychopath, screaming the lines at you, and you can just get your chainsaw and hack away like a maniac at all that marble standing in your way, skipping right past all the delicate patience of writing (overrated!) to the good stuff. Chainsaws don't even cut through marble, but when the story is this good, I forget to keep my metaphors consistent and it doesn't even matter! From now on, I'm in charge of the metaphors and I say: hack all that stupid superficial marble away, Mr. Chainsaw. The following story will speak for itself, no waiting or patience or drafting necessary! Here is the story. Here is honestly what happened last week while The Roommate and I were painting nails...

Will the Roommate push my buttons? What will Lucy's little handicap be? Why are we talking about marble sculptures? For the answers to these questions, and many more*, stay tuned for Part 2, because at the moment it's past my bedtime. But I will be back, and I will have the chainsaw with me. And you will get the story.

*= one answer you won't find, though, is what the whole thing with the coffee house man means. I'm pretty sure it will just remain one of those existential mysteries of life.