Cloud 69

21:

If someone was to ask me to rank the top three things most important to me, I'd probably say – in no specific order – my family, my friends, and the existence of Lana Del Ray.

However, as of roughly two hours ago, my parents had booted themselves out of the aforementioned top three.

It happened like this: Carson and I were in the kitchen, minding our own damn business. We were trying to knock our homework for next week out of the way because Jason was having a party tomorrow night, and we'd be hungover Sunday. I had been sitting on the counter, staring without a thought in my brain at our assignment, while Carson was making us a snack. 

Like I said, minding our business.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, and for no good reason, my father came into the kitchen, like a vulture swooping down on its prey.  He ordered us to leave because apparently he had planned a 'date night' for my mom, and he didn't want the two of us around. 

He didn't even really give us a chance to argue with him about it. He tossed Carson his car keys, slapped his credit card into my hand, and shooed us out of the house.

So, right now, my parents aren't even in the list of my top 100. 

Carson and I drove around aimlessly for like thirty minutes. We called Dylan to see what he was doing, but he was at his cousin's quinceñera. When we asked if we could come and crash it, he told us to fuck off and then proceeded to hang up on us. 

We tried Luna next. Unsurprisingly, she and Jason were together. Apparently, Jason had roped her into trying out a hot pilates class because Dylan had called him unathletic, which he took personal offense to. Jason surfs whenever he goes back to California, and occasionally will go to yoga classes, but other than that, the last sport he played was probably hide-and-seek in grammar school. I wasn't going to question what he thought one pilates class would do to change Dylan's mind about it, but he's done more activity today than I have so I can't criticize. 

Zach was our final attempt, which caused an unfortunate existential crisis as we learned that we really only have four friends. Even more unfortunate was that he was was coaching his little sister's softball game tonight. Once again, we asked if we could crash it, and once again, we were told to fuck off.

Friends were also quickly slipping from their spot in my top 100 as well. 

Since my dad gave us his card, we decided to grab dinner somewhere, and if we weren't permitted to go back home after that, maybe go see a movie or something. We ended up at a diner on the edge of town.

Like any diner, this one looked like it had been around longer than Queen Elizabeth. It smelt like stale coffee, and the booths were a dingy green color. The menus were sticky and smelled of maple syrup.

Our waitress was an older lady, with box-dyed orange hair, bright blue eyeshadow, and cherry red lipstick that was smudged on her front teeth. She was sweet and called us both 'honey,' but she also moved at the pace of a snail. We both ordered water, and fifteen minutes passed before she came back to take our order, completely forgetting about the water.

Safe to say, it would be quite some time before we saw the chocolate chip pancakes we ordered. 

We started out playing rock, paper, and scissors to kill time, but I had to give up after round four because Carson would continue to add different signs in, such as 'magic wand' and 'fire,' which according to him beat everything else. 

Anyways, we devised another game to pass the time.

"Okay, okay," he chuckled. He knocked down the tower of mini jams that he had made. "What about that one?"