Trainwreck Sue

So one day Mike comes home and mentions that we are invited to a going away party for one of his fellow controllers. Naturally, I am excited at the opportunity to get out of my house and immediately agree to attend. He then told me it is at a French cooking school downtown Chicago. Now, agree or disagree, that's a strange place to have a going away party, but I was intrigued and we decided to attend.

We made arrangements to ride the train downtown with another couple and a psuedo couple who both single and work at the center. Mike and Ryan (single psuedo couple member) decide to get a couple giant soporos for the ride down. Other member of the psuedo couple, "Trainwreck Sue" (real name protected for obvious reasons to follow), also brings a mixed drink on the train.

Here's some background on Trainwreck Sue. I have only hung out with her a handful of times, but everytime I see her she is a. fall-down-drunk and b. with a different guy. That is until she had a baby. Now every time I see her she is just fall-down-drunk. She had a DUI and therefore always tries to pawn rides off people. She is very loud, very argumentative and very annoying. Needless to say I was jazzed that she was along for this evening. Ok back to the train.

So Trainwreck Sue proceeds to get drunk in about 30 seconds. She is screaming a story at us the whole train ride downtown. She is also very upset with Mike, Ryan and I for not coming to pick her up. It should be stated that she didn't call for a ride until 20 minutes before we left the house, and we don't live next door if you get my meaning.

Two very headache inducing train rides later, we arrive in the French Food School neighborhood, about 45 min. early. Natch, we head to a bar to tie one on before cooking time. At this point, Trainwreck Sue, who is also from MN, decides to have a discussion with me on why the Timberwolves suck so much. And by "discussion" I mean lecture and by "with me" I mean I was present being yelled at.

Fast forward to the cooking class. We meet up with the rest of the couples and start cooking. People are having fun, catching up, paying attention learning to cook and taking some pictures. Trainwreck Sue thinks it would be a great idea to hold up some rather large butcher knives to people's throats for some awesome pictures. Of course the people with knives being held to their throats by a drunken crazy are less enthused.

Despite her loud and intrusive outbursts, the rest of the cooking goes fairly smoothly, that is until one of the sous chefs clanks on a pan and alerts the entire group (who included about 10 random strangers) that she caught someone smoking in the stairwell and there is absolutely no smoking in the Frenchy Food School. Did I mention Trainwreck Sue likes to smoke?

So we sit down to eat and the Brie tort with leeks and bacon is to die. I could have done with out the salmon stuffed pastry dish but that is neither here nor there. Someone starts talking about a previous dinner party that took place about 2.7 years earlier right after Mike and I were married. Trainwreck Sue looks at me and starts yelling, "I remember that you were SO pretty and SO thin THEN." Over and over. Awesome.

So it's time to go home and everyone who has separte transportation gives us the "good luck" face. We decide to take a cab to our second train rather than wait out in the cold for the first train. The cabbie has to pull over twice because Trainwreck decides to light up in the cab after repeated warnings from everyone in the cab. We get to our train home and approximately 10 min in T. Sue is transported to another car because she is yelling at a boy across the train that she will "fucking choke him" because he was smiling and laughing. The "train police" tells us that if she comes back to sit with us she will get kicked off the train. If we try to sit with her, we will get kicked off the train. No problem there, we tell ol'train cop. The entire car watches and reacts as she falls flat on her face exiting the car to her "jail car."

10 min. later she's back in our car and we are all pleading with her to go back to where she was. She sits on the lower level and starts chatting it up with some creepy stranger who, against all odds, is trying to get in her pants. Miraculously, she does not exit the train with him and we make it back to our stop.

You may think, man crazy night, glad it's over, but you'd be wrong. We are saying our goodbyes and Sue starts stumbling to her car. She is so drunk at this point she can barely keep her eyes open. We convince her to ride home with us and come pick her car up with the morning. The whole car ride she is prattling on about how no one would come pick her up and what horrible people we are blah blah. Then, halfway to her house she says, "Oh, we've got to go pick up my son." REALLY? I protested because I obviously don't have a car seat in my car, she she says, "It's no problem, when I take a cab I just hold him in the back seat." Awesome.

Turns out it is only two blocks from the sitters to her house. We get to her house and I am amazed that she can even walk while holding her baby. I am panged with terrible guilt for even leaving her alone with her kid at this point, but what do you do? She is so pissed at us for not picking her up she is screaming at us and then just stumbles into her house. Sweet, see you again never.

Until...I get a message the next morning that she left her purse in my car with her keys and phone in it. Reading between the lines, I figure out that I am supposed to bring it back to her. Not wanting to risk another back seat baby ride, I convince my friend, Jon, to come with me to drive her car to her house. When we arrive she's all smiles. No recollection on what a huge douche she was the night before. I say a quick "you're welcome" and get the hell out of there. On the way home, Jon looks at me and says, "You Nordic people are weird."

Annnnd Scene.

a ha ha

Thoughts of the day:

1. I miss Minnesota. This past weekend was spent in Minneapola-ha-ha with some dear old friends and my family. We had drinks, laughs, sang songs and watched the Minnesota high school dance and it was fantastic. On the non-fantastic side, my Grandma Doris had a health scare in the form of a blood clot near her heart. They have since dissolved the clot, but the doctor said if she wouldn't have gone into the hospital, she would have died. Needless to say, that was not fun to hear and caused us all to have a little aneurysm ourselves. This whole episode reminded me all the more of how hard it is to live far away, yet made me very grateful that I was around my family when it happened.

2. In less depressing news: I got a new account today! This was by far my easiest sale yet. The wine guy, Paul, contacted me. I brought him in a shiz ton of wine which he did not even taste. Then he purchased five cases. ACES!

3. I love sloppy joes. Mike made them last night out of a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (aka Mike's cooking bible) and they were indeed tasty. Bet you wish you had a husband like mine, eh?

4. Sven is learning to be better behaved. Happiness ensues! Mike insisted that we needed to get him a choke chain to help him learn to heel. I was against this, having lost a dog in a choke chain related incident as a child, but inevitably relented. Now mark your calenders, but Mike was right and I was wrong. He is learning and rarely chokes himself, so bravo, Mikey!

5. My bracket for the NCAA tournament is effectively fucked. I thought Gonzaga could do it. Mostly because I like to say their name. Amazing logic defeats me again :)

aaaaaaaaaand that's all she wrote. Happy, Jim?
cheers!