The Great Cake Caper

Trust is very important in a relationship for many reasons but one important one is so that, when you need to lie and sneak around, you have some credibility to fall back on.

For her birthday this past weekend, Jess decided on a bunch of low key, relaxing activities including breakfast with friends, the Mt Hood scenic railroad and a trip to the Bodyworlds 3 exhibit at OMSI. But I really felt like there should be at least ONE birthday surprise. I'd already given her her present (Ipod Nano, old school style) so that was out. Sure I'd get a card, but really she'd expect that.

So, at sort of the last minute, I decided I would try to make the cake entirely behind her back and present it at an unexpected moment. She'd already told me that she wanted a vegan chocolate cake but couldn't decide between the cream cheese or the chocolate frosting. I was hedging about making it because of the 'less sweets in the house' rule that got instituted this summer so as the weekend went on (her birthday was Sunday), if she asked about it, I had legitimate grounds to string her along.

Although I'm pretty pleased with how it all came off, I have to admit that if I'd been really smart, I would have thought of all this earlier in the week, when she was still working twelve hour shifts and I had plenty of time to plot. What was I doing with all that time? I don't even remember. But procrastination is in my blood.

Seeing as we were spending the whole weekend together, I had limited opportunities with which to pull this off. The first thing I needed were accomplices. I emailed Ali & Evan at the Red Bike where we would be eating Sunday morning and asked if they'd be willing to hide the cake and bring it out at the appropriate time on Sunday. Of course they said yes.

Next there was ingredient & card shopping to do. On Thursday, Jess went off to her dentist appointment. As soon as she left I tore out of the house. I had to go all the way across town to get our Bodyworlds tickets from OMSI. Then a stop at New Seasons for Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese--the kind with no partially hydrogenated oils (PHO), 'cause those are bad for you--and organic vanilla. Then off to Fred Meyers for a cake pan and cooling rack. Time would be of the essence. I also found a few appropriate birthday cards, so I bought them all.

By the time I got home, time was running short. I hid the new kitchen tools in the garage and the margarine (Earth Balance, also with no PHO) and the fake cream cheese in a brown paper bag and stuck in the drawer where the mushrooms usually go. She hates mushrooms so there was little chance of her looking in the bag. The rest of the supplies got hidden in the cupboard.

I had originally planned to mix all the dry ingredients too, to make prep time faster the next day but I was worried about running out of time. I sent her a text message asking,"What's your status?" but didn't get an answer back right away. That probably meant she was still in the chair, but the last thing I wanted was to get caught with a bunch of flour on my face. Still, life is risk. I went for it. I stirred up all the flour, sugar, cocoa and other dry ingredients and then transferred them to a freezer bag. That ended up being a pretty messy process but I got it done and hidden in the cupboard. Then I had to clean absolutely everything, dry and put away the dishes and wipe the counters really well.

A text message finally came in that said, "Almost home," but by then I was in the clear.

Now my only worry was that I hadn't been able to find a cake serving pan at Freddy's and I had no more time allotted to get one. I didn't know how I was going to transport the cake with no serving platter, but I couldn't worry about it then.

We spent the rest of the day visiting our friend Jess out in Beaverton. We came back to town around 5:00 and decided to see if the bike through window at LRBC was still open for ice cream. I really wanted to try the chocolate pudding flavor.

Ali & Even were still working away, but they had just served up the last scoop of chocolate pudding ice cream. I was disappointed, but instantly saw a way to use the situation. I faked a lot more disappointment than I really felt and vowed to go out later that evening in search of some chocolate that I wouldn't bring home (since that's against the rules now).

Instead of searching out chocolate though, I went straight to the St John's Fred Meyer and found a cake serving platter. Now I had everything I needed.

The next day I had scheduled us both for massages with our friend Davina. This was another piece of great luck, since I called at the last minute (in my blood, in case you weren't paying attention...), but she still had two slots open at 12:30 and 2:00pm. Perfect.

I told Jess she should ride her bike to her massage and I would pick her up in the car when I came to my appointment. This meant that she would have to leave the house earlier and I would have more time for baking.

Again as soon as she left, I sprung into action. Grabbed the cake server from the trunk of my car, preheated the oven and got moving. In 10 minutes, I had the two 9 inch rounds of batter in the oven. While they baked, I made two batches of frosting, one chocolate and one 'cream cheese.'

The cooling was really the nerve wracking part of the process. I only had about an hour and a half to get this whole operation done. As a result, I tried taking the first cake out of the pan a bit early, with predictable results. A big patch stayed in the pan, the rest practically broke in half and a big chunk fell off the side. It was a total mess. I managed to finish the transfer with some wax paper and left it alone to cool some more. As soon as I could I transferred it to the cake platter and basically molded it back together. I figured a little frosting would hide everything.

Fortunately, the top half came out of the pan much more willingly. At that point I put them both in the fridge and freezer for 10 more minutes, then took them out and frosted them. It looked good enough.

Once again I covered my tracks as best I could. I had bought extra ingredients of things we already had like oil and powdered sugar so that no unusual depletions would be noticed. I washed and dried the cake pans and cooling platter and hid them back in the garage. I had the windows open and the fan going to dissipate the chocolate smell. Jess would wait at the Alberta tea house while I was getting my massage so I figured the smell would be gone by the time we got home but I also have a terrible nose, so I wouldn't really know if I'd gotten away with it when we got home. I'd just have to see if she said anything about a smell. I didn't have an apron but I'd worn a brown shirt, so any cocoa that got on me would blend in.

Transport was a bit tricky because the only platter I could get was one with a skinny round base with the platter up high. It meant there was a high potential for the cake to fall over in the car and I had no one to hold it. I pulled the car out of the slanted driveway and onto the flat street, put the cake on the passenger side floor and then drove the mile to LRBC at 3-5 mph with my hand steadying the platter. Nerve-wracking doesn't begin to cover it.

When I got there it was 1:40. I handed off the cake to Ali, ran back to the car for the candles and took off for Davina's office. Seems I'm always running late with her for one reason or another. But at least I'd done it. When Jess asked why I was late to the appointment (supposedly I'd been on the couch reading), I said I'd forgotten my wallet, a common enough occurrence. She didn't suspect a thing.

When we got home, she didn't mention anything about smelling chocolate either. At that point I finally relaxed.

And sure enough, when Ali came out with a burning cake after breakfast on Sunday, her face showed she was totally surprised and all the scrambling was worth it.

I love it when a sneaky, diabolical plan comes together.

Birthday Weekend

Sunday is Jess's birthday and she's taken the weekend off and lined up a bevy of birthday activities of her choice, along with one surprise from me. Yesterday we (mostly her) cleaned the house and finished up most of our new fence.

Now that the fence is up, we tried letting Idge out for some supervised yard time, while we enjoyed dinner in our new private yard. She's 15 years old, very well behaved as long as food isn't involved and far too lazy to scale the 6 foot fence. Not surprisingly, the first thing she did was start eating grass, which we knew would make a reappearance, mostly likely on the carpet (it did).

Today I sprung for massages for both of us, after which we tea at Alberta St Teahouse. I used to spend hours there studying, as it's usually a pretty mellow atmosphere but today the tea was over-brewed, the wifi signal problematic and there were lots of noisy kids around. We left and Jess decided on a movie and some frozen custard for our date night. We've been wanting to see Ratatouille for a while so we suffered the Lloyd Mall theatre, arriving late to miss the commercials.

I really enjoyed the movie, though it wasn't as laugh-out-loud funny as I expected based on reviews from friends. But it was a good story with amazing animation work.

Afterwards, we went all the way to land of strip malls (Vancouver), in search of local frozen custard just like Jess used to have in her home town of Wisconsin. She's been missing it for quite some time. She thought she'd found a place in Lake Oswego but when we went there a couple of months ago, they had closed. This place was not only open, but stays open till 11:00pm on the weekends and was doing brisk window and drive-through business when we arrived just after 9:00.

The menu board was overwhelming and I was having a hard time motivating in the chill of the evening. I asked Jess if she wanted to share and she gave me a rare firm answer: No. She knew exactly what she wanted and from the sound of it, I'd be lucky ot get a bite of it, much less half. I was on my own. In the end, I went freestyle and got a sundae with oreos, hot fudge and whip cream.

You know what's worse than forgetting your camera? *Thinking* you forgot your camera when you actually have it! I think I mentioned that I'm having a dumb streak right now. So I can't show you a picture of the epic tower of whip cream that topped my sundae. It took a while just to dig through to the fudge-oreo goodness, but my effort was well rewarded. It was my perfect ice cream, already soft. Jess pronounced the texture good, but the flavor slightly lacking her girlhood memories of custard.

I gave it my best effort, but the density of custard isn't for the wimpy and I couldn't quite finish it. Besides, I could feel a month of my life-span disappearing as I ate. It was really good, but I wouldn't want to have it too often. It's probably a good thing that A) summer is pretty much over, weather wise and B) the custard is 13 miles from our house.

Now we're back home with our laptops, novels, tea and kitty antics to amuse us.

Tomorrow: A scenic train tour around Mt Hood.

Spa Day

Last night Idge decided to sneak up from her usual sleeping place near my feet and curl up next to my side, squishing me into a tiny space between her and Jess. I spent most of the night dreaming about cats---Jelly Bean was dying of loneliness because Traci was traveling so much so we were trying to get him to be friends with Willow by luring them together with string. Jess offered to move Idge back to her place but I turned her down, cause I'm that much of a sucker.

As soon as I was awake for real, Jess reached down to the floor by her side of the bed and pulled out a card and two more presents. Now that's what I call a good way to start a birthday.

I let my inner child handing the wrapping paper with a lot less care than the night before and soon revealed a new teapot with a loose leaf filter from my favorite tea house on Alberta. There was also a second filter with smaller holes that would work with the vanilla rooibos tea I usually drink. And it'll fit into a cup as well. The teapot was the cutest shade of baby blue and round like a pig's belly. I loved it.

After a proper sleep-in, we got up and I took a quick trip across town to drop my road bike at Cory's shop so he could tinker on her while I'm at the coast. When I got home, we made breakfast together—potatoes, fried eggs and fresh mango. Yum.

By the time we got cleaned up, it was time to head out to Bonneville Hot Springs for our spa day. We took the bridge to Vancouver and out highway 14. It was raining and the Columbia Gorge looked splendid from the Washington side with the mist hanging low into the trees. I enjoyed the view and read my book until we arrived, only a little bit late.

The people at the spa desk were as nice and welcoming as you'd expect. We got signed in and an attendant led us back to the locker rooms, gave us lockers, robes and towels and said someone else would be back to get is in a few minutes.

We were scheduled for a mineral bath & wrap which were a gift from my friend Jacqueline and then I'd added on Rock n Rain treatments-- aromatherapy followed by hot stone massage and then a full body Swedish massage. I'd been looking forward to it all week.

Our attendant came to get us and gave us a choice of 6 foot or 4 ft long tubs. I wasn't sure which one to take. I was leaning towards a long one, but it was in a separate room from Jess, not that we'd really be chatting. The attendant said that she was 5'5” and enjoyed them both so I took the shorter one.

As soon as I got in, I knew I'd made a mistake. I spent a few minutes stressing out about it--it would take a while to fill a whole new tub—but I felt so cramped that in the end, I got out and switched to a longer tub. It was totally the right decision. For some reason I still had trouble quieting my brain during my soak, but my body relaxed anyway.

After 25 minutes, our attendant came to get us and lead us to the wrap room. After putting a hot towel down on the table, I lay down and was covered with heavy blankets which were tucked in on each side. Not so tight I felt claustrophobic, but just enough to feel sort of like a swaddled up baby. A cool towel over my face scented with eucalyptus completed the wrap. The scent was completely soothing as was the feeling of pressure from the blankets every time I took a breath. Now I was able to really relax and enjoy the moment.

After a while, I felt hands on my legs, which was my massage therapist's way of announcing her presence. She introduced herself as Diana and said she'd be doing my massage. She helped me into my robe and I followed her to a massage room with a little warmer for the stones and a lot of oils on a shelf.

She wished me a happy birthday, which meant she'd been paying attention to the form I'd filled out—and then asked if I'd ever had aromatherapy before?

“Nope...oh wait, yeah actually just this week. My half hour massage at Loyly had included some nice lavender scents in a bowl beneath my head. But I could see from her expression that what she had in mind was a little more intense. She went on to explain everything that was about to happen.

First they put drops of some very powerful scented oils along the spine. She explained that viruses lay along the spine and this was a cleansing procedure. She said that if I was getting over something, this would kick it to the curb—likewise, if I was about to get sick, this would bring it on quicker but I would also get over it quicker. I was glad to hear it, since my cold is still lingering after two weeks. She also warned me that my skin might get hot and start to tingle and if it got uncomfortable, to let her know because she had something called Ortho-Ease to take the edge off.

After that she'd use some unscented oil for my massage, using the rocks on my back and legs finishing up with regular massage on the rest of me.

It all sounded great to me. She left the room and I got on the table.

At about the third oil she dropped on my spine, I figured out what she meant when she said I might “get a little hot,” In fact, my neck and shoulders lit up like a hot chili pepper. It went from a tingle to a burn in about 20 seconds. She smoothed some of the ortho ease on it as soon as I said something. It didn't work right away but after a few minutes it was more tolerable. After a couple more aromas, I asked for another dose of the ortho. After that I felt OK. I figured that must be where my cold was residing and maybe the fact that it was so intense was a good sign. Still I was happy when she got some hot towels and rubbed everything off. She made sure to wave the towels to cool them and told me to tell her immediately if it was too hot, but it felt great.

Next we went onto the stones. Again she warned me about the temperature and at first I jumped a little, but she promised that they cool down fast and she kept them moving. Once I relaxed, it was absolutely heavenly—the best thing since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned. She went over my whole back and moved onto my legs as well. As she moved around, she started with a hand on the area so I'd know where she was on my body. She said lots of people fall asleep during this treatment because it's so relaxing and she didn't want me to be startled.

Once the rocks were done, she finished up with an old fashioned Swedish massage. Usually when I get a massage, the therapist can sometimes get caught up working out the massive knots that usually invade my shoulders, but by this time the bath, wrap and rocks had done their job. So the massage was geared to be more relaxing over all and because of that it was a rare treat. I slid into a pleasant fog somewhere between sleeping and waking.

When she was done, I lay on the table for as long as I thought I could get away with and enjoyed the feeling of being a complete noodle.

I tottered out of the room with my cup of water and another bottle for the road. I sat on the bench in the locker room and drank all the water while I waited for Jess. I knew she'd gone in after me and figured she might be a few minutes.

When I was done with the water, nature called so I headed into the bathroom and was surprised to find Jess already there and showered. So I hopped in the shower and met her back in the locker room.

“How was your massage? I wanted to know.

She said it was OK, and something about her tone got my spider sense tingling. As much money as I (well, my friends anyway) were paying for these, she should be as blissed out as I was right then.

Further interrogation revealed that her massage therapist had been terrible. Oh sure, she gave a decent massage but her bedside manner was reminiscent of mom's first oncologist. She'd barely said two words to Jess, not even to introduce herself. She asked if Jess had gotten this treatment before and even when she said no, the woman offered NO explanation of what would go on other than, 'first you'll get the rain, then the hot stones then a massage. No explanation about the possible hotness, no checking in about the heat of the stones, NOTHING. And in fact the aromatherapy did get hot, but Jess has a high tolerance for pain and since the woman hadn't warned her or told her it could be relieved, she didn't say anything.

I was totally upset to hear that she'd been shafted out of a good experience. First the ice cream and now this. What was going on?

When we got up to the desk, she explained what had happened.

“Do you want to speak to a manager?'

“Yes, and I wouldn't mind a discount since her experience was so lacking.” They didn't respond to that, simply called the manager. A woman who's name tag said Joyce came out and talked to us. She listened attentively while Jess told her story. When Jess mentioned that her skin had gotten hot with the aromas, Joyce asked if she said anything about it to the therapist and I wanted to smack her. Victim blaming much? One is not exactly at one's most assertive when lying naked on a table in front of a complete stranger. And we were there to relax. The LAST thing she should have to think about in a setting like that is having to advocate for herself! This Joyce person was pissing me off already.

When Jess finished her story (followed by a few comments from me about the huge contrast between our experiences), Joyce said, “Well obviously Stephanie needs to work on her communication skills. She's been with us for a while so maybe she's getting lackadaisical about explaining things. I really appreciate you telling me. We can't fix these things if we don't know.”

And that was it. She didn't offer us a discount, didn't offer a coupon for a bath and wrap, nothing. As she walked away, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask her about a discount but I didn't do it. Partially because I was so stunned she hadn't offered us anything to take the bad taste of horrible service out of our mouths and partly because I didn't want to get into a confrontation when I'd gone through so much trouble to relax. I paid for the both of us and we left.

Instead of blissing out in the car on the way home, we spent the whole time complaining about the crappy service we'd gotten. I've been in customer service since I was 17 years old and it is a basic principle to offer a customer something to try to turn around a bad experience. When I was at Kinkos we always offered a discount or to redo the job, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, but it's just good corporate policy.

I spent the rest of the night getting more and more pissed off. I spent almost a month's rent on those treatments! I wondered if one of us a were a man or both of us were white, would Joyce's attitude have been different?

I had already decided to write a letter to the manager of the whole resort so I called and got his name which made me feel slightly better. But I have a lot to do to get ready for my trip so it's going to have to wait till I get back. They need to give us free massages or give my money back so I can spend it somewhere where they know how to treat their customers.

I tried not to let my anger totally ruin my after massage buzz, but it was hard. But I'm going to go get packed up for my beach trip. Traci is coming with us on the spur of the moment, on pain of not being annoying and not chattering at me while I'm trying to write, which is the primary purpose for this trip. We're going to have the dorms all to ourselves, which will be very cool (and cheap!). I'm going to attempt to be mostly off the grid except for calls to Jess and spend a lot of time in the library with my laptop, enjoying the ocean view and spilling out words.

Birthday Bowling

I soooooo did not want to get up and get on my bike today. But we're officially in training for STP and there are a limited number of days we have to train and this was one of them. I lay in bed past 9 and snuggled further under the covers, when Jess said we really should be thinking of getting up.

I gave in eventually, and we got up. I put her in charge of breakfast, while I made pasta for lunch that we could fall on after our ride. We ate waffles, mango and scrambled eggs.

I put the spaghetti carbonnara (or bacon spaghetti as we like to call it) into Tupperware in the fridge. I made two separate batches, real bacon for me, fake for Jess. It's one of the few things that easy to cater to both our tastes.

We finally got on the road around 11:30 after one false start. It wasn't warm by any stretch but we forgot to factor the wind into our clothing choices. As soon as we got away of the shelter of the house, we turned right back around and put on more clothes. I wore my new Showers Pass rain jacket to check out the wind-proofing and the breathability.

We had planned to do 60 miles but time wasn't on our side anymore and the route I'd been wanting to do was closer to 40 or 45 miles anyway. We went over to Willamette Blvd to Interstate and down to the Eastbank Esplanade. Then we kept going south, through Milwaukie, past Elk Rock Island, the site of our one and only midnight ride adventure and on to Oregon City.

We stopped just before the bridge into Oregon City at a very new looking gas station/mini mart and took turns taking a nature break. I gave her a small kiss before I went in and before I remembered where we were. “Oh my God, we could get shot!” I exclaimed, only half joking. But no one threatened and one guy just asked how far was our journey today.

But I wasn't to escape totally unscathed. As we approached the bridge to Oregon City, I heard stupid boys yelling at me out of their car. At least, I assumed they were yelling at me because all I caught of the words were “f&&k that n-----” at the end. I didn't turn my head, just nodded to myself---we were in the burbs alright.

After that I was eager to get back to so-called civilization where people only think their racial slurs at you for fear of reprisal. We rode through 'the city' and back over another bridge onto hwy 43 and headed through Lake Oswego. We passed a strip mall and I saw a big Cold Stone ice cream sign leap out at me...but we were training so I resigned myself to drooling as we went by. That is, until I heard Jess yelling something from behind me.

I slowed down so I could hear her. “Don't you see the Cold Stone?” she was yelling.

“Well yeah, but we're training and...”

“It's your birthday weekend baby.”

“Oh YEAH!” So I turned down the steep driveway and we parked our bikes next to the outside tables.

Since we didn't have locks, we ordered separately. I went first, since Jess would be paying for our treats. The guy who served up my dish was generous, heaping a nice pile well over the edge of the dish. By contrast, a different worker practically robbed Jess. Her dish was barely over half full, with air pockets on both sides. I barely gave her a chance to pout before I grabbed her dish and mine and went back inside. The stingy guy who'd served up her scoop was still at the counter.

I smacked both our dishes in front of him and said, “She's feeling a little cheated.”

He proceeded to explain that mine was over filled. I just looked at him.

“Um, I can put some more in if you want...” he said, in a tone that said clearly, this time. That was fine by me. It's not like we'd be out this way again anytime soon. He still seemed disgruntled so I said to him, “It's OK, it's my birthday.”

“Oh,” he said, as if it actually made him feel better. I took the now repaired dish of cake batter and coffee ice cream back to Jess and we enjoyed our mid training ride treat.

The ride back was more climbing but the peace and scent of the woods in Tryon Creek state park more than made up for it. We cruised through at a leisurely pace, both because Jess is not great at climbing and so we didn't run into any pedestrians on the twisty wooded trail.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and we made it home by 4:30. I wasn't as starving as I thought I would be so I opted to shower first and put my birthday cake in the oven before falling on my pasta. I insisted on making my cake myself. This being my first mom-less birthday, I wasn't really willing to chance that anything about my cake might be different.

At my request, Jess had organized a cosmic bowling party for me at Interstate Lanes. We arrived just before 7:00 and had four lanes to ourselves. I always forget about bowling but when I do remember to do it, I always have a great time. Fourteen people showed up and it was a blast. Jess claimed to suck at bowling but it was quickly revealed that we had a few ringers in the crowd. Jess, Leslie, Tessa and I had the highest scores after the first game so then it was decided by the group that the high scoring players should be on the same lane to lower the pressure for the rest of them. I manged to break the hundred point barrier in my second game, but Leslie, Tessa and Traci in the lane next door proceeded to wipe the floor with the rest of us. Luckily the great thing about bowling is that it's so fun no matter how bad you suck. And everyone loved my cake.

Eris had picked Traci up from the airport on her way to the bowling alley and then Traci came home with us. When we got home Jess asked me (rhetorically I assume), “Do you want a present now and a present tomorrow?”

Well duh. So I got to unwrap a box slightly smaller than a breadbox that contained an Eagle Creek toiletry bag for traveling, the kind you can hang up in the bathroom while you brush your teeth and what-not. I loved it 'cause I would never really think to get one even though I always admire the one Jess has. It's easy for us to shop for each other because we just pick out whatever we'd buy for ourselves. Actually, since mine is newer, I think she's a little envious now.

Tomorrow we have a fabulous spa day planned at Bonneville Hot Springs.

It's...It's...LIVEWIRE!

Today after math class, Jess and I went out for one of our first real training rides for STP. We didn't have much time so it was a fairly quick 30 mile trip out to Blue Lake park and back. Winds were reported 10-20 mph and it was pretty brutal coming back on the path. Of course, I'm the one who always gets to take it in the teeth while Jess cruises behind in my draft. It's the price I pay for having the bigger thighs, but I don't really mind. I made her lead the whole way out so I could check out her uh...form. :)

When we got back, we had time to shower and eat before heading to the next birthday festivity, a date at the Livewire variety radio show. We saw Jay Graves, Bike Gallery owner and he recognized and said hello to Jess, which was a nice change—usually I'm the popular one so of course I had to tease her. But I lost my high ground when it turned out that I knew two of the people in the show tonight. Dave Allen, Dirty Martini manager and former bassist for Gang of Four was on interviewing the creator of the CD baby website. And Ashleigh Flynn performed. I didn't even know that I knew her but she came up to me at the Pickathon a couple of years ago and she used to work with one of my exes at Cascade Aids Project. Such a dinky world.

The show was not the best I've seen them do, but it did have some high points. Afterwards, I wanted to say hi to Ashleigh so I grabbed Jess's hand and walked backstage like I belonged there. Fortunately the first person I ran into was Jim from Mississippi Studios, who also produces Livewire. Jim knows me well from the musical company I keep.

“Hey Jim,” I said.

“K, how's it going?”

“Good, I'm looking for Ashleigh.”

“Come on, I'll take you up.” And he lead us up some hazardously steep narrow stairs to the hallowed green room. I love being on the fringe of the cool kid crowd.

We didn't stay long, just exchanged pleasantries with Ashleigh and I introduced Jess. She asked what I'd been up to and I kept it light. I don't think she knows about my mom and I didn't bring it up, despite the strong urge I always get to let even the most casual acquaintances know-- I feel like they should know they're dealing with the walking wounded, rather than a regular person but it's just not always appropriate.

When we left, Jess scolded me for grabbing a chip on the way out—but they were Doritos, I had to do it.