Negotiable American Currency

I woke up at 8:30am on Sunday morning and my brain immediately started on it's laundry list of concerns. Usually when I wake up my mind is slow and sticky like cold honey and I don't have to worry about rational thoughts occurring for at least half an hour. Sometimes, especially after an especially upsetting incident or after a night of heavy drinking my mind clicks on immediately and won't stop working away at whatever's bothering it.
I lay in the hotel bed, the itchy comforter against my face in an attempt to hide from the sun, my brain in no mood to drift back off into sleep. One hundred dollars on a coat? Are you serious? You should have brought along the Visa statement from last month to sober you. Sure, you look fabulous in it, but what good will that do you when you're calling the consumer credit helpline and sobbing into the phone because Capital One is indeed hassling you? They're going to break your knees. Stupid, foolish girl.
Around 9:30 I'd had enough, so I quietly got up and gathered my things to take a shower. Kristen rolled over and looked at me.
"Good morning, Sunshine!" I said quietly.
"Shut up, bitch," she murmured. Her brain was obviously not as concerned with the purchase of a polar fleece as mine was with the wool coat.
When I got out of the shower Kristen was sitting up in bed, blinking. She heaved a sigh and got ready to take her shower. I turned on the TV and watched approximately five seconds of Meet the Press before I switched over to VH1's Top 20 Countdown.
"I am fucking hungry," Kristen said as she walked out of the bathroom. "Seriously, I was about to fall down in the shower."
My stomach had begun to rumble too. It was quite a cacophony of noises in my body, between my stomach demanding I fill its stretched-out emptiness and my mind saying don't become one of those couples on daytime TV who have creditors calling at all hours.
On Saturday I'd suggested a good breakfast chain that I'd eaten at in Montreal one time, but it was a bit spendy, so we decided on Sunday morning to eat at Becky's Diner, where Rachel Ray had eaten when she went to Portland on $40 a Day. I was kind of hoping that she'd be there, oohing and aahing over the blueberry pancakes since I have a girl-crush on her, but she was nowhere to be found. A line out the door was there instead, and my stomach kicked up a noisy protest about waiting for a table.
There happened to be two stools open at the counter, so Kristen and I grabbed them and demanded coffee. A cheerful waitress gave us the steaming mugs of coffee and took our orders. "I promise I'll be much more communicative once I drink this coffee," Kristen said in monotone.
I didn't mind that she was so quiet since the diner was noisy. Our stools looked into the kitchen, so we could watch the two cooks bickering good-naturedly with each other. The older cook sang along with "Hot for Teacher" that was playing quietly from the kitchen's radio. The younger cook fetched fruit and potatoes as the elder called out orders like a doctor asking for instriments from a nurse. The waitresses chatted as they busily took care of their customers. The place was crowded and busy, but the waitresses handled it with good cheer. "Can you get my toast?" one would ask another. "Sure. Jess, can you see if anybody needs hazelnut coffee?" "Where's my home fries?" I have an appreciation for fine dining, but there's something about a diner and the greasy food that comes with it that will always hold a special place in my gastronome heart.
I got in the driver's seat and proceeded to leave Portland. We decided the fastest way to North Conway was via Route 302, which was far more interesting than sticking to an interstate. We passed the dilapidated farmhouses and fields of cows that seem unique to New England.
"I was watching The Phantom Gourmet" I commented to Kristen as we drove along, Dave Matthews singing quietly from the stereo, "and they had one of the local weathermen on talking about his favorite places to eat. The host of the show asked the weatherman if there was any other place he'd live if he had to live outside of New England, and the weatherman said no because New England has a little bit of everything in it. I think I agree with him."
"Me too," Kristen replied, looking at the high school we were passing, encouraging their basketball team to do well at the championships. "I mean, I complain about the weather and the cold, but you can do just about anything here in such a short time. Now we're in the mountains, but we were in Boston only a couple hundred miles ago. If you're driving through the midwest, it's all flat and corn. Or so you tell me, anyway. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."
We drove along Route 302, past small villages with quaint stores with puns for names (something to do with Ewes in a yarn store), through barren stretches where snowmobilers crossed the street like gasoline-powered deer. We passed a small ski slope, and by a lake where snowmobilers were racing across the frozen surface. I nearly pulled over there to hitch a ride across the flat expanse, but Kristen reminded me that tax-free outlet shopping was a short distance ahead.
About two hours after leaving Portland, we ended up in North Conway, New Hampshire. We pulled into Settler's Green, the epicenter of shopping in the area. If you can name a popular chain, odds are there's an outlet here. (We did miss some of the high-end outlets that are in Freeport, such as Coach and Ralph Lauren, but since I was on a budget it was probably for the best.) We swung around the parking lot, fighting for spots with cars from as far away as New Jersey. Eventually we got a spot right next to a dumpster and began shopping.
I'll spare you the ugly details of where I shopped and what I tried on. But there were bargains everywhere. I got my brother two long-sleeved t-shirts for, as Kristen put it, "four American dollars!" I got a cute skirt at the Gap for $18. I got two roasting pans to replace my roommate's large Pyrex dish (the free guilt pan!) for $8.98. There were more purchases made, all of which adding to the non-stop mantra in my mind. You can't afford this. You can't afford this.
"We should just crash at my Mom's house tonight," I commented to Kristen as I struggled to haul my bags around the stores.
"Seriously, dude. That would be fine with me."
"We'd miss Vermont, though." We'd planned to stop at a microbrewry in Brattleboro.
"Eh, Vermont's just kind of there," Kristen said. "And it's ski season, and a holiday weekend on school vacation week in ski country. If we found a hotel there, it would be really spendy. Also, we could leave for IKEA from there, which is way closer than Vermont is, anyway."
I called my Mom's house to notify her that we'd be arriving for the night instead of just stopping in on our way back to Boston on Monday. She was out with a friend, so I told my brother we'd be heading down so he wouldn't lock the deadbolt. We stopped to get gas since we'd be taking the Kangamangus Highway from North Conway to Lincoln, and it was about 35 miles without a gas station, or any houses. I filled the gas tank in the blistering wind while Kristen ran into the convenience store for supplies.
"I got two bottles of water, salt and vinegar potato chips and cheese doodles."
"Awesome. Let's roll."
The Kangamangus highway runs through the mountains and a national park. The road twists and turns and has steep grades, so it's almost like driving on a race track. Since I don't have the pleasure of driving very often, I love to, especially when it's through the backwoods without any traffic. The Kangamangus was especially challenging since we were driving west during sunset. Kristen snapped pictures and rifled through all the CDs in her car as I made tire-peeling squealing noises in my mind.
We ended up in Lincoln, which is right by Loon Mountain. The skiiers were leaving en masse, so we munched on cheese doodles as the traffic slowly moved towards 93. People returned their rented skiis to the off-mountain stores. One sign advertised "Strap on rental-- $30."
"I don't know if that's a situation where I'd rent," Kristen observed, sucking the cheese powder out of her fingernails.
On the ride back to Rhode Island, Kristen and I got loopy. It was the longest stretch that we'd been in the car-- about four hours-- for the entire trip. We'd exhausted our CD collection ("I swear, everyone I know is conspiring to get me to like this damn J. Lo song and I will not do it," Kristen swore) and after a dinner of Papa Gino's pizza we drove to Newport Creamery for dessert since it was only 9pm. The Whatever had the misfortune of calling during our punchiness.
"Hello, Mr. Whatever!" I greeted him.
"Um, hi, Amy, how are you?" He asked, sounding slightly confused by my good mood.
"I am awesome. Kristen and I have done a road trip of New England. We're in Rhode Island now."
"Hiiiiiiii Whatever," Kristen yelled, giggling.
"Kristen says 'hi'," I relayed to him, as if he hadn't heard it.
"Wow, that sounds really cool," he replied, indeed sounding impressed that Kristen and I were driving around, crossing state lines and engaging in general silliness.
"It's awesome." We'd arrived at Newport Creamery, so I was trying to get him off the phone so I could drink my Awful Awful in peace. "What's up?"
"Well, I've sat down with it, and, I think this is correct, I need to check something on Tuesday at work, but I think the total amount of what you owe me from our trip to Florida is $166.78."
I knew he would call once I'd spent the money I'd planned on giving him in full when I got paid. I called him on Tuesday to tell him I had the money and he needed to tell me how much to give him (and to apologize for demanding a gorilla, but that's another story for another time). Since he hadn't called me back, I figured he was weirded out by my nonsensical demand for stuffed novelties and I wouldn't hear from him again.
"Oh, um, I...er," I mumbled into the phone as we walked towards the Creamery, not wanting to admit that I'm a deadbeat friend and the money I owed him was currently sitting in an LL Bean shopping bag in the backseat of Kristen's car. As we walked by the newspaper box for the Providence Journal, I spied a picture of Jason Varitek looking especially warrior-like on the front page.
"Look, Kristen" I said, the Whatever still on the other end of my phone, "it's your boy."
"Where?!" Kristen exclaimed. She got her face right near the metal box to look through the smudgy glass at the image of her beloved.
"Hey," I said between giggles, "I think I've got to run. Kristen's about to get her tongue stuck to the newspaper box."
Kristen and I both erupted into a fit of hysterics at the mental image of Kristen, kitted out in her new Celtics hat and Super Bowl Champions sweatshirt with her tongue stuck to 'Tek's newsprint naughty bits, and having to explain to the teenager behind the counter at the Creamery that I'd need a cup of warm water to free my friend's tongue from the paper box. The Whatever, still on the phone and by this point completely bewildered, laughed.
"Are you driving right now?" he asked, a somewhat paternal tone creeping into his voice, as if once he got off the phone with me he'd be Googling the Rhode Island State Police number and asking them to follow any swerving green Foresters with Massachusetts plates.
"No, we're actually at the ice cream place now, so I'm going to have to run because I don't want to be that girl on the cell phone."
"Uh, okay. Good talking to you."
"Later," I said, still gasping for air after the hysterics.
We got inside and shed out coats, still laughing. I assured Kristen my Mom would have the day's ProJo in the archives (recycling bin) so we didn't need to spend the fifty cents on our own copy. The waitress brought us menus and some water.
"You should have an Awful Awful," I recommended.
"What is that?"
"It's Awful Big and Awful Good," I replied.
Kristen looked at the poster on the window behind her. "It looks like a milkshake."
"It's not a milkshake," I said, a shade more aggressively than necessary. "It's an Awful Awful."
Kristen shrugged and looked at the sundae menu. "Whatever. They all have different names in New England. It's a frappe?"
"No!" I said. "It's an Awful Awful. You can get a Junior one, if you don't want a lot."
"Nah," she said. "I'm getting a sundae."
I shrugged. "You should totally get the Awful Awful."
I got the junior Oreo Awful Awful. The Oreos are blended up into tiny little bits that easily slide up the straw, but are big enough so when you bite down you can feel the texture of the cream between your teeth.
"I'm excited for Ikea tomorrow," I said between slurps of the Awful Awful.
Kristen nodded. "Me too. Are you aware that you can buy a coffee table for twenty-four American dollars at Ikea? Twenty. Four!"
"It is an amazing feat."
"I know I have to assemble the little pieces of particleboard that burly Sweedish men named Sven or Bjorn pushed together with their hulking biceps, but I'm okay with that. It's twenty-four dollars! For a table! American currency!"
"It's the best place on Earth, I swear," I said, an experienced Ikea visitor. "You'll hate humanity by the time you leave, but it's well worth it for the great crap you can buy there for cheap."
We paid our bill and headed to my Mom's house for an evening of free laundry and more television watching in an ususual location. I went to bed, resigning my brain to the fact that I'd be parting more money I'd yet to earn at Ikea the next day.