Eddie & The W.I.P.

Definitely For Science.

"Uh. Eddie?"

My eyes flicked to my roommate in the kitchen. "Yeah?"

"Like, not to sound ... judgy or anything," she began as she shrugged out of the shoulders of her coat, "but it's almost 2 in the afternoon."

"Got a clock on my phone, thanks." I strained to reach a can of Pringles on the edge of the coffee table.

"Okay, let me rephrase that." Heaving a sigh—not just a sigh but the sigh, the kind that said she was getting tired of my shit—she dropped a trio of shopping bags on the island counter and moved to the edge of the livingroom. "It's 2 in the afternoon and you're still in your jammies."

"Please, Alice." I held up a hand. "It's called loungewear."

She stared. "It's a pizza-printed onesie."

The only answer she got was the sound of me dumping chips in my facehole.

"Moving on," she continued, toeing a string cheese wrapper that had joined a graveyard of so many others beside the sofa, "It sort of looks like you robbed a convenience store at gunpoint."

"It was a 7-11, specifically."

"Ah, yeah. The Big Gulp shoulda clued me in." She shifted her retainer with a hard swallow. "Didn't you start a diet last week?"

"'DiDN't You sTarT A dIeT LaSt wEEk?'" I fired back. It had sounded a lot funnier in my head—out loud, there was more than a whiff of defensive-fat-friend about it. My shoulders sank. "I'll start again on Monday."

"Okay. I mean, sure, that's certainly an option," she said, looking away nonchalantly while toying with a long strand of violet-colored hair. "Or you could put on some big girl clothes now and go for a run with—wait."

"What?"

"Did you—did you spike that Slurpee?" She yanked out a pink bottle I had stashed between the couch cushions and brandished it like a weapon. "With moscato?"

Pink liquid swirled through the silly straw, spelling out 'BAD BITCH' in girly cursive as I took a loud, long sip. "Listen, I don't tell you how to live your life."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm sorry. I said I wasn't gonna judge you and—well, listen to me. Might as well call me Judge Judy." The wine bottle clattered to the coffee table as Alice sat down beside me with a crunch. Wincing, she listed to one side and pulled out a half-empty bag of now-flattened cheese curls. "I guess I'm just worried. This isn't like you."

"Everybody needs a self-care day once in a while."

"This isn't a self-care day and you know it," she said."This isn't even one of your garden-variety depressive slumps. I mean, heck, you're watching daytime TV."

Admittedly, I'd tuned out once The Price is Right ended. "So?"

"There's two kinds of people that watch daytime TV." She hit the power button and the screen dimmed to black. "Boomers and kids too sick to go to school."

"Nobody benefits from labels." The straw gurgled against the bottom of the cup.

She shook her head and started to collect trash in an empty box of Ding Dongs, starting with the bag she'd sat on. "Eating trash, watching trash—I bet you haven't even showered today."

"Showers are for winners," I snorted. "C'mon, don't throw away my cheese puffs."

"What, you're not gonna eat 'em, are you?" she asked in disbelief. "They've been contaminated by my butt cheeks."