The Two of Us

Festive Party Hats

"Eddie, that is absolutely disgusting."

It was New Year's Eve and I was standing in the kitchen with my brother, who had just pulled Satan's frisbee out of the oven.

And by "Satan's frisbee", I mean a frozen pizza covered in pieces of chewed gum, tabasco sauce, cinnamon, orange juice, cashews, and god knows what else.

"It's not disgusting," he said, removing his chicken-themed oven mitts. "It's DiGiorno."

"No, it's not. Not anymore."

He grabbed the pizza cutter out of one of the drawers. "Do you wanna try a slice?"

"I'd love to, but," I glanced down at my wrist like I was wearing a watch, but I wasn't. Just a couple of those cheap-ass silicone bracelets, "I should probably start getting ready to go."

"Alright, you don't know what you're missing out on!" he shouted as I left the kitchen and made my way over to the staircase, which is where I ran into Dad.

"You about to leave for that fancy dinner or whatever it is that you're going to?" I asked.

"I am," he replied as he buttoned his black coat. "Are you about to get ready for that thing with your friends?"

"Yep."

"Is your girlfriend going to be there?"

I leaned onto the railing of the stairs. "Yeah."

When my response to his joke question lacked my ever so frequently used sarcastic tone, his eyes widened. "So you do have one! Who is she?? I want to meet her!"

"You've already met her, Dad."

"Ohh, I have?" He pulled his keys out of his pocket. "Okay, so it's either the one that always wears pink, the one with curly blonde hair, the one with a bunch of facial piercings, or the tall one with glasses."

"It...might be the last one."

"I spoke to her for approximately twelve seconds. I want to meet her again."

"Okay, I'll tell her."

"Don't forget," he said. "Oh, and tell your brother that he still needs to get his clown doll out of the tree in the backyard."

"Will do."

After Dad disappeared out the door, I relayed the tree/clown situation to Eddie, who grabbed a broom, a baseball helmet, and a pogo stick before heading into the backyard.

Admittedly, it was very tempting to follow after him and see how stuff played out, but I resisted the urge and went upstairs like I was planning to earlier.

When I returned downstairs around fifteen minutes later, somebody knocked on the front door.

I opened it and was immediately subjected to a lot of pink.

"Oh, hey Bonnibel."

"Hey!" she greeted. "I figured that since we're all heading to the same place, I might as well come over so that we can walk together."

"Oh, alright. Come in," I stepped aside to let her in, "Eddie and I aren't leaving just yet. He's got some stuff to do first."

Almost as if on cue, Eddie stumbled in from the backyard, covered in leaves with his gray sweater awkwardly pulled halfway over him and one of Mickey's arms hooked around his ankle.

"Riley! I have a problem!"

"Ed, you're attempting to put your head through an armhole."

"Oh." Eddie put his arm through the armhole and finally located the head hole.