Could it be? Is it true?

Have I actually sat down to right more on the subject of TowelGirl?

Or maybe I'm just going to make more excuses for not writing more often.

In all honesty I believed that I was going to get the rest of this little ditty of a story down the next day.

And to that I utter a great big: HA.

It's been like, a bajillion days.

Let's hope I can remember the remainder of the story.

Ok. So. Where were we.

Right.

TowelGirl, the main character of this delightful tale, had just dragged me up the trail to the cabin.

Fortunately everyone was close behind and were able to stop her from going inside. You see, by now she had quite the collection of pine needles and dirt caked on her feet and legs. And apparently a cut on her foot as well that was not quite gushing but certainly needed tending to.

And don't ask me where her shoes were. This was not a literary slip on my part.

I simply do not know.

In fact, it wasn't until just now that I realized she didn't have shoes.

She either wandered down without any. Which I wouldn't put past a drunk. Who needs shoes right?

Or they're at the bottom of the lake as we speak.

Ok, so.

We towel her off outside the front door. At least to a tolerable degree so we can rush her inside to the shower.

Of which she had no interest in. Naturally.

The girl takes 3 showers a day, and NOW she's choosing to abstain?

(rather than constantly mention this in the text I would like to just tell you to assume, at all times, I am thinking "need more wine, need more wine" over and over again. I mean, clearly. Duh.)

(except, that is, when I'm thinking "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you" over and over again)

(but you probably were already assuming that)

I finally convinced her that she must be freezing from her totally at-will, sober, and weeeee-fun, dip in the lake. That the shower would warm her up and she would thank me. I steered her into the bathroom, so she would stop bleeding on the expensively new Berber carpet, where lil' sis had already started the shower, and we tried to get her undressed.

Oh, and there came back the delightful belligerence. With a dash of modesty.

"yoooooou guuuuuuuyz...I can take caaaare of myshelllf. Shheeriously guuuuuuuyz, I don't neeeed your help"

And she pushed us out the door.

Ok fine. Shower your damn self.

Figuring that the BestFriend and lil' sis had things under control, I went upstairs to TowelGirl's room to look for a fresh set of clean clothes.

And I realize now that finding "clean" or even reasonable "fresh" clothes was a foolish thought. But at the time I assumed she must have had SOME clean clothes considering she had been using the laundry equipment all weekend long.

Oh yes, another one of her "quirks". She apparently felt right at home enough to wash her clothes over and over again. In the laundry room (which doubles as the 2nd bathroom) that has NO ventilation.

To make this absolutely clear: laundry/bathroom = sauna.

What I found in her room cleared a WHOLE lot up for me. Up until this point I was giving TowelGirl the benefit of the doubt. She drank too much. No big deal. She wasn't handling it well. But so what - I wasn't going to lump her in with Liza Minelli right off the bat.

And then I found her backpack. Which, by the way, was the ONLY item she had brought with her. She had packed all she needed for a 3-day weekend in an average sized school-grade backpack.

Which again, not entirely that odd. I might pull that off if I really needed to. But you'd better have a good reason. And you know what, better yet - don't invite me somewhere if I'm limited to just one small backpack. k?

And obviously she had the toothbrush and towel gnomes to see to her hygeinic needs...

Where was I? Oh right. I made no real judgments on TowelGirl's state up until then.

But then I took inventory of her backpack.

- 1 sketchbook (artist...or should I say "artist")
- 1 t-shirt
- 1 pair light-weight pants
- 1 sandwich, made with perishable ingredients - none of which available in our fridge (brought from home?)
- 1 baggie crammed full of some pastries we had made earlier that day
- 1 calistoga water bottle filled with a cranberry juice colored liquid (upon sniffing contents - the cranberry juice was NOT alone)
- 3 empty beer bottles
- 1 Liter of Gin...missing, like, 3/4 of the bottle

Hooookay. Drinking in private. Somewhat of an indication we were dealing with a drunk. A drunk who is worried she will be stranded with no food. And who has no concern for refridgerating food that is prone to food-born bacteria.

I grabbed the t-shirt and pants and brought them downstairs. I found lil's sis in the hall outside the bathroom waiting for TowelGirl to finish her shower.

She finally finished and we found that she had managed to, yes! shower fully clothed.

Excellent! This is why we let drunk people shower unsupervised. It's fun. And makes for good stories later.

Lil' sis produced the "clean" clothes and TowelGirl proceeded to put them on over her soaking wet lake-swimming ensemble.

Again, she was feeling modest. Nevermind she was in the midst of an evening-long humiliation. So what's the best thing to do? Put your clothes on OVER your existing soaking wet clothes.

Because this totally solves the problem.

Well at least she's now drenched in warm shower water instead of cold lake water.

And then there was the brilliant chatter she subjected us to. A wonderful combination of outward anger towards us and self-hatred introverted drunken banter.

If you recall from the previous installment of this story...you know, the one I wrote, like, a bajillion days ago...TowelGirl is notorious for her constant string of commentary. When she is drunk she does not fail to produce. Only this time it's a constant string of how silly we're being, and how she can take care of herself, and no she's not drunk, and why can't we just leave her alone?

We pulled her into the kitchen, on the nice tile floor (in other words: easy to clean should more bleeding continue, or say, vomiting suddenly commence), and sat her down on the floor to address the wounds she incurred when falling in the lake.

And boy oh boy did I want to inflict some more of my own.

We put a bandaid on the cut she had on her foot which we discerned was minor. I put an icepack on her shin which was now growing a nice big goose-egg of a bump.

I claimed a nice bit of satisfaction knowing how much that was going to hurt in the morning.

By now my Husband wandered over to survey things. Up until now he had smartly stayed out of the way.

Husband: How's the patient.

Me: I don't really give a shit - get me more wine.

Husband: Right.

Being the dutiful husband that he is, he swiftly supplied me with the best tasting wine ever.

Now that I had a glass of wine, I felt a little more at ease to talk with TowelGirl while we iced her leg.

She blubbered a bunch of things about her Dad dying of some sort of Cancer and her mother having Multiple sclerosis. She continued on about how she's about to loose her job (at Pete's coffee, ahem) and how she's a failure and life sucks.

Ok.

Right about then I was considering that it was a great time to start charging by the hour.

Fortunately for all of us TowelGirl's eyelids started to get heavy and we thought it might be best to move her to the couch where she could crash out for the night. We felt moving her upstairs was a bit optimistic on our part.

We spread out a pile of towels to keep the couch dry, pushed her down and within a couple minutes she was sound asleep. Off in little drunken dreamland.

Oh man can I be long-winded.

I really thought I could wrap this all up in one more entry.

But, um, don't hate me.

Oh god - you're totally going to hate me.

I'm going to have to leave the rest for another time.

(insert nervous laughter here)

Seriously - I mean it! I'll wrap it all up nice and tidy next time!

And next time won't be, like, forever from now. Maybe. (more nervous laughter)