Living Like a Gypsy

Living like a gypsy is hard!! As of late, I have found myself packing up to go to the __________ for the weekend or the week or a couple of days. I am truly grateful to have couches, air mattresses, and floors across this great land to crash on. It is really wonderful to hide out for a couple of days, and enjoy breaking up the monotony of the day to day. At most of them I don't even have to bring my own pillow. Allowing someone to use your favorite blanky and drool on that pillow that you would throw out if only your stray friends would mate up or go home is true friendship.
Have you ever noticed that it is never that hard to pack the instant someone offers you prospects of free room, board, and booze. In that moment you are like The Flash sprinting around your room and house gathering all of the ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY everythings that you are going to need to get drunk and wallow on a friend's couch for a couple of days while nursing a hangover. You know that hang over, right? The one that makes you swear off drinking and promise the gods that you will never drink again if only they would kill you (if possible in a blaze of glory) immediately. Hell, they could have done it the night before, sparing you the agony of morning. If only they were not refreshing their own refreshments somewhere before, :I can drink Tequila like a sailor."* And, "What do you mean we are out of wine?"** But damn it when someone springs a weekend away on you, you just never know what you might need.
The reloading all of the stuff that you really didn't need now that you have weakened and poisoned your body for the weekend is never fun. Then, trucking your crap into the house while the cat circles your feet and the dog kicks up the rug in excitement allowing you to stumble while carrying everything you possibly could in one trip in an attempt to make one sprint into the house from the car. Good times. Let's face it, it was probably not necessary to take you jewelery box, Christmas sweater, tweezers, tent stakes, second grade year book, lava lamp, rubber boots, scoop shovel, mixing bowl, feather duster, and electric pencil sharpener with you. Onward your pile staggers like a Jenga stack on a teeter-totter until you can finally toss it onto a surface that can handle the weight of your slightly-over packed pile of what-the-hell-was-I-thinking. Whew! Glad to be home!
 Isn't it wonderful?! Home!! Pants off!! Bra off!! Wine opened (what can I say, it is fun to celebrate a homecoming)! Hurray, hurray!! Once the fridge is raided and you have sat lifelessly in front of the television for longer than you realized, you give a good stretch and think: "I am going to bed early." That is when you realize it, the horrible truth, the repressed memory of that large pile of crap that stands between you and the endless love affair that you have with your bed comes barreling down on you. Reality sets in. You have to put away your stuff. All of a sudden all of the algebra and geometry that you had taken in high school, and swore up and down that you would never need, is pulled out of the depths of your dusty, cobwebbed mind as you attempt to figure out how you can move and stuff all of it into the dark crevasses of the room so that you can go to bed. Why are you doing this to me Christmas sweater? I was the only person who loved your reindeer with its crooked antlers and one googley eye. I didn't judge you when only half of you twinkle light worked and the dingers in you bells were long gone. No one else would have bought you in July when it was 97 degrees, and you are fading into loneliness. I was there for you; I thought we were friends.  
Finally. you have hidden and stacked it into a narrow path that will allow you to stumble to the bathroom in the darkness of night (or anytime before 10 AM). You pull back the sheets, climb into bed, cover up, get greeted by the cat, yawn forcefully, and begin to doze. However, the wonderment of it will be short lived when your eyelids fly open as though some has called fire.
The phone is ringing: "Hello? Nothing. No, I am not sleeping; it is only 8:30. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Sure. No, I don't mind. I would love to help you make 750 cupcakes for your second-cousin's third-husband's birthday party. tomorrow? Do I need to pick anything up? You did? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Daiquiris? Well if you already bought it, then I guess we will use rum. No problem. See you at Noon."
Damn it, following you heart, living on the edge, venturing into new horizons, packing all of your crap so that you can do it all again as though you are stuck in the reality show version of Groundhog's Day is hard...but at least there are drinks and laughs and good times to be had.


*Seriously, who doesn't cut off their friend when they say something like that? (Possible S.A.T. Question: tequila is to sailor as _________ is to Mexico.)
** FYI: If the night goes from Tequila to wine...no one wins.