It was the middle of July, and it was hot as balls. Of course, Fat Camp was in full swing and to illustrate just how hot it actually was, I’m borrowing a Facebook Post from earlier today from my Rabbi Kodi – “Fock its hot! At the rate my balls are sweating I’m going to wake up in the morning dehydrated!” Needless to say, I needed the Air Conditioning as desperately as I need oxygen to breathe or alcohol to make it through the day, so it was off to only peaceful oasis that I knew of in the area: the mall.

I was actually pretty well-known in that mall, but not for very good reasons. I used to go there frequently with my cousin Leaky and her boyfriend, Dim, but nothing good ever came of it. Security was usually involved, sobriety was never involved, and immaturity was always involved. I loved her, but Leaky was always, always, always in a bad mood and being the absolute biggest bitch possible. I would try to embarrass her or make her laugh to get her out of those moods, but it didn’t always work.

That day she was especially bitchy and I couldn’t even ditch her because she had driven us and wouldn’t let me hold the keys to the car. As we were walking on the second level, I noticed that there was a guy giving out pretzel bites samples on the level below. I stopped and leaned over the railing, looked down at him and then started yelling: “Pretzel Boy!…Hey!…Pretzel Boy!” He tried his best to ignore me, so I repeated myself. “Pretzel Boy…I know you can hear me!…Throw me one!” He looked up at me (more annoyed than he should have been) and shook his head while saying softly – “No…You’ll get me in trouble…Get out of here”

Not getting the point, I got much, much louder and started screaming “PRETZEL BOY!…PRETZEL BOY!…I SAID I WANT A PRETZEL!…THROW ME ONE…NOW!…DON’T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!” to which he responded by picking a sample off the platter that he was serving from and proceeded to throw it at me. At this point, not only were my cousin and her boyfriend watching, but there were about ten other randoms watching as well. Pretzel Boy had obviously never played professional  baseball before because it was an awful throw. It went high and to the left and all of a sudden Leaky reached out her hand and caught that out of control pretzel bite. 

I thought for sure it might fly through the front entrance of Claire’s and land in the pile of headbands by the cash register but, I just couldn’t believe she caught it. She was far off from being an athlete and even further off from being coordinated – it was a shock to see her moving so deftly. And if you know her, you know it’s a shock to see her moving at all unless you have a box of Entemann’s cookies in your hands. (Funny enough she once ate a whole box of Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies in one sitting while we were talking and then looked down at the empty box and back at me and then down at the empty box again and then spat at me defensively “I didn’t eat all those cookies!” and then stormed off when I started to laugh and called her out on it. Listen, I say if you’re gonna eat a full box of Entemann’s chocolate chip cookies yourself – and who hasn’t? – then you have to own it Honey!)

Anyway, she tried to hand that pretzel bite to me after she caught it but, of course now that whoever made it and put it on the tray, Pretzel Boy, and Leaky had all touched it with their sweaty bare hands – there was absolutely no way that was I going to put that pretzel bite anywhere near my mouth. Pretzel Boy’s boss came out to talk with him (about what I couldn’t exactly hear, but I had a pretty good idea) so I yelled down at them “Throw me some cheese to dip it in!” Neither of them thought it was as funny as I did and they went back into the store. It was like the baseball coach coming out of the dugout to pull the pitcher from the mound after he just let another batter hit one into the stands…

I didn’t get a pretzel bite that day, but I did get that bitch out of her bad mood. Still a win in my book and then we were able to get down to business and get drinks in the sports bar that we always went to in the mall. I promptly forgot about the heat and quickly moved onto something else to complain about…