It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Allison and I have been denied the privilege of renewing our lease (for reasons that make no sense at all that I am sick of discussing), so in the midst of gas prices soaring, we’ve been putting countless miles on our cars driving around Virginia Beach and Norfolk, frantically searching for our new home. (As of right now, we’ll be homeless for about a month or so if you’re interested in taking us in…) We spent yesterday afternoon consulting with an attorney, agruing with the staff of our apartment complex and dropping off our rental reference forms at the new apartment we’re applying for. By 5:00, I was exhausted and pissed off and still pretty sore from the half marathon this weekend. The apartment was a mess and I didn’t even feel like looking at it anymore, so I decided to space out and play some computer games on my bed.

I downloaded the free trial version of Aloha Solitaire on Yahoo! Games — extremely addicting. I ended up spending $20 to purchase the full version and I was still laying in bed in my work clothes playing it long after the sun went down, but I found myself starting to squint, so I got into my pajamas, watched Big Brother 6 on the TiVo and was about to fall asleep when Allison came home.

“Get dressed! We have to go to Have A Nice Day Cafe. Mini-skirt contest tonight! Five hundred dollars!” she said.

“Allison, I am not entering in a mini-skirt contest.”

“Even if you don’t enter, we get in for free if we wear mini-skirts!”

I figured I was in desperate need of some fun and excitement, so forty-five minutes later we were in Tom’s truck and I was wearing Allison’s size 2 Abercrombie cut-off denim skirt with the highest heels I own.

We parked at Waterside, we walked inside, we got on line. I noticed everyone wearing pants. “Allison,” I said, “where are all the skirts?”

“Um, maybe it’s next week. I thought the flyer said September 6…” she replied.

“People are staring at us. I can’t believe I am wearing this skirt in public.”

Sure enough, we had the date wrong. The mini-skirt contest is next Tuesday. We didn’t get in for free, either. We basically spent the whole night clinging to each other and Tom in the hopes that no sketchy boys would try to talk to us/dance with us/touch us inappropriately — we all know how I feel about strange people touching me. At one point, we saw an empty wall and backed right up to it, huddling together to avoid this one crazy stalker who was dressed like he thought he was Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.

Don’t get me wrong, part of me thoroughly enjoyed wearing the size 2 mini-skirt out in public, but I’m telling you, it’s just one fiasco after another for us lately. Hopefully things will turn around soon — at least in time for one of us (Allison) to win the $500 next week. We could really use the money to help pay for our upcoming moving expenses.

We trudged back up the stairs to our apartment at about 1:00 this morning. “Well Allison, leave it to us to wear our mini-skirts on the wrong night.”

“Yeah, I really wanted to win the $500.”

“Maybe next time we can start charging all the weirdos $20 to dance with us.”

“Yeah! Well, maybe we should start a little lower and see how it goes. Ten dollars per dance.”

“Twenty if there’s touching.”