As I am leaving the office my boss says to me, “You’re leaving so early.” I feel bad but leave anyway because I figure I shouldn’t deny him the pleasure of missing my presence.

I am so exhausted and ready to hit the sack but I have to persevere like a no-limit soldier and make it to the lower east side for my friend Steve’s going away dinner. He’s my favorite Frenchman and this is his last weekend in New York before he goes to Africa for two months. Is it just me or is Africa like the new West Coast?

So we all congregate at Le Pere Pinard and have glasses of wine at the bar. I order a rose but I can’t tell if it’s my congested nose or my weak palate but it kinda tastes like rotten apple cider. I have Steve taste it and he agrees that it is a bit odd. If a Frenchman declares it odd then it must be odd! So he talks to the bartender in French and the bartender says something about how it is a special kind of rose with a distinct flavor and that it was like produced from his mother’s vineyard.

I don’t think he liked me after that.

Whatever, the first five buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned. If you can’t conceal your bare chest then I can’t conceal my disdain for your mother’s wine. Actually, I don’t know if the wine was really from his mother’s vineyard. I think they were just trying to fuck with me because I don’t speak French. Why must I instantly believe everything I see and hear??

The rest of the group arrives and we order grilled calamari and a cheese plate and a bottle of white. After spending about ten minutes discerning the flavor, we declare that it is unsuitable because it is corked. Actually, the Frenchies evaluate the wine while I sip it like water. I drink anything in a glass. Corked or not corked. Our waiter tells us this corked bottle is on the house and he’ll bring another one. While he goes to get us a new, virginal bottle we all chug our corked wine. Hey, it’s free.

Steve and I are watching our figures so we both get the hangar steak with potatoes and greens and agree we’ll ostracize the potatoes. He even teaches me how to pronounce la piece du boucher.

Pee-eesss du booochaaaay.

The waiter takes our order and I say PEEE-ESSSS DU BOOCHAAAAY. Then the waiter briskly says something in French and all I can comprehend is “medium rare’ so I just nod. I hope I didn’t just order a medium rare calf brain.

Steve tells me he’s so proud. He teaches me how to speak French and I teach him to say “Get out!” when something is really, really good or shocking.

Our steaks arrive and of course I dig into the potatoes like they are cubes of gold rubbed with garlic and rosemary. GET. OUT. And the steak. Bloody meat never tasted so good.

Steve and I discuss our fondness for Carla Bruni and start singing “Raphael”. Well, Steve knows the words, I just kinda sing it phonetically. Learning the words to French songs is like learning the words to rap. You have no idea what they’re saying but you just memorize the sounds.

Steve tells me that one of the lines in Raphael is “you look like an angel but you’re a devil of love…” Ooooh, C’est sexy!

He takes out his ipod and we start listening and dancing to the song right at the table. Yeah, we really know how to be social around our friends.

Then Fabien points out a really cute guy at the table next to us. Apparently the cute guy turned to this table of girls and told them they were being really loud. Omigod, he’s so stank. I love him even more!

Elissa and her man Josh arrive and we have some more drinks at the bar. There is a live jazz band playing and if there is anything that Steve and Fabien detest more than live music it is live jazz.

“Ugh, stop farting already,” Steve says to the live jazz musicians.

Now you can see why I love him so much. He is such a stank!

Speaking of things I love and things YOU should love, go to the site bobhatesandy. It’s intelligent and hilarious. My favorite kind of humor! This is Josh’s site and you can subscribe to it and get a new episode every month. Oh, and it was also featured in this month’s Rollingstone.

I’ll wait for you to subscribe and come back.

Done?

So at work the other day, this stapler fell on my wrist and I wanted to yelp in pain but couldn’t because I was in public and really, who cries from staplers? But now I have a huge bruise and it hurts like hell.

Staplers are the new anvils.