Oh yes, you should be jealous.

I was away. I was working, but I was not here. I was in another place. A wondrous place. A place that had a pillow menu. Aromatherapeutic scents were pumped into the air. I was there with two writers I love more than I loved the many many pillows. I laughed so hard I pulled heretofore unfelt abdominal muscles. I never wanted to leave.

Now I am back in this place, and there is no pillow menu here. I am expected to place my head on whatever damn pillow I can find! The aromatherapy in this place tends toward the meat-tinged and/or uriney. I've asked to change my room, but the concierge isn't answering. This is not acceptable.

But then, there are these two boys who live in this place. I love one of them enough that I plucked him from the typing pool at work and I married him, before he knew what had happened. Now he scratches my back whenever I scooch toward him on the couch and lean forward ever so slightly. He finds it more tedious than Simonizing, but he obeys the long-standing ritual of the scooch-lean-scratch. The other one, the smaller one, threw himself into my arms last night and pressed his nose against my cheek while his wet lips smashed into me and he said, "I gave you a smell-kiss. I gave you a smiss."

I am sorry, paradisical-pillow-menu-place, but these are services you cannot provide. This place totally wins.

(p.s.: call me.)

Comments

[Daphne Enns]

Geez, I'm beginning to think that life isn't fare!

Oh well, on the bright side we are staying in a local tacky hotel near the airport (so close and yet so far from actual travel).

We will be staying with other friends for an overnight. The hotel has a pool and a dinosaur water slide.

We will be eating Subway for dinner.

We've even decided to bring the kids.

Nope, not fare at all.

[Chookooloonks]

I would comment, but "P.S. Call me" slayed me.

Dead.

[Marcheline]

Hey, I'm just so excited to be one of the top ten commenters, I forgot what I was going to say.

[Jennifer]

Pillow. Menu.

See, you go about your life blissfully unaware of such things and all of a sudden one day Bloglines whispers, "Psst! It's Alice!" and then you come over here to see what's up and what's up is a pillow menu.

And now that I know, I'm expected to go on living without a pillow menu in my life? It's cruel, is what it is.

[Rattling the Kettle]

"An Executive Fitness Suite Hotel."

Man, would I be out of place there.

[Lisa]

While I suddenly feel dissatisfied with my stinky pillows and lack of travel, I agree there is nothing better than coming home to a man that will scratch your back. Tis good.

Love your blog.

[Monkee]

That's it. Life's not fair. I'm going to have to end it all and it's all because of you and your pillow menu and your backscratcher and your darn smisses. Grrrrrr.

[elise]

Teach me the ways of the scooch-lean-scratch. I stick my aching-to-be-rubbed feet in my husband's face like, ALL THE TIME, and he doesn't adhere to any such rituals at all.

[Blaine]

A smiss and a scratch. Life really does not get better than that. Welcome home.

[Nancy]

Tonight I shall be teaching my daughters how to execute the smiss. Sounds almost as divine as the pillow menu.

[Amy]

Oh my god! You know Catherine Newman? I LOVE her writing - and yours! How weird. I'm cyber-stalking two people that know each other in real life.I'm jealous!And the pillows sound like a nice change from my usual choice of drool and earwax scents.

[Coley]

MMmmmm, the conditioned scratching responses of the husband. I prefer the hunching my back and backing into husband method myself.He knows right where the bra tag has been itching all day...

[Christy]

If I scooched and leaned forward my husband would ask me if I was farting. Which I, like, never do. So, I'm jealous.

[OMSH]

Any hotel that meets the "without roaches" and "with friends" requirement can lure me for a while, but man do I miss those smishes. :)

[Heather B.]

Um is now a good time to publicly admit that I've loved Catherine Newman for years? Like remember when she first started, at BabyCenter? Yeah, since then. And if you're wondering why I was reading BabyCenter, I'd have to say I DO NOT KNOW. But the writing was good so I became obsessed and now I am oficially embarrassed.

So yes, I am very jealous. There. Happy?

[slouching mom]

Oh yes, I am indeed jealous. Jealous because you got to hang out with my heart girl Jenn, jealous because your husband scratches your back... Not so much jealous of Henry, because I have my own little stalker named Jack.

I'm going to have to go away and pout now. Oh, yes.

[sinda]

Jen AND Catherine AND a pillow menu, Life is so not fair.

[MommyWithAttitude]

Who can compete with a smiss???

[ozma]

I was going to say: Oh, and you got to go to New York! Then I remembered you live in New Jersey and used to live in NY so maybe that is not such a thrill.

I hate when I go to conferences where I'm thrilled for five minutes to be in a hotel in this kinda deluxe atmosphere (cable! working without interruptions! all the hot water I want!) and then immediately become morose and lonely because my sweeties aren't there.

[Thomas]

"Scooch" is a fantastic word, succinct, visceral and perfectly self explainatory whilst being very, very silly.

I use it whenever I can.

[Rebecca]

You don't know how happy I am to find another person who understands the importance of backscratching and its accompanying etiquette!

[pillow menu]

You know you still want me.

[Momma Bean]

Oh, gosh, that was wonderful. And, I thought I had the scooch-lean-scratch thing patented!

[Velma]

That pillow menu is one sultry temptress, but a smiss? How can you resist a smiss? A smiss is bliss!

[Velma]

Did you ever post something and immediately regret it? Uhm, yeah. Sorry about that "smiss/bliss" thing.