2 white pit bulls

"nah nah, it's insane. you have to experience it for one day and then you'll really get the breadth of the cuckoos nest they have festering."
"how can one restaurant chain have such a disparity between locations?!"
"i know! i told antony he should do a paper on it for his MBA. it'd be off the hook to do a deep dive analysis of what the fuck is happening. no matter, even the few shifts a week i pick up there are entertaining. like, i know i get to leave and come back here so it's more like a safari."
"you have GOT to be fucking kidding me. this place?" george gestrured wildly towards the restaurant we were sneaking in a joint behind.
i sipped on the smoke for a rapid succession of tokes before launching into my best Fargo impression. "Oh-a yeuah."
"don't even believe you for a minute. you're just trying to get me to cover your shift if you have to work there, aren't you?"
"oh jesus boy, you're so PARANOID!" i knew that gave him a pang of hurt hinting that he could be anything like his newly minted ex boyfriend. who got the boot for being an unrepentant coke head paranoid basket case. which i shouldn't have brought up. let alone mock george for being paranoid... and i really shouldn't have kept saying to myself before my shift "make sure you don't bring up coke, paranoia or money with george tonight" since i know i fixate and can't NOT blurt it out when i'm saying it over and over again. it's like a baby stroller careening out into traffic in slow-mo. my brain is screaming, "aahnoooooo!!" trying to reach for my id kicking me to say something stupid. too late. i had already absently asked george if he wanted to split an 8 ball with me this weekend. and i REALLY didn't mean ask him for that $50 he owed me. i don't even fucking need the money! but boom. this'll be a good conversation! idiot.
and now this. george was looking at me stunned and i put the joint into his mouth.
"i'm sorry."
"did you tell yourself not to say it?"
"yeah."
"did you practice all the way en route to work?"
my head drooped. "oh yeah." sometimes it's a relief when close friends have a working knowledge of your mental illnesses.
"well...." he took great long hauls on the joint and made it clear that i wasn't going to be getting it passed back. "i understand that you tried and failed." he pulled his glasses off the top of his head and tapped them back up the bridge of his nose as he leaned in to me. "TWO WHITE PIT BULLS!!!"
i threw up my hands and let out a hearty italian scream of "OH!"
while it's great when friends know what's poppin' with you on the sanity front, it can be a disadvantage. especially when they're privy to phrases that make me obsess on them for hours, sometimes days. over and over again when i'm walking alone... listen to music, trying to take an order at work. it's nothing terrible, but i will repeat it over and over again. eventually it just fades away, but until then, it's enmeshed in my consciousness.
"well thanks for that, george. you're a fucking saint. you know that?"
"honestly! you hear yourself speak!!"
"hey puppy cakes, you think i can fucking help it?"
"no, well yeah well... fuck it. we better get back in there. you should drop the visine."
way a head of him i was already plopping it in and wiping my eyes down. i had to wait behind him as he put his drops in with him bent over forward. for some reason he'd never been able to you know, DROP them in his eyes from above.
i waited until he was mid fuss to put visine into his other eye and jostled him from behind. "COME ON NOOBINZ! we're going to be late."
"agh! FUCK! really?"
i put my hand up to make a crack about having a lack of impulse control due to brain damage when i actually stopped myself. better add that to the list of shit i shouldn't bring up. wait, i shouldn't put it on a list. or.... like a list but don't think of the list?
"come on you god damned man child! keep this up and you're not coming out to baseball this week."
"oh no! you know how much a forced endeavor that requires me to be outside and do something sporty makes me horny!"
"you shouldn't have signed up as a sub in if you didn't want to play."
i hustled him back into the kitchen to make sure we didn't catch hell for taking a long break.
"YOU! YOU signed me up and told me about it after! you're the one who needs to get a god damned fag hag to do all this shit with."
"you're perfectly aware of how annoying i find straight women. we have an agreement that you cover off all the shit that's missing in my life outside of fucking, dating and clothes selection."
"again, that little arrangement thing was drafted without my consent or knowledge. i'm not going to really buy into it until you get my lawyer a copy to review. look sharp, people already think you're some little polish mail order husband of mine so don't bicker with me."
he spun around to lay into me but thought better of it when he saw my apron being tied on. usually that's when the serious face came out and the guy you talked to on break wafted away leaving a much more severe and unfriendly character.
i strode to my section and mumbled under my breath, "two white pit bulls." shit. this is going to be quite the night on the line.