so, jennifer and i went to see "the shape of things" last night. it's a neil labute film. paul rudd's in it. kind of an odd film, but interesting i suppose. good score, by elvis costello.

the movie theater was in a section of norfolk called ghent, which someone else at work had touted as norfolk's version of the village. it was nothing like the village. and all but dead at 9 pm on a saturday. eh. we got home pretty early, and jennifer was like, "do you want a little slice of newport news life?" we walk over to ray's hilton country club, a ramshackle building a block or two down the road from us. i'd driven past it several times in daylight, and mistaken it for an abandoned house.

inside, it's all wood paneling and nascar paraphernalia. a bottle of bud is $1.85. it's country-western karaoke night. jennifer and i sit down at an empty table, plan to drink that one beer and then leave. an obese woman at the next table licks a $20 bill and sticks it to her forehead. she sees us, waves, and insist we join her table. at this point, we can't say no. the obese woman's name is vicki. she's there with her husband, russ, who completely ignores her; her mama, joyce, a deeply wrinkled woman who introduces herself as "hateful" and screeches, "don't call me mama!"; and russ' best friend, dan or dave, who looks about 30 and is wrapping his legs around don't-call-me-mama.

jennifer asks them if they watched the belmont. dan/dave says, "what's that? if it ain't nascar, we don't watch it."

dan/dave and russ started drinking in the garage at 2 pm. vicki has 4 DUIs already, and spent 6 months in jail for the last one. she carries around a ziplock bag of ice, and plunks the entire bag into her pitcher of beer. she pours jennifer and i each a glass of beer out of said pitcher, and spills all over the table. she puts her arm in the puddle and exclaims, "this table is wetter than my pussy!" she cackles.

vicki grabs the skinny waitress' breasts. she yells to a woman at the bar, "you need to put on a bra!" she informs the woman across the room that she has a j-lo ass. when she stands up to sing a dixie chicks song, she waves her own massive ass in russ' face. russ ignores her.

vicki, who can't be more than 35, tells us all about her 17-year-old daughter, jessica, who has won 3 beauty pageants. jessica is such a good student that vicki and russ bought her a used trans-am. all the neighbors are jealous.

don't-call-me-mama tells me that i look like an actress from her favorite soap opera, passions. (fyi, that's the soap opera with a midget playing a living doll.)