*Jinxx’s POV*

Andy had reassured Jon he’d be on time, and I believed him, Tacoma really wasn’t that far. He was clearly a ball of nerves about his, uh, special lady-friend. We all kept getting texts about her, what to do, what not to do. ‘Whatever you do, don’t pick your nose!’ ‘She’s a veterinarian, be careful talking about your pets!’ ‘Don’t look at her boobs or her butt!’ ‘She’s a vegetarian.’ ‘Her name is Gwyn: G-W-Y-N.’ ‘She’s different.’ ‘She’s a HUGE fan, it’s weird but ok, don’t worry.’

Don’t worry? Don’t worry? Was he kidding? I had been fine, not really thinking anything about it, but now I was starting to feel nervous. Why all the texts? What if this girl was standing in front of me, and I accidentally looked at some unacceptable body part? What would happen? Was Andy going to kick my ass or was Gwyn going to punch me in the nuts, and why? I didn’t want to get hit in the fucking jewels! Shit! Would she hate me for not being a vegetarian? At least I wasn’t a nose-picker, shit, I’d better start carrying a tissue around in my pocket, just in case… I wasn’t going to get one to the balls over something preventable; I’d seen that video of her bulldozing that guy over!

And what the fuck was she different from? Maybe someone else knew, but I was way too terrified to ask. Was it just her size? That hardly mattered if I was forbidden from looking at her boobs and butt now, did it? You would have thought I was as safe as could be: I was with Alice, Andy wasn’t a monogamous guy anyways, and I wasn’t even sure if he was dating this girl, but he could get weird and kind of... heavy on the machismo, I guess you could put it that way.

Thus, when Jon informed me I had been selected as a member of the 'official' greeting party to go with him to fetch them at the Sea-Tac Airport, I was less than thrilled. I was afraid I might accidentally look at this girl, especially if she was so different from whatever it was Andy was comparing her to. If she was interesting, it made me curious to look at her, and now I knew I wasn’t supposed to. Crap!

CC was in the same boat, he had also been informed he was part of the welcoming committee. He was coping by resorting to youtube. I was just kind of sitting and worrying, half-heartedly messing with my phone. Nobody had really said anything about our incoming guest, but I imagined she was on everybody else’s minds too.

I kind of wanted to do my own thing with the free time I would have had, just goof around. It would have been cool to get the first scoop on what I suspected was Andy’s new squeeze, but I could tell I was going to be too terrified to interact like a normal person. I figured I was being put forward because I was a little quieter, and CC, though he was most definitely not quiet, was really super good-natured and friendly. I just wondered if that was Jon’s idea, Blasko’s, or if Andy was really so nervous about introducing this chick he had mandated parceling us out bits at a time. Were we that bad? If that was the case, I was a little worried. That meant either she was, like, some super-delicate, little flower in winter, or he was concerned we’d all revolt and mutiny if we were all exposed at one time to her horribleness. Not good. Hrmm…

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*Jake’s POV*

I was trying not to get anxious about Andy bringing his, er, friend on tour. It sounded like a recipe for disaster, at least in so far as I was concerned.

Ella and I had a ton of pets. What if this girl asked us a bunch of questions about them, what if she thought I was a bad pet dad for some veterinary reason? What had Andy’s text meant?

I could tell from the video that she was pretty out of shape, and Andy had said she was a big fan, so she might know about Get Mean. I was really worried it would make her uncomfortable, like she’d assume I looked down on her, just because she had different priorities than I did.

Then there was Ella. Lately she had really not been getting along with Ashley, even more than usual, and I’d had to spend every night with her, immediately shuffling her away from any of the guys to prevent an incident. Talking about it hadn’t helped at all. She just couldn’t accept that other people lived their lives differently from us. I couldn’t decide if I was more worried that Ella was going to start treating this girl like she treated Ashley, or that she’d try and convince her that Ashley was a bacchanalian heathen and try to form some kind of girl posse. Either one made my head hurt.

I just wanted Ella to be happy, not be so volatile and judgmental. I wanted Andy to be happy with whatever was going on with his not-girlfriend. Of course I wanted Ashley to be happy too, doing his own thing, not getting harassed by my woman. Was that so difficult?

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*CC’s POV*

I kind of felt like: let whatever may come, come. I’d deal with things as they happened. Jake was clearly stressing out and working himself up, and Jinxx was brooding. I didn’t even want to think about how Ella was going to treat Andy’s, er, special friend. Ella was a good person, but she was really opinionated about the way things should be when it came to relationship stuff, as in, for everybody. She was in the back somewhere. Hadn’t seen Ashley in a while, he was probably asleep, totally unaffected. I swear, sometimes that bastard managed to stay cool as a cucumber when the rest of us were running around like a bunch of morons. Not that I’d ever tell him that.

I mean, sure, I wasn’t thrilled to have been selected as a member of the stupid greeting party. Mostly because picking only two bandmates was intrinsically exclusionary of Jake and Ashley. I mean, true, it wouldn’t have been practical to drive the whole damned tour bus out of the way to pick Andy, uh, and lady-friend, up at the airport economy parking lot. So I felt like it would have been better if just Jon went or something.

But, you know what? I wasn’t going to pitch a fit. They’d get here one way or another. I decided to just keep up my valiant effort to blot out the subtle tension in the air around me with an assortment of youtube videos. At that moment, I was indulging in some Cyanide & Happiness shorts. Good stuff.

Notes

QOTD:

ever seen any Cyanide & Happiness shorts or read any comics?

yes dude, of course! i even own one of the books because duh!

note: if answer is no, i suggest you remedy this now. go. go now. just google it.

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excited to go see cradle of filth in seattle on tuesday (the 23rd) at showbox with the butcher babies. (less excited about the drive.) i've seen CoF once before and it was a great show, so i'm really stoked. i've had a super fucking shit, well, eh, life, recently, (hahaha), but, especially month intensifying to week, so this will be cool.