One Way To Cure a Hangover -Part II

Breakfast and coffee had begun the process of recovery, but it would take time before I was ready to face the world. Weekends in Brooklyn can be daunting even when you don’t feel as though someone has been hitting you in the head with a hammer for hours. If it isn’t the posh brunch goers that parade Dekalb Avenue, it’s the baby stroller derby that invades Park Slope, or even worse the clumsy rollerblading clans that assault Prospect Park. Nowhere is safe from the nine-to-fivers, who all week-long are tucked neatly away in office building, and are now finally allowed to occupy otherwise peaceful restaurants, parks, and sidewalks. Weekends in Manhattan belong to the tourist, in Brooklyn they belong to the nine-to-fiver.

It was a beautiful day but I was hesitant to go outside. It was necessary however, to obtain some provisions for that night’s dinner so I downed yet another cup of coffee and prepared to brave the cumbersome strollers of Park Slope.
“How do you feel about Tuna?” I asked my Roommate.
I was now at the stage of a hangover when you feel guilty for everything you’ve put your body through and I was ready for a healthy meal. ‘A brisk walk will be good for you’ I told myself.
“ That sounds good,” she replied with a childish grin as she hid her face in her turtleneck sweeter,
“...and maybe some chocolate cupcakes.”

I knew, and any of you that know my roommate know exactly where she wanted me to go, and it wasn’t at all healthy. She did not want just any chocolate cupcake; she wanted Two Little Red Hen’s Brooklyn Blackout Cup Cake, the most sinful and irresistible cupcake ever invented. This unbelievably large cup cake is made out of moist chocolate cake and is slathered in chocolate butter cream icing, sprinkled with chocolate cookie crumbs, and, if that were not bad enough, is virtually exploding with chocolate pudding.
“Okay I’ll go, but I’m not getting anything for myself!” I told her with faltering conviction.

The park was sunny and crowded but, armed with sunglasses and headphones, neither the gangs of pedestrians nor the UV emissions could penetrate my anti-social bubble. With music blasting I kept a steady pace repeating to myself, ‘I will not have any cup cakes. I will not have any cupcakes!’