sister #4 and i eschewed the better than ezra concert in favor of warmth, baked ziti, felicity and the sister club. it was the best choice. here’s the most raucous conversation of the night:

“so ben’s dad thinks i’m an expert on nursing homes,” sister #2 said. “so when they were here last weekend he asked me if i had heard about what’d happen in bloomer [a small town in wisconsin, not far from chippewa falls]. of course i hadn’t because i don’t read the chippewa paper. so he gives me the paper and shows me the story. i knew it was something bad when i saw the name gene kromey.”
“shut up!” i said.
“ol’ gene did something wrong?”
“he was working at some nursing home in bloomer and he was arrested for giving a 70-year-old woman 70 spankings for her birthday.”
“what?” sister #4 asked.
“apparently ol’ gene and some other girl had given this old woman 70 spankings on her birthday. the woman was quite upset about it and called the police. gene and the girl were immediately fired.”
“i don’t understand,” sister #3 said, “why didn’t the woman just ask them to stop?”
“did they count them all out? my hand would get tired after like 4 spankings,” sister #4 said.
“maybe they took turns so they only had to do 35 each,” i said.
“did they count outloud?” sister #2 said.
“maybe they got caught, like someone higher up came in just as they were saying, 68 whack, 69. . . opps! we were just giving ellie her birthday spankings,” sister #3 said.
“maybe they were really bitter that she didn’t eat her tapioca and they were just calling them ‘birthday spankings.’ i bet they were beating her!” i said.
“why didn’t she just run away?” sister #3 said.
“maybe she couldn’t get away,” sister #4 said, “maybe ol’ gene had her bent over his knee.”
“do you think they gave her a pinch to grow an inch and a sock to grow a block?”
“i dunno,” sister #2 said. “jodi, you’re a journalist you should go in there and try and get the story.”
“this is jodi chromey reporting live from bloomer wisconsin with ellie thomas the 70-year-old spankee. . .”

then all hell broke loose and we just progressively got louder and laughed harder until max came out of the green room and told us to be quiet because he couldn’t think straight.