The Thong and I
By Yomama
Ten months ago I joined “The Widows Club.” Now this is truly one of the shittier sororities to belong to. For months I walked around feeling as if I had a huge black “W” tattooed on my forehead. Being the extra person at dinners and movies at the insistence of your friends is both a wonderful and an awful thing – wonderful that you have friends willing to drag your ass out of the house and awful being an intruder in a couple’s world. I never imagined myself in this role, let alone at 54. Take it from me – it sucks.
But, the time eventually came when I felt that I just might want to go out on a date. Ha! My grown daughter informed me that the dating world had changed a LOT since the 60’s. She sat ME down to have “the” talk. Online dating. Sport-sex. Condoms. Bikini Waxes. I had a lot to learn. Good grief, was I really willing to subject myself to all this crap? I hadn’t used a condom in 30 years! And then it was only to prevent babies. She then pointed out that my underwear had to go. Old lady undies wouldn’t make it if you wanted to get laid. So, a trip to Vicki’s secret and $300 later, I was laced and thonged and ready for anything. Now, all you tiny tushies out there may look good in a thong, but alas, this behind is NOT what I would want to see, or God forbid, show off. Fifty-year-old mothers don’t wear thongs. We have cellulite, droopy buns, spider veins, and extra tonnage. However, my daughter assured me that by the time any man sees you in a thong – he doesn’t care how you look from behind because he’s too busy ripping it off with his teeth!! (This visual appealed to me as it had been too many months!!!)
Well, my thongs and I wound up in Aspen for a month of skiing. March spring skiing can get pretty warm and on this particular day the mountain temperature was well into the 40’s and I had skied hard. When I arrived home at my condo, I stripped off my clothes and sauntered into the living room to open a few windows. The place was stifling. I was adorned in – you guessed it – my thong and a t-shirt. I was admiring my mountain view when the front door opened and in walked a Latino male housekeeper. What? They don’t know how to knock in Colorado? I was like a deer frozen in a car’s headlights. Nowhere to hide and he stood between any possible escape and me. But, did this guy do a u-turn and bolt out the door? Did he act embarrassed? Hell NO. He just parked himself in my living room and attempted to converse in bumbling English. There I stood with my thonged ass to the windows – no way could I turn around – desperately trying to find the words for “Get the fuck out of here” in Spanish and this guy was asking me what supplies I needed for the kitchen. Six years of Spanish in school and do you think I could come up with the vocabulary for garbage bags or dishwashing detergent? Ha – fat chance. I guess this type of thing must happen a lot because he didn’t even bat an eyelash as we bungled through our conversation. Well, after what seemed an eternity, I had communicated my kitchen needs and he left. Knowing that he’d soon return, I WAS smart enough to put on some sweat pants. 15 minutes later there was a KNOCK on my door… and there he was with my garbage bags and Cascade. Mission accomplished.
And then 45 minutes after that there was another knock. This time I opened the door to find a GORGEOUS young stud standing there with MORE Cascade and garbage bags. Shazaam - Hot Mama in 1522! Obviously, my reputation had spread. (Good thing I never let the first guy see my thong from behind.) I really should have dragged the hottie in by the hair and hopped his bones.
I think I’ll go brush up on my Spanish.
Posted by Yomama at
11:36 AM
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A victim of overly-ambitious scheduling, I dashed out of class a few weeks ago, late for a concert. I hailed a cab on 6th Avenue and 12th Street, and proceeded north ten blocks, where we were halted by a stoplight. A 50-something Asian woman approached the passenger window, and the cab driver lowered it. The woman shouted something unintelligible and motioned with her hands as if she were expecting something. I thought nothing of it, until my driver responded.
“No! I know you! You do this to me before! Remember me?!”, he shouted in an accent I can only describe as "Island", adding, “Get the fuck out of here!”
“Go to the curb, go to the curb,” she muttered, retreating.
The light changed and we lurched onward, our quiet ride violated by the episode seconds before.
“She do this to me before! Same woman!” He looked out the window to check the street. 22nd. “It was the same street! She ask me to take her to West 4th, and she get out of the cab, and she start PRAYING! ‘Oh god oh god help me!’, she say. She kneel in the street! She pay me nothing!”
“How often does that happen, someone stiffing you like that?”, I asked. “Like, once a day? A few times a week?”
“Oh, no, maybe a few times a year,” he said. “Another time! Another time I have a woman try to give me,” he turned around and stuck his hand towards me, indicating he was holding something very small. “She give me a little thing, a little, she say, DIAMOND, and I say, ‘I cannot take THIS! I need seven dollars!’. And she say, ‘But this is worth MORE than seven dollars!’. And I say, ‘I don’t CARE, you pay me seven dollars!’”
“Did you get the money?”
“No, I did not get the money! They never give the money!”
As we approached Madison Square Garden, he spoke again. “You know who it always is? It’s always the women. The women who – not nice women like you,” he looked over his shoulder at me. “The women who don’t have the boyfriend. They don’t have the sex anymore. I can see it in their eyes. Always these women!”
I wondered where he got off assuming I had the boyfriend. I also wondered where he got off thinking that being single could make you crazy (or cheap). But by sheer statistics, I figured he could be right. He had seen it and I hadn’t – he apparently knew the type. The vision of undersexed women stiffing cabdrivers all over town amused and depressed me at the same time.
We pulled in front of the ballroom, and the fare was five and a teeny. I gave him seven, not to compensate for the fares lost, but to give a little extra tip for the story. Despite the fact that I missed the opening act, my night was off to an entertaining start.
Posted by GxxP at
06:56 PM
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The day after my father died I searched for a sign - a sign that he was okay; a sign that I would be okay; a sign that any part of the whole damn universe was still okay. In the midst of all my terror and confusion, I’m pretty sure any old sign would have done. But on that day my Dad sent me an honest to God S-I-G-N. A sign too real, too pure and too sacred to try and put into words. But from that time on, I have known my Dad is with me. I feel him everywhere. And while some may say it’s a coping mechanism, no one will ever be able to prove me wrong. Sometimes, though, I feel the need to prove it to myself again. So every now and then I ask him, “Daddy, are you with me?”
When I first started asking this question, it was a little creepy. Getting used to the idea of always having your Dad around can take some getting used to. “Daddy, are you with me? If you are, could you please leave – I can’t poop in front of anyone, let alone you.” “Daddy, are you with me? ’Cause dead or not, Dad, it’s sick and wrong for a father to watch his daughter shower.” I have come to apply the same logic he held in his life to his afterlife – there is no way in hell my father wants to watch me doing certain things. Taking a shower, going to the bathroom and God-willing, having sex are all things I believe my Dad makes every effort to avoid watching me do. But he is around for damn near everything else. Sometimes when I ask him if he’s with me, it will start raining. Other times, I get dive bombed by a bird, or awakened by moonbeams so bright they seem to be powered by Pacific Gas & Electric.
Now, in addition to having an affinity for nature, my Dad had a wicked sense of humor, and an equally wicked case of colitis. (/Ko-lite’-us/ n. Sudden freak attacks of diarrhea that invariably lead to either: A) funny shit stories or B) mortifying shit stories. ) Last week while visiting Muir Woods - the most glorious national monument we have – the national monument that truly makes you realize how small we humans really are – I proved once again that I am my father’s daughter. Maybe my Dad is just plain sick of having to prove to me he’s around. Maybe he was having a particularly shitty day up there in heaven. Whatever the case may be, his point was made. He is with me. And now, a piece of me will always be with Muir Woods.
Here’s how it all went down…
10:00 – Brunch. I order the house special – lobster & crab omelet with champagne caviar glaze.
10:35 – 16-year-old cousin starts asking lots of questions about my Dad’s death.
11:15 – 16-year-old cousin still asking lots of questions about my Dad’s death.
12:00 – We arrive in Muir Woods.
12:15 – 16-year-old cousin asks yet even more questions about my Dad’s death.
12:16 – I feel pretty blue. I ask, “Daddy, are you with me?” Any sort of sign would really help me through all of these questions…
12:17 – (Dad decides to say hello.) Stomach starts to rumble.
12:18 – I break out in full body goose bumps and cold sweats.
12:19 – Excruciating crampage – no doubt about it, diarrhea has entered the express lane.
12:20 – I decide to make a run for it. (Dad starts to laugh. “Does she realize how far away from a bathroom she is?!?!”)
12:21 – I see a sign “1.8 miles to Muir Woods entrance.”
12:21 – “SHIT! FUCK! PISS! FUCK! SHIT” is suddenly heard throughout the forest.
12:22 – (Dad grabs Granddad Gene. “You’ve gotta see this, Dad!” he exclaims. She’s gonna have one of my world famous colitis attacks!”)
12:23 – There has been a breach. There is a shit ball in my pants.
12:24 – I look left. I look right. I scurry off the trail up the side of a hill and hide my ass inside a giant Redwood. (Dad starts laughing so hard, a tear rolls down his cheek. Granddad pats him on the back, “That’s a great one, son!”)
12:25 – Massive Ass Explosion.
12:35 - I am still defecating on a national monument. I have reached an all-time low.
12:36 – I realize that Muir Woods is not a deciduous forest. There are no leaves.
12:37 – I start to cry. I’m 29 years old and I have shit my pants and I have shit on my favorite national monument. The day officially sucks. (Dad tries to track down Cousin Buddy – he’d really get a kick out of this, too.)
12:40 – Strange things are used to try and clean myself up. Sticks, pinecones, pine needles…things that don’t belong near your sphincter. Ever.
12:47 – I look left. I look right. I make a break for it and scurry back to the trail.
12:49 – In the middle of my 1.8-mile walk to the bathroom in my shit covered pants and my shit covered underwear, I realize I also have shit covered hands. (Dad thinks about feeling guilty, but the thought passes and he continues to wipe his tears from laughter.)
1:01 – I arrive in the National Park bathroom, where paper products are considered an environmental evil.
1:02 - “SHIT! FUCK! PISS! FUCK! SHIT” is suddenly heard throughout the forest.
1: 15 – My favorite underwear is thrown away.
1:16 – 16-year-old cousin’s trip to Muir Woods is cut short – must buy new pants immediately.
1:17 – (Dad pats himself on the back for pulling this little stunt when a family member was with me so the event will forever be immortalized.)
Nice to hear from you, Dad. Next time a goddamn bird or some freaky flower will do just fine, okay?
Posted by Yoda at
03:34 PM
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