It's All Fun and Games 'Till Someone Gets Pregnant.

I fainted at Jazzercise last night.

My friend Nicole came with me after way less convincing than I’d expected. I wasn’t even half way through my sales pitch before it was booked on her calendar.  Within five minutes of the class commencing she’d memorized and mastered ALL the moves. I’ve been going for weeks and still end up just spinning in circles most of the time 'cause I find the routine’s too tricky.  “Ten years of dance class really pays off!!!” she shouted excitedly in between her hop-skip double chasse. Her spirit fingers intimidated me. The instructor later called to tell her she had a promising future in Jazzercise and would she consider becoming an instructor. Bitch.

When I blacked out Nicole put her career calling on hold for a minute and came running to my rescue: “Erin, are you pregnant??? Oh my god I think you are. You totally are.  You’re for sure pregnant!”

I put my head back: “Fuck.”

Not because I’m not ready, but because …I’m not ready.

There's lots of thing about being a parent I don't have figured out yet. My primary concern:  I only listen to murder rap and Mariah Carey; that’s not healthy for anyone. Also, I don’t do laundry, I can’t cook, and I’m super lazy. And I’m not going to stop swearing. EVER!!
I can’t, I like it too much. There haven’t been any other words invented yet that even come close to being an appropriate substitute. What word better describes your stingy aunt on the wealthy side who gives you slipper socks every Christmas then Cunt? None. It’s too good, and I won’t let it go to waste. Think how rewarding it will be when your kid tells their teacher to “fuck off, I’m not done with nap time yet.” My feeling of pride will far outweigh my willingness to discipline.

Plus I was planning on remaining unpregnant for least a little while longer for the simple reason that everyone I know is literally pooping out babies. Who jacked off in the city water and knocked up the entire metro area? Good thing I only drink Vodka.

Which led me to my next thought: If I was pregnant, then I better get a blood transfusion in the next three minutes because I’d been boozing a lot this past week. A LOT.  I told god if he got me out of this jazzercise nightmare alive I would start a 90 day detox immediately.

I opened my eyes to four fussing, gray haired bitties shoving glucose tablets and tootsie pops in my mouth. “Oh geeeeeeez, goodness gracious, you really have pushed it too hard. Look at her Betty, her face is grey!” 

I watched as a 99 year old traded up for heavier hand weights. 

I put a cold cloth on my head, closed my eyes and tried to remember what Sex Ed had taught me about my eggs dropping...fallopian tubes...boners...menstrual cycles....math.
I stopped there. I'm bad at math. I'm bad a a lot of things. Which also reminded me - I'm short, really short. So if I am, in fact with child, I am going to look like a pregnant toddler. This is all happening too soon!! I’d been holding out for my final growth spurt.
They're all gonna call me Garry Coleman.
I felt dizzy again. 

That's another thing, I screamed to myself as I put my head between my legs, I’m still not black! It’s all I’ve ever wanted!! Thanks for nothing god, I take back my previous detox promise. And fuck Jazzercise.  

Later that night Sandy, the instructor, called. I had just finished eating an entire pizza and was feeling better, and a lot less short.

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t embarrassed about what happened, because I’d love to have you back in class.”

“Oh it takes a lot more than that for me to get embarrassed. I threw up inside someone’s mouth once,” I said.

“You know, that’s exactly what your friend Nicole also said.”

Don't Act Like You're Not Impressed.

I was asked recently if, before I got married, I’d ever dated an actual American. Or did I always find my boyfriends at my local ESL night class. I felt it my responsibility to have an Equal Opportunity approach. My best friend Beth couldn't keep them straight, my sister made fun of me: “HA HA you love terrorists, you’re gonna be kidnapped one day”, and Planned Parenthood refused service: “Erin the morning after pill should not be your primary method of contraception”.

One of the earliest contenders for biggest mistakes I'd ever made was the well behaved, well groomed East Indian whose grandma made me wear the traditional dot every time I came to the house and got mad when I called it a dot. Things went from terrible to awesome when his parents began negotiating my dowry. I tried repeatedly to break up with him, to no avail. “You realize I’m cheating on you right? Like, A LOT." I had shamed his family; he disappeared for a decade and now works for the Secret Service.

My first Asian American won me over with his frosted tips and over-sized blaze orange t-shirts and whose main appeal - which I remember shouting in my brag voice when I knew large groups of people were listening - was his uncanny resemblance to my favorite Backstreet Boy, in a kung pao kinda way. He wasn't a complete waste of time though; I credit him for my very refined, very precise Asian accent. 
The really racist one. 

There’s the chubby charmer whose family had me over for dinner every evening and whose nephews I babysat, who later stole all my money, fled the country and left me stranded in arguably the most dangerous city in all of Western Europe.

The ethnically ambiguous frat boy who worked at the Cheese Cake factory and kept a saber sword in his backseat who, when I finally asked where he was from replied: 
The Fertile Crescent."Um. So....... Iraq. So awesome."

A family favorite: the pot smoking, hacky sack tossing, film directing, virgin who I drove cross country with during easily the worst four days of my life. Half way through Alabama in his two door Pontiac Sunfire, filled floor to ceiling with only boxes of Macaroni and Cheese - so much so that I had to leave one of my bags at home for lack of space- he confessed his devout Lutheran upbringing, that he had a genuine concern for my soul and that I needed to denounce my pagan (Buddhist) religion.  "Fuck Lutheran's" I said. He slammed on his brakes sending me and the entire contents of his car crashing into the windshield.  "Watch the Mac N Cheese” I shouted and snort laughed. When I refused to bow my head and pray over my Arby’s curly fries it was clear we'd been sorely mismatched. “Hi, I'm Erin, Have we met before?"  

I was on the next flight home, arranged swiftly by his mother.

One special gem, after a long night of ruckus sex making rolled over to say he hoped I wasn’t expecting him to take me out to dinner. Or to call. Or to come over again. Oh and by the way not to tell anyone we'd been tampering with each other, cause that would hurt his chances with that other girl he really liked . Fuck me right?

A personal favorite: the middle-aged environmentalist ten years my senior; we were obviously doomed from the get go being that I hate the planet and that he washed and re-used his toilet paper. But he let me live at his house for a month and occasionally let me shower with the  rain water he'd collected. Out to dinner with his parents and nine brothers and sisters they asked if I was officially his girlfriend. Before I could finish my affirmative head nod and congratulatory high five with his dad, he quickly yelled 
“NO!! No, no, definitely not!!” all the way across the bar where he had belled up.   
 I drank excessive amounts that night and woke up the next morning  in his parent’s water bed. Alone.

The Mexican, Canadian named Jesus who'd fly to Minnesota so we could make out at his friend's uncle's house; The Swiss Guard who saved my life when I fainted in the Sistine Chapel; The barber shop owning gangster who made a living bribing government officials, immigration, and local law enforcement; the bulging body builder who made infomercials in his basement and canceled dates with me to get his back waxed.

The staunch conservative who kicked me out of his car after I made, what I thought was a very compelling comparison between President Bush and.. ..  my bush. 

The Sugar Daddy who was rollin' in way too many dolla' bills at 23, even within my predominantly privileged, upper class cast of college assholes. He would ‘run errands’ at two in the morning, while I stayed back at his place watching Weird Science, eating leftovers, and counting his cars. He was later arrested as the key suspect in the largest STING operation to have been execute in the state of  Minnesota. Meanwhile, that half a mill he’d raked in and so generously shared: Seized. 
You really fucked me on that one MNPD.

To all those other lunatics out there, we could have had a promising future. But lucky for you, I found someone who tolerates me just slightly more than you likely would have.

Don't Ask Don't Tell Next Time

My dog got her period today.

And so did I actually. The difference is I don't drip drop mine across the ceramic kitchen floor leaving it for every one else in the house to slip on.
Well most of the time I don't.

I called my dad: "Can Nipples come stay with you for 4-6 weeks?"
"Hm. I take it she's in her menstrual cycle."
"Yes and dad don't say menstrual. It gives me heartburn."

Every summer's the same. She gets her period, I in turn get pissed and try and give her away. Why haven't I just gotten her stitched up? Cause if I have to suffer through it then that little bitch does too. But with every season I worry I'll have little asshole puppies to take care of too cause she's promiscuous and is just itching to be date raped.

I see the way that saucy minx struts around the neighborhood giving her come to bed eyes, willing to throw away her pure bred status for any dog trash on the block. But frankly, their owners are worse. I don't care for any of my neighbors at all- they park their very clean cars right in front of my house, mow their lawns every other damn day and tend to their beautiful window boxes. That shit makes me look bad. I see the way they look at me as I sit on the porch in my pajamas, picking my nose, reading The Enquirer, giving them the finger. 

But Nipples doesn't share the same opinion as I do. And in fact comes VERY close to getting knocked up every single time I take her for a walk; I'm constantly breaking up humpsex which is both gross and offensive.  And is hugely inconvenient since I usually get some residual hump rubbed off on me. If she gets pregnant I'm sending her away to one of those awful places far far away in Iowa where no one knows you and single mothers can give birth shame free in a dark, windowless room. The really good Catholics have been doing it for centuries; I'll call in a favor and hopefully score one of their preferred customer coupons.

I took one last attempt in convincing my dad to take her by pointing out that all he and my brother do all day is sit in the house and Facebook each other from across the dining room.  Surely, for the remaining time she's on the rag, they could just supervise from the kitchen windown.

"You know, your brother and his friends are so penis obsessed lately, I just don't think he'd have time."
"God WHAT. Nooooo thank you ...for that."

I heard my dad on the other end of the phone sifting through papers and doing some light cleaning - going about his business like he'd just cooly repeated the weather forecast. I decided it was best that he and I took a little break from talking that day. Nips and I would be just fine and actually, the thought of her and I mutually menstruating was refreshing in comparison to this little gem I'd walked into. 

"But can I just clarify quickly - did you mean they are obsessed with
their own pe....Nope. I'm just gonna leave it there. Bye."