barking spiders

I didn't used to be much of a vocal farter. Not when anyone was around. There are those girls out there in the world who just go for it, and hey, more power to you. I can rip a wicked belch like nobody's business (seriously, you wanna have a contest? Get me a diet coke.), but I've never been interested in having anyone listen to my ass speak.

But with Poster Boy, I'm over it. No reason to leave the room, or try to muffle the sound with a cough. I refuse. Because he's literally made me vomit from one of his gut busters before.

Literally. I'm not speaking figuratively here. Here was the sequence of events:

We were hung over in Dublin. Wake up, bleary, head screaming, we're pretty sure it's about 2 p.m. local time. All of our hostel roommies are out and about, the French guy's bed is made, they're probably all walking about on this crisp fall day on literary tours. He let one go, and I had a brief, probably 5 second pause before the smell hit me in the face. Suddenly, my already upset stomach just decided it had suffered enough abuse, and I sprinted to the tiny bathroom just in time to revisit my previous night's Irish Stew (and about 15 Guinness).

But still, even though he is known alternately as Poster Boy and That Guy With the Worst Gas On the Planet (yes, he does have other redeeming qualities), every time he hears -- not even smells, mind you, just hears -- the tiniest little "poof," he scrunches his nose and says, "Gross!"

Well, he did for awhile. Now he just glares at me. And I give him the finger.

Craigslist Personals - A Woman For Hire

I work the door at a bar, checking I.D's, taking covers, flirting, etc. I do not, however, take the flirting beyond the door and so I turn down the half-assed attempts to take the door girl home.

Except Cigarette.

Cigarette is the nickname of a guy who used to work at the newspaper I interned at long long ago. I never knew him, didn't recognize him when he walked in and was thrown off when he called me by name. From my friends' stories who worked with him, he was creepy and weird, always smelled like cigarettes and had the impolite habit of staring at your chest with his unsettling, red-rimmed eyes.

The bar was busy that night, more so than usual, and I didn't have time for my regular shift drink and flirting. So later, when Cigarette approached me to ask for my number, I was distracted and harried.

"I don't really give my number out to people. Safety thing. Uh, but we can trade emails or something," I said.

He disappeared in the crowd and returned a few minutes later pen and paper in hand. Without a word he thrust them at me.

I blinked, distracted, and said, "What?"

He said, "Your number?"

The line of people waiting to get into our normally not so busy bar was growing. Fast. I scribbled the first three digits of my number before realizing what I was doing. Fuck it. Whatever. I'll deal with him later if he actually calls.

He called a few days later, left a message about coffee. I returned his call a few days later, leaving a message saying thank you but no. I didn't give any reason, just thank you but no.

The next day, a number I didn't recognize called.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this the woman for hire?"

"Excuse me?"

"The Craigslist ad for the woman for hire, is this you?"

"What? No. You have the wrong number. I don't have any ad on Craigslist and certainly am not a woman for hire."

"Is this xxx-xxx-xxxx?"

"Yes. Shit! Is there an ad with that number!? I didn't put that on Craigslist!"

I'm panicking now, reeling with the thought of a Craigslist personals ad soliciting me as a woman for hire. I quickly review the list of people who might find it funny to do this to me. Several come to mind.

"No no, it says a woman for hire with your number. You'll come to my home and service me. It says that. You'll come to my home and service me."

The conversation escalated to him insisting I come over and me insisting that the ad wasn't me. The voice sounded familiar. I looked at the number again and recognized it as one I'd seen recently. It clicked. Cigarette.

"Is this _______?"

"It says you'll come to my house and service me."

"Is this _______!?!"

He never denied or confirmed who he was, instead repeating the services for hire advertised in the personal. I began shouting at him about how fucked it up it was to do this to a woman, and who the hell does that sort of thing, and what the royal fuck, and who the fuck do you think you are, and you're a fucking creep, etc., then hung up.

Cigarette called back twice. No answer.

Months later, he slunk into the bar again.

"Uh, hi."

"Uh-huh. Hi."

"Look I'm sorry about the Craigslist thing. It was a bad joke."

"Uh-huh. It's a three dollar cover and I need to see your I.D."

everything should taste like bacon

Yesterday the sun finally came out, and it was the perfect day to be the perfect couple.

I came home from work and went for a bike ride with Poster Boy.
Tra la la.
We took a lovely town/river path, stopped to chat with some friends who were having a burger on the Red Robin patio.
Tra la la.
Aren't we cute on our bikes (his: BMX Cruiser hers: Schwinn)?

Just peachy.

We decided that with our sunshiny burst of energy, we might as well go grocery shopping at our local discount food mart, Food 4 Less. We loaded our reusable grocery bags up in the school-bus sized yellow shopping cart.
Whee! Aren't we green!

We headed toward the checkout line. I'm unloading the cart onto the belt, Poster Boy's distracted by something, I dunno, US Weekly? But then I see at the end of the aisle a display featuring what may be the single most wonderful invention of our time.

Bacon Salt. Because everything should taste like bacon.

"Bacon Salt!" I shout and point.

Poster boy glances over. "Oh, yeah. Ha. Bacon Salt."

"No!" I insist, "Seriously. Grab some. That's bacon salt!"

He doesn't seem to get it.

I notice it's almost $4 for a tiny jar. But really, I don't know how else to explain the necessity of this item. It's salt. That tastes like bacon. Bacon Salt.

"Come on. We don't need Bacon Salt," he says, trying to walk back toward me, away from the cardboard Bacon Salt display.

"Yes. We do. I need it. I need Bacon Salt."

I know we've been trying to be frugal lately, but this is serious.

"No, we don't."

He looks me in the eye. I stare back.

"I can't believe that this is where you're trying to put your foot down. Over Bacon Salt."

I've stopped unloading the cart. I think the cashier may be watching the exchange.

The earth's rotation seems to slow as we eye each other. He weighs the consequences. I think about Bacon Salt in home-cooked baked beans. On tomatoes (BLT without all that fat and calories!). On chicken. On a nice, juicy grilled burger.

Finally, Poster Boy smarts up.

"You want original, hickory or pepper?"

We went with original. And my scrambled eggs this morning were fan-fucking-tastic.

the butcher, the baker, the arms and legs shaver

I once dated a man who shaved.

Well, dated might be an exaggeration. I knew him. In the Biblical sense. You know, for awhile. It was a friendly hookup kind of deal. “Hey, I’m drunk. You’re drunk. I’m bored. So … you wanna do this?”

We’ve all been there, right? Right?

Hm. Well, fine. Maybe not.

Anyway, when I say he shaved, I don’t mean what you think I might mean. A lot of us trim our bits and pieces. But men who shave their arms and legs, their backs? I’m going to venture a guess here; perhaps that’s a bit less common.

The guy, we’ll call him Shiny, he used to be a stripper. That’s when he started shaving. It’s part of the act, part of the show. If you know a dude who’s in theater, he probably wears makeup. If you know a German chick on a swim team, she probably shoots steroids and has roid-induced backne. Know a salesman? He lies. And if you know, or, Biblically-speaking, Know, a stripper, he probably shaves lots more than just his stuff. Why? Well, I think the hairy sexpot dude thing went out of style with Burt Reynolds. (Or did it? Moustaches seem to be making a comeback)

So, generally speaking, the strippers, they go pretty hairless. Even Shiny. He was no skinny-boy gay club stripper, either. He’s the beefcake sort, and worked a club that focused on the bachelorette crowd. Looked sort of like a Marine. (Side note: No, Marine-style men aren’t so much my type, but, like I said, we were killing some time.)

I learned a few things from Shiny.

Here’s a short list:

1.) Beefcakes aren’t necessarily douchebags. OK, maybe that’s not such a shocker to everyone. It was to me.

2.) I don’t get how dudes put up with our prickly legs. Seriously? Ouch.

3.) While it’s fairly well known that lonely straight dudes will proposition strippers to purchase some sex (and they must get some success from time to time, one must assume), women are much less apt to offer cash. But just as likely to proposition. The difference? The chicks think they should get it for free.

I’d guess this is the ladies projecting the standard availability of easy tail for any lady at any bar on any given night. But those strippers, they’re not so easy. For one, a lot are gay. For two, a lot are taken. And three, it’s a totally different deal when the lady’s about fifteen sheets to the wind and the dude is sober as a priest. Or maybe that’s a bad example.