INNER MONOLOGUES April 3, 2012—REBIRTH
When You Believe…in Jeans
by Alexis Barad-Cutler
A few weeks before my best friend Lindsay and I entered seventh grade at a new school, our moms took us shopping for Back to School Fashions at The Limited Too. I just knew that with my brand new wardrobe, it was going to be a banner year.
Allow me to describe just a few of the outfits I bought during that particular day’s shopping excursion: A scoop neck bodysuit with a men’s style vest. A button-down shirt with a skinny tie and fedora. A bright yellow tennis skirt with shiny new Doc Martins that I couldn’t wait to pair with my prized Tommy The Who hat.
And of course, half a dozen pairs of baggy jeans in all the colors of the rainbow if the rainbow resembled one of the “special” Crayola boxes, with colors like Atomic Tangerine, Electric Lime and Jazzberry Jam.
The night before school, Lindsay and I meticulously planned our outfits. Outfits that would tell everyone: “We may be new to this school, but we are ready to take you by storm. Look at us in our badass bodysuits worn with baggy jeans, suspenders and long earrings in the shape of parrots or sleepy kittens.” The impression we were after was “Fly Girl Chic”.
So imagine our surprise when we looked around during Student Orientation and noticed that we looked well, a little different from our peers. It seemed that our new classmates hadn’t read up on the Top Looks You Can’t Live Without list from YM Magazine that fall. The style was more Kurt Cobain than Tori Spelling. But the clothing item that puzzled me the most was the jeans. They were faded in some spots, torn in others. They flared at the bottom, and sometimes had holes where they’d been stepped on too much. The most popular girls had versions that were skin-tight on the hips and thighs, and then loose and worn in from the knees down.
I looked down at the Salmon-Surprise-colored jeans I was wearing and saw them in an entirely new light. These jeans were too high waisted, too baggy in the crotch, too bunchy at the knees, and way too short ever since we’d taken them to get hemmed by that nice Irish lady who despite my many attempts at correcting her, always insists on calling me Alice.
As we went through our orientation “trust” exercises—the kind where you have to close your eyes and hope that all your new “friends” will catch you--I could feel people’s curious stares. I was an outsider. I might as well have walked into school wearing a Big Bird outfit with a sign that said “New Girl”.
That night I tore through my closet in search of clothing that might somewhat echo the uniform it seemed everyone else was wearing. It seemed like all my shirts were either embroidered, tie-dyed, or ruffled like a pirate. Didn’t I own just one plain flannel shirt? No. No I did not.
Over the next week, using clothes from my dad’s closet, I cobbled together a few hopeless attempts at grunge. People must have smelled my insecurity because before long I was sitting by myself in the Nature Sanctuary during Science class, picking the small twigs and pieces of grass out of my hair that my classmates had thrown at me.
Lindsay wasn’t faring any better. At the time, she wore her long hair in side braids. Someone had decided that she looked like Daria from Beavis and Butthead and started chanting “Diarrhea cha cha cha!” whenever either of us walked by.
We started getting so harassed that the only safe zone was behind our locker doors, where we pretended to fix our bangs in front of our Lisa Frank mirrors.
After my makeunder, I did the next obvious thing a super dorky person does in order to change her peer’s opinions of them for the better: I decided to run for Class President.
“Vote for me and I will put an end to bullying in the hallways” was my platform. Someone threw a spitball at me during my speech, and even though the voting was blind, I knew Lindsay didn’t even vote for me because I only had one vote. My own.
And then, in the girl’s bathroom one day at school, someone mentioned having gone to a store named Udelco that past weekend to buy something called “used jeans”. Now this was surprising. Who would want to wear jeans that were old? Wasn’t the whole point to buy something new?
Despite my mother’s affirmations that I was “beautiful” and my outfits were “stunning” my mom and I drove in circles that night, trying to find this elusive store. I wondered if perhaps I was too much of a loser to even be able to locate the store, let alone shop in it. Finally, in a place where one might imagine the cast of Law & Order discovering a dead body--next to the woods and near all the big garbage receptacles--there it was. The Mecca of Used Jeans.
We walked in and immediately my mom made a face. It smelled like a mix between mildew and dirty crotch.
I went home that night with two pairs of “new” used jeans and hung them up carefully in my closet. The next day, no one would recognize me. I’d walk into school with my perfectly tight and faded jeans, and my brand new vintage flannel shirt, and suddenly I’d be invited to Jessica Gershon's birthday party and Veronica Salzberg would stop asking me if the crops were good this year since that one time I’d worn overalls with one of the straps hanging down. Boys would stop asking me if I carried tampons in my Rainbow Brite purse. (Which, btw, was actually my mom’s old Farragamo, but that’s beside the point and also btw, regarding the tampons, no, because I hadn’t gotten my period yet.)
I walked to my locker the next morning feeling like Cindy Crawford in my new used jeans. Two boys stopped their conversation, looked at me, and mimicked someone picking their nose. I may have had new jeans, but my fate as SuperNerd had already been sealed. You can give a girl new clothes, but you can’t change who she is inside I guess.
Fast-forward about twenty years, to a few weeks ago. There I was, looking into store windows for the first time since giving birth to my son. I’d shied away from buying anything that didn’t have an elastic waist for some months, but it was finally time to purchase a nice pair of new jeans and stop dressing like a Sweatpant Mom.
And it seemed, in nearly every cute boutique I looked, were the jeans of yore. Jeans in colors like Azure, Mango Tango, and Wild Blue Yonder. Could it be?
My inner thirteen year old was going, “Oh yes! Yes please! You know you want them. You’ve ALWAYS wanted them. You just let those other kids convince you that you didn’t. Buy them. I promise to do my homework first before watching Tiny Toons!”
I selected a pair in an inoffensive blush pink. Nothing too loud and certainly not enough to fully satisfy the ‘tween in me who longed to finally wear those prized Fall Fashions with pride. But just enough to tell her that she’d had it right the first time around. Skinny ties and scoop-neck bodysuits ARE hot, as long as you BELIEVE they are.
And to quote a woman whose music was inspirational to me during those dark tweenage days:
There can be miracles
When you believe
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It’s hard to kill
Mmm
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe somehow you will
You will, when you believe…
Samet had stopped talking to the group and simply stared at the boys. He said something to them sharply in Arabic, but the boys only looked back at him reproachfully and continued to record us with their video camera. Tamara, my traveling partner and fellow American, who was standing in front of Samet in the middle of the group pretending to be a pyramid in order to illustrate Samet’s explanation, held her pose with her arms up in the air and her fingers touching, a comical look on her face.
We were in Egypt, a stone’s throw from the Sphinx, her noseless blank face hovering behind us, and Samet was our own personal and literal Egyptologist. The sun was hot on our backs, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which might partly explain the 107 degree April temperatures. Our tour group started to wonder if there was going to be a fight. And then, just like that, a policeman appeared, oversized gun swinging casually at his hip, and the boys were led out of our sight without another word.
“Sorry for the interruption, SamSemians,” Samet said, using the name that he had given our group, after his own nickname. Retaking his position behind Tamara, “now, as we were saying, the Sphinx—”
“Wait, what was that all about,” I asked. I imagined the boys being thrown into a dark and grimy prison similar to that in the movie Brokedown Palace, where if they ever got out of prison their own job opportunity was to become a drug mule.
“It’s nothing. Happens all the time,” he said. And then, as if reading my mind he continued, “Don’t worry. I know all the police around here. They’re not going to get in trouble, just be strongly reminded to not lurk like that.”
“But what happened? Were they making fun of us?” I implored.
“Come on, Samet,” Tamara asked. “You know we won’t let you go on until you explain.” Tamara was always full of energy and her sparkling brown eyes usually conveyed when she was up to something.
Samet sighed. He knew it was a losing battle. “Those kids weren’t Egyptian, but they were Arab. They were trying to record us. When I told them to stop, they asked me to move.”
“Why would they ask that,” Tamara said.
Samet continued reluctantly with a smile. “They thought that Tamara was ‘hot’ and just wanted to record her.”
****
“Hello beautiful ladies. Your husband is lucky man. How many camels to trade for you to become my wife?”
“Where you from? American? Welcome to Alaska, ha ha!”
“I love you!”
The storekeepers were relentless with their commentary as Tamara and I walked through the bazaar. Despite wrapping our heads in scarves and keeping our knees coverd to try and be respectful of the culture, it was no use. The men would yell just about anything to get our attention, and then beckon us into their stores filled with colorful scarves, small wood Egyptian sculptures of everything from pharaohs to hieroglyphics, or huge containers filled with saffron, indigo, or lotus flower. If they didn’t say something to us, they’d stand right in our path and drape their wares over our passing shoulders, as if our contact with the goods was the missing link to change our minds. It was as if they were expelling all the things at us they had wanted to say to the women they knew, but couldn’t because of religion and respect. But foreigners? We were fair game. While it was fun to look, the comments became tiresome.
One of our first days on our trip Tamara and I went in to a small store to get water. The shopkeeper was very friendly but respectful. As we handed him our items he asked if he could take a picture of us. “I guess so,” I said, looking uneasily at Tamara. She shrugged in agreement. The shopkeeper, a portly, older, balding Egyptian man gathered me in close first and took a picture on what seemed to be the first camera phone ever invented. He then kissed me rather aggressively on the top of my head. Tamara followed suit, trying to keep a little space between her and the man, but wanting to honor her promise. After the pictures, he gave us lollipops.
“I feel like we’ve been lured into some man’s unmarked white van,” I said.
“I just hope we don’t end up on the internet with a caption under our pictures that we’re his ‘wives,’” Tamara said in agreement. When we got back to our hotel we told Samet and the rest of the group about our encounter. Tamara and I googled “American whores” for a while just to make sure our pictures didn’t come up.
The next night, just as we were about to explore the night markets in Aswan, Samet pulled Tamara and me aside.
“I know how independent you girls are,” he started, “but…it might it be better if you walk with one of the boys.”
“Why? We can take care of ourselves,” I said.
“Oh, I know that,” Samet said, “but I think you’ll make things easier for yourselves. You’ll get less unwanted attention that way.”
“You know what—”
“Sure, Samet,” Tamara said, cutting me off, as she escorted me away.
“I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. We’re grownups! I’m 30 for crying out loud! We’re covered up! I don’t need some MAN to take care of me. I can walk without an escort.”
“Em, why are you getting all wound up? Samet’s just being protective. We’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t sure why I was so outraged. My boyfriend jokingly likes to call these my “Independent Woman” moments, complete with Destiny’s Child accompaniment, where I assert righteous indignation, not unlike Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, at something feminist-oriented. I wasn’t sure if I was upset that women in Egypt couldn’t just go about their business if they weren’t covered up. Or maybe I was mad because these men didn’t know me, and yet they assumed that women from outside their country were all cut from the same whore-y cloth. Maybe I was just becoming delirious from the heat.
“Maybe I’ll catcall them.”
“Good idea,” Tamara said. “Maybe you can get us kidnapped.” Before coming to Egypt, we had both been forwarded lots of information from our parents about Jewish tourists being kidnapped in Egypt.
“You think Bill Clinton will come and rescue us, like he did those journalists in North Korea? That could totally be worth it.”
Tamara just ignored me.
As we wandered through the market, I tried to calm down. We looked at knickknacks, and took pictures, and marveled at the number of feral cats wandering through the city.
And then it happened. I noticed a man staring at Tamara as we walked past his stall of spices. Without breaking his gaze he screamed at her as she passed in fast succession: “You are in my dreams! I love you! You have nice shape!”
That was the final straw.
“Seriously, dude? I like your shape? What is she a cantaloupe? Maybe more of a pear?”
He sputtered and looked at me with confusion. “What is a cantaloop?”
“It…it doesn’t matter. Would you talk to your mother that way? Your sister?”
“My mother is dead. And it is a compliment.”
“No, it’s not. So quit it, you creep.” And with that I turned on my heel and pulled Tamara with me. We walked for a while in silence.
“Do you feel better now?” Tamara asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “I feel great. Let’s go look at some more head scarves. After all, I wouldn’t want to offend anyone’s culture.”
-----------------------
MY PIECE, "In Utero"
A couple of weeks ago, I started having some dizzy spells. I was walking into walls, people, and realizing it might not be wise to get too close to the edge of the subway platform if I valued my life. I also noticed that I was feeling a little nauseous. So, I called my primary care physician. The one I could call day and night, whenever I had the dumbest medical questions, or even if my friend’s friends had questions: my dad.
My dad is a fertility specialist and gynecologist. The problem is, he tends to have a one-track mind when it comes to diagnosing problems. Say you have a gash in your leg: He probably can find a way to relate it to your being pregnant.
My dad and I are very close so I don’t hesitate asking him my most burning gynecological questions like, can you get pregnant if you forget to take the pill three days in a row? Can you really die from HPV like they say in the commercials? How can you tell if you have a yeast infection? You know…Normal father-daughter stuff.
I was about to leave for a vacation with my husband Jesse that would involve a lot of dirty martini drinking, so I called my dad and explained my symptoms, adding that I hadn’t had my period in about four months. I know. Four months is a long time to wait to freak out about not getting your period. But I was on the pill, and figured that it was just messing with my system.
“Get to my office immediately,” he said, when I called him from the conference room at work. “We’ll do some blood work.” Yes, I could have just peed on a stick and called it a day, but my dad had insisted that method wasn’t the most accurate.
I decided to get the appointment over with first, and call Jesse afterward. No point in worrying him for nothing.
Usually when I go to my dad’s office, it’s for a friendly lunch. I chat with the nurses, wait for Dad to finish up with his patients, and then look at the pictures on his desk to see if he’s updated them since I was four. Then we always head around the corner to the same cute French restaurant for moules frites.
That day I was actually in the office as a patient. This was a little weird. I walked up to the front desk and tried to look all business. It didn’t work.
“Lexi!” one of the nurses said, calling me by the nickname my dad calls me. “You and your father could be twins! Here, put on this lab coat, we want to see the comparison!”
This is a fun game I indulge the nurses in during my visits with Dad. I usually am quite agreeable, donning the white lab coat, posing with a clipboard, and then smiling awkwardly while they have their chuckle. Sometimes a camera phone is whipped out.
But that day I didn’t really feel like going through the father-daughter look-alike contest. I just wanted to get my damn blood work done as soon as possible. I could have been pregnant for god’s sakes and I really wanted to know.
Dad hadn’t come out to say hi yet, but one of the newer nurses, a Russian lady wearing two layers of makeup, said we could start without him.
“Alright,” I said, when Nurse Eltsin, put a piece of gauze over the wound left from the needle. “So I’ll just wait around for the results now, right?”
“Nyet!” she said, pursing her thickly painted lips. “Your daddy want you to do ultrasound.”
Ultrasound? This was a surprise.
She brought me to an examining room, and ordered me to strip from the waist down.
“Leave your dress on,” Nurse Eltsin instructed with a frown. Did I look like the kind of girl eager to take her dress off in her dad’s office?
“Just remove the tights, and panties, and cover your lap with this, OK?” She pointed to a thin, blue material that looked like what they make hospital gowns with. The standard nonexistent coverage between you and the world.
“I be right back,” she said, her patent leather heels clacking away on the hardwood floors.
I undressed as I was instructed, sat on the table, and waited. I was a little puzzled. In my recollections of ultrasounds from television and movies, the nurse squirted some weird jelly-like substance on the mom-to-be’s stomach, and then moved the ultrasound thingy over it. Why did my ultrasound require the removal of “panties?” Maybe this new nurse was misinformed? And why did my dad think I needed one of these tests? He must really think this is serious.
I looked around the room and noticed some odd-looking condom type things in a box. Gauze strips. Long Qtips. Things I hoped wouldn’t be having anything to do with me that day. But a knock on the door disrupted my thoughts.
“Lexi?” said Nurse Eltsin gruffly from the other side of the door. As comfortable as everyone was with calling me by my nickname, it was a little strange to have someone say it when my pants were off. I pulled the gauzy covering down tighter around my lap.
“Come in,” I said.
I tried to get comfortable on the narrow examining table its crinkly sounding tissue paper covering. But then the door opened and behind Nurse Eltsin, was someone I did not expect to see at all in my room. My one and only…. Padre.
“Um, Dad? What are you doing in here?”
I was suddenly painfully aware that my pitchach was unclothed and separated from the world and my kin by flimsy hospital gown material.
Dad walked over to my examining table and patted my head.
“I’m just going to monitor the ultrasound, honey. Nurse Eltsin is just learning how to do ultrasounds, so I’m here to supervise.”
The nurse wielded a menacing looking dildo-like contraption, and started polishing it with something wet and sticky looking. “Scoot your tush down to end of the table,” she barked.
“So…The ultrasound—that thing, that’s not going on top of my stomach, huh?”
Nurse Eltsin laughed, arching her painted on eyebrows with pleasure. “Oh, no, honey. This intra-vaginal ultrasound!”
I clamped my legs shut.
My dad started taking my pulse. “Your heart is beating very fast,” he observed in his doctor voice.
“That’s because my dad is in the room with me and my vagina,” I said under my breath.
“Hm?” he said, doing some doctor thing.
“Nothing.”
“You’ll be fine honey.
This was the moment when I really should have said something to my dad. He truly didn’t know I was uncomfortable. This is what he does like, twenty times a day. To him it is akin to looking at someone’s arm or elbow. But I was so afraid of making him uncomfortable, I didn’t want to complain.
The nurse stuck the contraption into me, and I wasn’t quite sure what the appropriate reaction should be when something is rammed into your vagina, and your father is watching. Luckily, the situation was both emotionally and physically uncomfortable, so I was able to achieve the proper look of a “virgin being penetrated for the first time”.
And so we began the wondrous process of looking on the computer screen at my womb. At this point I prayed that we would see a tiny little fetus, to at least make this embarrassing situation worth it. So that when I explained the circumstances of my first intra-vaginal ultrasound experience, the end result would be, “And that is how we found out I was pregnant, and my dad got to find out he would be a grandfather!”
“Docteurrr,” said Nurse Eltsin. “I go left, yes?”
Now, the last thing you want when someone has a foreign object roaming around your lady parts is for that person to be unsure of what he or she is doing. Well, I mean, this not so different from many women’s first sexual experiences, but with medical equipment that is possibly electrified and hooked up to computers, I prefer someone with a skilled hand.
My dad, bless him, kept his eye trained on the monitor the whole time. No checking under the gauze covering to see if she had things in the right place, thank God.
“A little to the right please, Nurse,” he said patiently. “No, your other right.”
“Here?” she asked, stabbing me somewhere near my lung.
For crying out loud I was ready to take control of the damn thing.
“Doctuerrr, eh, you should do it,” she said, less confident now, but still holding the wand. “I’m not very good with this thing.”
“Dad, um. Is there anyone else who can take over?” I pleaded, as she continued her crash course lesson with my body.
“Unfortunately, no,” my dad said. “Dr. Gleitcher isn’t here today and neither are the other nurses who do ultrasounds. You were last minute,” he shrugged by way of apology.
I sighed. Perhaps what I was about to propose was illegal in some states. But at this point I was so close to knowing if I was pink or blue, plus or minus, I didn’t see the point in just leaving the room and stopping the whole operation.
I took a deep breath.
“Just take it dad,” I said, through clenched teeth.
And just like I was any other one of his patients, he took his place in front of my legs, and held the wand. So, there was my dad. Searching around my uterus, and there was me, pretending this had nothing to do with my crotch and everything to do with the image on the computer screen.
“Look! There’s a follicle!” he pointed out as we took the grand tour.
“Oh, wow!” I said obligingly, as if he were pointing out The Big Dipper like when I was a little girl.
“And there’s another follicle!”
Nurse Eltsin nodded approvingly, like she was assessing good livestock.
“Doesn’t look like you’re pregnant honey, but if did want to get pregnant, you have a healthy environment.”
A “healthy environment”. I thought about the irony of that statement. After this experience, I might have to rethink my psychological environment, but it was good to know my body could play party host to a baby.
When we were done, I got dressed, and came out of the room. A bunch of the nurses had crowded into the kitchen, to ask me what the outcome was. I guess my dad wanted to let me to share the news—since we were such an intimate family here and all.
I settled into one of the stools by the counter.
“Negative.”
---------------------------------------------
LAURA'S PIECE, "Phone Home. Again."
Part 1. More than one
My dad has trouble with plurals. It's a translation thing. Some words that are singular in Sicilian are plural in English and vice versa.
“Laura,” he says. “I have to go change my pant before we go out.”
He's not a designer. He just thinks that when it comes to pants, you’re dealing with one object, and therefore, no S.
“Laura,” he says. “Hand me a scissor.”
Again, he's wrong. But the logic is there.
Part 2. To catch me
My dad calls on Tuesday at 8:00 am. I don't pick up. My dad calls on Tuesday at 6:00, 7:30, and 8:15 pm. He gives up at bed time. He calls Thursday at 5:00 pm and I pick up, mostly because with each missed call that tallies on the screen of my phone, I can sense his anxiety mounting from 200 miles away.
“Hello.”
“Laura. Jesus. To catch you is like trying to catch the Prince of Wales.”
Until this moment, I have never pondered what it would be like to try and catch the Prince of Wales. To me, he seems pretty stable and scheduled. This is where I get a particularly intense mental image of myself chasing Prince Charles across a Walmart parking lot. Maybe he’s even wearing a Burger King crown.
My dad calls again after another week of missed calls. Sometimes I don’t pick up because I can’t manage to answer the same three questions over and over again: Did you eat? (Yes, Papa. At some point today, I ate something.) Are you getting enough rest? (Yes. I hope 4 hours a night counts.) Are you writing? (Yes. About you. And then reading it to several dozen of my not-very-close friends. In a bar.)
This time, he's really upset.
“Laura. Jesus. Trying to catch you is like trying to catch a wild boar.”
I have never been compared to a wild boar until this moment. I have no frame of reference, but my dad, because he was raised in a rural village in Sicily, actually might. Knowing my dad, he's even chased wild boars. And then eaten them. Because what else would be the point?
3. Excuses
My sister goes to Spain on a trip. My father calls.
“Laura. Listen. I keep trying to call your sister and she doesn't pick up.”
“I know, Papa. She's busy. She's traveling.”
What I don't tell him is that I spoke to my sister less than an hour before, that I've been updated on a more-or-less moment-to-moment basis in regards to her whereabouts since she left.
“If you talk to her,” he says, “Can you ask her to get me a Spanish dictionary?”
“Sure,” I say to him. “I'll ask her about it.”
At first, I wonder if he's just making excuses to call her, because he's calling her a lot, and he's trying to find reasons to pick up the phone again and again. But then it dawns on me. He thinks the only place you can get a Spanish dictionary is Spain.
4. In the computer
The phone rings.
“Lauruzza.”
That's what he calls me. Putting “uzza” at the end of a name turns it into a pet name or a term of endearment. He's called me this since I was 2. I don't know the etymology, except that the Sicilian word for “squash” ends in “uzza” too. Maybe he's been calling me Laura Squash for 30 years and I’ve only just realized it.
“Lauruzza. Listen. Can you order me a book through the computer?”
“Yes, Papa. What book do you want?”
He wants an out-of-print, two-volume biography of Joseph Conrad. He's right. The only place you can get this thing is... through the computer.
My dad does not understand the internet, or what it does and does not do. Anything that happened, any technological advancement, that happened after his last hospitalization is a gray area, a thing that can't quite be mastered without help.
4. The Christmas present
“Listen. That thing you bought me doesn't work.”
My sister and I are visiting, sitting on his nubby couch. Stefanie goes upstairs to investigate.
“Papa, what's wrong with it? Is it broken?”
“It's broken. It doesn't go on.”
“OK, well Stef will look at it. If it's broken, we'll get you a new one.”
“I don't understand how to rewind it,” he says.
He's talking about a DVD player. He's saying that he doesn't know how to rewind the DVD.
"You don't rewind it, Papa. It's a DVD."
"Yeah, but it doesn't go on."
My sister comes down the stairs.
"You know exactly what I'm going to tell you," she says. "He didn't turn it on."
We teach him how to work the machine, a detailed lesson. When I speak to him two weeks later, I ask him if he’s watched the DVDs we got him.
“The what?” he asks.
4. Bad things happen in trees.
My dad can't pronounce the "th" sound. I mean, there's a lot of things he can't pronounce, but the "th" sound is a doozie, because while you might sit in the third row, my dad sits in the turd, and while you did lots of things this weekend, my dad did lots of tings.
5. Leave a message.
Some people's voicemail messages begin with a perky "Hi!" or a grave, "Hello, you've reached..." My dad's begins with a weirdly urgent, "Uuuhhh..."
Then, he tells you exactly what's happening, as though he's still trying to sort it out himself.
"Uuuuhhh... This is Carmelo answering, uh, the cellular phone. I can't answer, so leave a message and I'll call you back. Bye."
I like how he says, "I can't answer," like he really just can't. Like he's busy reading 8,000 pages of Conrad or chasing a wild boar.
My dad had a celular phone for three years before he figured out how to set that up, and then it suddenly appeared one day. Sometimes when he doesn't pickup, I call back twice, just to listen to the message.
6. Neutrality
My dad calls.
"Laura," he says. "After your grandmother dies, I'm thinking of moving to Switzerland."
"OK," I say, hoping that my grandmother isn't sitting right there, but knowing that she probably is. She doesn't speak English, but she understands it.
"Your sister says it's nice there. They have a nice standard of living."
My dad has forgotten that he's given up his Italian citizenship, that he lost it when he became an American citizen in the 70s. There were a few years when the Italian government let people who'd forfeited their citizenship re-apply, but he was hospitalized for most of them.
I don't want to be a downer, so I ignore this fact. He keeps talking about Switzerland.
Then he says, "Laura, do you trust your friends?"
"Yes, Papa, I trust my friends."
"It's just that you live in New York. How do you trust anybody? I don't know. I get lonely."
I tell him that he can call me any time he wants, which we obviously knows, because he does. And I mean, like, any time he wants. And I tell him that I love my friends, that they're great friends. Somehow, this comforts him.
"Alright," he says finally. "As long as you trust your friends."
7. Just making sure.
My father leaves me the exact same voice message every single day. It goes like this.
"Laura, this is your Papa. I was just calling to say hi. I hope you're having a good week at work. If you get a chance, call me back. Bye."
On weekends, it goes like this.
"Laura, this is your Papa. I was just calling to say hi. I hope you're having a restful weekend. If you get a chance, call me back. Bye."
So of course, whenever my sister calls me now, she says, "Laura, this is your sister Stefanie. I was just calling to say and to tell you who I was, in case it wasn’t totally obvious. If you get a chance, because you’re so busy ignoring my phone calls, call me back. Bye."
8. A tree falls in Manhattan
My dad calls.
"Laura. Are you all right? What happened?"
"Um, nothing happened, Papa."
"I saw on the news that there was a storm in Manhattan and there were some trees that fell. Did you get hurt?"
"No, Papa. I live 80 blocks from there."
"Good. Jesus, I was worried. I see these things, and I worry."
Part 9: Enough already
I am going away on vacation and I tell my father not to call me while I'm gone. I explain things slowly, as though he were 2 years old, or a beagle puppy:
“When you call me,” I say, “It's really expensive, even when I don't pick up the phone.”
This is a much easier way of explaining the following: When you call my American phone when my American phone is in France, it costs a fortune. Because even if I don't pick up, I get charged for the connection, and for the one-minute voicemail message.
Needless to say, my father does not listen. While I'm away, he calls no fewer than four times a day, and at hours that clearly imply that he's not paying particularly careful attention to the time difference.
I'm being charged for all of the calls, and I ignore most of them, but one time, I pick up. I'm furious.
“Well,” says my dad. “I'll pay for it. Why don't you just ask the phone company to reverse the charges.”
Here are the potential things I could say:
1. What?
2. Given that our calls are not connected by a lady named Shirley plugging in wires at a desk in Minneapolis, that could be difficult.
3. The whole thing about cell phones is that everybody pays. All the time. I can imagine ATT&T customer service listening to this story, to me trying to justify why... they should make someone else pay my phone bill.
When I ask my dad why he kept calling, he said, “Well, I worry. You're halfway around the world.”
When I insinuate that maybe they need to adjust his anxiety meds, and that now I'm worrying too, he just says, “Well, as long as you safe.”
Contractions. That's another thing he has trouble with.
This is when I realize that my Dad's concerns are more or less totally ordinary. But my Dad being my Dad, they don't come out in ordinary ways. Unless the ways are ordinary. Unless everyone's mom is always calling, always trying to bridge the distance. Maybe everyone's dad is more or less the same – the same worry and the same anxiety meds. Maybe with my dad, the only thing that's different is the accent.
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INNER MONOLOGUES XXIX: BAD ROMANCE February 22, 2010
“Sex With My Dog” By Alexis
Ernest’s voyage into our bed didn’t happen overnight. And before you wonder how my husband and I decided to have a threesome with someone named Ernest I’ll let you know that Ernest is a very fluffy long-haired Havanese puppy. Havanese as in, Havana Cuba. I like to picture him lounging on a beach with a cigar in his mouth. He is about nine pounds in the morning, with short legs, a long body, and gray, white and black coloring. He has big black eyes, floppy ears, and somewhat resembles a dust mop. Ernest, or Ernie as we call him when he is being good, is of course, cuter than your dog. He is also, very manipulative and very smart.
Which brings me back to the bed. Ernie started out sleeping on his own little puppy bed in a room adjacent to ours. Jesse and I had planned on being non-dog-in-the-bed type pet owners. Unlike the couch, the nice carpet, the chairs, and the bathtub, this was the one spot that Ernie hadn’t claimed as his. Dogs are outdoor pets. The outdoors and my nice bed with its white comforter—they just didn’t go together.
We’d kiss him goodnight and pat him on the head between the bars of his cage. Jesse and I would crawl into bed and keep the door to our room open so Ernie could see that Mama and Dada were right there. This was the arrangement the dog and we had agreed to and it was just fine until one night, we awoke to the saddest noise on Earth. Whimpering.
“What do we do?” Jesse asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wait it out?”
We stared at each other for five minutes, which felt like hours. Because unlike the sound of a baby crying, which to me just sounds annoying, puppy whimpering makes me think of angels dying, kittens with big round, sad eyes, and children starving in third world countries.
Finally Jesse got up and brought him to the foot of our bed.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Do you want him to go on like this all night?” Jesse asked.
“Fine,” I said.
He curled up in a ball and immediately stopped crying. Now that I’m looking back on this scenario, I’m pretty sure this is when Ernie was thinking “I’ve got them now!” We thought this was a one-time thing, but of course--like the time I thought I could feed Ernie part of my tuna sandwich and expected him to never beg for food again--Ernie knew better.
We tried to fight it the next night, but when the puppy whines turned into all out barks, and our downstairs neighbor started hitting our floor with a broomstick, we had no choice but to acquiesce. In the bed Ernie went.
“He isn’t leaving the foot of the bed,” I declared.
“Absolutely,” Jesse agreed.
People say that having a kid is a total buzz kill to your sex life. Well, no one ever warned me about what getting a puppy would do to it.
One night soon after the whimpering incident, Jesse had gone to bed and fallen asleep before me. By the time I got to bed, I’d found that Ernie had decided to mosey onto my side of the bed, and lie on my pillow.
“Oh, hey Erns. Make yourself comfortable.”
Either this was his way of telling me he wanted some alone time with my husband, or that, you know, a down pillow would be nice. I moved him back to his spot but was having none of that. He wormed his way in between Jess and I and slept with his body stretched out in between us like a barrier. It was cute, and warmer than just our comforter, so I decided against my better judgment not to move him. Big mistake.
“This is romantic,” I said to Jess, putting my arm over Ernie so I could hug my husband. I leaned in to kiss Jesse and before I knew it, I was kissing something wet and cold. Never one to be left out, Ernie had stuck his nose in between our faces like,
“Oh, hi guys, is this what we’re doing? Can I play? I like this game!”
“See you in the morning,” I whispered to Jesse, who was snoring beside me.
Ernie let out a deep sigh and stared soulfully into my eyes.
“What?” I asked him.
He yawned and demanded a belly rub.
Over the next few days, Jess and I tried to attempt “relations”, but to no avail. Apparently, our dog had a sixth sense for nookie. No sooner would we reach for each other than we would feel those puppy paws making their way towards our heads. And there Ernie would be, shoving his nose into our faces kind of like “Break it off guys, break it off!” Then he’d furiously lick each of our faces individually.
“Ernie no!” became one word.
We couldn’t decide if he was a sex referee, or a voyeur.
We found ourselves trying to make out “secretly”, so that Ernie wouldn’t notice. Which is just about the dumbest thing, because dogs have a keen sense of hearing, and the slightest twitch would awaken The Beast. He’d come charging up to the top of the bed, where he would flop down next to my head. On the worst nights, he’d stick his tail in my face so I was nose to butt hole. Very sexy.
It became quite clear that there was no avoiding it. We’d just have to try to have sex despite our dog.
Well that was a major fail.
It’s really difficult to stay in the mood when every few seconds the cutest, most innocent looking thing in the world keeps literally popping his head in the middle of things. Maybe its different for men, but for women, sex is very intellectual. We have to concentrate. I’d be trying to think sexy thoughts, and then all of a sudden…heeeere’s Puppy Face! But it probably wasn’t easy for Jesse either. Imagine you’re doing your thing, and any time you open your eyes, you see a cute little puppy with floppy ears smiling back at you. Maybe breathing in your face with doggie breath.
Like, “Hey Dad! What’s up? Whatchu doin? Wanna play catch?”
We realized that Puppy needed a distraction. Ernie loves rawhide bones, so the next time we attempted to do the deed, we gave Ernie one to chew on. Which we thought was so smart on our part, until, we were overcome by its smell of rotten fish and garbage, mixed with dead body. Otherwise known as the perfect aphrodisiac.
Sometimes, in the middle of sex, Ernie I’m quite sure purposely, would drop a toy on the floor and then go after it. We’d think we’d be in the clear for a few minutes—the whole bed to ourselves—what a thrill! And then we’d hear “Ruff! Ruff!” as Ernie’s face appeared intermittently at eye-level, as he jumped in the air, asking to be let back into the bed. This is a game I affectionately called “Canine Interruptus.”
We soon discovered to our dismay that Ernie’s favorite position is fellatio. Ours, of course. It seemed he wanted to know what exactly his owners were looking for down there.
“Hey, is there a treat there? I wanna see!”
One morning I woke up to the feeling of my boob being licked. It took me a moment to realize that it was not, in fact, Jesse doing the licking. Then it took me another moment because I was like, “Honey, get the camera! This is hilarious!” but then I came to my senses and pushed him away. “Ernie, gross! Drop it! Drop it!”
Things had gotten way out of hand.
The next night we tried to reinstate Ernie’s old sleeping arrangements. Ernie looked shocked at first, then humbled. We got into bed as stealthily as possible, thinking that if we moved really slowly, maybe Ernie wouldn’t notice this change in his routine.
Within a minute the whimpering began. And then it quickly morphed into a sharp, piercing bark. Which or course, is what you want to hear at 12:30 at night.
“Let’s just ignore it,” Jesse suggested.
We stared at the ceiling as Ernie’s barks became more insistent and desperate,
That’s when the scraping sounds started. He had started moving his cage across the living room floor by pushing against its walls. I could just imagine what the downstairs neighbors would do now. I’d once gotten a complaint from them about “moving furniture at 1 in the morning” when all I’d been doing was pulling out a kitchen chair from under the table.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got the stupid dog and put him in the bed. He stopped barking of course. And then he sat on my head.
We’d finally realized there was no avoiding it. Ernie was in our bed for keeps, and that was that.
The three of us have since come to an arrangement, Ernie, Jesse and I. Most nights now, he lets us do our thing, as long as he has something to chew on. He doesn’t throw the bone on the floor that often anymore. Though he does make an occasional nosedive for an inappropriate body part, we’re safe as long as one of us keeps our eyes open. The important thing is, he’s always in a better mood afterwards, too. And so are we.
Sometimes I wonder if I should offer him a cigarette. Or a Cuban.
“Ernie, was it good for you?” I asked him the other day.
He yawned, and licked his balls. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I signed up with a free online dating site called OkCupid. I was recently broken up with my boyfriend of three years, at least half of which was long distance. All I really wanted to do was to go out on a date with a cute guy...and maybe have a make-out session if it went well. Everybody knows that you gotta trust in that age-old adage which says: “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” So there began my foray into the online dating world.
One morning I’m browsing around the site when I get my first Instant Message from a guy, let’s call him Zack. I check out his profile and he is established in the medical field, used to run an animal rescue center, and is Jewish, which wouldn’t hurt with my parents should we reach that point. “Helping people” is his number one passion and he is a classically trained musician. And finally, Zack is age appropriate, which for me means that he was born in the seventies.
We IM for a bit and then he asks if we can chat on the phone. One of the first things he says is, “Thank god you have a normal voice.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah, you never know how someone is going to sound.” “So have you done this a lot?” I ask. “Well, a fair bit. I’d like to be in a relationship, you know. I’m tired of dating, but I have to do it to be in a relationship!”
We make some more small talk and then he says next, “You should know, I am really affectionate.” We haven’t even met yet, I think, how do you even know if you like me? A little closeness is okay by me; I just want to make sure that “affection” isn’t code for finger banging in the corner of the bar. “What does that mean?” I ask. “Well, it means that when we meet I’ll give you a hug and kiss on cheek, link arms with you, put my hand on the small of your back, sit close, let my hand rest on your knee, then maybe the small of your back again...Wow, I can’t believe I’m laying out my whole game.”
I can already tell that this guy is kind of quirky but I also think it’s kind of sweet, the way he is so open. My ex and I hadn’t even seen each other during the last 10 months of our three-year relationship, so to be honest, I needed some affection.
We decide to meet up for a drink that night. I head to Zack’s neighborhood after dinner, and wait for him near the subway stop. After a few minutes, he walks up and I can see that he has a cute face, but is balding. When you get to be over thirty, you’ve got to make some concessions. He takes me to a neighborhood wine bar and we drink, then drink some more. He puts all his moves (as outlined above) on me and we are having a good time.
“I am really affectionate,” he tells me again. “It’s my number one requirement in a relationship. Do you have it in you?” “Am I affectionate? Yes, I think I am. I mean, I am not really keen on PDA, but cuddling at home and stuff—I love that.” “Would you make out in a bar?” “After a few drinks, I would.”
And at that, we start kissing. He is a good kisser—a very good kisser. I go to the bathroom and when I come out, Zack has his coat on and is grabbing mine. He does not look at me or say anything. “Uh, are you not talking now?” is all I can think to say. “Yes, I am,” and helps me with my coat. “Okayyyyy,” I say, thinking that I am enjoying this date and that I would like to make out longer. We walk out silently, and I am confused. “I’ll walk you to the train,” he says, after we’ve gone about two blocks. “Okay. Is this the way to the subway?” It wasn’t a long walk to the bar, but I’m a little more than tipsy and unless he is taking me to another subway entrance, I don’t remember this route. “No, it’s the way to my apartment. I’ll walk you to the subway…later.” “Oh. Okay.” Now I see. While feeling somewhat tricked, I want to make out some more. A small voice in my head says “Craigslist killer” but I push that to the back.
“I like your place,” I say, looking around. We fall onto his couch and make out for a while. Some flesh gets exposed as we toss each other around and kiss. “I think we have great sexual chemistry, don’t you think?” I nod but am thinking, “Is that something that people actually say out loud?” Then I realize that this guy says a lot of things that I think are odd to say out loud. Then he asks me, “Can I lick your tattoo?” I knew he had a tattoo from one of his profile pictures and I’d mentioned that I had one, too. His idea is original, I guess you could say, so I tell him yes. As it turns out, it’s much better in theory than in practice. I should mention that my tattoo is over a foot long and so it feels like a cat is cleaning me. While he’s keeping busy with that, I blurt out, “You know, I don’t normally do this. I’ve only had one one-night stand, like, ever. I just want you to know.” He stops in his tracks. “You know, that’s not what I want, right? I’m established in my career, and I don’t want to date anymore. I want to find the person that I am going to be with. I’m looking for a wife.“
”Okayyyy. Well, a lot of people want that. I mean, I think I’m looking for a relationship, too. I don’t know if I want to get married, though. I’m still kind of on the fence about that and if I do, I’m probably not going to change my last name. You know, I’m 32 already, it’s not like I’m 18. My name is such a big part of me.” He says, “What?! Oh no, that is a deal breaker for me.” I’m thinking, A “deal breaker”? What is this, Thirty Rock? Okay, so, is this the end of the date? “I think a family has to have the same last name. Having the same last name shows that you are committed. Also, there are tax benefits in getting married. How do you like to sleep?” “How do I like to sleep? Well, falling asleep, it’s nice cuddle but then I need to have space to really sleep.” “Oh, that’s a deal breaker. I have to be cuddling while falling asleep and I have to be held all night. And I have to wake up cuddling.” “I like to sleep on my side of the bed,” I reiterate. “’Your side’? What’s ‘your side’? What does that mean?” “You know, the side I sleep on. I have a side.” “Well, that says a lot about you as a person.” He not-so-silently judges me. “Maybe it does,” I say. “You want to have kids, though, right?” “Yeah, I want to have kids.” “How many?” “How many kids? Well, I think it’d be cool to have two—a girl and a boy.” That seems to quiet him for a while and we keep making out. I feel like I’m arguing about issues I’d address in a two or three-year-long relationship, and meanwhile we met less than two hours ago.
What makes me feel better about this whole thing is that he seems generally harmless and he is a damn good kisser, and I know I’m not going to call him after this date but my hormones are happy that I’m there.
“You’re a really good kisser,” I tell him. “I just kiss the way you like.” “I guess you’re right.” We kiss some more but he’s being kind of quiet. “What are you thinking right now?” I ask him, thinking—as an afterthought—that this is just the kind of question someone like him likes. “I’m thinking that you kiss like your ex-boyfriend.” “What? What do you mean?” “Well,” he says, “you kiss like someone. The last person you kissed was him so you’ve got to be kissing like he does.” He has a point. A disturbing, but valid, one.
I get up to go to the bathroom. “Wait, wait, give me a kiss.” “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to the bathroom.” “But what, I can’t just get a kiss?” “I’m coming back, though.” I give up and give him a kiss. I guess he is hung up on the affection thing because he brings it up again when I get back from the bathroom. “Like I said, affection is my number one requirement in a relationship. When I go home, for example, to visit my mom, when I wake up on a Saturday morning, my mom will come into my bedroom and get into bed with me and cuddle.” I am speechless. “I’m a momma’s boy.” “I see that,” I say.
That pretty much seals the deal that I’m not going to contact him ever again. I am drunk and so I think, “Could he have possibly said that?” And I know the answer is yes. But I’m having fun (I think) and I can’t help but think that going home with someone is one step closer to getting over my ex.
He leads my head back to the pillow by wrapping his fingers around my neck and then smacks me three fast times on the cheek, like someone trying to wake up a football player after he’s been knocked out cold. What the...? So I smack him back, angrily, and none of this seems to faze him. “Tell me you want me to fuck you up the ass,” he says, which is not only shocking on its own, but even more odd because we are nowhere near doing this. “No,” I say, thinking, is it really a surprise that I’d refuse? “Tell me.” “No.” “Tell me you want me to.” “But I don’t want you to.” “But isn’t it sexier if you say it? It doesn’t mean it has to happen.” “So, I can tell you I want it but it’s not going to happen?” “Right.” “Okay.” “Tell me.” And so, with about as much enthusiasm as the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s day off, I say, “I want you to fuck me up the ass.” “Tell me again.” “I want you to fuck me up the ass.” “Good girl,” he says, and I shudder, thinking that he is now playing the cuddly daddy role.
At this point I am sobered up and ready to get out of there, like, hours ago, so I say “I have to go.” “Right in the middle of hooking up? That’s tacky.” Well, I think, I hadn’t been planning on still hooking up at this point. Plus, who tells a girl that they like she is “tacky”? “Why do you need to go? Just stay the night here.” “I really want to wake up in my bed, I have things to do in the morning.”
This isn’t flying with him. He wants to cuddle all night. He wants me hold him while he falls asleep and hold him as he wakes up. This just isn’t going to happen, and I get dressed. He looks at me, from where he is lying on his couch, with only boxers on. I realize that with his protruding belly and balding head, he looks exactly like that Seinfeld poster of George Costanza. It’s amazing how different some guys look without their clothes on. “C’mon, just stay,” he says. “I’m really horny.” I really need to get out of here.
It’s about 3:00 a.m. and as I am getting ready to leave I say, “Hey, you said you’d walk me to the subway.” Silence. “You don’t have to. I can take care of myself, it’s all good.” He exhales loudly. “I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t! I have to wake up at 7:30 tomorrow and it’s going to take me twenty minutes round trip if I walk you to the subway.” “It’s alright. It’s fine,” I say, and see myself out.
That night I found out why the website is called “OkCupid” and not “AwesomeCupid”.
It started off innocently enough. I'm just going to look. The semi-annual Stella McCartney sample sale was going on once again. In case you're unaware, this is the MOTHER of all sample sales. Shoes that retail for $1000 are being sold for $200. It's like Christmas, my birthday, and my yet-to-happen Vegas elopment all rolled into 2 glorious days. The only problem was ever since the economy took a nose dive, work was hardly as good as it used to be. When I first moved to New York, bonuses were a plenty, I got a fresh mani and pedi every week, I belonged to a fab yoga studio, and after shopping I still had money left over to put into my 401K.
Now our bonuses had all but disappeared and we had gotten across the board pay cuts. So I was forced to make some seriously scary changes. I started doing my own mani and pedis (and if you want to know how bad that is, imagine Helen Keller doing your nails.), I cancelled my cable, I started stealing internet from my neighbors, and the only workout I got was the yoga I streamed from my computer.
I had begrudgingly accepted this temporary setback of pauper-like living. I wasn’t thrilled, but I mean at least I had a job right? Nonetheless my lack of purchasing power had started to get to me. What was the point of working in fashion if I couldn’t even afford the lifestyle I was promoting?
I could do without buying new clothes because I could usually weasel some freebies from clients at work. But shoes were another story. Free shoes were much harder to come by. And I loathed wearing sneakers, flats or anything that did not highlight my calves. High heels made me feel like I could conquer the world, twirl guys around my finger, and be a flowing vision of gorgeousness.
Which brings me back to the Stella sale. I was just going to look.
After waiting in line to get inside for fifteen minutes, I made a beeline for the shoe section. I inhaled the sweet smell of faux-leather and plastic. There were orange fishnet kitten heels, lime platforms with acrylic, nude satin peep-toe pumps, pink and black criss-cross sandals, and gray basket weave heels.
I knew I shouldn’t buy them but they were so cute! $500 is a steal! Besides I did have a fashion week party to go to. I decided to look at the shoes as an investment. Surely these gems would only go up in value so in reality I was actually making money.
Fuck it, I’m going to buy these shoes. I scampered over to the line, eager to buy the shoes so I could put them on immediately. I banished all negative thoughts from my head. That's when it started. The VOICES. They were everywhere. "Um.... you can't really afford this. Even if it is on sale." "Don't you still owe the IRS money?" "It's people like you that are responsible for this shitty economy!" "Bitch you got a mortgage!" "What the fuck are you thinking?" “Ahhhh!!! SHUTUP!!!" It was no doubt the work of the devil. My palms started to sweat. I didn't want to give them up. I loved my Cherry Bomb shoes. We had bonded. Like the time in first grade when I picked out my Dressy Bessy doll from Kmart. How could I have given her back after I picked her? It would have been like giving a child up for adoption. But then again the voices had a point. How could I get the shoes at such dire times? I watched my 401K plummet to obscenely low levels and unemployment levels skyrocket, so it hardly seemed prudent to buy designer shoes even if they are from the God that is Stella. What was I going to do??? This could be one of the hardest decisions I ever made. I wondered if this is what druggies went through when trying to decide whether or not to take that hit of crack. I began to feel like I was in some sort of chick lit novel. Like Confessions of a Shopholic. Next thing you know I wouldn't be able to pay my bills and I would be out on the streets. I would start tap dancing in the subway to make some extra cash. I would be too embarrassed to use food stamps, so I would only eat once a day, allowing me to lose that last 5 lbs I've always wanted to lose. I would do OK, but it would still be hard to make ends meet for myself and the pet bunny I was going to get and name Uncle Boomer. The line moved forward. I gulped. First there were five people in front of me. Now there were three. I took a deep breath and ducked out of the line. "Oh I'm just getting another pair!" I would shout out in case anyone asked. I couldn't let anyone know I actually couldn't afford the shoes. I glanced around furtively and then pretended to walk confidently back to the shoe section. Were the salespeople looking at me? What about that security guard? When the coast was clear I quickly put the shoes back. I hurried out of there shamefully. I felt like a teenage mother leaving her baby at the hospital because she doesn't want her parents to know she got knocked up and accidentally gave birth at prom. I thought I was going to feel better, but as I walked away the aching in my heart grew. "Fuck you economy!!!!" I shouted at the heavens.
When I got home, I knew I needed to drown my sorrows ASAP. I pulled out a tub of low-carb sugar free ice cream with my zero carb caramel spread. I didn't even measure the serving size this time. I'll show that damn economy. When everything turns around I'm going to buy those shoes at full price. Or at least on half price eBay. In the meantime, I still had my ice cream.
