HOSPITAL (Part 2)

THE NEUROLOGY ICU, EAR PLUGS, A GRAPE, AND NO UNDERWEAR!


My least favorite thing about dealing with health issues pertaining to my back are those plastic models of the spine that the doctors whip out when they want to show you what a herniated disc looks like. I actually came less than a millimeter away from fainting at the Hospital for Joint Diseases when my doctor whipped out one of those contraptions and started manipulating it, showing me what had happened to my lower back and neck when the car hit me. I can’t even stand to look at posters of the human skeleton. I don’t know why, and I have no idea where this phobia started. It’s just too much information!

On August 2, 2005, I underwent a six-hour cervical spine surgery. The doctor replaced three of my discs with cadaver bones and then put my neck back together with a four-inch titanium plate and eight screws. When I awoke, I noticed several people were surrounding me, saying, “Marcy….Marcy, can you hear me...Marcy…” I tried as best I could to respond, but my throat was too sore. The doctors had temporarily moved my esophagus and windpipe in order to perform the surgery and I began to wonder if maybe they forgot to put them back where they belonged.

Before leaving my bedside, the doctor squeezed my foot and told me that I did a great job and everything came out wonderful. My parents squeezed my feet and told me that they would be back later after getting some rest. The nurse squeezed my foot and then said she was going to go get me some ice cubes. I sat there staring at the end of my bed promising God himself that I was going to chokehold the next person who touched my feet.

My hospital bed was situated right beside a wall of windows—not that I could look out of them-- I couldn’t turn my head. There was some huge plastic thing affixed to my neck and I could only stare straight ahead. Only three things were in my view: a sink attached to the wall, the co-ed bathroom door, and a poster of the human spine and all of its major diseases and disorders. I could not believe it! As hard as I tried, I could not get my eyes to rotate far enough to the right to be able to look out the window. I sat there for a while and just stared at the skeletal poster. I contemplated asking one of the nurses to take the poster down, but when I picked up the nurse call-button, I noticed that it had three frayed wires coming out of it. I didn’t dare push the button for fear of being electrocuted. I grabbed my Hydromorphone pump and gave myself a big shot of happy juice.

Nothing went right while in the ICU—for example, no matter how many times I filled out the ‘vegetarian’ menu, nor how many times I reminded the nurses that I was vegetarian, I always ended up with a large piece of chicken on my plate. It didn’t matter which course I was being served--breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I always got chicken. I constantly had to remind the nurses that chicken wasn’t a vegetable.

Not only was I starving to death because I wasn’t getting any of the food that I ordered, I couldn’t see any of the other people in the unit. Like I said, my make-shift bed location was right beside the window; the woman beside me was out of her skull, so she had to have her curtain pulled at all times. Every five minutes she would ask Bill, the ‘funny’ nurse on the floor, for a new pen. “BILL!” she’d yell, “I NEED A NEW PEN! THIS ONE RAN OUT OF INK! COME ON! GIVE ME A NEW PEN! ONE WITH SOME INK! LET’S GO! NOW, BILL!” The first time she yelled at Bill for a new pen I somehow managed to open the curtain between our beds and offered her my pen. “Here,” I said with a smile, “You can have my pen!”

She got this demonic look in her eyes and said, “Who ARE you? Did I ASK you for a pen? I don’t WANT your pen! Close the fuckin’ curtain! Who do you think you are? You think you’re special, don’t you? You think I want YOUR pen? I wouldn’t take YOUR pen if it was the last PEN ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!! BILL!! I NEED A NEW PEN! HURRY! THIS LADY IS TRYING TO MAKE ME TAKE HER PEN! HELP ME, BILL! I NEED A NEW PEN! HOW CAN I WRITE THIS LETTER WITHOUT A PEN?”

I kicked myself for trying to be such a do-gooder. I should have just minded my own business and continued staring at the skeleton poster!

-------------------

During my first evening in the Neurological ICU, I was offered a sponge bath. My nurse’s name was Patty; she was a Harley-riding throwback to the sixties, if there ever was one. I’m talking full blown ‘Age of Aquarius! We got along great. She was super cool, and I didn’t feel embarrassed at all at the fact that she was gearing up to clean my ass—until she asked if I would like to put on some underwear after the sponge bath:

“Wanna try puttin’ on some underwear after you’re all cleaned up?

“WHAT!” I ever so loudly whispered. I couldn’t bend my neck enough to see my crotch, but I knew that I had spent the entire day with no covers on because of how hot and sweaty the Hydromorphone made me feel. I also remembered that I had spent the entire day with my legs leaning against either side of the bed—spread eagle! ‘Oh my gosh’, I thought to myself, “How come that nice Jamaican woman didn’t tell me that I was flashing her the entire time she was applying lotion to my legs this afternoon? She walked right up to the end of the bed, squeezed my toes, and then offered to apply lotion to my legs. She put A LOT of lotion on them, too—and she never even batted an eye! She just stood there doing her job.’ I wish I was a fly on the wall.

Patty's voice pulled me out of the flashback and into the present—“Do you have any extra underwear in the bag your parents brought you this afternoon?” she asked.

A blank stare of horror was all I could muster. “I’m not wearing underwear?”

“No. You haven’t been since I got here about three hours ago.”

“You’re kidding! Why did no one tell me? I’m fully exposed?” I inquired.

“Yeah. Pretty much. Everything has been exposed since I’ve been here. Don’t worry; it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. I figured you were really hot, that’s all.”

I didn’t think I could ever feel more embarrassed than that exact moment…until Patty pulled my earplugs out of my crotch area. She had a huge smile on her face as she lifted the first earplug and then pulled the plastic string that held the two together. I could tell by the small amount of pressure I felt ‘below’ that she was pulling them out from between my upper thighs.

“Oh,” I said, “I’ve been looking for those. I thought they were in my bag.”

Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, she rolled me over onto my left side and pulled a grape out from underneath my buttocks: “I guess you were saving this for later, huh?” she quipped with a devilish grin on her face. I could tell by the heat that my face was crimson.

It didn’t stop there. When she rolled me over onto my right side, she pulled a AA battery off my left butt cheek. “That must have fallen out of my yellow bag.” My yellow bag was holding my CD player, my CDs and my extra batteries; except for the extra battery that was stuck to my ass. Patty and I laughed our asses off together. Patty told me that had been the very first time that she found earplugs, fruit, and a battery all in one sponge bath! I was beyond humiliation and was quite happy to be laughing.

While Patty was finishing my sponge bath, the patient next to me was getting unruly. It’s not that she wanted a pen or anything like that; she wanted her winter jacket because she couldn’t stand all of the snow that was covering her body. She also wanted to know if she could call her mother to bring in her snowshoes to help her navigate the ice while walking to the bathroom. I know it’s not funny to laugh at another person’s expense, but it was all too much to handle when ‘new pen’ lady began to complain of the snow just after I had three foreign objects removed from my private parts area. Patty and I exploded in a wild rage of laughter!

I stayed up most of the night eating popsicles, ice cream, Jell-O, and drinking decaf coffee. ‘New pen’ lady insisted that the snow was really piling up. I played along with her, asking if she needed to borrow any of my blankets. She didn’t want to borrow any of them, but she thanked me kindly for asking (I suppose this was because I hadn’t pulled the curtain open; maybe she thought I was merely a voice in her head). As usually happens while in the hospital, I fell asleep just as the sun was coming up and the nurses were changing shifts: translated, this meant that I fell asleep approximately five minutes before the nurses woke me up to take my blood pressure and temperature.

--------------------

During my last day in the Neurology ICU, I was given the great prize of being able to watch Ellen on a portable TV. Bill decided that since I was the ‘cakewalk’ of the entire unit, that I should be the one watching TV, not ‘new pen’ lady. She wasn’t too happy about this, but I was so over being in the ICU that I didn’t care to appease her anymore. After I sent back my broiled chicken breast sandwich and received a proper vegetarian breakfast, I sat myself up in an armchair recliner, put my feet up on the rolling cart, and sipped my coffee while watching Ellen crack me up.

Speaking of crack—just before I was about to leave the ICU, I heard a gentleman named Tom, who was stationed in a bed across the room, say to his nurse that he didn’t need to put on his bathrobe just to go use the ‘John’. Hey Tom, if you’re out there reading this, I suggest you cover up your ass crack next time—I almost had a heart attack when you hobbled into the bathroom with your full moon shining. Remember what your Aunt Marcy says: ‘Crack is Whack!’

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

HOSPITAL (Part 1)

THE CRYSTAL METHOD, FREEZING HOMOPHOBES, AND POOR NEIGHBORHOOD BOY


I am convinced that humor can be found everywhere, even amidst the direst of situations. One need only open their heart and mind to the joy humor has to offer at any given moment in order to witness this truth firsthand. You may ask what case in point I hold in my memory to make such a bold claim—what if I told you I was laughing my ass off in the Neurological ICU after having a 6-hour reconstructive surgery on my cervical spine. It’s true; I was laughing my ass off—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning:

On July 29, 2005, I awoke to the wretched smell of my cat’s breath as she lovingly licked my eyelids and forehead. This was her passive-aggressive way of letting me know it was time to get up and feed her. As I lifted my head off the pillow, I felt and heard a ‘pop’ by my left shoulder blade. Immediately thereafter, a sharp pain shot down my left arm. I waited in anticipation for my upper body to entirely kink up; it never did. I sat motionless, reflecting on how different this pain was compared to other pinched nerves I’ve had—and I’d had lots of them, especially since being hit by a car in 1997. What I found the most curious was the fact that my left side was in pain, and not my right side, which was normally the case.

Reaching for my phone, I pushed the cat off the bed and then speed-dialed my mom at work.

“Hello. Dr. McCurdles office, how may I help you?”

“Mom…it’s happened again…,” I whispered, afraid that applying any sort of volume to my voice would exacerbate the pain shooting down my arm.

“What happened again?”

“’Pinched nerve in my back.”

“Well, you know what to do. Just take your muscle relaxants.”

“No…mom…it’s different this time. My back isn’t kinked up. It’s strange. It’s totally different. I heard a ‘pop’, and now I have this shooting pain down my left arm—but nothing’s kinked up.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” she inquired, sounding helpless.

“I don’t know.”

___________

I was a complete nut while awaiting my emergency cervical spine surgery. Martha, my Neurology/3rd floor roommate, was 83 years old. She’d suffered a mild stroke and was awaiting for the last of her test results in order to be released. I can guarantee that the three days she spent with me were the worst days of her life. I was flying on Hydromorphone, Percocet, and a slew of other meds that were either being pumped into my veins or shoved down my throat. This translated into me sweating my ass off—even when the air conditioner was cranked all of the way up—and me talking non-stop.

At first, Martha was very cordial and inviting. She seemed to enjoy my conversation. It wasn’t until after about three hours of making my acquaintance that she began to pull the curtain that separated our beds. I tried to maintain conversation—regardless of the curtain—by asking her what she was watching on the TV. She was watching the Tony Danza talk show. I turned on my TV and decided upon watching the Ellen Degeneres show. Martha asked what I was watching.

“I’m watching Ellen Degeneres. I love her sense of humor. Do you like her?” I asked.

“No. She’s a homosexual. I wouldn’t watch her if you paid me a million bucks.”

I was able to deduce from Martha’s simple reply that sharing information regarding my personal life would not be such a good idea.

Martha made it clear that she thought I was a very kind person, but made it even more clear that she didn’t want to listen to my Percocet-induced ramblings all day. As soon as I’d open the curtain to talk to her, she’d pull it shut once more. That was fine with me; my parents had brought in my portable CD player and a slue of extra batteries. For the next day and a half, my ears were bombarded with The Crystal Method’s incredible fusion of dance beats and everything that’s cool in rock; I couldn’t get enough of their electronic hypnosis. The driving beats relentlessly pounded in my head. I knew first-hand what it was like to listen to techno while tripping out on foreign substances. In my case, the drugs were legal, and, what’s more, they kept me from screaming in agony.

The pain shooting down my left arm was so severe, that even a shot of Hydromorphone every 6 minutes wasn’t enough to ease the pain. Not only were earphones continually plugged into my ears, but also I cannot seem to remember a time when I wasn’t clutching an ice pack to my left upper arm. I remember writhing in pain; moaning so much that Martha had to turn up her TV.

Given Martha’s age, it wasn’t surprising to me that she was always cold. Now, picture a nearly freezing to death 83 year old coupled with a 36 year old who was perpetually overheating due to meds. The air conditioner was the cause of great distress; I wanted it turned up to 10 and Martha wanted it thrown out the window. Martha was older than I was, and I respected that fact enough to let her think that she could keep the air conditioner set at the level she thought appropriate. She would always adjust the ‘Cool’ level on her way to the bathroom. As soon as I heard the bathroom door click shut, I would fly out of bed and run over to the air conditioner, once again turning it up full blast. The fact that my neurosurgeon said that a simple slip on the floor could mean permanent paralysis (due to the disc problems in my spine) meant nothing to me then; I was only living for the moment!

Martha’s kids would come to visit her and I would hear her explain to them that no matter how much she turned the AC down, it was always freezing in the room. Her daughter was kind enough to bring her a crocheted blanket from home, which eased my pain of having to run over to the AC while Martha was peeing.

____

The funny thing about my stay in the Neurology Department while awaiting my cervical spine surgery was that I didn’t realize how much I was talking incessantly. To me, everything was normal. It wasn’t until after my surgery that people came out of silence to come clean about how manic, crazy, and annoying I was while awaiting to have my neck reconstructed.

My Uncle Bulldog, who hates to talk on the phone, says that I had him on the phone for 45 minutes. I had the secretary of my school on the phone for a half hour just to tell her that I would not be able to start the new school year as planned. Apparently, I told her my entire prognosis, as well as my entire medical history. I couldn’t believe the questions I was fielding from my boss and co-workers after my surgery. How did you know that? I would ask, only to be told—‘O, you told us that when you told us you wouldn’t be able to return to work until January.’

O crap, I thought—I wonder what else I told them!

The funniest story anyone has yet to tell me about my behavior while pre-op in the hospital had to do with my sister-in-law, Colleen: I was very excited to see that she had come to visit me during my second day on the Neurology floor. I was stoked that she brought Liev (7) and Megs (9), my niece and nephew. Colleen had also brought a neighborhood boy she was babysitting. I don’t remember his name. My version of the story is as follows:

Colleen arrives with the kids. They get me out of bed, walk me to the family meeting-area room, and I sit with the kids while Colleen goes to the gift shop to get me some magazines and a chocolate bar. Colleen comes back with the goodies, walks me back to the room, and says that she has to leave because she has to get some school work done for her new kindergarten teaching position. I couldn’t believe it: I could die while getting my neck ripped open by the docs and she comes and visits me for 10 MINUTES?? Jeez. What nerve!.

Colleen’s version of the story, which I concede is most likely closer to the truth than mine, goes something like this:

Colleen arrived in my hospital room with the three kids. I became exceedingly excited to see them all. I jumped out of bed, took off my bathrobe, and turned around to untangle the IV tubes from the gown—whereupon ‘neighborhood boy’ got a free glimpse of my bare backside, leopard skin patterned underwear and all. Colleen said sweat was running down my face and my hair was soaking wet. I looked at her, said, ‘Man, I’m cold!’, then threw my bathrobe back on, and hopped back in bed. I recall all three kids standing at the foot of the bed, just staring at me. I began to sweat again. I tried profusely to get the Hydromorphone drip to give me some more pain killin’ juice, but it hadn’t been 6 minutes since the last hit.

At this point, I noticed Martha was getting out of bed. Colleen said that my eyes lit up. I got up out of bed again and told her the story about how when Martha goes to the bathroom I sneak over to the air conditioner and turn the AC on full blast. Colleen said I was like a mad woman as I grabbed my Hydromorphone drip thingy and ran over to the AC. She was gritting her teeth, praying that I wouldn’t slip on the floor.

After I turned up the AC, Colleen, the three kids, and I all went to the family gathering room. I sat on a regular chair, only because I wasn’t quick enough to grab the recliner before ‘neighborhood boy’ did. Colleen said that I kept staring over at ‘neighborhood boy’s’ chair while she listened to me talking. When ‘neighborhood boy’ got up out of the chair to grab a magazine, she says that I jumped out of my chair and literally RAN over to the recliner, whereupon ‘neighborhood boy’ looked dismayed as I took the cool chair away from him.

“I need this chair,” I explained to him.

Colleen said that she stayed with me in the family room for an hour before asking me if I would like her to get me some chocolate and magazines from the gift shop. It seemed to me like it had only taken Colleen 3 minutes to get the items, but she says she was down there for at least twenty minutes.

Col and the three kids had visited me for well over 2 hours—that I experienced, due to the meds, as being 10 minutes tops.

Colleen said that she was never as terrified in her life as she was when I jumped out of bed to turn the AC up. All she kept picturing in her mind was me slipping and then spending the rest of my life in a wheel chair, or worse. She also commented several times that I had flashed ‘neighborhood boy’ my buttocks when turning around after taking the bathrobe off. She didn’t let me off too easily for talking her ear off for the entire hour and a half that we spent in the family gathering room.

____________

When I think of the pre-op time that I spent in the hospital, I think of The Crystal Method, turning up the AC regardless of poor homophobic Martha freezing to death, and accidentally flashing ‘neighborhood boy’ with my leopard skin underwear.

Well, at least I was wearing underwear during my pre-op stay; that’s more than can be said about my post-op experience!

To be continued…

tags:

tags: humor, about me, Ellen Degeneres, The Crystal Method, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2005 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

The Bakery (Part I)

"MISSION: DIRTY UNDERWEAR"

By age sixteen, I had already been playing the guitar for nine years, and was in a rock and roll band playing Hendrix and Zeppelin cover tunes. I was practicing my guitar for an average of 2 hours a day on the weekdays, and 6 hours a day on the weekends. When my parents told me I had to decide between playing an extracurricular sport after school and getting a part time job, I opted for the latter.

By the time I was a teenager, sports and I had gone our separate ways. In eighth grade, while trying to shoot a lay-up in gym class, Mikey M. stuffed me-- jamming and breaking my pinky simultaneously. I couldn’t play the guitar for six weeks! From that day on, basketball was out of the question: nothing came between my guitar playing and me.

First year of high school, I wasn’t too keen on playing softball, but tried out anyway. Once, while pitching, a line drive busted my lower lip in more than one place, and that is when sports and I officially parted ways.

Since I was kid, I had my sights on working at our local bakery. The owner, Cal, wouldn’t let me work off the books, but told me to inquire as soon as I turned sixteen. My father drove me to the bakery the day after my sixteenth birthday, and Cal hired me on the spot.

I recall being both excited and apprehensive about my first day of work at the bakery: ‘excited’ because my dream job came to fruition, ‘apprehensive’ because Clara worked there. She was one of the main culprits who had made fun of me just years earlier because I preferred the Bionic Woman to the Six Million Dollar Man. I can still see her face as she mocked me in the hallway of our grammar school: Clara, with her feathered back hair that was styled with her all-too-fabulous pink Vidal Sassoon comb--as if having a plasic comb hanging out of your back pocket could possibly make you look cool.

Much to my delite, she left the bakery for a more promising and higher paying job several months after I was hired.

I became best of friends with many of the girls I worked with. Katrina, or “K”, as she was known to her friends, was one of my best friends in high school, and it was a total trip to spend my afternoons in the bakery with her. We were always clowning around while working, and being reprimanded by Babushka, or ‘Babs’ as we affectionately called her. Babs was a 60-something immigrant from the Ukraine. She was famous for never smiling and for completing sentences that she did not start. Here is a typical conversation with Babs:

Babs: “Why are you late today, Mardcy? Eh?

Marcy_Peanut: “I’m not late. I was supposed to be here at—

Babs: “Three o’clock. Eh? You should be here’d at two-fifdty if you want’d to be on time. Eh?”

Marcy_Peanut: “Uh…Yeah, but I don’t get out of school until—

Babs: “Two-forty. I know. (Nodding her head up and down) Everyone gets out of school at two fordty. In my country, you would be here on time or you would-t be fired’t!”

Marcy_Peanut: “But I am on time. I was supposed to be here at—

Babs: “ Three o’clock. I know. I know.” (She hems and haws while cleaning the class with vinegar and water.) "Jusdt get to work.”

Babs never appeared to be the happiest camper in the universe. She showed up to work every day in a yellow and white checkered dress and wore a bright white apron. She wore lovely white nurse shoes, one heel higher than the other one. Her hair was pulled back in a bun in keeping with her true babushka image. Not once did I see her crack a smile at work: maybe a smirk here and there, but never a complete smile. Yet, her face lit up every single time her husband walked through the door to take her home. My goal in life was to make her smile. I knew she was a lovely woman at heart, and that there was more to her than the military-like demerits she barked at K all day. There just had to be; no one could be that miserable. Sometimes I felt like saying to her., "Look lady, this is a bakery, not bootcamp. Lighten up!"

K was the kind of girl who—no matter where you were or what you were doing, you were going to have fun with her. She always brought out the silly-whacky side of me. I loved being around her. One of K’s neighbors worked at the bakery, too. Her name was Lauren, and even though she was great friends with K, I didn’t’ know her too well because she was shy. Another girl I met at work was Kim. She was quite the professional at work. It took K and me quite a while to get Kim to come out of her shell, but when she did, she was the funniest gal in the universe!

In 1985, afternoons at the bakery belonged to Lauren, Kim, K, Babs, and me. Lauren and Kim obsessed about keeping the till in order, I obsessed over keeping the pastries, cookies, and cakes organized in a visually pleasing manner, Babs over-obsessed about the cleanliness of the glass (telling us daily about the power of vinegar and water to get the job done!), and K kept us all amused with her incredible good humor.

During the spring of 1985, Hurricane Gloria paralyzed the East Coast. I remember knowing that a big storm was on the way, but was ignorant to the magnitude of her strength. I went to work as usual, expecting some rainfall and a bit of wind. I was in for a big surprise!

After school, on the fateful day that Gloria hit our town, I walked to the bakery with K. Working that afternoon were K and me, Kim, and two other girls, Sandy and Desiree. Sandy was hands down the most gullible person I have ever met. She believed everything that she was told, and although she didn’t appear to be the sharpest crayon in the box, she was very intelligent. More importantly, she was kind. Desiree was just beginning her tenure at the bakery: Sandy had talked Cal into hiring her just a week before the hurricane hit. Desiree was loud and obnoxious. Babs made it very clear that she couldn’t tolerate being in Desiree’s presence. Babs grunted something under her breath every time she encountered her.

There was also one other very important player in the bakery on the day Gloria hit: the Nazi window washer guy. He was a man of about 50 who walked around town washing windows all day. He carried with him a squeegee, a bucket, and a brown paper bag filled with cash. He always had a cigar in his mouth—a mouth decorated with a Hitler mustache. It was apparent by his personality, or lack thereof, and by his power to be innately mean and rude, that he was emulating Hitler and not Charlie Chaplin with the square mustache that sat right below his nostrils.

‘Mean Window Washer Guy’ entered the bakery the same time everyday. He would walk up to the counter, point to what he wanted with a swift jerk of the wrist—never making eye contact—and then would pull a dollar out of his brown paper bag to purchase said item. Before handing over the dollar, he would flatten the bill on the counter with both hands. Then, he would pick up the bill and hold it between thumb and forefinger on both ends. He would then snap the bill feverishly with both hands several times before handing it over to the clerk behind the counter. It was the consensus that the Mean Window Washer Guy was a miser, and this was the cause for such paranoia when paying for bakery items. I often mimiced his paranoia by snapping the bills several more times after he handed them to me--just to be completely sure there weren't several bills stuck together.

At the exact moment that Hurricane Gloria paralyzed my hometown, Mean Window Washer Guy was in the bakery. The wind began to pick up outside. I remember the rain blowing sideways and the sun suddenly disappearing behind the dark brown, ominous clouds. Mean Window Washer Guy looked scared to death as he clutched his paper bag to his chest. He found himself a place to ride out the storm right beside the refrigerator that housed the wedding cakes. All of the girls, myself included, huddled around the window behind the counter to get a glimpse of the harrowing wind and rain. Four girls pressed up against the window. I was both scared and exhilarated: I wondered if my life was going to end at the age of sixteen inside the bakery. I didn’t want to take any chances. I grabbed two large chocolate chip cookies and headed towards the back of the building that housed the baking supplies and ovens. K inquired what I was doing, to which I replied, “Making my last dinner one that counts!” I took the lid off the metal garbage can that was home to the butter cream icing. I dipped one of the cookies into the can, and made the most spectacular butter cream/chocolate chip cookie sandwich known to mankind. Most of the other girls followed suit. We took our sandwiches and headed back to the window. Babs, in the far corner of the store, rolled her eyes in dismay as she took a puff of her cigarette.

I was eating my cookie sandwich when K called my name from behind. I turned around and saw that she was holding a lemon meringue pie aimed directly at my face. I laughed aloud.

“Should I do it?” she asked.

“Yeah!” I grinned.

“Don’t you dare'd do dat’d!” yelled Babs from the corner.

“Should I?” asked K one last time.

“Yeah!” She pushed the meringue right into my face. I fell to the floor, laughing hysterically as I licked the pie off my lips. Kim blushed. I stood up, looked into the mirror behind the cash register and saw Babs over in the corner trying to bite back a smile. Desiree grabbed a pie and aimed it at Sandy’s face. Babs screamed, “DON’T YOU DARE'D! YOU WILL BE SURE TO BE FIRET’D! One time is ENOUGH!”

Desiree threw the pie at Sandy. Sandy cried. Mean Window Washer Guy stood expressionless, leaning against the refrigerator clutching his paper bag to his chest even tighter than before. Kim blushed in anger. She knew two pies in the face were too much to ask Babs to handle.

Over all, Gloria didn’t do as much damage outside as we managed to do to the bakery inside. We had so much fun that day, but, inevitably, someone had to take the fall. Desiree was canned. Babs had told on her, and not on K. Even if she had told on K, I don’t think Cal would have fired her. Cal was a great admirer of K’s lighthearted shenanigans. Desiree was rightfully pissed that she was the one whose job was terminated. After all, she was not the first one to throw a pie.

Desiree was screaming for vengeance. She devised a plan that would leave the bakery owner wondering what hit him. They say vengeance is better served cold, so we waited several days before implementing “MISSION: DIRTY UNDERWEAR”. I drove the car—a brown 1979 piece of junk station wagon that was large enough to hold all of the high school bakery employees. K, Kim, Desiree, Sandy, Lauren and I piled into the car and headed to the bakery at 11PM on a Friday night. We knew that the front door to the bakery would be open, as the bakers would be inside getting the next day’s goodies ready for sale. K opened the front door. We all tiptoed inside the bakery, armed with our lethal weapons: we each had in our hands a pair or two of dirty underwear we had swiped from our fathers and brothers, respectively. One by one, we draped the dirty underwear all over the bakery: on the corner of the pastry display case; around the round spool of bakery-box-tying thread; on the handle to the cupcake case; over the OPEN sign on the door. I wished I were a fly on the wall so I could have seen Cal’s expression when he saw the new dirty tidy-whities décor that adorned his beloved bakery.

To this day, no one has mentioned the tidy-whity incident. Cal never mentioned it, nor did Bab’s. Needless to say, Desiree didn’t get her job back, but MISSION: DIRTY UNDERWEAR was definitely the beginning of a fun career of hanging out with the gals from the bakery.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

JERSEY SHORE (Part III)

Summer Of '84:
THE RAFT AND THE SHARK

Krista was always looking for ways to gross the rest of us out. One of her favorite ways to do this was to dig for sand crabs, put a helpless one in the palm of her hand, and then squeeze it to death. I can still see the blue, green, and yellow innards of the poor little scavengers splattered all over Krista’s palm. Disgusting.

It seemed that each of us had a memorable ‘shore quality’ about us. Take Cousin Jimmy, for example. Every year, Jimmy would go into the ocean with high hopes of jumping the waves and body surfing only to come charging out of the water with a crab attached to his big toe. There could be 100 people swimming around him, frolicking and splashing in the water with no trouble at all, and Jimmy would be the one the crab chose to claw.

One year, Jimmy found a 12”, dead baby shark floating in the water. At first, we brought it home to show the rest of the gang, and our parents, then threw it away. Later, we fished it out of the garbage pail and thought it would be fun to attach the miniature dead shark to a piece of fishing wire and pull it through the ocean, scaring unsuspecting swimmers. Looking back, I don’t think anyone ever fell for our trick. I think the most we ever got out of anyone was, “Hey, look at those kids pulling the dead baby shark with fishing wire.” Maybe the fact that it was ‘swimming’ on its side tipped them off.

As I mentioned earlier, my brother Jerry’s friend Freddy was not the greatest chick magnet that ever lived. I once caught him and Jerry laughing hysterically when they realized that the condom Freddy was carrying in his wallet had dried out. My mom overheard them and called Freddy, with more than a touch of sarcasm, a ‘real ladies man’. Back then, I didn’t know what a condom was, therefore, the fact that the condom had dried out before Freddy had a chance to use it was lost on me. I just remember that this little fact solidified the notion that Freddy was not lucky with the ladies. It wasn’t for a lack of trying though; I have to give Freddy that much credit.

One day, while on the beach, Krista was staring at Freddy as he slept on his beach towel in the high noon sun. She had this incredible smirk on her face. Freddy was sunbathing in a loosely fitting pair of swimming trunks. The swimming trunks had no lining, and Freddy wasn’t sporting underwear. This was the first time I ever remember seeing someone’s family jewels in the flesh. Of course, since Freddy was sleeping, Krista had to alert all of the females within a 25-foot radius to Freddy’s twins shimmering in the noonday sun.

It was during this particular week down the Jersey Shore that Krista and I decided to take our fateful raft ride beyond the ocean’s surf. It’s difficult to stay afloat on a raft while navigating the pounding waves, so we went out beyond the swelling of the waves. I remember bobbing up and down on the raft and feeling rather uneasy with the prospect of my feet dangling in the water, (I curse Steven Spielberg for the day he had his genius idea to film part of JAWS from the shark’s-eye point of view!). I recall that the water was dark and murky. There was no seeing beyond two inches of the water’s surface. There was no telling what was lurking beneath us!

Krista likes to make things interesting. She decided that it would be fun if we didn’t look back towards the shore. She preferred to stare in the direction of England, rather than keep dibs on where the lifeguard chair was, and didn’t have a care as to whether or not we were swimming between the two red flags, the legal swimming area while lifeguards are on duty.

There was no one else around us. We were just floating on my blue and yellow raft (I never bought the blue and RED one because I knew that the color red attracted sharks, and if you can’t tell by now, I have a terrifying fear of sharks). I was a bit scared, but I tried not to let on, as I knew this would egg Krista on, and perhaps she would do something to exacerbate my fears.

At one point, while staring towards England, we heard the lifeguards blowing their whistles. The whistling became more and more frantic. Krista advised me not to look back. Just keep staring forward. I looked at her and said, “Some jackass probably got sucked out to sea!” I then looked around me, but not back towards the shore. I remember thinking, well, if some idiot was sucked out to sea, then why can’t see them? We’re the farthest one’s out, so…

I turned around. Tons of people were gathered on the beach. All of them were staring in our direction. I hit Krista on the arm—“Hey! It’s us they are whistling at!” Krista laughed. I yelled, “Come on. Let’s turn around! We need to get back in!”

We turned around and began kicking. We couldn’t seem to get the raft to take us back in towards the shore. The harder we kicked, the farther we were being swept to the right. The ocean’s pull was too much for us to handle. The whistling was getting more and more frantic. Krista jumped off the raft. “Let go of the raft! It’s the only way to get in!” she claimed. I knew better.

“I’m not letting go of the raft! You’re supposed to stay on the raft when you get sucked out to sea!” I began to get frantic. I wanted to cry.

Krista and I were drifting apart. I let go of the raft only because I wanted to swim over to her, and I wasn’t getting anywhere on the raft. I reached Krista and began to tread water. I looked over to my right. We were heading right into the far end of the jetty; the jetty made of large, black, moss covered rocks. The image of the woman treading water in JAWS kept flashing in my mind; we were certainly far enough out to be in shark territory. I couldn’t help picking up that Krista thought the whole ordeal was amusing.

Something grabbed at my left foot—“SHARK!” I screamed. “SHARK! SHARK! IT HAS ME! SHARK! SHARK!”

I saw a young man’s head surface before me. “There’s NO SHARK! I’m a lifeguard! Take hold of this life preserver. I’ll take you back in!”

“I'm not going with you! Why did you grab my foot like a shark? Are you trying to scare me?” I inquired, rather anxiously.

“No! I’m trying to save you! Now, grab on to the raft!”

Krista already had hold of another lifeguard’s red life preserver-bullet. I was really close to fainting as the lifeguards pulled us in. By then, practically everyone who had been sunbathing and playing on the beach was cheering in the lifeguards as they rescued us from being pulled out to sea.

My of being eaten by a shark was swiftly replaced by my embarrassment at having to be rescued. I was the jackass. My embarrassment quickly turned into tears. I think I knew, in some way, that my tears would dissuade my mother from being mad at me, and would force her to cradle me in her arms with a warm beach towel. On another level, I knew the tears were genuine and that I was deathly afraid of ever trusting Krista again.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

Writing and photo ©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

JERSEY SHORE (Part II)

Summer of '84:
SITTING PRETTY ON A BRAND NEW BLUE AND YELLOW RAFT

The summer of ’84 was a great summer for friendship and music. Sylv, Liza, CC and I listened endlessly to Duran Duran, Culture Club, Loverboy, and Split Enz. While driving down the shore with Chico (yes, I got to drive down with him in his rust colored ’72 Camaro!) we listened to Ozzy Ozbourne and ACDC; “Back In Black” was everyone’s favorite album for years throughout our tenure down the Jersey Shore. Even though I loved all things Van Halen, Stray Cat, and Journey, I was also very into Culture Club. I suppose that’s why Chico began to call me ‘Boy Marcy’; a name he still calls me some twenty-odd years later. It didn’t musically make sense that I should like Culture Club; perhaps they sparked my interest because their lead singer was so overtly bent.

During our weeks down the shore, my friends and I found various ways to entertain ourselves. There were the trampoline’s—anyone who ever spent time in Surf City during the seventies and eighties will remember the sound of trampolines being assigned to paying customers: Liza Z take 1; Marcy P take 2; Mike K on 4, your time is up. Right next to the trampolines was the arcade. All year I would save my quarters so I could play Ms. Pacman at least 20 times daily. On average, I spent $50 at the arcade during each trip down the shore.

Further down the island was Bay Village. This was the place to be with lots of arcade games, miniature golf, exciting rides, and our favorite, the water flume! My parents drove us to Bay Village at least once every summer vacation. We never left without getting a pound of vanilla fudge from The Country Kettle.

One of my favorite pastimes at Bay Village was playing the games of chance at the amusement park. I especially liked the booth games where you put a quarter on a number, then the person working behind the counter spins a huge wooden wheel on the wall, and if the clicker on the wheel stopped on your number, you would win something.

One summer, there was a booth where you could win a wall tapestry that had an image of a famous musician silk-screened on it. The Jim Morrison tapestry caught my eye. I pictured what it would look like hanging in my room right above my bed. I spent about $30 in quarters trying to win that thing with no luck whatsoever. I went home empty handed. I begged my mom to drive me back to Bay Village the following day so that I could try my luck again. Luckily, it rained the next day, so it was the perfect excuse for another trip to Bay Village. I shelled out another $10 in quarters and finally won the Morrison tapestry. I was in HEAVEN. I was so proud of my perseverance. My cousin Krista, who had been rooting me on and talking me into laying all of my quarters on the line for the tapestry, broke my bubble when she informed me that the same exact tapestries were on sale in the Pier One Mall (adjacent to Bay Village) for $8 each. She had a knack for breaking bad news like that to me at exactly the wrong time; I think she reveled in it, actually.


Krista was a boy magnet. Something about her attracted the boys. Perhaps it was her clothing, her hair, her makeup. I don’t know. All I know is that whenever Krista was around, the boys were paying attention. This, of course, made me feel rather awkward—the last thing on Earth I wanted was to attract the boys. Their attention made me rather nervous, but not in a good, natural way. All I kept thinking about was how in love I was with Liza. While my friends were trying to figure out how to meet guys our age and make plans to rendezvous on the beach in the evening, I was trying to figure out how to tell Liza that I wanted to sit with her on the dunes and hold hands, staring at the ocean as the moonlight rippled over the waves. Rendezvousing with a young man was the farthest thing from my mind.

Always a strange dichotomy went along with my lack of wanting to attract the boys: I didn’t want their attention, yet when a boy showed interest in me, I did get a little flattered. I suppose it was the 'I don’t want you, but it’s kinda cool that you’re actually interested in me' type of ego thing. Krista always made a point of saying that I looked like a boy (which I didn’t) and didn’t miss a chance to reflect—verbally—on my flat chest. She didn’t think I could get a boy to save my life. My brother Tom, who was in cahoots with her, was famous for telling me to “Get a boyfriend!” Little did they know it was the last thing on my agenda.

Across the street from our shore house were three men in their late teens/early twenties. I imagined every single woman on the beach was swooning over them. The ringleader was extremely handsome, his body perfectly tanned. I believe he told Krista that his name was Mike. He looked like a ‘Mike’—an all American guy who enjoyed body surfing during the day, drinking beers out on their porch in the early evening, and then cruising around in his suped-up mustang ‘til the wee hours of the morning. Krista, Sylv, Liza, and the rest of us enjoyed flirting with them as they sat in their swimming trunks drinking Bud. We used to yell things across the street to get their attention. Sometimes we’d dare each other to go and talk to the guys. Because of the emotional dichotomy I outlined above, I was rather shy. CC was usually the one who was talked into initiating conversation with the guys. Once verbal contact was achieved, Krista would inevitably come on the scene and monopolize the conversation. She was usually hysterically funny in her dialogue: her blunt approach never lost on the young men.

On one particularly sunny afternoon, Krista, CC, and I went to the beach with our colorful beach towels, sun block, and our brand new blue and yellow rafts. The tepid water was minus jellyfish and the surf was relatively calm. We did a bit of tanning, then grabbed our rafts and headed into the ocean. We jumped over the waves in order to make it out far enough into the surf where we could float in the calm waters.

Krista and I shared my raft, while CC navigated hers on her own. I had my upper body draped over the right half of the raft as my legs dangled in water. I couldn’t help but recall the scene in JAWS where the camera angle was the shark’s eye point of view. I wondered what lingered beneath the surface of the ocean.

My nightmarish daydream was cut short when I caught Mike’s eye about two yards to my left. He was resting on his yellow boogie board, bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the waves. He smiled at me. I turned around to see whom he was smiling at; That smile couldn’t have possibly been intended for me! I thought.

There was no one behind me: just Krista on my left and CC on my right. I looked back at Mike. He smiled again, this time showering my attention with a confident wink. I stared at him, and smiled back. Krista had noticed that Mike was taking an interest in me. She began to flirt with him, “Hey, big boy. What brings you out here?” He didn’t answer. He just nodded his head towards me and gave a smile so wide his pearly whites glistened in the sun.

“Oh, you like this little boy?” Krista snickered. I whacked her in the upper arm with my elbow.

CC was on her raft, laughing. I looked at her and said, “What, he can’t be attracted to me? You have a problem with that?”

“Oh yeah, he’s REALLY attracted to you!” and she giggled so much she nearly fell off her raft.

Krista began to laugh, too. Mike’s friends now swam up to see what was going on. Mike nodded over in my direction; his friends looked at me. Then, they looked down at my chest, then back at my face. I was blushing religiously. I could not understand why all of the attention was suddenly on me. Why was everyone looking at my chest? We all knew that Krista had the most voluptuous breasts on the beach. Why in God’s name were the guys swooning over my sunken chest?

Mike swam a little closer to me. “Hi, I’m Mike.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, and then, after a long pause, I declared, “I’m Marcy.”

“You know, Marcy,” Mike said while bobbing up and down on the waves and staring at my chest, “Your boobs are hanging out of your bathing suit.”

I looked down and, sure enough, my girls were hanging out full frontal, just resting on the raft. My bathing suit top must have come untied while I was jumping the waves. My face burned with embarrassment as my cousins, one on either side, laughed their asses off at my expense.

I was right. A guy like Mike wouldn’t throw his affection my way, unless, of course, my breasts were exposed and sitting pretty on a brand new blue and yellow raft somewhere off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

Photos and text ©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

JERSEY SHORE (Part I)

Summer of '85 :
THE DIAMOND AND THE BONFIRE

Every summer, my family would spend at least a week at Surf City, down the Jersey Shore. My parents always allowed my brothers and me to bring friends along on our summer vacation. This particular year, Tommy brought along his friend Jet, and Jerry brought Freddie and Chico. Jet was an adorable 17-year old with luscious blonde curls who, like Tommy, excelled in baseball; Freddie was a lame guy who couldn't get a date to save his life, and Chico was the only one of my brothers' friends who acted civil towards me, the younger sister. I brought my super-cool twin friends from Pennsylvania, Sylv and Liza.

It was customary for my cousin CC and her family to go on vacation during the same week as my family. All four kids in her family were allowed to bring a friend along each year, as well, which meant, all tolled, there were roughly 4 adults and 15 teenagers running around amongst the two rented houses on 12th Street. It was a pretty exciting time in my life.

For some reason unbeknownst to me or anyone else, my parents allowed Tom, Jerry and their friends to drive all of us young'ns down the shore the night minus adults. My Uncle T would already be down there, but he was planning on going fishing with Uncle Jay, so he'd be no trouble for us at all.

We arrived down the shore at approximately 6 PM on Saturday night. Since there were no parents around, we did the only sensible thing: we communed on the beach. I played songs on my guitar while everyone sang and flirted and had the time of their lives. I imagined that this must have been what it felt like to be a character in the book The Outsiders. No parents, no rules; everyone for themselves.

Jerry and his friends went cruising in their hotrod cars while the rest of us decided that we were going to spend the entire night on the beach. I had my acoustic guitar and played Dylan, Zeppelin, and Stray Cat songs. Sylv, Liza, CC, and I were singing Stray Cat Strut while some of the guys went and gathered wood for a bon fire. I thought for sure that Beach Patrol were going to bust us for using the dune fence for kindling wood, not to mention the illegal bonfire and the hell that we were going to pay from our parents for sleeping on the beach.

It was a charged atmosphere as my friends flirted as never before. It seemed that all of the friendships between the males and females were entering a new era. Everyone was so flirtatious. It was great, innocent fun!

I sat there and played my guitar as Puff (one of my cousin's friends) tried to pull the bandana off that I had tied around my neck. He didn't manage to get the bandana, however, he did manage to pull off the new diamond studded necklace that my grandmother and grandfather had bought me for my Sweet Sixteen birthday earlier in the year. I was mortified--my new necklace! How am I going to explain this one to Grandma?!

Puff, CC, Sylv, Liza, and the rest of the crew starting digging for my necklace. Someone grabbed a piece of burning wood and used it as a torch to scope over the entire area where I had been sitting. By this time, I knew Puff had accidentally buried the diamond. It was gone. I thought my life was over. I had managed to lose the necklace the first time I wore it. I thought it would be smarter to actually wear it, than to just have it sit in the gold-leaf box it came in!

My parents wouldn't care that I slept on the beach with a bunch of teenagers while basking in the glow of a burgeoning bonfire: once they found out I lost the necklace, everything else would seem like child's play. The guilt could have crushed me, but somehow I managed to let it go. Perhaps it was the rhythm of the ocean that swept it away.

We spent the rest of the night sitting by the fire, just enjoying each other's company. I still remember the maroon kindling wood crackling in the fire; the red bandana that was tied around my neck, and my battered acoustic guitar with the image of Jim Morrison painted right there on the front. I recall how laboriously Puff tried to get everyone to sing Puff the Magic Dragon while he simultaneously shouted out the chords to me. I'll never forget how giddy I felt when Puff flirted with me by trying to grab my bandana. This was the first time I ever remember truly living in the moment. I knew this was a very special moment in time that I would remember forever. My friends and I were loving life while the moonlight shimmered on the ocean and waves crashed upon the shore. What more could any sixteen year old have asked for? Everything else became extremely trivial at that point in time. I was sure some lucky fool with a metal detector was going to score big in the next day or two when he happened upon my sweet sixteen gem while scoping out the beach.

I can't visit the Jershey Shore without thinking about that night with my friends. I often wonder if my necklace has ever been found.

To be continued...

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

KISS, my arse!

During my twenties, I was a successful commercial photographer living in NYC. I was working with top of the line photographers as well as doing my own photo shoots for various international publications. Then, in 1997, a car hit me on 14th Street and Irving Place and my life was forever changed.

Since I had spent most of my years cultivating various talents and pursuing my artistic dreams, I gave little attention to my personal life. After I got back on my feet, I made a promise that I would try to live a more balanced life. I was thirty and trying to figure out how to throw myself into the dating game.

To pay the bills, I worked in computers for a while. While working in the Operations Department of a prestigious entertainment management company, I noticed that the other employees in my group spent most of their time conducting personal business on the computer. One person emailed his girlfriend all day, while another used the company computer to search for better employment. Then there was Roy. He was a pip. He spent most of his free time—which was most of the time—on a website called Edwina. This site was synonymous with Match.com, except it was for gay people.

Roy met a couple of nice people on Edwina, and kept prodding me to create an account and ‘search for love’ online. I didn’t like the idea at all; not only because I was taught to fear the unknown when I was a kid, but because I thought meeting someone online was rather artificial. It’s usually something unexplainable that attracts me to someone: maybe an interesting nose, beautiful hands, and a wonderful mind that I could sink my brain into. How could I possibly write a ‘personal ad’ and explain what I was looking for in a person when I didn’t even know what I was looking for myself?

One day, I threw caution to the wind and created an account. I don’t even remember what I wrote about myself. I probably mentioned the fact that I played guitar and that I love music, photography, reading, and writing. Within a day, I got a response. The woman’s name was Kate.

Kate said that she was in her late twenties. I must have mentioned my early childhood obsession with the rock group KISS, because the first email that I received from Kate outlined her obsession with KISS, too. She said, like me, that she had all of their albums when she was growing up. Unlike me, she was even a bonafide member of the KISS ARMY! I remember emailing her back and asking her who her favorite member of the band had been; mine was Ace. She wrote back that she liked ‘the guy who blew the fire and spit the blood.’ I thought it was endearing to have met someone who sounded really ‘with it’ and adorable, and who shared a common childhood passion.

We emailed each other for a couple of days, talking about what books we were currently reading, what movies we’d recently seen or would like to see, and what CD’s we’d most recently bought. I was in heaven—Kate loved everything that I loved! She was into everything that I was! She loved Frank Zappa, she said Albert Camus’s writing couldn’t be beat. Moreover, she was in the middle of reading The Brother’s Karamozov, just as I was!

She said she was ‘hip’. She explained that she had long brown, flowing hair. She said most people thought she looked like Veronica Hamel from Hill Street Blues fame. (I LOVED Veronica Hamel when I was a kid!)

Kate was perfect. There was just one more thing I had to find out: was she spiritual? I spent a lot of my time meditating and doing Tai’chi, not to mention that I played guitar at church on Sundays; I just wanted to know that this wouldn’t turn her off. “No!” she said, “I’m very spiritual!”

We decided to meet for a beer. I wanted to cut to the chase and ask her to meet me for dinner; however, Roy explained that it is better to go for drinks on a first date. That way, if you don’t ‘click’, you can excuse yourself after the first drink. Smart thinking on Roy’s part, but I had it in my mind that I would be calling a moving van after the first sip of beer!

I chose a bar in the East village for our rendezvous. At first glance, this bar looked like every other watering hole in the East Village, except it had an upstairs furnished with plush couches and chairs, and floor to ceiling windows. I went to the bar early and sat upstairs; gazing out the window to the sidewalk below, trying to guess which stranger was Kate.

Our date was to officially start at six o'clock. Six o'clock came and went. I walked downstairs whereupon I saw a stodgy woman in an army jacket sitting beneath the dartboard. She smiled at me as I walked by. I didn’t smile back. I was perturbed. I gave my empty glass to the bartender and walked towards the door. I turned around and looked back at the woman sitting beneath the dartboard. She smiled once more, and raised her glass. “Come here,” she said.

I put my hands in my pocket and walked over to her. She asked if I was Marcy. I nodded.

“I’m Kate. I’m sorry I was late.”

I pointed upstairs. “I was upstairs looking out the window. I guess I didn’t see you come in." I sat down at her table and stared at her for a while. There was no way she was in her late twenties. Her hair was long and brown, but it was also tangled and sprinkled with tons of gray. If this was her idea of ‘hip’, I would hate to see what her idea of out-of-date looked like. She ordered me another pint of Bass.

“So,” I said, trying to start some kind of conversation. “You’re Kate.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled as she scraped the beer label off the bottle.

“Have you ever been here before?” I asked, looking around the bar.

She looked up at me and then back at her bottle. “No. I’ve never been to the East Village.”

I knitted my eyebrows. “But, I thought you said that you loved the Ramones, and that you used to hang out down here back in the day?”

“No…I’ve never been down here before.” She looked at me and smiled. “You have beautiful eyes. They’re like ice blue, or something.”

“Thank you.” I looked at the stripes of gray in her hair. I didn’t have an aversion to gray hear, it's just that she didn't mention it while describing her long brown, flowing hair. She didn't fit her description at all.

“I don’t really look like Veronica Hamel, do I?” she inquired of me.

“Well,” I said, trying to let her down easy. “Not really, I suppose. So,” I said, as I crossed my legs and leaned in closer to her, “How did you get into KISS? My cousin gave me a double cassette of KISS ALIVE II when I was about 11 years old.”

She blushed and fidgeted her hands a bit more. “Well, I never really liked KISS. My brother was in the KISS ARMY, not me. He used to play his stereo really loud, so I always heard their music.”

“What? But…you said-

“I know, I said that I liked KISS because I knew that you liked them. I wanted to have something I common with you, you know, so you’d want to meet me.” She smiled. I looked down and noticed the antiquated peace sign she had sown onto the pocket of her olive green Army jacket.

I sat there in silence, cursing on line dating. I should have listened to reason and never created an account on Edwina, I thought to myself.

“So,” I let out a long sigh, “Was anything that you told me true? I mean, do you even like Albert Camus or Frank Zappa—“

“I like to read, and I like music. I am planning to read The Brother’s Karamozov soon. I just haven’t had the time. It’s a big book.” She took a swig of her beer.

It’s not like me to be judgmental, or cruel. However, I sat there judging the hell out of Kate and decided to be, what I would consider, cruel. I took another sip of beer, got up, said goodbye to the one who showed up late and littered my brain with lies, and walked out the door.

During the entire walk home, I kept thinking to myself--"KISS, my arse! It was all a bunch of lies. All of it!"

I contemplated my next move in the fierce domain of dating.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

Bathroom Humor (Literally Speaking!)

It was the summer of 1989. My parents were driving me to Pennsylvania to visit two of my best friends, Sylvia and Liza, who happen to be twins.

We made this trip to PA almost every summer since I was a little kid. I would usually spend a week or two at Slyv and Liza’s house, or they would spend a week or two at mine. Regardless of whether I was staying at their house or they were staying at my house, we always made the same road trip. You see, we had a ‘halfway meeting point’ called the Starlight Diner where our parents would make ‘the drop-off’.

I really hated the Starlight Diner. The food was sub par diner food, and the décor was dark and dingy; tufts of dust accented each painting hung crooked on the walls. While driving to Pennsylvania, I had a novel idea:

“Hey Dad, why don’t we try eating at a different place this time?”

“NO WAY!” he argued. “The Starlight is the exact halfway point between our house and Harrisburg!”

“Well,” I countered, “I’m not saying that we should abort our plans to make the drop-off at the Starlight, I just think that perhaps we could eat dinner at a different locale. After all, Kevin (Sylv and Liza’s father) said that they were going to eat before picking me up.”

My mom looked at my father as if my plan was the best thing she had heard in years. “Yeah, Archie, why don’t we find a new place to eat?”

My dad sulked, threw his hands up in the air and then flung them back onto the steering wheel of his ’87 Ford pickup truck. “The Starlight is the halfway point. We’ve been eating there for years. It’s always been good enough in the past!”

“Oh come on!” I protested. “I hate the Starlight! Give me a break! Their food tastes like crap!”

My mother was shaking her head. She knew that Archie and I were about to get into one of our heated debates.

“Could we PLEASE just go somewhere else so I don’t have to listen to you two argue for the next hour?” she demanded as she blew steam onto the passenger’s side window.

“Alright! Where should we go?” my dad asked in a sarcastic manner.

“I don’t know,” I retorted.

“Well, then we’re going to the Starlight.”

“Look over there!” I pointed to a sign in the near distance. “That sign says: Ed’s Pub—Best Food in Town. Let’s go there,” I suggested.

My father cut some unsuspecting car off on his right, and then swerved to make it onto the off ramp just in time to get us to Ed’s Pub parking lot without a scratch. My mother had her hands over her eyes until we came to a complete stop.

“This better be good,” my father muttered under his breath.


The first thing I noticed when we got inside Ed’s Pub was that it was very small, and very clean. It had a lot of character, which I liked. The booths were made of a dark wood, and they were big enough so that all three of us could fit comfortably. No sooner had we sat down when a server came and read us the specials of the day. We ordered some drinks, and then I excused my self to use the restroom.

I thought the bathroom was rather large for such a small establishment. There were three stalls. The first stall wasn’t occupied, but I’ve had an aversion to being in the first stall ever since I saw a horror movie in the 70’s where a woman is strangled to death when a man reaches over the stall with a thin metal wire and chokes her. The door to the second stall was closed, so I crouched down to see if I there were any feet on the floor. Sure enough, someone was already in stall number 2, so I went into the empty handicap-accessible stall at the end.

I took my time and placed ribbons of toilet paper over the seat. I was never one for squatting; I’d much rather cover the seat with tons of paper and sit. After adorning the seat with the Charmin, I sat down and began to pee. Just then, I heard the door open, and my mother call out—“Everything going okay?” She is usually quite reserved in public, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was in a playful mood.

“Yeah, right on target mom. No complications to report.”

“Good,” she replied, and I heard her enter the first stall and lock the door.

There I am in a public restroom having a conversation with my mom while a stranger is doing her business in the stall between us. All of a sudden, the women in the middle stall lets out a loud, very moist sounding, long fart. This poor woman just bottomed out. My mother begins to laugh her ass off. Then, she says, “EEEWWWW! That’s just DISGUSTING!” and continues to laugh whole-heartedly, thinking all the while that it was I who released the gaseous explosion of monumental proportions.

At this point, I’m trying to choke back the tears and hide my laughter as I realize that my mom thinks I’m in the stall beside her. She had no idea there was anyone in the restroom besides the two of us. There was no way in hell I was going to tell her any different--this was just too much fun, so I flushed the toilet and went out to the sink and washed my hands, still laughing my ass off. I just couldn’t imagine how incredibly mortified the woman in the middle stall must have been not only when she farted, but also when my mom verbalized how disgusting she thought it was!

My mom was still laughing when she said, “Oh God, that smells. You had better check your ass, young lady!” I actually began to feel sorry for my mom at this point, because she had no idea how uncomfortable she must have been making the woman in the middle stall feel.

I was crouched down almost underneath the sink, dying with laughter, when I heard and saw the bathroom stalls begin to rumble. My mom was now SHAKING the bathroom stalls and play screaming, “I’M STUCK! I’M LOCKED IN HERE! SOMEONE HELP!” I could not believe my eyes. I fell all of the way to the floor. I looked under the door of the middle stall and noticed that the woman’s feet were on tiptoes, and I just imagined her trying to climb into the toilet to make a getaway.

“Uh, mom…” I whispered.

“HELP ME! I’M STUCK IN THIS STALL! I CAN’T GET OUT!” She began shaking the stalls even more violently.

She truly was stuck. I got up off the floor and peered over the door into her stall. “Help me! The door really won’t unlock!”

“Try kicking it with your foot,” I recommended, knowing that she was much too short and way too uncoordinated to be able to kick the lock. She hit the lock one more time with her closed fist with just enough pressure to release the lock.

She came out of her stall and approached the sink. I burst into tears as I pointed to the middle stall. She turned around and looked at the door to the middle stall, then she looked back at me, then she looked back at the door, and then slowly turned her head back to me, her mouth wide open in disbelief.

“I didn’t fart!” I whispered.

“I said it was disgusting!” she whispered back. “And I was shaking the stalls!”

She was mortified. She grabbed my arm as her face transformed itself into the most embarrassed look you could ever imagine. We both darted towards the door. We made our way back to our booth. Both of us were still trying to hold back our tears of laughter. We tried to hide behind our menus; we didn’t want the woman in stall number two to eye us as she left the bathroom. Turns out the woman was actually a very attractive woman in her late thirties/early forties. She had long blonde hair, and was dressed quite respectively. I’d never imagined that the woman who released that loud explosion between her legs would have looked so distinguished. Once I got a good look at her, I hid behind my menu for another twenty minutes, at least until the tears were dried and I could control my laughter.

My mother is now in her sixties and finds it very difficult to control her flatulence while out in public. Paybacks are a bitch.

tags: humor, about me, bathroom humor, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

First Kiss: Motorbike Marcy

Back in 1979, Raleigh RAMPAR dirt bikes were all the rage. I asked Santa for a brand new, golden-yellow with red rims Rampar for Christmas, being the little dyko that I was. I woke up early on Christmas morning, expecting to find a huge box under the tree: no such luck. There were boxes of clothes, underwear, socks, a few albums, and some work boots (for my horse riding lessons), but no dirt bike. I was a bit sullen, to say the least.

After everyone finished opening his or her gifts, my dad went outside under the pretense of getting some more firewood out of the garage. He screamed—“O man! There’s another present out here for someone! Come on, everyone,” he yelled from the kitchen door, “Let’s see who it’s for!”

I envisioned my brand new bike, chrome shining in the sunlight. I pictured myself placing playing cards between the spokes to make a cool sound while I rode. I ran outside, and there it was-- my new bike! Both of my brothers were rather perturbed when they saw that their names were not on the tag. I ran over to the handlebars and read aloud: To Marcy, Love Santa. O, I was in my glory. I hopped on the bike and rode in circles on the driveway until it was time to go to Grandma Shirley’s for dinner.

Tommy stood on the front lawn in envy. He watched as I traced imaginary figure eights on the pavement. He knitted his eyebrows in anger when I began to pretend I was pumping the throttle on the handlebars and began making motorcycle noises with my voice.

“Motorbike Marcy,” he mumbled.

“What?” I smiled. “I didn’t hear you, Tommy Eddie.” I pulled up right beside him and raised my eyebrows in anticipation of learning what he had just mumbled.

“I said everyone in school is going to make fun of me because my little SISTER got a dirt bike before I did!”

“That’s not what you said! What’d you say?” We stood staring at each other with our eyebrows knitted.

“I said you look really good on that ugly thing, Motorbike Marcy!”

O SHIT! I thought. Another darn nickname to contend with—as if Lunchbox Head wasn’t bad enough!

Riding a dirt bike wasn’t the wisest thing to do in 5th grade. Not only were the boys losing interest in playing with me—because they were discovering the girlie girls—but many of my female acquaintances found my latest dirt bike transgression to be the final straw.

“It’s one thing to be obsessed with the Bionic Woman and to play with Stretch Armstrong and all, but ride a dirt bike? I don’t think so!” These words were etched into the girls faces as they watched me chain lock my bike to the rack on the first day back to school after Christmas break.

By the end of the day, my Lunchbox Head nickname was replaced with Motorbike Marcy. Tommy was in high heaven as he witnessed his friend Dwight looking at my bike while I unchained it after school.

“Motorbike Marcy…nice looking bike. What—they didn’t have any girl bikes left at the store?” He overconfidently smirked as he walked away and gave my brother a high five.

Not all of Tommy’s friends made fun of me. He did have one friend that thought it was rather neat that I had a golden yellow Rampar with red rims. His name was Billy, and he had a red Rampar with golden yellow rims. We had never conversed outside of the context of Little League, when, one day, Billy walked up to me in the hallway at school and asked if I would like to go dirt bike riding on the following Saturday.

I’m not sure if my jaw hit the ground before or after I replied, “Yes.” Was this a date? I wondered.

As planned, Billy picked me up around noon on Saturday. We rode all around town, and then finally made our way to the park behind my grandmother’s house. We rode up and down the hills; wove around the trees; and even jumped the little mound of grass that covered a large drainpipe.

At one point, all tuckered out, Billy and I rode our bikes up to the bank of the brook directly behind my grandmother’s house. We both watched the water rippling as we caught our breath. After some time, we looked into each other’s eyes, smiled, leaned in towards each other, and kissed: a little peck on the lips. It was beautiful.

Without saying a word, we put our feet to the peddles and began jumping moguls and seeing who could ride the fastest down the steepest hill in the park.

Soon after the 'first kiss incident', the Motorbike Marcy moniker was too much to bear and I sold the dirt bike to one of my older brother Jerry’s friends.

Things settled down after a few weeks: the boys began to allow me to play touch football with them again, and Tommy and his friends reverted to calling me Lunchbox Head. Never a dull moment in this bent life of mine.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

Lunchbox Head

I’ve been called many things in my life. The one name that always stands out the most is ‘Lunchbox Head’. Yes, my loving brothers bestowed that moniker upon me when I was in my early teens. Lunchbox Head: need I explain? I suppose so.

Back in the early 1970’s, the ‘shag’ hairdo was all the rage. My mother used to drive me to her friend Pearl’s house to get my ‘shag’ haircut once every several months, without fail. I didn’t mind going to Pearl’s house. She had her very own beauty parlor in the basement of her house. I liked looking at the shiny mirrors—all illuminated with light pink bulbs. The swivel chairs were fun, too. They were a shiny red material. There were pictures of James Dean and Natalie Wood on the walls. At the time, I thought for sure that she had cut their hair. Now I think not! The place looked like a hair salon straight from the 1950’s.

One of my favorite things about going to Pearl’s house was seeing her daughter, Jodie. She was twice as old as I was, and she played the guitar. I thought she was the coolest thing since sliced bread—not only because she played the guitar, but also because she was obviously into the Bionic Woman. She had long, flowing brown hair, and wore flannel shirts. I can remember one time I just stood outside her door and peeked through the threshold just far enough to watch her sitting on the bed while she played some John Denver. I was mesmerized. That was the exact moment in my life when I decided that I wanted to be a guitarist, and not a drummer!

Getting back to my haircuts-- Pearl used to give me these wild looking shag haircuts. I remember sitting in the swivel chair after the cut and thinking, ‘Wow, this is awesome! How cool! I’m gonna be a star someday!” Looking back at these old pictures, I often wonder, “Jesus Christmas, did Pearl even have a license to cut hair, or was this a mere hobby?” My haircuts weren’t as ‘cool’ as they were ‘uneven’ and ‘messy’. Unfortunately, for me, I kept getting this ‘shag’ cut well into my early teens. That’s when my brothers decided to call me Lunchbox Head. I can’t really blame them. I do have a rather polygon-esque shaped head.

I remember the first time Tom and Jerry (my brothers) called me Lunchbox Head. We were on our annual vacation down the Jersey Shore. All of us (my cousins and friends that we brought with us) were at that age where we wanted to go out cruising for people of the opposite sex (well, with one exception!). I remember standing by the side of the beach house with a ¾ sleeve baseball shirt that said, “Rock-N-Roll” in big bold letters—right above a skull that had flames coming out of the eyes (I don’t know what I was thinking…I was gonna be a rock god, remember?). A bunch of us were standing next to my mom’s blue and white Chevy Blazer, when Tommy looked at me and said, “You’re head is shaped like a lunchbox.”

To which I said, “Shut up.”

He sardonically retorted, “What’d ya say, Lunchbox Head?!”

Thus my socially crippling moniker was born. Who would possibly want to date someone with a bean shaped like a lunch box? I didn’t take it lying down. Oh no. I went out and got myself a perm (remember those?).

That only proved to make matters worse.

My new nickname became “Frizzbean.”

It wasn't easy being me. Thank God for my guitar, or I probably would have ended up a child star gone bad, even though I was only a child star in my own mind.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2005 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

Boxing Day

Kindergarten was cool. That’s where I met my first best friend, Mickey. She was a real tomboy’s tomboy: fun to play with, and fun to look at. We were soul mates, destined to make each other happy for the rest of our lives. At that age, of course, I didn’t know what being a lesbian meant any more than I knew how babies were made. However, I knew I could be myself around her, and that was a novelty for me. She loved to play baseball, wiffle ball, football, and boxing. Like me, she refused to wear dresses, preferring blue jeans and T-shirts like her older brother, Sunny. Unlike me, she did not think the purple Tough-skins were cool. She liked her blue jeans blue.

Mickey and I were the two best female athletes in our grade. Looking back, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to declare that she was the best overall athlete in our class, regardless of sex.

We were pioneers in our local Little League baseball squad. I believe we were the third and fourth girls, respectively, ever allowed to play baseball with the boys. I batted clean-up and played second base; Mickey’s third base prowess would have had A-Rod swooning, for sure.

We hardly ever hung out together in our homes. Mickey’s mom ran a flower store out of her home, and her dad was a welder, often fixing metal contraptions in the garage. The last thing they ever wanted was a couple of girls throwing a Nerf football in the house while they were working. God forbid we knocked over a vase of daisies or knocked the blowtorch out of her father’s hand. We loved to play outside, so none of this mattered to us much.

One day, we decided to go into Mickey’s room. She wanted to show me something that her brother had given to her. Wow!, I thought, we’ve been friends a whole three years and I’m finally going to see her bedroom! We climbed the stares to her cramped room. She lived in what must have been the attic before she was born (she was the youngest of four). I remember wondering what it was that her brother had given to her that would illicit an invitation to her ‘bat cave-esque’ bedroom. I stretched her Stretch Armstrong doll to full potential tautness while waiting in anticipation as she reached under her bed and pulled out a pair of old boxing gloves.

“These were Sunny’s. He said I could have them as long as I didn’t tell mom about it. She’d kill him for this!”

“Wow!” I replied as I took the gloves from her hands. “I love watching those karate movies where they fight, and stuff. These are really cool! I’ll sting ya like a bee!”

“Yeah,” Mickey took the gloves back. “So, you wanna box?”

For a split second, my heart went a-flutter. The thought of getting all sweaty and heated right in close proximity was too much for me to bear. “But there’s only one pair.”

“That’s okay, we’ll each wear one glove.” She handed me one of the dilapidated gloves. “No punching with the other hand!”

I examined my glove a little closer. It was worn, with old shoelaces on the inside of the wrist, and ‘Everlast’ stitched on the outer wrist area. We both tied each other’s glove, and then Mickey threw her first punch at my left arm.

“Ouch!” I yelled, and then countered with a punch to her ribs.

She doubled over; “No hitting in the ribs!” then threw a right hook right into my left temple.

“Hey! That really hurt!” I screamed as I put my arms around her and tackled her to the ground. I pinned her to the ground with both arms.

“No fair tackling! Get off me! You can’t do this in boxing!” she screamed.

Time stood still. Everything was in slow motion, just like when my beloved Bionic Woman ran through the wheat fields. It was as if I was having an out of body experience. I thought to myself, “I’m never getting off of you. This is where I want to be for the rest of my life!”

“Get off me, damn it! I’m gonna beat the hell out of you when I get up!” I had forgotten about Mickey’s temper. It wasn’t wise to get her mad. On the other hand, I reasoned, she might just be mad enough to wrestle me to the ground and stay on top of me for awhile. I un-pinned her and stood up.

She wiped the sweat off her brow; no such luck with being pinned by her. She threw another punch at my arm. I ducked when I saw her right arm heading towards my head again. I feverishly wrapped both arms around her torso—hey, I thought, boxers do this all of the time! The only problem, from Mickey’s point of view, was that there was no ref to get me to break my hold.

“Let go!” She began to punch my back. I let go. I didn’t want to get her mad again, as she may never have wanted to box with me again.

We boxed for another half hour. I think I pinned her to the ground seven times. By the end of our bout, she swore that she would never box with me again if I wouldn’t stop fondling wrestling her to the ground. The thought of that broke my heart.

We had one more bout before her mother found out and took the gloves away. I told Mickey not to worry—I had the solution to our ‘no more boxing’ blues.

“Mickey, why don’t we just wrestle?” I exclaimed with my eyes beaming and heart racing at the thought.


Mickey knitted her eyebrows. “I don’t think so. That’s boring”.

(BORING?!)

“Come on…it’s three o’clock,” she proclaimed. “Let’s go watch Batman.”

Even the thought of Batgirl riding her purple motorcycle couldn’t erase the bottomless pit that sat where my stomach used to be.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2006 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

A Little Bent...Defined.

People are asking, "What does A Little Bent...mean?" Well, people, if it ain't straight, it's bent! I ain't straight, therefore, I'm a little bent!

Actually, when I first came out (in my early twenties) I had a difficult time trying to tell my friends that I was a dyko. I would ultimately invite them out for coffee and then--right in the middle of some unrelated conversation--I would just blurt out "I'm a little bent, you know". My friends would respond to this declaration knitting their eyebrows and then saying, "WHAT????"

"Well, you know...I'm bent!"

"No, I don't KNOW!"

"I'm bent..." I would say, and then raise my eyebrows and nod my head, as if this would help them figure out what the hell I was trying to tell them.

"Yeah, you're bent alright--right in the HEAD."

This always got me. My friends and I have always agreed that I'm a little off in the 'noggin area. But, still, how could they not understand what I was trying to tell them? Isn't it obvious that if something is a little bent that it's not straight?


Invariably, I would have to result to telling them point blank what it was that I was trying to tell them in a more pussy-footed fashion (no pun intended). I would always wait until we were in the middle of another unrelated discussion, then I would hit them with it:

"I'm GAY."

I would sit there, biting my lip in anticipation of them doing one of three things: either throwing their coffee at me and running out of the coffee shop all irate and dismayed; asking me how long I knew and why I didn't tell them sooner; or saying 'eew, you're not attracted to me, are you?' Of course, none of these three things ever happened. The only response I ever got from my declaration of being bent was this (and I quote):

"No sh*t!"

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2005 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.

The Day Tom and Jerry Threw Me Into A Garbage Can

Yes, it's true, I have two brothers named Tom and Jerry. Not quite as funny as my friend Anne who has three brothers named Tom, Dick, and Harry (no joke!), but funny, nonetheless.

Tom and Jerry are older than me. When we were kids, I wanted to be just like them. They played with Tonka toys, and so did I. They wore Tough-Skins (Sears brand blue jeans) and so did I--except mine had to be purple, not blue. They both played little league, and so did I. It's probably true that my mother must have been a bit dismayed at my Christmas lists to Santa when I was a child:

"Dear Santa,
I was a very good girl this year. Therefore, I would like a brand new, shiny yellow Tonka dump truck; a new baseball mitt with Rusty Staub's autograph right there in the palm of the hand; and how 'bout a new pair of purple Tough-Skins (my last pair ripped while playing touch football with the boys during lunch recess).
Thank you!
Marcy_Peanut"

My brothers didn't really like playing with me. They used to invite me to play wiffle-ball home run derby with them, but I always had to be the pitcher and the outfielder, all at once. Mind you, my brothers were both award winning baseball players; I never got up to bat.

Tom was the worst. He really despised having a younger sister. He once pulled the ultimate form of treason by giving my entire KISS album collection to his buddy Dwight. I WAS LIVID! Luckily, mom intervened and got the records back. Not without a fight from Tom, though.

Tom enjoyed wrestling with me, without my permission, of course. I would be sitting there in front of the TV watching Batman and Robin reruns (hoping to get a glimpse of Batgirl in her way cool purple body suit and purple motorcycle!) and Tom would pick me up and say, "You can't beat me! You don't even know how to wrestle! I'm gonna win this match for sure!" Then he would pile drive me into the floor as if he was Ivan Putski.

Tom and Jerry never wanted to play with me because they enjoyed playing with each other. They saw no need for a third wheel. Don't get me wrong, I do have wonderful childhood memories of Tom and Jerry. They are the best brothers anyone could ever ask for. But that's not the focus of this post, is it?

There was this one particular memory that I was too young to remember. My mom tells the story the best, since she witnessed it first hand. This story is forever referred to as 'the garbage can incident'. I was one and a half years old. This is how it unfolded:

My mom was washing dishes in the kitchen, while Tom and Jerry were playing outside and I was somewhere roaming around the living room. Jerry came running into the house and grabbed my mom by her shirt sleeve--

"Mom, can we please play with Marcy_Peanut?"

My mom knitted her eyebrows. Tom and Jerry had never asked to play with me before. She looked perplexed as she stared at Jerry and asked, "Why the sudden interest in Marcy_Peanut? You're usually happiest when she's sitting on the floor staring at the corner of the living room wall."

"We love her. She's our sister!"

Mom was quite interested to see what the boys were up to, so she said, "Uh...Yeah. You can take Marcy_Peanut outside. But no funny business--you hear me?"

"Yeah...Of course not!" beamed Jerry, his smile a mile wide.

My mom helped me put my jacket on and let Jerry lead me outside. Mom stared out the kitchen window for awhile, trying to figure out what they had planned for me. She was focused on washing the dishes when she heard a loud thump! She looked out the window. She couldn't believe her eyes. Tom and Jerry had put me in a metal garbage can. They got a piece of rope from the garage and tied one end to the metal handles of the garbage can, then swung the other rope over a sturdy tree branch. My mom stared in awe as she saw the boys lift the garbage can up, pulling on the rope with all of their might, as I stood in the garbage can holding on for dear life!

My mom said she couldn't believe what she was seeing: "I can't believe the boys are smart enough to figure out how to make a homemade pulley system. What brilliance!" She watched them pull me up into the air and basked in their ultimate genius one last time before she ran out and made them stop. "This looks like a lot of fun, boys, but I think it's a bit dangerous."

Yeah, just a bit.

My family members often say that I'm bent because of the trauma I endured during 'the garbage can incident'. They're jesting, of course, but there's no telling what effect this act of 'genius' had on my young brain. I guess we'll never know, will we? ;)

Garbage can illustration downloaded from: http://ts.smoothcorp.com/
Tom and Jerry downloaded from: http://www.fse.ulaval.ca/aedepul/Photos2/tom%20et%20jerry.jpg

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

©2005 Marcy_Peanut. All rights reserved.