Don't Mince Words

In Los Angeles, we don’t make a move in our car without checking SigAlert. This useful website helps us plan around idiot drivers. What it doesn’t help with is the trouble we may find when we reach our destination.

I agreed to drive to Long Beach for a first date tonight. Going 34 miles in 80 minutes is good during rush hour. But I knew as soon as I got to the bar, the only thing this trip was good for would be the beer I would need to get through the date.

When he answered his cell phone, it was over. But traffic wasn’t. So I sat there another 40 minutes listening to a me-monologue while I mentally mapquested my way back home.

Without SigAlert as a gauge, I got out after my second beer and made it home in record time. I have good instincts for traffic and bad dates.

More than four years ago, I planned a well-deserved vacation to Mexico with two girlfriends. We had all been working hard and were ready to play hard.

As part of our “fun” incentive package, I went to Target and got an economy box of condoms for us. Our goal was finish the box by the end of the week. I knew it was statistically improbable that each of us would have sex 2.7 times a day.

But a girl(s) can dream.

By day three, it was pretty apparent that we were not going to achieve our goal, so we started giving out the condoms as gag tips. I brought the rest home.

While I was packing for my recent vacation, I decided to pack a few condoms, just in case. My Mexican condoms were in the mix and had expired… in April. Four years later and I STILL couldn’t finish the box off.

But the condoms will not go to waste. I’m going to get some classy Cranes stationery and tape the expired Trojan inside with a note to Anne and Monica to remember to get laid more often.

I had a great vacation. The condoms I packed don’t expire until ’08. Hopefully I can meet that goal because you know an unused Trojan is a terrible thing to waste.

I realized the other day that my “monthly” bleeding has had approximately a 360 month run. That’s a 30-year term. Will I ever hold the deed to my pussy? Will Proctor & Gamble release the consumer stronghold it has on my bleed box?

I did some basic math and determined I’ve spent $2,156.50 on feminine products in my lifetime. That excludes the bushels of underwear I’ve ruined not to mention the sheets downgraded to never-for-guests. That figure excludes the iron pills I’ve had to take to keep from being anemic or the Ortho Novum 135s I’d take for period control. I’ve also excluded doctor office copays where I’d check in to see if there were any new medical developments to make the bleeding subside.

Thirty years later and not much has changed. I feel like a walking waterbed two days before. I want to kill humans and eat chocolate on day one. I want to sleep day two. I speculate on day three if my 40 box will last me.

Today I know that my feminine consumerism could of bought 15 kegs of good import beer, 70 tanks of gas, about four pairs of Manolo Blahnik’s, or more than 2,000 Kit Kat bars.

I’m ready for a reverse mortgage so I can buy back my life, my pussy, and something cool that doesn’t come with a cardboard applicator.

Dating is an exhausting exercise, but I support my friends as they venture out there. What is more tiring is when they have a bad experience and state, “I thought this kind of crap only happened to you, Marna.”

Once again, I have to repeat IT’S BAD ALL OVER.

Marci was approached online by a hospital social worker that lives east of New Haven, Conn. Marci is on the upper east side of Manhattan. They spent a week talking on the phone and Social Worker decided to take the train down and take her out for the day and then they’d have dinner. Seemed like an innocent proposition and a typical New York weekend: walk around/eat.

He arrived nervous and it never stopped. He directed his behavior into a few verbal assaults, which finally sent Marci over the edge. She stopped the date and asked him what his problem was. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pill bottle and said, “I didn’t take my Xanax this morning.”

She asked him to take his meds. He then revealed he has had depression since birth, severe anxiety, OCD, and a sleeping disorder. He also hasn’t worked in a year. Marci told him she could almost tolerate the medical disorders, but lying about his employment was a deal breaker.

“But I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t go out with me,” he said.

His send off was classic. “All those nights we talked on the phone were long distance calls for me and I can’t afford it. Do you think you could call me? Will you call me?” he asked.

Instead, Marci emailed me and I had a telephonic intervention with her while he was on a train north. She’s done with dating, she says. “This should have been your date. You would have had fabulous new, insane material,” Marci added.

Well, Marci, I haven’t had a date in more than a month. Thanks for reminding me what’s out there. This blog’s for you.