“My dad had anger problems, so his doctor recommended he go to mime school to learn how to deal quietly with his emotions. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that everyone doesn’t have this memory of taking mime classes with their angry dad.”
“I don’t like mimes. I don’t like the fact that they fake a disability.”
“Right? Why stop at mimicking the mute? Where are the clowns pretending to have polio?”
“I once slept with this guy who had an ENORMOUS penis. Like, it was a problem. The condoms wouldn’t even fit. I was so overwhelmed that I accidentally laughed at it. Then it shrunk. He was not pleased.”
“That should be a comic book. Penis giganticus is his superpower, and women laughing at it is his kryptonite.”
“Do you ever get on the subway and think, ‘Who is that guy in the back? He looks familiar. Did I sleep with him?’ That happens to me all the time.”
“No. That’s never happened to me. Whore. But it has happened to me on the bus a lot.”
The final hour:
As we all dragged our luggage out to the waiting vans, I looked with a surprising amount of affection on these women who only days ago I would have immediately dismissed as being snobby or mean, but who all turned out to have backstories and struggles just as damaged or bizarre as my own. Sure, I was the only person there with just one small carry-on and a single pair of shoes. But I was embarrassed to realize that those things that set me apart from other girls had turned from what I’d considered “self-proclaimed badges of honor” into defensive shields that I had used to keep others out. I’d used those same shields to judge and dismiss people who I suspected had more than me, in the exact same way that I’d been judged for having less as a kid.
I tossed my small bag in the van and went back to help my newfound friends with their enormous luggage sets and hanging garment bags, and they smiled in appreciation, shocked that I’d managed to pack for such a long trip using only one small bag. I smiled back in silence and felt a little guilty at their praise. They may have all had suitcases three times as big as mine, but I realized that the emotional baggage I’d brought with me was big enough to put theirs to shame. It was a little lighter, though, now that I was leaving.
I was leaving behind my assumptions that only snobby, rich people liked wine, and that everyone would immediately break into cliques based on who had owned the right kind of underwear. And most important, I was leaving behind the idea I’d been carrying around for years that girls were not to be trusted. Yes, some girls could be complete douche-canoes, but so could some guys (and even some babies, apparently), and I was slowly losing a prejudice that I hadn’t even realized was holding me back. Girls were fine and (until proven to be assholes on an individual basis) were worthy of my trust. Women were great and relatively harmless.
It’s the four a.m. vampire cougars in the woods you really need to be worried about.
1. Really, all five came back, but this way sounds more dramatic.
I Am the Wizard of Oz of Housewives (In That I Am Both “Great and Terrible” and Because I Sometimes Hide Behind the Curtains)
Victor and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a clean house.