“Well, they are the superior race.”
The second scene was our favorite for its pure absurdity and aggressive sex. It featured Sam, played by some catfishy mustachioed guy in a royal blue polo shirt (identical to the one I had just changed into!), and an actress named Purple Passion, who quickly became our hero. She was black and spoke with an exotic accent (which I recently learned was from Baltimore). They were in the clubhouse bar and Purple Passion was putting the moves on him. Sam started off the scene by mumbling, “Hellacious caddy, hellacious caddy.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Lisa asked.
“He’s setting the scene, letting us all know what a bad caddy she is, which does seem like a mean thing to say while she’s rubbing all up against him.”
“Prick.”
Then we had to stop the tape and rewind it a few times because we couldn’t understand what Sam was saying. It took us a solid ten minutes to determine that he had muttered: “I like to putt with holes this stiff.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lisa said. “He must’ve screwed up his line. It was probably, I like to putt with poles this stiff. Not holes.”
“You don’t putt with a golf pole. You putt with a putter.”
“Who cares? I hate golf, and this guy is obviously drunk.”
Sam and Purple get down to business, despite the fact that Lisa and I agreed Purple Passion could have scored a better-looking dude. She seemed like the type of girl we could hang out with, if there were any black kids at our school. Everyone we knew was Italian, Jewish, or Puerto Rican. A black porn star friend would have been fun.
While she’s having sex with the drunk golfer, apropos of absolutely nothing, Purple Passion declares: “It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me havin’ the body.”
This line outraged Lisa so much that she demanded I stop the tape.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“She missed her opportunity for the best line in this whole stupid movie! She should have said, ‘It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me knowin’ the strokes!’?”
“Yes!” I yelled, startling the dog, who up until this point had been asleep, despite all the sex noises blaring from the TV. “It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me knowin’ the strokes! Of course! I just fucking love you.”
It was true. I did love her, not in any sort of romantic way, but for her wit and her grumpiness and her loyalty and her dependability. She was The Id, and I was The Ego. And tonight we were operating free of The Superego, who was probably fast asleep in her bed, dreaming of making sweet love to a nervous-looking man with glasses on a bed of iceberg lettuce. Or romaine, which would be fancier.
Lisa went home after we finished watching the movie for the second time. Cathy the Caddy thinks about quitting, but then she decides not to. That’s the entire plot. I told Lisa I would return the tape on my way to work the brunch shift the next morning.
“Give me one ring when you get home so I know you’re not dead,” I told her.
Lisa rolled her eyes.
But a few minutes later, the phone rang once, and I curled up on the couch where she had been sitting, shut off the lights, and fell asleep.
TURD IN THE PUNCHBOWL
Had I known when my alarm rang that Paula Deen was going to ruin my Wednesday, I probably would have just said fuck it and gone back to bed.
“Oh, my Goddddd,” I groaned. “I’m so tiiiiired.” It was 6:15, about the same time I wake up every morning, give or take fifteen minutes. Usually, I spring out of bed with considerable energy, the source of which mystifies me, but not today. Mary had kept me up half the night by wedging herself right up against my kidneys.
Damon was already awake; he had an early patient. “I was waiting for your alarm to go off so I could make coffee,” he said.
In normal living conditions, at least in Western society, one half of a couple can make coffee in the morning without waking the other, but when we renovated our apartment I had the brilliant idea of configuring it as one big, open space. “We’re going to honor the architectural history of the neighborhood and create an authentic Tribeca loft,” I had told anyone who would listen. “The bed will be right smack in the middle of the room. It’s going to be superchic.”
Five years later I want to kick myself in the nuts for sounding like a pretentious asshole. I just hope that eventually we can sell it to another pretentious asshole for three times what we paid for it. But because of the floor plan—which is no floor plan—Damon and I need to be on the same sleep schedule, lest one of us do something ridiculous like open the refrigerator and shine the light in the other’s slumbering face.
The coffeemaker, one of those all-in-one numbers that grinds beans, brews espresso, and steams milk, roared and hissed. A few minutes later, latte in hand, Damon sat at the foot of the bed. “Bad night’s sleep?” he asked.
“Yeah, thanks to this pain in the ass,” I answered, referring to Mary, who was listening intently. “Do you see how much room she’s taking up? I’m literally hanging off the side of the bed.” I wasn’t exaggerating. My left arm and shoulder were off the mattress.
“You know, you can train her to sleep on the floor,” he said.
“No, I can’t, Damon,” I said, enunciating both syllables of his name. “She’s been sleeping in our bed for the last seven years. What’s she gonna think when all of a sudden we just throw her on the floor? I’ll tell you what she’s gonna think: She’s gonna think we don’t love her anymore and then she’ll get depressed and wish she was never born.”
Damon told me I was projecting. Or anthropomorphizing. Maybe both. I don’t know. I kind of zoned out, as I usually do at this point in this particular conversation. See, most of the time I enjoy being married to a psychologist. Damon is the most thoughtful, kind, supportive, introspective man I have ever met. When we argue, which is rarely, I find myself saying things like, “I’m sorry for acting out, but I’m frustrated by the events of the day,” or “Let’s step back and examine our rage for a moment.” It’s actually kind of amazing. But when Damon has the audacity to imply that my relationship with Mary is slightly cuckoo, I want to rip out a chunk of his perfect hair.
I’m not an idiot. I know everyone thinks Mary is a dog. And she may very well be, but there’s also a very distinct possibility, as far as I’m concerned, that she’s a human being trapped in a thirteen-pound Jack Russell terrier’s body, albeit a human being who’s obsessed with smelling random puddles of piss on the sidewalk. And so I give her everything she could ever need to live an emotionally fulfilling life: organic freeze-dried chicken, filtered water, treats baked in small batches by local artisans, weekend hikes on the Appalachian Trail, spa days, et cetera.