And after one meeting, in a discussion of cab-sharing with some other members, I said, “We live in the West Village.”
I we’ed them!
And at the Mikado sing-through last summer, they asked how we each came to love Gilbert & Sullivan, I recalled my friend’s answer:
“We actually met our freshman year of college in a production of Pirates of Penzance. I was a pirate—”
“—and I was a maiden,” I chimed in.
“We got paired up for the Act 1 finale dance—”
“—and he almost dropped me!”
“I did, I almost dropped her. But we’ve been big fans ever since.”
We told them our meet-cute.
At that moment, I realized that we had accidentally scammed the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of New York, a group of perfectly lovely senior citizens.
We are so going to hell.
When it’s time to renew, I swear, we will definitely spring for two individual memberships. Right now, I’m too embarrassed to correct them.
Someday, we’ll break it to them that we were never a couple and we won’t be giving birth to the next generation of modern, major, millennials.
Maybe when they’re older.
Adventures in Herpetology
Lisa
I have a new boyfriend.
Unfortunately, he’s a snake in the grass.
Literally, not figuratively.
I divorced my figurative snakes.
Let me explain.
Spring has sprung, and last week on St. Patrick’s Day, I went out to my garden. I hadn’t done any gardening yet, which if you recall from last season, is not my forte.
I started a perennial garden that’s perennially horrible.
My problem seems to be one of excess, in that I do too much of everything. I don’t water plants, I waterboard plants.
But hope springs eternal, just like weeds, and I went out to my garden last week to start all over again. The garden is right outside my front door, divided in two sides by my front walk, and it was mostly brown after winter. But it was green in spots, and I went into the garden and started to look really closely, to see if anything was growing.
I thought I saw something moving, but I figured it was my imagination.
So I looked closer.
It wasn’t. It was a little green tip of something, sticking out from under a rock, and on impulse, I moved the rock.
And freaked the hell out.
Because right before me was a writhing mass of full-grown snakes.
I ran screaming back into the house.
By the way, recall that it was St. Patrick’s Day and the legend of St. Patrick is that he drove the snakes from Ireland.
Evidently, he drove them into my garden, where they have taken up residence.
I stood inside the house, shuddering and watching the spot where the snakes had been, but it was hard to see them from a distance. I couldn’t tell what kind of snakes they were, which worried me. If they were garter snakes, I could pretend that none of this had happened and go about my life.
Of course, I was doubting that I would ever garden again.
Or even walk to my front door.
Not to mention that I’ve been thinking about adding a little room onto the front of my house that I’ve been calling the garden room, so that I could see the garden from the kitchen.
Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the garden.
Ever again.
But if the snakes were poisonous, then I supposed I would have to call an exterminator, which I didn’t want to do. I like living things too much to kill them, even a snake.
That’s just how I feel about animals.
There are, however, a few people who remain excellent candidates for homicide.
But I hear that’s against the law.
To return to point, I got my courage up, went back outside, and stood at a safe distance to see what the snakes were up to. They were all gone except for one, slithering on top of the stone wall around the garden.
At first he gave me the creeps, but the more I looked at him, the less scared I got of him. He was green and black, so I figured he was a garter snake and he wouldn’t try to kill me, so I wasn’t going to kill him. Then I took pictures and videos of him, and in short order, he became the most photographed snake in the world.
If you don’t count certain politicians.
Take your pick.
My lips are sealed.
Actually, they’re sssssssseealed.
To make a long story short, I spent a lot of time watching that snake, and the next thing I knew, he was actually watching me.
I’m not kidding.
His face was turned in my direction, and his dark eyes looked at me directly, or as directly as they could, given that one eye is on the left side of his head and the other’s on the right.
It’s not an attractive look for anybody but a snake.
Plus he had a little red forked tongue, which he flicked in and out.
Sexy.
I mean, this was the Bradley Cooper of snakes.
And you know what?
I’m going to keep him.
And in the end, maybe I turned out to be a great gardener.
Because I grew snakes.
The Scent of a Woman
Lisa
Did you hear about the new dating service?
It works by smell.
In other words, it stinks.
Literally.
It’s called “smell dating” and has a website all its own, which has a very large picture of nostrils.
I’m not kidding.
Don’t turn your nose up.
In fact, it’s probably no worse a way to find a mate than the ways I found them, which led to Thing One and Thing Two.
And two divorces.
As I’ve said, I don’t regret the divorces.
I regret the marriages.
I didn’t notice the smell.
But the flies did.
Anyway, to stay on point, there is actually a new thing called smell dating, which advertises itself as “the first mail odor dating service.”
Get it?
And how it works is that you send the company twenty-five dollars and they send you a shirt to wear for three days and three nights, without deodorant.
So far, so good.
I have twenty-five dollars and I have been known to not change my shirt for three days and three nights.
In fact, while we’re oversharing, I don’t wear deodorant anymore. Call me crazy but I don’t want to smear aluminum chlorohydrate, parabens, propylene glycol, triclosan, triethanolamine, and diethanolamine on my armpits.
I save that stuff for my breasts.
Just kidding.
God intended me to sweat, and I like it that way.
Lucky for me, everyone I live with feels the exact same way.
Oh, wait.
I forgot.
I live alone.
There is no relationship between these facts.
It’s not my smell that compels my solitude.
It’s my choice.
Or maybe it’s my personality, but that’s neither here nor there.
I know I’m not the only woman who doesn’t want to wear deodorant because I noticed that there’s a new company that has sprung up to market a natural deodorant made of charcoal.
I’ve yet to do this. I’m not sure that smearing charcoal on my underarm is an improvement on perspiration.
But it will come in handy in time for summer barbecuing.
The truth is, I hardly sweat because I sit on my butt all day long and the only part of me that moves is my fingers.
And when I do sweat, it smells like rainbows and rose petals.
I know this because the dogs told me.