I was raised in church. And you tried to hold my hand in the middle of that one service I took you to, the one during which my sister led the choir in a rousing rendition of a song I’m pretty sure was called “Jesus Does Not Like Lesbians,” so I’m confident in saying that you’ve never been to church a day in your life. If I had to declare a religion for a census, I’d probably choose “agnostic,” because the parts of the Bible I’ve read are just, like, a really boring soap opera that’s dragged on for too many seasons, but I refuse to believe it’s a coincidence that when R and I broke up in the front seat of his Pontiac “Breakdown” by Mariah Carey came on the radio at the exact moment he was avoiding eye contact and mumbling, “I don’t think this is gonna work out, dawg.” To which I very earnestly responded, in song, “I be feelin’ like you bringing me down, taking me around, stressin’ me out; I think I better go and get out and let me release some stress (stress),” in time with the music. If that isn’t the universe intervening to keep me from beating a motherfucker to death with a broken window scraper, I don’t know what is. I sat there for the last 1:47 of the song with the door cracked and sang my lungs out while R provided backing vocals before I got out. And then we never spoke again. LOOK AT GOD.
Even though I don’t care about organized religion, I still feel some type of way when people who weren’t forced to sit in stiff ruffles and too-tight patent leather mary janes for four hours every Sunday morning get to just, you know, buy an Easter basket without having done any of the work. Those jelly beans and Cadbury eggs were my annual reward for memorizing the Twenty-third Psalm and not falling asleep during Sunday school, and yet somehow there are kids who get to sleep in every weekend and have never had to identify Bible passages from memory who get the same number of jelly beans I do?! It doesn’t even matter, but I resented it. How did you earn those Christmas presents if you’ve never had to spend hours after school making a life-size diorama of the manger that will be displayed in the church’s vestibule three weeks past the time it should’ve been carted down to the basement?
—
Here’s how we’re going to celebrate holidays: Sunday mornings I’m going to walk around yanking curtains open at the crack of dawn, singing “Victory Is Mine” and cooking eggs and bacon while bumping the gospel station at top volume, then I’ll rush you to get dressed because we need to get to service in time to get my favorite seat behind Sister Augustine. We’re going to leave our phones at home, get to church at ten thirty on the dot, tithe our combined 20 percent, kneel before the pastor during altar call, “mm-hmm” during the good word, then go home at four to eat dinner and watch some wholesome TV. Touched by an Angel or some shit. After many months of this, then, and only then, will you have earned the right to call that dried-up spruce the cats keep launching themselves into a “Christmas tree.”
5. Is my debt your debt? Would you be willing to bail me out?
Bail you out of what, jail? Yes, of course, especially since I like to keep a bail bondsman on the payroll at all times just in case.
The smartest decision I have ever made in my entire dumb life was dropping out of college. Other than a few early mistakes that are being excised from my virtually nonexistent credit file every year—why did I ever agree to have a home phone with a roommate who ran up $700 in international calls?—I don’t have a single crushing financial obligation. No student loans, no tax liens, no baby mamas snatching up half my check. And see, the way my money is set up? Your debt is gonna have to be yours, champ. Unless I get to claim that master’s degree, too.
This is not to say that I won’t lavish you with gifts and pay for exotic vacations to places in America that have large black populations, but I’m not filing my taxes jointly ever. First of all, I like to do that work on the Internet and keep it moving. I saw you sitting at the dining room table with your old-timey visor and graphing calculator adding up expenses and sorting through receipts, and, yeah, I’m never going to do that. It relaxes me to think that by paying the most possible taxes, I’m keeping my karma right, so just let me live with that delusion. Second, I want to have a secret bank account for emergencies like Miu Miu sunglasses and last-minute reservations at Maude’s, and I’m pretty sure you don’t live like that. You pay off your credit card balance every month and none of your bills are behind, so shouldn’t I really be asking this of you? I will give you whatever you need, provided that you catch me after my direct deposit clears but before the Old Navy coupon codes hit my in-box. If you need money the same day Lane Bryant does their semiannual bra sale you better wake up early in the morning to ask me for it, because as soon as I wipe the sleep out of my eyes I’ma be clickety-click clacking. Do you know how expensive keeping my nipples off my kneecaps is?! So do what you can to plan your emergencies around sale season.
6. What’s the most you would be willing to spend on a car, a couch, shoes?
I wear one pair of shoes. One pair only, every day, unless it’s snowing. And even then I change out of my boots and back into my one pair of shoes as soon as I’m safely out of the elements. I have one pair of Finn Comfort Augustas, they cost $375 a pop, and I replace that pair annually. Who knows if I’ll remain faithful to you, but I will never cheat on these perfect shoes ever. They come from a place in the suburbs called Waxberg’s, where a gentleman named Irving measures my feet and watches me walk and forbids me from ever having another pair of flip-flops cross the threshold of my home. I’m not trying to put too fine a point on it, but these jams changed my life. If they went up to $500, I’d still buy them. I might have to cancel my Spotify to work them into the budget, but it can be done.
I’ve already bought a couch for you and that couch was $900. So…$900.