It's After 1 AM

I should be sleeping. In fact, I am rather tired. However, some douche bags at the Department of Transportation decided that my street should be jackhammered at times when very few drivers will want to use it. Fuck the people who live nearby and our desire to sleep at night. We are utterly unimportant.

Goddamn bumpy rashes on shaved twat. (See below for explanation of this fine new phrase I incorporated into my list of excellent phrases I must use as frequently as possible.) I hate people.

See Prior Post Before Reading This

PS – Runners up for this week are:

• rubbing dick against her pantyhose on the subway - Can I just say, EWWWWW!


• ”whipped cream” snatch - Sounds like an interesting sculpture, doesn’t it? Steph had a friend in college who used to create ice cream vaginas out of soft serve. Just saying.


• stuffing balloons in vagina - I hope not ones that are filled with helium, as I would hate for any woman to be lifted afloat by her crotch. Also, I would not put it past this searcher to try and ingest the helium while it is in the cootch.


• cootie catcher template wedding - What the fuck? I hope it was a fun reception.


• bumpy rash on shaved twat - I believe I will now refer to my enemies as “bumpy rashes on shaved twat”


• "jewish pussy" - An old favorite search term of mine, I still wonder how the searcher can be sure that he/she is really seeing Jewish pussy. I’m fairly sure that Jewish pussy looks like other pussy. Remember, our horns are on our heads. Yeesh.


• huge largest titanic titties - Ever heard of overkill? I guess if someone really wants to be sure to get the biggest breast available on the web, you can’t take chances.

"Granny's squirting"

I don’t know whether to cry or celebrate, but I did a Google search on unshaved snatch and CUSS is the very first site that appears. Seriously, I outrank the porn sites...

Anyway, for Wednesday Search Term Wackiness, my favorite wacky search term from the last few days that brought someone to this fine site is: granny’s squirting. Was my Floridian friend actually looking for a specific granny who is squirting, as his/her punctuation would indicate, or did he/she really seek multiple grannies who squirt? I think that the odds of women squirting decrease with age, as menopause can dry things up in the old honey hole, so I am curious how “granny” is defined. (I hate when women in their 40s are described as “grannies,” although it is of course biologically possible that they are actual grandmothers.)

Or maybe I am completely misunderstanding the nature of the information sought, and the searcher was looking for grannies with water guns, and I don’t mean hermaphrodite older women, although that would be a rather interesting topic.

Fröhliche Halloween, Meinen Liebchens

Halloween means that it is time to reach into the back of my closet and dust off the dirndl. Ah, the dirndl. About five or six years ago, back when I had hair long enough to braid, Husband and I hosted an Oktoberfest party. We wanted to look “authentic,” so he bought a Tyrolean hat at a costume shop, an Alpine-looking vest at the City Opera thrift shop, and fashioned some lederhosen out of a pair of shorts and suspenders. Of course, no German costume would be complete without a fake mustache. (Unfortunately, I can’t show this online, but it looks a lot like what Amy Poehler referred to as “a thin vagina mustache” when she described Brazilian waxing in Bust magazine.)

I found a dirndl on eBay. At first, being the cheap bastard I am, I was not willing to spend the $25 required to win the damn outfit. My logic was that I would only wear it once. Also, it seemed that the frock would either just fit me or just not fit me. In the end, it was so awesome that I threw all caution to the wind and got it, and it turned out to be one of those brilliant purchases that you can milk for years, even though it seemed wildly impractical at the time.

Basically, the dirndl and I were meant to find each other. It had been altered before I received it (and not by a talented tailor, either - the seams inside the dress are a disaster), but it fit me exactly, like it had been tailored for me specifically. Sure it was tight, but dirndl’s are supposed to fit like a second skin, which brings me to today.

When I first wore the dirndl, I was at the start of my mysterious digestive ailment and working out a lot and in great shape. (Of course, I thought I was fat back then. Sigh.) I am not so svelte these days, and not sure I could stuff myself into the dress for yet another year. Lo and behold, although I look slightly demented, can barely breathe, and had to re-pin the apron hooks in the back to give me another half inch or so, but I am in it. I think I need to stay away from the candy, though, unless I want to burst out of it before tonight.

Happy Halloween!

The Trouble with My Vagina (Not a Personal Story)

The Insomniac burned me a copy of a British documentary called The Trouble with My Vagina on my last day of work, which I described earlier this month. A better going away present could not be given, although she was also kind enough to give me a stylish backpack with a laptop compartment as well. I departed the next day to visit my family in Chicago, and believe it or not, I completely forget to what I anticipated as a compelling documentary. Ridiculous, I know, but then again, I was traumatized by Cookie Puss, so I will use my subsequent night sweats as my excuse.

Fortunately, the voice behind Fearful Symmetries is not a senile idiot like me who forgot to watch a documentary that he had been giddy over. (I am extrapolating here.) In fact, the documentary was so good that it inspired a three-part post to deal with all the issues it raised. Very exciting stuff, with pictures (so you may not want to click over to this while you are at work, unless you have a very understanding employer or are passively-aggressively trying to get fired, as I unsuccessfully tried at one point.)

One day, I will remember to watch The Trouble with My Vagina. If you live in New York City, you are welcome to join me. We will cover our eyes and scream as wax is applied to perfectly good cootch and normal labia are chopped up by greedy plastic surgeons. Even Cookie Puss is not this scary.

Technology Issues

Sure, I owe many things to Blogger. I would not have met many of you fine people without my Blogger blog. But as every silver lining has a dark cloud (or every unshaved snatch has a nasty critic), lately Blogger has made my life miserable by refusing to post my genius output (cough cough) in a timely fashion. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved, but please be patient if you don't see my usual 1-3 posts per day.

As an aside, Melissa at Sugared Harpy told me that she threw in the towel with Blogger some time ago and switched to wordpress. She assured me that it was easy and that she is not a techie, although also noted that she has to post through FTP. I don't entirely know what that means, but if it fucking works consistently, I'll learn how to do it too. If I do make the switch, CUSS will still be found at www.cussandotherrants.com, since I already use a remote host. Hopefully, it will be a smooth transition (if it happens), as Big O already said he will yell at me if he does not have access to CUSS for a day. (Isn't that sweet? Seriously, I am touched.)

If you recently set up a blog using Blogger based on my advice and want to kill me, I understand. If you ever switched from Blogger to WordPress or already use WordPress, I'd love to hear more.

Non Sequitur

Who needs an imagination when so many random things fall into my lap? From a phone call with my mom:

The scene: Mom, Granny, and Bubbe eating dinner at a restaurant in the Chicago ‘burbs.

Granny: I’m so full. This food is so rich!
Bubbe: Your pussy is hairy.
Mom and Granny: WHAT?!?!?!
Bubbe (smiling wickedly): Cackle cackle cackle.

This is the quality material I miss witnessing firsthand by living in another part of the country. (Or as Granny might say, CUNT-ry.)

Weltschmerz, Indeed!

The Sauce emailed me Merriam Webster’s word of the day from October 22, and I thought it perfectly described how I often feel these days, as well as why I love the German language:

weltschmerz \VELT-shmairts\ noun, often capitalized

1 : a mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state
2 : a mood of sentimental sadness

Did you know?
The word "weltschmerz" initially came into being as a by-product of the Romanticism movement in Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The poets of the Romantic era were a notably gloomy bunch, unwilling or unable to adjust to those realities of the world that they perceived as threatening their right to personal freedom.

"Weltschmerz," which was formed by combining the German words for "world" ("Welt") and "pain" ("Schmerz")….

Many people shit on German as a language, saying that, like unshaved snatch, it is not pretty or elegant. And like unshaved snatch, I love it because it is in your face. It is what it is; there’s no dicking around, trying to sound all fancy schmancy.

Although I admit that weltschmerz also makes me think of splooge. “Schmerz” is just a very gushy and gooey sounding word, isn’t it?

Earnest Advice from a Naive Co-Ed

The first sex column I wrote when I was at NYU. Read it and weep (with tears of laughter). That's how I do it...

Sexuality on campus demands an open forum
The Washington Square News
Thursday, Sept. 7, 1995

Sex. It’s everywhere. Sex is on TV, in the movies, and in at least three out of every four popular songs released. It is used to sell everything from blue jeans and perfume to kitchenware and furniture. Recently, sex even began to be used in commercials to sell [Gasp!] condoms. Because our culture is so saturated with images and metaphors of sex, one would think that everyone in the U.S. has all the facts about sex and was very comfortable talking about the subject. However, this is one of the many wonderful ironies in America: we are surrounded by images of sex and sexuality, but are uncomfortable discussing it. Most Americans seem to know everything and nothing about sex at the same time.

Hence, it is important to talk about sex. In a country where rates of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and rape soar, it is even more important that it is discussed in an open, honest manner.

There is plenty of “talk” about sex in America: whether it is actually myth or fact-based is another story. The messages we get about sex from the media, which are unfortunately the many people a main source of sexual information, are manifold. Depending on where you live in the country, and what resources you have access to, the messages can differ greatly. While the sophisticated denizens of New York City may find it ludicrous that many people believe that the missionary position [male superior] is sex, in Small Town, Bible Belt State, America, this may be the common belief. In certain areas, people know that there are more ways to assert sexuality than merely through intercourse, and in others, it is believed that abstinence and intercourse are the only options. Most disturbing is that many people learn that sex is something dirty that should not be discussed or that it is an act of violence. Even today, myths still circulate that men “need” more sex than women and that the only women who want and enjoy sex are whores. Of course, these myths could not be farther from the truth. The truth is that everyone, regardless of gender, race, or religion, has sexual needs. In addition, sex is supposed to be an enjoyable act, not just a necessary one in order to procreate.

Unfortunately, harmful myths such as these are rampant in our society for many reasons. Because of the prurient religious overtones of our culture, sex education programs are often too timid to discuss anything except how babies are made. A majority of schools do not dispense the information students need. They fail to impart a sense of personal choice on issues of sexual activity and abstinence (i.e. there is nothing wrong with choosing to become sexually active, just as there is nothing wrong with choosing to wait until marriage). Even worse, most students are not given factual information regarding homosexuality and are led to believe that it is sinful or wrong. What everyone has a right to know, however, is that sexuality is an individual think and no matter what choice one makes, as long as it is safe, people must respect that choice.

Because sex is often not discussed in the classroom or at home, people are not aware of the many things that can be done to express sexuality. The practice everyone knows about is vaginal or anal intercourse, also known as sex. However, if one is not ready for intercourse or merely does not feel like having it, there are many alternate ways to have a sexual experience. Expressions of sexuality include kissing, sucking, touching, biting, fondling, nibbling, and squeezing yourself and/or you partner. Making up fantasies and sharing them with someone special is also a sexual relief sometimes. Masturbating yourself or your partner can be a pleasurable experience as well. Many people enjoy licking their partner’s nipples, toes, neck, anus, penis, or vagina, or being licked in those places. The point is, sexuality is a fluid thing and there are many ways to express it. Being creative is often a plus, but no matter what, one should always be safe. A supply of condoms, spermicide, lubricant, latex gloves, and non-permeable, non-microwaveable plastic wrap is good to have handy depending on what one chooses to do.

But even if you are all set and ready to go, it is of the utmost importance to talk about it first. It is for this reason that this column has been added to the WSN. It is meant to be an open discussion of sexual issues and handy information. Even though NYU has a reputation for being sexually aware, my own experience has shown me otherwise. For example, I was slightly surprised by how many people do not know what a dental dam is. After explaining how it works [it is a small latex sheet that is used to cover the vagina when giving oral sex to a female], I am often greeting by exclamations of disgust. One friend told me that she would not expect her lover to put his face anywhere she would not put her own. My impression, then, is that oral sex, particularly performed on a woman, is not deemed acceptable. This is too bad because many women find oral sex more pleasurable than vaginal sex. However, because it is still stigmatized by our culture, some women will never have the opportunity to find out if they enjoy it or not. The stigma of certain acts can be removed merely by talking about it and encouraging exploration of one’s sexuality and what one finds enjoyable.

In order to provide more information, “The Sex Shop: encourages any questions, suggestions, or comments you as a reader may have. All questions will be researched and “The Sex Shop” will use as many suggestions as possible. The more interactive the column is, the more interesting it will be, and the better its purpose can be served. So, until next time, have fun and be safe!

Rock & Roll

All week long, mountains of A/V equipment piled up on the sidewalk behind the Beacon Theater near my apartment. In addition, lanes on both sides of Amsterdam Avenue and on the south side of W. 75th Street were blocked off for trucks and trailers. All this was for some Rolling Stones concert that filmed there one night.

Mostly, all the hooha annoyed the crap out of me by constricting the flow of traffic, but as I rushed to the subway on Wednesday evening, I noticed that 75th Street was entirely closed for vehicular use. However, a man was removing a blue barricade as a green Caddy with yellow curtains shielding the backseat (!) approached. Either it was the strangest hearse ever, or there was someone famous inside, so I loitered for a few minutes on the corner, peering down the street. Sure enough, a very thin person with longish brown hair emerged from the car when it pulled curbside and then disappeared into the stage door. I’m 99% sure I caught of glimpse of a walking corpse. Scary! No! It was Mick Jagger himself! Rockin’!

Yesterday morning, I accompanied Dr. P on a trip to DC, where she is interviewed for an ass doctor position at a local hospital. I plead temporary insanity, as I agreed that it was a good idea to take save $60 each and take Greyhound, rather than Amtrak. (I figured that although Amtrak is much more comfortable than the bus, it often is delayed too.) Of course, the bus left NYC 30 minutes late, then made a 25 minute pit stop along the way, then hit nasty DC rush hour traffic, so a full 30 minutes after we were scheduled to arrive in DC, we had only arrived at the prior stop in Maryland. Fortunately, it was the last stop of a Metro line, so we hopped off the bus and onto the subway, and were at our hotel a half hour later as opposed to at the Greyhound bus station at that point. Rolling!

After we checked into our hotel, we met up with the ever delightful Tessa for some free bluegrass music at the Kennedy Center. There was also some sort of Halloween family night at the symphony, as people of all ages kept arriving in mostly clever Halloween costumes. Fun! Then we headed over to Georgetown to meet a friend of mine from high school who I literally had not seen since we graduated in June 1994.

Our mystery dinner guest (Tessa said she felt like we were going on a blind date) looked a bit taller and skinnier, but was very nice and we had fun. (I am always pleased when people of that area randomly reach out to me to say hi, which he did this summer after seeing a little clip about outspoken bloggers (moi) and their employers in The Washington Post, as some of my actions were less than the usual unbalanced ones of angsty teens.) After dinner, we politely walked him to his car in DuPont Circle (Dr. P, Tessa, and I are very gallant as a blind date trio), and then we headed over to a bar with fun Latin music. Before we were driven out by the smoky conditions (DC is a savage town with no smoking ban!), I drank almost a full plastic 8 ounce cup of amaretto sour - light on the amaretto, heavy on the sour, just how lushes like me prefer it.

Dr. P and I are roadtripping it back this afternoon with Tessa on what she calls “some back roads.” Very fun. Go me and my rock & roll week.

Apologies to the Other Suzanne Reisman, Who is A very Nice, Normal Woman

Suebob recently linked to a site that allows you to search your name and see how many other people have the same name. According to this erroneous site, I am the only Suzanne Reisman in the country. I know this to be untrue.

When I was in college, I had a horribly written and even worse edited (as if this is a good sentence) sex column in the NYU student newspaper. (I’ll be posting some of those articles over the next few weeks so we can mock my lame good intentions and attempts at “educating” people about sex when I clearly had no idea what the fuck I was talking about.) I also worked at the public interest law center at the law school.

One day when I went to pick up my paycheck, I discovered that I received a large raise. I was very excited until I looked more closely at the name on the check. My middle initial is not M, and yet there it was. There was another Suzanne Reisman.

It turns out that the other Suzanne Reisman is a British woman who was studying for her LLM. Of all the places to work, her office was located adjacent to the one I worked in. We never met until she asked my schedule and came in on her day off to meet the nutjob with her name who was writing naïve sex articles. She was very nice. When I stopped writing the column, she was probably relieved and thought that she would never have her name associated with such content again.

Then I began the Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS). After a few months, I revealed my name. Now a google search for “Suzanne Reisman” brings up many links to her, as well as a Suzanne Reisman in Minnesota and one who has the bad taste to belong to a sorority. To those innocent Suzanne Reismans, my apologies for dragging your good names into the sewer.

Potential Covert Fun

I wanted to post this yesterday, but fucking Blogger was down...

Earlier today, I turned on New York 1 (“New York’s only all news station”) to see what the weather was like. The reporter was in the middle of a story about a class women can take at a salon called Completely Bare. (That name alone is SO GROSS! Humans, let alone adults, are not completely bare. Freakish!)

Anyway, for a mere $225, one can learn how to wax your less “sensitive” body parts (i.e. – no self-Brazilians) and receive a set of professional tools, like a wax heater and “ouch-less” wax. (Ouch-less my ass.) I am going to look into enrolling in the class with Sara.

Would that not be an awesome investigative report? I am so excited.

Wacky Wednesday Search Term Fun!

I think that on Wednesdays I will highlight some of the nutty search terms that have led unsuspecting people to the Camapign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants. My most recent favorite Google search that brought a fortunate unexpecting someone to CUSS recently is extremely stuffed snatches.

This made me wonder what the searcher was looking for exactly. Snatches stuffed with cream cheese? Presents at holiday time? Stuffing, like a turkey? What they found that led them to CUSS was:

Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants: October 2006
I stuffed the Dark Cherry Jam that I bought at the Iowa state fair and the Cranberry ... I am extremely lucky. Now I only need to worry about finding good ...
www.cussandotherrants.com/2006_10_01_cussandotherrants_archive.html - 117k - Cached - Similar pages

Actually, I am impressed with how dirty that looks from the snippet Google showed. “Dark Cherry Jam” sounds like it would make some mighty fine extremely stuffed snatch in a porn movie, doesn’t it? Following it up with being lucky and only needing to worry about finding good… really lets the imagination run wild.

I should try my hand at writing intentional porn scripts.

Salon Selectives

My friend Des recently posted a great rant about a hideous article she read in the Washington Post about two douche bags who opened a salon for men. That in and of itself doesn’t bother me too much, but this is no regular salon for men. No way, Jose! This salon hires women to cut men’s hair, do pedicures and manicures, and wax hairy backs, and requires them to wear a bikini as their uniform. This makes me irate.

However, what insults me about this joint is that the women are then trained to be able to talk about sports. Further, when the clients get tired of their blather, they are told to shut up so that men can watch real sports on TV.

Look, there are plenty of women out there who don’t need training when it comes to talking about sports. I’m sorry if we don’t happen to look good in bikinis. Most of us sports fans enjoy a hot dog or two while we cheer our team on.

Although, incidentally, it might not be bad if all people who cut hair would shut up every once in a while. Then the burned out hippie guy who is having a coiled snake tattooed up his entire leg who cuts my hair would not say scary racist things that make me not want to go back there ever again. I can deal with the tattoo, and in fact I am glad that Des told me he was getting one because I wondered why he shaved his legs. (Not that there’s anything wrong with men shaving their legs; I was just curious why he did.) I can deal with the fact that he seems to suffer from acid flashbacks while he uses sharp objects on me. But his disturbing casual racism (he told another friend that the guy renovating the apartment next door did not know what he was doing because he is black, and therefore unskilled and homeless) is preventing me from going back for a good, affordable haircut. I gotta draw the line somewhere.

The Shame Caused By Using Questionable Products

Axe Snake Peel (yes, I know you see what is coming next; I wish I had) is through a semi-clever website, Order of the Serpentine, a secret society that men can join to remove the “shame caused by questionable hook-ups.” This seems to be defined as any hook-up with a woman who is not physically perfect as defined by current western model standards. Because god forbid that guys should never be grateful that any woman would be goodly enough to want to sleep with them. Nope. They should be embarrassed that they gave in to regular women’s beastly urges. My guess is that most of the guys who use this soap are no prizes themselves. I hope that they are generous enough to share some snake peel with the women who are probably regretting (or should) hooking up with them.

I do love the spoof of the Masons and Shriners, though. Gotta give props for that. Why is it that so much creative energy is wasted on bullshit? Sigh.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

My piece about why I kept my last name when I got married will be running in tomorrow (TUESDAY, OCT. 24) Metro New York. If you are lucky enough to live in the City, pick up a copy on your way to work.

It's OK if you chuckle cruelly at my picture. (I had to take a new one after all that because the resolution was not high enough.) I hope you like the writing, though.

If you live outside of NYC, or missed the paper guy at your subway station this morning, Metro New York posts the My View column online. Read my name opus magnum, I will never be a Mrs. Husband, at your leisure. Online readers are deprived of my little floating head next to the title, however.

Axing the Axe

Every feminist at one point or another in her life has probably been told that she needs to get a sense of humor, relax, or get laid when she complains about some vile sexist thing that she is confronted with. Axe body products for men take this maxim to a new extreme. Their ads on the New York City subway often made me roll my eyes in disgust (and I didn’t even get the point of a few of them, like an ad showing a nightstand stacked with cups of water) and the new commercial with Nick Lachey is hilariously bad, so I didn’t think anything of them until some women in my book club mentioned Axe last night.

Axe’s ads initially brought back memories of my own junior high experience, when Marty Keane, Marc Rubinstein, and Jordan Levi (three of the most popular boys in our class of 65 tweens) emerged from the locker room after gym class and Drakkar Noir fumes trailed behind them like dust on Pigpen in a Peanuts cartoon. Worse, when any of the handsome triumvirate (OK, I only two of the three were cute in my mind; I never cared for Jordan) would pass by you, your head would be enveloped in a cloud of Drakkar, causing mortifying fits of spasmodic coughing, seriously cramping a tween girl’s style. How cool can one look as she tries to swat the noxious vapors away from her head while gasping for fresh air? (I like to think that was the reason I was a dork, although I know better.)

I forgot, however, that we live in ever more sexually exploitative times. While Drakkar Noir may have been a bar mitzvah boy’s ticket to hot women back in 1988, today’s Axe ads, also built with the developing male’s insecurities and desires in mind, continue to sell the idea that a cologne bath will draw sexy women to them like bees to honey. Literally. I wrote about this over at BlogHer today, and one of the other contributing editors showed me something even scarier that Axe is up to: the new Axe Lab, which supposedly shows the effects of Axe on a "willing female body." To enter the site, one clicks on a button that reads "Begin Experiementation."

I decided to experiement on myself, this making me a "willing female body" in this circumstance. I clicked on "Dirty Mind Control." Hey, I have a dirty mind and usually I control it, so this should work, right? Actually, it didn't do anything I wanted it to. Then it caused a mini meltdown on my laptop.

Bring back the Drakkar, please.

A Lost Pussy Story

My friend Hanah requested that I write about her missing cat, George, so here’s the saga, in my usual roundabout way of getting to the point, which I hope she will not mind.

When I was in Israel for my friend Hanah’s wedding, I noticed many sex shops. ( The country is much kinkier than one might expect; it’s the only place I ever entered my hotel room and discovered a round bed and mirror on the ceiling. I suppose that’s one way to take your mind off of dying in a terrorist attack.) One of them was near my hotel in a gentrified warehouse district of trendy stores, restaurants, bars, and clubs. Unlike most of the sex shops I saw, it was run by women mainly for women. Like many of those types of sex shops, it focused on female pleasure and making women comfortable with their sexuality. Of course, like any good feminist sex shop, it proudly displayed a wide range of colorful dildos.

The inclusive hominess of the place worked well. Hanah’s cousin was strolling in the area with his active two year old son Peter and other family and friends when he caught sight of the store out of the corner of his eye. Before anyone had a chance to mention the nature of the toys inside, he said, “Look Peter! A toy store!” The other more aware adults immediately said that it was not really a toy store, but once a precocious toddler gets it into his head that there’s a toy store nearby, not much will convince him otherwise, and Peter suddenly ran into the shop. He grabbed a huge blue dildo, and ran outside waving it around to show off his new toy. Confusion ensued, and the dildo was eventually returned to the amused shop employees, while Peter screamed and cried indignantly over the loss of his new plaything.

Anyway, Hanah moved back to the US in September after living in Israel for many years. Since she will be staying for a few years before going back again, she of course paid for her two cats to come with her. She placed the cats in the cages that Continental Airlines required her to use, locked them securely, handed in the paperwork, and bid them a nice trip. She never saw one of her cats again.

About five minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart, representatives from Continental informed Hanah that her cat George was lost sometime between when she checked him in and when the baggage guy went to load him onto the plane and noticed that the cage was awfully light. They asked her if she wanted to try and look for him around the airport, but given that the flight was about to leave, she was unable to do so. Obviously, it was a horrible flight for her, and when she arrived at Newark Airport, in which she had a long layover before continuing to her new home in North Carolina, the airline let her hang out for a while with Bruce, her other cat.

Imagine how upset she was when she arrived in North Carolina, but Bruce did not. After much inquiry, it turns out that the stupid fucks at Continental kept the documentation for both cats in George’s cat, which was never placed on the plane. If someone had told Hanah this while she was in the airport for hours with Bruce, she could have given them the copies she had with her. Since nothing was said, Bruce was detained at Newark. It took something like a day of phone calls for Hanah to even find out where he was, let alone why. After another day of phone calls, she was finally able to find out where to fax the documents for Bruce. Then she had to get him at the airport a day later. Throughout the whole experience, Continental was overall helpful at a minimum, although a few employees went out of their way to help her. While they gave her a refund for George’s ticket, there was no such reimbursement after their fuck up with Bruce.

George is still missing. I like to think that he is safe and always purring as the resident mouse catcher at the sex shop Hanah’s cousin ran into, although if anyone knows his whereabouts, it would be even better if he could join Hanah and Bruce at home.

Weekend Update

Damn, I’m exhausted. My friend the Sauce came to visit me this weekend. The Sauce and I met when we were nine and she moved onto my block on April Fool’s Day. We have been friends ever since, except for our freshman year of high school when she decided that I became uppity and stopped speaking to me. She moved away after that, but we patched things up and have remained best of friend, despite living in different cities (and often countries), ever since.

Anyway, whenever the Sauce is around, wackiness is bound to follow. Since Thursday, I’ve accompanied her on a quest to purchase “shaggy” boots. The style she seeks is best described as boots that make her look like a mini yak is humping her leg when she is wearing them. Needless to say, they are hard to find. While on the mission for shaggy boots, we detoured to a Dominican salon in Brooklyn for her to have her hair done for $15, entered a shop that seemed to sell exclusively to women who are the background booty calls in rap videos, and saw two B-list celebrities, Richard Belzer from Law & Order: SVU and Chris Parnell, formerly on Saturday Night Live. We also heard amusing stories of Big O’s failed attempts to date and/or seduce women (such as when he was on a date and it was pouring rain, and he said, “See? I knew I’d get you wet tonight,” which is hilarious unless you are the datee).

Good times.

Snatch Face!

While it is true that I am bitter over the Mets's loss last night, it was their own fault for not playing better, and that is not why I am calling the Cardinals's player Scott Spiezio a snatch face. No, he's a snatch face because someone seems to have given his facial pubes a Brazilian wax. (What is a beard, if not pubic hair on one's face?) And then they dyed it Cardinal red for full effect.

I'm no more a fan of facial Brazilians than cootie ones, but an unfortunate sportscaster once asked Spiezio's teammate (not sure which one) what he thought of the red tuft of hair on Spiezio's chin. The guy answered that the team nicknamed it "The Tickler," which mortified the sportscaster. Now calling someone's facial snatch patch a tickler on national TV is damn funny.

Still, go Tigers.

Celebrating, Suzanne-Style

In an effort to dilute my nervousness about game 6 of the National League Conference Series, I decided that I should watch it surrounded by other people in a bar. Thus I set out for a place near Dr. H’s apartment, so that she could join me for game watching and then get home quickly so that she could sleep and be a chipper, refreshed person in the morning, ready to cure all sorts of female medical ailments.

Upon arrival at the bar with another friend, I decided to purchase beverages that might slake our thirst. My friend wanted a seltzer with lime, and I knew that the Elixir of Life (aka Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi) would be a perfect way for me to drown my worries. I sauntered up to the bar, and casually ordered. The bartender and I joked about how I was hitting the juice hard tonight, and he might have to cut me off if I wanted more.

Later, Dr. H approached the bar and coolly asked “what’s on tap?,” a question she has always wanted to ask. (Yes, we really live it up!) As soon as she heard cider was one of the options, she chose it. The bartender said that he didn’t want to offend her, but he would need to see some ID. She proudly whipped it out and said she was flattered to oblige. When she relayed the story to us, I bemoaned how my youthful looks had disappeared, and bitterly noted that the bartender sure as hell didn’t ask me for ID when I ordered not one, but two drinks.

“Um, Suzanne? You ordered a seltzer and Diet Coke. There was no reason to ID you!” our practical (and also young-looking) companion reminded me.

Right.

First Anniversary of CUSS!

It is hard for me to believe, but today is the first anniversary of the Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants! I am thinking that a celebration is in order. Perhaps a Cookie Puss shall be consumed in honor of the occasion…

In all seriousness, blogging has been a fantastic experience for me. Sure, when I was a newbie, I made some mistakes with nettiquette, which I regret a bit. (Although I still believe that people who make inane statements in The New York Post are fair game, ripe for mockery.) Despite my little slip up (and even almost due to it), I made wonderful new friends (see links on the sidebar to meet a few of them), explored new ideas with people I would not otherwise know, and entertained at least myself if no one else. It’s been fun. Reflecting on the past year brings a fuckin’ tear to my eye. Actually, no joke - I am choking up thinking about it, mostly because of the awesome people CUSS has brought into my life.

Before I go completely cheese-tastic, I want to take a few minute to repost the mini rant that kicked off the Campaign on Oct. 19, 2005:

Why the world needs pubic hair

Far be it from humble unstylish little me to suggest that the New York Times Style Section is lagging on their trend reports, but in a Sept. 1 article titled "Skin Deep: The Revised Birthday Suit," they breathlessly reported that significant numbers of women are opting for totally bald crotches, or if not totally bald, then certainly having large tracts of hair ripped out so they can look "sexy." Please. Cosmo has been reporting for years that men prefer women with little or no pubic hair. Brazilian waxes went mainstream along time ago. Which, quite frankly, scares me. What on earth would make a woman spread her legs wide in front of a cosmetician, allow her to smear hot wax into her vagina, and then have all her hair ripped out? This sounds like something the US government might institute as a torture tactic in Abu Gharib. (And they could easily justify it by noting it can't possibly be torture if gazillions of American women voluntarily have this done all the time.)

No, it is scary and wrong to me. For goodness' sake, pubic hair exists for a reason. We lost most of our body hair during evolution. We lost our tails. We grew taller. So what's left seems to have a purpose. And we need our pubic hair! Think of pubic hair as vagina eyelashes - they stop bad things from getting inside during sex and causing infections. Pubic hair is our friend.

I'm not sure how we so quickly arrived at this hairless situation, but it's arguable that it is the popularity of g-strings, thongs, and other revealing bikini bottoms and underwear that led to the widespread (ha ha) acceptance and even expectation of shaved beavers. Fair enough, but I'd say that if your cooch hairs are hanging out of your bikini bottom, the solution is not to have them torn out of your vag and butt, but to get bigger bottoms. Think of pubic hairs as an organic warning system of sorts. It's Mother Nature preventing you from humiliation by telling you to put on some clothes because you look obscene.

Let's face it: female genitals got the nicknames pussy and beaver because they are furry. And who wants a hairless cat? No one. Having a hairless cat doesn't even help if you are allergic to cats since the problem is with the dander, not fur. Feline pussies with fur are nice to stroke. Hairless cats are freaky. The same goes for human pussies and beavers, my friends.
posted by Suzanne @ 10:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

Thus it began. Thanks for joining me, and I can’t wait to see what happens and who I meet in my second year of blogging! Now excuse me while I wipe away the fuckin' tear forming in the corner of my insomniac eye...)

The Big News

My usual modus operandi is, “No good deed goes unpunished,” which I learned from a mentor when I interned in Illinois state government over summer break in college and usually is perfect for any situation. Thus when I cleaned out the refrigerator yesterday (which Husband had been pestering me to do since this summer), while he gallivants around Europe, eating at four star Michelin restaurants with clients and kicking it back in luxury hotels after his meetings, I expected a reward along the lines of the Mets playing like shit and fucking up game 5 of the play-offs. I was not disappointed. (They better get their asses in gear tonight and win, or the whole thing is over and I will be one pissed off bitch. On the other hand, I can console myself by watching CSI on Thursday, which I missed due to baseball for the past two weeks and forgot to record.)

However, I was extremely surprised (and delighted and excited and overjoyed and psyched…) when I received an email yesterday afternoon from a local commuter newspaper editor letting me know that they would like to run an article I submitted to them two weeks ago. The article was about why I didn’t change my name when I got married, and I’ll post a link to their website when it appears. I just signed the contract today (my first paid freelance gig outside of the always wonderful BlogHer), and I also needed to send in a full color picture of me, which inspired my panicky survey. (Thanks for everyone’s feedback!)

Ultimately, I went with the cute youthful picture because I was insanely flattered by Happy and Blue 2’s suggestion that commuters would fantasize about little old me on the subway. This makes me laugh and laugh. Although when I bring it to the scenario’s logical conclusion of subway masturbators, it is not very funny at all. Just creepy.

At any rate, assuming that I will need pictures for future writings (and hopefully not because I continue to do a ton of household cleaning), I will eventually get some sort of professional head shot. (Not the kind that involves subway masturbators, either.) So exciting!!!

Quick, but Vital, Survey

Let's say that you were me and that you were lucky enough to have an article appear in a local newspaper. The editor asks you to send her a full color picture of yourself. Which would you choose?

A) Here I look respectable and have a very nice smile. My eyes appear even. I have nothing stuck in my teeth. This is good. However, I look a bit on the chubby side, which is OK, but I'm not sure that I want New York commuters thinking I weigh 10 lbs more than I do. (I know, very vain.)

B)Here I look young, but extremely cute and not chubby. My teeth look great. On the other hand, I look really fucking young and my eyes are a bit on the Deliverance side of unmatching. I don't want people thinking that I am a youthful idiot, which might drive away other opportunities.

I suspect the answer is A, as the consequences of people believing that I am chubsters are stupid and non-existant, whereas the consequences of being thought of as a dreamy eyed youth are far more serious. Still, I'm open to your thoughts. I want to send this in today, so please vote early and vote often. Thanks!

Life Could Not Be Any More Exciting than This if I Were Gainfully Employed

Practically every day is an opportunity to learn something new, and today is no exception. I learned three important things this afternoon while attempting to clean the refrigerator, which is something that Husband has been nagging me to do since I stopped working full time:

1. There are more removable parts from a refrigerator than would seem possible, and they all need to be wiped down.

2. Do not cook lunch in the microwave right before you begin cleaning the fridge because it will sit there for a very long time before you eat it because you discovered that you need to pull out about 45,000 shelves and trays to clean them individually, and it takes forever.

3. Dust busters can clean crumbs very effectively. (If for some odd reason, you are on a game show or reality show, and they allow you to bring only one household apparatus that cleans, bring a dust buster. Mark my words, you will win the game and the $1,000,000 prize or whatever they are giving away.)

4. DO NOT START FROM THE BOTTOM AND WORK YOUR WAY UP. You’d think this would be obvious, and I apologize if you already know this. But just in case you are as clueless about refrigerator cleaning and also lacking in logic as I am, I think it is worth mentioning that as you clean higher shelves, crap sometimes falls down onto the sparkling clean surface below, forcing you to clean it again.

Here you may be wondering why on earth I did not know these things until this afternoon. The answer is because I was a spoiled child. Not materialistically spoiled, but my parents never made me do any house cleaning, which was very nice of them. At any rate, I am very pleased with the results of my sweat-formulating scrubbing and dust busting. You can practically eat right out of the fridge, it’s so clean…

Vagina Cakes

In preparation for the 1st anniversary of CUSS on Thursday, I searched the internet for some pictures of “vagina cakes.” Damn, people have some nasty imaginations, as well as limited talent producing baked genitals.

According to Urban Dictionary, a site reference many times at CUSS over the last year, “vagina cakes” is actually slang for “the female of the species one would prefer to have sex with, a pretty face, hot but a bit on the chunky side.” I had no idea. See, you learn something new (and sometimes disturbing) every day!

At Kopp’s Bakery, aka The Erotic Bakery, which specializes in “erotic” cakes, this was my favorite cake:The subtitle: “A vagina cake with a pink center for the tasty pussy you want.” Don’t you love the drops of jizz squirting out of it? I could laugh for days at this, although I’m not sure that I’d actually eat it. (FYI, the yummy snatch concept is also available with pubic hair, but no jizz.) Don’t forget the marzipan ladies with hairy cooches “to lick.” Sample item: They do ship worldwide, you know. Slightly more, uh, tastefully done vagina cakes can be ordered at The Erotic Bakery

Needless to say, CUSS friends and family will not be celebrating its first anniversary with any of these products. We will mock them mercilessly, though.

My Frist Time

It’s funny, but I was absent for my first time. I turned 18 in December 1993, a year too late to legally get in on the action. By the time my next chance to put out came around, I was already away at college.

Thus my first voting experience was by absentee ballot. I received a long rectangular ballot on a thin Styrofoam block in the mail. The instructions said to use a sharp object to punch a hole for the candidates for whom I chose to vote. The Styrofoam backing ensured that you punched out the entire chad. (If you don’t bust through the Styrofoam, you didn’t push it in enough.) I sent my form back to Cook County, proud to have taken part in a coming-of-age ritual that people practiced early and often, and with more reliability than the rhythm method.

Now I vote in New York City, a location boasting some of the oldest voting machines in the country with all sorts of levers and pulleys to manipulate to ensure that your vote is recorded. We are way out of compliance with federal laws on updating voting machines to ensure that voting is as easy as the town whore. Sure, with electronic voting machines these days, you have no idea who the machine claims that you really voted for, as many of the companies produced faulty coding on accident or on purpose (Diebold promised a Republican victory in 2004), and you usually can’t print a receipt for the ballot box. But if you don’t vote, you have the right to bitch about how fucked up things are in this country.

Even if you think your vote doesn’t count (and sadly, you are kind of correct), it is important to get out there on election day. Voting is like foreplay. Change won’t come if people don’t try and press the right buttons.

An Uncle Harold Story

One of the many things that Husband is that we each have an eccentric uncle. Fortunately, mine is related through marriage, but Husband’s oddball uncle is his father’s older brother who I’ll call Uncle Harold. Uncle Harold is known for his hatred of Clinton (at one rare Passover in which he was invited to have dinner with us, he told me that the Clinton arranged for people to be castrated and others to be killed while he was governor of Arkansas), his love of the rag The New York Post (see: hatred of Clinton), and a strange obsession with the ethnicity and religion of sports players and actors (last Passover, his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he gushed about how Melanie Griffith is the best actress ever because she so realistically portrayed Jews in Shining Through and A Stranger Among Us even though she herself is Irish or whatever her ethnic background is.)

Uncle Harold used to insist that when he took early retirement, he would spend his days listening to sports radio, reading his beloved Rupert Murdoch publication, and watching old war movies that he recorded from TV over the last 20 years. Everyone was sure that he’d be bored out of his mind, but that is exactly what he is up to these days and loving every second of it. He is also building an impressive crumb collection in his handlebar mustache, as he no longer bothers bathing on a regular basis. Once in a while, Husband’s uncle sells things on eBay to bring in some extra income and also uses the internet for other entertainment and social interaction.

Thank goodness for the internet, because just as Uncle Harold was evicted from his boarding house in a sketchy neighborhood in a town on Long Island (the building was sold and will no longer be used for housing), he met a woman in a “large ladies” chat room who invited him to live with her in Connecticut. Not to worry, though; she happens to run a boarding house as well, and they agreed that if things don’t work out relationship wise (as they’ve yet to even meet in person), he may still remain as a tenant. Just like her ex-husband, who is also a tenant there.

Oh, the fun to be had!

What an Ass I Am

As I drove Fred the Red (our PT Cruiser) home from the delightful baby-naming ceremony that I attended today in MA, I had an argument with someone over Dr. P's chosen profession. My friend claimed that Dr. P told him that she planned to be a proctologist. I said he was wrong, as I know that she is interviewing for colo-rectal fellowships now. This went back and forth for a bit until I very testily interjected, "Damn it, she's one of my best friends. I think I fucking know what she wants to do!" and my passenger backed off.

Four hours later, I arrived back in New York and headed over to Dr. P's to have dinner with her and Dr. H and watch the Mets game. At one point, I threw my hands up in the air in disgust and told Dr. P what my passenger said earlier that day.

"Um, I am going to be a proctologist," she said. "What the hell do you think a colo-rectal surgeon is?"

Yeah, I had kind of wondered why there would be a doctor whose job was to stick a finger up someone's ass and then refer that person to someone else to surgery. Ooops. Although, in my own defense, it did take 4.5 hours to drive back (it only took us three hours to get there) because traffic was so awful. I say that it effected my ability to think with the body part containing my facial cheeks.

Puss-y Dispute

My mother and I are engaged in a healthy debate about Carvel. She insists that years ago, there was a Carvel on the corner of Crawford and Dempster in Skokie. I am certain that Carvel was a NYC tri-state area franchise (or I should say quad-state because I think it was only in NY, CT, NJ, and PA). According to The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste by Jane and Michael Stern, a book given to my by a friend which I treasure, there were 25 Carvel ice cream shops on the East Coast by the early 1950s. Great, but what about after that? The article only goes on to describe his horrible radio ads.

Because I really like being right, I went to the Carvel website to try and learn more about the history of Carvel. Thus I was confronted by an image of my nemesis Cookie Puss:



Damn, I don’t see how people do not find this thing scary as hell. Forget the vacant stare. He is just a giant face, and his arms are on the side of his face! I know he is from space and all, but that is some freaky shit!

Getting over my fear of Cookie Puss, I also learned that Carvel set the Guiness World Record™ for Largest Ice Cream Scoop Pyramid in 2002 and in honor of the company’s 70th birthday, set the Celebrates Guinness World Record for the Largest Ice Cream Cake in 2004. I did not find out when they expanded west, but it seems like it was not until the 1990s when they began selling ice cream cakes (not scary ones like Cookie Puss, but innocuous ones like Fudgie the Whale) in grocery stores.

I really believe that the Chicago area was safe from Cookie Puss until the past few years or so. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know. I plan to call corporate HQ on Monday and find out for sure. Seriously, Fudgie the Whale is now my Moby Dick and I am Ahab out to prove my point.

Perkiness in a Sports Bra

My fancy gym has a luxury shop which shows its overpriced wares in the window so that non-members might be lured in to purchase $60 sports bras and the like. One of those $60 sports bras is strapped on to a mannequin on a platform in the window. As I walked by, I nearly ducked to avoid getting my eye poked out by the mannequin’s super pointy nipples that jutted through the sports bra.

Damn, those suckers are impressive. Very few women can perk up to that standard, and even if we could, I’m not sure why we’d want people staring at our nippies while we work out. Isn’t the point of sports bras to smash boobs down so that they don’t bounce around during activities, both to avoid the pain of tits taking their own jog and of lechers staring at you?

On the other hand, I do feel like that mannequin demonstrates a truth in advertising that we don’t often see. Now I know that if I want to keep my chest business to myself, I should avoid that particular sports bra. Good information to have!

Adults Only

While the “average” woman annoys the crap out of me (as does the “average” man – it is all a part of my general hatred of people), we have a few things in common. In the past I mentioned my inappropriate obsession with whether I look fat or not, which bothers me because I know that this doesn’t matter at all and my weight has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to. (When I was significantly overweight, I: earned a scholarship and attended college, began dating Husband, graduated magna cum laude, was offered a scholarship to attend Fordham Law School, and had several job offers.) The only thing that is fat is the waste of time thinking about it.

The other thing I fret about that the “average” woman (meaning: someone who actually reads Cosmo and other magazines for advice on life) also generates frown lines over is whether I look old. Scratch that – I don’t even want to look my actual age, which is not remotely old at all. I was spoiled by my excessively youthful appearance back in the day when I really was youthful, and it is weird to me to not be considered that way any more. Not that I do anything to prevent the aging process. I only use moisturizer when my skin is so dry that my face is literally cracking off. My hatred of beauty industry products far exceeds my desire to not look 40 when I am actually 40, although not my interest in not terrifying people with a detaching face.

This is the complicated part. While I was delighted yesterday when the salesguy at Bloomingdale’s called me “young lady” (as in, “Would you like to try those dresses on, young lady?” which makes me wonder what young lady has $400+ to blow on a fucking dress. Yeesh.), I also want to look my age once I’ve earned some wisdom. The dilemma, then, is not to wrinkle up before I hit official sagedom. In the meantime, it is OK with me if people think that I am somewhere between the ages of 14-16. (At work, I always enjoyed surprising people at meetings when I could see that they were thinking, “Who the fuck is this kid?” and then I’d say something particularly knowledgeable or insightful. The looks on their faces was priceless.)

The life stages between “guru” and “idiot youth” are tough ones in so many ways, no?

Update!

The space in the Ansonia condos formerly housing a swingers club that was hilariously written up in Time magazine (you must read the article by clicking on the link – priceless! The ‘70s sure were a unique era…) that was until recently a Super Gristedes grocery store (and before that a Food Emporium grocery store), has scaffolding in front of it during construction. The ad on the scaffolding says it is going to be a Loehman’s.

The evolution of the space over the past 30 years:

• Gay club notorious for performances by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, as well as for dispensing lube from the soap dispensers for hot gay orgies


• Swingers club notorious for heterosexual orgies


• (I’m not sure what was there during the 1980s, but we can use our imaginations. Drug den offering an orgy of illegal substances, maybe?)


• Two different grocery stores providing a veritable orgy of food offerings


• Discount designer clothing store proving an orgy of semi-luxury goods

If that does not present a clear picture of how the Upper West Side has changed over the years, nothing will. I’ll take the gay bathhouse, please.

Why I Hate People: Case Studies 112,874, 112,875, and 112,876

Three situations today reminded me why I hate people. As I stepped on the subway this afternoon, I was pleased to notice that a bench that easily seat four average sized people only had three on it. There was a white woman sitting at one end, a black man sitting at the other, and another white woman sitting in the middle. I assumed that she would move over since she was sitting literally in the middle of two spaces. Never assume anything. As I wedged myself into the bigger of the spaces, which happened to be between the women, she refused to move towards the black man. Fucking bitch. Ironically, there was just enough space on her other side that an averaged size guy squeezed in there, so I think she was a little crushed.

After I did an interview with a new potentialHaven volunteer, I needed to pick up my coat, which I left at the tailor’s two weeks ago so that I could get the sleeve altered. (Hey, as long as you’ve dropped serious money on a coat, you might as well throw in a little more so that it looks less sloppy. The arms of the coat were designed for some sort of giantess, so having them shortened a bit was a huge improvement.) I wandered up there and stopped into Bloomingdale’s to use the bathroom. (OK, fine. And also to try on more Nanette Lepore items so that I could be absolutely certain of my size when I bid on things on eBay.)

Of course, there was a line for the toilets, and as I waited, a dog poked its head out from under one of the stalls. Look, people, I know that bitches tend to shop at Bloomie’s, but I didn’t think that was literally the case. What the fuck is wrong with people? I know that you love your doggie and think of it as a member of the family, but last time I checked, dogs are not people. What on earth would make anyone think it is OK to bring a fucking dog into a department store?!?! Or any other commercial establishment for that matter. I was sure to shoot lighting bolts out of my eyes when the young rich woman emerged from the stall with the dog (kissing it, natch). At least it was on a leash. Sigh.

Finally, while trying on decadent frocks, some whore kicked open the door to my little fitting room for no apparent reason as she walked by, scaring the crap out of me. “Sorry,” she muttered nastily. I wanted to jump on her back and pull her perfectly highlighted coif out by the roots.

Civilization is a myth.

Might as Well Face It You're Addicted to Crappy Furniture

Some people hoard pets. More often, people hoard money. Weirdos hoard children (especially ones with disabilities). Husband and I got them all beat (except for the disabled kid collectors): we hoard furniture.

When we tied the knot in 2000, we registered for a $199 dining table that folded in half and four $35 chairs. A group of his co-workers pitched in and got us the table and two chairs, we bought the other two, and we were psyched. How adult of us to have a matching table set! Fast forward six years. The table is warped, cracked, and has random items stuck to it. (We keep a lot of mail and newspapers on the table, and when someone spills, a mess ensues.) Despite my affection for the set, it was clearly time to move on. Fortunately, we scored a lovely polished wood table and six chairs with cushiony seats at a random sale at Macy’s. The table also has two extension leafs, so we should be able to comfortably seat 12 at Thanksgiving. It was delivered today, and if I felt grown up six years ago, I feel grown up and semi-pretentious now. It is crazy having real furniture!

The problem is that we also still have the old dining set. I hate to part with four perfectly good chairs, and I discovered that the folded table makes for a perfect writing table. Thus our living room now is stocked with: two couches; a crappy $20 coffee table from Ikea with legs that Tycho the 14 lb. rabbit likes to nibble on; two ginormous lavender leather Ethan Allen chairs that Husband saw on Craig’s List for $100 bucks a pop and insisted we must own; an Ikea entertainment center, two bookcases (one of which I found abandoned on the street); an Ikea computer desk; two end tables (one of which we rescued from the trash room of our old building, the other bought for $10 at a street sale in Boston); a rocking chair that we bought at the same street sale in Boston for an amazing $5 (and later added a $15 cushion to); four baby gates; a grandfather clock made out of puzzle pieces that I bought for Husband for our 1st wedding anniversary; two little sets of shelving; a CD shelving unit; and last but not least, Tycho’s “studio apartment” (i.e. – a giant dog cage and some space to run around in, plus a litter box); plus four dining room chairs, a folding chair for the computer desk, and the folded dining table. Oh yeah, and two folded snack tables. Obviously, something is going to have to go.

The dining room has the nice new table and chairs set, in addition to: two folded beach chairs; three folding tables (folded); about 10 folded folding chairs (four of which belong to Brother-in-Law); a turquoise leather armchair that we bought at a street sale on our block for $25; two dining chairs that I salvaged from the curb (these will definitely be trashed, though); a little nightstand that I snagged from the curb near Dr. P’s apartment, which we store our dish towels and table cloths; and a microwave cart. Yep, it is crowded in there, too.

As I was bemoaning how respectable we’ve become with such a fancy dining room table and chairs, Brother-in-Law laughed his ass off and reminded me that nothing in our apartment matches. I’m glad that we are still on our theme of completely random décor that often came from the trash or yard sales. That realization made me feel much better. Whew!

I Feel So Boring in Comparison

My friend the Big O sent me the following message:

In vagina related news, I have a Jdate on Friday night with a girl who has nipple piercings, a hood piercing, and 2 labia piercings. Yes, this somehow came up in an online conversation. There might be an interesting relationship between vaginal piercings and muff fullness. Perhaps worthy of discussing on your blog?

Interesting. I’ve never really thought about it, although I suspect that the relationship between snatch pierces and a pubic ‘fro are inversely proportional. That is, the more piercings one has, the less likely she is to have big bush. Otherwise, how would one see the rings and studs? Plus, it seems like hairs could get caught and create some big problems.

My only evidence comes from the awesome snatchtoo picture from a Taschen book on tattoos:Seriously, I think it is well worth a shaved snatch if you are going to deliver a clever message like, “No meat on Fridays.” That just cracks me up, although I have to say things look a bit itchy down there as the hair grows back.

Back to piercings, if anyone has more knowledge of this than me (which is obviously zilch), please speak up.

I'm Deemed a "Decent Enough" Writer! Yippee!

Back in August, my friend Des had her blog reviewed by the critical folks at Ask and Ye Shall Receive, which sounds very subservient until you realize that the URL is “iwillfuckingtearyouapart.” As such a URL indicates, these people make me look like Snow White happily caring for six sloppy, mining dwarves. Of course, I requested a review.

My wish was granted on Oct. 8 by Atomic Fireballs. On the upside, I received a total of two stars (yay!), as Mr./Ms. Fireballs “genuinely enjoy[ed] some posts that I read through in terms of content, spelling and grammar” (star ein) and for “liking to complain so much, and for the Shawshank love” (star tzwei). On the downside, Fireballs threw me not one, but two flaming fingers “because I fucking LOATHE the pink template and I'm not keen on the title.” I also was deemed a ‘tard because Fireballs notes, “I hate when bloggers can't give the people in their lives names. His name isn't husband, he has a real name. Like I suggested, make up a name for him or call him by his middle name.”

I’ll take the stars gladly, as well as one of the flaming fingers. (The bright pink background is a bit harsh on the eyes, no arguments there.) I don’t give a rat’s ass if the title displeases Fireballs. I’m on a mission, damn it! I also will proudly ride the short bus for giving people in my life titles and not names. If I had to remember a fake name for everyone, I probably wouldn’t, and thus write confusing posts in which sometimes Husband is known as “Stu” and other times “Maurice” because I’d forget what I already called him. Plus I don’t have to re-explain every time I write who “Stu” or “Maurice” is for any new readers; Husband is obvious. So too fucking bad.

Anyway, I am glad that I asked and received. I will say that I find it a tad ironic that when they let me know that the review was done, they posted a broken link in my comments on Oct. 8. For people who are so strict about blog templates, grammar, and spelling, one would think they’d be sure to be perfect when it comes to linking to their own site. (Not that we all aren’t guilty of broken links, but I’m just saying.) They also kindly offer help with designing a template, which is extremely generous of them. (Des took them up on it and has a very cool template as a result.) Read the review (and comment) for yourself at Ask and Ye Shall Receive.

Death in the Air

On my way walking home from buying an engagement present for BIL and FSIL on behalf of my peeps in the Midwest, the roar of sirens filled the air. Since this happens routinely in Manhattan, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. However, as I neared my apartment, the emergency workers were decamping on W. 73rd Street. A bus was stopped mid-turn. One of the cops was asking another one where the tape was. A human silhouette lay on the street, under white sheets. I shuddered.

Later, I went to make some respectable business cards for my new consulting practice at Kinko’s, and I had to pass the crime scene on the way. Most of the crowds had dispersed by then. I was at Kinko’s for 20 minutes (the woman ringing me up kept overcharging me), and when I left, sirens again blared up the street. Nothing new was going on at the crime scene, though.

Then I turned the corner onto Amsterdam, and new tape was blocking off the street. Traffic was backing up and trapped – they could not go up Amsterdam or turn off on W. 73rd. Crowds were again assembling. Then I noticed the lone vehicle (a tractor trailer) in the street and the white sheets underneath it. Another pedestrian run down, for a total of two dead within a block and a half in the past hour and a half or so.

One of the women standing around approached me and told me she’d been on the bus when it hit the man. It seems that he was running across the street and when he stepped up on the curb, he lost his balance and fell backward. His head was immediately crushed under the wheels of the bus as it approached to make a right turn. As this same woman was giving her statement to the police, she heard screaming. The police radio crackled with static and the news that a woman appearing to be in her early 60s was hit by the semi. Her head was crushed also.

I plan to be more careful when I cross the street in the future. Life is fleeting.

Vagina 'staches and Clown Wigs

BUST is a feminist rag that I used to read religiously back in the days when it was a quarterly ‘zine. Then one of the founders (Marcelle) had a kid and left, and the remaining woman (Debbie) sold the magazine to some conglomerate, who was supposed to offer it up as a monthly glossy, but basically ran it into the ground instead. That sucked. However, Debbie raised funds and bought BUST back, and began publishing it as a glossy bimonthly. She also changed up the direction of the magazine to offer more info on crafts, fashion, and cosmetics. It was more about embracing your inner girliness. Suddenly, I found BUST not up my alley. I mean, sure, alternative fashion and make-up beats out the shit the mainstream women’s mags hawk, and I do so love crafts, but I’m not that into reading about them. I switched my feminist subscription to the surlier Bitch magazine.

At any rate I read BUST on Friday for the first time in ages just to get a feel for the magazine in case I want to submit any freelance pieces to it in the. And lo and behold, I came across one of the greatest articles ever. , Count Mockula scooped me on this in my comments section last week, but in an interview with the ever fantastic Amy Poehler (ye of Upright Citizens Brigade and Saturday Night Live), a whole discussion about ladies’ bushes emerged as they were discussing the movie Carrie. (Horny folks desperate to see unshaved snatch take note: Amy recommends it for checking out “some full, ‘70s bush.”)

Jill Soloway (ye of Six Feet Under) did the interview, and she asked Amy the very question that I have pondered here at CUSS a few times: “Do you think there’s going to be any kind of bush replacement, if it comes back in style, for people who’ve lasered it off?” To which I answer, of course it will come back in style. Everything comes in circles. Amy brilliantly answered, “I don’t know… women [in Penthouse have] such a small amount of hair, it wouldn’t even qualify as a fake moustache anymore…” She goes on to call Brazilian waxed snatches “vagina mustaches.” Jill describes full bush as “clown wigs down there.” Ooooh, I love it!

Best of all, Amy Poehler ends the interview by advising girls to, “Just hang in there, and stay in school. And grow your bush out wide, tall, and proud.” Are these not words to live by? These are women of my own heart. I think I need to send Amy and Jill some CUSS stickers.

Happy Oct. 9

I hate unseasonal weather, like, for example, when it is 80 degrees on Oct. 9. It just throws me off a bit. That said, I actually appreciated the warmth this afternoon when I stepped outside of the airport, only to see the (nearly empty) bus cruise by me. Anyone who has attempted to take the M60 from LaGuardia Airport knows that this means two things: a 20-30 minute wait for the next bus, and a crowded next bus at that. Thus, I was glad that it was so pleasant today.

The flight arrived early, so that was good, but I missed the bus because it took forever for the checked bags to arrive. I never check bags for this reason. However, as we are no longer allowed to bring liquids on the plane, I was forced to take a hideous tan-and-cream fuzzy blanket that Bubbe insisted on purchasing for me eons ago that I unwisely forgot that I hid under my bed, only to be found out when she decided to give me her old bed and thus furniture was moved. I explained that I couldn’t take it back with me in the past because I had too much stuff, but I’m not sure she ever really bought that excuse. At any rate, it worked out perfectly (other than the timing) because the blanket comes in a handy carrying case. I stuffed the Dark Cherry Jam that I bought at the Iowa state fair and the Cranberry & Plum Wine that I bought in Iowa’s Amish country (you know how Iowa is known for its vineyards – ha ha ha!) when I visited my sister in August into the blanket, which protected the potentially messy contents in the cargo hold. Also, it meant that I did not have to check anything valuable, as I carried on my small overnight bag.

My flight to New York was also crowded, but otherwise not bad. Unlike my trip west, I did not get an upgrade, but that was fine by me. (Who needs food and breathing room when you can get a mere glass of water and spend some time crammed in with your fellow masses yearning to breathe freedom?)

Anyway, it is good to be home, and I am looking forward to seeing Husband, although I already miss my foul-mouthed granny, my mom (who I decided might be defying some sort of weird time-space continuum and thus we are actually twins, with her being born 29 years ahead of me and then implanted with her own sister which she believed was her daughter), my dad, nutty bubbe, and of course, sister. I wish we lived a wee bit closer. (But not that too much.)

Attack of the Grandmothers

Two grandmother incidents took place this weekend:

1. Last night while Sister, Sister's Husband, and I drove Bubbe home from dinner, she randomly launched into a raunchy Yiddish ditty that roughly translates into:

Hurry before my ass gets cold
and while my front is wet,
but no one wants to have sex with me
because I'm old.

I'm sure this makes much more sense in Yiddish (which I did write down, just in case), but we found it pretty hilarious. And disturbing.

2. Tonight I went with my mother over to my grandma's house. As they were crabbing at each other, my grandmother told my mom she was a putz and then also muttered, "Cunt." I didn't hear it, but my mom got mad and then my granny said, "She always gets mad when I say cunt." I pointed out that most people don't like being called a cunt, and she looked at me as though I were on crack.

Family.

Rude & Crude, Loud & Proud

That is, in her own words, how my mom described our family this morning. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Incidentally, I am working with AOL dial-up while I am here, so until I return to NYC on Monday, I may not be as rude and crude and loud and proud as frequently as I usually am online.

The Horror! The Horror!

Growing up in the Chicago area, I was shielded from a childhood terror inflicted upon the less innocent children of the New York metropolitan area. Yes, I am talking about the nightmare-inducing product known as Cookie Puss.

Those of you who still have souls may wonder where this ghoulish Cookie Puss comes from. It is the ice cream cake that parents serve at children’s birthday parties when they want to ensure that their child never will never want to have another birthday party again. Introduced by Carvel, an ice cream chain in New York that dulls in comparison to the deliciousness of Dairy Queen, Cookie Puss is an ice cream cake shaped like some sort of alien. He has two cookies for eyes and an ice cream cone with a scoop of ice cream in it on the center of the cake as his nose. Around St. Patrick’s Day, Cookie Puss returns to outer space and his cousin from Ireland, O’Cookie Puss, is available at Carvel instead. (Seriously, you can’t make stuff like this up.)

My peaceful existence was shattered sometime while I was in college and went with Husband to a Carvel in Long Island. There, in the freezer case, was the most terrifying ice cream cake I ever saw. The cookie eyes were lined with red icing and the ice cream in the cone nose was purple and melting, leaving purple tack marks as it slid down the hideous creature’s face. It seems that Cookie Puss is an alien crack addict. If my parents had given me a cake like this, I would have never slept again.

Fast forward to today. I arrived in Chicago for the weekend, and asked my dad if he wanted to take a walk. We strolled over to the neighborhood strip mall, where to my great surprise and consternation, there is now a Carvel. I warned my dad that the scariest object known to man might lie inside, and we entered the shop cautiously. Peering into the freezer case, we saw it immediately. While Cookie Puss is not a crack head in the tony northern suburbs of Chicago, he does appear to be an addict of something, with eyes open wide and staring blankly, his iced mouth caught in some sort of silent scream. I called Husband and Brother-in-Law (who risked life and limb by bringing a Cookie Puss for dessert at Rosh Hashanah a few weeks ago) to tell them that it was not safe here any more. Husband immediately identified the problem. Cookie Puss in this community is addicted to OxyContin! (He has a bad “back.”) Shudder!

Damn this country. We used to have regional differences. Chicago was Dairy Queen turf! Now I can no longer sleep peacefully in my parents’ house knowing that Cookie Puss taunts me less than a half-mile away. So scary!

All in the Family-in-Law

In about one year, my mother-in-law (MIL) will gain a second daughter-in-law. Although Brother-in-Law (BIL) is as odd as Husband is (in his own special way, of course), don’t worry about MIL needing to cope with another freak for a daughter-in-law. Nope, Future-Sister-in-Law (FSIL – she doesn’t like the acronym for Brother-in-Law’s Spouse, although I find it hilarious) is not only stylish, well-groomed, and intelligent, but she is also normal.

For example, let’s say something malodorous permeated the air. FSIL will cheerfully wrinkle her cute nose and refer to whatever is offending the senses as “smelly.” I, on the other hand, will ask what “reeks like a rank fucking plop of diarrhea” and then laugh hysterically. Sure, she likes sci fi, but she keeps her “uncool” predilections much better hidden than I do and is polite.

Not only is FSIL pleasant and attractive, but she also wants to have kids. I am a dried up barren hag who most likely could not produce an heir to Husband’s currently non-existent fortune even if I wanted to. It’s not that I don’t like kids, because I do, and I am very dedicated to ensuring that less privileged children get a fair shake in life, but I prefer them at a distance and/or in short bursts. Thus my destiny as the runner-up daughter-in-law is fait accompli – MIL can’t wait to have some cute potentially red headed grandkids.

Don’t get me wrong. She never nags me or bothers me about it, and Husband insists I am being ridiculous. Still, I’m jealous. Who knew that sibling rivalry extended to sibling-in-laws?

Moving Right Along...

Whistling: Footloose and fancy free.. Damn, the Muppets are awesome!

Anyway, today was my last day in my current do-gooder job. I only hope that my next do-gooder job, whatever that might be, will have as powerfully flushing toilets as this places does. Right now, that is going to be home, which is definitely a quality toilet, although it is hissing non-stop and I need to have the super come look at it.

Mostly I am feeling more optimistic about my immediate future than I did a few days ago. My plan is to set up a consulting service on child care facilities and financing, which may or may not bring in some dough. At the same time, I received a very nice lead on a potential publisher for my proposed book on weird things to see and do in NYC, and am sending out the proposal with renwed vigor. Plus, there are at least five potential articles for magazines floating around in my little head.

All this should keep me busy, and hopefully get me out of the house a bit. Fortunately, Husband's health insurance covers me (and actually only covers me because I have no other insurance options; when I worked full-time, this was a serious bone of contention with me because I could not be on his plan although it was far better than mine, clearly discriminating against working spouses) and his salary also allows me to continue eating from first-hand sources instead of the trash in the event that this grand experiment fails. I am extremely lucky. Now I only need to worry about finding good bathrooms to do my business while I go about my business.

Oh Those Wacky Brits

In my humble opinion, anything done in England is 90% more likely to be interesting than something done in the US. This unscientific percentage was confirmed by Insomniac earlier this week when she led my innocent eyes to UK Nova – I Can’t Believe It’s Not Television, which apparently allows people to download wonderfully wacky programs. Their admirable goal “is to provide the absolutely latest and greatest TV programs from the UK,” so you know it is gonna be good.

If you can open an account, you can down load these fine documentaries:

** I thought I might re-dress the balance with the "Penis" programmes
** uploaded here recently !

DOCUMENTARY: Private Parts (2 of 3) - The Trouble With My Vagina
Channel: five 5
Date: Monday 22nd May 2006

Duration: 45:35 (Ads Removed)

Documentary revealing some of the dangers of the new post-'Sex in the City' frankness about female sexuality - from Brazilian waxing accidents to designer vagina surgeries gone wrong.

--------------------

The Perfect Penis
OK boys & girls, here's more "Penis Envy" from Channel 4, broadcast earlier this year.

DOCUMENTARY: The Perfect Penis
Channel: Channel 4
Date: Monday 30th January 2006
Duration: 47:40 (Ads Removed)

For some men bigger - whether by mechanical, herbal or surgical means - will always mean better.

The penis is the organ most central to a man's sense of self, and the quest for penile perfection has driven some men to extraordinary and dangerous lengths.

This programme meets the Russian surgeons who chopped off a man's penis and re-grew it on his arm, the man whose penis has real pulling power, and the man for whom too big is just not big enough.

Two questions: 1. Why oh why do we not get such fine and fascinating programming here in the prudish US of A? (Sigh. I sooooo want to see the show with Brazilian waxes gone wrong!) 2. Am I overacting because it annoys me that “The Perfect Penis” is two minutes and five seconds longer than “The Trouble with My Vagina?”

And speaking of penis issues, my sister randomly gave me a perfect anecdote from this side of the pond (albeit the other side of the Mississippi). She was subbing at a pre-school when one of the kids decided to use the toilet. As he did his business (number two), he looked down at his lap and remarked to another teacher, “Wow, my privates are getting big!” I guess the obsession begins at a much younger age than I thought.

On Your Knees, Hastert

When sucking the Republican dick to save your job, please remember to use mouth wash afterwards, though. No one likes to smell jizz breath on the House floor. (Or maybe they do and that's part of the problem.)

(Picture from The New York Post, normally not a friend to CUSS, but today is my lucky day! And thanks to the Insomniac for pointing the pic out to me. Priceless.)

Coincidence? I Think Not!

Someone from Beaver, PA visited CUSS today after using the search term "i'm unshaved."

I love it.

Good-Bye, Mail Harassment

Speaking of harassment, a few months after my uneventful escape (graduation) from the evil empire (NYU), the solicitation letters began arriving. Dear NYU Alum, they always began, but I don’t know what else they said because I would tear them up in a frenzy, wondering where these people got the balls to ask me for money when I made less than $30,000 and was up to my eyeballs in debt. (Remember, I’m short, so being up to my eyeballs in debt is actually not as bad as other college grads have it, although I complain about it just as loudly and frequently.)

The requests for money came at least once a month, and they were starting to really annoy me. One evening, after a particularly unpleasant day of attempting to do good at work, I reached my limit. I took the donation slip, filled it out, placed it in the postage paid return envelope. After dropping it in the mailbox, I felt much better.

Every once in a while I smirk to myself when I think about the look on the alumni relations staff member’s face when he/she read my donation form. I wrote, “It will be a cold day in hell before you wrest even a penny out of me, and I hear that it is getting hotter there every day. STOP ASKING ME FOR MONEY!”

It worked. I never received a request again. Now to try this with the annoying graduate program I attended.

Republicans Suck (Literally!)

Man, oh man. I haven't laughed this hard at a political scandal since, well, never. According to the Associated Press, "Hastert sought to blame Democrats for leaking sexually explicit computer instant messages between Foley and former pages from 2003."

Right. See it is OK to write sexually explicit messages to youth, but not share them with the media while the Republican party is trying to hide them. That's just unethical! I also love how Newt Gingrich claimed (according to my co-worker) that the only reason that the party didn't do anything about Foley (which, incidentally, is a type of catheter - is there not some weird irony in that?) is because they did not want to alienate gay people. Again, because gay people are never bothered when you compare homosexuality to bestiality and incest or try to Constitutionally ban them from enjoying the same legal rights as straight married couples. But when you crack down on child molesters, forget it! Not that that statement in and of itself is not completely offensive....

I do love how the public is completely not bothered at all by the fact that Bush lied about the war in Iraq and continues to do so on a daily basis, which leads to lots of people dying, but dear God, you throw around some sex talk, and you are going down, Mr. Politician. (Maybe not literally.)

More Scandalous UWS Gossip

In my old building on West 76th Street, a dominatrix to plied her trade out of her 7th floor apartment. Limos waited in front of the building nightly while their monied clients received a spanking upstairs. Rumor has it that her home/dominatrix lair was painted black and gold, and that she had a wheel on which she strapped her clients for naughty adventures. When she was stabbed to death in 1997, investigators found Marv Albert’s name in her black book of clients and hauled him in for questioning. The murder remains unsolved, and the apartment repainted and rented under rent stabilization, making it a potentially good deal.

(What is the deal with sex being linked to murder on the Upper West Side? In 2 out of 3 of my examples, sex ends in death. Not to make light of it or anything, but that's fucked up. Har dee har har.)

Don't Call Me Housewifey

My last day at my job is Thursday. While it is beyond time to leave after almost five years of bullshit, I am not eagerly anticipating my departure. Partly my nervousness is due to my strange co-dependent relationship with my work, and partly because I have nothing else really lined up. Sure, I’ll have more time to write, but it’s not like there are publishers lining up with numbers at the Reisman Deli Counter of Words. Also, I’ll miss being a do-gooder, particularly now, when there are a lot of interesting things happening in my field in the City.

My other big concern is that I am going to wind up as a housewife. Now, don’t get your knickers in a knot, there is nothing wrong with women and men who aspire to be full-time homemakers. I just happen to not want to do that. Housework has long been my enemy, and if I am home and Husband is earning the dough to support us, then it is only fair that I take on most of the chores. I know this and dread it, and Husband did not make me feel any better about it when he made a comment about it over breakfast on Sunday.

While I was working, Husband already earned at least three times more than me, but I was OK knowing that I contributed something to the household. In addition, I supplied more than three times the amount of positive karma to our household through my work attempting to make the world a better place for low income kids. Now, I’m just contributing a big, fat zero. Scratch that – since I spend money, but don’t earn any (my jokes don’t count as income) myself, I actually am a negative asset.

Bah. It’s going to be interesting times.

Relishing the Sordid Past

Known currently as a solid family neighborhood with left-leaning politics and at least a bit of cultural integration, the Upper West Side is once again changing its character. As more luxury condos and apartment towers are built, the ‘hood is turning into a bastion of super gentrification. Of course, before it went through its first phase of gentrification in the 1990s, it was much rowdier.

The sordid sexual action seems to center around West 72nd Street, an east-west thoroughfare of less than a mile that more or less dead ends at the park and the Hudson river. A bar on West 72nd between Broadway and West End, in the space now known as the All-State Café (a small, neighborhoody place good for a drink and pub grub), Roseann Quinn met a guy in 1973 and brought him to her apartment across the street. After failing to achieve an erection, he stabbed her to death. The movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar, starring Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, and LeVar Burton, is based on this.

A few blocks up Broadway, the Ansonia occupies the blocks between West 73rd and 74th Streets. In the early 1970s, it was a notorious gay club known for its cheesy entertainment as much as for having tubes of K-Y Jelly in its candy dispensers. Barry Manilow performed there, and Bette Midler’s career was launched at its poolside. After cops shut it down, it reopened in 1977 as Plato’s Retreat, a swingers club. A Time Magazine article from 1978 hilariously “investigated.” It reported that Plato’s Retreat attracted 6,500 people and grossed $90,000 a month at its peak. The place boasted a “mat room” for orgies and numerous “mini-swing” rooms for more intimate two-to-sixsomes.

Ah, the good old days. Most recently, a Super Gristedes grocery store occupied the cavernous space, leading to an orgy of food rather than flesh, much more to the liking of the residents who live in the multimillion dollar condos above. These days, the space is under renovation. I doubt anything interesting will take its place.

Yom Kipur Thoughts from a Bad Jew

Hungry for lunch, I dialed up Brother-in-Law this afternoon to see if he wanted to meet up for a bite. (That sounds perverted, I know. Definitely not meant in that vein.) When he answered, the noise in the background indicated to me that he was not working from home, as per his usual.

“Hey, wanna get lunch?” I chirped. “Although it sounds like you are out already….” Not waiting for a reply, it hit me. “Oh, wait. It’s Yom Kipur. Sorry about that. You’re fasting aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am at Future-Sister-in-Law’s parents’ house in New Jersey,” he answered crabbily.

Ooops. I wish all of my religiously observant peeps a day of easy fasting, and a lovely break fast dinner. Except for Hasidic clans or other religious zealots. They have a lot of atoning to do, especially the idiots who voted for Bush because “he's good for Israel.” Give me a fucking break.

Don't Mess with the Doody Stick

Not long after Husband and I moved into our prior apartment in June 2000, I noticed a small puddle of water forming on the back of the toilet under the flusher. Wanting to be a good tenant and head off the problem before the leak became Old Faithful and flooded our apartment and possibly the one below us, I called the super immediately. Dario arrived the next day with his tool belt, and decided to replace some sort of valve. After he “repaired” the crapper, plump drips stopped dangling from the flusher, but the toilet also began clogging a few times a month.

To deal with the stoppage, Husband bought a snake (a.k.a. “doody stick”) at the hardware store. Basically, it worked by jamming it into the toilet, and then further twisting the metal corkscrew that resembled a pig tail. This would break up the nasty clog of doody and toilet paper that prevented a proper flush and happy bathroom experience. The doody stick served us well, if disgustingly for the year and a half that we lived there. (Cleaning it off after it was used… ewwwww.)

When we were ready to move into our current apartment, we still had six months left on our lease. In order to move out without a hefty penalty, we needed to find a new tenant to take the place over. I placed an ad on Craig’s List, and waited for the takers.

One afternoon, as I waited for a couple to come over, I made the mistake of having a “digestive incident” not long before the potential new leasees were to show up. I whipped out the doody stick and urgently jammed it up the toilet. Little pieces began surfacing. “Whew,” I thought and began to withdraw the doody stick. Except that I pulled it out way too fast. As it flew out of the toilet, flecks of poop flew on the wall, ceiling, and on little old me.

There is a moral to this tale. No matter how panicked you are, always respect the doody stick process. Otherwise, you end up with more than egg on your face.