A few years ago, I ventured home to NJ for a weekend of leisure.
As I bounded up the front stoop, my mom greeted me and swung the front door wide open, ready to embrace me in one of her famous squishy, heart-warming hugs. The only difference was that this time, as I bounded up the step, I slowed my pace and cocked my head to the side. She stood staring at me blankly, unsure what had caused me to literally stop in my tracks.
My gentle, sweet, good-natured mother who never gets angry and very rarely engages in sarcasm (thanks, Dad, for that gift), stood at the threshold of our home with two very black eyes.
All at once, I was firing off questions — who did this? when did this happen? In a fit of rage at the traffic on 287, 78, or 22, did Dad lose it and lash out, pummeling you? Did someone attack you? Why hadn’t you mentioned this over phone calls the past few days?
In a look of sheer embarrassment, smiling meakly, my mom covered her face and said, “Oh that….I thought I told you.” To which I responded, “No Mom, you failed to mention anything about two GIANT black eyes! What happened?”
Then she explained she had been trying to replace a perch in one of her birdhouses (my parents are addicted — the older they get the more lawn ornaments and birdhouses they own). Once she found the perfect diameter of branch, she needed to shorten the branch. And rather than use a saw to cut the branch on my dad’s workbench, my mom used a saw to cut the branch….across the bottom of a canoe that was resting on a pair of sawhorses. The sawhorses were not at either end of the canoe, but instead, near the center. Much like a see-saw.
Once my mom sawed through the branch, the canoe (which she had been pressing all her weight on) then bucked up, and hit her in the face.
I would like to say that I asked about her condition and if she was alright, but let’s face it. That’s not how I work.
Instead, I laughed SO HARD, I was bent at the waist, holding onto the door frame of the house trying to catch my breath.
As I repeated, “You got hit….IN THE FACE….WITH A CANOE…” my mom concluded, “and you know what your (chemical engineering/fuel science/genius) brother said when I told him what happened? ‘Mom, it’s just basic physics.’”
I nearly wet my pants laughing so hard.
5.15.2010
5.11.2010
Pole Dancing Lesson
Last Saturday, two friends and I went pole dancing.
Scratch that, we went to a pole dancing class. Because we had a BuyWithMe coupon ($20 for a $40 lesson). And as my roommate, Laser, can attest — I can’t pass up a good coupon deal.
The instructions we received were to:
Before we set off for our 12:00-1:30 pm class, my friend and I went to a bar and each had 2 shots of tequila. Because we weren’t entirely sure what we had gotten into. And because I (heart) tequila and don’t really need an excuse to drink at 10:30 am.
Upon walking into the studio, one of the instructors said, “Oh good, you’re just in time for the demonstration.” Demo?!
We walked in and sat ourselves on the floor only to see a man dressed as a US Postal Worker in a chair and our instructor, Wendy, gearing up to perform what appeared to be a lapdance.
Sidenote: Wendy is about 40 and looks like Natalie Portman’s mom in “Garden State.” Even if you haven’t seen it (or have blocked it out…haters), trust me when I say she’s not some 19-year-old toothpick with a taut stomach and gravity-defying DDD breasts. No, Wendy has an everywoman body with small boobs, average waist, and bigger thighs. She was dressed in a white lacy tanktop, gold sequined bra, and short white skirt, finished off with L.A. Gear-looking sneakers and scrunched socks. And yet, she was strangely alluring.
Later we found out she is the author of both “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Exotic and Pole Dancing” and “The Deaths of Popes.” Turns out, she had pole danced her way through grad school earning a degree in medieval history.
As the music started, Wendy snapped into stripper mode. She bent over slightly in front of the mailman, humped the ground, and generally just enjoyed being a cocktease. As she hungrily crawled toward him, she told us, “Men are dumb. You may think your thighs are huge, but men are dumb. If you grab your thighs and run a finger down your leg as if ‘oooh my thighs are so sexy’ they’ll believe you. It’s all just an act.”
Despite my overactive imagination, that this older man was a fellow stripper friend who was instructing a room full of awkward men next door, I was informed by the girl next to me that he was in fact Wendy’s actual mailman who rode up in the elevator before the class started as he was delivering mail. Turns out, this happens every. single. Saturday. And then he continues delivering mail to the rest of the neighborhood.
When the lapdance ended, she gave us a pole dance and cued us on when we were supposed to clap (*hint* it’s when she did something amazing like going upside down on the pole). Then she showed us the some basic pole moves and watched the hilarity unfold as we all tried to duplicate them. Like baby giraffes on ice.
Although I was initially intimidated by the idea of swinging around the pole sans any upper body strength, I was surprisingly…agile for a mid-sized, sedan of a girl. My friends, not ones to fluff the egos when something horrendous goes down, said I was actually kind of good.
At least now when I tell people, “If I lose my job and have to resort to a career change, I’ll pole dance before I wait tables again,” I can follow it up with, “yes, I’ve tried both and I can honestly say I’m better as a pole dancer than I am as a waitress.”
Scratch that, we went to a pole dancing class. Because we had a BuyWithMe coupon ($20 for a $40 lesson). And as my roommate, Laser, can attest — I can’t pass up a good coupon deal.
The instructions we received were to:
- wear clothing that made you feel sexy
- wear high, non-pointy, heels
- bring water to rehydrate
- bring an open mind and have fun
Before we set off for our 12:00-1:30 pm class, my friend and I went to a bar and each had 2 shots of tequila. Because we weren’t entirely sure what we had gotten into. And because I (heart) tequila and don’t really need an excuse to drink at 10:30 am.
Upon walking into the studio, one of the instructors said, “Oh good, you’re just in time for the demonstration.” Demo?!
We walked in and sat ourselves on the floor only to see a man dressed as a US Postal Worker in a chair and our instructor, Wendy, gearing up to perform what appeared to be a lapdance.
Sidenote: Wendy is about 40 and looks like Natalie Portman’s mom in “Garden State.” Even if you haven’t seen it (or have blocked it out…haters), trust me when I say she’s not some 19-year-old toothpick with a taut stomach and gravity-defying DDD breasts. No, Wendy has an everywoman body with small boobs, average waist, and bigger thighs. She was dressed in a white lacy tanktop, gold sequined bra, and short white skirt, finished off with L.A. Gear-looking sneakers and scrunched socks. And yet, she was strangely alluring.
Later we found out she is the author of both “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Exotic and Pole Dancing” and “The Deaths of Popes.” Turns out, she had pole danced her way through grad school earning a degree in medieval history.
As the music started, Wendy snapped into stripper mode. She bent over slightly in front of the mailman, humped the ground, and generally just enjoyed being a cocktease. As she hungrily crawled toward him, she told us, “Men are dumb. You may think your thighs are huge, but men are dumb. If you grab your thighs and run a finger down your leg as if ‘oooh my thighs are so sexy’ they’ll believe you. It’s all just an act.”
Despite my overactive imagination, that this older man was a fellow stripper friend who was instructing a room full of awkward men next door, I was informed by the girl next to me that he was in fact Wendy’s actual mailman who rode up in the elevator before the class started as he was delivering mail. Turns out, this happens every. single. Saturday. And then he continues delivering mail to the rest of the neighborhood.
When the lapdance ended, she gave us a pole dance and cued us on when we were supposed to clap (*hint* it’s when she did something amazing like going upside down on the pole). Then she showed us the some basic pole moves and watched the hilarity unfold as we all tried to duplicate them. Like baby giraffes on ice.
Although I was initially intimidated by the idea of swinging around the pole sans any upper body strength, I was surprisingly…agile for a mid-sized, sedan of a girl. My friends, not ones to fluff the egos when something horrendous goes down, said I was actually kind of good.
At least now when I tell people, “If I lose my job and have to resort to a career change, I’ll pole dance before I wait tables again,” I can follow it up with, “yes, I’ve tried both and I can honestly say I’m better as a pole dancer than I am as a waitress.”
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