I can sometimes be mean.

Last night, a bachelorette party loomed close behind our table at a bar. Close enough so we could all properly make judgments about this gaggle of gals who chose this rapey–my adjective, not the bar’s marketing department–bar to have this gathering. (We were previously in the back room of the same bar to help support CLLAW and screamed like a supportive lunatics for lady arm wrestling. The front room housed a whole other breed of patrons that differed vastly from the theater crowd having their cute little freak-show costumer party in the back.)

We justified their choice of venue and how young this bride-to-be was by labeling the group “Suburbs.”  Who gets married at 22 anymore and comes to this bar to celebrate? Oh, right. Suburbs.

The bride wandered over to our table and with one sentence confirmed why I will forever snap-judge these idiot-packs of ladies and their bachelorette parties. She put her arm on our baby-faced, adorable friend and loudly said to the entire group, “I’M HORNY!”

She looked at us like she was a cat who was proudly delivering a mouse carcass to her owner. As a married woman who was ten years older than this vodka-cranner, who despises the concept of “infidelity’s forgiven since I’m wearing a penis tiara,” I was lucky to find a soapbox to stand on and respond. (Who would think a douchey bar could provide one on such notice? Talk about accommodating!) Now also, a little known fact: I have never done anything wrong in my life and I am far superior than any human being and would never EVER say anything to embarrass myself. Past, present, future, I am holier than all of thous. When a soon-to-be-married woman indicates her sexual intentions to an entire table, I have no ability to bite my tongue or censor myself. Nevermind the fact that I was dressed like a pin up girl in a bar for an event and was sending mixed signals about how fun a person I am in life. Don’t be fooled. I’m an asshole.

“I’M HORNY!” she proclaimed.

“That’s disgusting,” I responded.

Curt like a good ‘ol meanie prude. I shook my fist and yelled at her to stop stealing the turnips from my garden or I’d put a curse upon her head.

She just sort of quietly disappeared as if in a nature video, blending back into the safety of the group like a baby wildebeest protected by the pack. The lioness still circled as the baby wildebeest’s penis tiara was readjusted by her future bridesmaids.

Later she approached our friend again and apologized. (See? THIS TOTALLY PROVES I WAS RIGHT!)

I now realize that this young lass was probably actually going to lose her virginity to her 15 year-old fiancee very soon and I should have wished her well. She was purely stating the facts. “I’m horny because I’ve heard so much about this sex thing everyone’s talking about and I’ve been saving myself for marriage!”

Though if she had said, “I’m going to lose my virginity on my wedding night!” to the group, I still would have responded, “That’s disgusting.”

Poor girl didn’t have a chance. Suburbs, I’m sorry I was rude. I wish you a life of happiness.

Yesterday before the performance, I went to change in the ladies bathroom into my adult-sized flower costume. (Typical Monday…)

The toilet seat was down. I lift the toilet seat up. BEHOLD! A Secret Shitter left a deuce for someone to find. Was she the type who leaves a shit on purpose, or was she just too busy getting ready for the princess ball that this major dump escaped her!

Gross, but no big deal, right? Just a courtesy flush away from a clean bowl. Fine.

Secret Shitter’s colon was apparently lined with Elmer’s Glue, and one flush did no good. Two flushes did not help. Holding down the handle and letting the water flow over the stubborn shit made it just look like an anemone clinging to the rocks in the tide pool exhibit of a science museum. I pictured the Secret Shitter panicking. “Why won’t the poo go down?” She repeats her strange but heartfelt mantra as nothing changes. It’s as if she were a puppy and her master rubs her nose in the carpet, “What did you do? What did you do?”

And now I was in the same boat. A boat that was filled with poo. I was now an accomplice or at least guilty by association. How do I fix this situation? What would Jesus do?

I found myself dislodging the poo with a tampon, then tossing the shit-kissed packaging into the feminine hygiene depository. I am a good person.

Trying to ignore the idea that I was poking some human excrement, I focused on the humanitarian aspect of my action. I was saving someone from having to encounter the poo. I was a hero. No one wants to face that; I could be the one to save this bathroom with one little poo-push. I know subconsciously I was just trying to erase any connection of me with that tainted stall. Because of course if someone were to use the stall after I unsuccessfully flushed a stranger’s shit down the bowl and abandoned it, they would of course hire a bounty hunter to track down the person who had last visited that stall.

WERE YOU JUST IN THE SHITTER?! WERE YOU THE PUS-BUCKET WHO THOUGHT SHE COULD GET AWAY WITH LEAVING SUCH AN ATROCITY BEHIND? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT KIND OF EFFECT THAT HAS ON SOMEONE? HUH? DO YOU?! POST-TRAUMATIC-SHIT-DISORDER, MOTHERFUCKER. HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF? HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT? I HOPE YOU CRAP-SHIT THE BED, YOU PIECE OF CRAP-SHIT.

I’d cower and hoped he believed I wasn’t one to shit and run.

I am a good person. I will flush your poo.

Today, an audition. The casting description stressed the appearance of being “hip” nearly 4 times. Factor that number into a mathematical formula and you get a guaranteed self-doubt to hip conversion rate with every outfit added into the equation.

For example:

1. Trying on one “hip” outfit in front of the mirror will make you question your appearance at about 50%.
2. Trying on a second outfit will make you doubt you are hip at about 60%.
3. Trying on a third outfit will make you convinced you are about 80% not hip.
4. Trying on the fourth outfit will make you doubt yourself at about 90%, go back to the first outfit, and make you question how you’ve ever actually thought of yourself as cool in the first place, because these clothes are terribly old and now you just look older trying to dress younger, but young people dress differently now than when you were young–HOLY SHIT YOU WERE 18 THIRTEEN YEARS AGO–you never really looked put together in the 90′s, why did you keep these pants?,  apparently they made your butt look okay for enough time for you to keep the young-people clothes in the back of your closet, but this is an audition where they only see the top half of you anyway–OH MY GOD YOUR FRIENDS HAVE CHILDREN AND HOUSES–does anyone really wear red pants non-ironically or–
5. Young people dress like idiots these days; I look fine. 100%.

From what I can tell, skinny jeans are still in, paired with a blousy “fat shirt” [not pictured]. By the time the outfit is complete the ratio of skinny:fat makes you just look pretty average.

One more thing: Those Roman sandals [not pictured] are dumb-looking.

Head to Neck Ratio. 1:1

Gym “The Neck” Guy hasn’t changed his salutation yet, which leads to additional awkwardness and irrational annoyance towards a perfectly nice human being.

“What’s up?” he asked, rather than “How’s it going” or “How are you” or “I shouldn’t speak unless it’s about protein shakes.”

“…Nothing much,” I said, searching for how to properly communicate the subtext of “I’m polite, distant, and can spit poison, so please don’t strive for a rapport.”

“You know, just at my day job. Same old same old. Kind of boring today.”

“Well, get your workout on. It’s time to have some fun.”

GYM GUY, NO! Time to have some fun?!

I understand that the true challenge of customer service is adjusting your natural spiel when a customer thinks what you are saying is dumb and forced. But what can he do when “Get your workout on!” is phrase that is as natural to him as “Gotta get some lat dips in before lunch,” and “I killed another bunny”?  It’s practically an adverb for him.

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Hey there, gym guy with Texas-sized shoulders and a pitbull-esque neck. Yeah, it makes sense to work at a gym if you want your career to be to maintain a body mass the size of Jupiter. Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to lose 5-10 pounds in my face because I have headshots coming up and I’m trying to avoid landing the role of “Swollen Wisdom Toothed Chipmunk” unless it pays scale. I really don’t have that much to say to you. I don’t “relate” to your truck bench pressing lifestyle.

I understand that you’re practicing good customer service, but I will fail you in any conversation you attempt to have with me. If you ask me how I am, you’ll get a guaranteed generic “Fine.” That’s better than asking, “What’s going on?” I don’t have an answer for the latter. I’ll respond with a “Not much,” with the subtext of “Why do you want to know?”

He says something to the effect of, “Well, at least you get to to work out now,” because (bless his beefy heart) he has no idea that a good majority of the population hate working out.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to come up with the right answer that acknowledges his enthusiasm but conveys the sentiment “I don’t want thick-neck.”

“I just do what I gotta do.” Necessity, brother. Necessity and a normal, irrational womanly hatred for her own body.

It’s okay. We don’t have to talk. I am fine using your over-priced gym. I’m battling sub-par metabolism and the propensity to down large quantities of delicious snobby person’s beer brewed in a fabergé egg. I understand that we will come in contact with one another, but in no means do we have to have more of a “Hello/Hello” relationship.

I just don’t understand your world. Your world of protein drinks and avocado snacks. I’m an emotional one-way-or-the-other type of gal and there’s no room for “the good kind of fat” shades of gray. I don’t understand your contradictory apparel of sweats and spandex. It’s no fault of your own, but I will flub our interactions because jocks aren’t supposed to talk to nerds unless my head is being swirled in a toilet bowl.

The only way we will find common ground is if you let me attach a saddle to your back and you let me ride you like the dragon in “Never Ending Story.” I will feed you plenty of carrots and brush your fur and we will have the greatest of adventures. We will be a team. We will conquer the clouds, Gym Guy. Your name will no longer be Gym Guy. I shall call you Elkaron the Friendly Man-Dragon. As you spew fire from your nose and mouth I will cling to your neck for safety. We will battle unicorns and swoop through the air as adrenaline and wind rush through me. At the end of our day, I will award you with a satchel of magic beans and we will finally speak the same language.

I hate shopping. The trends that bless the mannequins’ well-proportioned figures do nothing for my Texas-sized ribcage and squat torso–which I’ve come to terms with and no longer write angry sonnets about. The flowy baby doll style shirt makes me look pregnant. If I wanted to look pregnant I’d steal a baby.

Forever 21: A store that reminds you you’re Actually 31.

For some reason I subject myself to this store. A store where outdated patterns come to vomit on dresses. A store where t-shirt material is the new black, and cheaply sewn dresses are the new break-away pants.

In the dressing room I become more and more like a Cathy cartoon with every outfit. Ill-fitting and humorous, my figure ranges from bulbous to sea cucumber as I try on 16 sundresses.

I settled on a belt and a floppy hat.

To aurally witness this conversation and hear Moira’s complete voicemail, listen here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Dear Hanes,

I’ve been a faithful user of your products for years, you know, when I go shopping I remember your commercials and make my purchase based on those opinions that I recall from watching the fruit, the human fruit. They’re funny. But I just wanted to call to express my concern for one of your products.

Your 5 pack of bikini briefs with various patterns. Size medium. I assume they’re a popular item, thus my difficulty in expressing my frustration and concern. Mostly concern. Well, maybe equal parts frustration and concern.

When I first wore one of the items I did not notice something until I used the ladies’ facilities. When I pulled down your product as I was sitting, I noticed a sticker with a number on it, “#44″ was the number on it.  I took this to mean these undergarments were inspected by someone in a factory, namely one in India, since I later inspected and saw “Hencho en India” printed on the label, which I assumed to be Indian for “Made in India.” I removed the sticker and as they say, went about my merry way.

Being slightly absent-minded, I forgot to go home–well, I remembered to go home–but I forgot to remove the stickers in the other undergarments. So the next day I discovered another #44 sticker in the, I guess you call it a “vulvic sling” of the undergarment. I will admit, I felt reassured to know that such care went into making sure that everything I was putting on my body was inspected and deemed safe to wear by this #44.

And that’s why I’m contacting you, because I did not find a #44 sticker on one of the five garments in this pack of five underwear(s).  And I’m taking a stand, and I’m deeming these not safe to wear and am prepared to take this to the press if need be. I am concerned, I am a concerned citizen, I’d like to make it a point to fight for the public safety, knowing something like this slipped through the cracks. It’s disturbing. If this pair was not inspected, what’s to say that there aren’t others out there? How many other deadly panties, briefs or pantaloons or otherwise are lurking in America’s pants?

Without this assurance of inspection how am I to know that this underwear is not full of lead, or may fall apart causing me to trip, if it were to slouch down a pant leg, or may be more susceptible to fringing or fraying, or catching on things that may cause me to fall.

I do hope that you will take swift action and reprimand #44 so that this does not happen again, as well as recall the entire shipment affected by this error.

I have included a picture of me with your product and will take store credit if there’s no other option.

Sincerely,

Moira Durnwood

I might be overdoing it with zombie exposure as of late.  Due to the nature of my (un)healthy monster obsession, I’ve resulted in warping my slumber with apocalyptic undead nightmares.  I have zombies on the braaaaaaain.

I subject myself to watching zombies on a weekly basis now with the addition of a new television series on AMC.  Luckily, my friends take pity on me and allow me to sit on their couch since my house is sans cable.  My apartment is still made of thatch and mud, which makes it difficult to secure the satellite dish to the roof.

We doubled up the dose a week ago with “Dead Set” and “Walking Dead” and after an evening of all that gore, leaving their house on a quiet Sunday evening was a little disconcerting.  Sunday evenings in Chicago give you the impression you live in the suburbs.  It’s too quiet and for some reason people are sleeping.  Why are they sleeping when there are zombies possibly roaming around the neighborhood?!

I got on my bike and started heading home.  I was the only one on the street for a good five blocks until I came to the busy intersection.  Across the street I saw someone crumpled on the ground.  So, being the naïve human that would immediately be eaten alive within the first five minutes of the movie, I crossed the street to investigate the seemingly dead individual.  The body was folded in half, limp and unmoving.

“Are you okay?”  I asked the pile of clothes.  A trail of liquid poured from the body.

If this was a fast moving zombie, I had about two seconds to bolt on my bike, but even then it’d be close.  I was lying to myself.  I’d still be dead or bitten.

The clothes started to move and a pale face slowly rose to look at me with a glazed expression.  It was a she, scraggly blonde hair framing her face.   Vacant eyes peered at me with confusion and seemed to have trouble focusing on me just five feet in front of her.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was a slow moving zombie.

“Are you okay?”  I repeated to the doubled-over zombie.

“JUST… GO… OKAY?!” she said with concentrated anger at an unexpected volume.

Now was my chance to escape.  She was obviously turning, but still had enough mind to allow me to warn others of the impending invasion.

“Fine!  I’m gone!” I said, caught off guard by the zombie’s anger.  “I just wanted to help.”

I biked home.  I felt bad for leaving her there by herself.  I mean, frankly, it was a stupid move on my part, because as soon as she crossed from dead to undead, there was now no one there to bash her head into the pavement.  I just doomed the human race.

So I made the same mistake that seemingly all humans make when faced with a turning, but not fully risen zombie.  I returned to the scene of the crime expecting the metamorphosis to be complete.   I’m embarrassed that I did not bring a bat or other blunt object to finish her off once I arrived.   This is why zombie movies have such predictable plots.  We make the same mistake over and over again because we think we can save the undead from this unavoidable fate.  Stupid humans.

I expected to find her feasting on the bowels of an innocent pedestrian, but instead I saw two police cars.

I was just going to see if the zombie was still there and didn’t quite have a plan of action.   I was going to help her the best I could without being bitten and then possibly douse her with a Molotov cocktail before a horde appeared down the city street.

“I came back and was going to call 311,” I told the police officers.

“When you see someone down, you should call 911,” they informed me as if they were the zombie experts.

Fuck this.  I leave a zombie alone for two minutes and she got me in trouble.

“I know,” I said, looking at the zombie who was now on her back and muttering something about brains, “but she told me to go away.”

“Yeah, she told us the same thing,” said the officers.  “She’s not too happy.”

Well, yeah, I thought.  She’s the walking dead now.

I left the zombie with the authorities and just hoped that they understood what they were getting into before it was too late.  The fate of the human race was depending on them now.

I booked a commercial. One of those late night/mid-afternoon 18 to 30 seconds advertisements telling people to re-examine their life and go back to school.

“My life is a mess, then I found [insert college name].”

Literally.  We did about six different versions each with a different college name.  Then I listed three possible careers one could study.  Cut.  Three new careers.  Cut.  Three new careers… “Cardiovascular Sonography, Medical Billing and Coding… Video and Game Design.”  Yes, it’s one of those kind of commercials.  I’m changing lives, people.  Probably at about 12:45 in the afternoon during an Oprah commercial break.  I’ll take it.  I have wedding cupcakes to pay for soon.

“Hey kid, are you like me and want pursue your passion with your free time but you’ve wracked up enough college and fun miscellaneous debt to keep you pinned down to a day time job that you can’t afford to quit?  Yeah… no one cares, so here are some careers that you wished you had some desire to study so you could just be normal and move to the suburbs.  Good luck with that welding degree.  Hope you have a minor in accounting, you blissfully ignorant 18 to 22 year-old.  Tell your loving and supportive parents they are committing acts of child abuse by attending those piano recitals of yours.  You can’t solder rent, Pinocchio! Why don’t you just crochet a retirement fund while you’re at it?!”

It’s a little strange when you are essentially describing your own life in all its proud, artistic instability while being paid to tell someone in your same predicament that they shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.

The internet sometimes is the best source of birth control.

Goddamn Chatroulette.  Invented by a seventeen year-old, dicks galore, friends from other countries decked out in hoodies and internet courage*.  I feel like I’m rubbernecking after passing by a horrible accident.

Other than the boil “zit” lancing video, I have maybe 4-5 images burned into my mind permanently due to the internet.  If you’re not already familiar with the ones I’m mentioning, good.  You don’t need to be.  Don’t research them.  There’s absolutely no need.  You will lead a perfectly normal, healthy existence, and probably can still be sarcastically morbid with these images NOT IMPRINTED IN YOUR BRAIN.

1. Motorcycle Face Accident Dude  – Courtesy of Rotten dot Com.  Dude’s Face + Motorcycle Accident = Lack of Face displayed on Internet Site
2. Japanese Shit Volcano Shower Girl  –  Courtesy of “Takes All Kinds” Sexuality.  Shower + Upside Down Japanese Girl + Jesus Help Us That’s a Lot of Diahearra Spewing Vertically Out of Her Asshole = Questioning Humanity’s Pleasure-Issuing Synapses
3. “Goatse” —  Courtesy of “The Body Sure Can Stretch” Philosophy.  Ever wonder what the inside of your body looks like, say, if you decided to check it out via your anus?  This man did.  If you need a giggle, go check out the delightfully clinical Wikipedia description of the “Internet Shock Site.”  If you need to make sure your gag reflex is working, just Google the word.  Takes “spread ‘em” to a whole new level.

Anyway.

Yesterday, since I slept in until 10:30 in the morning, I apparently had the ability to stay up ALL THROUGH TIME and could not sleep at all.  The thought crossed my mind to visit Chatroulette to pass the time.  Honestly, I felt weird about it.  Like, it was the equivalent of drinking alone.  It was okay to do it with friends, but if you are on the site on your own you had a problem.  Then I realized I do drink alone, was drinking alone, and should address those issues another day… Okay, fine, I’ll go on Chatroulette.

After school special advice whooshed through my head as I signed on:  Do not trust anyone, at any point you can be recorded (AKA wear a disguise of awesome Batman proportions), curb your reactions so as not to be the victim of a screen capture or YouTube montage.

Be prepared.  You will be harassed, sexually or otherwise, by signing onto Chatroulette.  It’s a damn wild concept–hell, maybe it’s Youth overreacting to their elementary school music teacher friending them on Facebook– but I’m sure within a year’s time, The Dicks are going to ruin it for the rest of us.  Literal dicks.  Dick after damn dick after damn dick.  Porn is no longer a Hustler mag in a garage, it’s a random 4 second flaccid French dude’s Freedom Fry on a computer screen.  But whatever, your 14 year-old is going to see a lot of dicks on this so-called information superhighway, so make sure you talk to them about the appropriate sites they’re allowed to visit at their sleepovers.  Otherwise they’re going to see dick parades.  Then the cycle continues and those teens will be dicks and ask girls to show their boobs like the assholes they were destined to be.

So, these kids are born with internet courage:

*Internet Courage. (noun) - Fearlessness and conviction that one is correct and protected within the boundaries of cyberspace.  One with internet courage has complete disregard towards anyone’s feelings, and gravitates towards unwarranted attacks.  Stems from desensitization, fueled by the culture of the 2 second attention span and watching episodes of “Family Guy” and the misunderstanding that hurt feelings can be mended with the abbreviations “lol” and “jk”.  Often times someone afflicted with Internet Courage will use all capitalization or long strings of unnecessary punctuation.

There’s no fight or flight anymore, just fight. Which finally brings me to my point.  I’m a little terrified by today’s youth.  I think I saw a 13 year-old’s taint on Chatroulette and frankly I’m having a hard time dealing with it.  Even typing that sentence made shudder again.

Like I said, the goal (my goal) of Chatroulette is to either be with a posse of complete goofballs who can’t be hurt by anyone’s hatred, or to be completely unphased by the dick n’ ball nature of this weird world.  On the screen pops two young kids who see me, a girl on the screen.  A perfect opportunity to test the boundaries of courage and young dickitudedness.

“Ah ha!” they say to themselves.  ”A woman!  Let us show her our chest so that she might show us the same!”

After typing, “MILF,” to woo me, they corrected it to the flattering term, “GILF,” and Kiddo #1 proceeded to show his own underdeveloped tits to the computer screen as a demonstration of what I do in return.  Being 90 years older than them,  I didn’t do much to encourage them, but their own flailing was contagious between the two.  Kiddo #2 takes this opportunity to moon me, his sphincter begging for a reaction.  His friend bounces with his shirt nearly off, and I don’t do much but half-grin at the spectacle.

I’ve been mooned before, and I’m sure I’ve even mooned someone myself.  But there’s mooning from a safe distance, and then there’s accidentally misunderstanding how much a web cam can capture the chiaroscuro one’s back door.  ”Welcome to Chatroulette, Me.”  Here I was sitting on my couch, in dumb sunglasses and a hat, my cat snoring next to me, and there is some English kid’s unknowing asshole winking at me on my screen.  And that is the #5 image that is now burned in my brain thanks to the internet.

I continued to half-grin at the two pre-rapists.  I would not give them the reaction that they wanted.  It worked.  Normally the receiver of this poop-shoot salute would click out of the room and the kids would start over, because there’s only so long one can jump around with an ass or two in the air before running out of things to do with a butt.  So they may have won and actually gotten a subliminal reaction out of me, but at least I had to make them click out of the room after they eventually felt weird being pantless in front of their friend and a stranger on the internet.  Hooray for me being creepy…?

It’s catharsis, writing about this immature cyber-bullying.  It’s also a reason to double up on birth control.  I don’t want to breed an asshole who shows his asshole.  Then again, it’s also hard to not want to suit up in a dumb wig and sunglasses and log on to the damn site again right now for another freak show before bed time.