Overflowing Toilet

(I do not own this image, I found it here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/166562065/dont-touch-my-balls-white-baby-onesie)

                I am a woman who really enjoys poop jokes; I can’t explain it. Perhaps my taste for graceless jokes comes from my complete lack of it. Shocking as it may seem ESPECIALLY for those of you who know me very well, I have had some embarrassing moments in the restroom. I have been frightened into wetting my pants (and driven home with my coat tied around my waist to change), since having my daughter I often lose a bit of my bladder’s contents when I sneeze (not every time, enough with the suspicious stares), I can’t even count the times I have farted in a store just to have someone walk around the corner into the stink cloud moments later, and I have of course clogged my fair share of toilets. None of these incidents even come close to the horror that befell me in the fall of 2009, a permanent black mark in my past.

                I was spending the weekend at a new girlfriend’s house and was anxious to make a good impression. This chick was the judgmental type and the type to never let you ever live anything even remotely embarrassing down. For example, I was once playing Strip P’Diddle with her and a few other friends two years later. I am known not only for my frequent flatulence but also for my slow reflexes, an unfortunate trait in the game of P’Diddle. For those of you who have never played, it is a simple car game. Every time you see someone with a missing headlight or taillight or those ridiculously bright white headlights, you shout P’DIDDLE and touch the ceiling of the car. The last poor fool to carry this out has to remove an article of clothing. (I have been very exposed while playing P’Diddle.) So there I was, already topless and forced to remove my pants just as we rolled through the McDonald’s drive-thru. Sadly, the embarrassing part was that it was laundry day and I was wearing some monstrous granny panties. I never lived that one down; in fact, one of the girls I was with went out and bought me three thongs as a joke later on. (It was humiliating, but, hey, I will take the free undies!)

                Returning to my first weekend at Judgmental Girl’s house, as you may know, normal people don’t go an entire weekend without pooping and teenagers are really shy about their bowel movements. (Let me save you some trouble, young ones, no one gives a shit. Literally. Everyone drops a deuce now and again. Even if it is smelly, you aren’t really getting judged as much as you think you are. In fact, I judge you more for holding it. Honestly, are you a sadist or just dumb? POOP!) I swear, I held it as long as I could (by which I mean probably 18 hours after arriving. I know, right? JUST GO, FOOL!) We were outside lounging around the backyard and talking smack about everyone we knew when I could hold it no longer. Assuring her I would be right back, I bravely entered the house and headed for the only bathroom. Its location was…less than ideal. It was directly off the kitchen where her mom spent pretty much every waking moment. Lucky for me, she was not around at the time.

                As I flushed the toilet, I prayed, “Please don’t clog, please don’t clog, PLEASE, DON’T CLOG!!!!” Yeah, it clogged. I scoured the room for a plunger to no avail. Who in their right mind doesn’t keep a plunger in their house!? Especially if I am your house guest!? Hopelessly, I tried to flush again which turned out to be a MASSIVE mistake! The toilet began overflowing at top speed! I ripped the door to the bathroom closet open, pulling out every towel I could reach to clean up the toilet water that was cascading out of the toilet at probably a trizillion miles a second. I frantically searched the room for something to unclog the toilet with (other than my arm). As the towels became soaked through, I started throwing the dirty clothes from the hamper down to keep the floor dry. Finally, I grabbed a toilet brush, thrusting it into the toilet as hard as I could. The toilet brush did eventually unclog the toilet, but it was a little worse for wear after all that…and I was traumatized.

                I braced myself as I opened the door. I kept picturing Judgmental Girl and her whole Judgmental Family standing on the other side of the door waiting to greet me with disgusted stares. I stepped boldly out into the kitchen to find it was still empty. LORD, I TRULY AM BLESSED!!! I booked it back outside hoping she hadn’t noticed that I had been gone for a long time. She had. It turned out I had been inside for almost a full half an hour. Not knowing how to explain myself, I told her I had gone into her room and watched TV for a while, winning myself Best Friend of the Year for sure.

Lucy's Pants

                My daughter, Lucy, is a bad sleeper. She always has been. The first night we had her home from the hospital she stayed up all night long screaming (and proving that she would give us a run for our money). For the first three months of her life, she wouldn’t sleep unless I held her. Putting her down to nap has always been like some form of cruel torture and can take hours if you’re successful at all. I often plan our entire day around tricking her into taking a nap (though I am not always successful). I have spent many nights cramming myself into her toddler bed with her to coax her to sleep. She gets up at least once in the night to come say hi. Most mornings she gets up around 4:30 and I have to fight her to stay in bed until 6 (a time I feel is acceptable to get up for the day). When we put Lucy to bed at night, she almost always gets back out at least once (usually several times), and since she learned how to use the doorknobs her lack of cooperation at bedtime has only increased. It’s never long after we tuck her in and retreat to our room exhausted and relieved for some adult time that we hear the pitter patter of her sweet little feet growing louder and louder. We look in the doorway to see her triumphant little grin beaming up at us as if to say, “Ha HA!”

(Lucy sleeping on me at 2 1/2 weeks.)

She is quite a mischievous little lady most nights (and in general). For example, one night in January, I came in from my evening walk forty five minutes after I put her in bed and heard her moving around. I opened the door to complete darkness. I thought, “Wow, Jude took her nightlight away as a form of punishment. That’s kind of harsh.” I told Lucy to get back in bed please and shut the door, feeling it was best to keep a united front with my husband, but when I asked him about it, he said he didn’t even know she was up. Assuming the nightlight had burnt out I went back in to see what was up. I switched on the light and lo, there was my daughter on the floor next to the power outlet trying to shove the nightlight back into it. (This is the part where I lost about five years of my life from sheer panic. Lucy on the other hand was absolutely delighted to have gained some attention. The nightlight had to be relocated to an outlet behind her bed. The room is much darker now, but fortunately Lucy doesn’t mind.)

                As you may imagine, these little events can become very frustrating at times. I go out most evenings for a walk as soon as I put Lucy in bed and part of the reason is because we have found Lucy will accept defeat and go to bed faster if I’m not in the house. If I go to intercept her as she makes her great escapes, she almost always attempts another within a few minutes. If Jude goes to put her back to bed and says I’ve gone out for a walk, she cries a bit sometimes, but ultimately doesn’t get out of bed anymore. (She doesn’t come out of her room at least. I have been finding her sleeping in places other than her bed a lot lately.)  As frustrating as this can be to deal with night after night, it’s usually easy to make light of it because, let’s be honest, this kid is hilarious and adorable. Some of the stuff I walk in on her doing in the dark can be really charming and she always treats it like a big joke.

                I came back from my evening walk a few nights ago and was getting ready to hop in the shower when I heard Lucy’s door opening. Surprised that she was still up (it was forty five minutes after I had put her into bed), I went in to put her back into bed. I put my arms around her to lift her up and felt that she didn’t have a shirt on. Assuming she was naked again (seriously, I can’t keep her in clothes right now) and wondering here her pajamas were, I flipped on the light to discover, BAM, she was wearing a pair of pants! Lucy had taken off her pajamas, put them away in the laundry basket, opened her dresser, picked out a pair of pants she liked, and shut the dresser drawer all in almost total darkness.

                Proudly, Lucy announced, “Mommy, I pants!”

                “Super good job, Lucy,” I told her, laughing. “Let’s put our jamjam’s back on and get in bed now.”

                As I tried to wrangle her out of her pants and into her pajamas, she started wailing out, “Pants! Pants! Pants!”

                I was not about to rain on her parade if she was that proud of her pants. We made a deal that she could keep the pants if I could add a pull-up and she had to pick out a shirt to wear. I opened her shirt drawer and she carefully selected a sparkly red sweater. She was so proud of her self-selected outfit it was hard to be stern with her. I couldn’t help myself; I had to take her picture!

                It’s moments like that that help us not to mind her terrible sleeping habits so much. It was a little harder not to mind when she got up at 5:15 the next morning demanding Pooh Bear and cereal, but we all do our best.

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT!

                Once upon a time during my sophomore year of high school, I dumped a girl. It ended quite badly with many tears and a lot of screaming. Through her, I had met a gentleman involved with the theatre program in one of our local high schools. For the sake of his privacy, I will call him Mr. B. (After all, B can stand for many things; for example B could stand for Bitch or maybe Butthole. It would fill my heart with petty joy to imagine you beautiful blog-reading darlings calling this guy Mr. Butthole, but I’ll stick to Mr. B for short.) The two of them were very close, close enough that he actually invited us to his wedding. A few weeks after our dramatic parting, I contacted via Facebook message him inquiring about a possible performance we had discussed putting together. I had assumed that this adult man old enough to be my father would be mature enough to handle a break up he wasn’t even a part of. He quickly showed me how wrong I was; W-O-R-N-G, wrong!

SC: Hey, Mr. B. I hope your honeymoon was fun. I was hoping we could talk a little more about the possibility of bringing the high schools together for that show when you have time. Thanks. :)

Mr. B: You’ve got a lot of nerve messaging me.

*silence*

Mr. B: If you think I’d ever work with you after what you did to Ex-Girlfriend, you’re even dumber than you look!

SC: I’m sorry if I’ve put you in an uncomfortable situation by breaking up with Ex-Girlfriend, Mr. B, but there are two sides to everything…It wasn’t working between us. We’re only in high school. I don’t really think it’s a big enough deal to not pursue uniting the local students in a production.

Mr. B: Fuck you, you stupid bitch! I’ll never let you be in any theatre production of mine!

SC: Okay, bye.

Mr. B: And just so you know, Ex-Girlfriend and I have discussed it and we decided if you were in Harry Potter, you would be Lord Voldemort because you’re so evil!

                *As a huge Harry Potter fan and a Hufflepuff, I was honestly horribly offended.*

SC: What the hell, B? Are you not an adult teacher old enough to be my father? Grow up!

SC: AND FOR THE RECORD, I AM A HUFFLEPUFF!

Mr. B: You wish you were a Hufflepuff! They’re honest and you’re a filthy liar! You swore you’d love her forever! *I was sixteen and she was fourteen.* You broke her heart! You’re Lord Voldemort, and we decided I am Professor Dumbledore and Ex-Girlfriend is Harry Potter so fuck you! We will vanquish your evil!

SC: As IF you could ever even aspire to be anything like Professor Dumbledore! You’re being super immature right now, B! Are you kidding me?

Mr. B: WHATEVER, VOLDEMORT. I DON’T BELIEVE IN YOUR EVIL WAYS.

SC: Fuck you, B. I’m Ginny Weasley. I’m ALWAYS Ginny Weasley!

                That’s about the time I blocked Mr. B(utthole). I have to confess, I have scarcely ever been so insulted in my entire life (in the moment anyway). After unloading my frustration onto a couple of good friends, I was able to find the humor in it. For seven years after, I used the screen name Voldemort and always ordered take-out under the name Voldemort. (For the record, I’m definitely not Voldemort, but it gave me a laugh. Every once in a while a funny person would get the joke. Usually at Starbucks.) Thanks for being so childish, Mr. B! You filled my life with petty humor. I hope you get a box of Bernie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans with NOTHING but vomit flavour inside!

(I feel like adding the lack of nose just makes me look like Voldemort and Squidward had a really surprisingly eccentric baby.)

Jerry Jones

                When I was in high school, I worked with my best friend, Dawn, at our hometown’s movie theatre, The Roseland. With only one screen, showing one movie a weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, it was a small operation. Dawn and I ran the concessions stand, opening at 7 p.m. and closing by 9 p.m. Our years there together were filled with constantly smelling of popcorn, sneaking candy bars, slipping in soda, freezing in the winter, melting in the summer, ice fights (filling popcorn tubs with ice and throwing it at each other with brutal force), sifting through movie posters going back for decades, and spying on people from the closed balcony. We had the best gossip in town. The Roseland was the only movie theatre for miles around, so people of all ages piled in any time we were showing a decent flick and, filled with excitement, they would buzz all around the theatre talking a little too freely. Dawn and I soaked up all the information we could and giggled about it from our private balcony seats, the top of our world.

                One fateful night, our mutual friend Anne came in with a group of friends. Anne was a couple years younger than Dawn and I and was somewhat synonymous with “drama”. I privately dreaded nights that Anne showed up, because she was notorious for bombarding us with prying questions and worrying us by leaving the theatre with various undesirable suitors. About half an hour into the film that evening I went to check that no cell phones were out and Anne followed me back to the lobby. “Hey, Sarah,” she began, “I don’t want to have any problems, but a girl from my group went into the ladies' restroom with Jerry Jones to have sex. Please don’t tell anyone I was the one who told you.” I assured Anne we would take care of it with discretion and practically skipped off to tell Dawn of this latest scandal. We didn’t really feel that the two of us would have the authority to shake the confidence of someone cocky enough to get frisky in a two stall bathroom who was only a few years our junior anyway, and decided to alert our superiors.

                Upon entering the office, we found only Linda, a sour woman in her late 60’s who ran the ticket booth most nights, and the owner’s wife, Mrs. Chandler, who was roughly the same age as Linda and was occasionally known to be a bit out of her mind so I’d heard. Seemingly unfazed by this scandalous development, the two women asked us to go confirm the story. Our teenage body’s alive with the spark of a juicy story, we devotedly carried out the task. We stood silently in the corner of the bathroom as a woman washed her hands and left the restroom, giving us a look that said, “what the fuck?” as she walked out the door. A few moments of silence passed before we heard a deep voice saying, “Hey, hey, hey! So I think we’re alone now!” Silently, Dawn and I looked at each other, mouths agape in wide unbelieving grins. Scarcely able to contain our fits of giggles, we shuffled out of the restroom. As the door swung shut behind me, I heard the same voice say, “What was that?”

                We reported to Mrs. Chandler and Linda, breathless from laughter and unable to hide our wicked grins. Mrs. Chandler sighed as if to say, “I’m too old for this shit,” and marched off to the women’s room, phone in hand with Linda, Dawn, and me in tow. She busted through the door like a gangster, barking at a few young gossiping girls to get out as Dawn and I huddled in the corner holding each other up as we shook with laughter. Rapping on the door, Mrs. Chandler called out, “Jerry Jones? We’ve got your parents on the phone. They want to speak to you.”

                “Shit,” we heard come hissing out from behind the stall door sending us into fresh peels of silent laughter (silent because of the fearsome glares we were getting from Linda). The girl’s voice called out again, “Uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just me in here. I’m, uhm, just…pooping.”

                Mrs. Chandler wasn’t in the mood to play. “Young lady, we know that Jerry Jones is in there with you. You both need to come out now.”

                “No he’s not! It’s just me!”

                “Fine,” Mrs. Chandler called out, “We’ll just call the police. They’ll open the door for us.”

                “Just a minute,” Jerry Jones’ deep voice called out immediately. We heard a distinct ZIP; a moment later, the door opened, and Jerry Jones came barreling out. Attempting to slide past Mrs. Chandler, he said, “I’ll just be going now.”

                Mrs. Chandler’s arm shot out, blocking his path, holding him and the young girl in the corner of the restroom. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she spat out. “You listen to me! You listen to me, real good! This movie theatre is not your personal love shack! Obviously, your parents don’t want you two doing this or you’d do it at home, but you will NOT be pleasuring each other on my time!” As Mrs. Chandler launched into a full-on furious lecture, Dawn and I could barely hold ourselves upright from laughter. I leaned against the wall, arm around Dawn, as Dawn leaned against me, our heads together. Jerry Jones gave us the meanest, nastiest look he could muster. Mrs. Chandler shouted out, “Don’t you look at those girls! You look at me and listen up! I know you think you’re in love, but you two don’t know the first thing about love! You don’t have a damn clue what love is! You’re just children!”

                “Uh, I’ll just leave…” Jerry Jones tried, but was cut off again.

                “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Mrs. Chandler’s fury growing by the second, she declared, “No! You two will sit through the rest of this movie with me between you! You will each be escorted to your parent’s cars where you will tell them what happened, and then you will be banned from the theatre for six months! Now, back to your seats!”

                As Mrs. Chandler marched the sorry suckers out of the restroom, she gave us a stern glare that had absolutely no effect on us whatsoever. We were far beyond the point of being concerned about discretion as we full-out ran to our balcony seats to watch Mrs. Chandler chaperone the remainder of Jerry Jones’ ill-fated movie date, shamelessly giggling and ogling at their unfolding punishments for the rest of the evening.

(Dawn and me, 2010. The only photo I can find from our movie theatre days.)

*Jerry Jones' name was changed for his privacy.

How Do These Kids Keep Getting Inside of my Mom??

(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah, Winter of 2012. Beauts.)

         I was six when my mom and dad asked me to come into the kitchen for a quick talk. I couldn't figure out what I was about to get in trouble for this time. Racking my brains to remember what I thought I had gotten away with but was surely about to be busted for, I dragged my feet slowly to the kitchen table. My parents were both sitting with their traditional stone faces of secrecy, refusing to give me any kind of hint to what terrible punishment was in store for me. If only I could read their minds. (I probably don't ever want to read their minds actually.) I stood before them on guard, ready to flee at any moment (as if I could escape being grounded). I was not expecting what came next.

         If there was any kind of preamble to this, I don't remember it. (I don’t think I was really listening.) All I recall is my mother saying, "Sarah, we're having another baby."

        I stood still for a second waiting for a, “GOTCHA!” Alas, it never came, so I laughed and said, "Good one, Mom! Okay, see ya." I quickly began a retreat, but was called back by my father.

         "Sarah Catherine, we're serious. Mom is pregnant. You're going to have another sister or a brother," he said in a serious voice (unusual for him at the time).

         I was three when my sister, Susannah, was born. I don't remember being told Mom was pregnant (probably because I was two), but I sure remember the day Susannah was born. Mom decided we would go down to North Carolina to stay with my Aunt Melissa, Uncle Chris, and cousins, Alex and Dylan, for New Years. My grandmother also came down with us, but Dad had to stay home for work. Mom wasn't due to have Susannah for two more weeks, so she was probably hoping to squeeze one more little trip in before she potentially had two of me, her dramatic, needy, attention-hungry first born. How she and Dad decided having more kids after me was a good idea, I will never understand.

         On New Year’s Eve, Mom and I were sharing a bed. I was feeling pretty clingy as we prepared for the new baby. Something I saw on TV had totally freaked me out before bed and I had a vivid nightmare that my mother and beloved unborn baby sister were abducted by aliens. I woke early in the morning to find that I was alone in the bed; MOM WAS ACTUALLY GONE. Panic ensued. I searched the house for her in the dark, quietly weeping. Eventually, my Uncle Chris found me. When I wailed out to him that my mom had been abducted by aliens, he gave me one of those pity laughs adults give kids when they're distressed over ridiculous things and told me no, Mom had just gone into labor, and was at the hospital.

         I was overcome with joy! At last my baby sister, future best friend, and playmate of my dreams was coming out of Mommy's tummy! I had been waiting for this day for what felt like my entire life (and honestly it was a good chunk of it at that young age). I was loaded into the car with my family and whisked to the hospital to meet my angelic sister.

         Rewind to my Mom's experience during this time. Mom went into labor right around the time we went to bed. While I drifted off to sleep, Mom was trying to convince herself there was no way these were contractions she was feeling. After I fell soundly asleep, she got up and paced around the house for a while until, five hours after labor started, she could ignore it no longer. She woke my grandmother up and said, "Mama, I'm in labor!"

         Mom boarded an ambulance in the wee hours of the morning in Duck, North Carolina. It was a dark and foggy morning and somehow the ambulance got lost in the fog. My mother ended up at a hospital in Chesapeake, Virginia an hour and a half away from her starting point. She swears that by the time they got there, she was holding the baby in trying not to give birth in the ambulance. Mom got off the ambulance at 8:32 and four minutes later, Susannah was born.

         ENTER SARAH! The party got started when I walked in of course. How little I knew of siblings then, so fresh faced and young, so excited. I was thrilled to see my mother safe and not in the clammy hands of aliens, and even better, holding my precious new partner in crime. I was desperate to hold her and also to get attention from mom. (I needed to establish my dominance with that kid ASAP.) Hesitantly, Mom allowed me to get on the bed and placed Susannah tenderly in my arms. Some of you may not believe what happened next, but I swear it is true. Peaceful, newborn Susannah opened her eyes to me and I beamed down at her. She took me in for a moment, then, just for a second, flashed me the snarkiest smirk I have ever seen, opened her trap, and started screaming bloody murder.

        That pretty much sums up the first several years of our lives together. If I had something she wanted, she would scream at me until I gave it to her. If I was getting too much attention for her liking, she would scream it all away from me. She did not turn out to be the obedient, Sarah-worshiping angel I had anticipated, and it would be many years before we became close. (We actually are best friends now.)

        Given my prior experience with babies being born, I was naturally skeptical of another coming into my life. I fought back tears of horror as my parents insisted it was true that Mom was pregnant and stared at me completely dumbfounded at my insistence they must be joking. After a few days, the idea of it was starting to settle down into my mind garden. I began praying for a baby brother thinking maybe a boy would be the obedient servant I had hoped for. I also started to wonder how the heck these kids kept getting into my mom's stomach and encroaching on my turf. I started asking a lot of questions, very specific questions, questions my mother could not just ignore.

         Unable to escape my curiosity, my mom went to my elementary school guidance counselor to borrow some illustrated books to aid her presentation on how babies were made. One Saturday afternoon, she called me back into the kitchen. She bravely read through a book that explained sex on a child's level complete with pictures of blank faced women on their backs as blank faced men lay on top of them under pea green blankets, detailed diagrams of uteri, sperm and eggs, fetuses growing through different stages of a pregnancy, and a very unrealistic illustration of a woman giving birth (no one is that calm looking at such an event). At the end of the book I stood in utter disgust, wearing my parent’s traditional stone face until my mother could take the suspense no longer.

         "Well?"

          I looked her dead in the eye and harrumphed, saying, "I must have been asleep when y'all were doing THAT."

         I left my baffled mother to make a phone call to my friend Naia so that I could tell them the scandalous details of how our moms and dads were putting their "peepee places together”. I distinctly recall taking a vow: "I am never doing THAT!" Dream on, little Sarah.

         In spite of the disgusting way he was conceived, I was ecstatic when my Mom went into labor. I remember seeing her and Dad off at the front door that December all full of pep and excitement (much more than my Mom which I didn't understand at the time. I figured it out after I had given birth to my own kid, let me tell you. Talk about a double edged sword.) My poor grandmother and Auntie were left with the unpleasant job of watching my sister and me. I can't really remember what Susannah was up to, but knowing what a good kid she was, she was probably just quietly playing with her dollies. I was absolutely bouncing off the walls.

         By 9 o'clock that night, Christopher had been born. My exhausted sounding mother's voice came over the phone to me to deliver the words I was dying to hear: "Sarah, you have a baby brother." I hurled the phone into my grandmother's stomach (Sorry, Nan), let out a victory cry, and ran through the house screaming in triumph for several minutes. It must have been hell trying to put me to bed that night.

         The next morning, Susannah and I were taken to see Christopher and Mom at the hospital before school. Christopher was seriously the most beautiful newborn baby I have ever seen. His chubby white face was home to the biggest, rosiest cheeks, the shiniest pink lips, and the roundest, bluest eyes and was topped off with a thick tuft of pure white hair. He was basically the Snow White of boys with inverted hair color. I was allowed to pass out blue "It's a Boy!" lollipops to my classmates and FYI they were super delicious. It was pretty much an awesome day.

         There you have the stories of my siblings (at least my side of it). They both grew into two really kick ass individuals. I have watched my sister grow from a little girl throwing her arms into the air and screaming, "SUPER ZANNAH!" as she tackled my gigantic father to the ground, to a graceful young woman flawlessly dancing as the Sugar Plum Fairy in her final Nutcracker before graduating high school, to a plucky dame of a woman who won't let anyone hold her back as she pursues a life that's good. I have watched as my brother has gone from a beautiful little boy saying "frucks" instead of "trucks", to a lady slaying middle schooler with girls falling all over him, to a surprisingly mature young man working hard at his first job and desperately trying to score his own car. (He ended up inheriting my old Subaru recently. I am thrilled that it went to him.) We have fought, we have cried, we have screamed, we have invaded each other's privacy, and we have taught each other forgiveness. That's the beauty of having a sibling; to have one is to have a lifelong friend that you can always count on even after you tell their really embarrassing penis stories.

(Myself, Christopher, and Susannah. Summer of 2000.)

Wisdom Teeth

                When I was 17, my dentist took an x-ray of my mouth to see how my wisdom teeth were coming along. I don’t like the dentist much, and I especially didn’t like this dentist. (For two years I had told him I had a cavity in one of my molars and it wasn’t until I was 16 that he finally acknowledged it. By the time he decided to admit I was right and fill the thing, he had to essentially hollow my entire tooth out;  I have had problems with it ever since.) With several black marks against him already, he gained a small glean of approval when he brought in my x-rays and said, “Well, Sarah, it looks like you only have three wisdom teeth. I don’t think they’re going to give you any trouble.” When I returned to his office for a second x-ray, it was on my 18^th birthday. I was confident the universe wouldn’t begrudge me good luck the morning of my birthday. (I mean, heck, I was already getting to miss the first few hours of school!) I was dead wrong. When Dr. Doom hung up my new x-rays next to my old ones, he announced that not only did I have four wisdom teeth (not three), but they were all impacted and had to be surgically removed. (Thanks for being a dirty liar!)

                Several months later on the first day of my last ever spring break in high school, I sat in the back seat of my mom’s Honda Pilot at 6 in the morning on my way to have my mouth sliced open like an Easter ham. I was incredibly nervous. I had never had any kind of surgery before and my extreme anxiety had graciously painted vivid images of the evil dentists doing terrible things to me while I was doped up on anesthesia. I was also feeling pretty outraged that my mom and my dentist were teaming up to ruin my spring break. It wasn’t like I really had any friends to make plans with, but the option would have been nice! Besides, why ruin my free time when you could plan the surgery during school so I wouldn’t have to be there a few extra days? I kept thinking of that part in The Princess Diaries when Joe tells Mia, “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear; the brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.” I knew I was being a little dramatic, but hey, that’s me, and the quote (and the image of that silver fox, Hector Elizondo) was helping. I did have to do this. It was unavoidable as my mother repeatedly reminded me whenever she caught me trying to talk my way out of it.

                When I was called back to prepare for my (non-)life-threatening surgery, my mom and my aunt (who had come with us, possibly for emotional support but more likely to help force me into submission) were allowed to come with me. The nurse who came to take my weight, height, temperature, blah, blah, blah, and give me my IV was so sweet. She tried her very hardest to calm my nerves (alas, to no avail). Unfortunately for her (and everyone involved, frankly), I have a terrible, irrational phobia of having my blood drawn and getting IV’s. Every time she started to try to put my IV in, I started shaking so badly it almost looked like convulsions, tears free-flowed down my face, and I couldn’t stop my tiny (but shrill) squeaks of terror. (You might be wondering at this point if when I said 18, I meant 8. I assure you, I was 18 years old and acting this foolish.) Her poor, tender heart couldn’t take it. “You know what? I’m just going to let the anesthesiologist know he’ll be needed, and we’ll put the IV in after you go under, sweetheart,” she said, seeming close to tears herself. It gave me a surprising amount of comfort to know there was at least one person in my corner as I was wheeled off into the unknown.

                Having to get a good look at the surgical room was a mistake, though. The room was super white, like, transition –into-heaven-because-your-evil-dentists-killed-you white. There was a weird dome thing on the ceiling above where they placed me and my wheeling bed that turned out to be a huge cluster of lights, and although I was grateful they cared so much about things being well lit while they carved into my jaw bones, it was still terrifying to look at. There were four people surrounding me, the dentist who was handling the surgery, two assistants, and the anesthesiologist who turned out to be an astoundingly handsome man with extremely dark skin, smoky black eyes, and a thick New Zealand accent. I have a serious weak spot for accents and hot guys, and I found myself suddenly very self-conscious because weirdly enough I had not put any effort into my appearance that morning when I got up to leave for oral surgery and the nurse had taken my bra away. In my flustered moment of regret, he put a mask on my face, telling me to take three deep breaths then count backwards from ten. I reached seven then suddenly realized I DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE! I JUST WANTED TO HIDE FROM MY PROBLEMS AND ALSO HIDE MY UNSUPPORTED CHEST FROM THIS HANDSOME MAN! I struggled to lift my arms and weakly tried to claw his enormous hands away from my face as I tried to scream, “I CHANGED MY MIND! STOP!” I don’t even think more than a slur of vowels actually made it out, and the two assistants held my arms down with no trouble at all before I blacked out.

                Suddenly, I was awake. My vision was fuzzy at best, the room around me spinning and changing shape. I remembered quickly the feeling of not wanting something to happen, launching my fuzzy brain into high panic mode immediately. I remembered my mom in the waiting room. “MAAAARRMMM!” I scream/slurred out trying to lurch myself into a sitting position. “MAAAAARRMMMM!” I screamed out again as I flailed my legs to the best of my ability, trying to remove the light blanket that was over me. A nurse came rushing towards me, and my panic hit an all-time high. Somewhere in the depths of my mind, a voice screamed out, “ALERT! ALERT! NURSE AT FIVE O’CLOCK! MOVE YOUR ASS! GET OUT OF HERE! MOM WILL SAVE YOU!” My real voice screamed out, “MAAAAAAAAAARRRRMMMMM,” as my arms flew up to try to fight the monster-nurse away. (Poor nurse.)

                She easily tucked my arms back into the blankets and repositioned it around my legs (I had barely made them move at all). “Calm down,” she said grumpily. “I can’t believe you’re awake already. Your mom is waiting for you, but you’re not ready to leave yet. You need to let the anesthesia wear off a little more. Just lie still. Try to take a nap.”

                I noticed her name-tag said, “Katherine,” on it. That made me really unreasonably excited. I warbled out, “Mai merddle naem is Catherine but wirth a C! Were like seesters!”

                “That’s great,” she harrumphed. “Settle down,” and she left the room.

                A few moments later, I sort of forgot about Nurse Katherine when I realized I was not alone in the room. In fact, there were two other people in beds to my right who were totally out cold and I freaked out again. My little alarm bell went off shrieking, “ALERT! ALERT! THE EVIL DENTISTS WANT TO HARVEST YOUR ORGANS! GET OUT NOW! I REPEAT: GET OUT NOW!” My real voice cried out, “NOOOOOOOOO! MAAAARRRRMMM!!!!!” I had regained a very small amount of control over my limbs, but enough to throw back maybe fifty percent of the blanket. I struggled to free my legs from the demon blanket/net screaming, “MAAAARM! HALP MEI!!!! MAAAAARRRM!!!!”

                Nurse Katherine came running in again, quickly wrapping me up in the blanket like a doped-up human burrito. (Possibly the evil dentist’s plan all along? Human burritos?) “Calm down,” she signed. “Why are you awake? Just relax! Take a nap; you’re going to have to stay here until the anesthesia wears off and it could take a while.”

                Again, I noticed her name tag. “Wahw,” I slurred. “Mei merddle naem is Catherine but with a C! We huve tha same naem,” and I gave her a big grin with my eyes only half open, longing for her to feel as excited as I was about this.

                “Yes, you said that before. It’s very cool,” she said (though her tone indicated she could not have cared less). “Please don’t try to get out of your bed anymore,” she shot over her shoulder as she left the room.

                I was very suspicious of her unfriendly manner. I had spent so much time before the surgery thinking of all the terrible things the evil dentists could possibly do to me, that it seemed to have manifested itself in my mind. The only thing I could focus on in my drug-induced stupor was escaping their evil laboratory and taking shelter with my mom (who I thought would unquestioningly drive me to safety). I waited a few moments to make sure Nurse Katherine (if that was even her real name!) had gone before I started trying to get out of bed again. I was still struggling to hold up my head, had very little strength or control of my limbs, and my vision was blurry and wobbly, but that wasn’t going to stop me, dammit. I would not be sold into slavery by evil dentists! I tried very hard to roll out of the bed, but (luckily) all I managed to do was get tangled in the blanket, setting me off into renewed cried of, “MAAAAAARRRMMM!!! HALP MEEEEE, MAAAAARRRMM!!!!”

                In Nurse Katherine came at a lazy speed, looking as though she would rather be anywhere else. She reluctantly (and not at all gently) untangled me from my blankets, muttering things I was too drugged up to make out. Again, I noticed her name tag. “Das cool! Yer naem is Katherine and so is my merddle naem! We should be bess frahns!”

                Nurse Katherine looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath before saying, “Yes. I know. You’ve told me,” before trudging out of the room again, not even bothering to try telling me to stay put.

                It seemed as though all of my troubles had been solved by my stubborn attempts to escape, because Nurse Katherine came in a few minutes later to find me with my legs hanging like wet noodles off of the side of the bed, desperately clawing at the blanket that was wrapped around my left arm and torso. After she took a second to compose herself, she began untangling me saying, “I’m going to take you to your mom.”

                “MAAAAARM,” I cried out in excitement, giving her my most winning grin. This went unappreciated by Nurse Katherine who unceremoniously flung my semi-lifeless legs back into the bed and wheeled me out of there as fast as she could, pushing me down the hall so quickly that my brain couldn’t even begin to process the blurry scenes we were passing. The new room was much nicer than the dim little dungeon I had just escaped. There were lots of windows and it was very bright, but perhaps the brightest thing in the room to me at the moment was the sight of my mom and aunt waiting for me. I tried to sit up and failed, so instead I sort of twisted my neck and shoulders in her direction exclaiming proudly, “Maaarm! I derd it! I ecscaped the evul derntersts!” I heard Nurse Katherine heave a great sigh and stomp out of the room (without even saying goodbye!).

                I was asked to stay in bed, but allowed to have my mom and aunt in the room. In spite of this generous gift, my doped up anxiety said it wasn’t enough; I needed to get out of there pronto! At any moment, the evil dentist’s rouse could be revealed and now my mom and aunt were at risk of being held for ransom too! I continued to tear at my blankets, my mom and aunt doing their best to calm me down. As my limbs began functioning more, it became quite a task to keep me in the bed, and the nurse monitoring the situation decided it would be best to allow us to leave. Again, I was in a room meant to hold more than one person (though we were the only people there at the time, possibly because of the chaos I was creating). The nurse pulled the curtains around my bed area to give me privacy to dress. Ever stubborn, I refused to let anyone help me. I have always been weirdly shy about my body; even now I often wait until my husband’s back is turned before I throw my clothes on as fast as I can. Alone behind the curtain, I struggled with my bra, shirt, and pants. I really was not in any condition to be doing anything without assistance, but was that going to stop me? HELL NO! I was a runaway train, never coming back, dammit!

                After several agonizing minutes (way more than it should have taken) and several concerned calls from my mom and aunt checking to make sure I hadn’t passed out, I emerged victorious and wobbly, tripping on my own foot and crashing to the floor. I was helped into a wheelchair while my mom went to pull the car around. Even though my aunt was there, I was crazy paranoid that by the time my mom returned, the evil dentists would have locked my aunt and me in a janitor’s closet, claiming we had left with someone else. When my mom returned and I was loaded into her backseat, I was so relieved that I flopped down across the seat and would not move at all to help her buckle me in.

                The following week was equally as blurry, but even more disappointing than I had imagined. In my youth, I was notorious for having a messy room. You’re probably thinking something like, “Haha, I’ve been there,” or, “I know exactly what you mean!” Let me assure you, you don’t. I existed in a grey area somewhere between being a hoarder and living in a trash pit as a teen. My mom loves to tell stories of finding petrified ramen and cereals buried in my closet when she would hunt for dirty dishes in my room. (I particularly recall one Christmas when my cousins wanted to go dirt-biking with my Dad and my bedroom was at an all-time low. They had gone to my room to borrow some clothes so I went to check that they had found something they could use. Through the crack of the door, I saw them standing in the tiny clear spot on the floor, surrounded by piles of crap up to their waists just staring in shock and horror at their surroundings before looking at each other in silent agreement that this was the worst thing they had ever seen.) I was really hoping to have some visitors while I was stuck in bed for my spring break; in an effort to make my dreams come true, I cleaned my room VERY thoroughly, dragging an old arm chair next to my bed, setting up my TV with a wide selection of DVDS, and placing a very large bowl of candy on my nightstand. Sadly, it was all in vain. Turns out no one wants to sit in a dark room with a semi-conscious person whose mouth is too swollen to speak even if you do have candy, but at least I did get to miss an extra three days of school. Take that, education!

P.S. They gave me the most incredible ice pack I have ever seen. It wrapped around my entire head so I didn't have to hold it.

(Example of ice pack I found on Google. Thanks, Google. I don't own this image though.)

Arachnophobia: Shower Edition

                I am seriously terrified of spiders; scream and flee the premise, jump off your lawnmower, run shrieking in the other direction, terrified! My first scary spider memory is from the day I learned about black widows; it still sends chills down my spine! I am not sure how young I was, but I was with my mom in my god-mother, D.W.’s kitchen. She has this amazing tall, old barber’s chair that I have always loved to sit in. D.W. held an old jar up to me to show me the small, brown spider, curling up in death, within and told me about its’ poisonous mate. I still feel the same terror coursing through my body from that sunny afternoon every time I see a spider. I have had nightmares, jumped off of moving vehicles, cried, thrown up, almost crashed my car more times that I will willingly admit to, you name it! Those little monsters scare the shit out of me!

                In the fall of 2016, my daughter and I lived with my grandmother while we waited for our Canadian visas to be processed. Nanny is a wonderful woman with the spirit of a selfless child, the wit of a confident woman’s mid-twenties, and the wisdom of Albus Dumbledore. Accepting of all, indubiously hilarious, undeniably kind (and have I mentioned she’s a boss-ass-liberal?), she began asking me not to use the word “hate”. She always says, “There’s enough of that out in the universe already, and we shouldn’t be adding anymore.” She makes a solid point. This extended to my treatment of spiders. “Next time don’t kill it,” I was scolded as I wrung my hands in terror after smushing a spider with a napkin, “come and get me. I will put it out!” Nanny, if you’re reading this, I tried to let them live, really I did! They just won’t stay away.

                A couple of weeks ago, I was sweeping out the bathroom and saw a tiny, nearly translucent spider crawling away from the pile. Trying to take my wise grandmother’s advice, I waited until it was clear of the sweeping area before I continued. When my husband came home that night, I proudly told him of my feat (because he is always making fun of me for being scared about little things). Jude laughed at me, saying, “Sarah, it was probably poisonous! The smaller ones are the most poisonous!”

                “No way,” I retorted. “What about tarantulas? Or those giant camel spiders? Or the female black widows?”

                Jude laughed coolly and walked away, calling back, “Whatever you say, Sarah.” That bastard always knows how to get me real good.

I tried to tell myself he was just kidding, but the thought haunted me for days! As I played happily with my daughter, I felt the sudden clasp of panic around my neck, imagining the spider quietly biting my child in the night; getting dressed in the mornings, I suddenly worried the spider would be on my hairbrush giving it a thorough search; when a loose hair fell on my chest, I clawed frantically at my skin for a moment. All in all, I was really freaking out about this dumb conversation. A few nights later, I was getting ready to step into the shower when I saw, crawling along the baseboard of the tub, that spider. I totally freaked out! I wanted to go get Jude to crush it for me, but suspected he would tell me to get over it. (Marriage means nothing, girls!) As I tried to determine what to do, I thought back to the spring of 2016 and the great Jumper Spider Panic. As I had tried to identify that spider (it was found twice in my laundry room), some research suggested I could test if a spider was possibly venomous by poking at it with something; if it attacked it, I should run for the hills. I poked at the spider with the pen from my bathroom guest book, shaking with fear, and wouldn’t you know it? That freak of nature attacked my pen (sort of). J’accuse! I crushed it with some toilet paper.

                Tonight, as I showered, I was busting a sweet move and flipped my hair too excitedly leaving a long line of water dripping from the ceiling. (Oops.) I have done this enough before that I know it needs to be cleaned up quickly. As I finished up drying the ceiling with a hand towel, I saw it: ANOTHER OF THOSE SPIDERS!!! I knew there was only one reason it would be there: IT’S COME TO HAVE IT’S REVENGE FOR IT’S FALLEN COMRADE!!! I jumped out of the shower in a panic, balled up some toilet paper, and hesitantly went back for the beast. I have a bad habit of missing things and them falling down (often onto me), but I did my best. After pressing firmly for several seconds, I pulled back the tissue to reveal…nothing? OH SHIT! CODE DANGER! I shot out of the shower again, grabbing my glasses to see where the little devil was hiding. Turns out his little body just fell down onto the side of the tub, but damn, it scared me. Now I am living in fear, certain at any moment, more of them will come for me. If I die of poison, Jude really is innocent…maybe.

Stage 3 Boobs

                My mom is really great. (Obviously! She raised this bossy, empowered, feminist bitch!) One of the many wonderful things about her is that when I was growing up, she made sure I was accurately informed about how to take care of my body (so I didn’t get sucked into myths like “pulling out is 100% effective” later in life). When I was in fourth grade, my mom bought me a copy of The American Girl’s Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls. I remember my first glance through it; as I flipped through the pages, I caught glimpses of topics such as how to insert a tampon, bra shopping, shaving tips, and properly washing your face. As a girl of ten, I was unimpressed and honestly, a little bit disgusted. The book remained on my shelf collecting dust for about two years. In sixth grade, however, I was starting to have some changes. My first period had come a few weeks before the beginning of the school year, my mother had made it clear to me (in no uncertain terms) that I needed some deodorant stat, and it seemed like whenever she would buy me a few new bras, I went up another cup size. Suddenly topics like “Moody You: Emotional Roller Coaster” were very interesting to me.

As my body threw me ovaries deep into puberty, my life-long love for romance and flirting reached new heights. (You might think I am joking, but I am not. As a mere four year old, I terrorized my cousin Dylan by chasing him with Tinkerbell lipstick smeared across my mouth trying to catch and kiss him. As a girl of seven, I spent a full year of Sunday’s AT CHURCH trying to impress Tyler Kilmon with my “fancy voice” to trick him into being my boyfriend. Obviously, flirting was never my strong suit.) Ever observant, my mother quickly added The American Girl’s Smart Guide to Boys to the docket. It was basically a how-to book for the novice flirt with topics such as “what boys want” and “kissing basics.” (Mom, you were so brave to place a book like this in my hormonal little hands.)

I took that book very seriously from the moment I laid eyes on it.  I scoured it for weeks, trying out each new technique on my serious crush, Joey. Joey was the bad boy of Northampton Middle School’s sixth grade class (and was expelled the next year for selling prescription pain killers at school. My excellent tastes strike again.) He was super cute with cherubic cheeks, a killer smile, and dark and dreamy eyes. Most importantly to me: he was funny. I pushed myself every day through mornings of science and math to get to the afternoons of history and English because I am terrible at the former and good enough to scrape by at the latter but mostly because I shared those classes with Joey.  By the end of the year, Joey and I were pretty good pals. Looking back on it, I would bet he saw how desperate I was for his attention (I’m sure it was easy enough to see through my American-Girl-taught flirting techniques). At the time, I definitely thought it was my charm and edge winning him over. I wanted for him to be my boyfriend so badly (I hadn’t ever had a boyfriend yet), but I just couldn’t stick the landing! Not realizing that there was nothing I could do to tie that wild mustang down because he was a player and failing to see that it really didn’t matter BECAUSE WE WERE TWELVE, I started to think outside the box.

One Thursday afternoon near the end of the year, I sat on my bed surrounded by my American Girl self-help books scouring the pages, searching for my next big move to win Joey over (if only I had put as much effort into my schoolwork). Time was a-tickin, and I had to tie this boy down before the summer started. I had tried every single thing in the book (literally). I have always been pretty a self-aware gal. I knew these techniques were the basics for a nice girl, but I knew I wasn’t just a nice girl; I am a nice girl with a serious edge! I can’t be tamed either, Joey, and I’ll prove it to you with a new, edgy pick-up line! I just had to find it! Desperate, I began flipping through The Care and Keeping of You for a stroke of inspiration, and there it was: the perfect topic to get that boy’s tiny twelve-year-old hormones a-whirlin’ for little Miss Sarah C. Hold onto your trousers, boy, because this rocket ship is taking off!

                On Friday morning, I felt like the end of the day could not come fast enough. I had been practicing what I would say all night, and I knew exactly when I would make my move. Our English/history teacher always gave us ten minutes of social time on Friday afternoon’s. All I had to do was get Joey to spend it with me. For once in my life, I was acting super confident; I think that boss-bitch energy really sucked him in that afternoon. I was high on my romantic-empowerment, I was sassy, I was going to pull this off! I spent the entire afternoon shooting him flirty smiles and rolling my eyes at everything the teacher said to capture his attention, and it worked. Finally, our free-time came and with it, my moment to shine. Joey moved to sit with me in my desk clump away from our peers and we started chatting. I was wearing my favorite outfit, a skirt, shirt, and long, fingerless glove combo. The skirt and gloves had a swirled black and white stripe pattern and the shirt was white with a butterfly made of the same pattern but with sparkles in the black stripes. (I know, so hot. How could any man resist me? I had on FINGERLESS GLOVES that went PAST MY ELBOWS like Cinderella!) I had specifically worn a black bra underneath so it would stand out (my ace in the hole), sneaking it by my mom that morning by wearing a hoodie.

 (Here is the outfit in question the year before at the Great American Model and Talent search.)

                “I can see your bra,” Joey said, grinning as he sat down.

                “Oh, really?” I said, feigning ignorance and glancing down at my chest, which I had thrust out, making a big show of my baby boobies. “I didn’t even notice!” (Lie.)

                “I like it. It’s cute,” Joey said, practically drooling all over me. (Can I get a hair flip, ladies?)

                I felt like standing up on the desk, shouting, “EAT YOUR HEART OUT, JOSEPH,” and dancing like the Queen I am inside, but I kept my cool. “Yeah, it’s a really cute bra. I just got it because I went up a cup size.” Oh, young Sarah. There’s just so much I need to warn you about.

                “Wow…So like...how big are your boobs?” Joey asked me, leaning in and hardly looking at my face at all.

                This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. The American Girl’s Care and Keeping of You had prepared me for this moment, for I was about to drop a bomb on that little boys mind. You see, the night before I had come across a passage about breast development, describing the three phases of growth and I thought it the perfect hook to catch and reel in a bad boy like Joey. Chest puffed up with pride (and for attention), I confidently leaned in and whispered, “Well, I’m in stage three of breast development.”

 (Obviously, I was not really in stage 3.)

                His eyes grew wide and his mouth hung open a little bit before he sputtered out, “Wow…so they’re like…big?”

                “Yeah, pretty much. I’m like, almost in a C-cup,” I bragged on.

                The remaining few minutes we had to talk, he could not stop staring at my boobs, but I had all of his attention just as I had planned. He called me twice that weekend, and flirted with me more than usual for the next couple of weeks. Eventually, that faded, and I was left stumped as to why he hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend yet (and honestly, it took me several more years to figure it out).

                Joey moved away to Texas when he was expelled and I never saw him again. I did find him on Facebook a few years ago, though. Curious to know how my old flame was doing, I decided to shoot him a message and catch up. At the time he was recently married and trying to become a boxer. As I quietly thanked the universe for helping me to dodge that bullet, he asked me if I remembered the time I told him I had stage three boobs. Of course, I remember, Joey. How could I forget? The real question is why couldn’t you have done me a favor and forgotten about it? I begrudgingly admitted I did and let the “lol’s” wash over me, turning my face red in their wake. I must confess I have not tried to contact him since.

This essay is dedicated to my Mom for letting me (perhaps unwittingly at times) make mistakes and learn from them on my own.

College Part One: The Lung

(Snuggling in the student lounge with my roommate, Amanda. September 2011)

Part One: The Lung

       My first stab at college was short lived. In an effort to push me from the nest, my parents forced me to attend a tiny college a mile from the Virginia/Tennessee boarder called Virginia Intermont, which later closed due to immense debt. Originally an all-girl's, Baptist-based private college (that was smaller than my high school) tucked away in the south-western corner of the Virginian mountains, it was naturally an excellent choice for me, an outspoken, rebellious, bisexual liberal. It was my best option since I was offered a talent scholarship that covered almost half the tuition and because I had been too afraid to apply anywhere else (they were desperate for students so I knew I would be accepted). Luckily for me, my high school friend Ashley (who I fondly called Gopher) was also attending VI so I wasn’t totally alone right away.

         Upon arrival I met my first roommate, Darla who looked, dressed, and even had the haircut of a giant toddler. She was a sophomore photography student who claimed to have a severe peanut allergy and I'm pretty sure hated my guts upon first sight. (I say "claimed" because I'm pretty sure she just didn't like the smell and/or wanted to get me out of the room more often.) There's no nice way to say this: Rooming with Darla sucked. She stayed up all night, slept all day, made me leave the room to prepare my pb&j's, wouldn't share her mini-fridge, and spread some pretty nasty rumors about me (more on that later). I also met a basketball player who lived down the hall from me and pursued me relentlessly and aggressively (until I moved to a new floor) named Rhonda, two soccer players who roomed together (one was nice and one showed me his penis upon meeting him), my roommate-to-be Amanda, fellow theatre major Angelique (who is 100% fabulous), and my soon-to-be friend Kaitlyn on my first day.

         The big upside to living with Darla was that she introduced me to Jimmy, a huge teddy bear of a dude. Over my summer before college, I had become interested in marijuana. I had tried to smoke a few times without having any real success. Enter Jimmy. On my first night at VI, my girlfriend cheated on me and dumped me. Darla, out of the tiny ventricle of goodness in her heart, introduced me to Jimmy to get high.

         Maybe a week later, Jimmy and I sat in the parking lot of my dorm building in his car to smoke. After some small talk, Jimmy whipped out a 2 liter soda bottle with the end cut off and a plastic shopping bag attached to it and said, "Have you ever used a lung?" I had definitely implied I was a more experienced smoker than I actually was, and I did not want to lose face so I told Jimmy no I hadn't, but I was sure I could handle it. I'm pretty sure he knew I was full of shit and wanted to see how far I was going to take this. If you've never smoked from a lung, here's how it works: first you ignite your weed with the cap on the bottle and the bag pushed in. Then you slowly pull the bag out to fill both the bottle and length of the bag with smoke. Finally, you take off the cap, and slowly breathe in the smoke while pushing the bag in. It's pretty intense plus we were hot boxing. Jimmy was an experienced smoker and (I think) getting a kick out of my refusal to admit defeat. We ended up hitting the lung seven times each, and, man, I was beyond lit. Hopefully, I at least impressed Jimmy with my perseverance because I didn't have any kind of intelligence going for me in that moment.

         After what felt like an hour but was probably only ten minutes of chatting, a panicked thought occurred to me: This guy is huge. I am beyond impaired. He could do anything to me he wanted and I would be powerless to stop him. No one knows where I am except Darla who would surely not give a damn if I never came back. I played it cool (visibly freaked out) and asked Jimmy to take me back to my dorm to which he pointed out we were in the parking lot of the building. The problem was it was on a hill and to get to the door from there I would have to climb a small set of steps (and I was confident I couldn't). As any lady of class would, I made up a really lame (and very transparent) excuse to get him to drive all the way around campus and up to the door to drop me off. As I exited his car, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had escaped whatever terrible things I later realized he would never have done to me anyway. That ended as I approached the door and realized I had to somehow fit my tiny key into that tiny lock to get inside, would then have to pass the building's R.A, just to get my key into yet another tiny lock. Eventually after an unknown amount of time struggling with the key, some kind person came along and let me in. I lived on the sixth floor and didn't think I could make the stairs, so I took the elevator that, of course, opened in front of my R.A.'s more-often-than-not open door, but luckily she wasn't there. As I faced my final obstacle, unlocking my own door, I felt I was home free until I heard from the opening elevator the sound of Rhonda's drawling voice.

         Let's back up for a second. Earlier that week, as I was returning to my room from a shower in only a towel, Rhonda had followed me to my room begging me to take my towel off for her, have sex with her, and finally let her see "just one boob". When I had unlocked my door she had forced her way into my room ahead of me and it had taken a lot of pleading to get her out. Then, when I tried to shut the door, she had tried to force it open and then stood outside begging me to let her in for a full ten minutes. (Fun fact: later that year she got in trouble for trying to take advantage of a sleeping drunk girl after a party.) Now back to the story of the lung!

         As I heard Rhonda approaching from the elevator around the corner, time seemed to move in slow motion. I watched each desperate stab of my key missing the lock, felt my heart pounding with fear that I would not escape her in time, heard her words in slow motion, and each footfall echoed in my ears like terrible screams. Finally, my key went into the lock; SUCCESS!! As I slow-mo flew into the room and Rhonda turned the corner, I heard her call out, "Heeeeeeyyyy, Sssaaaaaarrraaaaahhhhhh," and I slammed the door shut in her face! After about five minutes of her knocking and saying "I know you're there. I saw you go in," as I hid in my closet (high-dea), I was able to come out. I ate every single thing I had in my dorm, binge-watched Friends, hugged Darla when she came in, and passed out.



(Part 2 to be released on Wednesday!)

Sex Store

                When I moved to Vancouver, I noticed immediately that there was a sex store a few blocks away from my house. Naturally, I was dying to go in there. It’s called Roxy’s and has many advertisements outside with messages such as, “We sell 50 Shades of Grey merchandise,” and, “Your sexual health is our passion,” accompanied with images of oiled up babes with super toned muscles. For weeks, I excitedly imagined the kinds of amazing items I would find inside that would magically bring a whole new level of sensations to my sex life. I giggled on the phone with my friends, telling them surely I would find a time to go shop there soon. I nagged at Jude to give me ideas of what kinds of taboo toys he would find most appealing. I had several opportunities to go in, but always found a reason not to. (To be fair, I never feel very sexy as I am lugging home a week’s worth of groceries twenty blocks in a backpack, muttering curses to the Fancy People driving their beautiful cars.)

                After weeks of talking a lot of talk, I decided it was time to start walking before I lost all credibility. I chose the perfect time to go: when my sister was visiting. It was Susannah’s first time in Vancouver so I used my superior knowledge of directions (and the help of alcohol) to trick her into walking right by Roxy’s before I announced we were going in. I dragged her (unwillingly) towards Roxy’s full of confidence and sporting a strong buzz. As we grew closer to the door, my big head was getting bigger by the second. All my traditionally short-sighted inner voice could think was, “I’m doing this! I am so proud of me! I am so cool! I am going to buy some naughty stuff, and those sex-store workers are going to be so impressed by my confidence and sexual awareness!” I practically skipped the last few feet to the door, imagining isles of dimly lighted toys and gear that would blow my mind.

                As soon as we opened the door, the sharp sting of reality popped my self-involved confidence bubble and it deflated in seconds flat. The store was not at all what I had imagined. It was a completely opened space; everything was hung on the walls (not in isles) so the only employee and any other customers could see every single thing I might be looking at. The blue-toned lighting made me feel immediately nauseous and dizzy. My fantasy of being the confident, naughty sex kitten shriveled up and died at the sight of the small, open room. I could practically see Sexy Sarah collapse in the center of the room, reaching out for help, pathetically whimpering as she wilted away into dust and disappeared with the passing breeze…and all that bitch left behind for me to work with was Shy Sarah. The customer at the register and the cashier immediately looked over at Susannah and me when the door opened. I felt like all the spot lights in the world were following my every move as I darted over to the closest wall of dildos muttering a feeble hello to the sex-people. I wished dearly I could just bang my head against the wall, but all the walls were covered in sex paraphernalia (NOOOO!). I wanted to turn every corner of my body in on itself until I was just a little fuzzy lump on the floor, wheezing in horror. At least then the sex-people might take pity on me instead of noticing how much of a wuss I was suddenly becoming.

                The customer left almost immediately and Susannah and I were left alone with the cashier in the very quiet shop. A sea of panic roared in my ears; I was sure I couldn’t be the only one hearing it. I prayed my heavy breathing wouldn’t be mistaken for sexual pleasure as I quickly (too quickly) darted past countless dildos, vibrators, and pretty much nothing else until I reached the farthest wall. I lingered there, knowing I had to buy something to save what little bit of pride I had left. I stood staring at a few decks of sex-card-games, a handful of butt plugs, and vibrators that connected to your mp3 player via Bluetooth as Susannah DISCRETELY (as if) laughed at me.

                “Okay,” I thought, “just find the cheapest thing near you and get the hell out of here.” My eyes darted around the wall in front of me looking for something in the ten dollar range, but the only things I saw were in the thirty dollars or above range (and there was no way I was forking over that kind of money for something I was buying out of humiliation). Finally I saw a tag for $15, immediately reached out, and started tugging on the package. To my horror, it did not budge as I registered that every single item in the store was locked onto the walls and I would have to get the sex-cashier to actually come pull anything I wanted to purchase off the wall. It was too late to leave without buying something; I was balls deep in shame and obviously trying to pick something up. I hung my head, took a deep breath, and glanced over my shoulder at the sex-cashier. “SHIT! He is staring RIGHT AT ME!” I thought whipping my head around to look in sheer horror at my sister who was barely suppressing laughter.

                “Could you please help me with this, sir?” I managed to warble out. It wasn’t until he was walking toward us, keys in hand, that I realized the item I was pointing at was a butt plug. “WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST BUY A VIBRATOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?” Shy Sarah shrieked in my mind, eyes rolling in her imaginary head. “BECAUSE THEY’RE LIKE A MILLION DOLLARS YOU FREAK!” Normal Sarah retaliated.

The War of the Sarah’s came to an abrupt halt as the sex-cashier said, “It’s kind of small, don’t you think?”

Not knowing how to even begin to respond to that kind of judgment on my butt, I stammered out, “Thank you.” On the inside, I wondered if this could possibly get any worse as my body betrayed me, flushing my every pigment in a shade of crimson defeat. I numbly followed him to the register and stood quietly as he rang up my tiny butt plug. I finally was getting a good look at him (because he wasn’t staring at me for once), and I suddenly realized he looked exactly like Mike Meyers except Asian, and I somehow felt even more uncomfortable. It was like Austin Powers was selling me a butt plug and laughing at me for choosing the smallest size. (Bitch, it’s the cheapest one!)

Desperate to make some kind of a small recovery, I glanced frantically around the room for something to start a conversation with. Apparently, the owners of Roxy’s spent a lot more money on stocking their shelves and outdoor advertising than on making the rest of the store look nice, because there was pretty much nothing else going on in there except for a photo of a man that said, “WANTED: MAGAZINE THIEF.” As I swiped my debit card and tapped in my pin number, I said (super smoothly), “I hope you catch your magazine thief.”

“What?” Asian Austin Powers said.  As I started drawing myself a soaker-tub full of shame and regret to wallow in in my mind, he said, “Oh, right. Yeah, that guy has been to every single one of our stores except for this one.”

“Great,” I thought, “there are more of these stores in the city I’ll have to avoid.”

“I guess it’s only a matter of time before he shows up here, then,” Susannah said.

I gave her a wide eyed look that I hoped said, “Bitch, don’t you dare try to keep this conversation going! I will leave you in here!”

“Yeah, I hope I catch him,” Asian Austin Powers said.

“Well, good luck! Bye!” I yelled over my shoulder, dragging Susannah and my tiny butt plug out behind me.

A few days later, I passed Asian Austin Powers in the street and he gave me a curious look as I darted down a side street to avoid him. We might have to move away if this becomes a regular occurrence or I will probably melt the sidewalk with the sheer heat of my blushing face. I guess the lesson I have learned is that I should start shopping for naughty nifty’s on the internet since I clearly don’t have the disposition to do it in person.