Don't Sleep With a Bubba

by Susan Reinhardt

  I wondered if the man had even seen my face. He’d done nothing north of the border since he entered the room. “I like your hair,” he says, and I am wondering if he’s talking about the many new and controversial hairdos the paper has run or the hair he’s currently viewing? I wanted to get out of there. FAST.

  With gadgets and digits occupying nearly every orifice, he proceeded to tell me how much he enjoyed the piece I wrote about the woman who was using a Porta-John when the forklift came by and scooped the booth into the air and carted her down the road a few miles.

  “I loved the part how you described her trying to open the door and seeing all the cars whizzing by, no pun intended.” Great, suddenly he gets a personality. I preferred him as a louse egg. There’s nothing worse than a gynecologist who talks ONLY when he’s down THERE and not directly to your face. I just want them to examine parts I’d rather not know I have, proclaim them healthy, write up prescriptions for Wellbutrin and tranquilizers and send me home all squishy from the K-Y jelly. Or, in this case, I wanted him to say my uterus was not functioning properly and needed immediate removal and incineration.

  My mother, prim and proper and very Baptist, always gloats after her annual visit with her gynecologist. She has never let any man but my father view her snorchie, and I’m highly doubtful he’s ever come as close to that view as her gyno.

  “Dr. Whiteside said I have a youthful and healthy vagina,” Mama beamed. “Says it’s one of the best he’s ever seen for a 68-year-old woman, or any woman, for that matter. I’m not going to tell your daddy.”

  I want to throw up when she says this, but she’s not being gross, she’s completely elated at her vaginal perfection.

  Toward the end of my own exam, just before I was about to slide off the tissue paper–lined table, feeling as greasy as a Wesson-oiled turkey cavity, this doctor managed more questions without looking into my eyes.

  “Are you using birth control?” he asked, removing his gloves. “I assume a smart woman like you would certainly—”

  “Well, no, not exactly. I am fairly abstinent, like I told you. We are holiday humpers. Not much in between ’cept the—”

  He wrote in his computer and made a strange face. “Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s fine with it. Makes him look forward to Christmas that much more. He’ll even hang lights in our bushes if he thinks he’ll also get to hang something in my bush.” Hee hee hee. The doctor didn’t laugh at all.

  “Aren’t you concerned about birth control?”

  “Doctor, I’m 44 years old. The only thing I’m concerned about is being able to survive this perimenopause without killing the man. Do you realize I planted an oleander bush at my house? What does THAT tell you? I ride by pawn shops and twitch at the gun displays. I really came here so that you’d tell me I needed to get my uterus and its sidekicks out ASAP. This is the main source of all my misery and misdeeds, I assure you.”

  “No, it’s healthy and normal from what I could see,” he said, and I wanted to swat him. “You have a couple of small cysts, which are quite common. It’s probably all in your head from the many decades women over a certain age were all but guaranteed hysterectomies. A good number of those surgeries were never needed.”

  “Four periods in six weeks?” This is not in my head.

  But this is what all men say. That everything we complain about is all in our heads. I wanted to take his off. “I know y’all give out samples of Lexapro and Prozac,” I said, “but I was wondering if you had some extra boxes of Elephant Lady–sized tampons and pads as I’m certain to have another period in five to seven days?”

  He left with one of those perplexed, “I’m-a-doctor-minusa-personality” expressions, and I left with my K-Y’d parts puddling.

  Then, to make matters worse, my next errand was to get my car tag renewed. Only fools will schedule a Pussyectomy and DMV visit on the same day. I’m that kind of fool.

  I stood in line wondering if in a week the boring old doctor would call and say I had a reattached hymen from lack of intercourse. The line here wasn’t moving so there was lots of time to think irrational thoughts, my number-one hobby.

  The man in front of me was picking his nose, checking the contents out and even chatting with them before putting it all into his hanky and saying, “Bye for now.” I kid you not. And the woman with the six kids behind me was yakking on her cell phone to a man I presumed was her husband or live-in about how the line hasn’t moved since breakfast and her hemorrhoids were giving her fits.

  “You get your ass up here you no good sumbitch and stand here with these six young’uns. It’s your restored Gremlin. Not mine. I’ll give it one more hour, then I’m taking my sore ass home and soaking in some Epsom salts.”

  She reminded me of my poor friend, a beautiful pharmacist, who was walking around in labor begging the doctors to administer the epidural to her giant hemorrhoid instead of her spine. “I’d been in labor 44 hours and the thing was huge,” she said, sipping red wine and discussing its size while all of us fell over laughing. “I can’t figure out why they didn’t just go ahead and give me what I wanted.”

  A few minutes later at the DMV, the lady who was working the counter alone was helped by a man who looked as if he’d been tortured by the government and recently released. He was such a sad sack he made Eeyore seem manic.

  Every single person who finally inched up to the counter was sent away. None had proper documentation. No one ever does.

  Here’s what I heard from these government-paid public slaves:

  “YOU NEED A NOTARY TO SIGN THIS BEFORE YOU CAN GET A TAG, MA’AM.”

  “SIR, WE’VE CHANGED THE REQUIREMENTS SINCE YOU WERE LAST HERE FOR TITLE WORK. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY CASH AND SHOW DENTAL RECORDS. YOU COULD BE ANY BODY OFF THE STREETS.”

  “But I wear dentures,” the man said, taking them out and setting them on the counter.

  At that point I was ready to run.

  Then it was my turn.

  “Oh, what have we here? I remember you. You’re the little bitch that pitched that fit four years ago when it took you seven tries to get a tag. Welcome back,” she said and scrunched up every feature on her face until she resembled something from Lord of the Rings.

  “I’m going to need to see a current license, birth certificate, proof of insurance, PROOF OF LIFE, proof you own that damn car, and we’ll also prick your finger to make sure you are really who you say you are. Standard policy now with all the car theft going on.”

  I was stunned. K-Y jelly was running down my left thigh. I wanted to go home.

  “I’m not leaving without a tag,” I said. “My temporary blew off in the car wash and I have nothing on my back bumper but a fresh coat of paint. It needs some letters and numbers or I’ll be wearing them on my jumpsuit as I clean liquor bottles from I-240. Please, Madame DMV.”

  She clicked and typed and came back with a secret manila envelope.

  “You wanna make this trip shorter?”

  “Please. Yes.”

  “I see you got ‘organ donor’ listed here on your license.”

  “Yes, I am a great believer in donating anything you—”

  She made that creepy-crawler bug face again. “Shhhhh! This is between you and me, Miss Priss. Now you and me both know you wouldn’t have proper documentation if it jumped outta your ass. You know that. I know that.” She leaned in closer. “It’s not offered to all our customers, but if you’re willing to be a living donor, that is on
e who’ll give body parts prior to receiving your personal toe tag in the morgue, you get a renewal plate pronto and don’t have to pay the taxes on the vehicle for a year.”

  “Do what?”

  “That sweet little Lexus your ass is driving around town? You know how much you’re going to owe on that baby? Here’s the deal, sign this paper that you’ll be a LIVING donor and we’ll stamp you clear, give you a tag and set you loose.”

  “Living donor?”

  “Means we’ll call if we need half your liver, a kidney, some skin for grafting, maybe a fallopian tube, cornea, thumb or shin bone, that sort of thing. Parts you don’t really need to live a normal life.”

  I was speechless but definitely interested. I thought about the visit to the gyno and the parts down south I sure didn’t need. “You can have my uterus,” I said. “I was going to sell it on eBay or send it to a hide tanner and turn it into a change purse, but I figure someone might need one.”

  She mumbled and gave it some thought. “What else you got to give? A uterus is just a start.”

  “I’ll sign over the entire bitch patrol: ovaries, tubes, any eggs that are viable. Just let me have my basic unit ’cause come Christmastime my husband will be wanting it.”

  She handed me a tag and let me go. The lady with ’rhoids and six kids was up next. Madame DMV eyeballed those children like prime rib on a buffet table. She must have been mentally tabulating all the potential organs from that one client.

  “Want a tag?” I heard her whisper, going into the live-donor speech. “Sign the papers promising us parts such as a bile duct or portal vein, and it’s all yours.”

  The woman rubbed her ass and gasped.

  “Shhhh!” Madame DMV said. “If you are simply too attached to your portal vein, we’ll also take lung lobes and extra ears, healthy liver sections and other parts you don’t really need to live the good life.” She eyeballed the woman’s large and dragging boobs, seeing the dampened spots on her blouse. “We’ll take a wet nurse, too.”

  The poor bedraggled, hemorrhoid-angst woman signed.

  “Here’s your tag. Have a nice day.”

  That night I went home exhausted and defeated and decided it would be one of those evenings where I’d just lie in the bed with a row of Ritz and channel surf—my mechanism for coping after a bad day. As soon as my Lifetime movie about a born-again teen bulimic cheerleader on crack ended, I flipped to an infomercial and nearly jumped out of my pajamas.

  There before me was the most frightening hawker I’d ever seen.

  THE JUICE MAN.

  He sported tufts of white hair and eyebrows that looked like two bearded caterpillars pulled upward by an invisible string. He kept staring at me through the TV, grimacing and grinning, telling all of us that we were on our way to Coffin Central if we don’t snap up his juicer and start downing all those liquid, straight-from-the-plant vitamins.

  The man was in sheer fruit-and-veggie heaven as he plunged whole carrots, beets, apples and anything he could find into his pulverizing juice machine. He’d take a sip and just literally have a happy fit. I’m quite certain the freak had an erection to match his eyebrows.

  I may have been tired and my bottom still squishy…I may be facing a future with one lung and a missing cornea, but I swannee that man had a bulge in his pants. Could have been something he was planning on “juicing” later.

  He kept yelling through the TV and I continued watching and listening, completely horrified to the point of fascination.

  “Order the Juiceman and get a free bread machine!” he shouted.

  I just don’t trust a man that high on juice. Even so, within twenty minutes, the Juice Man almost snagged me. He peered close to the camera and I felt the tug, the Visa whispering, “Come get me” from my purse. What juicing magnificence! What a pair of brows!

  I could call and tell the ladies working the phones that I’d order one only if he’d throw in his eyebrows. I could use them to clean up under the toilet rims or the burners on the stove. They’d be perfect for digging down in the hollow valves of my son’s trumpet to get all the spit and crud out. I’d never have to buy another box of Brillo pads.

  In the end I resisted, turned off the tube and decided to call it a day. First the gynecologist who said I looked just like my photo in the paper while his face was one inch from my cervix. Then the DMV lady who gave me a tag only after I signed over any and all body parts that wouldn’t kill me if excised.

  Maybe I’ll go soak in the tub and eat a carton of Milk Duds. If the candy yanks out my teeth, I can always save the good molars for the DMV lady in order to be certain of getting a new tag next time it came due.

  Hooking Up With David Sedaris

  O ne day my fairy godmother arrived in the form of a publicist.

  She waved her magic wand and set up a meeting with a famous writer I’ve long admired and loved and had naughty fantasies about. No matter that he’s gay.

  I turned into Cinderella in a dress from the Goodwill on the day I met this literary genius the world knows as David Sedaris at a hotel, spending at least ninety minutes awed and enraptured. I couldn’t think a clear thought or form a complete sentence as I felt my dark hair turning platinum blonde and my IQ dropping from its normal 50-to-70 range to around 35 points.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. I wanted to invite him to sit in my lap, the cute little thing that he was. Being a big girl, 5 feet, 8 inches on a flat-heeled day, he could have nestled against my motherly tummy and I could have petted his brilliant little head.

  He looked at me expectantly. I knew what he was wanting. He was like most men and wanted to get in and get out, quickly. I wanted it to last. Foreplay, lots of foreplay, even if it was in the form of staring and saying nothing. So that’s what I did. It’s all I could do. Stare speechless for quite some time.

  “Sooooo,” he said, and his famous and distinctive voice, one heard by millions on National Public Radio and his audio books, made my knees weak. It was that utterly unmatched blend of North Carolina, New York, European nasal delight. The man was nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album. His voice was his meal ticket.

  “Any questions?” he asked, probably wondering why I was sitting there in a trance.

  Questions. Shit. I was supposed to think up some sharp and extraordinarily original questions. I’m a reporter, a columnist, a foolish woman who, upon seeing this man, went from my mid-40s to being 17 and acting as if I was staring at Peter Frampton.

  I mumbled and felt my hands shaking as I took out a pen that turned out to be a tampon attached to a panty liner that had escaped its plastic shield. Shit. Shit. Shit. He raised his cute little eyebrows, lit a cigarette and allowed one of those completely charming half smiles as I switched for a better pen. This time, an eyebrow pencil.

  Mercy, things were going poorly. I knew he must have thought, “Wow, they sent a real winner to my hotel this time.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Let’s see now…”

  I was imagining we’d have intelligent conversation, exchange witticisms and then declare our soul mate status. Then reality hit. I’m married. He’s gay. This is not a match made in Heaven or a match by any means. This was simply a famous gay man I was in love with cerebrally. One who would NEVER love me back.

  But in my wild fantasy he would tell me what I longed to hear beautiful or smart gay men say. “I will no longer ever want another man in my life. You have c
hanged me forever. I’m as straight as plywood.”

  Regardless, here he was, sitting directly across from me in a wrinkled shirt, shadowy stubble and that quirky face that reminds me of a gnome’s only cuter.

  Now, getting this once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet him at a motel, which the high class call hotels, was the highlight of my year, considering I hadn’t given birth or done anything major in quite some time.

  I wanted to enjoy cranial gymnastics with Sedaris, and then by the end of our interview, have him declare he was in love and that he’d have to drop poor Hugh, his boyfriend of one hundred years.

  Of course at some point in a fantasy, one must face reality. Sedaris will never love me, and after our ninety minutes together I will probably never hear from him again unless I turn on my CD player and listen as his delightful voice chitters on about hitchhiking, youth in Asia or my favorite story about Santa and the six to eight black men.

  While this first interview may well be our last, I must still consider myself blessed as both a journalist and a woman. Not a lot of gay-loving heteros get to meet David Sedaris in a hotel—especially one as opulently masculine and volcanically inspired as the Grove Park Inn, located in Asheville, North Carolina.

  Here’s how it all went down.

  Thunder cracked and the sky emptied as I pulled into the swanky hotel parking lot with my notepad, nerves and audio recording device. I adjusted my bosoms, two unless I lie down (as you may recall), which are now approaching their third birthday and beginning a frightful descent that might require action should they not quit falling and multiplying.

  I approached the concierge’s desk. “I’m here to see Mr. David Sedaris,” I said with great jubilance and measured control. The gracious and dignified hotel employee raised one brow, as if I was a loony fan trying to pull a stalking. Perhaps that much was true, but I didn’t want to let on. Plus, I had Little, Brown’s permission to meet the huge star of radio and stage, a major player on the New York Times Best-sellers List, the man who single-handedly turned a job as a Macy’s elf into one of the funniest stories ever written.