Once we all settled down and he got me a seat with a sturdier frame, I pulled Alvin into me.
“I cannot believe that just happened,” I whispered.
“Oh man, I have to hand it to you: That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in forever.”
“I am mortified!”
“Don’t be! Seriously. It’s fine,” he said.
I covered my face with my hands.
“I swear to God, you’re overreacting. It’s fine.”
“I’m totally embarrassed, you guys,” I announced to the room. They all told me that it wasn’t too big a deal.
“Really, Anna. Don’t worry about it,” Lizzy said. Fuck. I needed another beer after that. I got up to retrieve another from the fridge.
The game raged on, with us duking it out for nineties trivia superiority. We won a round and the cappuccino team won the other. After my fourth beer and third round of the game, I realized that I was getting pretty tipsy. I knew that I’d have to drive back to my parents’ house in a bit, so I went to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Alvin followed me.
“Hey,” he said as we entered the kitchen.
“Oh, hey! I’m grabbing some water. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem. Here, let me get that for you.” He reached for a glass in his cabinet. “You’re not heading out just yet, are you?”
“Well, I have to drive home later, so I don’t wanna get too drunk,” I explained as he turned on the sink faucet. The water hissed into the glass.
“Who says you have to go home?” He raised an eyebrow.
Alvin was making a move on me.
“Really? You wanna have a slumber party with me?” A slumber party? Who says that? What am I, twelve?
“Yeah, that could be fun.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I put my hands on his chest to stop him.
“What are we talking about here? A few rounds of Girl Talk? Truth or dare? Painting each other’s nails?”
He laughed. “Something like that.”
“So let me get this straight: I broke a chair in your house and you’re asking me to stay over?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” His brown eyes softened as they focused on my mouth. I pulled him closer to me and he placed his hands on my hips.
“Are you into chair breakers? Does that turn you on? Is that, like, your fetish?” I joked.
“How about we talk less about you breaking chairs and talk more about you staying over.” I laughed while I considered the request for a few more seconds.
“All right. Let’s do it.” I took my hands off his chest and pulled his face to mine for a quick kiss.
Game night ended pretty quickly after that. Alvin ushered everyone out, which was fine by me. As soon as the last person thanked him and left, he opened a bottle of Merlot Lizzy had brought and poured us each a glass. After putting some Pet Sounds–era Beach Boys on the stereo, he joined me on the sofa. I was going to avoid lounging on rickety wooden furniture from this point out.
“This is better, isn’t it?” he said, sipping his wine. “Just us.”
I nodded yes at him, and then nodded toward the stereo. “I didn’t realize you were a Beach Boys fan.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He put his arm on the back of the sofa and I leaned into his chest, deeply inhaling his shirt again like a creep.
“Oh yeah? Like what? What don’t I know about you?”
“Well, what do you wanna know? I’m an open book.” He kissed the top of my head lightly.
“Okay. Let’s start with the obvious: What kind of name is Alvin? I don’t know any Alvins. I can say with confidence that you are the only Alvin listed in my cell phone.”
“Everyone makes fun of me about it because of the—”
“The Chipmunks, right. Well, Alvin was the coolest chipmunk, so at least you have that going for you.”
“It was my grandfather’s name. Well, that’s not true. His name was Aaron and I’m named in memory of him. That’s a pretty boring story. What else do you wanna know?” He started to kiss my neck, which shut me up. I turned around and met his lips with mine.
Aside from breaking a chair in front of all of his friends, I was having the time of my life. Being at my parents’ house for so long, I hadn’t made out with a cute guy in a while. I forgot just how lovely it could be.
Moving back home was alienating. I’d been living in a suburban cocoon filled with strip malls, well-manicured lawns and cable television for over a year. But for those few minutes on Alvin’s couch, it felt like I had my old life back. I was in heaven. At least I was until one of his dogs jumped up on the couch, nearly knocking the glass of Merlot out of my hand with his unchecked exuberance. His paws clawed at my sweater and dug into my skin.
I yelped, trying to hold my wineglass out of reach.
That was when I met my Alvin’s inner Hulk: “Zeke! What did I tell you? Get the hell off the couch! Get down, now! Bad boy!” As he yanked at the dog’s collar, I thought, Who is this man? He was a million miles away from the adorable guy who poured me my wine two minutes ago.
“Sorry ’bout that. He knows he’s not supposed to jump on the couch.” As the words left his mouth, the dog whipped his thick tail toward us, almost knocking Alvin’s wineglass out of his hand, too.
“That’s it! Zeke, go to your cage. Now! Go on, get!” He stomped over to the cage, locked the mutt in, and then resumed his place on the couch. Thanks to his outburst, his face was now a deep shade of red.
“Whew! Where were we?” He leaned in to kiss me, acting like nothing had happened, like screaming at an animal was as normal as blowing his nose. This Jekyll/Hyde, screamer/wine sipper thing was intense. I was rattled by it. I didn’t want to leave because I was already pretty drunk, so I just tried to shrug the dog screamer thing off.
We kissed a bit, stopping only when another of the mutts would come over to sniff my crotch, and then the screaming thing would start up again.
“Matilda! That’s it! You’re going to your cage now, too.” Then he stopped mid smooch and locked up another one.
“Wow. It’s starting to get pretty late,” I said, glancing at my watch. He looked over at the clock by the television and agreed.
“I should take ’em for a quick walk before we turn in for the night,” Alvin said. “Here, have some more wine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Sure thing.” I watched him round up the pack of animals and they bounced and jerked around, waiting for him to clip their leashes on. Once they left, the house felt eerily quiet. I figured that this would be the perfect time to freshen up.
The bathroom was on the second floor, a few feet from the staircase. I flicked on the light and took pause. I had no idea how an adult human could use that teensy-weensy bathroom. Everything in there was tiny. The sink was the size of a child’s shoe and the mirror over the sink was the size of a Pop-Tart. If we were in the Roaring Twenties, fun-loving collegiates would see how many people they could squish in here for fun. Clark Kent probably has more room in a phone booth to change into Superman. I mean, it was small.
Clearly, the name “bathroom” was a misnomer because there was no way that this should be classified as a full room; it was more of a closet. A bath closet. It was so tight in there that just walking the one foot from the toilet to the sink felt like I was in a Tokyo subway car during rush hour.
The shower curtain looked like a crime scene: It was stained, torn, and somehow rusted. How does plastic rust? The metal hooks on top of it were all scraggly, like old cavities.
There wasn’t a proper shower liner, just a thick plastic sheet. It used to be white, but now it was a yellowish-brown shade that could best be described as “heavy smoker’s teeth yellow.” Shower curtains are, like, a dollar. Couldn’t he just grab a new one? I didn’t want to touch the thing because it was slimy and I had no idea what kind of toxic stew was growing on it.
And not to be a diva, but his bathroom had the worst overhead lightin
g I’d ever seen. It was harsh and unflattering, like a Macy’s dressing room. I had to shield my eyes from the brightness. There was one bare lightbulb overhead beaming down on me with the focused intensity of an angry teacher. I guess if he was aiming for a bathroom-at-a-gas-station vibe, he’d nailed it pretty well.
I took out my travel toothbrush and spotted his crusty tube of Crest toothpaste. It was the most basic kind you could get: no advanced whitening agents or foaming molecules. It was just a dry, crumbly paste the consistency of caulk and it was as gnarled as the Wicked Witch of the East’s feet after Dorothy gets the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz. How does a toothpaste tube even get that funky? Maybe a mouse uses it as a punching bag? Maybe it was in a crash test dummy’s pocket? Who knows? I had no clue why it was so mangled.
Of course, it had a twist-off cap, which was the Monopoly game piece of his bathroom; it somehow managed to get lost pretty much within thirty seconds of my touching it. Was it too much to ask for a flip-top cap? And did the flavor have to be an unappetizing flavor of chalk? Couldn’t he opt for a Vanilla Mint or a Crystal Wintermint? And it didn’t instill confidence that the ingredients were listed in Spanish. Did he fish this out of a Chinatown Dumpster or did he go to an actual store and pay for this with American cash?
I put the tiniest smudge of toothpaste on the outermost bristles of my toothbrush and tried to repress my gag reflex as I smeared it on my teeth. And, to add insult to injury, I had to stand in the hallway to brush my teeth because there was no place for my arms to operate in that cubic foot of terribleness. I was inadvertently doing the Hokey Pokey just trying to get my teeth clean. Somehow my breath managed to smell even worse after I’d brushed my teeth. Disgusted, I cupped my hand under the faucet and sipped some water, swished it around my mouth, and spit it out. Yuck.
I realized that I should probably pee now before he got back, but even that was a nightmare. I was basically peeing in a dollhouse. One knee was hitting the sink and the other knee was slammed against the edge of the bathtub. One elbow was smashing into the wall and the other elbow was tangled in a shower curtain. I’m pretty sure I pulled a muscle just trying to wedge myself on that toilet.
Sorry to be TMI, but I also had to change my maxi pad real quick and, to my horror, he had a tiny wastebasket. With just two Q-Tips, four cotton balls, an empty toilet paper roll, and a used Kleenex, it was already at maximum capacity. The grocery store bag he used for a liner was too big and it slumped over the sides like it hated its life. Honestly, I don’t blame it. That trash bag probably envisioned itself growing up to cart some lady’s fresh groceries home from Whole Foods, not playing makeshift garbage bag in a guy’s rank bathroom.
But the worst part was that I had to stash my maxi pad in this overgrown mess. I tried to jam it in the toilet paper roll and placed it in the offending trash can.
I went to wash my hands and was horrified to find a cracked, hardened bar of soap chillin’ on the edge of the sink. It had more streaks in it than the quad on campus during homecoming week. Lathering was out of the question; there was no lather left in it. I wondered how soap could get so dirty when it’s soap! What do you use to clean soap?
Just so we’re clear, I hated this bar of soap. I refused to use it. I thought about putting it out of its misery (i.e., throwing it out), but I couldn’t tell if that’d be weird. I set it back on the counter and did my best to forget I ever saw it.
When I was done, I stashed my purse back in the closet and sat on the couch, waiting for Alvin to return. And he did a few minutes later with his menagerie in tow. He instructed them to go to their doggy beds, which they did. It felt like we were babysitting.
I followed him up to his room and we got right down to business. We made out for about an hour. That part ruled. You might be happy to know that he had great armpit hair. I was pleased with this development because a guy’s armpit hair is always a crapshoot. You never know what you’re going to get. Maybe they’ll be thick and smelly, like unruly pubes. Or, maybe he won’t have any at all; his skin will just be totally hairless and slightly damp, like a cat’s nose. But Alvin, he’s got the perfect armpit hair composition. Thin, wispy, soft: This is some Grade A armpit hair, my friend.
I wanted to weave it into braids. I wanted to make a stuffed animal out of it and give it to a sick child. I wanted to kiss it and whisper Laffy Taffy jokes to it and be best buds with that lovely perfect tuft. His awesome armpit hair was excellent news. Just excellent!
We drifted off to sleep shortly afterward with his arms around me. However, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a gnawing sound. I could tell that something was in our room. I rubbed my eyes and tried my best to focus on the small, dark shape squatting by the door. Since I didn’t have my contacts in, it took a bit longer to make out what it was. Well, it turned out that it was Zeke, lying down and eating the fuck out of my used maxi pad. He must’ve fished it out of the trash while we were sleeping.
I gasped and tried to push Alvin awake. “Oh my God! Wake up!”
“What’s the matter?”
I didn’t say anything; I just pointed at the dog. His eyes followed my finger to the dark shape by the doorway.
“Is that Zeke?” He strained to listen to the horrible chewing sounds. “What’s he eating?”
“I think your dog is chewing my pad,” I whispered.
“Your what? What’d you say?”
“My pad! My pad! Your dog is eating my pad.” There are a few words that I hate saying in the company of men. Tampon is up there. Period blood is on the list, too. But, out of everything, pad is number one. No one needs to hear it in a normal tone of voice, much less screamed at them at three A.M.
Alvin leaped out of bed. “Here, boy! Give me that!” He managed to grab a corner of the pad, but Zeke didn’t want to give up his bounty right away. He sneered and bared his sharp teeth, which were firmly clenched on the thing.
The good news: I’m sure the dog’s saliva was being absorbed well by his new chew toy. The bad news: I wanted to die from embarrassment for the second time in one evening.
Alvin finally managed to wrangle the pad from his pet and promptly disposed of it in the trash can under his desk on the far side of the bedroom. After he put Zeke in his cage, he came back to bed.
“I’m really sorry,” I mumbled. Hallmark doesn’t make a “Sorry Your Dog Ate My Pad” card, do they? I bet 1-800-FLOWERS doesn’t make a “Let’s Pretend Your Dog Never Chewed Up My Feminine Product” bouquet, either.
“Don’t worry about it. Just go back to sleep.” He pulled the covers up to his chest and immediately passed out.
I rested my head on the pillow, but I couldn’t sleep. I was horrified. I tossed and turned for a few minutes, totally ashamed. Damn his tiny wastebasket! As I thought about setting it on fire or running it over with my car, I heard a familiar sound. It was the same kind of gnawing, the same kind of panting. I sat up and saw Chopper fishing around the wastebasket. I swear to God, this pad was like Christmas morning for those animals! It was the best thing that ever happened to them since my crotch walked through the door.
So now Chopper got hold of my shredded pad and decided to go to town on it like it was his birthday dinner. I pushed Alvin awake. Again.
“Dude, now Chopper is doing it, too.”
“Huh?” He groaned.
“My pad! Chopper is chewing on it, too.”
He whipped the sheets back and stomped over to the dog. Chopper thought they were playing a game, so he hopped up on the bed and jumped all over me, his paws stabbing at me like furry daggers. Let me tell you, having a huge dog jump on your seminaked body hurts like a motherfucker. I tried to grab the pad and managed to get a decent grip on it, but the dog wouldn’t give it up. He stood his ground, whipping his neck back and forth with more resolve at each tug I made. Large pools of drool streamed from his mouth and sprayed around the room as he twisted his head around. Some of it got in my hair; a speck of it landed on my chin. I was being doused with dog dr
ool.
Finally Alvin managed to snatch the pad from the second pair of teeth that night and locked the dog in his cage, too. All the dogs were barking like maniacs. I heard Alvin rifle around his room looking for something to toss my stupid pad in. He finally found a plastic bag and shoved it in, rolled it up, and placed it on top of his closet, out of reach of doggy teeth. I’m glad the lights were off so he couldn’t see the look of abject horror on my face.
Alvin resumed his place on his side of the bed and didn’t say anything to me.
“I’m…so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just go back to bed.”
“Not to be a burden, but do you have a towel I could borrow? I’m, like, drenched in dog drool.”
With a huff, he got up and trotted to the bathroom. He came back with a small blue towel, which he tossed toward me. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Wait, I’m supposed to dry my body with this? I used his stamp-sized mini-towel begrudgingly. It was all matted and scratchy like a homeless man’s dreadlock. And it didn’t even do a good job at drying me! Rather, it just pushed the drool around and scratched my skin. It was starting to hurt. I tossed it on the floor like it was rotten.
Alvin managed to catch some Zs. I could tell by his snoring that the pad attack didn’t disrupt his beauty sleep. Unfortunately, I barely slept one wink. I kept hearing the dogs whimper in their cages, frustrated that they couldn’t play with their new, prized toy. Just as the sun was starting to poke through his curtains, I finally managed to get some shut-eye.
Around ten A.M., we woke up. He didn’t mention anything about the pad chase of the night before, which I appreciated. I hoped he forgot the whole thing even happened. The best-case scenario would be him just thinking that it was a vivid nightmare. I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. When he left the room to take a quick shower, I found the pad and tossed it in my purse. I was hoping that if he did go to look for it after I left and didn’t find it, he’d definitely think that it was a nightmare.
Clearly, I Didn't Think This Through : The Story of One Tall Girl's Impulsive, Ill-conceived, and Borderline Irresponsible Life Decisions (9781101612255) Page 3