Not-So-Tall Tales

Photo: A visual haiku.









There are my friends, and then there are my friends. To make it into italicized, bold face fame, there are a number of things you can do to jump from a Lackluster Lolita to a Fabulous Familiar. If we have a history together--like if you witnessed me crapping myself whilst pushing the monster out of my uncooperative front parlor--you're in, and you deserve an award. If you're smarter, funnier, or cooler than me, you pass--but only if your parents are Roseanne Barr and John Goodman; if you're a beauty queen on top of everything else, you're a liability to the group--and by 'the group', I mean ME. I also appreciate a good storyteller, especially when the story ends in shenanigans.

Bangs McGee once told me about a girlfriend of hers who accidentally cut off her labia with the kitchen shears, in preparation for shaving. When she began telling the story, I had a lightning round of women's intuition that screamed THIS IS NOT GOING TO END WELL, but I was committed, because Bangs spins a pretty good yarn. Apparently the friend just lopped it off like an errant piece of sandwich meat, freaked out, threw it in the toilet, and flushed. I laughed like a hyena on mescaline through the emergency phone call to a drag queen named Kahlua Ice ("Girl, I just cut off my vagina"), all the way to the end where it was revealed that labias DO grow back (who knew?) "like a motherfucking starfish", end quote. And that's why her nickname is Starfish, which made me wish the story was about me and my Go-Go Gadget Labia. Alas.

Miss Peachtree shared a great tale of tragicomedy about her and a friend, Miss Bi-Coastal, on mushrooms in Mexico; it was my favorite kind of story because it just kept getting worse, in the best possible way. First off, they ran into Miss Bi-Coastal's mom and friend (they were staying at the same timeshare resort), who convinced them--in their sun-and-shroom weakened state--to join a timeshare owners meeting in the cabana; apparently the meeting was held by a Mexican dude who spoke very little English, which was hilarious to my shroomy little friends. What followed was this: mom and daughter were entered into a dance contest by Mexican Dude, the kind where you stop when the music stops; of course Miss Bi-Coastal was on mushrooms, and of course MRS. Bi-Coastal studied modern African dance, or something equally humiliating on a middle-aged white lady. Miss Peachtree had the presence of mind to tell the other lady that they were super drunk; but just thinking about those two girls, wide-eyed like the freaks in Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun video, makes me scream with laughter. That, and the simple fact that Miss Bi-Coastal placed SECOND in the dance contest, to which I give her mad fucking props.

Manthony has topped all of these stories by BECOMING a story of his own. After working for what we've now deemed COMMUNIST CHINA (which is sadly accurate--although it wasn't like that in the beginning), Manthony finally accepted a better position at a new spa, and wowed the everlasting BEJEEZUS out of me WHEN HE QUIT VIA EMAIL HAIKU. He's a hero, a genius, a pioneer!

A new job offer
that I accepted today.
I will not be back.

I know someone who quit his shitty job at an upscale chop-shop BY HAIKU. He's like the New Jesus to me now, and if that doesn't get you in through the front door to my friendship, I don't know what will. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to quit my last job through a jingle, or iambic pentameter.

I love my friends!