Keep My Cocoa Handy

Remember how I said I’d been stuffing myself lately? Well, I’ve also been convincing myself it’s okay by wearing fat pants almost exclusively. But this morning, getting dressed for work, I realized I’d worn the fat jeans Friday, Saturday and Sunday – three days in which I went to one party, two bars, and hosted a football gathering for which I baked three pies. I put the fat pants on and realized I couldn’t possibly wear them to work because, well, because... Honestly? They smelled.

And not like pie.

So I took them off, threw them in the hamper (a.k.a. washing machine) and put on the skinnier pair. Not the skinny ones, mind you, I said skinnier; my ass and I are at least one bad breakup and a whomping case of beaver fever* away from the Truly Skinny Jeans. But these’ll do. When I’m relatively thin, that is, these ones do nicely. Today I felt like ten pounds of sausage in a five-pound skin. And I’m sorry Mr. Bismarck, I love your pastry, but you got it wrong. There are three things you don’t want to see the backdoor dealings of, as it were, and they are: laws, sausages, and a fat girl in skinnier jeans.

Bleah. I walked around all day like Danny Devito with a load in his LZR, hoping against hope to make it home before I split the damn things arseways.

Finally – finally – I was on my way. I was off the train, bundled up in my asexual winter gear of hooded sweatshirt, hat, scarf, Aran sweater, gloves (hey man, that wind blows cold along the beach, even if the temperature is all of 32), and all I had to do was leave the station, walk the mile to the car, run three errands, and go home.

Ahem: all I had to do was leave the station.

There were these two black guys, see. Youngish, maybe late twenties/early thirties, not terrible looking. But they were parked in the middle of the driveway with a tub of what looked to me like Bondo, although I can’t swear that’s what it was, because I didn’t look that close. And when I say “parked in the middle of the driveway,” I mean “on their asses.” They were sitting with their backs to one another on the tub of Bondo, shooting the shit and having a good time, without a care in the world that they were blocking buses, cabs and all of us while they took their little Bondo-busting break.

Now, I, too, was on foot. I was not exactly waiting for the road to clear. But a foot-traffic-jam – a toejam, if you will – can be even more annoying than a carjam, because people can be even more stupid than their machines. When the lady who thought she was about to miss her bus suddenly sees that it isn't moving on its route, she doesn’t care who she knocks down on her arm-waving, seat-waddling, harpy-shouting way.

That wasn’t me, that harpy. In case you couldn’t tell. I’m the one she cut off, shouted at, and then hit with her bag.

Next the tiny lady in high heels cut me off between two bumpers and tick-tick-ticked across the street, slow enough to stop the cars but not slow enough to make them wait for me. When I finally made it to the curb and spun my head to check for traffic, I realized the whole footjam-crowd had winnowed down to three. Me, in my sausage-casing, and the two black dudes, who had picked up their tub of Bondo and moved on their merry way.

They were moseying down the sidewalk, still talking and laughing (and still not exactly ugly, I might add), when I saw my chance and went for it, hustling my hat and scarf between two moving vehicles and cross the street.

“Mm, mm, mm!” one of the black dudes called behind me. “Now that is what I call an ass. You have a happy New Year, baby!”

I ignored him, because that’s what a lady does to fellas who catcall her in the road, but for the rest of the way back to my car I walked a little less like Louie DePalma and a little bit more like Mae West. Then, when I got home, I poured myself a glass of wine and drank a toast.

“To black men," I said. "And my ass.

"May one of them be president one day.”

Wait wait wait. That didn't come out right at all.

Oh well. At least the country can be glad it didn’t have to be exposed to that campaign.



*What the hell? I only found this term because I didn’t like the way “giardiasis” was sounding in that sentence, so I googled. Diarrhea = beaver fever? Christ. I’ve never had it, but if I ever do – and if, when I do, I come to understand the appellation – then, for fuck’s sake, I hope it kills me.