"Get your stuff together. We're leaving in two hours for the Vineyard and you need to follow me in case the Civic breaks down." Then he turned and walked back into the house.
About two and a half hours into the ride, my father's car got a flat tire. I pulled up behind him and watched him try to fix it. Moments later, a Toyota 4Runner stopped by the side of the road and a black man got out. I climbed out of my car as well. We both met at my father's car, and the stranger asked, "Do you need help with that flat tire, sir?"
My father looked up and said, "Yes, that would be nice. Don't know what happened here. I just need to get the spare on so I can have this tire looked at." The tire needed to be thrown in the trash, not "looked at," but this was another case of my father being delusional about the condition of his cars. When my father noticed me checking out the black guy, who wasn't half bad looking, he said, "Chelsea, get back in your car and keep your pants on." The black man glanced at both of us with a confused expression on his face and then kneeled down to start loosening the bolts.
Once we got to the Vineyard, my father gave my mother the rundown of what had taken place.
"Whitefoot and I are having breakfast at the table, and who do you think pops out of her room like everything's coming up roses? Chelsea, that's who. And before you know it, I hear the sbvartzer jump out of her window and steal a car."
"Dad, shut up. You know he didn't steal that car, it was his," I said. I was bored by the replay of events.
My mother came over and sat down beside me. "Melvin, please leave her alone," she said.
"Oh, here we go. Mommy loves Chelsea and Daddy is the bad guy. I'm always the fall guy. I get it, I see what's happening here. It's daddy-bashing time, is that it? I'm the worst daddy in the whole wide world!"
I wanted this whole discussion to be over with already. But mostly I wanted my father to stop referring to himself as Daddy. It was creeping me out. My brother Greg walked in as all this was going on and gave me a high-five.
"Good work, Chels. Nicely done."
"Don't encourage her, Greg. Chelsea, you need to get prioritized, not parade around doing nothing all day but watching your programs and talking on the goddamned telephone. And what the hell is it about the blacks that you like so much? Are you just trying to piss me off?" he asked.
"Well, they are known to have rather large penises," Greg said.
I was out the door before I could see my father's face explode with wild fury. My brother and mother weren't far behind, and the three of us jumped into Greg's car and headed into town for some ice cream.
After two days of complete silence from my father, he ventured out and got three large cases of blueberries. Blueberries are my favorite. He left them on the counter and drove back to New Jersey.
MY LITTLE NUGGET
I THINK WE can all agree that sleeping around is a great way to meet people. Furthermore, sleeping around with midgets is a great way to meet midgets.
The great thing about sleeping with a midget is that first you get to have sex with them and then you can use them as a pillow. Those little midgets have it so easy. Sometimes when I see one, I want to chase it. I don't want to scare them, but I want to hold them and cuddle them. Mostly I would like one for the carpool lane.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: If you want something bad enough, you just have to go after it.
This is what I can remember. I showed up at a party in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I had been living in California for over a year, with Ivory, and I was meeting my sisters for a vacation, but they weren't arriving until the next night. A hotel room all to myself is my idea of a good time.
I went to the pool, where I met a couple who told me they were going to some sort of Cinco de Mayoish party with plenty of margaritas. I thought it sounded like a great idea, and my new friends and I decided to go.
It's always the couples that are the friendliest who have the most problems. It makes sense, if you think about it. They're so miserable with each other, of course they're fascinated by you.
When they weren't asking me questions about my Jewish father and gentile mother, they were busy cursing each other out. These two fought constantly, which I didn't have a problem with. It's so much better than watching a couple who can't get enough of each other and sit around making googly eyes back and forth. I had a roommate who had a boyfriend and all they did was make eyes at each other. He was all emotion all the time, constantly talking about his feelings and his profound love for her. He was minutes away from getting his first period. He wrote her poems too. It's my personal belief that if men are writing poems, they're making up for something else. Like a big hairy back, or one ball. Not that one ball is a bad thing. Especially since I don't know any females who are dying to get their hands on a set of balls. The way I see it, the less balls, the better.
Anyway, this couple wasn't the ogling type. If you put a napkin between these two they'd figure out a way to argue about it. So they bickered all day while I proceeded to get viciously burned in the sun. My mom had just sent me one of those traveling cases, where you put your shampoos and creams into little unmarked containers so you don't have to travel with big bottles that might spill. What I thought was sunblock turned out to be foot cream. I was wondering why the smell was so pungent. My mom spent my entire childhood taking naps while I was stranded at the mall or Hebrew school for hours at a time, and now all of a sudden I'm twenty, and she wants to pack my bags.
This wasn't the first time I'd looked like an asshole. This was however, the first time complete strangers referred to me as "the asshole." I decided white would be a good contrast for my blistering tan at the party that night and a great way to get the attention I deserved.
The party was a blast. It was about a five-minute walk from our hotel at some millionaire's beachfront mansion. Everyone was salsa dancing around his pool as the waves crashed on shore. There were belly dancers on balconies. There were margarita-shaped ice sculptures that were made out of actual margaritas and people were slowly disrobing. Everyone was incredibly friendly, and I had a sneaking suspicion that some sort of Ecstasy was involved but I abstained because these weren't my people and, besides, I make it a personal rule never to experiment with drugs while having such a brutal sunburn. Alcohol, on the other hand, is never off-limits.
Then I saw him. My little midget, wearing a sombrero filled with chips and salsa on his head! It was the most adorable thing I had ever laid eyes on. As if my night could get any better, he was topless but wearing an apron and white pants. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
We hung out all night. I couldn't stop hugging him. He was one of the funniest midgets I'd ever met. Actually, he was the only midget I'd ever met--if you don't count the Internet. He had the cutest little hands and a high-pitched voice. He was shaped like a perfect sphere. He kept telling me one racist joke after another, and I couldn't get enough of him. At one point I had to send him away because I needed to catch my breath. My stomach was aching. He kept slapping my chest when he laughed, leaving what looked like puppy's pawprints all over me. Then he started barking. I love a guy who doesn't take himself too seriously. He was a tricky little oompa loompa too. He kept giving me shot after shot of tequila, and he kept getting taller, and taller, and taller.
His name was Eric and he was from Cleveland. I wanted to call him Nugget but thought I'd wait until after we became better acquainted. He had moved to Mexico to party for a year after he graduated from mortuary school. He figured his future was gonna be pretty grim, so he wanted to get in some hard-core fun first.
We talked and danced, and at one point I tried to pick him up, but he was heavy for a little guy. His mom was a midget too, but his dad was human-sized. I guess his dad had a thing for little people, because he had married another midget before his mother. She had cheated on him with someone her own size, so he had gone on his way. I thought his father sounded like a great guy. So open-minded and such a broad thinker, to have fetishes for the little people too
.
The sunburn combined with my fourteenth margarita was starting to cloud my head. I settled into a deep fog and didn't return to full 90 percent mental capacity until early the next morning.
The first thing I saw when I awoke were two tiny feet scurrying across the Spanish tile to the bathroom. I was so confused. At first I thought, Oh, great, I had a baby. Then I felt under the covers. My underwear was still on. I knew you could never have a baby with your underwear still on.
Then I heard what sounded like someone jumping off the toilet seat and landing on the floor. "Whew, these tiles are cold," said someone who sounded like he'd just inhaled an entire tank of helium. That squeaky little voice was too much. It all started coming back to me, and it was not good. My head was spinning and I was not in a good mood. I didn't know if things were going to get violent, but I did know one thing: Eric needed to be gone. But first I needed to know if I had slept with a midget, and I needed to know fast.
Then I saw it. His penis was the size of a boa constrictor. I couldn't believe it. My jaw dropped open and I stared for close to a minute in pure, titillating horror.
"Did we have sex?" I asked.
Eric was quick to blurt out, "We can if you want to."
My vagina immediately clammed up. I was scared for me and my little beaver's life. I just hoped we would make it out of this okay.
"You were really drunk last night," he said condescendingly. Wow, I guess nothing gets past this guy.
"Listen, Columbo, did we have sex or not?" I asked.
"Well, that depends on what you mean by sex," he replied. This guy was getting more irritating by the minute. All the cute stuff had worn off with the tequila, and I started to think of him like a pinata. Could I take this guy? Was I strong enough to fight a male midget?
Seeing I was angry, he hurried to answer. "No, I just pleasured you for a little bit, and then you passed out."
Thank God for alcohol. To think I might have actually had that thing inside my little girl scared mommy.
Then I heard my sisters walk in the door.
My sisters are a very interesting duo. One of them is a converted Mormon. The other is sane.
Sloane, the Mormon, and I have had a very tumultuous relationship most of our lives. She seems to think I stole her thunder by being born. She was five years older and had claimed the throne of the youngest child with no thoughts of any competition. Her side of the story is that upon my arrival, she was thrust into a dark emotional corner, unable to express herself or get the attention she had gotten used to. Still reeling from middle-child syndrome, at the age of twenty my sister decided to distinguish herself from the rest of our family by converting to Mormonism. She believed this would be a way to carve out her own identity. Her plan was successful, although now her identity was the lunatic. We were slowly becoming closer in our twenties, but Sloane was very judgmental and something like bedding a midget could be a huge setback. Sidney, the older one, has always been my second mother. During my entire childhood, it was always Sidney who picked me up from Hebrew school when my parents forgot to, and who asked for friends' phone numbers if I was going to stay at their houses overnight. My mom was way too relaxed as a parent. By the age of ten, if I told her I was going backpacking in the Himalayas for the weekend, she would have told me to have a great time and to definitely call her when I returned.
My whole family knows I have a propensity toward hedonism, but I don't think sleeping with a midget falls into that category. Or the category that falls under sharing the experience with anyone else in the world. Not for a while, anyway. I didn't want to see that look of disappointment on my sisters' faces for the next five days. I had to think fast.
I ran out into the living room and explained that I had a naked midget in my room because the hotel misunderstood me when I ordered room service.
They both looked at me with disgust on their faces.
Eric slipped out while my sisters waited in the other room. I, of course, proceeded to ream Sloane for renting a hotel room at a place that would provide that kind of service. "It's sick is what it is," I told her.
The following five days in Cabo did not go by without a jibe every time someone under five feet passed by, which in Mexico is pretty frequent.
"Chelsea," Sloane would say repeatedly as we sat pool-side, "you've really hit an all-time low."
"Literally," Sidney would then chime in. Then the two would erupt into hysterical laughter, which was followed by snorts of disgust. It became clear to me on that trip that midgets are great for parties, but for me that's where it ends.
DESPERADO
HAVE YOU EVER experienced a pain so sharp in your heart that it's all you can do to take a breath? It's a pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy; you wouldn't want to pass it on to anyone else for fear he or she might not be able to bear it. It's the pain of being betrayed by the person with whom you've fallen in love. It's not as serious as death, but it feels a whole lot like it, and as I've come to learn, pain is pain any way you slice it.
I walked in on Peter, my boyfriend of two and a half years, with not one but two Asian women. It was similar to what I can only imagine a Hong Kong SWAT team must look like. They all seemed very happy, especially the one swinging from the ceiling fan. I can't say that there were any clues to my ex's propensity toward Asian women, but when you break up with someone and reflect on your time together, all the red flags you chose to ignore gradually become more and more obvious. For example, I used to think he just liked rough sex when he would pull my hair tightly in bed; I realized afterward that he was trying to get my eyes to go sideways.
Peter always had an inclination toward threesomes. He had begged and begged me in his cockney accent to seriously consider one. (His accent became annoying only after I found him in bed with the wok 'n' roll twins. Before then, it was impossibly charming.)
"Just try it, try it, you're really gonna like it. It's really popular in Europe," he would say over and over again. This could have been a compelling argument had the same not been true for David Hasselhoff.
After I discovered him in his threesome, I spent the next two weeks in bed suffering from a severe case of vagina elbow. It's a condition not unlike tennis elbow, but you get it from masturbating. My girlfriend Lydia called, for the twentieth time, trying to convince me to go out.
"I can't," I said. "I threw my back out masturbating."
"That's so disgusting," she said. "How the hell were you doing it?"
"Oh, please, Miss Goody Two-shoes. Like you've never gotten yourself from behind!"
It was clear to both of us I needed a night out and possibly a little nookie. Nothing reels you into tears like your first one-night stand after a breakup, and I just needed to get it out of the way.
Lydia was the kind of friend whom people referred to as a "party favor"--always fun to be around but she doesn't really have any patience for suffering unless it's her own. I have been friends with her for so many years that I overlook her shortcomings in the emotional department and focus on the positive. Any time you go out with her, for example, she is completely committed to having a good time. Besides, it was Lydia who went back to my English ex-boyfriend's after we broke up to pick up my things and key his car.
We went to our local watering hole on Tuesday night. It's called Renee's and it should be shut down by the Health Department. That is, if places could be shut down due to unsanitary customers. I was shamefully dressed. I had put on some old Gap capris and a men's white V-neck undershirt with a pair of Adidas slides. I had no business being out in public. Not only did I look pathetic and unkempt, I had a severe case of camel toe that was starting to give me a headache.
There were only eight guys in the bar, so I found the one who most suited my needs. After three vodka Collinses I approached him.
He was definitely much older than me but could still be considered part of my generation. I want to say late thirties, but realistically it was more like early forties. The other options were
unacceptable: two guys who didn't look a day over eighteen, and another guy who had close to a dozen tattoos on one side of his face. I don't like to discriminate, but I prefer my men without any makeup. The only other man who wasn't sitting with a girl was whispering to himself and laughing.
I was either going home with the older guy or going home with myself. I chose him. I could tell he was wrong right from the start. As I approached, he cocked his head back and gave me that silly look men give that says, You like what you're looking at, don't you?
I prefer the strong silent type. A little mystery, perhaps. I talk a lot and prefer it when men don't. This guy kept giggling like a schoolgirl and telling me how sexy I was. There are times when I actually am sexy, but this definitely was not one of them.
Lydia came over and looked at me like I was sitting next to a unicorn.
"What?" I asked her.
"He's disgusting," she said.
She was right. He was pretty disgusting. It wasn't that he was bad-looking, it was his personality--so wild-eyed and eager. It felt as if someone had just let him out of an asylum for the night, and he was getting his first taste of big-city life. He acted like I was Cindy Crawford and he had never had sex.
I didn't think I was going to be able to do this. I ordered a double. He smiled at me in a way I'm assuming he thought was debonair and said, "You know, you don't have to drink to make yourself more fun to be around." I wanted to tell him I was drinking so that be was more fun to be around.
When I finished my drink, I asked him if he wanted to get out of there and go back to his place. His euphoria was nauseating. He told me he was in a white Jeep Cherokee and I told him I'd follow him. I was driving a Toyota Echo at this point, which is a very silly car. It's so little you don't even have to put it in reverse; you just pick it up and turn it around.
Before we left, I informed him I needed to stop at 7-Eleven to get a sandwich. I hadn't really eaten anything of substance in two weeks, and the alcohol was bringing back my craving for something with cheese.