Jesus saw me being born and other stories from last Saturday

Nothing shocks you in New Orleans.

For example, I paid $1 to ride through a birth canal two weeks ago. Didn’t even blink!



“Do you feel reborn?” I was asked as a water balloon was popped above my head when I “emerged.”

I had just crawled army-style through a cardboard and slip-in-slide maze, and water dripped down my face as I came out of a well-placed hole on a painted wooden board.

“It’s really slippery in there!” I said.

It was true. The slip-in-slide had been doused in baby oil.

The birth canal was just one of many sexual-related carnival games held at a park two weeks ago, a fundraiser to help a Mardi Gras krewe buy a glitter machine.

Perfectly reasonable, we said.
We lent our support.

I did not strike gold at the “gold teeth toss” since I failed to land a little white ball into a cup of water to win a pair of fake gold teeth.
I walked away empty-handed.

But then I got my palm read by Jesus for $1 and that made things all better.



Well, sort of all better.

Sure, he told me that all my dreams would come true on April 16, 2014, but then he told me my nipples will lactate uncontrollably and I must find a man who is turned on by that sort of thing.

Perhaps I could find this man on the internet, on a fetish website, Jesus suggested.

Haha. Ok Jesus.
Ok.

Next was the dunking booth, although I failed to dunk anyone. I’ve never been good at that game.

I’m much better at throwing pies in people’s faces.

Group activities were sprinkled throughout the day, including a hilariously provocative dance by members of the krewe (all in carnival attire) and a guy in a donkey mask having his way with them...from behind.



(Uhh, mom you can stop reading now.)

Next was the chocolate pudding wrestling fight.

The chocolate pudding wrestling fight included 5 industrial-sized vats of pudding plopped into a kiddie pool and two guys stripped down and took their respective corners.

I realized I hadn't been to an event where guys had to disrobe in a while, and I took in the scenery as fully as I could.

Then Jesus blessed the athletes.

Did you know that it’s really hard to judge the winner in a kiddie pool chocolate pudding wrestling match?

It’s not like there’s enough room for a body slam or anything. It was eventually decided that the first person to be submerged in the brown water loses.

More wrestling matches followed, each special in their own way.

And then it was time for circle jerk.

CIRCLE JERK!

(Really, mom. Stop reading.)

Circle Jerk is a game where six people each have a piece of rope and play tug-of-war and try not to get pulled into the middle or else get a face full of whipped cream.


Like so.

"MY SHOES HAVE TERRIBLE TRACTION!” I screamed, as I slid on the grass towards the cream pie.

I let go. Cream got on my legs.

The carnival ended handsomely with a beet-eating competition — the “beet off” if you will, hahahahaha.

A relay team had to eat 10 incredibly large beets in the fastest time for glory and a trophy. Blood-like juice stained everyone’s mouths and fingers.


Eat the beet. Eat it.



Ya'll beet off so fast!!!

Ha.

Can you think of another city where a day-long carnival of sexual innuendo games would be allowed at a park?

Where Jesus could talk loudly about lactating nipples and a horny man-donkey could run amuck??

Nothing shocks you in New Orleans.

...Well, except the fact that Jesus can’t actually walk on water.






-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

It’s fascinating how many guys think it’s OK to cheat at their bachelor party.
With a stripper.

Ugh.

NEWSFLASH!!! Reality isn’t suspended just because you walk into a den of nudity, hair extensions and six-inch heels.

...wait, you guys DO know that, right?

It’s also fascinating that guys who cheat at their bachelor party don’t think their fiancée will find out about it
hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Because chances are if your friends are dumb enough to let you blatantly cheat a month before your wedding, they’re dumb enough to tell their own girlfriends about it.

And then you're in a pickle about whether you should tell your significant other about your weakness for strippers, or just hope she doesn’t hear it from someone else.

In my opinion, coming clean is the best way, since it involves a significant amount of humiliation.

Ha.

NO, BUT IT’S TRUE!!!

If there are ANY brownie points to be redeemed, it’s that the cheater is honest and apologizes and grovels, grovels, grovels.

…the exact OPPOSITE of what Joel, my friend Aimee’s husband, did.

Joel gets zero brownie points.
Now that I think about it, let’s not let Joel have any brownies, ever.

Joel did, in fact, cheat on Aimee at his bachelor party. With a stripper.

He sat her down one day and said he wanted to talk to her about something important. But instead of apologizing, or crying, OR GROVELING, he told her matter-of-factly, as if he was reading her the 10-day weather forecast.

“At my bachelor party, I hooked up with a stripper.”

!!!!!!

Joel then made it clear that he wasn’t telling her out of good conscience.

He was only doing it because one of his dumb friends told his own wife about it, and she decided that she would tell Aimee if no one else did.

Which is exactly what Joel relayed back.

“I’m telling you this because Mallory said that she’d tell you if no one else did, and I wanted you to hear it from me,” Joel said.

Aw. How sweet. He was looking out for her...feelings.

Also sweet of him?
Breaking this news FIVE MONTHS AFTER THEY WERE MARRIED.

FIVE MONTHS!!!

What was she supposed to do with this information NOW?

Aimee said there was no apology, no regard for how mortified she felt. Joel made sure to phrase the whole thing in a Mallory-hating way, as if this was all her fault.

MALLORY’S FAULT!!!

Aimee screamed that he’s a LIAR and a CHEATER and other choice words.

Joel then insisted that it wasn’t his idea to hook up with the stripper, it was his FRIENDS who forced him to.

“Your friends?,” Aimee asked, furious. “You mean your friends who STOOD IN OUR WEDDING?”

Joel nodded, and then bashed all of their characters.

Which ended up backfiring.

Because Aimee said since THAT WAS THE CASE, the only way she’d forgive him is if he cut off contact with every single “friend” who was at the bachelor party.

(nice.)

Of course, Mallory could still hang out.

Hahahahaha

No baking brownies though.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

Someone reminded me recently that on a first date (well, probably up through  the first five dates), you should be on your best behavior. The best version of yourself.

It’s not lying, it’s a sales tactic!!!

I mean, if you were a dog up for adoption, wouldn’t you want to look as cute as possible??
Ha.

Anyway.

The first date is the one where you should be nice and normal. Where, even if you’re uninterested (or have no idea what) your date is talking about, you should nod and smile and ask thoughtful questions.

And don’t let your crazy show.

Chris, this guy my friend Monica went on a date with after she became his personal banker, did not follow any of these rules on their first date.

The whole thing started off on the wrong foot, when he was an HOUR late to pick her up (no excuse at all) and his car was a complete mess.

It wasn’t messy like an, “I’m busy; I just moved; I work on the road; I have to drop this off at my friends’ house” messy, it was like food wrappers and cigarette butts and an unpleasant environment in which to breathe.

That’s hardly the best version of oneself.

Strike two came at the restaurant, when Monica saw on the TV coverage about the tragic and horrific shooting at the Batman Dark Night Rises premiere.
(It had happened two days before their date.)

“Can you believe that?” she asked pointing at the TV. “Horrible.”

“Oh that shooting at the movies?” Chris asked. “Yea, I don’t know why people are still talking about it.”

Monica blinked.

“You mean, why are people talking about the biggest mass shooting this country has had in…” she started.

“I doesn’t matter, I never watch the news,” Chris said waving his hand, dismissing her.
“I don’t want to know what’s going on in the world AT ALL.”

Monica envisioned their lack of conversation if they ended up together:

HEY HONEY, WE’RE UNDER A NUCLEAR ATTACK!
UHHH….CAN YOU MAKE ME SOME PANCAKES?

“Well…there’s nothing wrong with being informed,” Monica finally said.

They sat in silence for a minute and then Monica changed the subject. They talked about where they had lived out-of-state, their life experiences and why they were still single in their late 20s. Monica said she just hadn't found the right person yet.

“Well, I don’t like to get close to people," Chris said in response. "That’s how people develop feelings. YUCK.”

YUCK?? What was he, five?? 

He wasn't joking. He really felt that way.
He was a complete waste of time.

Monica decided before the bill came that she wasn’t going to be seeing Chris anymore, but still agreed to a post-dinner drink at a nearby bar.

That’s when the rocking began.

Monica recalls: “He wrapped his arms around himself and started rocking back and forth in the bar stool.”

“What…are you doing?” she asked, looking around, embarrassed.

“You should totally try this, it feels soooo good,” Chris said, still rocking.

Monica was beside herself. Was she being punk'd???

She shook her head and looked away.

That’s when she decided that this emotionally unavailable uninformed citizen with a smelly car and odd habit wasn’t going to waste any more of her time. She left to call a cab.

Clearly, this guy had issues. Issues he didn't even try and fake on a first date.

If he was a dog, he would never be adopted at this rate.

Ugh.
Woof.

-Jenny

To the mattresses

The first rule when it comes to shopping for a new mattress: wear pants.

PANTS!!!

Having your legs covered and independent from one another is necessary to mattress shopping, since you will be laying in bed after bed… after bed….after bed…all afternoon with salesmen staring down at you.

How do I know this? Because yesterday I went shopping for a new mattress, PANTSLESS, and now realize the error of my ways.

It didn’t help that I was shopping for a mattress with both my parents.
My dad was particularly annoyed that I was wearing a short jean skirt. He frowned as I awkwardly laid my purse on top of my legs so as to not flash the staff at Sears.

I claim ignorance!!! This was the first time I have ever picked out a new mattress in my life.

In college, when I moved out of the dorm, I got a mattress from Sam’s Club, which was wrapped in visqueen and under $100. (And it felt like it, too!)

After SEVEN years of sleeping on that mattress (...my poor ex-boyfriends haha...), I finally bought another one off Craig’s List that I had hoped would get rid of the knots in my upper back.

It came from my neighbors across the street, a nice lesbian couple, who were moving out of the state. I spent $150 on it and a matching box spring and took comfort (huh huh) in the fact that it had a Sealy tag.

That mattress did its job for about four months. But, then, slowly, over the past HALF A YEAR, my back started turning on me again.

I wake up in the middle of the night to terrible back pain and re-arrange my body, to no relief.
I've tried laying on my back, my stomach, my side and a number of other contorted, fetal-like positions. I've tried to sleep with a pillow between my legs.

A featherbed on top of the mattress made it worse.

I deduced that my back problems must be my bed’s fault, since I don’t have back pain when I sleep over at other people’s houses, on other people's mattresses. (uhh....earmuffs, mom.)

Anyway.

After months and months of talking about it, Sunday afternoon was the day I bit the bullet and properly looked for a new mattress.

Both my parents joined me on this adventure for moral support and negotiating help, since I can't negotiate 50 cents off a pair of earrings at a market. I was told that buying a mattress is like buying a car and you should NEVER pay the sticker price.

It was strange looking at all the mattresses and beds that were available. I can’t remember the last time I was even in a mattress section of a store.

I looked dejected as I read the $2,000-plus price tags on sleep number things and Temperpedic things and mattresses that cool you off when you sleep and promise to change your life.

“Go ahead, lay down in one!” my mom insisted.

I had thought that just pressing my hand onto the mattress was as good a test as any.

“Really?” I asked. “Just lie down on one?”

I awkwardly flopped onto a bed and stared at the ceiling (while pulling down my skirt.)
“Don’t worry about your shoes,” said the saleswoman.

At first, I didn’t know what I was looking for.

Obviously, I wanted something that would blow me away with its comfortableness, but that’s hard to do when you have no blanket, no pajamas and the pillows feel like they’re stuffed with newspaper.

I initially thought all the beds were comfortable, equally. But then, as we went from store to store and I laid down in bed after bed, Goldilocks took hold.

“This one’s too hard!! 

This one’s too soft!!! (Well, actually, I never said that. I don’t think a bed can ever be too soft.)

This one’s not as comfortable as the one I laid in at the first store!”

And then awkward moments popped up, because that’s obviously what happens when you bring your parents along mattress-shopping at age 29.

“How long does the mattress last?” My mom asked a woman as I was testing out the plushness of a European model.

“Well…” the lady said. “That depends on what you DO on it.”

I froze.
My mom looked at me in an accusatory way.

I glared at the saleswoman.

“Well…I mean…if she (pointing at me) has three kids jumping on it every day, well, then it won’t last as long.”

(Side note: Do I LOOK like I have three kids? Do you think someone who has three kids is shopping for a mattress with her parents????) 

Another salesman told me that I shouldn’t just buy the mattress by itself, but with the matching box spring, even though I told him my box spring is perfectly fine.

“You may think it’s fine, but when you have more than one person sleeping on it…” he said. "Especially a larger person..."

I froze.
My mom looked at me in an accusatory way.

After more than four hours of browsing, we found the winning mattress. It came from a small mattress store and was so, so, so, so comfortable, and within my price range.

It will be delivered on Thursday. My back is tingling with delight.

The salesman was very nice and very accommodating and even pulled the mattress out from an upright position on the wall when I told him my affinity for “plush.”

“Try this one,” he said as I flopped onto it. I was immediately bowled over. I think I did a snow angel.

“I LIKE IT!” I exclaimed as my dad told me that I needed to lay in it for at least 15 minutes, according to the people at Consumer Reports.

My dad then convinced the guy to knock a bit off the price, the shipping and the tax. It was perfect.

Yet, right as we were about to leave, that salesman managed to embarass me by up-selling me a mattress cover, as if I’m the kind of person who soils her bed.

“Great for incontinence!” the package read in big letters. I raised my eyebrows.

“It’s not just for spills, it’s also to soak up your sweat and dead hair and skin cells,” he said, to my horror. “Those things can make your mattress greasy.”

Greasy??!?

“You absolutely need that,” my mom said immediately.
I gave her an accusatory look.

(At least he knocked that to half-price, too.)

I am now counting down the days until Thursday, when I will be sleeping soundly on my very own, brand new bed (and cover), one that will wash my back pain away with its puffy, marshmellow-y goodness.

I hope it’s still as comfortable when I’m wearing pants. :)

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

You know those movies where they show scenes of a girl going on horrible date after horrible date, and you see her uncomfortably sip wine and look for the nearest exit?

Welcome to online dating!!!!!

Online dating is the worst.

Instead of having a computer filter out the people that aren’t right for you, as promised, online dating is actually its own culture of freak shows, guys who have weird fetishes, “open” marriages and no disregard for the age range you list on your profile.

(“Hey there good-looking. I know I’m 50, but I’m a young 50!”)

And, seriously, I’d like to yell at the person who told guys that it’s sexy to take a picture of themselves shirtless in their bathroom mirror…with their flip phone.

Isn't that just the cheesiest thing in the whole world??? (At the very least, put away your toiletry bag of Axe body spray.)

Oh, but it gets worse.

Below is a top ten list of the most hilariously awful toolbaggy online dating experiences my friends and I have had, in no particular order, straight out of a movie.

Guys pay attention. These are DON'Ts:

1.) The first few emails, some guy tried to get me to tell him my fantasies, and when I said it's a little soon for that talk he says this is the time where I need to let him know the "inner me" and he will decide if he is willing to accept me.

2.) The guy who asked me if I wore ballet flats and then requested that I send him a picture of my feet in them the next time I wore them.

3.) The one guy I went out with who told me I could stay over and not to worry because he kept a box of disposable tooth brushes.

4.) The guy who had a pet monkey named Terrence, "because it was a good N-word name."
(Ed. Note: This guy needs to be kicked off the planet.)

5.) The guy that sent four separate messages to me over 2 months being a different person each time, with a completely different name and different job, with no regard to having sent the ones before.
(Ed. Note: He may be wanted by the law.)

6.) The guy who asked me for a hook up for weed because he was new to town and tired of ordering the legal stuff online.

7.) First email: “Can we bang? please”

8.) The guy who got my number and called that night and instead of asking me out, tried to have phone sex. I told him no and hung up. He still texts me randomly between 2 and 5 a.m.

9.) First email: “I wondered if you might be interested in having an affair with me. I’m a 25 year old grad student, attractive, with a girlfriend. I think we could have fun, but you seem too reasonable to do something like this.”
(Ed note: backhanded compliment.)

10.) And let’s not forget old mayonnaise fingers:
http://jennysays-hellofools.blogspot.com/2010/09/toolbag-tuesday.html

MOVIE PRODUCERS!!! CALL ME FOR THE RIGHTS!!!! 

Now if you will excuse me, I’ll be at the SPCA...looking to adopt a bunch of cats.

-Jenny

Take My Breath Away: Life After Hurricane

It’s been over a week since Hurricane Isaac (Cat 1) hit New Orleans, and how is it going? 

Power in the city is still spotty and the whole city smells like hot, wet garbage.

Garbage! Rotting, spoiled food garbage.

Sour milk! Curdled Ranch dressing! Graying meat!

You know…the kind of garbage that people collect from their powerless refrigerators after hurricanes.

I have no idea why the garbage company(ies) didn’t predict this amount of volume and/or can’t arrange garbage pickup every day until it’s all removed.

I mean, a friend said he almost threw up during his morning jog because the trash smell has permeated the streets, and “breathing just through your mouth while running is harder than you think.”

I had that smell stuck in my nose for all of Tuesday. There was nothing I could do to escape it, even when I was indoors, and then I became paranoid that it was me.

“Do I smell like garbage?” I asked a friend Tuesday night at a bar. "DO I??? Quick, smell my skin.”

He did, and said it smelled like shampoo.

“I DON’T SMELL SHAMPOO!!! I SMELL HOT GARBAGE!” I wailed.

Then I turned my head to the right and swore that my shoulder was the culprit.

“SMELL MY SHOULDER!” I insisted. “Maybe it’s my shoulder!!!”

“Maybe it’s your upper lip,” he offered.

This is the thing you don’t hear about living post-hurricane on the news: daily inconveniences.

It’s easy to show the downed trees and the busted ceilings and water in homes of low-lying areas. It’s much harder to capture a smell on screen.

And that’s just one of the daily inconveniences people are left to deal with following Hurricane Isaac.

We also have to deal with our mediocre power supply company, Entergy, which not only managed to take a week to restore power to the city, but is now having a hard time keeping the power on despite the fact that it’s sunny and 2,000 degrees out.

An entire grid in the busy downtown area RE-lost power this week and busy intersections don’t have working stoplights. It takes me 40 minutes to drive the six miles to work.

Of course there was no interruption of Entergy sending out alerts to customers’ emails saying that their electric bills were due.

No, seriously.

Getting back to normal life has been like the storm itself, hovering over the city annoyingly longer than expected.

I still have to switch lanes when driving to avoid fallen trees that have settled onto the street and have not been removed.

I have to treat broken stoplights like a four-way stop, and GUESS HOW MANY DRIVERS KNOW HOW TO USE A FOUR-WAY STOP CORRECTLY??

Two.

AND THE CITY SMELLS LIKE HOT GARBAGE.

But maybe that’s just me.

Excuse me while I go put on extra deodorant.

-Jenny

TOOLBAG TUESDAY

When you have a proper boyfriend or girlfriend, you should ideally feel confident with that person – that person who (cue dramatics) chose YOU!!! Chose YOU to BE with and LOVE with and GROW with, blah, blah blah.

But everyone has their insecurities.

Some are justifiable, like a pretty co-worker of his who HE ends up dating very soon after ya’ll break up, and you can't help but wonder if romance was brewing while the two of YOU were together.

(Um, for example. Shithead.)

Other insecurities are not so justifiable, like how Julian, my friend Kathy’s boyfriend, broke up with her because she laughed after someone made a dirty joke about how attractive another guy was.

“Oh, you think that’s FUNNY??” he asked her, making a scene at the pool party.

“SO YOU THINK THAT GUY’S HOT, TOO? IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK??”

It was a birthday pool party and all the girls were cracking jokes, including a joke about how HOT one of the girl’s boyfriend was.

He was classically good-looking, like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps Julian had been insecure about him all day and the joke was the icing on the jealously cake.

Not only was Gaston hot, but he also would go around giving people massages. (“CREEPY!” Julian said. haha.)

After a few drinks, one girl made a joke, so much of a joke it was said IN FRONT OF GASTON’S GIRLFRIEND, that included Gaston’s body and massage oil and it was kinda dirty.

Like, “I can almost ____  _____  ____ and then ____ ____ ____ when he gives massages!”

Everyone, including Gaston's girlfriend and Kathy, cracked up laughing.

Julian did not think it was funny.

He felt that Kathy laughing meant that she agreed with the dirty comment, that she’d also like to ___ and _____ , and he got incredibly insecure about it.

It didn’t matter that he and Kathy had been dating (off and on) for OVER A YEAR, nor did it matter that SHE didn’t originally come up with the comment.

I mean, it wasn’t like she outwardly agreed. She didn’t say, “Oh, man, if I was only single, I’d ____ ______ ______.”

No. (Cue dramatics) Her laugh was all he needed to hear.

He was insulted and upset. And every time he was upset, he’d break up with her.

“I can’t BELIEVE you!” he shouted, drawing attention.

“Believe what? I can’t laugh at something that’s funny?” Kathy asked. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that we’re DONE,” Julian said. “You can move your things out.”

And then he folded his arms like a baby.

!!!!!
MOVE OUT!!!
FOR LAUGHING AT A JOKE!!!!

“Are you serious right now??!” Kathy asked. It was a typical conversation, but this was by far his most ridiculous reason to break up with her to-date.

Julian left the party in a huff and Kathy started crying, prompting Gaston to come over and ask if she needed a massage.

Then everyone started laughing again.

-Jenny