Nonconsensual Footsie is a Game and Here are the Rules

A Southwest flight was forced to redirect this week after a male passenger wouldn’t stop harassing a woman aboard the flight with an attempted game of footsie . . . Justin Riley Brafford, of Denton, Texas, was arrested after attempting to “play footsies” with the woman, kicking her repeatedly, and grabbing at her sweater. . . .  Brafford later claimed to authorities that the woman came onto him and he felt a connection with her. 

VICE News, Oct. 19, 2018

Players: 2

Ages: 18 &Up

Setting up the Game

1. Take your assigned seat on a commercial flight.

2. Players take off their shoes and set them aside. If you're not wearing socks, you might want to reconsider playing this game because nonconsensual barefoot footsie with anyone (much less a stranger) is gross and risks fungal infection.

3. Nonconsensual footsie is a two-player game, so designate the third person in your row as the referee. The referee is not considered a player; during the game, the referee will act like they're asleep, wear noise-cancelling headphones, but secretly monitor the game play.

How to Play

Player One (typically but not always a man) gently pokes the toe of Player Two (typically but not always a woman) with his toe, and then awaits a reaction.

• If Player Two moves her foot away from Player One's foot, a safe assumption is that Player Two thought it was maybe an accidental nudge, given the close confines of the airplane aisle. Nevertheless, Player One must persist.

• Player One then rings the call bell to summon liquid courage, and after the flight attendant delivers his third Jack and Coke, continues to poke and prod Player Two's foot with his.

• At this point, Player Two becomes acutely aware that this is no accident, and moves as far away as possible (which is not very far) until she is almost in the lap of the referee.

• If Player One continues to nudge Player Two's foot with his foot in a flirtatious manner, Player Two screams at him to stop and then re-rings the call bell to summon that flight attendant with the big boobs who will totally get it.

Strategy: Try traveling with someone who wants to fuck you.

Being Eliminated

If Player Two has to call a crew member to report nonconsensual footsie on Player One, Player One is immediately out of the game. If the flight has to be diverted, Player One loses all the turns.

How to Win

Player One wins nonconsensual footsie by avoiding arrest. Player Two wins by obtaining a cash settlement for counseling plus several thousand frequent flier miles from the airline.

Well This is Awkward ...

Let’s get this out of the way first. Sex work is the oldest profession in the world, and who am I to knock it? No one! That’s who.

Although this career path has never appealed to me personally, I get that some women do it proudly and enjoy it. Others feel forced to do it, and fortunately I have never been in the position of needing to trade sex for money to pay bills, feed an addiction, or receive a quid pro quo for a job or possessions.

All of these are very real concerns for millions of women all over the world and, I assume, right here in Juneau where this latest Craigslist ad originates. So it’s not the idea that someone would exchange sex for rent that raises a brow. That seems perfectly plausible, especially in this housing market.

It’s more the awkward way that the guy who wrote this ad frames the arrangement.

Dude basically wants a live-in sex worker to offset the cost of his rent. Cool, cool. But he doesn’t exactly say that, despite claiming that he’s “looking for exactly what it sounds like.”

You can almost see him typing this ad up on his laptop at Heritage or the Rookery, picking at a raisin scone and fumbling around for the right way to explain that he wants a blow job 3x per week in exchange for a woman’s free range of the thermostat. This line in particular jumps off the page:

My offer includes me covering all or most or half of the rent, utilities, etc. How much I pay is up to you, if you pay more we negotiate fewer benefits (I’ll just say it now . . . sex) if you want to pay less or even nothing then the “benefits” are more often.

Ahhhh. So “benefits” = “sex.” Noooooow I get it.

He goes on to suggest that the person responding should indicate her general ballpark of how much rent she’s willing to pay: “zero, quarter, half or dollar amount” to see if an agreement can be reached.

Frankly I think it’s easier if he just offers package deals, sort of like cable and internet.

ZERO RENT PACKAGE: Woman pays zero rent or utilities, in exchange for which she will submit to the following sex acts on demand [enumerate sex acts here] and act "ablaze to enjoy it."

HALF RENT PACKAGE: Woman pays half rent and utilities, in which case she will submit to the following weekly schedule of the following sex acts to be performed at the times specified [enumerate sex acts here]. Half rent package includes teaching dude difference between "here" and "hear," and possibly your/you're/yore and they're/their/there.

A LA CARTE PACKAGE: Woman performs specific sex acts each month in exchange for particular goods and services such as two blow jobs per week = $25 off rent for the month and covered parking space; full intercourse in missionary position on command once per week = $50 off rent for the month and own shelf in shared refrigerator.

Really this last package deal is no different from casual or unspoken arrangements many roommates and even spouses, I assume, fall into over the years. 

For example, offering to suck a dick in exchange for putting children to bed. I have never heard of this happening before, mind you. I’m just saying it’s possible that this sort of thing or even this exact thing has happened behind closed doors. I’m just guessing. I don’t know this for a fact. It’s just that many people are saying it’s happened. 

I’ll stop now.

A Convo That Took Place at Every Single Thanksgiving 2017 at Some Point

Family Member 1: Have you seen that thing on YouTube?
Family Member 2: What thing?
FM1: You know, that thing with the guy from Japan who puts on a latex suit and rides a dirt bike over a ramp covered in Vaseline?
FM2: No I haven’t seen it...wait wait maybe I have? Let’s search it.
FM1: Okay. Wait what’s the WiFi password here again?
FM3 (from another room): Sam100945
FM4: Is your WiFi password seriously your birthday?
FM2: What’d she say? I couldn’t hear.
FM3: WHAT ARE YOU DEAF I SAID SAM100945!
FM1: Okay okay here it is here it is this is seriously like the funniest most viral thing on the internet right now you’re gonna laugh so hard when you watch this ... ugh... why is it taking so long to load? Hey did you see what Trump said today it was so crazy—
FM2: We just got kicked off the WiFi. You guys need to reset your router.
FM1: Wait wait here it is!
[YouTube video plays for 3:47] wasn’t that the funniest thing ever?
FM3: What’s a router?

CDATPharm + Small Alaskan City = Mortification!

“Ugh, he’s SOOOO cute.”
“Ugh, I KNOOOOOOOOOOOOW, rieeeeeght?!”
“He’s like, SO tall. Even when he comes out from behind the counter he’s still like, SUPES tall.”
“And that hair! He looks like the cover of a romance novel. So adorbs.”
“And he’s always so PROFESH—he like, tooooootally knows his shit.”
“OMG I know.”
“OMG it’s so embarrassing.”
“OMG. Seriously. SO. Fucking. Embarrassing.”

[*Dissolve into adolescent giggles*]

Except it wasn’t actually two teenage girls engaged in this dialogue. It was two 40-somethings. And not just any two 40-somethings. It was me and a friend of mine, who had ventured out to our local pharmacy to retrieve a long list of embarrassing items from the very-attractive-and-at-least-ten-years-younger-than-both-of-us pharmacist.

Due to my status as a platinum-level frequent flier in the Big Pharma-Medical-Industrial Complex, I happen to know CDATPharm’s name, face, and voice on the phone. But out of respect and discretion amid the inevitable Juneau outing, shall hereafter refer to him only as CDATPharm—Or Cute Dude At The Pharmacy.

In the three years of writing this blog, mortification has become my stock-in-trade. There’s a certain freedom that accompanies stating life’s most horrendously mortifying observations as they come to you (silently to yourself or out loud to a friend), musing that they "would make a good blog post,” and then blasting them all over the Internet in order to divest them of their power.

It’s quite liberating, frankly.

In an ideal world—or at least a town of normal size, accessibility, and anonymity—CDATPharm would not necessarily be privy to the full list of medications that I take for numerous ailments. Or at least I wouldn’t have run into CDATPharm skiing with another attractive friend of his last season, with his secret knowledge of all my prescriptions in the back of my mind as we gamely made idle chit-chat over the variable conditions on the mountain that day.

“No, you see, hahaha--the Valtrex isn’t for REAL herpes. It’s for the SOMETIMES cold sores that I get like, seriously ONLY when I’m stressed out in this ONE little corner of my upper lip? In winter mostly? Like I THINK I actually got it from my babysitter? When I was little? Not from sex? Everything is TOTES fine in THAT department, heh heh heh—no, really, I swear, ha ha ha.”

Of course I don’t say any of this out loud. I just let CDATPharm think I’m a walking (skiing?) STD. 

I won’t even get into that time when I was nursing Isaac and needed Diflucan for the better part of a year. I will let you all Google that one, as even my relatively loose bounds of decency restrain me from spelling it out for you.

Then there’s the Prozac. Sometimes I call it “Fluoxetine,” because I tell myself that using the generic name makes me sound less crazy and better informed than the average mental patient.

“No you see,” I want to say, “I’m not THAT depressed. At least not right NOW, hahaha. I mean, I’m not going to like KILL myself or anything. It’s just that I’m like, super neurotic? And can’t stop obsessing over all the terrible things in the world and all the people who probably hate me for bad shit I have no idea I did? Really that’s it. It’s not so bad.”

Fuck my life, I almost sigh aloud as he hands down the little plastic bag of drugs and tells me discreetly and with a poker face that he probably has to "fax the doctor for refills on the Diflucan."

I don’t know why I feel the need to prove to CDATPharm that I’m not just another middle-aged mom who contracted genital herpes on a psych unit. 

Because even if I was, would he care? Of course not. He’s a consummate professional and I am simply that customer who convinced Aetna to cover a new eczema drug that costs a zillion dollars to ship here, and wasn't that very interesting?

Really it comes down to this: all other things being equal, is CDATPharm the FIRST person on earth I’d choose to know the intimate details of my medical history? 

No, no he is not. 

All other things being equal, would I feel better if CDATPharm was a matronly old lady with giant hairy moles whose access to this information would feel slightly less mortifying to me?

Yes, yes I would.

UPDATE: Not 20 minutes after I posted this CDATPharm called and I was POSITIVE he was going to excoriate me for this blog post. In fact, he was just letting me (“Elizabeth”) know that my Prozac refill was ready. TRUE STORY!

Stock photo. Not actual CDATPharm

I’m Choosing to View This Vehicle Through a Zombie Apocalypse Lens

An alert reader sent me this picture of a Jeep bearing a license plate and stick people decal that I’m choosing to view through a sort of Zombie Apocalypse lens. It’s the only way this vehicle makes sense and it also makes me feel better about the world.

Otherwise, I’d be forced to reconcile the logically inconsistent idea that abortion before you’re born is bad, but abortion after you’re born (in the form of shooting yourself in the face by mistake with an AK-47) is totes kosher.

I don’t buy it.

I think this family of three is simply armed for the Zombie Apocalypse and advocating that it would be prudent for others on the road to follow suit.

That’s why the license plate says KIL-ZMB and the trifecta is well-armed for the coming End Times. In that scenario, it makes sense to “choose life,” because the alternative is dying at the hands of a staggering Zombie who wants to feed on your brains. Then you best believe you’re gonna need a Bushmaster, a handgun, and a hunting rifle.

When you think about it, this is actually a pretty smart thing to do to your Jeep.

Can We Please Get a Few Things Straight Right Now?

1. "Reverse racism" is not a real thing.

2. "Reverse sexism" is not a real thing.

3. Gaslighting is a real thing.

4. There is a massive public Gaslighting underway in America right now.

5. Trump is MANIFESTLY unfit for office.

6. There are white supremacists in DC.

7. America in 2017 is more corporate oligarchy than meritocracy or democracy.

8. Climate change is real.

9. Science is real.

10. Black lives matter.

11. Saying black lives matter does not mean "fuck all other lives." 

12. White supremacy and white privilege are real things.

13. Silence is not an option.

14. Resistance is not futile.

15. We only get so much time on earth. Our words and our actions matter.

If You Thought Your Marriage or Divorce Was Bad . . .

Then this is the post for you. I guarantee you that as acrimonious and miserable as your marriage or divorce is or was, you probably never divvied up Beanie Babies in open court, under the eagle-eyed supervision of a judge.

Recently my dad suggested I was "unambitious" for having zero interest in ever becoming a judge. I explained to him that I didn't want to work alone in a windowless room, listening to grown adults fight over who gets to keep a set of power tools, and then promptly sent him this picture.

Real life courtroom drama is, sadly, less Law and Order and more Honey Boo-Boo.

Chances are this photo will make you feel better about yourself, regardless of the state of your union. Even if you're happily married, you're still likely fighting about the same three things every day: (1) who works harder/does more; (2) who gets less sleep; and (3) where the fuck all your money goes each month. If you're unhappily married, you're probably fighting about the exact same three things, except ten times as often and with more yelling and even less sex, if that's possible.

If you're divorced, you're probably just relieved you don't have to see your ex's dirty socks or listen to their snoring anymore. You'd likely let them have every Beanie Baby ever manufactured if it meant you only had to speak to them when absolutely necessary for co-parenting reasons, and then only after three glasses of wine or several beers so you don't say something you later regret and that can be used against you in a court of law.

Awkward Family Photos is a highly recommended follow on Insta. It's like a daily affirmation that as lame and stupid as you are or feel, someone out there is even lamer and stupider than you.

Certainly, by the time you're consuming judicial resources to help you DIVIDE FUCKING BEANIE BABIES, it's game over. At that point, once you finish separating Ariel the Bear from Dippy the Bunny (yes, those are real Beanie Babies, look it up), you should walk into a lake with stones in your pockets ala Virginia Woolf.  

But you have never needed judicial intervention for Beanie Babies, and you never would, which is why you feel really good about yourself right now.

You're welcome. 

P.S. On the remote chance that you have needed judicial intervention for Beanie Baby division, I'm sorry. "People Who Fought in Open Court Over Beanie Babies" will just have to join the looooong list of people I have offended with this blog.

Mustard and Cheerios

There are certain things, that while perhaps perfectly okay on their own, make for a highly questionable combination. For example: mustard and Cheerios; your father-in-law and a sold-out showing of Brokeback Mountain; and Trump and everything in the whole history of the universe ever.

Two more awkward combos I discovered at the Alaska Bar Convention in Juneau this week: (1) Constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinksy, a podium, and a highly clinical description of serial digital penetration of the vagina to illustrate a core principle of criminal procedure; and (2) me, alcohol, Professor Richard Painter, karaoke, and a room full of lawyers.

First some background: I have this little problem, which I'm certain I've touched on before, where I talk a lot when I get nervous and/or a tiny bit drunk. Like, a lot. Like, a LOT A LOT.

I discovered this tendency the hard way many times throughout the course of my adult life. 

One year on Valentine's Day, I talked my boss's boss's ear off for an entire 1.5 hour flight from Anchorage to Juneau AND the ensuing cab ride downtown because I thought we were dying in turbulence, and it was the only thing that made me feel calm. Even though part of my brain kept saying "stop talking," the other part just wouldn't listen and boldly forged ahead.

Yesterday I did the same thing to my friends, colleagues, and boss's boss's boss (that's THREE LEVELS OF BOSS IN CASE YOU ARE COUNTING) AND the keynote speaker for the Alaska Bar Convention whom I follow religiously on Twitter.

Armed with my third or perhaps fourth cocktail of the evening, I cornered the former ethics lawyer for the Bush White House and several other lawyers (including my aforementioned boss-in-triplicate) as I gushed over Professor Painter's witty anti-Trump tweets, and held forth on my hazardous exploits in the First Amendment and social media. In my peripheral vision, I could see one of my closest colleagues--the Jiminy Cricket of my professional conscience if you will--eyeing me with a cautionary look that said, "you can stop talking now."

But Ms. Cricket is British and prone to a certain measured reserve incompatible with my MO. So nevertheless, I persisted.

Still, I knew better, at least, than to succumb to pleas from numerous equally intoxicated attorneys to try my hand at karaoke. I watched several consecutive victims fall prey to the ill-advised combination of Alicia Keys + vodka + an obvious lack of professional voice training and I was not about to tumble headlong down that same bottomless well. 

I mean, what do I look like? Someone who would eat mustard with Cheerios? 

I don't think so.

Nothing Could be More Awkward than This

I wish I'd been at the board meeting where the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons hotel came up with the "Pretty Woman for a Day" promotion. I had to double check to make sure this wasn't fake news. 

It wasn't.

During this “glamorous weekend getaway for two,” you and your bae will be “the star of your own love story” inspired by the film. The “experience” starts with a “personal shopping consultation on Rodeo Drive,” a ride in a Rolls-Royce, a "shoeless picnic," and an evening at the opera that allows “you and your sweetheart to mimic classic scenes for exclusive photography opportunities.”

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

Let’s review some of these “classic scenes,” beginning with a brief overview of the 1990 legendary rom-com starring Julia Roberts and Richard “Gerbil-in-the-Ass Urban Legend(?)” Gere, whose entire acting range consists of 10 different squints.

In order to imbue this experience with verisimilitude, you’d need to reenact ALL of the scenes, not just the “fairy tale” ones.

You'd have to pretend to be a down-on-your-luck sex worker. You'll start the experience by standing out on Hollywood Boulevard in Go-Go boots when your bae comes cruising around the corner in a fancy car he doesn’t know how to drive, and you’ll charge him $20 to take him to the hotel.

You’ll also need to bring your sassy friend Kit DeLuca along to give you tips on how to handle various tricks, and almost get raped by one of your boyfriend’s gross attorneys played by a George Costanza doppelganger. That guy needs to be part of the experience too, no?

You’d also need to sing in a bathtub while listening to Prince, feel clueless at a polo match, and be humiliated during that “personal shopping consultation on Rodeo drive,” where you’d first go in wearing Lucite heels and pleather, get treated like shit, and then come back in with bae all dressed up and have your ass kissed from here to next Tuesday because now you look like a total baller.

At the end, you’d pretend to break up, only to have bae come back and give you flowers on a fire escape and “rescue” you from your entire life.

Awkward.

OMG This Week Was Like, Soooooo Embarrassing!

You guys. It was suuuuuuch an embarrassing week for SCROTUS. Like, OMG. Seriously it was so embarrassing. First, a unanimous Supreme Court overturned a Gorsuch decision IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING. Can you imagine?!?!? This is like a "Say Anything" column in YM Magazine from the late 80s:

Dear Say Anything,

I was sitting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, right in the middle of my confirmation hearing for a seat on the United States Supreme Court, when all of a sudden I found out that all 8 justices overruled one of my decisions eight to zero! It was SO totally embarrassing, I just got up and ran right to the bathroom.

Demoralized in DC

Then there was our Dear Leader SCROTUS pretending to drive a truck. I am literally not shitting you when I say that there's an event put on by Juneau Parks & Rec every year where the City brings out the firetruck and the ambulance and the buses and kids climb in them and get to have their picture taken in the driver's seat. I have one of these pics of Isaac in a helicopter from when he was three. FOR REAL.

Then there was this. Ads congratulating Congresspeople for repealing the ACA before they actually did that. I get how this is necessary when two baseball teams go to the World Series, and you have to make up a bunch of shirts even for the losing team, just in case they win. But we're talking about thousands of articles of clothing. These ads take like five seconds to put together and distribute AND you should have a waaaay better idea ahead of time whether you're going to win or not. You'd think you could at least wait until you'd CLOSED THE YOOOGE TERRIFIC DEAL before releasing these stupid ads.

 

Finally, it wouldn't be O.H.M. if I didn't end on my own embarrassment. I totally tweeted my love letter to Ed Sheeran and my offer to have an affair with him and guess what? He DID NOT TWEET BACK to me and his 17 million followers that I'm the most hilarious woman he's ever met and he would totally be my boyfriend if another ginger guitar player hadn't gotten to me first.

SO EMBARRASSING!

That Juneau Feeling When . . . 10 Awkward Moments Only Juneauites Will Understand

1. Counting the days until the opening of Rainforest Farms and worrying that someone will see you walking into/out of there.

2. Regarding #1 above, knowing everyone is about to find out exactly who in Juneau has seen Friday, Next Friday, AND Friday After Next.

3. Encountering your internet trolls in person and being forced to make pleasant small talk with them.

4. Going to dinner at someone's house, personally knowing several women who smashed that dick, and finding yourself wondering whether it was any good. Then making a mental note to ask all of them individually later.

5. Climbing into the stir-ups at the gynecologist, day-dreaming about how maybe she'll discover a fatal disease in your vagina that will prevent you from having to live through a Trump Presidency, and then remembering that the person who is currently prying apart your undercarriage with a speculum and lubed-up latex while cheerfully narrating every minute of it ("two fingers separating the labia!") is LEGIT another mother from Girl Scouts.  

6. Road raging on someone who cut you off at a red light, making eye contact with them, and then seeing them at your kids' school drop-off and pretending you weren't giving each other the finger ten seconds earlier.

7. Two words: Known Trumpites. (See also: #3).

8. Sitting in first class on the flight to Seattle or Anchorage, watching people walk by, and feeling like you need to clarify to every single one of them that it was a free upgrade.

9. Exchanging compliments on your outfits with another woman, and suddenly realizing you swapped them for each other at a clothes swap last year.

10. Bringing a bottle of $11 wine to someone's house and then remembering they brought the exact same bottle to your house last month and fully know it's a re-gift.

#TJFW

No Trash Talking in Good Weather, People!

So this photo of an Ivanka Trump shoe really has nothing to do with the title of this post, other than to make the connection that I'm at a wedding in Girdwood this weekend, and stopped at the Anchorage Nordstrom store to look at shoes. 

I picked up this shoe, and upon seeing the brand name, was torn between dropping it like a hot fire poker and buying the pair simply so I'd get to put my gross foot scum all over Ivanka Trump's gold embossed name. But then I realized this plan would give Ivanka my money without the satisfaction of her ever knowing that I purposely smushed heel scuzz between her first and last names, so I chose a different pair surely assembled by exploIted Mongolian child labor instead. I have my principles, after all.

Hours later in Girdwood--and then again the next day--I learned the same lesson twice: don't trash talk strangers in good weather. 

A group of our friends was piled into a car in a convenience store parking lot, where we'd stopped for an errand. Not realizing the windows were open, one of us began loudly proclaiming that the 17 year-old boy behind the wheel of a red Triumph convertible parked beside us could not possibly be its owner. 

The rest of us shushed her at first, and she clapped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment; but then we saw that the object of her derision was in such rich desert of it, that we all just continued to mock him loudly through the open window of the car. 

"It's mine," the teen with a flat-brimmed baseball cap and zero sign of facial hair finally piped up in his own defense. "YEAH RIGHT! WHATEVER!," another woman in our group cackled loudly as he peeled away.

The next day, this same woman and I were returning from brunch with the initial perpetrator of the Triumph trash talk. During the meal, someone had parked incredibly close to us, so we had to squeeze our food babies into the back seat through the six inches of space that remained between our car and hers. "OH MY GOD! WHO PARKS THIS CLOSE TO SOMEONE?," asked the friend who had screamed "YEAH RIGHT!!" at the teenager the night before.

"Sorry!!" we heard from what turned out to be the open driver's side window of the car where the "who" in the "who parks this close to someone" made herself known. We all turned to each other in immediate recognition of the fact that this was the second time in 24 hours that we had talked smack to someone through the open window of a car.

And the moral of the story is: never talk smack about someone in nice weather.

This is Totes What I Do When Traveling for Work

Whenever I travel on business, this is how I roll. I flop myself down backwards on a giant king size bed I have all to myself (after I ask housekeeping to defeather the whole room for allergy purposes), kick my legs up triumphantly on the headboard, get out my credit card, put my lap top on my uterus, and start shopping for all the shit that's in the bathroom of this semi-crappy hotel chain!

Marriott, the TGI Fridays of Hotels, lets you buy everything you see in the room because how can you go home and NOT order yourself sandalwood body lotion and a "projection alarm clock?" Nevermind that these mass-produced fragrant cosmetics will give you a side order of cancer and that no one uses an alarm clock anymore because Steve Jobs.

You need all this stuff. But more to the point, you need to buy this stuff while looking like the psychotic lunatic in this picture! She MIGHT be on shrooms, in which case all is forgiven.

I did my best to emulate her experience and document it in the selfie below, but I didn't happen to have any shrooms with me, so I'm not sure I did as good a job as I could have.

How Did We Get Here?

I was on my way to check out a legal Colorado retail marijuana dispensary (to do tourism research for a friend, DUH), when I happened across this strip mall strip club off route something-or-other in Boulder.

I couldn't get a clear shot of the sign (which is why I had to Google image the place instead) but trust me when I tell you it was only this woman's face on a light up sign, the words "bus stop," and nothing else; yet like every other passerby, I instantly knew what it was.

Somehow, we as a society have gotten to the point where all we need are shorthand emojis or pictographs for everything, including a young, white, blonde cheerleader-looking type with her mouth half open, making bedroom eyes with fake eyelashes that look like two performing circus tarantulas are living off her eyeballs, and a fan set up in front of her face to blow her hair just so and BOOM. Stripper!

How did we get here? I will let you ponder that for a moment while I move on to the reviews.

In my continued research of the bus stop, I saw there were 29 (twenty-nine) reviews of this titty bar. Wow! 29 humans had taken precious moments from their fleeting lives to review the Bus Stop strip club in Boulder. 

So naturally, owing a debt of gratitude to my loyal readers, I was forced to read each and every review and cull the two best, which I have reposted in screen shots below. This was NOT a waste of precious moments of my own life, nor, I assure you, will reading them waste yours.

Aside from their dubious grammar, my favorite thing about these reviews is that both authors claim to be discerning patrons of strip clubs around the country, and yet the bus stop fell short? 

I find that very difficult to believe . . .

The False Gasper

If the "false gasper" wasn't a character on Seinfeld, it should've been. 

A close cousin of the "scary sneezer," the false gasper excels in creating unnecessary alarm and panic in someone else via the rush of adrenaline that comes from the false gasper gasping dramatically at nothing.

My daughter Paige is an honors-level false gasper. The impact is compounded in a moving vehicle, which is a favored site for practicing her craft.

"[GASP]!" 

It's the sound you'd make if you were just stabbed between the ribs with a shiv, or there's a small child in the middle of the highway that we're about to run over. No matter how many times she's done this, it catches me off guard every time.

"OH MY GOD, WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?!" I cry out. And then: "I just saw a horse on that farm over there!"

I wait for my normal heart rate to resume before explaining for the millionth time that "WE DO NOT MAKE THAT SOUND UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY AND ESPECIALLY NOT IN A MOVING VEHCILE!"

There are also adults who are false gaspers, which I don't understand since I can't imagine how anyone survived childhood without having this habit screamed out of them by its victims. 

I assume most of the adults who are now reformed false gaspers turn into adults who do the whole "I need to talk to you about something." And you think someone died or they're friend-breaking up with you. 

Then they come out with: "Organic anchovy paste is on sale at Costco!"

"JESUS DON'T EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN!" 

And the very next time they call, it's like, "We need to talk," or "Are you sitting down?" 

And you think to yourself FUCK, before learning that Finding Dory is playing in 3D at 7:50.

I Have Some Questions for That Couple Who's Here for Adult Breastfeeding

Who am I to knock anyone's fetish? As long as it's not hurting anyone else, as far as I'm concerned consenting adults can do whatever they want to get their rocks off.

Now would I personally have anal sex in a dungeon dressed like the Mets baseball mascot after dunking my boyfriend's balls in rainbow sprinkles and butterscotch sauce? No, no I would not. But hey. It's all good, and so it is too with "adult breastfeeding." 

The Atlanta couple pictured below made the highly reputable New York Post (via the equally reputable British Sun) this week when Jennifer Mulford took time off work so she could "dry feed" her boyfriend, Brad Leeson, every two hours in order to trick her body into making milk sufficient to develop an "adult breastfeeding relationship" with him. 

Jennifer, who hasn't nursed another human since having babies 20 years ago, read about "ABR" online (it's common enough to have its own acronym I guess) and was supes jelly of the "magical bond that only breastfeeding can achieve" between two people. 

Fortunately, Brad, Jen's now-rekindled high school flame, was down like a clown Charlie Brown for some grownup colostrum guzzling (and international reporting on it), in lieu of more conventional magical bonding activities like a drive to Vermont for some autumn leaf-peeping or a ride on a Ferris wheel.

As I said, in terms of weird fetishes, it's do what you need/want to do from my standpoint. Nonetheless, I have some questions for Jen and Brad:

1. Will you be registering at Target for a new breast pump and a Boppy?

2. Will Brad cry to wake you up in the middle of the night, or will he just roll over and latch on, which brings me to my next question:

3. Will you co-sleep, or is Brad going to be in a Pack n' Play next to your bed?

4. If Brad's latch isn't strong enough, will you call in a lactation consultant?

5. What position will you use: cradle position, football, or side-lying down, and will you burp him over your shoulder afterwards?

6. If you're out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, say, will you feel comfortable feeding Brad at the table, or will you take him to the bathroom to do it? Or maybe just put a blanket over his head?

7. Do you plan to move him over to the bottle at any point, or is this straight-up nipple only?

8. If you have sore nipples or get mastitis or thrush, who will call the pediatrician: you or Brad?

9. After you go back to work, will your employer let you nurse Brad there, or will you maybe have to file a lawsuit?

10. Will Brad actually drink and swallow the milk, and if he does, will he squirt out spicy brown mustard-colored/textured poo into a diaper?

So many questions. So. Many. Questions.

That Awkward Moment When Your Back Fat is on TV and You are Neither an Actor Nor a Back Fat Model

I realize that most readers will not have experienced this moment, but perhaps I can describe it in detail sufficient to make it relatable.

Imagine for a minute that your job requires you to appear on the Alaskan version of C-Span every once in awhile, testifying on legislation. You get dressed in the morning knowing every legislative hearing is filmed, and that a legislative hearing is always a formal affair. You need to look your best, so that’s what you try to do. You select what you think will be a suitable outfit (and which looks good from the front), do your makeup, and pluck your eyebrows extra hard.

But because you don’t have eyes in the back of your head, you fail to realize that your bra is on too tight and your shirt is too clingy, and that these two sartorial faux pas will ultimately conspire to broadcast your back fat into the living rooms of 750,000 souls over a geographic territory of some 663,000 square miles.

It’s not a great moment when you realize this, especially because you’re focused on the task at hand: Properly discussing legislation before an intimidating committee of elected representatives.

It’s not until you get back to your desk and watch the archived footage of your testimony to check it for error in both tone and substance that you discover the cameras were trained in extreme close-up on your back fat for almost the entire hearing.

It’s only about ten minutes of testimony, but you need to watch it three times before you can focus on the content due to the BFD, or “Back Fat Distraction.” Being neither an actor nor a back fat model, a sense of disappointment begins to sink in as you realize your back fat is the undisputed star of this show.

Are there agents for back fat models? If so, perhaps someone can put me in touch with one. I have a tape I can send along.

The Awkward Double Goodbye

I started out writing this blog post by observing that the Awkward Double Goodbye should have been featured on Seinfeld, and then I read that Larry David called it "one of the worst things you have to do in life."

I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's certainly not one of the best.

The Awkward Double Goodbye occurs after dinner, a movie, or some other social outing, and I'm far from the first person to write about it. But it appeals to my love of all things awkward, so I'm writing about it anyway.

Sometimes it happens with just two people, but more often it involves a small group of friends. It can be platonic or romantic, but it’s more often platonic.

It's that thing where you make a big show of saying goodbye to the people you’ve just spent the past few hours with. Hugs, it-was-great-to-see-yous, when-will-we-hang-out-agains and so on, only to discover that you’re walking in the same direction to get to wherever you’re going next.

Then you have to do the whole goodbye over again, but not before being forced to acknowledge (implicitly or explicitly) that you just spent five minutes in elaborate goodbye-mode for no reason. 

Not only that, but you now have to fill the space between the two goodbyes with a topic of conversation whose relative depth or triviality must be carefully calibrated to the distance you are traveling together after the first round of goodbyes, lest you compound the awkwardness with poor inter-goodbye conversational skills.

At the moment you realize your first goodbye has been rendered moot due to a shared post-goodbye travel agenda--thus forcing you into the inevitable second goodbye--you almost want to say to the other people, "go on ahead, we don't have to do this." You also wish you had discussed your departure route beforehand, so you could have organized yourselves into a single, efficient, and not awkward goodbye.

But no one wants to say or do either of those things, because they're awkward. And so the Awkward Double Goodbye is born.

22 Things Americans Can Count on This Thanksgiving (If They're Lucky)

1. An argument about how to cook/carve the turkey in which each party claims to be the authority on how to cook/carve the turkey.

2. A gratitude deficiency complex.

3. A fleeting but unsettling discomfort over the colonialist origins of Thanksgiving.

4. Traffic war stories.

5. Someone discussing who might or might not be gay in your family.

6. An arguably demented senior citizen becoming extremely agitated for no apparent reason.

7. Too much something (usually information).

8. Not enough something (usually drugs and alcohol).

9. Heated arguments about Donald Trump and refugees.

10. A faction of people who only care about the football game.

11. A faction of people who could give two shits about football.

12. A faction of people who actively hate football and want to deliver a raft of concussion and domestic violence-related stats on it.

13. White people whitesplaining the Black Lives Matter movement like they know what they're talking about.

14. Troubling regression into childhood dynamics with parents and siblings.

15. Someone who keeps offering and trying to fix things in your house and car.

16. Full-bore retreat into personal devices as coping mechanism.

17. A child having a temper tantrum.

18. A trip to the emergency room.

19. Universal judgment of parenting skills.

20. A long, intergenerational explanation of the Whip and Nae Nae, complete with YouTube tutorials.

21. A bunch of people from your high school supposedly meeting out at a bar in a strip mall off Route 17.

22. An attempted "piecaken."

The Tennis Affair

Husband: I'm afraid you're going to leave me for your tennis instructor.
Wife: But I don't have a tennis instructor.
Husband: You don't? Then who was that guy I saw you playing tennis with earlier?
Wife: Um... actually that's just the guy I'm having an affair with. We like to play tennis sometimes.
Husband: D'OH!!