Sex and the City, Plan B and My Mom

Tonight my mom and I went to see Sex and the City and then we went to buy Plan B. Yes, the morning after pill.

I was inundated with a series of panicked text messages and phone calls while I lounged in the land of Manolos and Mr. Big.  I mean really, can’t she see there is nothing more important than two and a half hours of interrupting ankles to ears sex and Cosmo-fueled evenings?

As it turns out, said friend is out of a car and into a baby panic.  Who would have thought that ankles to ears sex and Cosmo-fueled evenings could lead to unplanned buns in the oven?  Funny how the lack of said car makes obtaining the necessary procreation terminating pharmaceuticals more challenging.  Somewhere up there God is laughing.  Hey, he’s got a twisted sense of humor too.  I mean who sense locusts to torment an entire civilization anyway?

And being the loyal friend that I am, I offer to obtain the magic pill and bring it to her in exchange for some cold, hard green to cover the cost of the goods.  A Sex and the City themed drug deal if you will. 

Mom and I steer the green Prius to CVS #1 and I ask pharmacist #1 for Plan B, “For my friend,” I explain, “She just can’t drive here to get it herself.”  And just like that, this decrepit, 80 year-old man shakes his head at my seemingly pathetic story (some where along the lines of, “So Doc, I’ve got this ‘friend’ with this problem…”) and curse the moral degradation of society and bemoan the kids these days.  “We’re out,” he tells me.  “And you need your ID.”

Attempt #1 thwarted.  Must have been a jack-rabit-tastic weekend.  Out of the morning after pill.  What is the world coming to?  I suppose we really are on a downward spiral fueled by Girls Gone Wild, Sex and the City and Spendi (or is it Speidi?).  But enough with the metaphysical ruminations on the moral status of humanity, I have bigger problems.  Like no ID to purchase the goods.  Shit.  Who would have thought I’d get carded for being under eighteen?

Which leaves me with no choice.

“Mom, would you mind going in next time?”

My mom is so hip.   She just laughs, “It’s not like they’re going to think it’s for me.  I can tell them, ‘I assure you, I no longer need this.’  And I’m not getting any anyway.  My sex life is pretty lame.”  Yep that was the line and she just crossed it.  I mean I know my parents don’t really like each other much right now but really mom, I don’t need to know how much you are “getting.”

And so we proceed to CVS #2.  Closed.  Shit.  And so we proceed to Walgreens #3.  Closed.  Shit.  Shit.  And so we proceed to CVS #3. Opened.  Score.

I file my nails in the green Prius with vanity plates that read, “THNK GRN” while my ultra-hip, cool-mom goes to get Plan B for my friend.  I wonder absently what the pharmacist thinks.  I suppose they really wouldn’t think she was out on the town getting rowdy and forgetting her Pill.  And I also suppose post-menopausal women don’t have to worry about forgetting the Pill and getting knocked up, even if they are out on the town getting rowdy.  Must be nice.

She pops out of the store waving the prescription bag triumphantly.  I think she is actually enjoying a day in the life of K Dubbs and the Drama Five.  As she recounts her close encounter with the Plan B kind (this is clearly her first rodeo) she eagerly informs me that, “They even took my CVS card.  That’s $55 worth of points!”  Great Mom.  You got Extra Bucks for your Plan B purchase.  Glad I could help.

I arrive to drop off my No Sperm Left Behind fertilization prevention kit.  They’ve got it down to one little white pill these days.  Handy.  “Thank you SOOOOOOO much,” the recipient snatches the bag and starts counting cash – but not before she pours me my own gin and tonic in a nearby, and questionably clean, coffee mug with a picture of Santa Claus on the side.   Several minutes later (it takes quite some time to count cash while chain smoking in one hand, drinking a gin and tonic in the other and counting cash with the other.  Wait, that’s three hands.  But let’s not split hands.  I mean hairs.  I digress) I have a wrinkled, nicotine-stained wad of ones, fives and tens to pay back dear old Mom.  Then she tears open the wrapper, pops a little white pill in her mouth and washes it down with a swig of gin and a drag on a Virginia Slim.  Keepin’ it classy.

And because it seems appropriate.  Or maybe because it seems morbid.  We toast. 

“To being, and staying, baby free."

Fucking Cocks

I don’t want to have children.  Collective gasp.  I know, saying that tends to paint a picture of me as a real bitch.  It typecasts me as the narcissistic, selfish offspring of boomer parental-type figures, who has never wanted for anything and seems incapable of relinquishing even the slightest bit of sovereignty and self-determination over life in favor of trying the ultimate form of narcissism on for size – procreation. 

And maybe someday I’ll change my mind.  I’m certainly not dead set on remaining free of the grasp of tiny, crumb-crushing fists, but for now that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.  Only I’ll have to tell you about it some other time.  Right now I’ve got a funny rug rat tale to impart.  It’s these sometimes poignant, always devil-may-care and never concerned with social norms or public decorum moments that kids seem to conjure up, that make me want little-me’s sometimes.  They keep it real.  They rock out.  And they keep us all honest.

My sister owns two kids and has a restaurant (or is that supposed to be the other way around?) and as anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen knows, the two are not easily reconciled.  From the most anal retentive, five-star kitchens to the questionable dive bar across town that’s been shut down three times by the health inspector, kitchens are cesspools of all manner or depraved morality and sexual degradation.  If it doesn’t have to do with the male or female sexual anatomy, things that can be inserted into the male or female sexual anatomy, myriad and assorted terms for the male and female sexual anatomy or the things that happened (or that they wish had happened) between and male and female sexual anatomy the previous night, then it isn’t welcome in a kitchen.

My friend the pastry chef is thrilled to be coaching eight year-old boys soccer.  It teaches her the patience in the kitchen that she needs to deal with the man-children, Peter Pans who act like eight year-old boys trapped in a grown man’s body.  My sister the restaurateur routinely quiets her chefs.  Who am I kidding, she routinely tells her chefs to, “Shut the fuck up and don’t say cock, fuck, dick or pussy until the dining room full of 90 year-old women clears.”  Usually, this is too much to ask of them.

And so we come to our illustrative example.  Exhibit A.

While she gives eight-month old Knox his bath, two-year old Cooper looks on.  Being the precocious one that he is, he decides to practice being a man and offer unsolicited advice about a household task.  “Mommy, pour the water on his penis,” he instructs his mother.  She promptly ignores this and finishes the cleaning of the wee one.

The next day she recounts the story to the delight of her Corona drinking chefs and servers.  But, “Where did he learn what a penis is?” she ponders the linguistic accomplishments of her progeny.  “Steve and I only ever say pee-pee or wee-wee.”  On a side note, this is also why I should never have my own issue.  I am fairly certain that it lies outside of my impulse control capacity to refrain from using foul language in the presence of children.  Maybe that’s why the chefs and I get along so well.

“Maybe he heard it in the kitchen,” someone suggests.

“No.  That can’t be,” she says assuredly, “Because then he would have said, ‘Mommy, pour the water on his fucking cock.’”

Need I say more?  Priceless moment of kitchen ethos enlightenment and childrearing edification.  

Author's Note:  Sorry, I said I wouldn't curse in the titles anymore.  But there was really not other appropriate title.