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September 08, 2004
You Can't Smack Flavor Flav in the Face with No Pocketbook!
I wrote this before I went to Florida. (What had happened was) my computer crashed and it recovered this, but I didn’t know where to find it. Search is the bomb tool. It’s found. And now it’s yours. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash the most enormous amount of clothes at the coin laundry. I have no shame, no fear. And yes, I am the girl off “Girls Gone Wild on Oprah’s network” and yes, I am doing my laundry while wearing nothing but a leather Orioles jacket and men’s boxers. You see, all the clothes I normally wear are dirty…
“Melissa. You’re avoiding me. It’s your sister. Hi. I need to know whose car was infested with ants (laughs and laughs). Call me back at my office please. I love you.”
That was the first message I checked. Sometimes, I like to add my voice mails up before I check them. Voice mail is the fucking devil to me. I let that thing get up to ten, sometimes twelve before I go in there and clear them out. Why do I hate voice mail so much? I don’t know, but I don’t have an answering machine or voice mail for my home phone. Some people say that’s very primitive of me, but I disagree. I just don’t like being so available and accessible at all times. Too many inboxes. Shit, damn it, I ain’t home (knowing full well I’m sitting up on the couch eating cold Junior Mints waiting for Double Jeopardy!). And to think, I used to be so gregarious. When did I become such a cranky old lady? Maybe, I’m not cranky. I could just be old school. Vintage. Yeah. I don’t like too many buttons to push, too many codes and passwords and fucking flashing envelopes. No. No more. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m a hippie and my kids will make fun of me. Kids? I’m a crazy person right now. Ignore me entirely.
I called my sister back. My whole family is absolutely ridiculous and it’s entirely too much fun to not share. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Can I get a book deal or what? You mean to tell me, you Putnam Penguin lady or you Little Brown acquisitions person, that this isn’t noteworthy? That these stories shouldn’t be bound in some kind of book that sells for $14.95. My dad’s name is Shorty and he leaves messages like he’s a robot -- “Please contact the headquarters immediately.” My mother is totally Filipino but sees the world through the eyes of a black man and honed her English skills reading Harlequin romance novels. Can you imagine the birds and the bees talk? “Do you peel hiss manhood penetrate true da jeans or no?” The right answer was no. Otherwise you get smacked on the hand with a flyswatter. You don’t want that to be published! What the hell? Okay, fine. What about $5.95 in the bargain bin? Come on! If you don’t give me a book deal, I’ll be forced to engage in paid companionship, and no one wants that! Must I strip in Japan with a blonde wig on for all the cash? Come on people. Give a mother fucker a chance. Give peace a chance. More importantly, give me a chance. Or just buy my plane ticket to Tokyo. No? Okay, changing subjects.
So, my sister says we should immediately do some sister things when I see her. I agree. Her first suggestion was hilarious.
“We should go right to the Bebe clearance rack!” she gushed.
Defiant, I say, “No, I hate that store. I won’t go up in Bebe. I won’t.”
She says, “What do you have against Bebe?”
I say, “What? Do you wear the shirt that says Bebe across the chest. That’s gross. Hey guys, I’m going to pay you an excessive amount of money to advertise your shit. No thanks. I’m talking about principalities here, Marlene. I don’t pay to advertise. It should be the other way around. Bebe should give you a free Bebe shirt if they want you to walk around singing their praises with your body. People need to wise up!”
She says, “No, I wear some of the plain shirts under my suit jacket. Besides why would I do that? I’m not calling attention to my chest with the word Bebe. Then everyone would know that I’m just Almost A, Almost A.”
This is my real live sister talking.
She now moves us to the point of her call. She needs to know about The Cemetery Dude right now. All the details. Marlene is a very good listener, too, so I enjoy telling her all parts of my stories because she just laughs and laughs and I need that. A little positive affirmation never hurt anyone. First things first. “Did you meet him at a houka lounge or something? Who is this person?” she asks.
She’s obviously clowning me. Houka lounge? Why, I never. Okay, I have gone to one of those. Fine. Yes, I actually dated someone that did work at one of those, but I kept that a secret. “No, mom, he works at a bank, I said.” So what the houka lounge was NEAR a bank, but whatever. But sisters have a way of knowing shit they shouldn’t know. No, I met him at an audition actually. And by the way, do not date people you meet at auditions. You will see them again, and should things go awry, what an awful position to be in! They will and do think you’re an asshole. On top of that, you’re already screwed because you’re AT AN AUDITION. Auditions just mess up the chi of the day. Unless of course, you get that shit. Secondly, all that work you did in your head to prepare to get this job, really get this job, gone. Out the window because now I’m worried about whether or not he saw me see him and it goes on and on and on.
So I tell her the unabridged, uncensored version and just like a good sister, she drops some real wisdom on me. She has the sister heart-to-heart. The learn from my mistakes talk. You don’t settle. You are beautiful. You are smart and talented and funny. You deserve a man that can handle you. She said all the good stuff that went in one ear, tiptoed around my brain for a second and right out the other ear. Then, in an effort to make me feel better, she tells me some of her horror stories.
Marlene, in all my life, was never known to go to bars. She does now. She’s newly divorced. Her kids are school-aged and can be left to their own devices if absolutely necessary. Shit, I think my nephew might even be a teenager! Marlene wears patchouli. Not to the point where it’s annoying like that one hippie girl, who just the night before was a cheerleader, senior year in high school that you could smell and hear coming a mile away. Bells jingling on her floor length skirt that covered her Birkenstocked feet. No, not like that. At a bar, Marlene sat.
The man next to her says, “You smell great. What is that?”
She tells him it’s patchouli.
He sniffs her some more. He then says, “You know, patchouli is the perfect ‘affer-deez-iac’ because it’s sexy with your ‘free-mones’ and it’s an insect repellant.” Marlene, being the naïve and gentle being that she is, doesn’t get up and head for the exit. She smiles and encourages the conversation by saying, “Yeah, I rarely ever get eaten up. That’s true!”
What is it with the Howard girls and the mention of pheromones? Constantly, we’re being sniffed up and down and then paid compliments or what we deem to be compliments about our armpits and the like. Armpit? What a terrible word. What’s really going on?
Now listen to me. I will be in Florida for a long time. I’m sure some raw shit will go down. I will tell you most of it. Your job is to eagerly await my return and then through a series of word-of-mouth, after I tell all the best stories, tell everyone you know so that I can become some crazy overnight phenomenon writer lady. Thank you Larry King, it’s so nice to be here. Oprah, really, you didn’t have to put it on the book club list. I’m honored, flattered, plum out my mother fucking mind, this is crazy. Stab me with a hot poker already! I’ve been reading this book called The Tipping Point, and it’s up to you, my lovely friends, to make this go down. Come on y’all, we can do it! (Or not.)
Posted by melissah at September 8, 2004 03:42 PM