Thumbscrews Experiential Lab #1

So you want to be like me? Or at least PRETEND you're like me, minus the compulsive knuckle-cracking, intermittent Marital Problems and ass which is flatter than many Midwestern states? Okay, then... step into the Lab, and allow yourself to experience a few of the things which I've been diggin' on this week (one of which is apparently using terms like "diggin' on". Next week: "copacetic"!):

EAT:

Gerber Biter Biscuits. NOT Beech-Nut! While Beech-Nut and I are usually like two pureed peas in a pureed pod (their Sweet Potato Souffle is a Thomas Keller-esque gustatory tour de force), if I am to retain any shred of journalistic integrity, I must report that their biter biscuits SUCK. Gerber's, on the other hand, are sublime. They're pleasingly hard (which brings to mind the $2.95 "literary erotica" books my best friend and I used to buy in junior high, ones which contained sentences like, "... as the Viscount du Splendidrod's pulsating pulsatiousness charged past her obsidian hedgerow, straight into the Sacred Cinnabar Pagoda, Lady Goodhead could not help but gasp, "Oh, milord! My petticoats shall need a MOST vigorous scrub this washing-day!").

Ahem. Where were we? Gerber Biter Biscuits. Subtly sweet, with notes of toasted cornmeal, molasses and cooked milk. As delightfully firm and good for mouthing as the Viscount's... well, let's just end this analogy right here. They contain all of the qualities which are SUPPOSED to be present in biscotti, but are in fact not. Biscotti are basically like little hazelnut-encrusted pumice stones. The first time I bought one, I hated it SO much that I decided to feed it to pigeons. However, it was too hard to crack up into crumbs, so I wound up gnawing on the end and spitting out little morsels for my fine feathered friends to enjoy. As I recall, they weren't too interested in it, either. When creatures more accustomed to supping on regurgitated night crawlers reject your cookie, you KNOW it's time to go back to the drawing board.

Addendum: unlike Puffs, I have a VERY GOOD REASON for eating my son's biter biscuits. The first time I let HIM eat one, this happened:



DRINK:

Maker's Mark Sweet Manhattan. 3-to-1 ratio of Maker's Mark bourbon to sweet vermouth, dash of bitters. Shake over ice for thirty seconds, dump into serving vessel and garnish with cherry. The only way this drink could be more manly is if it actually pinched the cocktail waitress's ass FOR you.

BE MERRY:

Or possibly "be mopey". I made this mix CD for Mr. Thumbscrews a few days ago, during the absolute worst (knock wood... knock a fucking sequoia, actually) of our Marital Problems. You may want to burn a emergency copy to have on hand, just in case you and YOUR best friend ever need a little auditory accompaniment to your relationship woes. You'll notice that I haven't prepared any cute descriptions for the last six tracks; this is because A. I'm lazy, and B. By then, you'll either have TOTAL faith in my wussified musical tastes, OR you'll get so sick of all the goddamned crooning that you'll stamp off in search of your old Pantera tapes in order to get the foul taste out of your mouth.

Track Listing:

01 - "Willing to Wait" - Sebadoh

The July '96 issue of NME describes it as "...probably the most romantic Sebadoh song written to date. 'Willing To Wait' is a heart-wrenching message written by Lou Barlow when [his girlfriend] briefly left him for another man a few years ago."

It doesn't matter whether or not you're involved in a "torn between two lovers" situation. If this song fails to stab you in the heart, then YOU DON'T HAVE ONE. It accomplishes the seemingly-impossible task of being beautiful, earnest and heartfelt enough to prevent you from thinking, "Jesus CHRIST, Lou, why don't you grow a pair?!"

02 - "Down So Low" - Tracy Nelson

If Janis Joplin had lived for another fifty years and spent the entire time drinking cheap gin, smoking unfiltered Camels and SCREAMING nonstop, her voice would've been almost as powerful as Tracy Nelson's... but not quite. This song doesn't just STAB; it cuts your heart into wafer-thin slices and serves it up with wasabi-pomegranate dipping sauce.

03 - "Hail, Hail" - Pearl Jam

Finally... a wise, grown-up song about what a relationship is based on and whether it can last. It's a refreshing antidote to the million treacley tunes about finding love, losing love, making love, etc. Also, it fuckin' ROCKS.

04 - Janine - Soul Coughing

Possibly the cutest, sexiest love song ever written. It's the musical equivalent of spending a rainy Saturday rolling around in bed with someone you love, giggling, fooling around and stopping time. How can you not love a song with lyrics like "Varick Street and I drove South / With my hands on the wheel and your taste in my mouth"? This song might not heal any wounds, but it WILL make you want to jump all over your partner's jock, which certainly can't hurt.

05 - Don't Let Us Get Sick - Warren Zevon

I come from an atheist family. We're not insane about it; we don't go to No-God-Cons or anything. It's just one of our shared beliefs, like the greatness of Frank Zappa and that people who put beans in chili should be punished via firing squad.

BUT.

Rocking my son to sleep while singing him this song is the closest I get to praying. And I haven't once managed to get through the line, "I'm lucky to be here / With someone I like / Who maketh my spirit to shine" without crying.

06 - Hey Leonardo - Blessid Union of Souls

This is silly, trashy and PERFECT. It distills the entire summer before I met my husband into three very, very catchy minutes. I'd just gotten my driver's license as well as endured a truly hellacious break-up. From May to September, I spent most nights driving around the New Jersey Pinelands in my parents' wheezy, flaking Grand Marquis, blasting the local alterna-rock station and periodically pulling over to sob into the fuzzy plush seats. Then I met Sam, and everything was suddenly... different. Under his loving, patient, slightly more grown-up supervision, I started to get better. I handed the keys back to my parents and bought a used Elantra (which exploded three months later, prompting me to write "The Elantra Song", featuring lyrics such as, "Get In The Car And Drive / Is not a slogan I can do / When my engine's lying in pieces / By the side of Route 42!"). But every time I hear that endearing whine ("She likes ME FOR ME!"), it takes me right back.

07 - Dimming of the Day - Richard & Linda Thompson
08 - The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary
09 - Thin Air - Pearl Jam
10 - Let's Stay Together - Al Green
11 - Luna - Smashing Pumpkins
12 - The Nothing Song - Sigus Ros

Oh You're My Best Friend

This was supposed to be a Valentine's Day post about my husband and how he is better than sliced bread - nay, ANY horizontal plane of foodstuff. That, however, was not to be, and we shall get to the juicy (well, selectively de-juiced for the sake of privacy... pulpy, I guess) details in time, my pretties. First on the agenda: am I the only one, upon seeing the title of this post, who immediately thought of Jefferson Airplane, and of Jefferson Airplane's "Behind the Music" special, and wondered yet again why they didn't just cut to the chase and call it "Grace Slick is a Great Big Whore"? Of course, BTM has never been noted for its objectivity or (especially) its subtlety... grainy archival-style photos? You're gonna die. Your bandmates lauding you as the greatest lead glockenschpielist of your generation? Gonna die. Footage of your family discussing how you used to tap out "In-a-gada-da-vida" on the lid of your potty? Might as well start calling you "New Coke", because THAT'S how dead you are.

The "Airplane" special, however, was just ludicrous. Every! Other! Shot! was Grace saying, "...and THAT's when I got together with John/Steve/Eduardo/Nebuchanezzer" (Ed. Note: I recently had trouble printing out some Puff coupons, causing me to have to reregister for Gerber's site with fictitious information, causing me to see a cheery little sidebar proclaiming, "Welcome back, SUSIE CREAMCHEESE! Your baby, NEBUCHANEZZER, is now in the Crawler Stage!"). Whenever they show the band boarding a plane, you half-expect to see a clip of Grace saying, "... and THAT'S when I got together with the single-engine turboprop Cessna 208."

And now, with all the panache of Grace partner-hopping, we segue into... The Pulpy Part.

I imagine that even the happiest, most secure married people still have moments when they wish they'd married the Cessna instead. If it keeps drinking too much motor oil and leaving its stuff all over the house like you're the fucking Transponder Fairy, you can just crash it into a cliffside. That doesn't work with human partners, obviously... that nice, meaty "splat" just isn't enough to compensate for the lack of a cool fireball afterwards.

For the first time ever, Mr. Thumbscrews and I are having Marital Problems. Not "marital problems" as in, "Why do you keep jamming the trash can so ridiculously full, are you hoping the trash will become so dense that it will mutate into a black hole and suck all of our banana peels and Valu-Mailers into another point on the space-time continuum, please stop doing that before I have no recourse but to bisect your cranium with a cleaver". No... these are Marital Problems of the type which could result in both parties standing in front of a televised judge with a JD from the Santo Domingo School of Law and Interpretive Polynesian Dance. That kind.

I never thought this would happen. Yet again, who does? Are there any women who, when eyeing the man they love, say, "Hmmn, I have a sneaking suspicion that THIS one is going to (insert one: secretly wear my crotchless panties, rack up $10,000 in calls to 1-900-ORIFICE, own an incontient Great Dane who just WILL NOT DIE, impregnate more than one member of my immediate family who is not me, throw an operational waffle iron at my head, be convicted of all charges)?"

Not that either I or Mr. Thumbscrews has done anything so odious. That would be easy. I would at least have anger as a crutch, and I am capable of some monumental, towering, crazy anger, all but frothing at the mouth like I'm regurgitating an Orange Julius. No... I still know that my husband is a good, decent man. He's loving, respectful, kind, responsible, funny, wickedly smart, resourceful, determined. And he's got beautiful hazel eyes. And we're having PROBLEMS, and I can't even muster up anger. It seems like it would be very fulfilling to start whipping lamps and shoes and "Time Life Good Cook" books around the house ("OWWWWW!... hey, I've been looking for this recipe for Spicy Szechuan Noodles!"), but I just can't. And it huuuuurts. It hurts so badly that I'm actually trying to ride out the waves of pain like contractions, breathing slowly and waiting for my emotional tocometer to dip back down to a reasonable number so I don't start bawling at my desk.

We're both typical "first" children. Stubborn, proud, ambitious, determined to beat whatever statistics are thrown at us. I hope that and hard work will be enough to get us through this. We've ridden out money problems, mental health issues, growing pains, family crises, communication breakdowns (cue Robert Plant shriek, and also reflect on how fun and effective it is to replace the noun in the title of every Led Zep song with the word "dick". Whole Lotta Dick, Stairway to Dick, Misty Mountain Dick, etc.). We've been together our entire adult lives. Some people would say that's a major, if not insurmountable part of the problem, and they may be right. But it's also wonderful, in a way, to struggle towards adulthood alongside someone you love. You're still very malleable, and you each help the other person define who they are and become a grown-up. Stevie Nicks might have built her life around Mr. Landslide, but, for good or bad, I've built myself around my husband. The Jello has set up... he's a part of me, I'm a part of him, we have a beautiful little baby who's a part of us both. And now, for the first time, life is shaking the mold... reaaaaally hard. It's a sticky, goopy, scary-ass situation.

Thumbscrews Weekly Reader's Assignment: tell me about the worst marital problems you and your partner ever experienced, and if/how you made it though. I need some encouragement, internet!

Photoshop Sock Hop: Merit Badge #1

When it comes it social weirdnesses, I've got a boatload. Maybe even an aircraft carrier-full. For me, just remembering to make eye contact takes a level of mental exertion comparable to what George Sanders had to use in "Village of the Damned" to prevent all of those creepy uber-Aryan children from reading his mind. The fact that I married a similarly introverted person doesn't help matters. If there is a Judeo-Christian afterlife, and Sam and I make the cut, I like to imagine us sitting on the cloud in the corner, making fun of all of the other celestial being ("Dude, St. Erasmus's halo totally looks like a frisbee." "Ha! You hungry? Wanna go grab some manna?").

My life has been a more-or-less nonstop series of misinterpreted comments, social gaffes (like piping up, "Hey, Yitzhak Rabin finally died!" in an attempt to butter up my ultra-Orthodox history teacher, completely forgetting that the Middle Eastern leader she'd been railing against all year was actually YASSER ARAFAT) and being totally unaware of when certain subjects need to be dropped like a red-hot Russet.

This is all by way of saying: if everyone has agreed to never again mention the whole Great Blog Dust-Up of '06 because it's SO hurtful and stupid and last week and hey, the Vice President SHOT SOMEONE? Have we considered sending him to Iraq?... forgive me (or pity my Social Awkwardness Disorder-having ass... either works).

In honor of of the inimitable Julie's response to this whole sordid affair, I give you: The G.B.D-U. '06 Merit Badge.



Special prizes (NON-tangible ones, you materialistic bastards... probably a personalized haiku, ala "Type on, blogging mom! / Diapers and introspection / Gladden heart and screen") for anyone who sends a picture of themselves wearing or otherwise employing said badge (I fully anticipate mine being eaten by J.Q., who has recently consumed the perimeter of a Chili's beer coaster, the corner of my W-2 form and part of a board book [Attention, Iggy the Octopus: let this be a lesson to you that terrestrial creatures aren't as uniformly friendly and benevolent as your oceanic buddies. Also, you may wish to consider changing your name to Sid the Septopus.]).

Linda Hirshman is a Stupid Bitch

Ed. Note: My sincere apologies if this entry is less pants-whizzingly funny and/or coherent than usual. By way of apology AND explanation, I shall first offer you an excellent new drink recipe:

"It's 9 PM On a Friday and I Don't Hear Any Screaming Coming From The Crib"

Dump handful of ice into red keg party-style cup. Fill 1/2 full of diet ginger ale. Fill to 1/2 inch below rim with high-octane rum, add floater of something frou-frou and sugary, like DeKuyper Ring Ding Flavored Schnapps (this step is crucial; it dampens the impact of the rum, lest your drink taste like the contents of a Puerto Rican drainage ditch).

On with the festivities!

I recently stumbled across this article. I'm not easily riled, but by the time I finished reading it, I was mad enough to make like a horned lizard and squirt blood out of my eyes. Hell, I'm thinking about retaining an unscrupulous and unlicensed plastic surgeon SOLELY so I can produce an indignant stream of ocular gore. The piece purports, in as many infuriating words, that women who forgo lucrative careers in order to raise their children are, A. Not acting under their own will, but rather being stymied by the domestic equivalent of the glass ceiling, and B. Idiots. A "lawyer-philosopher" such as Hirshman wouldn't phrase it quite that harshly (or succinctly), but the implication is all over the article like white on Wonder.

Before I commence ripping into Ms. Hirshman like a well-crusted filet au poivre, let's get a few things straight:

Disclaimer # 1: This isn't another repeat of the stay-at-home-mom/working-mom debate. That one's been rehashed so often that it really should be dumped on a plate and smothered to death in ketchup. This is a personal beef between Linda and I about how she apparently feels that my energy would be better spent schmoozing with diplomats instead of playing peek-a-boo and scrubbing mashed carrots out of the carpet. The menial, non-socially-validated child-rearing, however, is far more rewarding to me than anything which I accomplish from 9 to 5. I would have loved to stay at home with my son. However, in order to provide him with certain opportunities I felt were crucially important, I returned to mid-level drudgery shortly after he was born. I suppose this merits a double-dip of Linda's ire: I'm a wannabe opt-out who didn't even own a trim little power suit to BEGIN with.

Disclaimer #2: If anyone here happens to be friends with Linda Hirshman, I'’m truly sorry... that she's a stupid bitch. *administers wedgie, runs away snickering*

Disclaimer #3: Seriously, though? this woman is vastly smarter and better-educated than me. If my brain and Linda's brain got in a fight, it would last about ten seconds. It would end with my brain splatting to the canvas in a puddle of cerebrospinal fluid and shame while HERS did laps around the ring, pumping its spinal cord in the air in victory. I fully anticipate having to retract this entry in a few days when it becomes clear that Linda's intellect, like the Borg, cannot be resisted and will assimilate us all.

Okay, on with the show...

Point the First: Hirshman's observation, during a "60 Minutes" interview, regarding women who exit the workforce to raise their children: "These are the women that would have gone into the jobs that run our world. These were the women who would eventually have become senators, governors. These women would have been in the pipeline to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies."

Funny Rebuttal: Translation: "We didn't get Susie B.'s head stamped on all those useless fucking pseudo-quarters so you could sit at home discussing your children's bowel movements and seeing your true potential get sucked away like so many scattered Cheerios in the Hoover WindTunnel THAT YOUR HUSBAND PROBABLY BOUGHT FOR YOU!"

Serious Rebuttal: The jobs Hirshman cites- politician, corporate bigwig- are notable for their immediate connotation of power. She doesn't mention doctors, nurses, teachers or police officers, because those individuals, while widely admired, don't "run the world". How charming... a quest for equality has been reduced to jockeying for a good spot at the all-you-can-eat wheelin' and dealin' buffet. This wouldn't be so bad (best way to change the world is to run the world, no?) were it not for the fact that, in Hirshman's eyes, the opportunities made available to women in recent years aren't opportunities but ultimatums. We've gotten you a place at the ladder, it's implied, so you'd better fucking climb. That's what I find so appalling... the implication that, unless you rise as high as you can, as fast as you can, you're betraying both your gender and yourself. I don't appreciate having that mantle dropped on me like a cartoon anvil. It may be OUR cause, but it's MY life. There's a difference between supporting women's suffrage and marching them at Kalashnikov-point to the nearest polling place.

Point the Second: Hirshman is much better at spouting neo-feminist theory than she is at disguising her contempt for women who don't toe the party line. Here's a hint, Linda... if you're attempting to win women over, you might want to try a little harder not to portray them as confused, vapid and utter wastes of potential. You catch more flies with honey than with barely-veiled disgust.

Funny Rebuttal: One gets the impression that, when describing a woman who declined to be interviewed because she was baking pies with her daughters, Linda is mere seconds away from puking bile. First you're baking pies, then you're cooking a pot roast, and the next thing you know, John Q. Patriarchy and all of his poker buddies are pinching your ass while you scrub the Roasting Pan of Submission.

I wish this woman could get a glimpse of my life. Not ONLY am I underemployed, but I wash my husband's underdrawers with neither protest nor careful examination of gender roles (I prefer to use Tide). Oh, and I change 90% of the diapers, too. And fold them into origami shapes when I'm done (The Sailboat... of Poop. The Crane... of Poop). And, apart from when The Lotus Blossom... of Poop bursts open all over the beige carpet, I'M HAPPY. The mere thought of it is enough to make Linda's head explode like Andrea Dworkin's at a Vivid Video shoot.

Serious Rebuttal: I don't know that this one actually makes enough sense to merit a serious rebuttal. I mean, you're a feminist... yet it's pretty clear that you hold no regard for women, unless they're ladder-scaling high-achievers such as yourself. Didn't Camille Paglia already employ a similar schtick? How's about you try something new, like "She's a feminist... and ALSO a government assassin!", or perhaps "She's a feminist... and she's teaming up with an orangutan to take down a murderous drug syndicate!"

Point the Third: Like many overly-idealistic cerebral types, Hirshman is convinced that it's possible to alter the fabric of reality via force of will alone. After portraying family responsibilities as being roughly as pleasant as unmedicated oral surgery ("...repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks"), she ups the ante by claiming that there's no natural basis for women having traditionally assumed these tasks. Quoth Hirshman: "This less-flourishing sphere is not [their] natural or moral responsibility".

Funny Rebuttal: I'm sorry, I was too busy lovingly buffing my husband's bulging cranium and soothing my snot-nosed little Impediment to Personal Greatness to formulate a funny rebuttal.

Serious Rebuttal: Excuse-moi? I'm all for equal distribution of household chores. But I refuse to believe that women have historically kept house and raised kids purely by coincidence or because of an oppresive patriarchy. This may cause Betty Friedan to roll over in her still-warm grave, but "equal" does not mean "identical". In general, men and women each have separate and often quite disparate skill sets. Once again, in general (we've got more generals than a Civil War reenactment, folks!), women tend to be more conscientious and nurturing, two skills essential to domestic happiness. Plenty of women excel in traditionally male-dominated fields, and vice-versa. But I can guarantee that many of those same women handle the floor-vacuuming and skinned knee-tending at home, and not just because it's been cruelly foisted upon them. I shall now repeat a phrase so cornball that it should be patented by Orville Redenbacher, but which contains a kernel (ha ha!) of truth: you don't hear too many gravely wounded soldiers calling for their DADDIES. I Mom. I love it. It's a skill, no less legitimate or valuable than the ones I use to put strained squash on the table.

Well, faithful (well... until NOW, perhaps) readers... what say you? Have I misinterpreted this piece? Am I way out of line? Should I be burned on a pyre of old copies of "Our Bodies, Ourselves"?

Snatched Bug, Bugged... Oh, Never Mind.

We here at Thumbscrews Labs are leaders in the field of home biological research. It has not always been easy, this walk along the path of discovery, up the mountainside of knowledge, accompanied by the sherpas of Fresca and pretzel nuggets. We have had to confine our research to those times during which our husband was out in the garage, mitering joists or joisting miters or whatever, as he does not always appreciate the value of our work. Asking our researchers, "What the hell are you DOING?" or, "You are aware that the Cuisinart is only supposed to be used for FOOD, right?" would be akin to taking a whiz on the bright flame of scientific inquiry itself.

Nonetheless, we have soldiered on and made large strides in areas such as Laundry Pile Fortification and Forcible Snake Plant Extermination (while "do not water for six months" showed promise, "hurl in Dumpster" was ultimately more expeditious). We also authored the groundbreaking monograph "The Keystone Poop Phenomenon", which explored our junior lab assistant's habit of depositing a large, steaming pile of research in his Science Huggie mere seconds after his initial marble-sized contribution had been catalogued and filed.

Despite our previous triumphs, this has truly been the Labs' proudest week ever. The following two studies represent some of our finest work since the Ramen Noodle Electrolyte Balance Trials of 1999 (we found that supplementary diet soda is necessary to prevent lethargy, dehydration and uncontrollable verbal tics such as, "FUCK! I wish I could afford to eat something other that fucking Ramen!"). Bono can just charitable-work his little pleather-clad ass back to the Emerald Isle, because the Nobel committee is only going to be knocking on ONE door around here, and it ain't his.

Study #1: The Thwarted Ingestion and Subsequent Taxonomic Identification of Non-Indigenous Insects: A Case Study

This summer, our house was invaded by butt-ugly mystery bugs. They looked like a cross between a beetle and a leftover prop from "Max Max: Beyond Thunderdome". Their MO was to enter the house through any available crack (and our house, being older, has more crack than East St. Louis), buzz around for several days, scaring the ever-loving shit out of the human inhabitants, then plant themselves more or less permanently on the nearest light fixture. The penchants for immobility and sunbathing make me think of them as little tiny Floridian retirees. I imagined them conversing while clinging to the ceiling fan:

"Hiiiii, Dorothy! Your cephalothorax looks BEA-YOO-tiful! So how are the grand-pupa doing?"

Anyone who has ever had breakfast at Murray's would agree that this anthropomorphization makes them ESPECIALLY satisfying to squash ("Ex-CUSE me, big pink thing! I specifically ordered my aphids WITHOUT sour cream! Sour cream ALWAYS irritates my-" CRUNCH!).

Moving on, then. After a few months, we began referring to the mystery bugs as Triangles. While the Triangles were annoying, they were basically harmless, and it seemed preferable to perform the occasional hand-squishing rather than back a Dow Chemical tanker up to our house in an attempt to eradicate them. That is, until recently. While sitting at my desk last week, I received the following blood-curdling text-message from Grandma S. :

"JQ TRIED TO EAT A TRIANGLE!"

Aaaaaaaagh!

At that point, I was ready to hire rival Terminix/Orkin teams to reenact the last half of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" with their little spray wands in my living room. Before I could have my house flooded with carcinogenic goodness, however, I needed to Know the Enemy. As in so many cases (pizza-locating, trivia-verifying, fetish-naming), Google came to the rescue (there's a Giuseppe's two miles away, Sandy Koufax, frotteurism, and you should probably have that jacket dry-cleaned). The Triangles were actually called Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs (or, as I now refer to them, Brown Marmorated Son-of-a-Bitches). Originally from Asia, they've only recently showed up in the Eastern U.S. To which I must ask: why the hell did you bother coming over here, you polygonal assholes? Wouldn't it have made more sense to stay at home and infest pachinko machines and boxes of Pocky? Were there no infants in your native land capable of ingesting you? Actually, according to those periodic national education stats, probably not: they were all busy orchestrating major corporate mergers. I'm sure they could've managed, in between conference calls ("In regard to the Nikkei's fluctuations over the last quarter, AH GOO NA NA WAH BLPPPPPHT!"). I suppose I will be unsuccessful in using logic to make the B.M.S.Bs return to their own continent. Those Venn diagrams didn't work too damned well on kudzu, either.

Study #2: Self-Diagnosis of Frugality-Induced Gynecological Problems

I can be somewhat cheap. Not as cheap as someone close to me who once price-shopped for a HOME HIV TEST, but still, I like to save a buck. In that spirit, I stop by our local closeout store pretty often. So as not to incriminate anyone, I shall refer to them as "Gargantuan Lots". For the undiscriminating consumer (i.e. someone willing to forsake sour cream 'n onion Pringles for expired, tamarind-flavored Prangles), there are bargains aplenty. During a recent trip, I snagged a large quantity of baby wipes for an obscenely low price. Sure, they were scented - but who's nether regions couldn't be improved by a hint of jasmine? Sure, they were a laughably obscene off-brand ("Recto-Kleen" or "Antibac-Tushie" or something), but how hard could it BE to manufacture a baby wipe?

Notice how these rhetorical questions always have pretty sobering non-rhetorical answers? Well, you're waaaaay ahead of me.

Over the next several days, I went about my business, using the discount wipes for both my son's and my own southernly cleansing needs (you still wipe with PAPER? Why not just use a pine cone, savage?). However, I soon began to itch. Badly. Um... Down There. I was clawing at the front of my pants more often than a professional baseball roster. As befits the person for whom the term "Dumb Jul Story" was coined, I had NO idea why this was occurring for quite some time. I've always been a pinnacle of gynecological health. No ailments, no infections, everything so disgustingly dainty and well-made that it could be boxed and sold at Adult World (it must be my small karmic reward for the stringy hair and... *shudder*... back fat). A brief perusal of the Merck Manual proved fruitless (I wasn't quite sure what to look for, other than "Labial... Uh... Suckiness", which was sadly not included).

After several days of Down Under unrest and wondering whether or not incubi could transmit social diseases, I noticed that J.Q.'s itsy-bitsy gear was looking a little raw as well. As his romantic experience has been limited to seductively mouthing the binkie clip of a terrified-looking daycare classmate, it finally clicked: IT WAS THOSE STUPID WIPES! I immediately purchased a reputable brand of wipe for the family's anal ablutions, and within days, my Fertile Crescent was scourge-free. I considered returning the remaining wipes to Gargantuan Lots, but figured it was worth a minor financial loss to not have to tell Bob in Customer Service the tale of my blazing saddle. I am reminded, however, of how I used the male terror of Female Problems to get out of gym class for two years straight. I could very well wheedle my way into owning a Gargantuan Lots! And when I do, everyone's invited over to my place for Faygo and Prangles.