WTF Wednesday: Penis Envy?

Given that it seems to be Penis Week here at Fragrant Liar, I’m going to take you down a dark path. Darker than usual. No, darker. Where it’s slick and wet. And salty. And all kinds of scary – with only a smidgen of hope and light. If you have are weak and wimpy, turn back now. I don’t want to be responsible for your nightmares.

Still with me? Oh, but you are brave.

Let us begin. Imagine that you are a hermaphrodite, half male, half female. (I told you it was dark.) Let’s further imagine – and this is your hope and light – that you have not one but two penises. (Imagine the possibilities when two dicks do the thinking.) You, my hermie friend, have an ego the size of the Great Barrier Reef because you are able to brandish your dexterous penises like swords. But what you do with your rare endowment is crucial. Your actions, Duodicks, will impact your future, and in fact, your species. What will you do in the clutch – what will you do?

Now imagine that you are in your prime, young and virile. Your secret weapons are sheathed beneath you as you cruise and flutter along the sandy ocean bottom in search of action. It is then that you spy another one of your kind, up ahead. It is Pairapricks, looking for a fight, gliding in close. The two of you issue silent but deadly challenges to duel.

You, fearless Duodicks, rise up like a cobra, revealing your mighty twin sabers. “I told you, I’m not doing it!” you shout at your opponent.

“I’m not doing it either!” Pairapricks rumbles, strutting deceivingly like a peacock, for hidden in his underbelly are his own masters of magic, King and Kong. Pairapricks rises up to take you on, both of you brandishing your weapons to and fro, thrusting and poking in a mad, mad flurry of penis fencing and “I know you are, but what am I?” until Pairapricks gets in a lucky jab and with it a fatal goop of ejaculate.

As you realize your failure, the hermie spermies absorb into your pores, awakening your egglets and girly parts; and suddenly you are pregnant. Adding insult to injury, Pairapricks chants, "You are a gi-i-irl, you are a gi-i-irl!" Sadly, Pairapricks' victory ensures his status as the de facto male and you the de facto female -- and also that you will get so fat with babies that you won’t even be able to see those double daggers you’re so proud of. This is your lot in life, Duodicks, for you are the weird marine flatworm (phylum platyhelminthes).

Because I knew you'd want a keepsake of the conception for your babies' scrapbook, I filmed it all for you. Just click here at Our Conception, then sit back and enjoy yourself, like Daddy Pairapricks did. Kind of.

Did I warn you people or what?

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Hunk with Junk in His Trunks

In yesterday's post, I used this picture of a sexy almost-naked guy who's obviously an underwear model. Mr. Hunk-with-Junk-in-His-Trunks is also Swedish soccer player Freddie Ljungberg, but he may be better suited for his Calvin Klein gig, right? I mean, is there a woman in the Milky Way galaxy who disagrees with me? Hmm? Anyone?

So sitting beside me on the couch when I pull up my blog on my laptop, Miss America's eyes catch on Mr. HWJIHT. She points to his picture with her tiny finger. "What's in his pants?" she asks.

My first reaction is to giggle. I admit, that's because a vivid mental image of what we can't see pops up in my mind. Come on, did you see his package? My second reaction is to remember I'm talking to a five-year-old. My third reaction is terror. I don't want to tell her what's in his pants. But what else am I going to say? A bunny rabbit? A sack of marbles? A Lunchable?

I was always honest with her mama and my other three daughters, and they're sort of normal. So I fall back on the ancient cliche: honesty is the best policy and if her mom didn't hear me say it, then I didn't say it. Besides, Miss America does know that boys have different waterworks than girls by virtue of seeing her little brother's weenis during diaper changings.

"Um, that's his penis in there," I say.

Miss America does a doubletake. (Didn't you?) I get the strong vibe she's making a size comparison equivalent to measuring Plankton's girth to Spongebob's. Her eyes reveal that she would be stunned if that was the only thing in there. She says with her face scrunched up, "You mean a box?"

I'm really thinking Lunchables now. "A box?"

"No, blocks."

"Blocks?"

She stands up and kicks her leg out forcefully. "Like when I kick the boys in the blocks."

I can't speak for a moment, wondering where she learned that and what boy is singing soprano now.

My daughter is in the kitchen futzing around and says suspiciously over the bar counter, "What are you guys looking at?"

I say -- nay, plead, "Come over here and look." Surely TG will translate for us, and I will understand where Miss America gets the "block-kicking" and she will understand what the hell is in this guy's underwear.

TG comes over, takes one look at Mr. Hunk-with-Junk-in-His-Trunks, rolls her eyes, and returns to the kitchen. Miss America and I look at each other and shrug.

"Really," I say. "It's his penis, and there's nothing blocking it, so you never wanna go for the field goal."

She nods and I nod, and we have successfully communicated. Sometimes, not even speaking in a foreign language can prevent the message from getting through.
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Hobbies 'R' Us -- Not!

My friend Michel at Facts Are Strictly Optional got me thinking about hobbies. She doesn't have any, but don't tell her I said that. She's stuck in Sudan with oddly decorated mystery meat, and I don't want her to think we're all talking about her. 'kay?

Anyway, I began wondering what even constitutes a hobby – besides woodworking in your garage, rebuilding vintage cars, and hand-crafting or creating anything. What about sports? What if you’re an avid spectator of sports? Is that your hobby - spectating? Wikipedia, the trusted last word on everything, defines hobby as a “spare-time recreational pursuit.”

Does this mean that flirting is a hobby – and a recreation – if you pursue it in your spare time? What if you’re totally competitive about it? Pursuit being an activity, I think we have five levels of potential hobbification:

1. Professional whatever (we’re talking Lance Armstrong here),
2. Wannabe-pro-highly-competitive-might-squeak-onto-the-A-team whatever (weekend warriors who will sharply tongue-lash you if you call what they do a hobby – I'm just trying to protect you – don't ever call my writing a hobby),
3. Recreational whatever (I’ll give this to Ex #2 who made grand efforts),
4. Spectator/popcorn-gobbling whatever (definitely Ex #1), and
5. It-crossed-my-mind whatever (sorry, Ex #3, that’s you).

Sorry to get all scientific on you. But anyway maybe only the first one or two are actual vocations, cuz those peeps would be more inclined to work at whatever all the time, making it more like a J.O.B. Numbers 4 and 5 – no real pursuit going on there, so we’re down to #3, and we can deduce that only a particular set of pursuits can be considered recreational and ipso facto hobbies. Well, that's science for ya. You can't argue with it.

Which brings me to online dating sites. Not that they’re scientific, though I did meet a cute Latino biology professor on there. See, nobody wants to be perceived as a slacker on a dating site cuz that would be unattractive, and how do you expect to get a date if you’re a slug who only wants to grow his hairy preggers belly and biceps swag? On Match.com, it’s hard to find a profile that doesn’t have a whole lot of activities checked off as things a person likes to engage in, like football, baseball, running, hiking, wrestling, body building, martial arts, scuba, racquetball, basketball, bike riding, gymnastics, and dancing. Thing is, you KNOW a good portion of those activities fall into Hobbifications 4 and 5 – especially the dancing one – gah! They're not doing as much as they're thinking about doing, or spectating. It’s true. I know it’s hard to believe it, but SOME of those people are L-Y-I-N-G.

Therefore, I’ve deduced that I’ll never know who’s a real slug and who isn’t before I meet them. So I can never be assured that I will never be pressured to exercise again. (sigh) I’m too logical for my own good.
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WTF Wednesday: Blog-Agog

Kinda like Hollywood, the blogosphere loves to award itself and its members for all kinds of things. We get all agog about the best blogging host, best blog about blogging, the Blogitzer blog, best humor blog, best WTF blog. Okay, I made that last one up, but I think that should be a category. I might have been nominated then, cuz I'm not sure I can be categorized as anything but, WTF?

Anyway, in keeping with the Blog-Agog Awards, Julie at 47 and Starting Over has honored me with the Sexy Blogger Award! Somehow Julie thinks all the trash I spew has got some sex appeal. And I love her for it! Sing it with me now, "I'm too sexy for my blog, too sexy for my blog, so sexy I'm agog."

That was fun. I even did my little thing on the catwalk. (Clean up on Aisle 5!) So now go visit Julie, a sexy single woman who's also looking for Mr. Right and who was also given the Sexy Blogger Award -- deservedly so. You know there are rules to these blog-agoggies, and this one says I have to offer up five things that are sexy about me. So here you go:

• I chew with my mouth closed, as long as I can fit everything in.
• I wear jammies to bed, and nothing else.
• I wipe front to back. (This is a test to see if you're reading.)
• I dot perfume in all the pulse spots (versus pulsating).
• I do a little dance when I eat ice cream with peanut butter and toffee.

The other rule is that I have to pass this most coveted award along to others. But I think it belongs to anyone who thinks they're sexy enough to wear it. That's you!

I thank my beloved sister bloggers, who make my day everyday, and I appreciate wholeheartedly the Blog-Agog acknowledgements that you like my stuff.

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Six Magic Words

Okay, so last summer I heard about the Six-Word Memoir thing-a-ma-jig. Do you know about it? Supposedly, one or more of my memoirs will be in the next book, but I don't really know much about it yet. More on that later. Anyway, the assignment is to encompass your whole life into a single six-word memoir. I dare you to try it.

Never one to shrink from a challenge, I pondered which six words would embody the whole of my life and scribbled them down with gusto. At least I thought so. It all started with this:

Slow to bud, but awesome blossom.

Okay. That actually depicts my earlier life, but not the whole of it. So I gave it another try:

Third time's not a charm -- damn.

Says a lot about me -- but really doesn't get me all the way there. So I put my sassy, but temperamental, writer's muse to work, and she came up with:

Shhh, not now. Mama's writing smut.

Seemed to encompass my writing life perfectly, but there was a whole other side of me that wasn't tapped. Wait, I thought, I've got it!

Rebel mama, different drummer, humor me.

Cryptic? Maybe, but anyone who knows me will understand it and agree that's me to a tee. I could have stopped there, but I didn't. Oh no, because I'm . . .

Still waiting for the big adventure.

But adventure is nothing without love, right? It's what I dream of, extraordinary love. A full lifetime of it, ending with two empty rocking chairs side by side. Followed by this scene: and all the younguns doing the cooking and cleaning while Old Fart and Old Fartesse get it on down by the river on the roll-up egg crates. Ah, sweet romance:

Endless love calls, hear me now?

Old Fartesse: Louder, sugar dumplin'. You wanna take me where?
Old Fart: To the Big Island. Kamonawannalaya.

By then I realized I had accumulated many six-word memoirs, which meant I had blown the exercise! I hadn't narrowed my life down to six words and only six words. I was six times six and counting! And still the challenge stared me in the face. Being the daughter of the master improvisor, Mr. Bill, I decided to take one word from each memoir, and that should encompass my whole, freakin' life! Right? Let's see if this fits:

Awesome charm, smut humor, adventure calls.

Heh, heh. I'm digging that awesome charm part -- of course it's true. Smut humor? Uh, well, yeah. And then there's my unrequited dream of seeing the world. Yup, I've done it! I have fit myself into six words.

I am feeling a little squished.
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Lint in the Butt

TG brought her daughter, Miss America, downstairs to my bathroom where I was getting ready for work. "Tell your Nana what you found," she said, teetering between empathy and impatience.

In her pleated jeans skorts (and topless), four-year-old Miss America looked up at me with sad, teary brown eyes and a pouty lower lip I could have set my coffee cup on.

"What's the matter, sweetie? You okay?"

Miss America's chin quivered and she clammed up, wiping at her eyes.

"She found lint in her butt," my daughter explained with that exasperated smirk that's half chuckle and half I-can't-believe-I'm-a-grown-woman-talking-about-lint-in-the-butt. You know the one.

"Lint?" I asked.

TG nodded. "She's freaking out."

"But how did she --" My lightning quick faculties assessed the situation: Miss America had found lint in her butt. Rather, she had found lint in the crevasse of her butt. How she managed to find it was not my concern. The important thing is that she was not happy to discover this little treasure and had promptly fallen apart.

"I hate it when that happens," I said. "It's okay. Really, it's just lint. I get lint in my bellybutton sometimes. There's lint on everything."

I could see my little cherub wanted to believe that the offending lint had not emanated from her behind, but then her eyes grew wide, which I took to mean: If there's lint on everything, maybe there's reason to panic on the scale of a planetary invasion.


"Come here," I said. "Let me show you." I took her hand as we wound our way through the house to the laundry room. At the dryer, I pulled the lint catch out of its deep hole. "See?" I stroked the screen with my fingertips allowing the thick, flaccid cushion of speckled fuzz to fold over itself and into the trash can. "Lint is in all fabrics. All the clothes you wear have lint in them. It's everywhere, like germs, but you normally don't see it."

I suspected the wheels of her imagination turned that big swath of dryer fuzz over her crevasse and left an unwelcome hanger-on.

"This like, almost NEVER happens," I assured her, resigned to my matriarchal ineptitude. "It was a fluke that you even found it!"

Miss America nodded and whimpered, "Will you make sure it's off?"

"Um . . . sure?" I led her back into my bathroom where TG was in my adjoining closet jacking my wardrobe. I pulled a rag from the linen closet, ran it under the faucet, and squeezed. "Drop 'em," I said.

Miss America slid down her skorts and undies, and I zipped the rag between her cheeks, then held it out for inspection. "See anything?"

Fingers in her mouth, she mumbled no.

"That's because there's nothing there!"

TG peeked out the closet and rolled her eyes. I tossed the rag into the hamper and dusted off my hands. "I think my work here is finished."

Then I joined TG in my closet. We held up blouses and dress pants, assessing them for wearability based on how skinny we didn't feel. We hopped around without modesty in our panties and bras, trying each outfit on (and off). Miss America watched from the edge of the bathtub. Her small voice stopped us, each with one leg in a pair of pants we had exchanged.

"That's disgusting," she said. The village idiots looked into the big brown eyes of the cherub with the scrunched-up face. "That's disgusting," she repeated.

This, from the child with lint in the butt.

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What Goes Around . . .

Vacuum cleaners are a real point of contention among the Under-Five set. You probably didn't know that. It's true. They are terrified that some other pre-K miscreant might have a cooler one than they do. They're like starry-eyed vacuum cleaner sales-weebles at a tradeshow. I have seen with my own eyes as two four-year-olds spouted the features and benefits of their respective household appliances, each determined to walk away with the Cherriest Vacuum in Town trophy. (I'm not so sure how adoring they'd be once that vacuum was turned on, but that's another story.) In any case, Miss America's mother donated a real working appliance to the cause, and now Miss America is the proud owner of a Shark floor and carpet vac, which she stores next to our other two worthless dirt suckers in the broom closet.

While painting my toenails one recent morning, I was interrupted by Miss America who requested that I paint her toes too. She took a seat on my bed, stretched out her hairy little legs, and leaned back on her hands to enjoy the home spa treatment, courtesy of Nana. Soon after, little brother Destructo dragged in Miss America's Shark and quietly pretended to vacuum the carpet beside my bed, pushing it jerkily back and forth. It was heavier than he was.

"Brother!" Miss America said sternly. "That's my vacuum. Put it up."

"No," Destructo replied.

"Yes, Brother. Put it back!"

Destructo gave her a smug sideways glance as he continued to pretend vacuum. "No."

Unable to move her, uh, canister for fear of wiggling her toes and messing up the righteous lavender paint job, Miss America looked to me for assistance. But I determined not to waiver from polishing her miniature toenails -- I hate to get into the middle of a domestic squabble, you know? Besides, my in-home demonstrations are limited to whining about burgeoning physical ailments like indigestion, sore feet, and gas, not household machinery.

Destructo pushed the vacuum to and fro, taunting his big sister with the abandon of a self-propelled Electrolux Turbo; and I could see the ire rising in Miss America's neck. She raised her hand toward him, her tiny nostrils twitching and round brown eyes ablaze. Channeling the Great Spirits of Terrible-Two Disciplinarians in the sky, Miss America's small voice firmly issued The Count: "One . . . two-o-o-o-o . . . . . . three!"

Destructo continued, unfazed.

I thumbed off a tad extra polish from Miss America's big toe and muttered quietly, "Now whatcha gonna do?"

With her lips bunched together, she glared impotently at her little brother. "Four!" she bleated. "Don't make me save five!"

I sat back in wonder as Destructo continued to spite his sister just because he could, and Miss America found herself with no alternative but to call in the big guns. "MOM!"

I heard my daughter padding toward my room, and I chuckled. I love when life comes full circle.
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WTF Wednesday: Up Yours

Alarm goes off. I smack it and roll out of bed, groggy, foggy, boggy. My sleep has been restless and fitful and not long enough. I stumble through the dark toward my bathroom and a steamy shower (not that that will wake me up). I stand against the wall with my eyes closed as the water heats up; then I stand still longer under the hot spray till my body starts moving. When I finally finish all the lathering and rinsing, I decide to shave my legs. I do want to catch a man one of these days, after all, and how can you do that looking like Graciela the Grizzly? So, nearly awake now, I grab my razor from the top of the stall.

Now I should interrupt myself to tell you that I have the downstairs bathroom and sometimes the nanababies take showers in there instead of their own shower upstairs. And to their little psyches, no shower is truly worth the time and energy without their favorite toys. I don't blame them; I feel the same way. However, a girl's really got to be in the mood for toys, right?

So imagine my surprise when I lazily plop down on the floor of my shower to get comfy while I shave, and out of all the cuddly, squeezy, rubber bath toys, it's the long, narrow, hard, plastic hoof from a Princess Pony that somehow gets rammed right up my -- well, I just don't want to tell you where it got rammed. It hurts to think about it. Suffice to say, this pony's hoof has trotted into a deep, dark arroyo where the sun never, ever shines.

Oh yes, it has. I guess this pony never heard of those famous words to live by: Poker? I hardly know 'er!

So I now have to write the makers of this plastic beast to tell them what a poking hazard it is, and request that parents warn their children against leaving their Little Menacing Bastard Plastic Poker Ponies in the shower where some sleepy, unsuspecting woman who just wants to have silky smooth, touchable legs can take it right up the Uh-Uh! Pony my ass, people!

All right, now you know! There's an Uh-Huh and an Uh-Uh, and only the Uh-Huh accepts visitors!

Oy, Pony's owner and I need to have a chat. Right after my sitz bath.
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How Advertising Works

1980: TG is 2 years old, sitting in the forward seat of the grocery cart, and we are in Albertson's. Sundries section. TG is close enough to the deodorants to grab one off the shelf. She looks it over and holds it up to me, and says: "Mama, try this Secret. It's made for a woman."

Flash forward to 2009: TG's daughter, Miss America, who is 5 years old, watches her mom spread butter across bread for grilled cheese sandwiches. Miss America watches intently, checks the butter packaging, and says: "I can't believe it's not butter. That's really good stuff, you know. It makes the sun come up in the morning."

And that's how advertising works in our family. How does it work in yours?
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Who Loves Ya, Baby?

Last night, post-salsa lessons, look what I uncovered when I turned on the lights in my bathroom. It was such a nice surprise, I got a little teary, so I had to preserve the moment for posterity. Who knows, when she one day pays exorbitant amounts for therapy and finally figures out what I did wrong in raising her, she may change her mind. So I will keep this just in case she needs to be reminded that she was once kinda fond of me.

Maybe she left me such a sweet message because she felt guilty. Why? Hmmm, let's see. Maybe for:

• at age 2, sneaking out the window, toddling down the street, and scaring the bejeezus out of me; or
• at age 6, pantsing the neighbor girl whose mom "had a talk" with me and refused to let them play together anymore; or
• at age 9, stuffing a dead chicken into the old fridge (in order to plan for a proper burial), and then forgetting about it until weeks later when Grandpa was horrified to discover its feathery, rotting corpse teeming with maggots; or
• at age 1o, hacking off all the hair on the back bottom-half of her head, and then blaming it on her older sisters' evil midnight debauchery while she snoozed right through it; or
• at age 12, getting drunk on Seagram's 57 during a sleepover at her BFF's (yes, you Stacey) and calling me to confess because she was so sick she thought she was dying; or
• at age 13, disassembling and rewiring her bedroom lamp to convert it into a black light, then plugging it into the socket, shocking the shit out of herself, and blowing the power out of the entire house; or
• at age 14, ditching school so I had to have an uncomfortable f-t-f with the high school principal; or
• at age 14, telling me she'd started her period when in fact she had not, and then kept up the ruse for another two years because it was a good excuse for playing hookey; or
• at age 15, smoking in the garage when she thought I was sleeping; or
• at age 16, making me play Sherlock Holmes to track her down when she thought she'd successfully duped me (her parental unit, aka, P.U.); or
• at age 18, bringing home that bad boy who ended up staying for, like, four years; or . . .

Oh, boy, I think I'll stop now. My own mother is probably loving this a little too much. Yes, payback's a bitch!

Our gorgeous "Critter" just turned 26 and is an awesome mother in her own right. Now that she has a little one to test her sanity, she has probably gained magical insights and forgiven me for my mistakes. Or maybe -- just maybe, she loves me in spite of them. Which brings us back to guilt -- hers or mine, I don't know. But I'm going with Door #2. At least until she gets into therapy.

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P.S. Pay no attention to that funky header. It's not quite what I wanted, but I have been too freakin' busy to fix it. No, Janie, I'm not kissing an F. I'm blowing fragrant lies. Isn't it obvious?
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