“Hey, let me show you my pictures from this summer. Do you want to see them? You have to see them.”
“Yeah, totally.”
” Ok, so this was when I went to Coney Island with some friends for this tour thing. Isn’t this girl hysterical? (Large black woman in short athletic shorts that read “STAFF” across the butt, both butt cheeks hanging out bottom of shorts). I just had to take a picture of her. And look at her friend with the python around her neck! Isn’t that bizarre?”
“Only you would take pictures of something like that. You’re so weird.”
“Right? I so would. And this is Captain Bob. I’m not sure if he was an official tour guide or what, but he had the worst breath ever and he, like, wouldn’t get out of my face the whole time. (Captain Bob photographed with an airbrushed shirt that reads “Captain Bob,” along with a sea captain hat on his head). He also had really bad rosacea. See the reddish chaffing on his face? Yeah my dad had that, which is why I know what it is. My dad also had acne, and that’s where I get it from. Thanks a lot, Dad!”
“Oh, cool…”
“It’s not cool, Josephine. It’s a real damper on my social life. I mean, how would you feel if you had a zit at every prom you went to, which was four since you got invited as a freshman and a sophomore?”
“Oh . . . I didn’t mean it was cool that you have acne. I just meant like, that genetics and stuff is cool.”
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Anyways, this was when me and my brother and my friend from New York went on a road trip to Mansura, LA, to visit this other friend of ours. Talk about the middle of f** nowhere! But it was awesome. And his parents have this “camp,” they call it, on the bayou. I mean, there’s basically nothing to do in the place, but that’s what so fun because, you know, you have to use your creative side and think things up. Like, one day we went to Wal-Mart and spent like three hours in there just playing with things. My brother, who’s like 6’ 5”, 250 lbs. sat in this lounge chair, one of those that has the little wooden lever on the side that makes the foot rest pop-up? It was a kids version of one of those. Yeah, he sat in it and broke it. It was hysterical. Oh, here’s the picture!.”
“Oh yeah. I like that one. That’s funny.”
“Isn’t it? So then we bought Hanes whitey-tighties and a tie-die kit ‘cause we thought it would be cool and kind of different to, like, tie-die underwear, right? It was so funny.”
“Yeah, that’s so funny.”
“So we tie-died these underwear. And my friend and I were walking around the house in them, see, there’s me playing pool in them. And some local kids who were friends with our friend came over and said ‘Nice pontlets.’ But evidently in Louisiana they call women’s underwear pontlets. And that makes sense, right, because the French originally settled in Louisiana, and those are French words.”
“Yeah, you’re right. That does make sense.”
“I’m sitting there talking to the guy and he asks me what I do for fun in D.C., when I’m not tie-dying underwear right? And I sort of paused and he was like, ‘Do y’all do that midget throwin’ up there?’”
“What?”
“Yeah. And I was like ‘Excuse me?’ And he said, ‘Yeah it’s real big in the northern cities up there. You call this number and rent a midget, and they show up at your door in protective clothing. And you and your friends see who can throw them the farthest, and then they run back to you.’”
“Are you for real?”
“No lie. I went to look it up to see if it actually exists and it totally does.
“Oh my God, that’s so messed up.”
“Right? And then he asked me if I’d ever looked myself up on the Internet. And I was like ‘Hello? Google?’ and he grinned really big like he had too.”
