Enlightening Nonsense

My Mom told me that she wanted to take me shopping the next day and I was like, “Snap! Girl’s day at the mall!” But I don’t really need anything and as much as I would like to have a mani & pedi and get my hair done, I didn’t really see the point. But she insisted and so we went.

We went to Marshall’s, which is a department store where stuff is priced more affordably for the masses. I was almost disgusted to have to have my Coach bag enter such an establishment but all my years of yogic discipline allowed me to go into the store with only a couple of dozen eye rolls and other snobberies.

My Mom took me here last year when I came for a visit, insisting that the stretched out underwear that I was wearing which could fit Al Roker’s pre-stomach stapling fat ass, of which I had bunched the right hip-side band and tied with a hair-tie so it wouldn’t drop to my ankles, might be suitable for a homeless man but—at the moment—I was not homeless and she didn’t want to see those fat reds in her condo.

I knew I was going to miss the security I felt of having a thick knot on my hip which I used to get sympathy from people who would ask me, “What the hell is that bump on your right hip,” by telling them it was a tumor that I couldn’t afford to have removed on account that I was sending all the money I earned to my sick mother in Florida. But weighing the possibility that my stretched-out fatties might affect my access to the refrigerator, I let the bitch buy me some new drawers.

I like those Calvin Klein underwears that are like shorts but in underwear material, what is that, cotton? But I somewhat detest anything that is “commercial,” which means that once they put their name on the waistband it jacks the price of a measly pair of panties to like $20 a pair.

The last time I spent that much on a pair of drawers was when I bought a pair of edible underwear for a slutty girlfriend of mine. Times were tough and I figured it would provide her with a gift that made her feel sexy and would provide me with a meal. Unfortunately, she wore them during her period and after my first bite I was reminded of the time when I worked in the metal shop and ate a whole pile of iron filings. I did finish them but afterwards was feeling too nauseous to eat anything else, which included her pussy. In hindsight, I probably should have just gotten her some cheap panties and drawn a heart on them with a red magic marker and taken the leftover $18 and gone out for a feast. Ah, 20/20 hindsight vision!

So this time my mother was like, “We’ll get you some underwear.” I didn’t really need underwear. I mean, I had one pair already. She said, “We’ll get you some socks as well.” I thought this was a bit of sockism, her clearly having a bias against my gray socks that were originally white, but the last time I called my Mom a sockist she put one of hers up my ass and, shall we say, it was still attached to her foot.

I saw an electric nose hair clipper and was like, “I want this!” as the last cheap one I bought broke and having to go back to the torturous tweezer-tugging method after the luxury of having a swirling blade tenderly trim inside my delicate nostrils has been somewhat of a nightmare. We picked up a couple of pairs of underwear and a package of white tube socks, as my sockist mother told me that no “coloreds” were allowed into her condo. And then my mother went wandering, looking for anything I may want, and I was to browse for anything else that may tickle my fancy. The last thing to tickle my fancy was a male security guard and let’s just say, I wasn’t tickled pink about it. I only like my fancy tickled with my approval; fucking it requires no screening process.

I seriously don’t need any clothes. Not that I have the greatest collection in the world but I am more concerned with function than form and the $1 pair of jeans I bought at the outdoor junk store on 52^nd Street that were too big but would stay up with a belt (uh, reminds me of my red fatties!) seemed way more worth it to me than some pair of Levi’s that would cost $40, whether put on my mother’s tab or not. But I browsed.

And then suddenly I felt overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t need anything and I was being given the opportunity to buy anything I wanted, which might be expected if I were a Beverly Hills princess, but at this moment it felt like I was being showered with jewels and silks when people were outside my castle with no shoes, wearing ripped shirts and the red fatties that I had thrown in the garbage last year. Who the hell was I to “deserve” this? I hid in between the rack of shirts and the rack of shorts, for I am considered a cool guy and crying over underwear would be a hard sell even for a wordsmith like myself.

My mother had picked up a shirt with four quadrants of different colors that she thought I might like. This woman has never had a clue as to my tastes, as exemplified when she bought me a new shower curtain that was maroon with tassels and bathroom towels that, while they matched the shower curtain, were so thin as to make them akin to “the weaker paper towel” in the old Bounty commercials. I considered that I could use that gay shirt when teaching yoga to martial artists by shouting at them, “BLUE!” or “ORANGE!” or “GREEN!” or “FUSIA!” and having them throw a striking technique at the proper quadrant in between breathing deeply and OM-ing.

When my Mom was at the cashier, I saw some earbud headphones for $8 and grabbed them and said, “I want these, too.” Electronics don’t fit into my, “I am not worthy!” pantywaist display of whinery.

On the way to the car, I thanked my Mom for buying me shit I didn’t need and felt very lucky that I have always been well provided for. And then, because I can’t leave anything as just two girls shopping, I pondered. After about ten minutes of pondering about whether I liked alligators or crocodiles better and if I even knew the distinction between the two, I reflected on the guilt that is associated with receiving.

I don’t know if this occurred in the New Testament or not, as I only refer to that rag to grab snippets to use against Bible toters, but I do know this scene was in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar because I was in a production of this show, playing the small role of Jesus’ Gay Love Slave. The scene I am talking about is where Jesus is lying back with his posse while one of his hoes is rubbing oil on his feet. Judas had a conniption fit and said, “Those fancy oils could have raised 200 silver pieces and been used for the poor.” He didn’t actually say it, because it was a musical, he sung it.

Jesus replied back, “Bitch, don’t be hatin’! There will be poor always, pathetically struggling. That don’t mean I can’t get my feet rubbed or dick sucked, speaking of which—Gay Love Slave, get your scrappy ass over here! Be happy that a mack daddy like me even hangs with a future betraying bitch like you.” Perhaps I should mention that the production was an adaptation of that play called Jesus Christ Super Pimp.

There will always be people less fortunate than you and struggling. What are you going to do about it? Most will just gab about it, trying to get credit for “caring” when they really don’t give a shit either way, just as long as those brown-skinned people don’t show up at their daughter’s Sweet Sixteen. Some will get “active,” which means they will bother everyone they ever come into contact with about the starving and needy and bug them for money.

For the most part, I don’t want anything to do with either one of these douchebags. If anything, I would prefer the former douche to the latter because at least this may get me invited to his daughter’s Sweet Sixteen where I can try and pick up some 15-year olds. The latter douche will just ruin any situation she is invited to by making all roads lead to Rome, where “Rome” is her annoying cause of choice.

“I started taking a drawing class and I’m really excited to express myself creatively on paper!”

“The starving children of Zimbabwe would be happy if they could just eat.”

“Uh, gee, thanks for bringing that up. It would have probably have made me feel bad if I gave a shit.”

I am not saying that by becoming active in some cause to feed the hungry and clothe the naked that you are wasting your time. Heck, at the few nude beaches I’ve gone to, I saw a bunch of disgusting bodies that I wish some bleeding heart foundation has clothed! I think the key is to not let the fact that other people are less fortunate than you make it so that you can’t enjoy what you are able to have yourself.

When I used to leave any of my Mom’s lame cooking over on the plate, she would say the tired old, “There are people starving in Africa,” line. I would respond, “If you fed them this crap, they would probably be grateful that they are starving!”

But that is the key word: grateful. And even without the word “dead” after it, it still is one of the fundamental Truths of happy living. Be grateful—not guilty—for whatever you are receiving. Your soul, for whatever reason, has chosen to live on this trajectory and not another. Your soul didn’t choose to drown off the Titanic so that some rich bitch could occupy the extra seat on the rowboat with her mink stole. Your soul wasn’t ready to check out of its body in Vietnam allowing your government to leave one more family fatherless over a war about nothing. You’re here alive right now, reading this piece this very minute, perhaps wishing you were dead before reading this piece so you wouldn’t have had to read it. Don’t apologize for it—be grateful for it! (your life, not this crappy piece.)

Many of us, whether we have worked hard to achieve the level of comfort we currently have or achieved it the old fashion way, by mugging a stripper after a busy Saturday night of rubbing her thonged ass against the hard-on of a horny swami, hold onto guilt about residing in comfort. Often it is subconscious, below awareness, frozen in the iceberg beneath the surface, and no matter how much you smile as you buy the latest trinket that you don’t need, there is a twinge of guilt that resides there like Jaws waiting to come up and chew the naked woman enjoying a little nighttime skinny dip because she was menstruating and didn’t have a pair of $20 edible underpants to soak up her endometrial wall shedding.

All this guilt does is to kill the full joy you could experience eating that expensive meal that a family in India could live on for a month, or buying that fancy pair of shoes that is made from some little girl in China working her 17-hour shift in a sweatshop so that your dumb ass can be considered “stylish,” or blowing that load in your pants after the fifth lap dance in a row at the titty bar that cost you $100 when you could have found a cheap hooker on 8^th Avenue to blow you for $5 worth of crack.

Either buy or do what you will and enjoy it fully or don’t buy or do it at all. Savor that meal to the fullest or don’t order it. Walk with a hop in your step like the kangaroo whose skin was used to make your shoes or don’t buy them. Soak your underwear to the brim with semen, hopefully a pair that your mother was going to make you throw out anyway, or don’t get the lap dance—or two, or five. Go out with the guy for a date and be there fully, whether it ends up being a lot of fun filled with laughter and anal sex or a total bore where he spends the whole night talking about his car. Don’t sit there and spend the night regretting your decision or feel guilty about taking it in the ass.

I opened the door of the car for my mother like a gentleman. And as she bend over to get inside, I slapped her ass and said, “Thanks for the booty, toots, and by ‘booty’ I don’t mean that fat ass of yours.” When I got home, I put on my new underwear, a pair of new socks, that gay shirt my mother picked up and clipped my unruly nose hairs with my new electric trimmer. I thought about how the people in the remotest areas of Africa don’t have electric nose hair trimmers and was appreciative that I was not a savage like them.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Self-Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.