Sunday morning, 11:00am.
Laura: Hey, hey HEY!!! Adam, wake up! Are you up? I’m going out to do those things. Do you understand what you need to do while I’m out?
Adam: Sure!
Laura: OK, what are they? Can you tell me?
Adam: My job is to get bitten by the snakes.
Laura: No… NO! That is NOT your responsibility at all! In fact. it’s pretty much the exact opposite of your responsibility.Your job is just to wake up!
Adam: Oh, OK.
Laura: I have to make a few stops… going first to Kiwis for milk, toilet paper and hot cereal, then at that Goodbye Blue Monday place for coffee. While I’m gone you all you have to do is just wake up and get out of bed.
Adam: That seems like an awful lot of trouble … just to dress that thing up like a lion.
Laura: I know… wait, WHAT?
Adam: I can’t find the snake. Do YOU have it?
Laura: I DEFINITELY do NOT have the snake. There is NO snake. OK, I’m going to go get us coffee. You just… you just stay there I guess. Think you can handle that?
Adam: You love me!
Laura: It’s true, I do. You just stay there and try not to injure yourself, k?
Adam: zzzzzzz
Laura: Sigh… exactly.
“Yeah, I know God says he loves me, but why does he have to be so Ike Turner about it?”
“The Organization for People with Extremely Minimal yet Annoying Disabilities.” That would be the name of my yet-to-be-founded not for profit organization. As the (sort of) unfortunate recipient of one of the aforementioned disabilities I feel uniquely qualified to understand the many trials and tribulations that my fellow extremely minimally disabled brethren endure on a day to day basis. While most organizations dedicated to the disabled tend to focus on large issues like educating the public or lobbying congress to pass legislation benefiting their cause I feel that the scope for my group should be somewhat smaller. Both due to the fact that it seems natural that those who are minimally disabled should only feel obligated to make a minimal commitment and also because I suffer from extreme procrastination. While that is not technically my disability I feel that it might as well be. It’s probably impacted my life in far worse ways than my actual problem. For instance it seems likely that TOPEMAD is doomed to the same fate as many of my other ideas, which is to say that the effects of a medium to heavy lunch will probably be enough to render it completely forgotten about. And if the lunch itself doesn’t do it in then surely my post-lunch nap would be enough to obliterate it completely from my memory. In fact, that’s the reason TOPEMAD could be such an important organization. Can you imagine having an affiliation dedicated specifically to dealing with the issues that prevented the affiliation from ever existing in the first place? I can’t, in fact it’s making my head hurt just thinking about it but I really do think we’re going to get a lot done if we are able to overcome the minor existential setback of not being able to exist without the existence of a previous, identical organization dedicated solely towards ensuring the existence of the previously aforementioned organization. Actually, that sounds pretty great, I’m going to put it in the mission statement. I’m already getting so much done!
I think this organization could provide a valuable service to many people. For example, I frequently find that I have a lot of disability related complaints throughout the day yet have almost no one to grouse to. We could begin every meeting with a 30 or 40 minute bitch session where I enumerate all of the things I encountered that day that I found annoying. This would be highly beneficial to me as I’d be able to finally get all of these petty annoyances off of my chest and it would be hugely invaluable to everyone else in the group as they’d then have a comprehensive list of all of the things in the world that annoy me, thus making it less likely that one of them would bother me at some future date.
Speaking of dating I think that could potentially be another service that my organization could provide. Because believe it or not it’s been several years since I last had a date of any significance, by which I mean getting anywhere past second base. (First base, of course, being dinner. Second being complaining about the dinner.) Perhaps we could institute some kind of rule whereby every woman who attends a meeting would thereafter be required to go on a date with me. A rule like this would have obvious benefits, such as giving them substantially more information about the things I find perturbing. Also networking. It would be good for networking.
The few people I have discussed this idea with in the past haven’t been incredibly supportive. They had suggestions but sufficed to say I think the real issue is that some people are just a little uncomfortable with the idea of having the Extremely Minimally Disabled empowered in any way. I’m not surprised they feel threatened though. I frequently feel threatened myself… most often by snakes. Snakes, and my mother.
But perhaps that’s something we can discuss later. If you’ll excuse me now I am late for my scheduled lunch. And if that happens then my nap ends up running long and sometimes I just don’t wake up and then before you know it my whole day is shot.
L: A 13 year old ran up to me on the subway today and screamed, “MILF alert!” in my face. While I’m flattered that a 13 year old would want to fuck me I’m insulted that he assumed I’m a mom.
A: I swear to God, you are the weirdest psychologist I know.
L: It’s a weird profession.
A: So, I did something really embarrassing… again.
D: Awesome. How bad? I hope bad. :)
A: Not terrible, just humiliating. Okay, it’s pretty bad actually. I was noodling around on facebook and commented on a friend’s photo. It was of some crazy looking lobster that she was going to eat. But since we used to discuss animal rights stuff in HS I sort of teased her about it a bit.
D: uh-huh. What’s a bit?
A: I just made an obnoxious comment, like I do, and then promptly forgot about it.
D: So what did you say?
A: I may have referred to her as Dr. Mengele.
D: Woah.
A: But that’s not the worst part. It turns out that I mixed up the friends.
D: Huh? Mixed up the friends? So wait, exactly who did you call Dr. Mengele?
A: Remember that girl [redacted] that I slept with a few times last summer?
D: Oh. My. God. That’s AWESOME! When was the last time you even spoke to her?
A: Before calling her a nazi just now? Last summer.
D: I love this! How the fuck did you mix these people up anyway?
A: I don’t know! They both have really similar Jewey names. And they recently changed their photos or something. I just wasn’t paying attention I guess.
D: Wait… she’s JEWISH?!
A: Yeah, well you know how I kept trying to date gentiles but then they would later turn out to be Jewish?
D: Sure, sure. I feel like that’s a uniquely New York kind of problem. But that does put a new spin on this whole thing. Jews don’t usually like being compared to Dr. Mengele.
A: Tell me about it. Anyway, it looks like I referred to this woman, who I haven’t spoken to in months, as the Nazi angel of death in response to a picture of a lobster and now I’m afraid that it makes me look like I’ve had a psychotic break.
D: It really does! How many times did you sleep with her anyway?
A: I don’t know, like two or three times. Not a lot.
D: Oh! So why do you even care what she thinks?
A: I don’t know! Because I’m shallow, OK?! In my defense, it really WAS a super creepy looking lobster.
D: Yeah, I’m not sure that’s really going to matter here. This really does make you look like an obsessed, crazy person. The worst part is that you can’t really do anything to fix it without appearing even more crazy.
A: I know! But that’s why I’m coming to you. There has to be something I can do to dilute the insanity out of this event without looking like a stalker.
D: Yeah, I’m not so sure there is. I think you’re just going to look crazy-pants no matter what. Maybe you can write out an explanation in your own blood and nail it to her door. You know, just to really drive the creepiness thing home.
A: Why do I even come to you?
D: You love me!
A: I hate you. Besides, I’ll bet you there’s something I can do. Just wait… you’ll see.
D: I doubt it. But keep me posted anyway.
