Poop War of 2012

I believe more people are concerned about dog poop than any other issue facing our nation today. Not only is the owner concerned when his dog does not poop or poops too often, but also not a day goes by for a yardless dog owner without someone making a comment about where or when his dog poops.

David Letterman once made a joke that if an alien landed on Earth and saw a man walking his dog and witnessed the man bending over and cleaning up the dog’s poop, he would consider the dog the more intelligent being.

I would never in a million years want to change a diaper, but I have no problem putting a plastic bag over my hand and picking up dog poop, which is also when the Jewish mother in me comes out, for I am concerned with firmness, consistency and color. After all, the colon is the window to your health. This is why whenever you come back from the bathroom in a Jewish home, everyone asks, “Are you ok?”

As an apartment dweller and now a trailer park queen, I have never had the luxury of opening a door and letting my dog go out into the yard. That means, by my crude calculation, in twenty-six years I have bagged 23,725 pounds of poop. That is a lot of shit.

I am so glad I always had small dogs. I do have a rule: I will never have a dog whose poop is bigger than mine.

My friend Charles has a very large and beautiful chocolate lab named Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella for short. Ella is now sixteen and still going strong. She also tap dances when she is excited. Once when I was staying at his house for a book signing, I remarked that having a dog that large was like having a pet horse. Ella’s head is as big as mine. I offered to walk Ella and my Serena together, and he said take a large bag because her poop is enormous. I prayed she would not have to go. Unfortunately, she did. For the first time in my life, I gagged while cleaning up poop. I should have brought a shovel and a cart.

My friend Ed once had a Great Dane, named Gable, in a New Jersey apartment! He told me he mastered the art of holding a Hefty bag below his dogs poop chute and catching all he had to offer. That story made me gag.

The worst thing, however, is when you take your dog for a walk and three blocks from your house you realize you forgot to grab a bag. This is also the time your dog decides to take a dump in the mean old man with a shotgun’s yard. And just as your dog finishes evacuating, he steps out his front door, and you say as quickly as possible, “I forgot my bag; I’ll get one right now and be right back.”

The beauty of having a small dog is that you can pick her up, run home, grab a bag, come back, and clean it up before he has a chance to reload.

Having female dogs presents its own problem. Amazingly, people who don’t own dogs do not understand biology. They think all dogs lift a leg when they pee. If they see a female dog squatting to pee, they assume a present is being left for them. Once in Mount Pleasant, a lady screamed at me, “Are you going to clean that up?”

I screamed back, “Not without a sponge.” She then ran out to her yard to find the offending shit pile but was shocked when nothing was there. She thought I was a magician.

Esmeralda doesn’t just pee. She has to find the perfect spot and then perform figure eights for a minute before finally squatting and taking a long luxurious piss. More than once in my new neighborhood, I have had to explain that she is a female dog and they squat rather than lift a leg.

One night after dinner with a friend, we were walking Esmeralda, and she started her Dorothy Hamill compulsory figures. I had just remarked about how friendly my neighbors were when this old man with an oxygen tank yelled at me, “That dog isn’t going to shit in my yard is it?”

We immediately walked to another spot, and my friend remarked that not everyone was friendly. I informed him that every neighborhood has the mean old man with a shotgun, or in our case, an oxygen tank. Did I mention he was smoking at the time? Another reason we chose to scurry out of there.

Before she poops, Esmeralda trots laps back and forth then walks in circles. When I first adopted her, I didn’t know this, and I thought she was trying to walk in the other direction rather than where we were heading. I don’t know how many times I nudged her back in the direction we were going and wondering if she would ever poop outside rather then immediately upon returning to our horrible apartment in Rockville.

The first time I realized what she was doing and she finally did pooped outside, I said jokingly, “Praise Jesus.” That was a mistake. “Praise Jesus” became our command for taking a poop, and even though I am Jewish, I prayed to Jesus that no one would ever hear me say that to make her poop outside. Fortunately, she quickly got the hang of things, I figured out her bowel movement schedule, and pooping was no longer a religious experience.

Once we moved into the park, with the exception of mean old man with an oxygen tank, things were going well, until …

My dog walker, Mrs. M, adopted the most adorable beagle basset mix, we’ll call Buddy because that is his name. Buddy, also a rescue, is two years old and has epilepsy. He loves Mrs. M, but he won’t go near anyone else. He and Esmeralda are boyfriend and girlfriend – she, the older woman, he, the younger man.

Mrs. M soon discovered that Buddy found two spots where he loved to poop, Mary’s yard and Madge’s yard. Good citizen that she is, Mrs. M always cleans up after Buddy, but someone in the neighborhood was not doing his or her duty, and feces was discovered in both of their yards.

That is when the Poop War of 2012 began. Mary accused Mrs. M of leaving a present in her yard, which of course, Mrs. M denied. Then Madge declared that Mrs. M and Miss K, who happens to have a beagle puppy, are not welcome to walk their dogs near her yard. Madge said she does not like dogs and as the first person to move into the community seventeen years ago, she feels she has a right to establish her rented as off limits to dogs.

I have declared neutrality in the Poop War of 2012. Esmeralda pees in Mary’s yard all the time, and Mary has not said a word. I think giving Mary some of my truckload of mulch didn’t hurt. Madge’s yard is not convenient for walking, so we have never had an issue.

But when the women folk get to arguing, beware of your alliances.

My being so young, charming and handsome does have its advantages.

One day, I was at the mailboxes, and Madge pulled up in her rather large and old SUV, stepped out and made nice, nice with Esmeralda. I thought this strange since Mrs. M and Miss K both told me she doesn’t like dogs. We chatted for a second about nothing in particular and went our separate ways.

As I was walking back to my house, Mrs. M and Miss K approached and both asked what she said to me. I said nothing really. She talked to Esmeralda and that was it. Something told me neither was happy with that answer. I think they wanted me to declare war on Madge.

My being so young, charming and handsome can at times be a disadvantage.

Fortunately so far, no one is angry with Esmeralda or me.

I just hope I am not called in to mediate a truce. Getting into the middle of a poop war seems like a pretty shitty prospect to me.

If you have handled your share of poop, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

Look Who Got Old and Fat!

The good thing about Facebook is you get to become a self-centered narcissistic ass who thinks every aspect of your dull existence is worth sharing with the world in the hopes of getting a reality show based on your life. Of course, that thought never occurred to me.

Ahem.

The other good thing about Facebook is that you can look through the photo albums of past flames and remark on their non-graceful aging and expanding waistlines. Of course, I would never do that.

Ahem.

A recent study showed that people who have more friends on Facebook have higher self-esteem, and many people base their self-worth on how many Facebook friends they have. Of course, I would never base my self-worth on the number of Facebook friends I have.

Reality check.

I use Facebook to promote my books and blog and to write bizarre posts about the crazy things – and people – I encounter as I lead my bizarre, everyday life. And, I base my self-esteem on how many people comment on my posts. I also like to post pictures of my landscaping attempts around my trailer. After all, I am the Gay Jew in the Trailer Park, so you must – absolutely must – see what I am doing to flame up my single-wide, whether you like it or not. Hint: click on the “Like” button.

Facebook uses me to see how long it takes an optimist can become a bitter old queen. According to the results of this experiment, it takes about three minutes for the conversion to be complete. Some would argue there is no conversion to complete.

A lot of us use social networking to catch up with – or more specifically – find old friends from our past, and this is where our parents had it a lot easier. There is something about losing touch with people that makes life so much better. But in our world of constant contact and updates on our everyday comings and goings, too much information is definitely contributing to our shorter lifespans. See, it has nothing to do with the economy or the national debt or lack of universal health care.

There is a reason God made the Earth so big: so we could move away and not look back. Did we learn nothing from Mrs. Lot? Salt causes hypertension, and so does looking up your old friends and lovers.

Take it from someone who is approaching fifty and still single; stop looking back!

Here is how our parents received an update on an old flame:

“Remember that redhead you dated in high school with the big tits?”

“Yes. How is she?”

“Dead.”

See. No drama, no curiosity. Just the facts.

As an historical researcher, I cannot help but look up old friends to find out where they are, what they are doing, whom they have married and divorced, how many kids they have, and lately, who is now a grandparent. I still refuse to believe I am old enough to have contemporaries with grandchildren. They must be foster grandchildren or there is a typo in the photo captions.

In my research, this is what I have discovered.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he found Jesus and had become straight and was going to marry a woman married a woman, had a kid, moved to the northwest, divorced the woman, married a man, put on at least fifty pounds, and has not aged well.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he met someone else, moved to the Midwest with his new boyfriend, broke up with him, moved to the West Coast, is on his third boyfriend, put on at least fifty pounds, and has not aged well.

The guy who told me he couldn’t see me anymore because he was actually dating someone else at the same time, just celebrated a milestone anniversary, travelled the world, and bought a house with his Mister Man. And yes, he put on at least fifty pounds and has not aged well.

Actually, he is more buff than ever, but his unattractive face does look much older.

To me, none of them look happy. Oh sure, they are smiling in all their photographs, but I can see the pain and misery they are experiencing. I know unhappiness when I see it.

As Queen Elizabeth I said, “We have no need of the looking glass! The look on your face says enough.”

If you look me up, you will notice I have not put on a pound and have not aged a minute. Using a high school picture of me on the beach as my profile photo doesn’t hurt matters. However, it might be difficult to believe my dog, Daisy, is thirty-one now.

Surprisingly, with the exception of the ex-gay who became gay, finding the old nasty ass bastards didn’t bother me. The problem with Mr. Ex-Gay was over the years he would send letters to my family looking for me, and they would forward these strange letters where he professed his love of Jesus and how happy being straight was for him. Included in each letter was a picture of him running a marathon or doing some other physical activity shirtless. Talk about confusing. Now, he is a big old gay man living on a ranch with his flamer of a husband. I have never met his husband, but from the pictures, I can tell he is a flamer. The smile and head angle always give it away. However, he is still a homophobe and has a real problem with any outward appearance of gayness as one can observe from his Facebook rants.

A piece of advice. If you use a current profile picture, delete any photos of you on Facebook that are more than three years old. There is no reason for anyone to see how much you’ve aged. If you can see them; they can see you.

You could do what I do. In the car collector world, I am known as a twenty-footer. I do not allow close-ups. I have a contract like Lucille Ball’s in Here’s Lucy – no close ups and always use a filter.

Past lovers and friends aside, there is another aspect of Facebook that drives me crazy. I call it “The Invitation Was Lost in the Mail” album, and it appears every Monday morning.

There you are sitting at your desk, eating a muffin (that is as big as your ass) as quickly as possible before any of your officemates arrive. You are perfectly rested because other than running a few errands, you had no weekend plans and stayed home Saturday night eating an order of sesame chicken and a pint of Chunky Monkey while watching Keeping Up Appearances on PBS. You log onto Facebook, and what do you see? A friend of yours, and not just a Facebook friend, has posted pictures from a party he attended. Not only do you know the host, but also every other goddam nasty ass guest who was there.

How nice for him. How nice for everyone.

If it weren’t for Facebook, you would probably have a good Monday, but now, all you can think is “Why wasn’t I invited?” “Did I offend someone? Oh, that couldn’t be it. I offend everyone.” “What is wrong with me?” “Why am I not loved?”

Then, you sniff your armpits. No, everything smells all right there.

Now, if you had fewer Facebook friends, you would find fewer pictures of your friends attending parties, and you would have higher self-esteem. So you see that whole theory about the number of Facebook friends is bullshit.

I am convinced all those people holding red plastic cups and smiling while attending their fabulous parties aren’t really happy and are full of shit as well.

Bitter, party of one!

If you base your self-esteem on my fabulous life, get on my email list, follow me, become my friend!

I Know Why the Straight Man Sings

I like boobs.

There, I said it. The fact is I know a lot of gay men who like boobs. It isn’t a sexual thing; it’s an appreciation for thing of beauty … and power. Surprisingly, I know a lot of lesbians who also like boobs. Who knew?

Why do guys like me like boobs? One reason – jealousy. I am jealous because women can accentuate the one thing that makes straight men crazy anywhere, any place, any time and not get in trouble.

Mary Jo on Designing Women discovered the power of big boobs when she tried on a pair of falsies. Men did anything she asked. As a co-worker of mine said, “You got the goods; you get the service.”

Do you have a big presentation in front of room full of potential male clients? Ask Sally Rogers for her low cut V-neck dress. Chances are you’ll not only get the contract, but also referrals.

Harriet Lane, niece of President James Buchanan, the first woman to be called First Lady, and subject of the book, HarrietLane, America’s First Lady by Milton Stern (I’ve heard of him), learned early on the power of her bosom. She had the neckline on her inaugural gown lowered two and a half inches. By doing so, she became the most influential fashion icon of her time, and the most powerful woman to live in the Executive Mansion during the nineteenth century. She convinced many a Congressman to push legislation through the chamber. If you don’t believe me, buy my book.

Men can’t do this. We can’t walk into a room full of potential female clients wearing a pair of pants with a low cut V-neck … uh waist. That would be sexual harassment. And if a man has nice hairy pecs, he can’t wear an open shirt to get attention unless he takes a time machine back to 1975 and wears a leisure suit to work.

Want to distract a straight man and turn him into a babbling idiot? Have a big breasted woman stand in front of him. Works every time.

Which brings me to my second reason we like boobs. People look at them. You think they can help themselves, but they can’t. Even straight women look at boobs. Of course, when they look at them they are asking themselves, “I wonder if those are real?”

When I would do drag, I made sure I had the biggest, firmest rack you ever saw. And even though I was a six-foot-nine-inch man in a dress, my boobs still got the most attention. Straight guys would grab them, lesbians would drool over them, and gay men would compliment them. And these weren’t those horrible breast plate titties the drag queens pay hundreds of dollars for today, these were plush dog toys stuffed into a size 52, double-E bra! I didn’t even have nipples!

Even though Serena was wondering what happened to two of her soccer balls while I was out, I still enjoyed the power of big boobs. My jugs had everyone’s attention.

The third reason I like boobs is they are beautiful. When I see a sex scene in a movie, I cannot stop studying the breasts, and I have learned to appreciate nice breasts. I went with my friends Mindy and Ellen to see Frida, starring Salma Hayek. When she first took off her top, I said to Ellen, “Now that is a nice pair of breasts.” And she said, “They certainly are.” Ellen also has a nice rack.

Once on the Metro, this young woman was standing with her boobs at my eye level and wearing a tight sweater. She had the most perfectly shaped and sized breasts, and I wanted so badly to touch them. I don’t know why. It isn’t as if I had never touched boobs, although it has been more than twenty-five years. The last girl whose boobs I touched is a reader of this blog, and I can honestly say they were very nice breasts, and I am sure they still are!

My boob obsession almost got me in trouble the other day in the office. One of our clients, as we call the government employees for whom we as contractors provide a service, is a young, attractive, recent college graduate who is a real go getter and really gets things done – a rarity in the federal workforce. She also wears fashionable clothes and rather low cut tops. I am not sure whose attention she is trying to get because in her agency, the majority of the workforce is middle-aged women and a sprinkling of some of the most unattractive men on the planet earth. She does wear minimal to no make-up and a fashionably short hairstyle. Maybe she’s into middle-aged women. Or, she dresses like that to get things done.

I had some materials for her that were too large to email, so she came down to get a CD from me. I didn’t know she was standing behind me until she said my name. I grabbed the CD and swung my chair around, and the next thing I knew my nose was within inches of her beautiful cleavage. Her top was cut to almost the bottom of her sternum. In those few seconds, I realized a few things.

God has blessed her with a bounty of mammary goodness. Not only are her breasts large, they are perfectly formed and firm, and I'll bet anything they are real. Of course, she is at that age when all the body parts are still where they are supposed to be as opposed to my age when everything is a few miles south of its original location.

If I walk around the house naked, I get rug burns on my testicles.

I also realized that I couldn’t lift my eyes from the sight before me. While I was holding and waving the CD above my head in the hopes she could grab it, I continued to stare at those lovely tits. They were just magnificent.

It is a good thing she was in a hurry because the last thing I realized surprised me. I wanted to bury my face in that fertile valley and play motor boat.

Now, I know why the straight man sings.

One last thing: I was a bottle baby.

If you like tits, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

Never Leave the House without Lipstick

Aunt Minnie once told me that she and her sisters, Aunt Honey and Grandma, never left the house without wearing lipstick. Nana told me she never walked down the street without a hat and gloves. My mother said that when her father found out she took up smoking he told her never to walk down the street smoking a cigarette – only hookers do that.

Judging from how people dress these days and their other habits, you would think they were all just a bunch of trashy hookers. And that includes the men as well.

I love the TV shows of the 1950s and early 1960s when everyone dressed up to do anything including yardwork. Remember the opening sequence of Leave It to Beaver when he is mowing the grass? He is wearing kakis! High water kakis, but kakis nonetheless and a button down shirt. Remember when Lucy got her head stuck in a lovey cup? Ethel wouldn’t go on the subway with her until she changed out of her jeans. I love that episode.

Have you seen what people wear on the Metro? Now we are lucky if their jeans are pulled up past the bottom of their asses. I absolutely hate that look. I don’t get it. It is unattractive. It looks stupid. Will it ever end? Have you seen one of those teenagers (and since it has been around for more than twenty years – adults) try to walk or run? If they only knew that their solidarity with prison folk has to do with taking it up the ass, they might go back to wearing high-waisted pants. I heard that there is a whole generation with hip problems from trying to walk in pants that are cinched at the knees. Good. Dumb asses.

Anyway …

Since my parents never gave me any advice, except to not have children. Well, they never said that, but after living with them while growing up, I surmised that was the wisdom they wished to impart. Most if not all of my sage advice came from my grandmothers and other elderly aunts. My grandfathers died before I was born, so my biggest influences were gray-haired or wig wearing old Jewish women with too much lipstick and always appearing surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke. I was almost eleven years old before I realized neither grandmother, nor their sisters, were related to Endora.

And you wonder how I turned out the way I did. It is no mystery to me.

Of the many things I learned was that one never went out without wearing a girdle, had her or his face on, and your hair done. I cannot imagine what they would think if they were alive today. I can proudly say I try never to leave the house without all three.

You want to see slobs; go to a supermarket in the middle of the day, during the week. You would think these were the people who work from home. Oh no. These are housewives … excuse me … stay at home moms. It is a sea of faded ripped jeans, flip flops and fried red hair. What is it with dying your hair a cross between magenta and burnt sienna and then never bothering to wash or comb it? Seriously?

The strangest thing is all of them, and I mean all of them, have manicured nails. The nails are green, blue, black, and purple, but I’ll be damned if they are not professionally manicured. So, they don’t have a comb at the beauty parlor where you get your nails painted?

Even when I am running a quick errand at 6:00 am after the gym, I am put together, and I have a hat on to cover my bed head. As a matter of fact, I am the only guy in the gym at 5:00 am who wears a hat to cover my undone hair, but you can be assured that the hat coordinates with my choice of shorts and shirt on any particular day. Since Krav Maga classes take place mid-morning, by then, I have showered and primped. I usually win best hair, and no matter how much I sweat, my hair remains in place. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Yes, my Krav Maga outfit is also color coordinated although one day I made an odd choice of a yellow T-shirt with charcoal sweat pants. I was experimenting. Fortunately, no one commented, but I still won best hair.

With the exception of the 6:00 am grocery run that takes place maybe once a month, I have never run even the simplest errand without having the three elements mentioned above … until recently.

Yesterday, I decided to be creative and put pebbles under my deck inside my walkway to spruce up my front yard, so I showered, put on an outfit Beaver Cleaver would have worn to mow the grass, kakis and a button-down shirt, and drove over to Lowe’s to pick up nine bags of pebbles. Amazingly, well not that amazing if you know me, I managed to load the bags on a cart then wheel them to my car and load that 450 pounds of pebbles into my car without getting a speck of dirt on me or breaking a sweat.

Honey, they don’t call me a flaming queen for nothing. Being Jewish doesn’t hurt either.

Once, I arrived home, I changed into an old pair of sweats and a stained sweatshirt I save for these lawn care tasks in fifty-degree weather and proceeded with my project. Depending on temperature and humidity level, I have just the right outfit, including coordinated older pairs of Chuck Taylors. You never know who is going to drive by!

After an hour, it became quite obvious that I did not have enough pebbles, and by them I was covered in a layer of pebble dust, my hair was no longer perfect, and I didn’t even want to know how my face looked, but I needed to return to Lowe’s for more rocks. Esmeralda, who was lying in the grass observing me, managed to stay perfectly coiffed and looking pretty as ever the entire time.

Time was limited since I had dinner plans with my friend Frank, so I did something unthinkable. After taking Esmeralda inside and grabbing my wallet and keys, I hopped into the car, looking as if I just crawled out from under my deck, which I actually did, and drove over to Lowe’s for nine more bags of pebbles.

Quick shopper that I am, I rushed into the garden center, grabbed a cart and went straight back to the pebble area. The store was empty, so I was able to load up another 450 pounds of pebbles, wheel the cart up front and pay in less than fifteen minutes. Then, I quickly wheeled the cart to my car, and no sooner had I opened the liftgate and started loading the bags, when I heard, “Milton!”

Damn me for driving a thirty-year-old station wagon! You just can’t hide something like that.

I turned around, and standing there was a guy I dated briefly a few years ago, and next to him was his life partner or lover or latest boyfriend or trick from the previous night.

“How have you been? This is Rod.” Or did he say Robert or Rocky or Richard?

“I’ve been good.”

We chatted for just a few seconds, and as they walked away, I heard Ricky, or was it Ralph or Renaldo, say to him, “Looks like you dodged a bullet.”

At that moment, I felt Grandma, Nana, Aunt Minnie, Aunt Rose, Aunt Anita, Aunt Flossie, and Aunt Renee roll over in their graves in unison, and I swear I saw a large cloud of tobacco-smoke materialize overhead. Even Endora was disappointed.

If you never leave the house without lipstick, follow me, join me, get on my email list.

The Whore of Babylon

Elaine Boosler is one of my favorite comedians, and she used to have a routine about coming home after a one-night stand, wearing the same black dress, and mother’s shielding their children’s eyes while they watched her do the walk of shame like the Whore of Babylon.

All of us have done the walk of shame, but depending on where you live, the level of shame varies quite a bit. In the city, the only onlookers who warrant your concern are the homeless people, and chances are some of them have showered more recently than you have. Most of them also have a hat to cover the headboard bump in their hair. How many times have you said, “Why didn’t I put a hat in my purse?”

If there is room for last night’s underwear, there is room for a hat.

My mother dated Seymour at around the same time my father dated Devera. Then by some strange crossing of stars, my parents were married and Devera and Seymour were married within two weeks of each other. Through the years, we always heard the story of my mother’s hose ending up in Seymour’s glove compartment after a wild night of drinking. Due to the ickiness of anyone’s parents’ sex life, I never asked any of the involved parties to elaborate.

There was also the story of Mother and Devera driving one car while Dad and Seymour drove behind them. Mother looked in the rearview mirror and Dad was driving, then she looked again, and Seymour was driving. Those were the days of bench seats; but still, the visual was disturbing for any number of apparent reasons.

But again, I digress ….

Back in the day, I did any number of walks of shame, but that was back in my twenties. Remember your twenties? You could be out all night, come home, get one hour’s sleep, shower, dress for work, and put in a double shift then do the whole thing all over again the next night.

Then you turn thirty, and your body betrays you immediately. All of a sudden you need to get to sleep. You are still working the same job, but for the first time in your life, you say, “I have to work in the morning.”

Your potential repeat casual sex partner, whose name you still have not requested and wouldn’t have remembered anyway says, “Didn’t you have to work in the morning last week?”

“Yes, but last week, I was twenty-nine years old.”

“Oh, happy birthday … how about a quicky in the parking lot?”

Unless you own a Nash Ambassador (the car that turns into a bedroom), I have no possibility of doing it with you in a parking lot. I have always been too tall for the back seat, and don’t even try the front.

When I did the walk of shame, it was in an apartment complex. Nobody cared or noticed what time I came in or left. This has advantages. You never have to explain where you were or whom you were with, and depending on your closeted status, you don’t have to change Bob’s name to Betty.

The disadvantage is that on the off-chance your one night stand was the best sex you ever had, no one is there to ask you where you were last night, so you can tell him about the wild fabulous sex you had while being tied to a bed and tickled with a feather duster.

Do you know what S&M would be for someone like me with Joan Crawfordish OCD? Tying me to the bed and rearranging my furniture.

I once had a trick who moved two items on my coffee table while I was in the kitchen getting us drinks, and when I sat down, I put them back where they were without saying a word. I’ll bet he was scared at that point – probably thought I was a serial killer. I get that a lot.

When I think of the tricks whom I invited to my home or vice versa back in the days before the Internet and cell phones, it is a wonder I was never robbed. Actually, it isn’t. Whenever I got lucky, I made sure to tell a friend, have the friend make a mental picture of my latest conquest before we left the bar, and reminded that friend to call me first thing in the morning to be sure I was alive.

For those of you who do the internet pick-ups, be sure to have the person you are hooking up with call you, so his number is on your cell phone. Then write the number down and put it in a place where the coroner or detectives will find it.

And you thought you wouldn’t learn anything today.

My tricking days are long gone. Sometimes I feel like Shelly Winters, who said after a life of debauchery and sleeping with every well-hung leading man in Hollywood, “I am done with sex,” and from age fifty-two to the end of her life, she no longer had relations. However, after reading both her autobiographies, I think her vagina was just tired. 

When we put my father in an assisted living facility after the onset of Alzheimer’s, he became the Casanova of the senile set. While his mind was gone, his body was that of a man twenty years younger, and he was the only man in the place who wasn’t in a wheelchair. He did more women than a sex addict at a sorority reunion. He also had the advantage of not having to remember their names, and if he did one twice, it was a whole new experience. My brother nicknamed him “Yencing Matilda.”

When he died, every woman in there sat shiva, and it wasn’t even a Jewish facility.

There is no walk of shame in a nursing home either. His mother, Grandma, also had Alzheimer’s, and she had a boyfriend who used to wait for her in her bed. They were introduced every night.

In a mobile home community, things are a bit different. All of us know each other’s business just by seeing whose car is parked out front … and for how long.

For example, Ms. K has a boyfriend who owns his own plumbing company. His truck is out front all the time, but one morning, there was a Chrysler 300, and Mrs. M said to me, “Well, looks like she picked up a new one.”

I immediately thought about how I would handle explaining a strange car in front of my house all night.

When I was dating Mr. Wrong (and no, I still have not heard from him), he stayed overnight after the second date. When he left, he texted me that two of my neighbors across the street were watching him from their windows.

I knew who, Mrs. M and Ms. K.

I also knew someone would ask me something.

Before she did, I had to wonder how this would affect our relationship. Mrs. M is Esmeralda’s dog walker, who is also a devout Catholic and a good friend now, but I knw nothing of her politics. Her husband is crazy about me because of my old cars and my love of gadgets that sell for only two easy payments of $19.99, and as you know, straight men are one of my demographics, but Mrs. M is not a middle-age Jewish woman, my other demographic. However, she has been to a party at my house when it was full of queens and dykes, and she fit in just fine. But this would be the first time she would encounter gay sex on her block. Or would it?

Mrs. M came over within fifteen minutes with the excuse of having a smoke behind my house, so her husband wouldn’t catch her. I still cannot believe he doesn’t smell her Marlboro Lights on her person.

“Did you and your friend have a good time last night?”

“Yes, we ate dinner at this really nice Asian restaurant then saw a movie.”

“We were wondering if those are ski racks on his truck?”

“Yes.”

Imagine if I answered, “Yes, we fucked all night. It’s a wonder I can walk the dog this morning!” Don’t you wish you could do that just once?

Apparently, she wasn’t freaked out at all. And when his truck no longer appeared in the hood, she didn’t ask any questions either, but there is something curious going on because …

This past weekend, a friend of mine drove quite a distance to see a play with me, and I told him to stay overnight since he wouldn’t get home until after 2:00 am if he drove back.

The next morning, we went out to breakfast early then came back to my house before he left.

Fifteen minutes later, I was taking Esmeralda out for her second walk, and Mrs. M drove around the corner and pulled up next to us and asked, “Did you have a good time last night?”

While there were no details worth sharing besides seeing a play and having dinner, do you think she was just hoping to get something juicy? Or is a Gay Jew in a Trailer Park something she never before encountered?

Next time, I’ll give her all the details. Unfortunately, I am so boring in bed, she might wish she never asked.

If you are a whore, or was, or wish you were, follow me, get on my email list, tell your friends.

It Only Happens on Sitcoms

Picture it. New York, 1951. Ethel pokes her head into Lucy’s open window, and Lucy tells her to come right in. Ethel then sits down and finishes Ricky’s breakfast.

Picture it. New Rochelle, 1962. Millie just walks into Laura’s house without even knocking and starts yammering right away.

Picture it. Binley Woods, Warwickshire, a village east of Coventry, 1991. Hyacinth steps outside and insists Elizabeth pop in for a coffee at 10:15. As soon as the coffee is poured, Elizabeth drops a cup from the Royal Dalton with the hand-painted periwinkles on the floor.

Picture it. Chicago, 1975. There is a knock on Bob and Emily’s door and Howard just walks in and starts complaining.

Picture it. Jessup, 2012. There is a knock on my door, and Mrs. M comes in for a chat in the middle of the afternoon with Buddy, her beagle-basset hound mix, who proceeds to hide all of Esmeralda’s chew-bones, while she watches without a care in the world. They stay for more than an hour.

And you thought neighbors only dropped by unannounced on sitcoms.

I remember sitting at a party in West Palm Beach in 1992 (yes, I remember the year), and we were having a heated debate about whether Hazel was a sitcom or documentary. The thesis of one of the debater’s arguments was that the show was never funny. I had to agree. It was annoying, but never funny, but for some inexplicable reason, when I see a rerun of Hazel on TV, I have to stop flicking channels and watch it. I don’t laugh; I just observe and wait for a scene with one of their cool 1960s Fords. Mrs. B drove a Falcon at one time!

Anyway, in the middle of the argument, someone mentioned how Rosie (played by Maudie Prickett), Hazel's best friend, would drop by unannounced. Then we got into a discussion about how on sitcoms friends drop by all the time without so much as a phone call or an invite. All of us agreed that this was a violation of protocol, with one exception – the host, my partner, whose house was arranged like a sitcom set and who in the middle of conversations would turn to the nonexistent audience and wait for a reaction. I swear he got one once, then Marc Daniels yelled, “Cut.”

Seriously, how many of you just knock on your neighbor’s door to sit down and have a chat? I’ll bet none of you. The only time I knocked on a neighbor’s door was if he left his headlights on.

Once I saw a guy in a van ram into one of my neighbor’s cars. I called the police with the license plate number then knocked on the victim's door to tell her what happened. It turns out the van was stolen. A week later, she knocked on my door and yelled at me for giving the police the license plate number because if the driver had not been identified, she wouldn’t have had a deductible, but because of me, she had to pay $500. I vowed never to knock on someone’s door again.

Ceiling or wall yes, door, no.

In an apartment building, you never show up unannounced unless you are delivering a package that arrived in your mailbox by accident, but you never expected or accepted an invite for coffee. In a way, this is strange. Or isn’t it? Maybe we never did this in apartments because we can hear everything through the walls and showing up at someone’s door unannounced would get you sucked into their drama.

And who wants to be sucked into their drama? Oh right, every guy I ever dated.

Now, I haven’t lived in a stick house since 1985, but I don’t remember just knocking on someone’s door to come over and have a chat. Once in all the years we lived there, my mother went over to Mrs. Ruble’s and sat down to have a smoke with her and Mimi Smith. We were playing outside her house, and somehow, everyone ended up at Mrs. Ruble’s. But that was a very rare occurrence indeed.

Then, I saw The Long, Long Trailer, and in that movie, it turns out that in a trailer park showing up unannounced is a common occurrence, but wasn’t that a 1950s version of an RV park? Or did Marjorie Maine really live in a trailer park? Oh wouldn’t that be cool.

But that was a movie, and my life is more like a sitcom. So here I am, the Gay Jew in the Trailer Park. Just as I have in any neighborhood where I lived, I know everyone by name and most of their back stories, which helps when walking Esmeralda and saying hello, and we do stop to have a conversation on the sidewalk all the time, but that is not like showing up at someone’s house.

Soon after I moved in, I came back from a winery tour, and I wanted to give a bottle of wine to Mrs. M for walking Esmeralda while I was out for the afternoon. I called first. When I went over with Esmeralda, she asked me why I called, considering it too formal. She said just come over next time. And, Esmeralda and I sat and chatted with Mrs. and Mr. M for an hour about nothing in particular.

I should have realized this since Mrs. M stopped by a couple of times to watch me put together furniture soon after I moved in.

Two days after the wine delivery, Mrs. M knocked on my door and came in. I offered her a cup of coffee, and in the middle of the conversation, I mentioned how Mrs E’s next door neighbor was having some financial difficulty. Within seconds, she and I were knocking on Mrs. E’s door to get the 4-1-1. I asked if we should have called first, and Mrs. M looked at me as if I were insane. I know that look; I get it all the time. Mrs. E invited us in, and we had another cup of coffee and discussed how we could help her next-door neighbor.

Apparently, I was not well versed in Mobile Home Community Manners. In my new world, one does not call first. One just knocks on the door. I’ve tried to analyze this. Could it be that our homes are closer together than in gated or stick-built neighborhoods but not on top of each other as in apartment buildings? Our streets are wide enough to drive a house down one; they have to be. Maybe our lack of fenced-in yards has something to do with it? Could it be that the average age in my community is fifty-five, so we are of the same generation?

But that was my problem. I was analyzing too much. Face it, trailer park people are just friendlier and more like family. And there is a big reason why. No social ladders to climb. No one is A-list or D-list. We are all T-list. Even if you live in a single-wide as I do, you are just another trailer park queen enjoying life.

Hyacinth with her slim-line phone with automatic redial would never survive in my community.

So, if you want to live where your neighbors look out for you, and at times, watch your every move, then come on down and buy yourself a manufactured home in mobile home community.

And honey, once you move in, you better be sure to have a pot of coffee going at all times. After 5:00, make it decaf.

If you want to come in and sit a spell, follow me, join me, tell your friends.

A Three-Hour Tour

Gilligan’s Island has been in syndication forty-five years, yet whenever someone over-packs for a trip, the first thing he is called is Lovey Howell. Her name was actually Eunice Wentworth Howell.

I used to be a light packer. I spent a week in Austria in 1992, and I travelled with one carry-on bag. I don’t know how I did it. I also travelled from Germany to Austria and back again with no GPS, cell phone, computer or fluency in German.

Try that today.

When we had our goodbye luncheon at my last government project, the event coordinator declared I was the best packer she ever met. Only one person raised an eyebrow. Apparently, I can pack a lot of stuff into a small space. I have a talent; I don’t question it; I just accept it. As a matter of fact, friends ask me to pack their trunks for trips.

I still can pack for a trip in about fifteen minutes. Yes, I am also a fast packer. You never knew what hit you.

Oh, he didn’t just go there.

However, somewhere along the way, while my packing skills have remained, I have become Mrs. Howell. When did I suddenly start needing so much stuff? Recently, I had to go on an overnight business trip, and I brought enough underwear for a month-long safari, even though I don’t have a bladder control problem. My size fourteen shoes can take up an entire suitcase on their own, but when did I start needing four wardrobe changes for every day of a trip? It’s a good thing I don’t travel very often even though I can still pack all that stuff into two suitcases. If one of my bags ever explodes, there will be a brief disaster.

After my last over-packed trip, I decided to a look back at those glorious family vacations we took in the 1970s. My brother is gonna love this.

Arnold and Harryette Stern loved to spend money the few times they had it, and there was a time when vacations were the recipients of their retirement, our college and everyone’s grocery funds. Since they didn’t have money very often, there weren’t that many family vacations. Thank God for small mercies.

Forgive me all you loyal family vacationers, but I cannot think of anything more horrible than a family vacation. My friend Chris used to claim that all divorces were the result of a family vacation. Think about it. You spend twenty-four hours a day for seven days with people you normally see for fifteen or twenty minutes a week. I worked in restaurants in Williamsburg, Virginia, for close to a dozen years, and I never saw a happy family on vacation. Never. I still remember the one mother who came up to the bar, ordered Scotch straight up and proceeded to tell me that she was glad she didn’t carry a gun on this trip. Not only did they have three kids in tow, but also, both grandmothers, who apparently did not like each other. I asked her one question, “What the hell were you thinking?” Her answer was to order another drink.

If Jews learned anything from Moses and Zipporrah, it is never to take your extended family on a trip. Imagine traipsing through the desert for forty years with 630,000 of your closest friends and relatives following you. Moses didn’t go up the mountain to talk to God; he went up there to get the hell away from all those whiny Jews.

What we also learned from Mr. and Mrs. Moses was that Jews always vacation where it is hot. One of our family vacations was to Miami in August. Seriously, and we stayed at the Aztec hotel for one night. It was such a dump that my mother left an unflushed present in the commode before we moved to the Thunderbird Hotel.

As you can see, I come from really classy stock.

Now, let me tell you about a typical Stern family vacation. My mother would bake by the pool covered in Coppertone, smoking cigarettes and reading a book, while my father played golf, and my brother and I swam in the ocean. We knew better than to bother either of them. At night, they would go to an expensive dinner, and my brother and I would be on our own. I don’t remember our doing much of anything as a family, but my parents were married for more than forty-six years at the time of my mother’s death, so while this sounds like a strange vacation routine, perhaps they knew something other families didn’t? We spent as much time together on vacation as we did when we weren’t. Stick with me; I am trying to find the positive in all this.

The funny thing about our vacations was how much they packed. Of course, the portable bar was the most essential item, and the first thing that was opened upon arrival. After that were my mother’s things, which would only fit into a complete set of Sampsonite, three wig boxes, a Hollywood-sized make-up case, and four garment bags. All of this would fill the car’s trunk, and the rest of us were on our own. Maybe this is when I learned to fit a lot into a small space.

The most bizarre vacation was the trip they took to Cape Cod after dropping us off at Nana’s in the Van Ness North Apartments, in Washington, DC, in the summer of 1972. At that time, my father drove the prettiest car I think he ever owned – a 1967 Mercury Monterey four-door sedan, which was seafoam green with a black vinyl interior. We called it our Hawaii Five-O car. The trunk of this huge car was filled with Mother’s things, and for this trip, they put one of those poles across the back seat and hung up what had to be half of both of their complete summer wardrobes. My brother sat up front, while I squeezed into the back, against the passenger-side door, with all those clothes taking up ninety-percent of the space as we drove to Nana’s from Newport News. I couldn’t see beside me, and I started to cry. When they asked why I was crying, I told them I felt like a piece of luggage because the three of them were up front, and I was squeezed among all these clothes and wig boxes as if I wasn’t part of the family.

Their trip was for only five days. Who the hell needed all those clothes?

And for the five days we stayed with Nana, she carried on about two things: Aunt Flossie’s divorce and why our parents were spending all their money on these ridiculous vacations. We did get to see the Panda’s when they first arrived at the National Zoo. About that, Nana complained that they needed a bath.

If you have ever wondered how I turned out the way I did, you should have no difficulty understanding that now.

When they returned to pick us up, somehow they had managed to fill the car up with more stuff, and we were also hauling Nana’s black and white RCA television home since she bought a Sony color set to replace it. There I was in the back seat again – this time with a television banging into my head.

I made two vows on that trip. I would never go on a trip where I ended up in the back seat competing for room with someone else’s luggage and used appliances, and I would never travel with a middle-aged Jewish woman.

While I do pack quite a bit for the few trips I take these days, I leave the wig boxes at home, and I leave enough room for me to see out the rearview mirror. And yes, on the rare occasions when I do sit in the back seat, I still cry.

If you feel crowded out by someone else’s stuff, follow me, join me, get on my list.