SELFABSORBED.ME

My first year out of college, I had the pleasure of taking up a guest bartending job at a popular midtown bar. Not only did the bartending experience give me great insight into the world of making Malibu Baybreezes …but it also taught me very invaluable lessons about the natural habits of drunk women.

It was like watching gorillas in their natural habitat, untouched by mankind and running wild. It wasn’t the men per say that were running around like frat boys, but more so the women, dressed in a 3 dollar tops, carrying 300 dollar handbags.

And who can blame them?

Women have to have JOBS now AND be EDUCATED. I don’t know who made these rules, but clearly having to be educated and employed are causing huge problems in the female society, mainly involving sobriety.What happened to the good old days when women couldn’t vote? I bet those women were sober.

Around 3:45am every weekend at the end of my shift, it became inevitable that some chic was going to be the last one left in the bar , still trying to pick the bartender. Normally she would be eyeing me as though I was the only thing standing between her and the scruffy faced McGee to my right.

“He’s all yours.” I used to whisper into their diamond clad ears and walk away.

She would sit, legs sprawled across her bar stool. Trying to remember her Ex’s cell number. You could hear her mumbling something along the lines of, “978-6..978-5….no, fuck, mother fucker…”

And do you know who that girl is?

Yes you do.

She is ‘Drunk Girl’.

All of you know Drunk Girl. In fact, most of you have been Drunk Girl at one point or another.
Drunk Girl is the girl sitting in the corner of the bar waving her arms around, telling a story to…well… to no one.

She is wearing a tank top that is always about to reveal her left boob and some sort of Mardi Gras beads around her neck. Where did she get the Mardi Gras beads? Who knows! Why is she wearing them? Who cares! She has squinty eyes and believes the mascara running down her face is giving her a smoldering, sexy look. She thinks she is sexy. Actually, she thinks she is dead sexy. You always catch her trying to balance her head on her hand in a playful come-hither way and in reality she looks more like a toddler who fell asleep taking a shit.

Drunk Girl always has a million of glasses around her, yet has no fucking idea which cup she has been drinking out of. Her shit is everywhere…keys, cell phone, money, wallet, it’s all scattered either beneath her stool, in her lap, or on the bar. She can’t keep track of anything, but she will become violent if you try and touch any of it.

Drunk Girl has an obsession with her cell phone and is always shouting something like, “BUT I JUSH WANTS TO MAKE A PONE CHALL!”

Drunk Girl normally has a posse of friends surrounding her with some sorority chic explaining, “Kelly Cat! Totally listen to me for one sec…He totally wants to talk to you, but he is like going to go home with Jenny cause like you’re like a mess, but like don’t think he doesn’t like LIKE you like that because maybe he does like you LIKE THAT but just not right now…” Which as we know, makes PERFECT sense to Drunk Girl. Who is still trying to figure out what the hell the 978 number is.

Drunk Girl will sit there, clutching her cell phone, staring at everyone as though they all just spoke to her in Swahili yelling, “BUT I JUSH WANTS TO MAKE A PONE CHALL!”

Drunk Girl will then try and leave the bar and will wave cabs down the in the middle of the street like she is Matador in front of some Goddamn bulls. She always has on one shoe, the other shoe is always either broken or off in the street, about two inches away from being hit by a few yellow cabs.

When Drunk Girl comes to the bar, the shit show officially begins. And no matter how drunk YOU are, you always look at Drunk Girl and go, “Wow, I will never look as drunk as her,” as you hop off the bar in your mini skirt and go outside to catch a cab.

So, liking to think I am a "smart" girl, which is confusing, because I also like to refer to myself as a "beautiful" girl and a "hilarious" girl...so maybe what I am saying is I relate more so to Jesus then most...and that goes without saying considering I did try and help him buy new sandals once at Macy's, but damn that man sure does like himself a good brown leather...wait...I am sorry...I was going somewhere with this before...

Ok, back to topic, so being a "smart" girl blahdiddy blah blah ( I tend to like to make air quotes when I say it) I try and do this thing in my life that I refer to as - "not getting pregnant". Now this is seemingly becoming a more difficult task then originally assumed.

You say Birthcontrol.

I say Potato you say Potato.

I dont know what the hell that rhyme is people but I know it makes sense in my head.

Now this whole "birth control" thing is considering not as effective as once seemed...and by "not effect" I do mean "Not effective when you dont use it". I wish it was just plain old effective just by thinking about it, I mean, no one told me I actually have to use the stuff. Damn MAMA! That is a hell lotta work!

I say this considering I have taken about three baby-tests in the past year alone. And thankfully none of them have come up positive, but I am starting to wonder, how many can you pass before your luck is up?

As I say this, I can think of three or so of my girlfriends who are all on Plan B right now, praying that whatever is in that thing will get rid of any Mike Jr, Danny Jr, Sutton Place Bar Jr... that might possibly be in them. I called my friend up the other day who told me not to worry, I couldn't never be pregnant ever because I - "drink too much, all that alcohol will kill the baby."
I actually reasoned it in my head for a minute.

The point here being, why are we all suddenly being so non-cautious with our bodies? It is like the HIV and AIDs epidemic suddenly creep away and we started saying things like, "Well I don't personally KNOW anyone with AIDS, so therefore it may not exist in my circle and who likes a condom anyway?"

And I will agree with that, a condom is just about the most unromantic thing to ever exist, but also completely necessary. And yet too many of us cannot even be bothered with a simple piece of latex (or sheepskin for your dirty birds out there.) But more importantly after you start seeing someone for three...four...five months (mother of sweet Jesus do people do this?!) ... you start to wonder, is the condom necessary? Clearly after five months they cannot get me pregnant anymore, it's like a rule or something. Who needs condoms?! Who needs birth control that makes you fat and cranky? (Not I!).

I mentioned this to a friend the other day, telling her I think sex during my period must be OK, because I cannot get pregnant then. "Well" She said, "That's a little bit like playing Russian Roulette, dont cha think?"



And GOD DAMN I am a bad card player!

What about the rhythm method?

What about all those damn catholics, I mean it's not like they have more like 1 or 2...or 6 children right?

So last night I came home to about an inch of water across my bedroom carpet and kitchen floor. Now as much as I love pools, I don’t want to live in one. The water was seemingly coming from the bottom up though, not from the ceiling down. I stood there, my feet soaking , staring at the water. How could it possibly be coming from the ground up? I am on the 2nd floor of my building, it didn’t make any logical sense. Was water rising now like heat? Was I in some sort of sci-fi thriller and soon my lights would shut off and I would become a virgin again screaming into a house phone that I don’t even own (do people actually have home phones still or did that go away with the dinosaurs?) .

So I went downstairs and explained the situation to my doorman.

Me- “There is water all on my kitchen floor and carpet.”

Him- “Your name Kim, yes?”

Me- “Um, Yes?”

Him- Shakes his head and goes and calls some maintenance guy.

I don’t know what that’s about, but continuing on…

One hour later I hear a knock at my door. I open the door and there he stands.

The maintenance guy.





He was about 6 ft 2, and built like a meatpaddy who does a lot of steroids and bathes in bronzing cream. I just stood there staring at him for a good minute. He was wearing a wife beater and shorts. As I stood there in the doorway staring at him, the Meatpaddy spoke.

Meatpaddy: "I am here to fix your pipes.”

Me: "Why yes, yes you are...”

Meatpaddy: “Should I go into your bedroom for the leak?”

Me: (still standing with the door half open) “Yes, my bedroom, that is exactly where you should go.”

Meatpaddy: “So, I guess you should probably let me inside?”

Me: “Yes...you can go inside.”

I still stand there, holding the door, until I see him staring at me. I laugh a little and open the door the rest of the way.

Meatpaddy walks right over to our central air unit, opens the door and bends down. Meanwhile I am standing behind him wishing he could bend down over and over again and how I am going to break my fucking central air everyday now, along with every other single pipe in my home.

One of my roommates emerges from her bedroom and I grab her arm and start pinching like a 12 year old gay boy who just discovered his queendom.

“The MAINTENANCE GUY is here” I say giving her big eyes. She just shakes her head at me.

Meatpaddy gets up from the floor and tells us something about the pipes or whatnot.

Meatpaddy- "So it appears as though your central air tubing has dislocated.”

Me Thinking- I wonder if he goes to the gym every day, or maybe just three times a week. I bet he could lift me with one of those arms and throw me onto some horse.

Meatpaddy - "And because it wasn’t on tightly enough the water has been dripping.”

Me Thinking- Or maybe he just goes to the gym twice a week but he has one of those ab rollers he uses at home, or the thigh master, because that Susan woman wasn’t kidding those damn things work like a mother fucker .

Meatpaddy - "So the more it dripped the more the water collected under your floor and that’s why it created a pool under your carpeting. So essentially all you have to do is just stick it back in..”

Me- “I’m sorry…what?!"

Meatpaddy - “You know stick it in..the tubing, stick it back in the hole so that it fits tightly.”

Me - "Right right... the tubing…”

Meatpaddy - “Can I see the water damage in your bedroom.”

Me - Yes, let me show you my bedroom.”

We go and stand in my bedroom together. We are just standing there. Looking at the floor.

Me- “Do you see how wet it is...it is very wet.”

Meatpaddy - “Wow, that is really wet maybe I can come in tomorrow and have someone take care of that for you.”

Me-“Yes, I need someone to take care of that.”

Meatpaddy – “How about I will come in myself tomorrow and bring a blower”

Me-”That would be perfect...a blower.”

Meatpaddy - “Ok so what time do you want me to come in and blow your rug?”

Me-“Anytime.”

Meatpaddy - "Anytime?"

Me- "Yes."

Meatpaddy - "I think I have your cell phone right here..can I call when I come in for the rug?"

Me- "You can call me about the rug anytime."

Meatpaddy - ”Ok, will do, you know, I am here just to satisfy the tenants.”

Me- “Yes, I see that.”

+

The first day I met Shawn I was sitting on an Extra Long twin bed. And I had on some sort of denim jacket. The window outside out my building was facing two trees leading up to this empty hill on the outskirts of the Bronx.

And I remember hearing the knock as I sat hands deep in a box of picture albums. It was so soft I almost didn’t hear it at first, until I had that undeniable sensation that someone was standing at my doorway. And I stood up, tiptoed barefoot around the moving boxes until I reached the large metal front door and opened it up.

He stood there like a great big piece of steak. Arms large enough to not touch the sides of his body, dangling them around as though they were painful to hold up. I wondered how those arms could even reach his penis to take a piss or if he just had to shoot and hope it aimed right.

Steak stared right at me, “You’re coming to the meeting, right Kim?”

So not only did this piece of steak know what my name was, he also knew about some alleged meeting that I was not going to be in attendance for.

Me, “I’m sorry?”

Him, “Kim, I am Shawn, your resident assistant. We have a meeting in ten minutes. You will be coming, right?”

I thought for a minute. No actually I am going to be heading to Time Square with two unknown other freshman to try and find fake ID’s in the village shops that also sell bong…yes?

But I just stared at his big arms and tanned face.

Me, “Yeah. I was planning on going.”

Steak, “Good, I will see you there.”

I attended the resident meeting that evening.
I also attended everyone after for the next eight months.

It was about four months into flirting that I first became to realize that Shawn was crazy. . And I should have noticed it a lot sooner, as he started to do odd things, like call me up at work and tell me he was in the hospital and was going to have a leg amputated due to a car accident. (He has two legs to this day) but that is a whole other Shawn story.

I walked into his bedroom one night with another residence, Molly, who although earring from the backwoods of Connecticut, was Irish enough to have been a drunk sailor with four beers and two clover condoms in her pocket. And we walked lazily into his room one night when we spotted pictures of this woman skewed across the front of his desk.

Molly, “Who is that Shawn? Your girlfriend?”

I tried not to get too close to the pictures. Having already decided in my head that I would lose my virginity to Shawn I figured it was it was bad luck of some sort to get too close too close to any woman that he had had more then a friendly encounter with. Molly kept moving in closer to view this alleged “girlfriend” as I drew farther away, just barely skimming the photos with the tips of my fingers, I wanted to get close enough to the pictures to run my fingers along them and rip them into shreds.

Unfortunately the woman from the photos was too beautiful to pass up as I drew closer to the last one on the desk which appeared to be directly out of a catalogue I had seen before.

“Is this from a catalogue?” I asked. Not trying to sound interested and especially not impressed, more like factual information, such as “Does she have five fingers?”

But instead he answered with the most horrible answer of all that prevent me from eating ay kind of substantial meal for about three straight weeks in the cafeteria, “Yes…she is a model.”

I remember feeling the vomit right then and there. Some MODEL was dating my future virginity card owner. How could that be? Did she not know who I WAS?

Molly seemingly now ever more impressed stumbled over to the final photo like the typical drunken sailor and squinted her eyes to look closer. I tried to push her out of the way a bit, trying to block the beauty of this beauty.

Molly, “Wow Shawn, she is gorgeous.”

Me, “Ok, Ok, let’s get going, we have things to do…I have to get a new bathmat, I mean really, we don’t have time for this.”

I remember grabbing Molly and getting her the hell out of that room of torture. It was worse then that hacked movie where the Swedish girls drug two boys and then send them to a place to be chopped up to death by a man named Oscar in leather doctor’s coat.

For one whole month I could barely look at him during the residence meetings. Dating a MODEL, mother fucker, while I sat around trying to become vainly interested in protein shakes and Kashi. And suddenly, everywhere I walked, MODELS! Models were everywhere, I couldn’t fucking throw a meth bag in the park without it knocking one over.

And one month later to be precise I sat on the bed of my friend Elaine, a New Jersey girl with long hair, blue eyes and face beautiful enough to seriously intimidate me into doing whatever she said. If she had told me to Intern at the 99 cent store, I probably would have. I sat looking through her Vogues, when I flipped open some magazine cover and there she was! Model! Model just sat there on the inside of her cover, so seemingly confident she might as well have been looking directly at me, giving me the bird.

Me, “There she is! Model! She is single handily destroying my life and delaying my virginity!”

Elaine, “What on earth are you talking about woman?”

Me, “Here!” I threw the magazine at her. “Shawn’s girlfriend!’.

Elaine pulled the magazine up to her face before eliciting a look of sheer confusion.

Elaine, “Kim...this is a model.”

Me, “No Elaine this is THE Model.”

Elaine, “Kim, do you know who this is?”

Me, “The Model who is single handily ruing my sexual desire and delaying the loss of my virginity and essentially livelihood on this earth?”

Elaine, “Um, no, Kim this is Gisele Bundchen.”

Me, “I am sorry? No no, this is Model, Shawn’s girlfriend. Shawn is dating this girl, he has pictures of her in his room everywhere.”

Elaine, “Are they cutouts from a magazine?”

Now as the wheels turn I know what you are probably thinking, which is, why did I not think of this before, but can I just say one thing here? I spent the first 18 years of my life living in NH going to a theater called the IOKA where one movie a week played.

Elaine, “Kim, this is Gisele, she is the TOP SUPERMODEL IN THE WORLD…and she is dating Leonardo DiCaprio…not Shawn the resident assistant.”

Fuck me.

Now if this is the moment wherein you think I just a “good laugh” or a chuckle ‘or I put on my fucking happy pants and went and did a dance in the hallway, you would be wrong. I was so mad, I ran to her computer and googled this alleged ‘Gisele’. I then sat for about two hours printing out pictures of her, trying to get a photo with her name underneath, some cover where it was clearly printed that she was indeed, the top supermodel of the world, and not as I had believed the Resident Assistant’s girlfriend. I grabbed these photos off the printer and threw open Elaine’s doorway, heading right for Shawn’s room.

I could hear Elaine trying to follow behind me. And when I got to his room I did one of those door bangs that says something along the lines of “I am in a hurry” and “Please open the door because I have a bomb.”

The door swung open , but instead of Shawn, his drunk roommate Randy answered instead. Randy was about 5 ft 3 and hyped on so much creatine and steroids he made Barry Bonds look like Tiny McGee. He stood in white underwear and Elvis sunglass.

Randy, “May I help you mam?”
Me, “Yes where is Shawn right now?”

Randy, “Shawn is indisposed at the moment.”

I turn to walk away, when he appeared. Half cocked and in some sort of white tank top that I believe, as Jesus as my witness, was made for women.

Shawn, “What’s going on with you tonight Miss Kimberly?” He hovered underneath the hallway’s florescent light.

Me, “Oh I will tell you what is going on with Miss Kimberly you mother fucker!”
And already I could feel myself throwing my virginity card right down the proverbial trash barrel.

I threw one of the pictures up in the air, right into the over processed oxygen and it floated to the ground in front of his feet. He leaned over to pick it up off the ground, and a group of girls began to emerge from the room.

His face reddened and this huge smile appeared.

Shawn, “What is this…pictures of my girlfriend you found?”

Me, “No. Shawn. Not pictures of Model, Because as we can see here from these photos…” I begin to start waving more of the printed pictures around, “This in fact is not your girlfriend at all…this is in fact Gisele Bundchen, the top SUPERMODEL OF THE WORLD. “

I can tell Elaine is now peering out from behind the corner of the hallway. Witnessing the massacre that is about to begin.

He smiled this big open grin.

Shawn, “Well…I just can’t believe you actually believed me..”

I stared into his face, my own burning hot with embarrassment and anger.

Me, “I AM FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE!...I BELIEVE WHAT EVERYONE TELLS ME!”

I swing around to the other corner of the couch.

Shawn, “Kim…come here…hand me the photos…”

Me, “No, I will not hand you the photos you asshole..” I begin to throw them around like a crazy person. Have you ever seen the woman who yells at cats in the 79th street Duane Reade? Well I was starting to look a bit like her.

I would fold the pictures half over to give them just enough angle to point directly and shoot at his face.

He started to follow me around the side of the hallway couch. “Come here, and give those photos to me Kim, it was just a little joke Kim and it went too far…and you were just gullible enough to believe it, that’s all. “

Me, “FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE YOU ASSHOLE!” I begin throwing more pieces of paper at him, as he tried to circle the couch and I keep heading away from him in a clockwise direction.,

Shawn, “YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE FOR BELIEVING IT!”

By now I am staring to notice in between circling the couch and aiming the photos right for his eyes, that a number of people have started to poke their heads out of their rooms and a small crowd is forming.

Me, “I ATE KASHI FOR YOU!”


The couch circling has now turned into a small jog.

Me, ‘I SPENT THE PAST MONTH TRYING TO LOOK LIKE THE GIRL ON THE COVER, TRYING TO LOOK LIKE THE GIRL YOU ‘DATE’ “

Shawn, “IF YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE I MIGHT ACTUALLY DATE YOU.”

Ok, this is what we call, game over.

This is when the running and couch circling and paper throwing, all halted. And I stopped, stared at the crowd of people, now staring at me. About 20 people standing in the hallway. Just staring. Photos of Gisele now littered all across the floor. And it is completely silent.

And I drop the papers. Just like that. Drop them on the floor. And walk away. The papers fall everywhere, 20 or 30 of them sliding along the tiled ground.

I start this long tedious walk back to my own room. With everyone just standing there, watching me walk back.

I head halfway down the hall, open my bedroom door. Walk inside and slam it shut.

My roommate was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching me as I walked in.

Roommate, “What the hell is going on out there?”

Me, “Umm, I am not losing my virginity now.”

She nodded her head and went back to her report.