Virtual Cab Ride With Ma Smash

Ma Smash: Hi, honey!

Me: Hi, Mom. I'm in a cab and I have to tell you, I think I'm drunk.

Ma Smash: Oh, dear. Well, I guess it's a good thing you're not in the subway then.

Me: Dennis wouldn't let me.

Ma Smash: He's a good boy. You tell him I said that. Sweetheart?

Me: Hmmm?

Ma Smash: Sorry, I thought you made a sound.

Me: It stinks in here.

Ma Smash: Oh dear.

Me: It does. It smells like the backside of balls on a hot day.

Ma Smash: Excuse me, miss: And how would you know?

Me: Er.

Ma Smash: On second thought, I don't want to know.

Me: I heard it somewhere.

Ma Smash: Just take a shower when you get home. And wash your hair.

I weep for those who must subsist without the advice of their mothers.

Even More Random Than Usual

My weekend, in bullet form:

• I did my taxes. I'm actually getting money back, which never happens. I'm not sure why. Everyone else I know takes their refunds and buys a small Caribbean island with them.
  
• I went to three birthday parties. I will definitely need that tax refund now. There were a lot of cabs. Also, last night I wound up in a gay go-go bar at four in the morning. You know it's time to go home when it doesn't even seem odd that the waiter is not wearing pants.
  
• I am exhausted today, predictably.
  
• Back to the cabs. Cab drivers love me. They want to marry and impregnate me. They want to move to Brooklyn with me and start a car service. Of the four cab rides I took this weekend, two drivers chatted me up in some fashion. This is a pretty consistent percentage.
  
• If you combine my magical cab driver seducing powers with my tendency to attract younger men, it becomes obvious that I will eventually marry a 23-year-old cabbie.
  
• I will make him give you free rides places, but only if you're very drunk.
  

That's it for now. Hope everyone else had a lovely weekend as well.

Tales From the Party

A boy bit my arm Saturday night. He staggered over to me at a party, slumped down in a chair, leaned over and bit my bare arm. And then he chewed it for a minute.

"Well, hello," I said. "Can I help you?"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he slurred, wiping off my arm. "I'm so drunk."

Rather obviously, wouldn't you agree? Still and all, I suppose I should try to take it as a compliment. Weight loss efforts have stalled at their usual point, rendering me able to fit into my pants but still sort of, uh, upholstered looking.

I'm thinking this is just my look. Cab drivers seem to like it. At least two of them in recent memory have thoughtfully pinched my thigh, as though testing a fruit. The last one pinched my thigh, and then announced, somewhat hilariously, "I am Egypt." Maybe that was the explanation? I don't know.

On the other hand, there have been some nice things lately. I'm reading a wonderful book by E.B. White, Here is New York. And here is a wonderful quote from the wonderful book:

On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy ... No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.

Right?

Even better, the gentleman who lent me the book said, while recommending it over the phone, "I was just going to open it, and the spine started to make that great cracking sound, so I didn't. You can crack it."

I love flowers, but an untouched E.B. White book about New York is definitely the way to my heart.