This post was originally published at http://blog.myspace.com/johnrichter_comedian
And so we crossed into Texas....
All in all, it was a far more pleasant drive this time than it ever has been before, because I no longer had long hair. On every previous trip through Texas, I had long hair that I wore in a pony tail. This poses some difficulties at service stations and the like, because, to a Texan, this look signals "faggot". It turns out that the average Texan is not interested in having long-haired faggots shop in their establishment, presumably because the homo-rays I emit might irradiate the merchandise, and the next thing you know all the cheap cowboy hats would be made of leather.
Interestingly, to any educated observer, I look way more gay now. No gay man has a long, unkempt pony tail, because it looks like shit, and that's no way to get attractive men to fuck you. But now that I get my hair cut by a blue haired submissive named "Wookie" and wear enough Crew product in my hair to frost a small layer cake, I'm exactly what the Texas shopkeeper has been waiting for: a smartly dressed young man full of buy-curiosity.
I don't know if the hair product helped, but this was also the first time we made it through Texas without getting pulled over by the police.
I think we normally get pulled over because of the "Attack Iraq NO!" sticker displayed prominently in our back window. It's still there, because a) it's hilariously ungrammatical and b) I want to keep it around until it's kitschy and cool, like when you see an old VW bus with an "Abolish Apartheid" bumper sticker. This sticker is a magnet for cops in Texas because the official Texas State Bumper Sticker is "I Support Our Troops."
I'm not entirely sure what "I Support Our Troops" means, but I assume it means "Once a month the owner of this pickup truck flies a Blackhawk helicopter to Tikrit and lays down a blanket of suppression fire so that our boys can secure the WMDs." At least, I hope that's what it means. If it means "I saw this sticker on the impulse-buy rack at the Dollar Tree, and I decided to get it because everyone else has one, and now I'm in the America Club, hooray!" well, it can't be that. That would suggest we didn't have the informed citizenry necessary for a functioning democracy!
Anyway, we didn't get pulled over, and before we knew it we were approaching Houston. You know you're getting close when you get to the 20-story-high white marble statue of Sam Houston, standing on a highway embankment in the middle of nowhere. He has an arm extended and an disturbingly blank look on his face. It's like he originally was part of Mount Rushmore, but then suddenly burst out, Night of the Living Dead style, and began making his way towards Texas ("..must... eat... ribs... RIBS!!!").
We finally rolled into Katy. Baby shower time, bitches!
The shower was at a tea house in Old Town Katy. It's called "Old Town Katy", because "Crumbling, Impoverished Katy City Center" doesn't have the same tourist draw.
Heather was getting really, really excited about the presents, and as we walked up to the building Heather said -
Actually, let's back up a second. Sometimes it can be hard for people to understand why me and Heather's relationship works. She and I have very different interests. She's obsessively organized, while I've been known to jot down notes on a slice of bread rather than hunt down some actual paper. But once in a while there's a moment that proves that no matter what, my wife and I are soulmates, that she and I were meant to be together, that there could be no more perfect partners in the world than us.
As we walked up to the building, Heather said, "The baby's so excited it's going to shit its sac!"
Cue the old Taster's Choice advertisement song: "Celebrate the moments of your life..."
The baby's meconium stayed put, so we went inside. The tea house was surprisingly well appointed, in a fussy Connecticut-bed-and-breakfasty kind of way. Everything was doilies and lace, and Heather's mom had hung clothes lines with baby clothes as decorations. The charm was not diminished by the fact that every member of the staff was a 15-year-old boy in a painter's cap and soiled Nascar t-shirt (not kidding). This phenomenon was never explained.
The menu was quite nice, on paper, but slightly less amazing in execution. The "raspberry vinagrette dressing" for example, looked and tasted remarkably similar to the neon orange sauce that is typically served with "crab and cream cheese fried wonton (8 pcs)". There were also cucumber sandwiches on white bread with provolone cheese, a triumphant trifecta of perfectly white flavorlessness. But while the menu failed as food, it was a resounding success in terms of looking good on a doily. And there were baby-themed Reese's peanut butter cups, so I was happy.
I made a point of introducing myself to the actual hostess of the party, a woman neither Heather nor I had ever met. Heather's mom had actually organized and paid for the shower, but this mystery woman had agreed to be the public face of the baby shower, because apparently mothers aren't allowed to hold baby showers for their daughters. Every time I tried to get an explanation for this, I was told "It just isn't done!" in the same tone one might expect if you asked a member of the Taliban how they felt about boy-on-boy ass-to-mouth-contact on the first date.
So Heather and I put on an elaborate show of pretending that this mystery woman was actually the host of the party. Our efforts were slightly undermined by Heather's mom's frequent, top-of-her-lungs shrieks of "I'm just SO PROUD TO BE HOSTING THIS PARTY FOR MY DAUGHTER!". Still, I'm sure that there were families in neighboring counties who were totally taken in.
Heather's mom also gave herself away by organizing and emceeing all of the baby shower activities. I was surprised to learn that baby showers traditionally include various party games, all centered around the theme of being really, really boring.
If I designed the baby party games, they'd be a blast. Blindfolded cut-the-umbilical cord, anyone? How about an activity where you try to accurately determine the cervical dilation on a life-like mannequin? The best hemorrhoid balloon sculpture wins a prize!
Instead, the games were more or less worksheets from a third grade English class. As we labored in silence over our xeroxed handouts, Heather's mother shouted instructions to us, sounding like a coked-up activity director on a cruise ship full of mentally retarded children. "Make SURE to write your NAME so that we KNOW who to GIVE THE PRIZE TO!"
So everyone was relieved when the desserts showed up (I ate more peanut butter cups), and soon Heather's mom was shouting that it was TIME for the PREEESENTS!!!! Heather and I sat on a little platform at one end of the room to open the presents, and it was on this stage that Heather did some of the best acting I've ever seen in her already distinguished career. When she said, "Oh! A baby blanket! This will come in so handy if the other 23 catch fire!", not only did I believe that she was genuinely thankful, but it made me genuinely thankful too.
Heather even put in a fairly believable performance when she opened the box that contained a hideous navy blue sweatpant set, emblazoned with a print of a moose and racoon ice skating. (This was perhaps the first garment in the history of civilization where a Rocky and Bullwinkle iron-on-print would have made it more tasteful.) Heather managed to cover her audible gagging sounds with a ladylike sneeze, and no one was the wiser.
(True story: There was, of course, no receipt with this thing, so when we returned to Colorado, Heather undertook an elaborate investigation to determine the origin of this garment and return it, no matter what the cost in time and dignity. After three entire days of grueling phone and internet research, Heather finally returned the garment to a local Kohl's, where they offered to refund her the item's full sticker price:
One dollar.)
To be fair, the majority of the gifts were great, and there were only one or two really horrible offerings. Heather and I finished the gift section in high spirits, which made the final humiliation a little easier to take...
Heather's mother had asked everyone to write down a piece of advice for the parents-to-be, and at the end of the shower, she read them out loud. The interesting thing was how exactly the same most of the advice was. Here's a breakdown of the most popular suggestions:
1) Your child will only be a baby once, so fill this time with love! - It turns out Heather already knew this, but I was shocked: I had planned to constantly beat the baby with it's own shitty diapers for the first two years, and then love the baby during it's second infancy.
2) Keep your marriage healthy: have a weekly date night! - Bullshit! This baby's the one that's supposed to save this marriage, not me!
3) Thank God for the sweet shining light of the merciful baby Jesus Christ and the Heavenly angels up in Heaven will be thy chariot of Justice and the Thanksgiving of Eternal Judgment (etc)
4) Keep an extra bag hanging near the hamper for really poopy items. - Okay, only one person gave this suggestion, and it was a really good idea. Of course, I already use this system.
5) I know you're going to have one nurse support your perineum while you're pushing, but make sure to have another nurse support your clit, too. You don't want to tear in that direction, for god's sake. - Thank you! That's useful advice.
And so, after spending a few more precious days in the company of people we'd deliberately chosen to live thousands of miles away from, we returned home, our little Honda packed with gifts. Of course, to get home, we had to pass through Oklahoma one more time...
Just on the Oklahoma side of the Kansas/Oklahoma border, we stopped at a gas station. I went inside to buy a bottle of water and use the restroom. The store shelves seemed to have been stocked by flinging items from behind the counter and hoping that they landed on a shelf, which they did not. Still, it was probably better that the clerk didn't get up to try to get anything off the floor, because that would only have allowed his B.O. cloud to gain even more territory.
Given the condition of the store, I braced myself when I opened the door to the men's room, but I was shocked to discover that the bathroom was literally sparkling clean. Every surface had been scrubbed to an immaculate shine. I strode to the urinal with renewed esteem for the American people. Sure, we may be too fat to get up and actually place store items on their shelves, but at least we still have enough pride to keep our bathrooms clean.
And then I noticed the smell.
It was a bad smell. It was a smell so bad it would normally have prompted me to get in the car and drive to the next gas station, but by then I was already peeing, so I decided to tough it out. As I zipped up, it became clear that the smell was coming from the trash can. And, despite my better judgement, like so many horror-movie teenagers before me, I went to investigate.
Someone had carefully, precisely, perhaps artfully, pooped in the trash can. I'm not kidding.
High angle shot. John stares, motionless and stunned, at the turd in the garbage can. Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." begins to play as the camera slowly pulls back into the clouds.
Fuck you, Oklahoma. Fuck. You.
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