I wouldn't be flashing that around if I were you

There's a flasher on the loose in the Raleigh suburbs. Based on my personal experience, I'm surprised he hasn't made his way inside the Beltline and onto my street.

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I'm on the verge of a birthday a long way past 21-25, when I gave off the "show-me-what-you've-got, stranger" vibes.

I was flashed twice, in two different cities.

Incident 1, June 1991, Burlington, N.C.

Two weeks after I graduated from Elon College, home of the Fightin' Christians, I talked my friend Rex into moving to Raleigh with me. He came to my townhouse apartment to help me pack for our move.

After working for a good two hours and filling the den with my boxes of belongings, we decided to take a break from each other. Rex went upstairs to my room to work on his resume on my Brother word processor (Google it, kids).

I settled down on the couch in the living room to watch videos on MTV (Google it, kids). It was nice that night, so instead of running the air conditioner, I had the front door open with only the screen door keeping the bugs out. My roommate and I had been doing this for two years, as local law enforcement professionals were apparently as broke as college students and our parking lot was always well populated with cop cars. I turned on the outside floodlight, as was my habit when I was waiting for my roommate to come home.

My first thought, when I heard the scratching sound, was irritation. Siouxsie and the Banshees were on the television and I was already saving up for the first Lollapalooza. When I figured out it was coming from the door, three feet from where I was sitting, I jerked around huffily and I saw him.

There, three feet and an unlocked screen door away from me, was, aside from a tee-shirt over his face, a butt-naked man having a nice time with himself (that was a really lame description, but my Sainted Southern Mother reads this blog).

I was a fan of cigarettes (Don't start, kids) who three years before had figured out how to skip the 1.5-mile run and still get a passing D for the one college P.E. credit required for my English degree. I got kicked out of YWCA gymnastics in 7th grade because I couldn't do a cartwheel, so I never moved on to complicated flips off the horse.

But in those two blurry seconds, I sprinted across the room, performed a beautiful scissor-split over the pile of boxes and ascended the stairs to the second floor in two bounds. I burst into the bedroom and screamed, "Call the police!" before grabbing the phone myself.

Rex, who'd been minding his own business and had no idea what was going on, looked blankly at me. Then he managed to catch the baseball bat I flung at him and followed my screeching instructions to go down and lock the front door to keep the naked man out.

After I got off the phone with the 911 dispatcher, Rex was able to coax me downstairs, assuring me the naked man was gone and the doors were locked. We sat waiting for the police and I thanked Rex over and over for being so brave. "What's a naked man going to do to me?" he asked.

The knock on the door nearly made me jump out of my skin until I heard a deep voice announce, "Police." "Thank God," I thought as I flung open the door. Standing before me was the cop who had pulled me over a week before, asked for my license and registration, and replied to my polite "Yes, sir" with "That's ma'am."

"Oh, hi!," I managed to say, as I had a date to see her in court. She very professionally acted like nothing had ever happened between us and began asking me questions. "Can you describe his body? Did you see his genitals?"

As I began to try to stammer out an answer, her radio crackled and she stepped away. She came back and told me her partner had caught the perp running out of the woods and pulling up his pants. As they were the only squad team on patrol that night, she had to leave to pick up her partner and take the perp to jail, but she gave me a number to call the next day to find out the status.

I called. The guy was a middle-aged accountant from an old-money family. He was released and all charges dropped.

Incident 2, October 1994, Raleigh, N.C.

I had the crappiest job in the world; I had been there for three years and was up to $7 an hour for pounding away on the keyboard producing biographies for vanity reference books. I literally had to punch a clock and had a senior associate editor title.

My job didn't much matter to me back then; I've never really been on a career track. I was party girl number 1 at that age. So one day, I had a roll of film (Google it, kids) of me and my fun friends acting like fun people at the club to drop off for development. I clocked out for my 30-minute lunch and drove across Glenwood Avenue to Wal-Mart.

I parked my faded Nissan Sentra and got out. An older Pontiac covered in right-wing bumper stickers --really crazy ones-- stopped beside me as I walked in, but I was way too cool to pay attention to the driver. So I was also too cool to pay attention to him, even though I noticed him, as he followed me around the store and back out into the parking lot.

I'm gonna go ahead and give myself some cool points here, because when he pulled up next to me when I was in the turn-only lane at a red light in broad daylight, I just looked at him. Looked at him and pointed my mace at him when he got out of his car sans pants and approached my window. He backed off and got in his car. I got the left-turn light and went back to work.

The first thing I did was clock in. Then, I pretended to have a panic as I told my co-workers what had just happened to me. They called the police and comforted me as we waited for the RPD to arrive. A nice officer came and questioned me, then took me downtown to look at mugshots. I couldn't remember the guy's face, so it never went anywhere. But my employers didn't make me correct my time card or make up those hours, so it was AWESOME.

Lessons learned from the incidents:

From my fleeting glances -- and it wasn't cold either of those days -- flashers should keep it to themselves.

The best e-mail I have ever gotten in my life ever

My little hometown at the beach now has a Harley Davidson dealership. This completely blows my mind because I remember when it didn't even have a Hardee's. I asked my Sainted Southern Mother to please get me a "Harley of Shallotte" tee shirt for a White Trash party I'm going to this weekend.

She did, bless her heart!!! Here's her story of her visit to the motorcycle dealership:

(from: my mama)
(to: me and my facebook friends)

Well, let me tell you about my trip to Harley Davidson dealership.

First of all your father would not let me go by myself - so he goes with me. When I turned off Hwy 17 to enter Harley's parking lot I said, "Oh, please Lord, don't let anyone see me".

We went in and I was stunned. I have never seen so many motorcycles in my life!!! There were so many people in that place and they must have had at least 20 employees. About five dove at me and asked if they could help me and of course I gave them my honey dripping smile and said, "Hon, of course you may". Your Dad pretended he didn't know me and went to look at the 'wheels'.

Oh, good Lord, all of y'all should have been flies on the walls - some of the clothing items blew me away! The young lady asked me if my daughter had a Harley. I gasped and said, "Heavens no!!", then caught myself and honestly I don't know what I said after that.

After my purchase I was asked to go upstairs to the bar, have a drink and play pool. Again, I almost died, looked for your Dad and said, "It's time for us to go".

I really was impressed with the staff and facility. I do wish them a success in Shallotte.

Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble - and by the way I mailed your shirt express mail.

Luv ya!
Ma

p.s. I forgot to tell you, your Dad was the one who selected the shirt we purchased (and then disappeared) and Lord have mercy it is trashy!!!

-----------------

How awesome is my Sainted Southern Mother? Seriously. She reads this blog (which is why I don't use "ugly" words or tell "vulgar" stories), so give her some love!

How to make the white people dance

Just play "The Electric Slide," especially at a wedding reception with an open bar. Great-Aunt Gladys might sit around her house listening to Artie Shaw phonograph records and complaining about kids these days, but when the wedding DJ spins the first two notes to "The Electric Slide," she'll jump right over her walker and knock over some little ones to get in the line on the dance floor.

Because I never learned the dance or how to hide my disgust when the song is played, I can't explain this phenomenon, except to say that maybe the white folks feel confident mimicking proscribed moves. Hence, the line dance craze.

This leads me to my point: Wedding DJs are the biggest dorks in the world (followed closely by wedding bands) and they can't be trusted. I have had two -- count them, TWO -- friends hire DJs for their receptions and specifically tell them NOT to play "The Electric Slide," but they did anyway.

So when Steve and I planned our wedding reception at the dive bar three years ago, we programmed our own music. I like to think nobody we invited knew how to do "The Electric Slide," but I wasn't going to chance losing respect for anyone who loved us enough to join us on our big day by trusting my playlist to a DJ.

What clever people we were as we spent an entire week programming four hours' worth of music! For the first hour, when guests would get there before us, we loaded up the AM Gold, delighting our audience with Barry Manilow, Air Supply, Player and Rupert Holmes. From there we segued through classic soul and into 80s ballads up to the point where we got onstage for the speeches before our first dance, to "Slave to Love."

After that, we picked up the pace. I grabbed the mike and yelled, "Hey everybody, come dance with us to our song!" A few people who'd been served enough to start feeling brave came and joined us for Gran Torino's "Moments With You."

That song ended, and only two seconds into the next song, all my friends -- white, black, gay, straight, hipster, professional -- rushed onto the floor. I was dancing with my arty friend Buttercup. My 5-year-old nephew Banyan, whose miniature tux was unbuttoned and shirttails were pulled out, was busting the moves along with us. Unfortunately, Ban's signature move of spinning around with his eyes closed kept causing him to fall on the floor. Each time, he'd jump right back up and do it again, even after Buttercup yelled, "Somebody cut this guy off!"

The song? "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough."


Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (Official Music Video) - The most amazing bloopers are here

I never will forget those nights (and days)

I was out in public with friends the other night in a very loud place. The music these kids listen to today was annoying me anyway, but when I heard the familiar, sacred opening notes to "Boys of Summer" mixed into an insipid dance beat, I gasped. No, really. My face contorted into one not unlike the victims in "The Ring." Time went to slow motion as I spun around and my gaze settled on my friend's, which was set in exactly the same expression as mine.

I know the kids, with their superstar producers, are mining the "oldies" for songs to sample or remake, because kids these days .... But don't mess with "Boys of Summer."

Seriously. You don't love boys of summer like I do, and I don't approve of your blasphemy.

I grew up in a small, Southern town that happened to be at the beach. My Sainted Southern Mother took us out every day in the summers to burn off energy, and each day went a little something like this:

* My mama would spend an hour preparing a picnic of sandwiches, Bugles and Coca-Cola products, herding the three of us into our bathing suits, then putting on the perfect finishing touches on her hair and makeup before loading us into the wood-paneled station wagon.

* Once we got to the beach, Mama would slather us down in the harsh 70s sun creme I can still taste and feel stinging my eyes.

* My mama would set up the chairs and the food, then arrange herself delicately and attractively in the sun. (My mama was a knockout, btw.)

* One of us would take a bite of a sandwich, get a mouthful of sand, and start crying.

* While my mother tended to the crying child, the other two waded out into the ocean and got carried a hundred feet eastward by the drift tow. As they bobbed up and down, one would inevitably get knocked over by a wave, scrape her face on the bottom and stagger out of the surf wailing from her near-death experience. And the other would get yelled at laughing at her sister's misery.

* Now with three crying little girls, my mama would pack up the station wagon with its searing-hot vinyl seats and drive over the bridge back to our house. 

* Once home, my mother would line her three daughters up in the backyard and spray them down with the garden hose before letting them in her house.

That's when we were small. I think it was around age 10 for each of us when my mama wised up and just dumped us off at the beach with our playmates for the day.

And that's when I started making friends with the summer kids from faraway places like Raleigh and Charlotte, whose families owned houses they only lived in during the school break. The ones my age all just happened to be boys.

We started out splashing around in tidal pools and digging up sand fleas. Before long, we were pirate twins in the dunes. We were absolutely fearless, with our skinny bodies tanned and our hair streaked blond. We ran races up and down the shore, our feet splashing in the salt water. We screamed our hearts out with glee out there on the beach, where nobody would admonish us for not using our inside voices, and we all whimpered and squirmed as our parents pulled us apart to go home for dinner.

Each school year started and we sent each other letters, counting down the days until school would be out for summer. I missed them so much during the winter, when there seriously was nobody on the road or beach.

We got older and started hanging out in the arcade, playing air hockey and Galaga, plugging quarters into the jukebox to hear Def Leppard over and over. Then, before we knew it, we were getting together after dark, sitting on the beach, listening to "The Boys of Summer" on a boombox, drinking wine coolers someone's older brother scored for us. The next summer, we were always piled up in someone's beater car with the windows down and sunroof open, riding up and down the island, the Cure blasting on the radio, elaborate 80s hairstyles getting ruined and feeling more young and alive than ever. 

We always ended up back on the beach, looking at the stars and wondering what life after school would be like. And we couldn't imagine that we'd ever be apart.

Then it ended, our childhoods on the beach. I moved away for college and never came home for good again, they became grownups who didn't vacation with their parents, and we all lost touch.

Still, all these years later, they will live in my memory as the boys of summer.

Don Henley |MTV Music

(for Bernard)

The best ad copy I ever wrote in my life...

... got me no raises, no Addys and wasn't even printed.

It only appeared on match dot com. I was searching for an intelligent, silly person. My perfect match saw it, paid $19.95 to respond, and the rest is history.

Mr. Sweetypants travels constantly for his job. This was never an issue for us the first few years; my most successful relationships in my youth were long distance and, at the tender age of 35 when we got together, I was accustomed to living alone.

But lately, I've had nothing to dread -- er, do -- during my unemployment and I rely on Mr. Sweetypants to keep me entertained, so I miss him when he's gone for days on end. Dave and Eudora are here, but they don't break into improvisational song or hurl lightning-fast insult comedy quips.

Truth be told, I've gone a bit feral here on my own with no mandated routine. I wear comfortable clothes and don't put product in my hair, let alone putting on makeup. I eat when I'm starving and sleep when I need to, which happens to be for four hours twice a day.

I woke up from my most recent nap, glanced at the clock on the cable box, and saw that it was 7. Sleepy and groggy as I was, I couldn't remember what time I'd gone to sleep and panicked because I honestly didn't know if it was morning or evening. So I turned on the TV to see if Jeopardy or Good Morning America was on. GMA. Problem solved.

Needing to share this hysterical bit of stupidity on my part with the person who would most appreciate it, I e-mailed Mr. Sweetypants. He called two minutes later from his hotel room.

"What are you doing up this early?," I asked, "Aren't you in a different time zone?"

Unsure of what time it was because the room didn't have a clock, Mr. Sweetypants decided to rely on his trusty companion, Mr. iPhone. I heard him shuffling around before he said, "I can't find my phone."

"You mean the one you're speaking to me on?" I replied, ending a sentence with a preposition and dissolving into laughter.

We agreed that we were even and started talking about time zones, trying to figure out what time it was there. Mr. Sweetypants, the scientist and geography buff, started quoting latitudes and longitudes while I thought about TV listing times for the Central, Mountain and Pacific zones.

"Yes, but Iowa is west of here," I said, proudly figuring out that west is behind.

"I'm in Maine!," he reminded me.

Oh yeah. Oops. I really need a job, but that's the only thing I need. I've got my Mr. Sweetypants and two surly, nonplussed cats to round everything else out.

Of all my best intentions

I just posted a recommendation for a blogger I like reading to the TGFS Facebook page.

KidCobbler is a friend of mine from Engerlund. He is one of Mr. Sweetypants' closest friends, and they are two of my favorite people ever to come out of Northampton (just after Bauhaus and Love and Rockets). 

Click on the live link above to read the story I linked to the FB page. It's a very poignant ode to an economically depressed town in England as seen through the eyes of a native son throughout its 700+ years of (pre-Bauhaus) history.

It's an incredibly moving story, written in third-person (whatever pentameter; I hated poetry classes in college). 

Having actually been to Northampton and knowing my husband's stories of growing up there, I just had to post the link. And having been bored limbless earlier while Mr. Sweetpants slept in, I checked in on the TGFS FB page an hour later. 

Thank ye gods of boredom! 

The summary box contained the following: The Jews crucified a young boy.

I don't think I've ever hit delete so quickly in my life, and I got a lot of wacky online personals responses back when I was single. 

Of all the snippets from the piece, I don't think any could take the story so far out of context. And of all the stupid posting mistakes I've ever made on the Interweb...

As girlie as I was in the 80s...

I just could not stomach unicorns.

Seriously. My sister, my best friend and I made fun of the subculture of girls who bought unicorn figurines and fantasy airbrushed posters from Spencer Gifts. We called them "purple girls," as they usually wore purple unironically and we weren't that good at coming up with subtle cracks back then.

My daddy took the three of us to see "Legend" at the movie theatre and the showing was filled with purple girls. "Oh, come on," I said way too loudly during the unicorn scene, when the poorly affixed horn wobbled on the horse's -- sorry, the "unicorn's" head. "SHHHHHHH!!!," the purple girls in the audience hissed at me. There were way more of them, so I piped down.

A decade or so ago, when I was in my late 20s, I found the greatest tee-shirt ever at Hot Topic (because I was totally underground at bought clothes at the mall Goth store): It was purple, had a picture of a unicorn shooting a rainbow from its horn, and the words "Unicorns are stupid."

I freakin' loved that tee-shirt. My Sainted Southern Mother saw me wearing it once, asked me to stand still so she could read it, and replied, "Yes. They are stupid."

Because I have been lucky enough in my career to never be beholden to a dress code at work, I wore it to my job. I was trapped in the elevator one day with an example of the Peter Principle who was way higher up the food chain than I was and she commented on the shirt: "Well, they aren't around anymore." And I could only smile politely.

Around that time, I had decided that the funniest thing in the world was to give myself fake names at delis as I waited for my order. "Leigh Ann," after all, though it is only two simple syllables, can be spelled 15 or so different ways and spelling it out is tiresome. So I renamed myself the funniest name I could think of. "Brandi, with an I," I always told the person at the counter. Comedy genius, I thought.

My grownup best friend invited me to a party in his neighborhood one night years ago, and I wore the shirt. It was a huge party, so we had to fill out name tags on the way in.  I wrote "Brandi" on mine and we made our way into the party, passing through the den, which featured a very elaborate, bone china unicorn as the centerpiece.

"Oh, shit," we both thought at the same time. I stuck around long enough to have a couple of drinks, crossing my arms over my chest while dodging the host and hostess, then ducked out, claiming babysitter problems (for the children I did not have).

Still. Unicorns? Really?

I am extremely proud to write that our disdain for them runs into three generations of my family now. Two Christmases ago, my darling nephew Joshua used his Christmas shopping money and picked out the best present ever for me: