Wardrobe Malfunctions

My entire life is one long series of strung-together wardrobe malfunctions. Jumping a fence in high school, I split my shorts down the ass crack like a cartoon character. I threw a 25-block buttcheek parade down Broadway once when my dress was pinned underneath my thong. In Vegas, I once got trapped in a crowd over an air duct and was unable to keep my dress down so I just stood there, giving in to my embarrassing situation. My boss once told me I looked like a wench in our morning staff meeting. I am numb to wardrobe mistakes and they no longer embarrass me. When a woman comes up to me and in a hushed voice says, “excuse me, I noticed your dress is riding up and I can see your underwear,” I look at her like, “congratulations. Are you okay? I am okay.” But there was one wardrobe incident that truly embarrassed me. And it doesn’t even involve buttcheeks or underwear.

 

My friend Monty and I met in Central Park to run a loop. It was raining and the park was relatively empty. Before I left, I had noticed my running shorts needed to be cleaned so I washed them in the bathtub. New Yorkers generally do not clean their own clothes so I was unaware that I had used way too much soap. I was standing at the park entrance on 59th street when Monty jogged up.

 

“Hey, there, LP. Looks like you’ve got some suds-action down there.”

 

I looked down to see that my shorts had completely sudsed up in the rain, and it looked like I was wearing bubble bikini bottoms or like my thighs were made of foam. It was as if I wasn’t wearing shorts at all—the suds stood inches over my body.

 

I ran behind a bush, grabbed some leaves, and started wiping the suds off.

 

“Phew, there,” I said. “Let’s go.”

 

But as we started to run, my thighs started rubbing the shorts together, lathering the bubbles into an even larger mass. We ran the first mile with brief interruptions so I could wipe down the bubbles but they always resurfaced. Eventually I said you know what fuck it, and continued running in my bubble bikini bottoms.

 

Every time we ran by someone, they laughed and pointed, and Monty would say something like, “gee, LP, those shorts are really generating lots of attention!”

 

I know, Monty.

 

Out of all the embarrassing things I’ve done in my life, for some reason, this made me the most uncomfortable. I think it’s because all those underwear mishaps, skirt flips, and short rips—they’re things that happen to normal people. They’re understandable. When a woman comes up and whispers about your skirt, she’s also saying, “I know, it happens to me, too.” But this wasn’t something anyone could relate to.

 

“People probably think I’m completely retarded,” I told Monty. “Like I still need to be living with my mother. How do I make it through my day?”

 

How do I make it through my day? It’s something I ask myself often, but that time, I had announced my inability to dress myself in clean clothes to the entire park.

 

These stories are all about wardrobe malfunctions—Stupid Fresh: The Feel Good Story Of The Year by Rich Santos, Friday Night Vanity by Evelyn Frison, and Dr. Seuss’ Slutty Christmas Party by Emily White.

 

 

Love,

Lauren

 

 

 

 

 

Stupid Fresh: The Feel Good Story of the Year

by Rich Santos

 

 

In Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne makes his heroic escape from prison by smuggling the Warden’s shoes in order to appear as a civilian on the outside. Morgan Freeman’s elegant voiceover explains: “how often do you look at a man’s shoes?”

 

Unfortunately, this mantra did not carry over for me at a recent client meeting. I drove along with a Rachel, my anxious co-worker from New York City down to Reading, PA to meet with the client to present a media plan. We were visiting to tell them how we were spending their advertising budget, so step one of the endeavor: be taken seriously (something I’ve struggled with my entire life).

 

The nature of the agency-client relationship is similar to that of the busboy who approaches the diner to clear their plate. To put it simply: client–top, Agency—bottom.

 

I was headed down the New Jersey turnpike in my favorite J Crew suit—a thin cut piece that would make me a suave male paper doll spawned from the urban teeth of NYC. I would look especially glamorous to the suburbanite clients.

 

Having grown up in Maryland, I could still show some down-to-earth flare to bounce off my teetering-on-the-edge-of-douche appearance. I didn’t think too much about the shoes I wore with the suit (“how often do you look at a man’s shoes?”)

 

Well, maybe I did think about my shoes a bit. Due to a sprained ankle I sustained a few days before the presentation, I followed advice I had read on Google: keep sprained ankle in a high top for added support to speed up healing time.

 

The high top I chose wasn’t just any high top. It my own design from a work event at the Nike store’s custom shop. My desire was to go late ‘80’s hip hop, an initiative that quickly attracted two employees at Nike who were eager to help.

 

Forged from the minds of my attendants and me it was a fluorescent pink shoe with bright yellow trim and a rainbow patch on the back with thick black laces. Across the tongues of the shoes we ordered stitched wording:

 

Stupid (left shoe)

Fresh (right shoe)

 

I could appear in any De La Soul or Fat Boys video with these shoes.

 

They were indeed Stupid Fresh.

 

In the interest of time that day—I was running 45 minutes late to pick up Rachel—I grabbed the right hightop (Fresh) to support my ailing ankle for the two hour drive to Reading, where I would swap it out for the other black shoe that I had thrown in the back of the rental car.

 

Total shoes planned for trip: 3

 

One pair of black business shoes, and Fresh—the right late 80s hip hop hightop.

 

We arrived at the client’s building ten minutes before the meeting was set to begin. This is where things got interesting.

 

I rifled through the back seat area for my other black shoe but didn’t find it. Then, I went through the following increasing panicky checklist:

 

I put it in the trunk, and not the back seat? No.

I forgot it? No.

It slid under one of the passenger seats while driving. Objects are prone to shifting while in transit, right? No.

I put it in my bag. No.

I forgot it. No. No way.

My co-worker is playing a joke on me. No.

 

I forgot it.

 

Fortunately, this was one of those times when I had no choice to complicate the matter: I had to go into the meeting with one late ‘80s rap-inspired high top on one foot, and a black dress shoe on the other.

 

Rachel in her sky-is-falling way looked on with a look of horror: “you’re actually going to do that?”

 

I let Rachel lead us in in her heels. They made a much better impression. But, it was my rap-shoe that really stole the shoe whenever we went anywhere on this day.

 

“I’ll let them know you’re here,” the front desk person said with a quizzical glance at Fresh.

 

I longed for the client to come greet us instead of us having to walk in to make an entrance (this meeting would have 6 clients and 6 other people from my Agency who drove from our other office, unaware of my shoe situation). Sadly, we had to make an entrance.

 

I walked in confidently—I’ve learned through PR gaffes (think “I did not/did have sex with that woman”) or nature (think the platypus with its duck bill on beaver body just going about its day as if nothing is weird), it’s best to proceed as if nothing is awry.

 

But the blazing colors of Fresh just wouldn’t be denied.

 

Five minutes after we entered, one of the clients piped up with a tone a sports reporter has when he asks the grumpy losing coach the million dollar question:

 

“So I gotta ask—what’s with the shoe?”

 

I had been sent to the Principal’s office many times before in my youth. The great thing about my particular Principal’s office was that there was a bench outside of it where I’d wait until the Principal could see me—in those days I had no idea he had other responsibilities beyond dealing with my shenanigans.

 

This glorious time outside the Principal’s office allowed me to:

 

- Develop an explanation for why I did something bad again despite previous visits

- Get out of “that was funny/fun” mode and into “that was bad and I’m remorseful” mode

- Think of a proactive strategy to offer the Principal that would pave the way for self-improvement

 

But this time, with no time to think, I was forced to be honest. I leaned on my injury to appear human and invite the clients to identify with me:

 

“Well I sprained my ankle. I read that I should keep it in a high top whenever possible. So my plan was to wear it to drive and then switch it with the black shoe for the meeting. But—“

 

I was cut off for the best possible audience participation from the client:

 

“YOU FORGOT THE OTHER SHOE!”

 

It was said with such loop-closing satisfaction that must have been similar to how the pioneers felt when they found a gold nugget after 3,000 miles of westward trudging hell.

 

The crowd burst into laughter—and one client commented, “that’s amazing,” with enlightenment and glee. Clearly they had been internally trying to work out Fresh’s involvement here, and the sheer stupidity the whole thing was enough to entertain them.

 

“I love that you didn’t just bring two entire pairs of shoes. You actually meant to just bring one shoe in addition to the pair. Priceless.” The client disregarded that my brain is not able to absorb such math.

 

By the time the meeting ended, the client had complimented me almost to the point of suggesting that I should turn it into a fad—sort of a pedal mullet: Business on the left, party on the right.

 

In my old age, I had forgotten my ability to fall ass-backwards into good fortune. And this fall got a cherry on top.

 

After the meeting, as we said our goodbyes, one of the clients approached and—with an art critic/fashion guru tone opined:

 

“That shoe is sort of a late 80’s hip hop thing isn’t it?”

 

He was the first person who actually knew what I was going for with that shoe that fateful day with those two Nike employees. Who knew it would take an accidental fashion faux pax, with a mismatched business shoe and suit to get that point across?

 

 

Saturday Night Vanity

by Evelyn Frison

 

Wardrobe Malfunctions mostly seem to happen when you are wearing clothes that are meant to show off your body to begin with. Something goes wrong because your chosen outfit is too flowy, short, tight, or see-through. My case is no different, therefore, my story isn’t that special. But, my story is study of saturday night vanity, determination, the serious responsibility of being a wingwoman, and why you should listen to your roommate.

 

One of my friends came to visit me in New York City for the first time and we planned on taking full advantage of New York City’s saturday nightlife with some handsome men by our side.

By that I mean she was here to hook up with someone in particular and I was to play the role of wingwoman, who would be paired up with a corresponding wingman. This saturday night was planned out with more effort and attention than I normally gave my job. This included where we were meeting for drinks, eating dinner, drinking, and dancing. The planning also included our outfits of course. We were headed to fancy places in meatpacking, so time to pull out all the stops

 

I put something together that I thought was a winner—tight white skirt, silk blouse, heels, etc. I think I even did my nails. My roommate saw this going down and warned that the threads in the back seam of the skirt were already loose, and it was likely to split higher if I did anything that required more movement than taking tiny steps in heels. But there is no power like vanity and a saturday night, so I ignored this advice and proceeded to dress. In my head, this was the ONLY outfit that would work for the night.

 

Everything was fine until we were getting out of a cab to visit our first club. Stepping out of the cab, I heard THE rip. You know what kind of rip noise that is. It only means one thing. Total destruction. I got out of the cab trying to assess the damage when I realized there was nothing to assess because the damage was too great–where there should have been fabric “to assess” was my purple undied-ass. This was an emergency.

 

The rip along the back center seam went all the way from the bottom of the skirt to the waistband. I had to hold it together with two hands, and that still wasn’t enough. Normally, I am a very modest person. You may not think so because of the “tight white skirt.” But this was a pencil skirt. It almost came down to my knees. I probably should have headed home. But the lure of saturday night was too strong for my friend to bear. She championed the initiative to pick up a sewing kit at a nearby convenience store and just fix it there on the spot. She NEEDED me to fix my skirt and stay out. She was determined to go out, and I was determined to be the best wingwoman I could, so we made due.

 

The rip was so long (and sewing kit so tiny – normally used for small tears I imagine), that I ran out of thread before I could fully stitch the skirt. Undeterred, my friend grabbed my skirt and swung the rip to above my right leg. Now it was no longer a tear. It was a slit. A very sexy saturday night slit I might add. I actually fit into the meatpacking crowd better now.

 

After fixing the skirt, we danced, drank and stayed out way too long. But all-in-all, a happy ending to a rather severe wardrobe malfunction. I will not be taking chances like that again however, so now when I choose clothing too tight, or shoes too high, I stop and listen to the voice of my roommate. 

 

 

Dr. Seuss’ Sluttly Christmas Party

by Emily White

 

Catering kept me employed, housed and nourished throughout college. The swing shifts and on call hours were perfect for my busy class schedule. The bags of food and boxes of wine I often took home after events were other perks I thoroughly appreciated. For a while I was catering for several different companies. I made my way around the industry and considered myself a little bit of a catering whore. I wasn’t saving myself for any one party or small business. I wanted to see and taste a little bit of everything. With experience came opportunity to work for more upscale, fancy pants companies that definitely paid more and fed us better. One such company, for this story we’ll call them AC Catering, called me in for an interview after a friend of mine sent over a good reference. I was apparently what they were looking for and was scheduled for many high end, big events with bigger tips to keep me coming back. The work was hard and my whole body usually ached after we set up, served several courses and serviced multiple bars, and broke down an event for hundreds to a thousand people. The last event I worked with AC Catering was a Christmas party (expensive extravaganza) at a private residence (mansion) way up in the rich hills.

 

From the beginning I knew it would be a rough night and was astonished that they didn’t just send me home. Clearly, I was out of my league now and should be dismissed. I also developed the awareness that I don’t enjoy being subservient to rich people. The extravagance was so blatant and captivating that I felt a little nauseated. Hence, catering to get me through school and now to social work, helping those with next to nothing.

 

You don’t need a car to live in Portland and I haven’t owned one in my eight years here. Getting around, especially to strange new locations for work that starts on time, requires a strong working knowledge of the bus lines or other means of public transit. I’ve developed this in time but that took time and error. I felt lost and unsure on my trip to this rich house up in the hills and got off the bus too soon, which required me to walk alon dark roads with no sidewalks or shoulders before finally finding the place I was supposed to be. There was a thirty foot Christmas tree in the front yard, spectacularly lit, with drill team dancers practicing their routines for the opening ceremonies—for the Christmas party. I walked in and looked around for the catering crew and stations. Inside the enormous front doors of the house, with their crystal windows and brass knocker, was a marble foyer entrance with another Christmas tree, also elegantly decorated and with presents underneath. The house was decorated with a Dr. Suess theme. Everything was a little wonky, colorful, and wild in subtle ways. The glassware came in different colors, shapes and sizes. Some were skewed, crooked, twisted, lopsided. Nothing was what it seemed. Someone came out dressed as the Cat in the Hat. The Grinch showed up and Thing 1 and Thing 2 could be seen running about the place throughout the night. It was kind of a surreal evening.

 

A few hours before the event, it was clear that things looked great but there was plenty more work to be done. I found my boss and checked in. He told me where to get dressed and where to report to next. The bathroom was beautiful and I laid out my clothes, straight from the dry cleaners, required uniform for the evening. Pressed, button up white shirt and black pants with black shoes and socks. The shirt so clean, I noticed. But when I went to tuck it into my tuxedo pants, there was not enough of it. The shirt had shrunk apparently because it would barely tuck into my pants and if I moved at all it was out again. AC Catering was not okay with this. We must look our best always and everyone needs to look the same. It is a uniform. I tied the apron a little high on my waist to hold the shirt in place and told my boss of my predicament. He was amused but not pleased. What could be done though? No one had an extra shirt and the show must go on. It turned out not to be a huge deal as long as I was serving and working in the kitchen.

 

The party was getting started with people showing up by the carload. My boss had me move over to the role of greeter and gift taker. I had to take off my apron and stand over by the front door to welcome guests and take their gifts. Apparently each party-goer brought a gift, which I thought strange. In my mind I pretended that they were all new shiny toys that were going to be donated to less fortunate little kids with no Dr. Suess characters at their Christmas parties. There was no gift exchange or anything so I have no idea what the gifts were for otherwise. But my job wasn’t to be the moralizer, my job was to smile, welcome, take the gift and place it under the tree. Anxiety filled my belly immediately. I was wearing a shirt that didn’t tuck in, with no cami underneath and no apron to keep myself together. After bending down the very first time, I realized that my pants were not staying put but rather sliding with each bend and twist and lean. That hot pink stripper thong I put on earlier in the day that I thought nobody would see? On display tonight with each gift delivery! I awas mortified and horrified and smiling and saying thank you and happy holidays all at the same time, meanwhile considering running straight out that door all the way down to my humble home that is clean and free of Dr. Suess characters.

 

Somehow I made it through that experience. I developed a technique of waiting to place the package until the guest made their way past me and into the party. If they brought a child I would excitedly ask if the kid wanted to put the present under the tree. More than a few times, I would turn my back to the tree, with gift in hand, and then place the package in front of me. I’d then step over it and lightly scoot it under the tree with my foot. When enough gifts showed up I began stacking them so that less bending was required. Despite my attempts to adapt to the situation and the obvious complications, I know that hot pink thong, contrasted against my starch white shirt, black pants and exposed skin, was on display for too many people at the party. I didn’t bother to confirm it but suspect that the host as well as my boss witnessed or were informed of this wardrobe malfunction. Eventually they let me do something else. I got back in the kitchen and put an apron on immediately and would have argued to keep it on if necessary. No one asked me to remove it again though. I began gathering glasses, and bussing the place, cleaning up. This took up hours of my time and it felt amazing to do. I got to be more invisible and just carry dirty things to be racked and washed and stacked. It’s a monotonous task that requires little human interaction. I’d been humiliated enough that night, even though no one said anything about my attire to me directly. AC Catering has standards and I was appalled to be so unprepared and unprofessional. I don’t regret the hot slutty pink underwear at all but rather that I regret that I didn’t have what I needed to keep it all together. Speaking of, I wonder where those underwear went… I certainly don’t have them now.

 

I was never called for another shift with AC Catering and I never called them to ask for more work. It was clear that it just wasn’t going to work between us. They should have sent me home as soon as my shirt wasn’t tucked in. Instead I became a part of the holiday entertainment. From that day forward I always tried on the outfit I was to wear before a shift, first at home, to make sure all the pieces were fitting and accounted for. It’s best to save the slut-wear for another kind of party.

 

Yo Mama

 

When my mom used to volunteer in my kindergarten class, the kids called her Mrs. Pasilly, because, even amongst a cadre of kindergarteners, she was the liveliest, happiest person in the room. That same year, when I had to stay home from school with the chicken pox, we danced on the coffee table and watched PG-13 rated movies. When her dad was very sick, she took my cousins and me on a shopping spree at Wal Mart to decorate his hospital room with outrageous Christmas decorations. She was fired from her role assisting my Brownie leader because, I swear to God, the Brownie leader, believing that Brownies was no laughing matter, thought Mom let us have too much fun. (The leader was painfully aware that everyone preferred my mom over her. We walked out of the Brownies together that day. FUCK the Brownies.) One time we found out we were stranded at the Charlotte airport together, and I thought, “yesssss!” and we had nachos and margaritas and laughed our asses off until our plane showed up.

 

That’s because my mom has the absolute best spirit I have ever known. When something really sucky is happening, I call her and feel better. When I call her on the phone, which is every day, I feel like I am holding her hand. She not only brightens my spirits, she inspires me to handle things with good humor and buoyancy. With laughing, with wine, with singing, with a “who the fuck cares?” attitude, with nachos. (I swear we have this thing with nachos.) We go to Disney World together several times a year, and that is always a blast. But we don’t need to go to the Happiest Place On Earth to have fun. I would have fun living in a box on the street with her. I would have fun getting a colonoscopy listening to a Dave Matthew’s Band song with her. I would maybe even have fun if, for ten years, I was held under duress in some Cleveland guy’s basement, so long as I was with her.

 

It is a long, uninteresting story why, but my gym membership ID card says “Cheri Passell.” And every time I go to the gym, they say, “hello, Cheri, have a nice workout!” And I think, I am Cheri Passell! This is amazing! And until I leave the gym, I am bolstered by that fake fact. I hope, though, that I am a at least a tenth of Cheri Passell, in real life, too.

 

She touches all of the people in her life, I just hog her attention the most. She teaches refugees how to speak English in Akron, Ohio, and she loves them like they are her children. They love her back so hard. Their touching emails to her in their much-improved English make me cry. The two students she set up on a date are now married with a little baby whom they, against her sarcastic wishes, did not name Lil’ Cheri. One time I saw one of her old students approach her and lift her into a huge bear hug and spin her around, laughing like fucking Maria from The Sound Of Music. Speaking of The Sound Of Music, she once went on a Sound Of Music bus tour in Salzburg by herself and ended up guiding the entire tour with her singing and knowledge of the movie. She writes on her popular Italian movie blog every day, and has amassed a large following with her passion for Italian film and culture. Let me assure you, whatever you’re doing, you want her there. If you watch her, I bet you wonder what it is like to be her and go through her day. When choosing teams for the kickball game of life, you should pick her first.

 

The thing is, I do not believe she sees herself this way. I bet, as she reads this right now, she is rolling her eyes, sticking out her tongue, and maybe doing the jerk off symbol with her right hand. Because giving her a compliment is the only time she tightens her lips into a frown. (Or, I guess, if you cut her off in traffic or eat any of her pizza. In those situations, you’ll get her middle finger in your face and you’ll probably get called her favorite swear word, “Ass Wipe.”) I wish she knew this about herself—that she can’t possibly understand how wonderful she is to be around because she can’t help it. She is just this bright light, wherever she goes. And her good nature is so genuine, her positivity is real and from her heart. We all see it.

 

I have been having a weird couple of months. A few small things have just been wearing at my normally sky-high optimism. And lately I have been wondering how I can remember to stay the positive person that I usually am. The answer is thinking of my mother. I ask myself, “how would my mom handle this?” And “how would I feel if my mom was right here with me?”

 

It’s my favorite issue of the year, the Mother’s Day issue! Remember to at least call your mom on Sunday. (MOTHER’S DAY.) Call my mom this weekend if you’re feeling sucky. She’ll cheer your ass up. And read these stories—Her Last Hurrah by Jim Ross, Mother’s Day: The Ballad Of Julia (AKA My Mom Poops) by Jason Leonard, Meet Thelma by Mark Oppenheim, and Watch Me Throw A Piano On The UPS Man For You by Whitney Collins.

 

Love,

Lauren

 

 

 

 

 

Her Last Hurrah

by Jim Ross

We had no clue my mother-in-law, Barbara, was well on her way toward multi-infarc (now called vascular) dementia until after my father-in-law, an acclaimed and high-ranking military hero, died, and she no longer lived in his shadow. Barbara was a long-time smoker who enjoyed a long glass of gin, one a day. The day after the Vice Admiral’s funeral, we noticed that half of her face had became droopy. We rushed her to the hospital and, indeed, she had experienced a minor stroke, an infarc, not the first, and far from the last. She stayed in the hospital for a week, then returned home with full facial symmetry restored. “Just give it time” became our mantra.

 

We were committed to keeping her in her own home—a few houses away from her church—with use of her car and access to her checking account. As a precaution, we got her an emergency call button to wear from a lanyard hung around her neck. She was compliant with wearing the lifeline button, but then when she fell in the bathroom, she dragged herself to the phone instead of pressing the button. Either she had no clue as to the purpose of the button or old habits die hard. Slowly, we had to rein her in. When wandering yard workers bilked her for $700 for two hours of unneeded work, we took away her checkbook along with responsibility for paying bills and filing taxes. Soon after, we took away the car keys because she couldn’t find her way around the neighborhood.

 

At least once weekly, and sometimes day after day, she called at around 3 a.m. to say she was really anxious and couldn’t go back to sleep. A couple of times Ginger drove half an hour in the middle of the night to calm her down. Persuaded she was having a heart attack, at least a couple of times Barbara called for an ambulance. Rather than overreact, we quickly settled into a pattern of my taking her calls and taking her slowly through a kind of calming ritual: boiling water for tea, making the tea, drinking it slowly, going for slow walks around the house, and practicing her breathing exercises. By the time she’d completed all of her assigned tasks, she felt re-centered enough to go back to bed and try to fall asleep.

 

After about a year, still committed to keeping her at home, we brought in a succession of caregivers to stay with her during the day, still leaving her to her own devices at night. That did nothing to decrease the increasing frequency of 3 a.m. phone calls. So, after another year, we started to bring in a succession of people to stay with her at night too with the intent that they take full brunt for the 3 a.m. anxiety attacks. We received far fewer calls after that, but they never stopped altogether as long as she remained at home.

 

After five years, it was overwhelmingly evident to me and my wife that Barbara needed to be moved to an assisted living facility focused on memory disorders. My wife’s three siblings fought the plan on the grounds it was tantamount to “putting mom away.” All three of them lived out of town so they didn’t experience what we saw. The tide turned at a family gathering in Boston. The entire family and many friends stayed in the Copley Plaza that weekend. Barbara shared a hotel room with the most diligent of her day care workers. One night, while the world slept, she snuck out of her hotel room without disturbing her companion. A while later, the hotel staff caught her in the lobby of the hotel measuring the curtains for the dress she planned to make, much like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. After word of her nocturnal adventures spread throughout the hotel, we had no trouble reaching a consensus that she needed to be removed from her home and moved to an assisted living facility focused on Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders.

 

The subsequent progressive decline in memory was slow, but inexorable. She stayed in the assisted living facility over six years, by far the facility’s record. By the second year, she had no clue who I was, but could still recognize and name her four children. In the fourth year, I asked her one day where her husband was. She said, “he’s up in heaven.” So, I asked, “have you heard from him lately?” I wasn’t being facetious because I knew a number of people who claimed they regularly heard from deceased loved ones. But she fired right back, “The mail service isn’t that good here.” Undeterred, I asked whether who she planned to vote for in an upcoming election. Again, she fired back, “I’ve forgotten a lot of things but one thing I remember, I am not a Democrat.” By her fifth year, she called my wife “the daughter,” but did not remember her name. By the sixth year, she told my wife she looked “familiar,” but no longer knew their relationship. Shown a picture of her deceased husband, half the time she first said it was her father, though given enough guesses, she usually got it right eventually.

 

Early in the seventh year, she suffered a heart attack, was hospitalized, and became completely non-responsive. We moved her from there to a nursing home for an alleged period of rehabilitation. While it’s unclear whether she was rehabilitated in terms of any of the any the Medicare-supported goals for treatment, something magical happened at the nursing home. She had a rally the likes of which we hadn’t seen in years. Expecting she was about to die, we even called our son, Alex, home from college for a long goodbye. Instead, he got the last hurrah.

 

The day Alex arrived to see her, Barbara became very excited about tomatoes and peaches. She enjoyed the garden fresh tomatoes with Basil we brought her, but she couldn’t think of the word for it. She kept working her way around it. It was obvious she was reaching. Finally, in a moment of uncontrolled glee, she said, “If somebody tasted tomatoes for the first time and had never eaten them before, they would be so excited, they’d probably never want to eat anything else for the rest of their lives.” She drank a peach drink, and admired one of the peaches we brought. She greatly preferred the darker one, with a deep rusty red color on almost its entire surface. She declared “I love peaches.”

 

So, the next day, we brought her another peach. It was very similar in color to the one we brought her the day before. She said, “I don’t know how that tennis ball got on this ship.” Moments later, she added, “my husband is somewhere on this ship, but I don’t know where he is, and I haven’t seen him for a long time. I’d sure like to see him for a change.” Her husband, the Vice Admiral, had died nearly eleven and a half years earlier. Her father, also a Vice Admiral, had died 38 years before her husband.

 

Soon afterward, she burst out with, “I’m so glad to see you. You are the very best of friends. The two of you brought me back to life. That other one was always so fussy, fussy, fussy, fussy, fussy.” Ginger told her how much we enjoyed seeing her too. I was determined she would recognize the peach as a peach. I gave it to her to hold. She inspected all parts of it, and held it in both hands. She still called it a tennis ball, and returned it to me.

 

I asked, “is this a watermelon?” She answered, “I’ve never walked into a watermelon.” I asked, “is this a banana?” She answered, “It looks like one, but it sure doesn’t bounce like one.” I asked, “can you tell me what this is?” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her head, like she does when she’s trying to, as she says, “get my head together.” Finally, she opened her eyes and said, in a moment of insight, “It’s a rose.” I said, “it’s not a rose, those are roses over there,” as I pointed to the bouquet of drooping yellow roses on the bookcase. She followed my pointing finger to the bouquet of roses, and said, “And they came back to say hello to you.”

 

Outside in the hall, two dogs barked. She said, “I’ve been trying to find someone who can tell me what’s going on.” I gave her back the peach. She held it endearingly in both hands, her fingers exploring its entire surface many times. “This is the most very special tennis ball because of the way you can hold it and it feels so comfortable.” She seemed to caress it, paused for a moment, and continued. “It reminds me of when I was on a ship and all the officers were giving me the hardest time and told me I was a little girl.”

 

About this time Ginger left the room. Barbara asked me, “Did she go to have her feet done?” I told her that, yes, she had. Throughout the visit, she was drinking the strawberry drink we had brought her. Finally, she gave it back, said she was tired, and wanted us to let her lie down. And so we let her lie down and began to gather our things to get ready to leave. As we were saying goodbye, she said, “Sometimes in the shyest place you find what you always wanted and it was there all along.” We said “goodbye, we’ll see you tomorrow,” to which she said, “Do what you want. Always do what you really want.”

 

This was her final rally, the last hurrah. She lasted for three and a half months before giving up the ship. The last time I heard her speak was the week before she died. She was nearly out of steam. Several times “Heavy” resounded deeply in her throat. She said, “I can’t get.” She was very clear about that. When I repeated it, she nodded emphatically, and said it again, “I can’t get.” At one point, Ginger and our daughter Emily were each holding one of her hands. She squeezed them and said, “hugs.” Somehow, she found, “I love you.” Asked if she’d like some gin, which she hadn’t touched in years, she said, “I could use some of that.”

 

I’m told that her death a few days later was out of a storybook. She was back in her bed at the nursing home in hospice care, hours after returning from the hospital in Virgina. My wife held one of her hands. Older daughter Joan held the other. A nurse whispered Hawaiian songs to her, transporting her back to her childhood spend in Hawaii. As she took in one final breath, with a huge smile on her face, her chest rose, she squeezed both of hands tight, and her spirit almost visibly rose out of her body, and she had crossed over, surrounded by love.

 

When I think about my mother-in-law, two things jump to mind. The first was the day Ginger took me home to meet the parents. When the night was over, as Barbara walked us out to the car, she recited a poem that ended, “shake me, and wake me, and make me, God damn it.” The other was her last hurrah.

 

Mother’s Day: The Ballad Of Julia (AKA My Mom Poops)

by Jason Leonard

 

Warm cookies and apple pie. Delicious and comforting; the symbols of the American way and motherly instinct. Someone to clean up your knee scrapes. The smell of a freshly placed potpourri arrangement and the subtle clenching of teeth to avoid saying something inappropriate in mixed company. These are things that most people associate with mothers. My mother is none of these things. At times, she is a caring individual who will give you her last dime when she has nothing for herself. At other times, she is a belligerent mess, who has had to be scooped off the floor on more than one occasion. Since I can’t share with you everything awkward, hilarious or frustrating my mother has ever done or slept with, I will do my best to give you a glimpse into our very special relationship through two vignettes. Hopefully this will give you an idea why, for better or worse, there is no one like my mother.

 

Case File One: Dating Life

 

Ma has never been one for dating anyone who is good for her. That is not only my opinion, but the opinion of several mental health and legal professionals. She has a penchant for seeing what she calls ‘the best in people’ which the general public would call ‘dating trash’. She has gone through several different lovers in her dating life: the obsessive, balding creepster who’s slow southern drawl hid the fact that she wanted her to do a “Hot Mamas” only porn video. I think I need to provide visual evidence as to why this is a bad idea.

 

 

The drunk, mulleted redneck who encouraged her to play demolition derby with his collection of junk cars. And let’s not forget the quickie with the guy who washes cars down the street. Of course, once he offered to sell her weed, she kicked his ass to the curb, being that she is innately a southern belle.

 

I bet you are wondering at this point why I know so much about my mother’s love life. We don’t have the typical mother son relationship. It is often times flipped to where I am the moral center and she is the outgoing, hormonal teen that needs wrangling. She likes to include me in the details of her love life and seriously never skips on the ‘finer’ details of her sexual preferences. That’s why I got her a *HEAVY AIR QUOTES* ‘rabbit’ for Christmas. Mainly to keep her kicking thighs off the street and encourage her to be more involved in the community of the normals.

 

This level of interpersonal intimacy can lead to situations that are horribly awkward. The prime example of this was when she was dating ‘possibly meth-addled construction worker’. This was back in 2003, and as the most poor of college students, I had no car and needed her assistance moving back home so I could begin my summer position at Wal-Mart. Night shift, all the way. Anywho, as we were driving up interstate 81 in near silence aside from the occasional comment about how tired I was or some insane driver that was veering into our lane, she opened her mouth and uttered the most disgusting and uncomfortable phrases your mother could ever say. The dialogue went like this:

 

Mom: “Jason.”

Me: “Yeah”

Mom: “Have you ever tried anal?”

Me: “Ummmm…”

Mom: “Me and (PMACW) tried it last week.”

Me: “UHHHHHHHH…”

Mom: “I mean, I liked it a lot!”

 

At this point I was clawing for an escape route. “Damn! The windows are locked!” I said to myself as I contemplated jettisoning myself from a speeding vehicle. She then continued.

 

Mom: “But I took a shower afterward, and I shit EVERYWHERE! It was like watching a horse take a dump! I didn’t know that was inside me. Maybe I should get a colonic, like you know, that girl on TV. You know the one?! The one who did ‘rhythm nation’.”

Me: “Ja-*retch*net Jack*heave*son??”

 

I mean, she can have a sex life. That’s great. I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE INVOLVED! I came out of there! Well, not there, but in the vicinity of there.

 

Case File Number Two: Rum and Nair

 

My mother is no stranger to alcohol. In fact I am sure that aside from her maltie-poo, it is her best friend. Now usually, she will just stick to beer. This keeps her borderline coherent and she will just rocking herself to sleep in the soothing arms of Molly Hatchet and fall into a noisy slumber. On the occasions that I have seen her drink liquor, wild things have happened. This is just one example.

 

In 2008 I was I working in Korea and needed to take a vacation to the U.S. for a friend’s wedding. Now, alcohol isn’t hard to find in Korea, but certain types are more prevalent than others. You have soju, dongdong ju, makoli and something I always liked to call ‘cock vodka’ as it comes with a little penis shaped clay shot glass. Rum, on the other hand, is incredibly hard to find when you don’t live in a major metropolitan area. So my friend Kat asked me to bring her back a bottle of Bacardi 151, along with the feminine hygiene products and Mario Kart that other people had asked for. I should have known better, but I pulled the bottle out in front of my mother while I was re-packing everything to make sure it fit. She then snagged it from my hand and exclaimed “You can buy another one! I’mma have fun tonight!” This night was about to turn into one of the most disgusting and (for other people) hilarious nights of my life.

 

10 PM: Julia now having finished half of the bottle, decided it was a good idea to try and trim her ‘womanly bush’. Well, not so much trim as eradicate with nair. For those of you not in the know, Nair is a toxic chemical that eats hair when it is applied. It also states clearly to not use in one’s danger zone. Well, no sooner had she applied the noxious mixture to her gilded flower area she was screaming for my assistance. Her direct quote was: “JASON! MY BUSH IS A’BURNIN!”.

 

She had gotten it in her spam purse.

 

I screamed back, “GET IN THE SHOWER AND RINSE OUT YOUR VAG BEFORE IT EATS IT ALL UP!” Crisis avoided. I had dialed 9 and 1 and was ready to dial the other 1, but she was able to rinse the chemicals out of her wizard’s sleeve.

 

1AM: Now having finished the bottle, she tries to stumble her way to her quarters. This was no easy feat for her, and she slams to the ground. She gargles her final words for the night, “Jayshoon, hap mama ge’ te beed.” I, of course, oblige her request by hoisting her into an upright position and putting her feet on top of mine and walking her to the bedroom. She was a lot lighter then I think. Anywho, when we make it to the bed, I fling her on the bed. Now, during this process her night gown flies up and she defecates herself. Well, it was thoroughly projectile, so herself isn’t as correct as saying everywhere. She shit everywhere. The sheets were done. The comforter was toast. Then I looked down. SHE SHIT ALL OVER MY ARM! That’s when I tagged out and washed my hands of the situation. How was I supposed to change the sheets with a 180 pound non-coherent drunk woman in them, anyway? I just had to let go and let God. I had to realize that you, indeed, can’t save everyone. Sure, I may have pooed on her as a child, but we are grown ass people, with jobs. And car payments. And having her sleep in her own doo-doo butter was kind of my vindication for her having exploded her ass mess all over my arm.

 

Meet Thelma

by Mark Oppenheim

 

My Mom, Thelma Butler, was born in June of 1924 in Albany NY. She had three sisters and a brother and the family lived in a small house on Lancaster Street. Like many of her generation, the depression and World War II were the defining events of her life. She always took really short showers. Anything more was excessive and a waste. She also used to break sticks of gum in half. A full stick was a ridiculous extravagance.

 

Some in my father’s family were forever skeptical of her as she grew up poor and on the “wrong side of the tracks”. Maybe they thought they were still back in Europe. Her side of the family was always more open and caring. They even tried to have fun every so often.

 

My mother’s father was an aspiring musician but there usually wasn’t much work and he wound up doing a variety of odd jobs trying to patch things together. I have very good memories of my grandfather. When he was sick and in the hospital, he would sometimes try and pinch the nurses’ butts. That was good enough for my wife Tessie and I and we named our son after him (Michael). My grandfather’s brother Ben (yes Uncle Ben) lived with them. He used to crumple up the newspaper into a ball and play catch with me.

 

It is trite to say they broke the mold but it appropriately applies here. My mom’s greatest qualities was her determination and spirit. She possessed a quiet ambition and loyalty that ran hot. Family and faith were what mattered most. She remained faithful to a flawed husband and desperately wanted the best for her kids. I don’t think of her often enough but she is usually on my mind late in marathons. She never ran but in a different time and a different place, the “wall” would not have been much of an obstacle for her.

 

She died in a car accident in October of 1999 hitting the gas instead of the brake after a long day. In many respects, she was a women of the twentieth century. The twenty-first would likely have been a bit baffling to her. In 1984, my brother and I gave her a microwave oven for her sixtieth birthday. It might as well have been a nuclear reactor. She was stumped despite our expert instruction.

 

At her funeral, I told our son Michael that she had passed that unique determination and spirit on to me and it was his obligation, duty and burden to carry it forward. He has done a pretty good job of that thus far and I think she’d be proud of him.

 

 

 

Watch Me Throw A Piano On The UPS Man For You

by Whitney Collins

 

About three days after my babies were born, I got hit with a powerful hormone I like to call Rabid Female Grizzly. This is a hormone that has nothing to do with breast milk production or the gentle cradling of your newborn or uterine elasticity rebound. This hormone exists for the singular purpose of offspring protection.

 

Rabid Female Grizzly kicks in quickly, and with little warning, within 72 hours of delivery. You might be changing a diaper the size of a ticket stub or humming a lullaby when suddenly you’ll vividly imagine a gruesome home invasion, followed by how you will handle said invasion.

 

(Hint: It’s the same way a 500-pound mother Kodiak handles a Gorton’s fish stick.)

 

While under the influence of this endocrine gland cocktail (I really have no idea where it originates, do I look like a goddam biologist?), I delighted in mentally preparing for several violent, unexpected and profanity-laden scenarios involving intruders and infants. For example:

 

Scenario 1: Are you a strange man coming up my staircase?

 

Well, prepare yourself, asshole, because I will jump over the banister, land on your shoulders, and rip off your face with my bare fucking hands.

 

Scenario 2: Are you a strange man breaking into a downstairs window?

 

Well, get ready, jackwad, because I will single-handedly throw a fucking dresser out a two-story window and onto your back. Don’t think for a second I won’t. I will even throw the one that took me six months to stencil clouds onto. I have no mercy.

 

Scenario 3: Are you a strange man sneaking into my child’s nursery?

 

Well, sorry about your luck, dickhead, because I’m going to kick your fucking head off with my bare fucking pedicured foot “…and then hand-deliver your head to the cops with a self-addressed thank-you note attached to your forehead with a railroad spike.”

 

For me, Rabid Female Grizzly only lasted for a few weeks after each baby, but during that time, every possible threat to my children was envisioned, and all were resolved in my imagination by me tearing the bare-handed shit out of some asshole.

 

(I’ve since heard this sort of attitude is bottled under the name Jose Cuervo.)

 

Anyway, that was one of my favorite parts of new motherhood. It was very delusional and empowering.

 

So, to close this brief essay in a way that is in no way related to the way it opened, here’s a little “poem” about what I’d really like for Mother’s Day from these small-people-I-would-be-willing-to-throw-a-piano-on-the-UPS-man-for.

 

 

A Mother’s Mother’s Day Wish

 

 

What would I like for Mother’s Day?

Oh. Not much. Maybe just some guacamole that I don’t have to share.

I mean, unless you want some. You do?

Okay. You can have my guacamole.

For your hair.

So help me God you’re putting at least four ripe Hass avocados in your hair.

 

What kind of present would I like?

Oh, I don’t need a fancy gift. Just something homemade.

Like a necklace made of drinking straws.

Or a card with your handprint on it.

Or a popsicle stick picture frame.

Or this turd.

This turd that you have just placed in my hand.

Thank you for making it for me.

I’m thinking it might also be nice to be able to take a nap today. Just a 20-minute nap alone in my bed.

Or on the couch with your foot in my mouth.

Either way.

 

I’d also like a cup of coffee. I don’t need it hot. Or even today. I’m perfectly fine finding it tomorrow in the microwave, cold.

I am flexible like that.

Hey! I have an idea! Maybe we could all go to the mall as a family and I could stop by J.Crew.

Or the hermit crab kiosk.

I don’t think we need a hermit crab, so we better buy three.

 

We could go on a hike.

Even if it means carrying you by the beltloops for two miles.

 

We could go to the park.

You know, the park with the prostitutes that doesn’t have a bathroom?

 

Or hey! Maybe we could all go back home and watch Caillou. I’ll even watch the episode where Caillou doesn’t die.

 

That’s how much I love you.

 

How about a story? You can come sit on my lap and I will tell you all about when you were born or, okay, never mind then, we can read Lego Jedi Masters Here Comes Jabba The Hutt Reader Pack for the 94th time.

I love those books.

I love them so much I’m going to burn them and laugh when you’re at school on Monday.

 

You know what? You know what I really want for Mother’s Day?

I really just want a hug.

And a kiss.

Or strep.

 

Thank you. Thank you for the strep.

This is the best strep anyone could ever ask for in the whole wide world.

Thank you for giving it to me.

 

I will never forget this Mother’s Day.

 

Never ever.

 

It will go down in history as the one where my throat was too sore to drink wine after I got those kids-I-would-kill-for finally to bed.

 

 

The Mini-Futures Of Journalism

 

My friend snapped this photo as I left my internship one day. I was literally this happy, every day.

 

 

I moved to New York City in January of 2007 for an internship at Parenting magazine and I fucking loved it. It was there I assembled strollers, held babies at photo shoots, attended The International Toy Fair, assisted editors, attended press conferences, and occasionally, so occasionally, wrote a little tiny something. (My first piece was about toddlers biting other toddlers, a topic I chose not because I knew anything about it or felt like I could help, but when I heard that toddler-biting was a thing I thought, “what is going on with these fucking toddlers?! We’ve got to get to the bottom of this!”)

 

I felt my dreams had come true and was so happy I couldn’t even be brought down by the most menial tasks. One day shortly after the office had switched buildings, the deputy editor asked me to white out the logo and address on hundreds and hundreds of company letterhead and envelopes. In retrospect, I think, “are you fucking serious? A Time Inc. company can’t afford to buy new stationary? What kind of janky company would send out shitty white-outed letterhead?” But at the time, I thought, “Heck YES I am going to be the best, happiest white-outer there ever has been.” I remember standing at my desk, blowing on top of the papers so they would dry, for hours, feeling incredibly fortunate and proud that I was there, doing whatever.

 

One week the Editor-in-Chief’s assistant Kimberly was out of town, so I had to step in. Kimberly’s job was to be Jane’s right-hand-man, and doing that was a full-time job. Things have really changed in media—in 2007, magazines were much more old school. Every morning, Kimberly would print out all of Jane’s favorite news websites (she didn’t like to read them online) on special paper and put it in her office before she got there. She answered her phone, tested her food for poison (not sure if Kimberly did that, but I did), fixed her computer, and oversaw her mail. Needless to say, I was jazzed out of my eyeballs to be Jane’s assistant. Sure, whiting out envelopes was the goddam whizbang, but this was real-ass shit.

 

The only bad thing that ended up happening during my week as Editorial Assistant was the Virginia Tech Shooting, and that was totally not my fault. So I felt like I had really nailed my job.

 

The morning Kimberly got back, she cornered me. “Someone sent Jane the covers to the magazine last week in a big envelope. Where are they?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Well they were the only copies, they’re really important. Jane is going nuts.”

 

I had heard her going nuts about something before, but I had been sure it had nothing to do with me.

 

“Wait, the only covers to the magazine were in an envelope? There isn’t like a saved copy somewhere?”

 

“They had notes on them. And they got mailed to Jane last week and now we can’t find them. What did you do with Jane’s mail?”

 

At this point, I started sweating. I had put Jane’s mail in a big pile in her office.

 

“Let’s divide this mail and look for it,” Kimberly said. “I already looked but we can look again.”

 

I took my part of the huge pile back to my intern desk and started flying through the envelopes again and again. It wasn’t there, it didn’t matter how many times I looked.

 

I excused myself to the bathroom in tears. I would be fired, for sure. I pictured myself getting shipped back to Ohio—the worst possible outcome I could think of. Oh, the shame, the shattered dreams, the inability to ever get a job in anything ever again!

 

In my favorite episode of Leave it to Beaver, Beaver tries out for the school band but doesn’t make the cut. Not wanting to devastate his proud parents, he lies to them and loiters around town after school every day to make it seem like he’s at practice. And when it’s time for the final recital, Ward and June are psyched to see their son in the show.

 

On the night of the concert, they’re getting ready to go, Beaver is wearing a tux even though he knows he’s not in the recital, and Wally, who knows what’s going on, is all like, “Beaver what the hell are you going to do when Mom and Dad go to the concert and you aren’t in it?” And Beaver says:

 

“I’m just gonna hope something happens.”

 

The laugh track people must have thought that was hilarious, but I think it’s a brilliant thing to say. I think about it anytime something bad happens to me. Sometimes you can’t have a plan, you just have to blindly go ahead and hope something happens, and sometimes it will.

 

I considered selling my soul to the devil, but instead got down on my knees in that bathroom stall and gripped my hands together and prayed harder than I have in my entire life. “Please God, just have something happen. I don’t know what.” I didn’t know what to ask for because I didn’t know how this situation could possibly be remedied.

 

I left the bathroom, eyes red, and stumbled into Kimberly.

 

“Oh I found the envelope. It was in my pile I just didn’t see it the first time.”

 

I mean, awesome, but are you fucking kidding me? I just almost sold my soul to the devil because of your oversight? Kimberly seemed totally unaware that in my mind I had just been fired, moved out of New York, and gotten a job at the Streestboro Dairy Queen because they wouldn’t even hire me at Streets, the local bar, because experience whiting out envelopes will not help you get a job as a bartender oh GOD#*$@)#($!!! But I got back to my seat and continued to do whatever the hell I had been doing before. Jane had stopped screaming.

 

On Leave it To Beaver, Wally ended up secretly telling his parents that Beaver was not in the band but hadn’t wanted to let them down. And instead of calling Beaver out, Ward and June, in their concert attire, went up to Beaver’s room and said, “Beaver, we know you have your big concert tonight, but we just don’t think we can make it. We’re too busy. And we don’t think you should go, either.” So in the end, Beaver never had to admit before them that he hadn’t made the school band. See? Sometimes stuff happens.

 

After my internship, I was hired full-time at Parenting and I saw many interns come and go. Sometimes they would complain about attending press conferences, not writing enough, or being told what to do. Ladies, please. Stuff those envelopes with a smile on your face. If you’re not fucking stoked to be here, step aside, because there is some 24-year-old from Ohio who would be jazzed as hell to be in your city girl shoes.

 

Just like getting treated like shit and being hazed, internships are an important rite-of-passage. Initially I asked for internship stories, and oddly enough, they all ended up being about journalism in one way or another, if you consider my article about RABID TODDLERS true journalism. Anyway, that means whatever. These storiesI’m Here For Michael Jordan, Ma’am by Ken Martin, Dicks, Balls & Butts by Francis O’Keefe, and Bitch Stole My Byline by Alex Ingersollwere written in tribute to journalism internships.

 

Love,

Lauren

 

 

 

 

I’m Here For Michael Jordan, Ma’am.

by Ken Martin

 

So what did you do the first day of your college internship? Reorganize the filing cabinet? I interviewed Michael Jordan. Well, sort of. But that’s still cooler than whatever you did. Yea, that’s how I’m kicking this off.

 

It was Fall 2001, and I was at my first day of an internship at Eastern Radio News Service in Washington, DC. That’s not actually what the name was, but it’s still around and I am about to make fun of it, so let’s call it that for the sake of this story. When I arrived that first morning, I was sure I got the address wrong. This news agency, which looked very professional on the internet, appeared to be run out of an apartment in Georgetown.

 

I had not gotten the address wrong.

 

The living room doubled as the newsroom, in which there was an impressive scattered mess of books, press releases, and take-out food containers. A handful of confused interns buzzed around Grant, who was the office manager and “Chief Correspondent.” When I introduced myself, he clearly had NO idea who I was, or the fact I was starting that day. He gave me my first assignment, which was “Uh, I don’t know. Why don’t you just follow that Czech girl around today? I think her name is Radmilla. Where is she?”

 

Now, at this point I was rightly confused, but I would later get to understand the business model of Eastern Radio News Service. It was run by Paula, who was a B-level talking head on Fox News and to this day, the possessor of the most profane mouth I have ever heard on a woman. She would use her connections with a friend in the Capitol Press Office to get press credentials for a swath of unpaid interns, who would collect stories around D.C. and edit them for distribution to select radio stations. These stations had clearly made the decision that budget trumped quality content. Grant was the most experienced of the group, my basing that on the fact I once saw him go into the bathroom and call in a report to a local radio station while simultaneously taking a dump. That takes skills. The “Chief White House Correspondent” also worked as a supermarket cashier. The rest of us were completely untrained except for a 5 minute tutorial on how to use a minidisk recorder. Granted, this an interesting concept for a business, but the New York Times newsroom it was not.

 

So, I found the Czech girl Radmilla and let her know it was my first day and I would be shadowing her. She had been interning for only a few weeks and had a mild grasp of English. According to her, she scored an interview that afternoon with Jaromir Jagr, who at the time was a superstar hockey player for the Washington Capitals, and more importantly to Radmilla, also from the Czech Republic. Personally, I was skeptical that the Capitals had OK’d letting two 20-year-olds with questionable press credentials waltz in for an exclusive interview of their star player. I suspected Radmilla’s belief that she had permission was the result of some misunderstanding of the language, but she seemed confident. Anyway, it was my first day, who was I to question the plan?

 

At the press office of the MCI Center, Radmilla boldly strode up to the desk and declared her name and that she was there for her 1:30 interview with Jaromir Jagr. Without looking up, the person behind the desk responded “Capitals aren’t here today. They are in the practice facility in Arlington. You should have gone there.” Radmilla did not seem to understand.

 

This was a problem. Arlington is in Virginia. We had no car. As best I could, I explained to Radmilla that we were in the wrong location, not to mention the wrong state. She huffed, alternating between arguing with the press officer in unintelligible English, and muttering to herself in Czech. Meanwhile, around us professional crews from ESPN and all the major networks loaded in equipment and cameras. Curious, I asked the press officer what all the other people were here for. “They are here for the Michael Jordan interview.” This was right when Jordan was coming out of retirement and playing for the Wizards, and it was arguably the biggest sports story going at that time.

 

“Wait, never mind.” I told the press officer. “We’re here for Michael Jordan too.”

 

Radmilla was incensed. She pushed me and yelled “I do not know who this Jordan boy is! I do not want to speak to him! I want to speak to Jaromir Jagr!” I told her she could do whatever she wanted. She shoved the minidisk player in my hands and stormed out the door. Unperturbed by this scene, the press officer lazily handed me credentials and said “Waiting room is down the hall to the right.” Shocked at the ease at which I gained myself entrance, I proceeded inside, by myself, on my first story.

 

I settled into a seat between the ESPN and NBC guys, trying to do my best impression of someone who wasn’t on the first day of a college internship. The ESPN camera guy shot me an eye and said “So, who are you with?”

 

“Ken Martin, Eastern Radio News Service. Nice to meet you.” I mustered the most professional sounding voice I could. The camera guy made a face like he had just smelled a fart and went back to fiddling with the camera battery. I quietly tried to figure out how to turn the minidisk player on.

 

We were eventually shuffled into the arena where we watched some of the Wizards take warm up shots. The more grizzled members of the press grumbled things like “What the fuck is this, where is Jordan? I don’t have all day.” I tried to look busy, writing pointless notes like: “There are numerous basketballs on the court.” Michael Jordan then emerged and in one synchronized motion the whole press group pinned him against a wall, cameras on and microphones in his face, and peppered him with questions. I stayed right up front and held up my minidisk recorder like I had seen reporters on TV do, again, trying my best to look like someone who had the remotest fucking sense of what they were supposed to be doing. None of my questions got acknowledged, which was probably for the better since I knew even less about basketball than I did about being a reporter. However, I did see the back of my head on Sportscenter that night.

 

When I got back to the office, I found Radmilla hadn’t been able to communicate where I went and everyone assumed I, as the new guy, had just gotten lost. “I got in on a Michael Jordan press conference!” I said, sure that the room was going to be blown away at my amazing scoop. Instead, Grant picked his head up and said “That’s interesting. Get it edited by 5. What was your name again?” I settled for any praise I could get.

 

So my first day of work, and my first interaction with a sports superstar, ended anticlimactically in a makeshift radio editing room. But between Eastern Radio News and my other (much more legitimate) D.C. internship at the US Senate I had some of the most memorable experiences of my time in college. I caught Hillary Clinton checking me out during a press conference, elbowed Orrin Hatch, and hit Ted Kennedy’s dog with a rolling television. I interviewed my favorite DJ. Rachael Leigh Cook’s publicist told me flat out I had no chance for an interview with her (that one hurt… I had a bit of a crush). I was on CNN at the Pentagon. On September 11th, I was evacuated from the Capitol. I was in the building for the Anthrax mail attacks and had to get antibiotics.

 

As a Political Science major I could discuss the role and history of the Senate. But as a D.C. intern I could tell you the honey mustard in the Senate cafeteria was fucking awesome. And, of course, what Michael Jordan looks like in person (he’s tall). That’s the kind of thing you won’t learn in any classroom. 

 

 

Dicks, Balls, & Butts: An Internship

by Francis O’Keefe

 

There are rules, almost all of them unwritten, about how reporters should carry themselves in professional sports locker rooms and clubhouses. You never grab the candy on the tables or the drinks in the coolers. You never walk into the trainer’s room. And you never, seriously never, with a capital N and probably with a capital V, a capital R and a couple of capital Es, look at dicks or balls or butts. Never.

 

I learned all this almost a decade back, when I was an intern for what was then a relatively important baseball news outlet and is now some sort of monopolistic baseball empire. I lived in the deep Midwest and soaked in as much as I could about the poor history of the local team. I talked with old reporters, one of whom chomped a new unlit cigar every day, and listened to old scouts, and slugged too many cups of soda and popcorn in the press box. I filled up a book with box scores and a corner of my room with newspapers. I learned a little bit about the city itself, but I learned far more about the architectural history of the stadium. I was there 14 hours every day. Oh, and one time, I almost wound up in a swath of pine tar on a dugout bench. Almost forgot about that. That shit would have never come out of the seat of my khakis.

 

I also stood around too many hours in clubhouses, and I did my best. I did. I never wanted to look at dicks or balls or butts—I prefer internal sex organs, thanks—but it happened. I still blame Alex Rodriguez for holding court at his locker in little more than a three-quarter-sleeved shirt and a pair of knee-highs. No pants. No briefs. Not even a jock.

 

This was in the early summer of 2005. Rodriguez was still sort of new in the city, still not on the back of the tabloids every day. At that point, he had probably commissioned just one of the two portraits of himself as a centaur and he had never kissed himself in a mirror for a Details photo shoot. He was just a baseball player, albeit one of the two or three best in the game with arguably the most extravagant contract in history.* He just a star.

 

* Oh, who am I kidding? He was a train wreck even then, but he could still hit 40 homers and score 100 runs and drive in 100 more and win MVP awards like degenerate gamblers win five bucks on a scratch-off.

 

That season, Rodriguez said he would talk with reporters after every game and at length before the first game of every series. That meant that if you had a question about anything other than what had just happened on the field, you had one opportunity every three or four days. And that meant that, every three or four days, Rodriguez was the most popular Yankee in the clubhouse. Because I remained entrenched in the deep Midwest and covered teams as they visited the stadium home to the local team with the poor history, I had no idea about any of this. I got by on intuition more than anything else. You would probably not be all that surprised by how much even veteran baseball reporters rely on the rest of the herd. By the time I showed up in the clubhouse, close to four hours before the first pitch, a small circus of pens and notebooks and recorders and microphones and beer guts and armpit-stained Oxfords and a general lack of courtesy and decorum had already formed the bulk of a barrier around Rodriguez, his locker closest to the door. As I walked toward the scrum, I found one spot, just enough room for one more body, and then … then Rodriguez sort of bent down.

 

I was far enough away that his butt was right in my line of sight, right in front of me. It was like when you talk with someone and you look them right in the eyes because you want to show respect. I looked his butt right in the eyes.

 

You want to know what a half-billion dollar butt looks like? Round. Round and spotless and pockless and so close to perfect it looked like it should have started to shit hundreds. I saw it for half a second, probably less, but it felt like long minutes, and it felt like everybody around me knew that I saw. They had not, of course, so transfixed were they on the actual eyes of Rodriguez, but I was 21 and still somewhat insecure in a clubhouse filled with testosterone and a bevy of other artificial drugs. My eyes dropped to my notebook. Someone lobbed a question. Rodriguez lobbed back. Another question, another boilerplate response. On and on. Sweat dripped down my neck to the small of my back. I scribbled “W u srt fl bt, u srt ply bt. Gt thr, htg strd,” which somehow translated to, “When you start feeling better, you start playing better. I’m getting there and hitting my stride.”

 

There were a handful of other moments that season I would prefer to forget. The night Torii Hunter decided the Twins needed a spark and stripped around the clubhouse in socks on his way to a round of naked batting practice. The two or three times Jose Lima, God rest his soul, fielded questions on a stool in front of his locker with his legs opened in what I could only imagine was some sort of yoga position. The weekend afternoon when the Athletics pooled a couple hundred bucks and persuaded an obese teenage clubby to walk around naked. But nothing compared to Rodriguez and that fraction of a second when his perfect butt stared me right in the face.

 

He talked for eight minutes in that clipped delivery, answered close to two dozen questions and thanked us all. We all walked away to some other corner of the clubhouse to talk with Derek Jeter or Jason Giambi or Mariano Rivera, so many stories, so few good quotes. And then, only then, did Rodriguez sit down and put on a jock and a pair of pants.

 

 

Bitch Stole My Byline

by Alex Ingersoll

 

It was summer in NYC, and I had gotten my first unpaid magazine internship. Manhattan had never felt like more of a naïve cliché: with my walk down Broadway to SoHo of a commute, I was taking my first steps on the road to becoming the next Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair, avenged of all those hometown bullies in just about ten years time! That high school English teacher who said I’d never be a good writer? She’d be reading my chipper column of my fabulously frivolous life of fetes and fashion fundraising, sheepishly gulping remembering how much she underestimated me. My volleyball rival who modeled on weekends and disapprovingly stared down my (pre-practice) outfits? She wouldn’t understand half of the references or vocabulary I used, and would now be intimidated by ME. Et cetera, Et cetera. I breathed in that rank urine/sewage/rotting garbage city smell, and replaced it with images of Town Cars and the layout of my triumphant Vogue September Issue 2018 profile on “making it.” So much paradox to be found here, I mused.

 

The interview had gone perfectly, despite the Managing Editor’s wannabe-rising-socialite attitude with matching unsmiling face to (well-heeled) boot. It set me a little off, but hey, I must have pleased her cool exterior somehow, because I was IN.

 

Ticking off street landmarks I had dutifully mapped out and rehearsed in my head on my MacBook the night before, I neared SoHo. The ideas of mobile Maps and Siri had yet to be conceived, so I had to rely on that good old-fashioned heads up, un-phased blank city look whilst not making any wrong turns. I actually ended up getting a cab (from what turned out to be about 4 blocks away from the office) because I got really turned around and panicked. Luckily, I still made it on time. Surely this would be a charming anecdote to tell at an event celebrating my achievements 30 years from now – “You should have seen me, circling Prince and Spring, 3 times! The greenie years, right?!” (*roars of Moet & Chandon-fueled laughter.)

 

I get to the 4th floor office (reception-less, white-walled, size of my parent’s kitchen in California), and took a seat next to the other two unpaid interns. (I found out later that we essentially wrote 80 percent of the magazine’s print and online content.)

 

My first assignment was to do ‘a little research’ for a little blog post on some new Trump property, which everyone in media knows translates to ‘rewriting a press release and contacting their publicist for an original quote.’ With bright eyes trying to downplay how stoked I was to already be penning something concerning people this high profile, I plunked out a polite email to the Trump conduit. All that hard work in school is really paying off, I thought to myself as I hit send.

 

A reply lit up my inbox fairly quickly, “Yes, who can I arrange to speak with you—Donald, Ivanka, or Donald Jr.?” I was stunned, mentally shattering all those myths of the city being such a hard place, and getting nervous at the same time. I decided to ask my Managing Editor how she wanted me to handle this. “I didn’t realize we would be able to interview them,” she quickly replied. “So I will take it from here.”

 

Without contesting, I quickly forwarded her the email and an attachment of what I’d written so far. The piece graduated from a 2-paragraph blog post to a full-page magazine ‘article.’ It hit me a little later that day that it should have/could have/would have been MINE, had I just not asked questions. But, inevitably, the bitch stole my byline.

 

It’s ok though, I found out later said Managing Director’s visa wasn’t going to be renewed and she went back to Canada at summer’s end. And needless to say, it’s been a few years and I’m nowhere near replacing Graydon Carter.