Skunked

I wrote a piece about "intimate personal grooming" over at the Colony. In the lead-in I made a joke about the smell of vaginas. Just a joke. Honestly not a huge percentage of commenters got bent about it. It was certainly not the worst brouhaha the Colony has ever seen. Probably not even Top 10. They're always annoying, though. You're going along, doing your own thing, knowing yourself and where you're coming from and you accidentally hit someone's reflex with that little rubber hammer doohickey and suddenly your whole weekend is spent icing your balls, you know?

The one that's been sticking in my craw, though, is the woman who said, "Shame on you!" at the end of her incensed comment. From her seat in the balcony I'm perpetuating stereotypes and denigrating women and ruining the whole vibe of the column. I can see how she might think that. I can't see how she might think that on the strength of one stupid joke after reading what I've written for the past seven months but I can see how it's a possible interpretation of my one liner. But, "Shame on you!" That fucking gets my goat. I'm 42 years old, I am not an errant kindergartner, even when I'm making childish jokes in the name of lightening the motherfucking mood.

You know when a child is in a situation when they're given something and they don't say thank you right away so the parent will say, in front of both parties, in that grating, ascending tone, "Did you say thank you?" thereby completely undercutting any apology? (Yes, I know, it's about learning to say it every time and it has to happen that way for many kids, let's not start that discussion.) I bring it up because my parents have been known to jump in on me with that one even after I reached the age of majority. It's not that I don't say thank you it's that, apparently, they occasionally disagree with my timing. And that, one of the more frustrating things I experience, is exactly what that woman's "Shame on you!" made me feel. I, unwittingly, pushed her button and she managed to fucking body slam mine. I wanted to take the reflex hammer and crack every single one of her school marmy shame gesturing knuckles until she apologized.

But I didn't. Because, though I disagreed most vehemently, I could see how she could have misinterpreted things. Not to mention that succumbing to the freak out when you get your buttons pushed never helped anyone. Instead I had to let it roll around in my own mind all weekend, when I had other, better (SHAKESPEARE CLASS!) things to be doing, until I could write about it objectively.

Sometimes being a grown up sucks stinky vag.