Shit Happens

This originally appeared on thehairpin.com, July 25th, 2012, as “A Spectrum of Embarrassment.”

To find it there please go to:

 http://thehairpin.com/2012/07/things-more-embarrassing-than-a-bird-shitting-on-your-head

Things More Embarrassing Than a Bird Shitting on Your Head

Yesterday, you had a bird open up his ass on your head. Rude! And disgusting. This has never happened to you before, ever, and you hope it never again does, until the end of time. Like a normal human being, after this happened, and after you went running back to work to wash up before making the half-hour walk home, you immediately thought to yourself, "What could be more embarrassing than this?"

Let’s go:

1. Your mom comes running down into the grade-eight band room in the middle of rehearsal and yells, "NATTY WATTYYY! I'll be outside in the parking lot."
You forever hate when people call you that.

2. The first time you take the city bus, you don’t know that you have to step down the steps to get the back door to open. You just stand there, looking perplexed and terrified while people yell at you. You think they are yelling "SIT DOWN!!!" So you do, dejectedly, not knowing how to get off the goddamn bus and go home. Turns out they are saying "STEP DOWN."
Your hearing has since only gotten worse.

3. The time you get your period while driving to a yoga class. You are wearing light gray tights, and it is maybe the only time there is a disproportionately larger amount of men to women there. Also, you are supposed to be the teacher for that class. 

4. The time you are makin’ time with a gentledude in the shower, but then, again! Your period shows up to crash the party. Not to be outdone, you also later get dizzy, almost pass out, and have to sit down in the shower. But because he is a gentleman, he sits down with you.
That last part is actually very sweet and endearing, even if it does kind of remind you of the scene from Bond where the chick sits down and cries in the shower while Daniel Craig holds her, except you're neither fully clothed nor crying.
You like him a lot for doing that, the gentledude that is, but also Daniel Craig.

5. The first time you get really, stupidly drunk, and remember absolutely nothing. Your roommates on the other hand, remember everything. You wake up to find a garbage pail beside your bed, and you wonder how and why it got there. Everyone living in the barracks with you is surprised to see you alive and chipper the next morning. They say with bewilderment, “You mean you DON’T remember???” You don’t. Not any of it. And you feel fine. Apparently, you had gotten wobbly, so they put you to bed. But then you kept getting out of bed and threw up all over the hallway, the bathroom, other people’s rooms, etc. They said this happened half a dozen times. You sort of think they're making this up, but then all 34 people confirm the same story.

6. You're on a first date with a guy, and it's going really well. You had been walking around outside for a while, though, and it is a cold night. You have really, really, probably-shouldn't-be-human poor circulation, and when your hands get cold enough, you sometimes lose the use of them. As in, they kind of stop functioning in a normal way. You go to use a washroom, but because your hands are so cold, you are then not able to do your pants back up. You spend probably upward of 20 minutes in the washroom, desperately trying to grasp the top button on your jeans. As this is happening, you are fully aware that you have been in there for a suspiciously long time, and are mortified that your date probably thinks you:
a) ran away
b) are completely evacuating your bowels
c) were kidnapped by washroom ninjas

None of these are good options. So you casually stroll back out once your pants are safely back on, and just say, "Sorry, that took a lot longer than it should have. I feel it's important to tell you that I wasn't taking a massive dump."
You explain the hands-of-death situation, and he still goes on more dates with you.

7. You are maybe eight years old. You go to a slumber party at a popular girl's house. Your parents are maybe closet hippies and teach you things like “your body needs to breathe at night,” so you don't wear underwear or pants with your oversized t-shirt pajamas. They neglect to mention this is something you should only do in the privacy of your own home. The other girls notice this and spend all night and the next morning teasing you and running over to pull your t-shirt up. The girl’s mom eventually gives you pajama bottoms so that they will stop.
As an adult, you feel most comfortable sleeping au naturelle. Fuck pajama bottoms.

8. You're out with girl friends, and you get pretty drunk (surprise!?). You spend some time talking with a generically attractive guy who is a friend of a friend of a somethingface or whatever. Feeling brave and not at all like your decisions are influenced, you ask the guy to dance. His friends who are standing beside him let you know that there is no dance floor. You look around, and turns out they are right.

Undeterred, you are also feeling lonely and like you want some kind of intimacy, like you just want someone to touch you in a caring way. So when one of your girl friends, who is also drunk, suggests you ask generically attractive guy to go home with you, you think “Great idea!” It was not. He shoots you down, thankfully. You go home, become ill, and throw up for a few hours.

9. You are getting busy with a man friend for the first time since it happened, and you suddenly you have to tell him to stop, because you are scared, because you remember. He does, but you’ve already been pulled into the memory of the time when a guy didn’t stop. When you prayed it would be over quickly, and you hated yourself for it. You know that you’re not still in that moment, but you feel it all over again, and you start to cry hysterically. He holds you, lets you cry, and he is the first person you tell everything to.

10. Every time you are intimate with a guy, and again you remember, and they leave you there in the bed, crying. They not kindly tell you to get it sorted out, and to go to therapy. You feel like a leper. No one wants to touch someone like you.

11. Every time you cry in the years you spend in therapy.

12. Every time you sleep on your bathroom floor because you feel worthless, shattered, disposable, and like a piece of rubbish.

13. Every time you tell your mom that you're okay, but you're not. You sleep, at most, four hours, but sometimes not at all. You have become someone you don't recognize. You isolate yourself from your friends, because you don’t want them to know, and you don’t want to have to lie. You lose a noticeable amount of weight, but most people compliment you for looking so skinny. You become unreliable, often having to cancel work. You are overly emotional, and start becoming weirdly paranoid about things. You are prone to violent outbursts in the privacy of your own home. One day you destroy your bathroom, ripping shelves off walls, smashing bottles, breaking everything within reach. You feel like a monster. You want him to see what he’s done. You want him to finish it.

14. The night you spend in the hospital, after swallowing a fistful of anti-anxiety meds that are not yours.

15. The time you are at a yoga workshop, and the teacher, who may just be an angel, or in the least, a completely wonderful human being, holds you in a yoga pose that makes you want to run and hide and move away as fast as possible from all the uncomfortable feelings and memories and things you wish weren't a part of you. She tells you not to run, she tells you to stay with it, to sit with it, and that on the other side of fear is everything that you want. She tells you to let go, so you do.

There, in a room of 60+ people, in a yoga class being recorded for an audio CD, you full-on openly weep.

But suddenly you don't feel embarrassed. You realize that all these things, all these moments that make you want to hide, or turn off, or appear cold and unmoved and unphased, all these memories that you wouldn't wish on anyone else — they have taught you things you never would have realized without them. They have made you stronger, even if the process of getting to that end result was completely and inappropriately fucked up. You grew and changed and evolved and became a better, kinder, and more compassionate person because of it. And no one can ever take that from you. No one can ever hurt you with it, because it is yours to wear like armor. You know that even sometimes when you feel alone, lost, disposable, worthless — you are not. And you know that sometimes, shit happens. But hopefully, it doesn't ever again happen on your head.

Natalie Bell went home and washed her hair three times, but was still paranoid that she could smell bird shit. She also took to heart the advice a dear friend gave her about writing when he said, "The only stories worth reading are the ones that are honest. Honest stories are sometimes stories that shouldn't be written. The fact that they are is what makes them special." But more on him later.

Puffin' Right

No joke. Today I saw a girl wearing this exact shirt. Coincidence? Of course not.

I knew I was on to something with puffins.

So, who's laughing now?
Oh. You're watching that episode of 30 Rock where Jack can't act and he doesn't know what to do with his hands and decides to eventually hold a coffee mug in each? Yeah okay, that one is pretty funny. So I guess we're both laughing. But my laugh is haughtier.

Time To Let Go

This originally appeared on my desktop, and then lived there for quite awhile. After little to no editing, but then a whole re-write, followed by a scrapping of the re-write, it was decided that I'm gonna talk about feelings and shit. This is totally a love(broken) story, but also a farewell. Deal with it.

So here we are.

I met this guy. He was suspiciously terrific: tall, terribly handsome, smart, disarmingly funny, a cook, blond and blue-eyed in that Scandinavian way I find irresistible, and a fantastic kisser. I was sort of, kind of, pretty much instantly enamoured.

And you know what? The surface level stuff doesn't even really matter. That's not the kind of stuff that leads you to write nearly 2000 words revealing vulnerable things about yourself; things people could easily use against you or criticize you for, but I'm just trying to paint a picture here. What matters is that this guy made me feel something. I had met a guy who very quickly and unexpectedly stirred up the best in me. He made me feel an easy happiness that doesn't seem common. He was effortlessly and ridiculously funny and in a way that I think only really intelligent people can be. He didn't know this, but it wasn't until I met him that I began to write again, and it’s no coincidence that some of the words I use might sound like something he would say. But then also, there was the way he would look at me. There was something about it that was different, I remember telling my good friend one day. And in quiet moments, moments without any words, he'd look directly at me and it made me feel as though he saw me for everything and all that I am, and liked me anyways.

I'd like to think I’m a pretty good egg, and I think he thought so too, because he said so. When I would look at him, he’d look at me with the biggest smile on his face, and it made me feel a new kind of happy. Early on I made jokes about demanding peeled grapes because it was the most tedious thing I could think of to ask someone who cooks for a living, and when he made me dinner for the first time, he made pan-seared salmon with sauce Veronique- a sauce made with peeled grapes. He once sang me every part of Asia’s “Heat of the Moment”, with the exception of the chorus, while we were lying on his couch, our faces inches apart. His pillows were super cozy, he had great style, he made me feel understood and at ease and beautiful, and he genuinely made me laugh out loud. Everything was going swimmingly. And then he said it wasn’t going to work out.

I didn't understand, and to be honest I still don't, really. Maybe I just didn't want to let go. Maybe I didn't want to feel wrong. But I remember that what I could feel and what was being said didn't seem to add up. It didn't make sense to me. It felt like something was being left unvoiced, but that I'll never really know.

Not too long after, he was gone. He was sent to serve overseas.

I still remember our first date, our first kiss, and how excited I was to find out he even existed. It made me smile that afterwards he immediately took my hand, and for the rest of the time that we dated, he would always reach for it when we walked somewhere, like on that first night. 

I felt like I had met someone that I had already known for most of my life. Someone rare and unique and who made me feel 100% comfortable being as weird as I truly am, because it felt like he was just as weird in all the same fantastic ways. Someone who completely caught me off guard when I looked at him and he looked at me and kissed me in a way no one had before, and I would think,

"You. Please, somehow, always be a part of my life."

And then faster than I knew what had happened, it was done. He was gone. I knew in the morning I wouldn't be able to find him here anymore. I didn't know if or when I would see him again. I was supposed to move on. 

Letting go is a funny thing. It hurts like hell, and it feels like we are losing a part of ourselves that we don't want to see go. We try to bargain for more time, or try to rationalize ways to avoid actually going through with it. But the harder we try to hold on, the tighter we squeeze- the bigger the mess, the greater the pain. 

If you love something, you're supposed to set it free, but that little saying fails to cover the part where you and that something start writing each other, and then you keep writing each other. Five months go by and you’ve written each other just about every day, sometimes more. All that time, all those oceans, but they never feel far.

You don’t know what it all means. You don’t know what happens when they come home. You do know, if nothing else, that you feel as though you have a good friend for life. And then the night they get back they invite you over, and when you see them and they hug you and you can feel them pull you in, you know. You love them. You always have.

For the next while, things that feel intensely intimate and caring and perfect happen. In the mornings, when you wake up and they are still holding you, their arms still wrapped around you, their fingers still interlaced with yours, their head still resting against your own, and they squeeze your hands, and they hold you closer, and you breathe together- it is everything you want. In the mornings, in the quietness of those first few hours that always feels so much more vulnerable than the rest of the day- there is your heart.

They look at you and you look at them, and again you see the biggest, most genuine smile. Again, you feel that easy happiness.

But then they suddenly become cold and weirdly distant and you feel confused about this switch. In the heat of an argument you tell them, out loud, that you love them, but it doesn't matter because they say they don't feel anything. 

Yet again, you don't understand, but there are no answers to be found. You wish you didn't feel anything too. You wish you could forget. You wish you could forget everything that hurt to be able to remember so well. But it doesn't work that way.

I've always been suspicious that life, or the universe, or whatever powers that be, have always had a way of forcing us to learn certain lessons. Almost as if when we miss them, we are given those same lessons again and again and again and again, until we finally do get it.

He’s being sent away again. He’ll likely be gone by the end of the week. I never stopped liking him. I never stopped thinking about him. I feel compelled to add that he is an absolutely wonderful human being, with the kindness and goodness of a person of great integrity. Someone that even my best friend, Angie, current title-holder of most wonderful person ever, also misses when he is gone. But knowing now that he can’t love me, that he won’t, that he doesn’t; it’s time to let go.

I think part of what hurts so much about letting go is the finality of it. It is an absolute. What was will never be the same, we can never go back, and we will never be able to live out and feel those exact moments again. They are gone, and so is the part of us that existed in them. We can resist that, or we can try to find the grace to feel it for every heart-crushing moment, to cry when we need to, and try to figure out what lesson we can take from it. Because there will always be one. It will usually be in the most gut-wrenching moments that we find out and learn the most about ourselves. We will learn about the insecurities we carry with us, the wounds, the traumas, the parts of ourselves that make us uncomfortable; and how certain situations trigger these, leading our fears to decide our actions, influence our choices, and even choose our words. Feel every bit of that pain because it will teach you how not to run, how not to keep hiding from the parts of yourself that you’re scared of.

Letting someone go hurts because on some level, whether it is by our fault or doing, or completely not, they didn't want you. It means someone took a good look at us and decided for whatever ever reason, that they didn't like us as much as we may have thought. But that's okay. 

Please don’t run. It will be tempting to do so. It will be easier to throw yourself into the arms of someone new, or into the arms of work, or alcohol, or food, or a TV series obsession, but it will only delay or displace the real heartache that comes from losing something you cared deeply for. Something that cannot be replaced. It will only push down the uncomfortable feelings you'd rather not deal with. Take the time to heal. 

Rejection is painful, and yet it is not the end. It doesn’t kill us, it doesn’t mean we are less or not good enough. It just means that we have to learn to pick ourselves back up again. And isn’t that kind of the point? We will love, we will lose, we will heal, and then we’ll have the strength to do it all over again.

With an open heart and an empty stomach, I say to you, I say to me: it's time to let go.

- Natalie Bell feels unusually nervous about posting this. She feels a boatload of other stuff too, but doesn't want to talk about it. Please be kind?

Conversations I'm Pretty Sure My Dogs Have: The Beach

Probably a true story.


Furry Demon 1: What's she doing?

Furry Demon 2: I don't know. She's talking into that thing that she's always tapping intensely when she's drunk.

FD1: Does she know that it's walk time?

FD2: Maybe we should remind her?

FD1: She does like to talk. We should make sure she knows we're ready to go.

FD2: Oh! She's talking to Angie.

FD1: Her soulmate?

FD2: Yeah. Maybe she is coming over later to watch Duets?

FD1: I doubt it. Not even Angie likes that show, and she loves Kelly Clarkson just as much. Aside from the families of the contestants, I'm pretty sure that Mom is one of both their viewers.

FD2: But that John Glosson, voice of an angel.

FD1: Agreed.

FD2: OMG! I just heard her say BEACH!!!

FD1: BEACH???

FD2: BEACH!!!!!!!

FD1 & FD2: OMGWTFBBQ!!!! WE'RE GOING TO BEACH! BEACH!! YESSSSS! SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR!! I'M SO EXCITED! JUST COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED WITH EXCITEMENT!! OH BUT I FEEL DIZZY FROM RUNNING IN CIRCLES! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT LONG, SLENDER WAGGING THING BEHIND ME?? I'M GONNA GET IT! NO ONE WAGS A LONG, CURLY, SLENDER THING BEHIND ME!! COME BACK! OH RIGHT, AND BEACH!!!!!!!

*At the beach*

FD1: Oh hey, what's this? It looks dead. I should probably roll in it to find out. Yup. Definitely dead.

FD2: Hey jerkface, stop hogging all the deadness.

FD1: I found it first. Why don't you go take a shit somewhere that's inconvenient for Mom to pick up but in full public view so that she still has to go get it.

FD2: No. I want to roll in this.

FD1: Too bad. Oh, look at that, I'm already right back to rolling all over this motherfucker.

FD2: Fine. I'm going roll on this part, with my paws flailing like this, and if you get in my way, it's your own fault.

FD1: FINE.

FD2: GOOD.

FD1: MY DEAD PART IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOURS.

FD2: YOU'RE A DEAD PART.

FD1: SHUT UP!

FD2: Oh. Where did she go?

FD1: Yeah I don't know. I wasn't looking.

FD2: There is that exasperated woman over there that looks uncannily similar and also has the same clothes and is calling our exact names. Do you think that's her?

FD1: Nope.

FD2: Me either. NOW GIVE ME MORE DEAD PART, ASSHOLE.

- Natalie Bell thinks the exasperated woman that looks uncannily similar and also has the same clothes is calling their exact names, is also going to be giving some furry demons a bath. 

Security

I don't want to alarm anyone, but from the sounds of it, my upstairs neighbours were installing an impromptu panic room this morning. (?)

This is definitely going to steal the thunder from the pieces of wood I have jammed in my window frame for security measures.

But I do also live with two mini-velociraptors, so there's that.

Dinner Jackets Required

Dinosaurs seem to be pretty popular these days. That's cool, those dinos, it's no denying they're pretty badass dudes.

But let's not overplay it. Why not give say, puffins, a chance? They're peculiar little guys. They're kind of like penguins, in that it looks like they're wearing tuxedos, or at least fancy dinner attire or something, and what's not to like about that? They're a classy little bird.

There is also Puffins, the cereal, but I don't really care about what you eat for breakfast. Unless you are making it for me. In which case I really love breakfast sandwiches with guacamole and chorizo, and eggs Benedict.

Also, did you know they are from the bird genus Fratercula? Whoa. That sounds kind of like Dracula. Maybe we under-estimated these guys?

Straight To DVD Non-Prequel, Sequel, and Musical Film Ideas

How were these not picked up?

Snakes in a Drain- A quiet, moving, character study starring Sammy L Jackson. Sam's character awakes one morning to find that after his shower, the tub simply will not drain. In a whimsical turn, he discovers the reason is that two emaciated, infant snakes having been abandoned by their mother, have hidden themselves in his drain pipe. Sam forms a parental bond with the snakes and nurses them to health. He becomes their caretaker, and touchingly begins to transform from a hard, cold, emotionless man, to a man of heart and compassion for two delicate creatures. But in an unexpected twist, Sam is betrayed by the very ones he cared for when he arrives at his parents' house one day to find the snakes fucking his mom. Those motherfucking snakes.

Alien vs Predator vs Godzilla vs Channing Tatum's Dance Moves vs Crocs vs Scott Pilgrim- A Political Thriller.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Faster and More Furiouser- Han is back, bitches! Sure he died in the third movie, but that didn't stop him from coming back in the fifth one. In the sixth installment of this high-octane franchise, Jason Segel and Han set out on a summer road trip to escape yet another heartbreak. But their plans are cut short when Vin Diesel says something in a really low voice, and then they drive super fast and shift more than is probably necessary. Paul Walker also dies. Finally.

Requiem for a Dream: The Musical- Come for the re-imagining of Weird Al's "The White Stuff", stay for "Your Love Is My Drug"

Life is Beautiful: in 3D- At an IMAX near you.

A Late Morning/ Early Afternoon with Kevin Smith- Kevin eats apple fritters as he trash talks Hollywood.

301- A heart-warming family movie, telling the story of 300 Spartans, and the one man who said "fuck this shit" when he found out the Persian army had roughly 1000 times more people. Hijinks ensue.

- Natalie Bell is really excited for Battleship: The Stone Hopper Origin Story. Alexander Skarsgard is back in the title role, which tells the story of the time his character was attacked at sea by pirates, and they stole all his clothes. This leads to his enlistment with the Navy, but in an administrative error, they lose all his clothes. He eventually gets them back, but then they burn in a fire. In 3D.

Magical Mike

I'm not going to lie, my department at work is pretty badass. The people are terrific, we all genuinely like each other and voluntarily spend time together outside of work, we have weekly office dance parties, and recently, we all went and saw Magic Mike. Naturally, we also went and got boozed up before hand, but it was a classy kind of drunk because we were all nicely dressed, and because we're ladies, goddammit. 10 ladies that absolutely could not wait to go sit through 110 minutes of finding out what exactly Mike has to do for 20s. Spoiler: WE NEVER ACTUALLY FIND OUT!! But we did find out a whole boat load of other stuff. Here's pretty much what happened when my friend Angie and I, and our department director, discussed this cinematic gem:

Me- So what did you think of the movie?

Angie- You know what? I much preferred Rock of Ages.
(I wouldn't go see Rock of Ages with Angie because I find Tom Cruise both terrifying and grating. And I don't like Julianne Hough. Yeah. I went there.)
I didn't like the ending! I mean, what is going to happen--

Me- With the rest of those 7 hours that Channing Tatum and Robo girl have until breakfast? I am glad that she takes breakfast seriously though. It's the most important thing. Or is it family? Both?

But I mean, 7 hours is a lot of time to kill. What do you think they did? Play cards? Scrabble? Did they break out the Risk board? Those games go on for like, days. Maybe she has a WoW account? That shit eats up 7 hours easy, especially when you're gunning to get your night elf to level 30 so you get the pony. Why the fuck would you walk anywhere in Middle Earth or wherever it is if you could ride a badass horse? That's right. You wouldn't. Okay, sure, being able to transform into the tiger is pretty legit, but only until you realize it is only marginally faster travelling that way than by the regular way. I mean... I've never played WoW before and I have no idea what all this is. 

Angie- I'm pretty sure they were darning socks?

Me- What is that?

Angie- It's like when you repair the holes in a sock.

Me- Well I'm sure whatever they did, her brilliant personality must have really shone through, because you know, her character pretty much portrayed every emotion, except all the human ones.

Angie- Yeah, she was pretty awful.

Me- I did love that our theatre lost it in that opening shot of Channing's ass though.

Angie- Haha, I KNOW! And you were laughing and cheering so loudly!

Me- I felt like I had pretty much just gotten my money's worth, right there. 

Angie- I still liked Rock of Ages better.

Me- You know what though? Despite everything, I felt like Channing Tatum's upper AND lower body both gave stand-up performances. That doesn't always happen. Remember when we say The Lucky One? I really felt like that was a watershed moment for Zac Efron's quads, but everything above? It was just okay for me.

Angie- Oh god, the shower scene?


Me- Shut the fucking door! THE SHOWER SCENE!!!!

*We both take a deep exhale*

Me- But let's not go there.


Angie- I know, that's still a touchy one for you.


Me- Focus Angie. back to Magic Mike. Tell me what you really thought of such an emotionally complex cinematic titanic.


Angie- It was the ending that really bothered me! If I'm going to see a movie like that, I want it to be all rainbows and puppies and fluff! I don't want the ending to make me feel worried and depressed about the character. I mean, we know the only direction he's going is downhill. That makes me feel bad for him.


Me- Ugh, you're such a wonderful human being. I'm not going to lie, I didn't really care about him. I feel like anyone who claims to only owns one pair of shoes is not someone to be trusted. You know why? He was a football player, I'm sure he also had a pair of running shoes.Also, was the main girl a graduate of the Kristen Stewart school of acting? She was pretty effective at looking dead on the inside while also constantly keeping her mouth open. And the chemistry!!! It was absolutely electric. If the definition for electric was actually "devoid of any and all feeling and/or personality."

Angie- Agreed. She was bad. 

Me- I read on the internet this morning that they had a 96% return rate for their extras. That's pretty much unheard of. Can you imagine?

Angie- Oh! My! God!


Me- We would have needed to bring a change of underwear for that. Some serious slushy panties.


Angie- Totally.

*Our Big Boss Lady walks in*

Me- But let's get down to brass tacks. Favourite scene? For me, hands down the scene where Matthew McConaughey is practicing moves with The Kid and for no good reason that I can think of, is wearing a doo-rag (which sort of looked like a swim cap), black booty shorts, and a neon yellow CROP TOP. The only thing that could have been more ridiculous is if instead he was wearing one of those mesh football jersey belly tops. But then Matthew told The Kid to "fuck that mirror like you mean it" and it turns out they didn't even need the jersey belly tops to go there.

BBL- Easily the best scene for me was when he picks the girl up while she's still in the chair and then dances with her.

Angie-!!!

Me-!!! Can that really happen in real life?

Angie- No. Sorry, the real ones aren't like that. I know you've never been to a male strip club, but it's a little disappointing after that movie.

Me- Because I mean, Channing Tatum's dancing? I've been a massive fan since Step Up, part uno. And those floor shimmy things he was doing?

BBL- Impressive.

Me- Yes! Think of him doing that in say, the living room. Put a Swiffer cloth under each knee, and BAM! That's a clean floor right there.

Angie- My favourite was when The Kid stripped for the first time. I liked him, he reminds me of Brad Renfro.

Me- Well I mean the droopy underwear were pretty terrific.

Angie- Speaking of underwear, I've bough Ryan (her husband) all kinds of brands: Calvin Klein, Armani, etc. And then one time he sent me in to La Vie en Rose to buy something fancy for myself, but then I noticed they had men's stuff, so I bought him underwear.


Me- Haha! I didn't even know they sold men's stuff. And how did Ryan feel about that?


Angie- At first he was all, "Angie!! You were supposed to get stuff for YOU." But then he tried them on, and he loved them, so he forgot all about that other part. SO much better than the high end ones I tried to buy. Natalie, if you ever buy a boy underwear, just go there.


Me- Hahaha! I feel like that is unlikely to happen.


BBL- Oh, and going back to favourite scene, the "Ride My Pony" one.


Me- Oh god, yes. AND THEN THEY CAME OUT ON STICK PONIES!


BBL- I forgot how much I love that song.


Angie- I think my other favourite scene was when the credits rolled.


Me- Mrahahahaha!


BBL- That movie reminded me of some of the male stripper experiences I've had.


Me & Angie- WHAT???


BBL- Oh yes.


Me & Angie- You must tell us.


BBL- So one time in college, these girls and I ordered a male stripper, but we were in college and so had no money. This guy shows up, he's 6"5 and maybe 130lbs AND HE HAS A MULLET.

Me- Was it a wig?

BBL- Not a wig. No one wanted him to dance with them. He had on this Eurotrash button down top, and skin tight shiny pants. They were so tight he couldn't get them off, so he had to lie down and shimmy out of them. 

Me- Did you have to help by pulling on the ankle of the pants for him? 

BBL- Yeah, pretty much. He literally had to lie down on the floor, and we had to help him take his pants off.

Me & Angie- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

BBL- It was awful. But yet I was undeterred because then some years later, for a bachelorette, when we all had more money, a male stripper was again ordered. So bigger budget, and the guy was legitimately good looking. But! We had some noise complaints and the cops showed up. We thought it was part of the show.


Me- Oh no, you inappropriately hit on the cops, didn't you?


BBL- We sure did. Turns out they were real cops.


Me & Angie- Mra hahahahahaha!


BBL- But then! The male stripper did the fire breathing thing a la Matt McConaughey, only we had decorated the entire room with streamers, and then the streamers got lit on fire. We almost set the room on fire.


Me- Lesson learned. Fire breathing male strippers are nothing to joke about.

 *A little later that day, we had a full on work discussion with our staff concerning the troubling ending*

Lady- They totally set it up for part 2.

Lady 2- Oh yeah, it's gonna turn into a Harry Potter like thing, with like a bagillion sequels.

Lady 3- And a theme park.

BBL- Magic Mike: The Ride

Me- OMG, I can't breathe.

Lady 2- They'd have to strap the ladies down.

BBL- I'm prepared to build this here at work, if we have to.

Me- I unselfishly volunteer to be the casting director. I'll even bring my own couch from home for my casting office if needed.

BBL- And a chair. I'm still really impressed by that chair scene.

- Natalie Bell would really like to know where the wardrobe department got that neon yellow crop top. Angie would like to know when Rock Of Ages 2 is coming out. Big Boss Lady would really, really like Channing Tatum to show her that chair move. Every woman who's seen Magic Mike, seconds that.