We both worked as drive-up tellers and had many regular customers. A sad woman whose little boy dangled himself out the car window while she tried to fill out a check. A veterinarian who tempted us with adoptable abandoned strays. The owner of the pipe and knife store in the mall whose deposit money smelled of cherry almond tobacco. And then there was Mr. Kline in his green Crown Victoria, with his bitter scowl. He told us the lanes where he had to manipulate canisters to get sucked up into the vacuum tube were too much trouble, so he always came to the first lane with the automatic drawer meant for large merchant transactions. When Mr. Kline arrived all the other tellers scattered. You never got a thank you from him, and he looked over all your work with great suspicion.

One day I told my fellow tellers that I bet I could make Mr. Kline laugh. They sniffed at me, but were eager to let me wait on him so they didn’t have to. They also thought it was an easy bet to win. We were goofy 20-somethings and he was a malcontent 60-something, it was like Sarah Silverman trying to get Lewis Black to laugh about kissing her dog’s butt.

I clicked on my microphone. “Hello, Mr. Kline.” “Mmm,” he’d say back. “How are you today?” I’d ask as I counted his money out. “Mmphh,” is about the best I got.

One day the sad lady came through and as her brat dangled out of the car I dropped two of our give-away lollipops in the drawer, hoping she’d take one. When she drove off Mr. Kline pulled in right behind her, and as I flipped the switch to send the drawer out again I saw the mom had removed only one sucker. When the drawer opened on Mr. Kline’s side of the wall and he saw it sitting in there, he held it up. “It’s for you,” I said into my microphone. The slightest inkling of a smile showed on his face. An almost smile.

The next day Mr. Kline came to make a withdrawal, and instead of just dropping a sucker in the drawer, I turned on the microphone and asked, “What flavor lollipop would you like today, Mr. Kline?” He hadn’t looked up or even acknowledged that there was someone on the other side of the window yet. “We have lemon, grape, strawberry and something blue that I don’t know what flavor it is.” He looked at me for a moment, perhaps not trusting me. Then he said, “Which do you recommend?” “Grape,” I said, “Grape is definitely our most popular.” He didn’t respond. I worked his transaction, then pushed the button to send out his receipt. “Have a great day,” I said. He reached into the drawer and saw that I had put in a lollipop of every flavor. “You have to let me know what you think of the blue one,” I said. He unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth, and with a stiff laugh said, “Thank you, Mia.” Then he drove off. Mia! Mia had been assigned the merchant drawer that day, and when Mr. Kline saw her nameplate stuck to the window he naturally assumed that was my name.

My co-workers were busy rating the laugh. Did it really qualify as a laugh? No, it was more of a snort. “I heard that same sound when I told him his account balance once,” one teller said. “He probably can’t get much more of a laugh out,” said another co-worker. Mia backed me up and said, “It was a laugh. She made him smile and it had a sound with it. She accomplished the impossible. Accept it.” Our other co-workers nodded and relented. They would have to buy my vending machine lunch that day.

But I was still struggling with the fact that he’d called me Mia. Because of that, I wouldn’t get true credit for the laugh. (I’m known to be proprietary with my sense of humor.) Still, after my free lunch I quit thinking about it, figuring I’d given someone the teensiest bit of pleasure and should be satisfied with that. It wasn’t about me, anyway.

For weeks I continued to work Mr. Kline’s transactions when the other tellers scattered at the sight of his car, and I always gave him a sucker which he took though he never cracked another smile. Then one day, I had been assigned to work the inside bank lobby. On the floor counting rolls of pennies, I was not visible from the customer side of the teller line, when I heard “Is Mia in?” The head teller started to explain that Mia was in the drive-up, but I jumped up and said, “I’m right here, Mr. Kline!” After I’d completed his transaction, I said, “Sorry, lollipops are only available at the drive-up.” “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m on a diet.” He snort-laughed at his own joke. “The drive-up said you were inside, so I thought I’d just say hello.” At that moment, I didn’t care what he called me.

“I’ll be back to the drive-up next week. I’m just covering a vacation,” I told him.

“Good,” he said, with his familiar growl. “I don’t like having to get out of my car.”

You can take the man out of Curmudgeon, but you can’t take the curmudgeon out of the man.

Photo Credit: Frankh, Rune T

The post Candy, Curmudgeons & Bank Tellers appeared first on The Faster Times.

We both worked as drive-up tellers and had many regular customers. A sad woman whose little boy dangled himself out the car window while she tried to fill out a check. A veterinarian who tempted us with adoptable abandoned strays. The owner of the pipe and knife store in the mall whose deposit money smelled of cherry almond tobacco. And then there was Mr. Kline in his green Crown Victoria, with his bitter scowl. He told us the lanes where he had to manipulate canisters to get sucked up into the vacuum tube were too much trouble, so he always came to the first lane with the automatic drawer meant for large merchant transactions. When Mr. Kline arrived all the other tellers scattered. You never got a thank you from him, and he looked over all your work with great suspicion.

One day I told my fellow tellers that I bet I could make Mr. Kline laugh. They sniffed at me, but were eager to let me wait on him so they didn’t have to. They also thought it was an easy bet to win. We were goofy 20-somethings and he was a malcontent 60-something, it was like Sarah Silverman trying to get Lewis Black to laugh about kissing her dog’s butt.

I clicked on my microphone. “Hello, Mr. Kline.” “Mmm,” he’d say back. “How are you today?” I’d ask as I counted his money out. “Mmphh,” is about the best I got.

One day the sad lady came through and as her brat dangled out of the car I dropped two of our give-away lollipops in the drawer, hoping she’d take one. When she drove off Mr. Kline pulled in right behind her, and as I flipped the switch to send the drawer out again I saw the mom had removed only one sucker. When the drawer opened on Mr. Kline’s side of the wall and he saw it sitting in there, he held it up. “It’s for you,” I said into my microphone. The slightest inkling of a smile showed on his face. An almost smile.

The next day Mr. Kline came to make a withdrawal, and instead of just dropping a sucker in the drawer, I turned on the microphone and asked, “What flavor lollipop would you like today, Mr. Kline?” He hadn’t looked up or even acknowledged that there was someone on the other side of the window yet. “We have lemon, grape, strawberry and something blue that I don’t know what flavor it is.” He looked at me for a moment, perhaps not trusting me. Then he said, “Which do you recommend?” “Grape,” I said, “Grape is definitely our most popular.” He didn’t respond. I worked his transaction, then pushed the button to send out his receipt. “Have a great day,” I said. He reached into the drawer and saw that I had put in a lollipop of every flavor. “You have to let me know what you think of the blue one,” I said. He unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth, and with a stiff laugh said, “Thank you, Mia.” Then he drove off. Mia! Mia had been assigned the merchant drawer that day, and when Mr. Kline saw her nameplate stuck to the window he naturally assumed that was my name.

My co-workers were busy rating the laugh. Did it really qualify as a laugh? No, it was more of a snort. “I heard that same sound when I told him his account balance once,” one teller said. “He probably can’t get much more of a laugh out,” said another co-worker. Mia backed me up and said, “It was a laugh. She made him smile and it had a sound with it. She accomplished the impossible. Accept it.” Our other co-workers nodded and relented. They would have to buy my vending machine lunch that day.

But I was still struggling with the fact that he’d called me Mia. Because of that, I wouldn’t get true credit for the laugh. (I’m known to be proprietary with my sense of humor.) Still, after my free lunch I quit thinking about it, figuring I’d given someone the teensiest bit of pleasure and should be satisfied with that. It wasn’t about me, anyway.

For weeks I continued to work Mr. Kline’s transactions when the other tellers scattered at the sight of his car, and I always gave him a sucker which he took though he never cracked another smile. Then one day, I had been assigned to work the inside bank lobby. On the floor counting rolls of pennies, I was not visible from the customer side of the teller line, when I heard “Is Mia in?” The head teller started to explain that Mia was in the drive-up, but I jumped up and said, “I’m right here, Mr. Kline!” After I’d completed his transaction, I said, “Sorry, lollipops are only available at the drive-up.” “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m on a diet.” He snort-laughed at his own joke. “The drive-up said you were inside, so I thought I’d just say hello.” At that moment, I didn’t care what he called me.

“I’ll be back to the drive-up next week. I’m just covering a vacation,” I told him.

“Good,” he said, with his familiar growl. “I don’t like having to get out of my car.”

You can take the man out of Curmudgeon, but you can’t take the curmudgeon out of the man.

Photo Credit: Frankh, Rune T

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Let me be clear, my gynecologist is male, and he understands me like no man ever has. This is important, especially in mid-life when getting any attention “down there” slows way down. (By the way, he’s chairman of gynecology and obstetrics at one of the top clinics in the United States, Scripps Clinic. I tell you this last part so that you don’t think I’m talking about some dusty office in a strip mall with a neon sign.)

In the same way that I never cross my eyes because they will stick that way forever, or never buy seafood from a truck with Kansas license plates, I religiously go to my annual exam for fear I will get cancer the one time I don’t go. There are three very important reasons I love my gynecologist:

1. He has the ability to save my life. White horse/white coat. 2. When I was 45, he told me I had the cervix of a 32-year-old. 3. The most valuable reason of all: He puts funny posters on the ceiling of the examination room.

Let me back up a bit: Every April, I go to the doctor’s office faithfully, take off every stitch of clothing except my socks (metal stirrups are cold!), lie back on the paper-coated table, and well, spread ‘em. I can’t think of a comparably vulnerable moment that is voluntary. The end of the table faces an open window and a parking lot. Sure, it’s four floors up, a one-way window and no one can see in, but still, there’s also two faces (doctor and nurse) standing at the end of the table looking at one thing (I don’t need to describe this, do I?) and well, the only place for me, the patient, to look is up. The acoustic tiled ceiling in my gynecologist’s office is the biggest comfort at that moment. Or it was. For over twenty years, on the ceiling were funny posters. My favorite was the one that said simply, “I Really Hate This.”

The posters let me know that this was a man who completely understood me. For one three-minute moment, once a year, a man got me 100%. Before I met my doctor, I preferred female gynecologists because I felt less self-conscious and thought they would be easier to talk to about birth control, or other “female issues.” My doctor’s professionalism and splendid bedside manner, which includes the funny signs, made my 20 years of exams not only bearable, but somewhat pleasurable. Rarely can a woman say that about her gynecologist.

But last month, with the wax paper crinkling beneath me as I laid back, I looked up and the posters were gone. I nearly slammed my knees together in response to the betrayal. But I stayed still, since after all, a large metal speculum was veering toward a very sacred spot. So I just said meekly, “The posters, they’re gone.”

My doctor explained, and I swear I could hear a tremor in his voice, that just weeks before, another patient had come in and seen the posters and considered them unprofessional. This fusspot of a patient had apparently stormed down to the administration offices and complained. I tried to imagine what she could possibly have said: “I had my legs spread, looked up and instead of feeling nervous and just plain icky, I found myself giggling! You must stop this horrific experience at once!” No doubt she is menopausal, and hasn’t found the right lubricant to help with that encroaching dryness. But administration, as administration the world over is wont to do, went directly to my doctor’s offices and removed every poster from every acoustic tile. Humor was banned! Now, all we get are the full-color illustration of an anatomically correct vagina with all its labeled parts. It’s on the wall, not the ceiling, next to the magazine rack with last month’s Golf and Health magazines with the covers torn off and all the good recipes removed.

Being peri-menopausal, which I’m using as an excuse to stomp my foot when I see wrongdoings, I decided this situation would be my cause. Training for a Breast Cancer 10K might be more the norm, but being a writer proud of my flabby quads, I wrote a strongly-worded yet diplomatic letter to the office administration stressing the need for humor during this vulnerable moment. I used words like “consideration” and “universal understanding” and “fusspots.” I have not heard back, but I will make it my mission to stop hospital administration from catering to the bitches of the world who stifle a tiny moment of joy for other women whether she’s lying there thinking “When will this be over,” or organizing a corporate takeover in her head.

I know I’m lucky: Many women on that table are getting bad news instead of compliments about their cervix. So wouldn’t it be nice for them to look up and see a poster picturing a kitten napping inside a slipper with the line “Try to relax” underneath it? Or the one with a puppy hanging his forlorn face out of a cardboard box with the line, “Why am I here?” I suspect the doctors and nurses at Scripps Clinic also prefer a smiling patient to a curmudgeon. This is a case of the squeaky wheel. Being the competitive type, with my own encroaching dryness, my pen is set on high volume, and I plan on outsqueaking any post-menopausal retread.

I will go to the top to see that these posters are returned. I won’t let yet another relationship with my man be sullied by another woman. After all, he has been there for me for 20 years, it’s the least I can do.

Photos: craftyanna, redandjonny, Jen Grisard & “Fred”

Editing Note: I revised the section on ovarian cancer that I got wrong, but because some of the comments from readers were just too crazy to delete, I left everything below in tact. I just couldn’t delete the commenter whose gender changed mid-argument.

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That’s what fascinates me about human beings:  we don’t really know what goes on inside anyone else’s world, home, or their head.  Yet we assume we all want the same things.  We don’t, of course, but I believe there is one thing we all aspire to, and we can only get it from other people.

While I can only speculate about what was inside Ellen’s head, I know a lot about what went on in her life, because she told those of us in the group. What she wrote was actually very banal, with hardly any detail. But she would elaborate verbally when we asked her to. “Put it on the page!” we would say when she’d relate a story about clomping around her apartment with large tomato juice cans tied to her feet to practice for a dance. At the time, her neighbors would complain. Now, so did we. “Write it down!”  we’d repeat, when she told stories of entertaining Russian delegates in her dinky New York apartment, serving dinner on a table made from her bathroom door laid over two bookcases, and later making love on top of that horizontal door. I picture her in a velvet and lace red dress, pouring ouzo or chilled vodka into tiny crystal glasses. That last part is in my head, details that arrange themselves based on who I imagine she was.

She never did write down these stories, nor all the others that spilled off her tongue over the years. When she started to lose her way to my house (my living room is where I hold my private groups), we thought she was bonkers. She’d trip and fall over nothing in the street. We’d smile at one another, a look in our eye that translated to “She’s loopy.” We meant it with love.

But then Ellen was diagnosed with severe Alzheimer’s. Family services took away her car, and she had to leave the group. I stayed in touch, took her to lunch, and tried to reach out to her. I didn’t want her stories to disappear; I encouraged her to write.  On one of my visits to her house, she told me she had quit taking her medication because it made her dizzy, and “what dancer wants to be dizzy?” She’d had a good life, the best life anyone could expect, she said. She didn’t see any point in having to stick around for what was to come.

One day, after a panicky and disoriented lunch, she called and said I was the only person who still contacted her. She believed everyone had forgotten her.

I never heard from Ellen again.

Photo credit: bienaldancaceara, antydiluvian

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I was on my way to visit Sherry, Greg and Bill, a polyamorous co-habitating triad. They are an example of why conservatives don’t want gay marriage to be legalized–then “anyone” can marry anyone, and next we’d have polygamists wanting to get married, and then who’s to say you can’t marry a porcupine if you choose to?  (I mean, who doesn’t fantasize about porcupine sex?)

I was excited to have the opportunity to interview Sherry, Greg and Bill because they didn’t fit into the clichéd situation of two women and one man. I’m tired of it always being men who claim to want to watch two women getting it on: Strip club dancers, of course, already know this is the way to get the big tips.  Last week, The Daily Show–the one TV show I revere–did a spoof on the sanctity of marriage in the guise of reporting on Proposition 8, and the punchline was a married couple in which the husband had a girlfriend. But that just seems so Tiger Woods/David Letterman/Bill Clinton. Why can’t the celebs give us a little more variety? (Seriously, in this day and age, it’s front page news that someone’s having an affair?) Anyway, that’s why I decided to seek out a less tired version of a relationship involving a third person.

Maybe I envied Sherry a bit. She’s got it all. While Greg is a good breadwinner, he’s not so good around the house. That’s where Bill comes in: he likes to make chicken and rice dinners, bake pies and fix things. He calls himself the “housewife.” It beats having to find one man who must be all things all the time. It’s less pressure for Bill and Greg, too. Could I have one husband who makes the bed, and another who does the laundry? And then another who does that thing with his tongue?

We’ll get the basic questions out of the way first: Yes, Bill, Greg, and Sherry are all bisexual. No, they don’t all have sex at the same time, but they will all snuggle in bed together. Bill and Greg are affectionate with one another, but not necessarily sexually attracted to one another. They both have sex with Sherry.

When I first arrived, Bill and Sherry and I settled in the living room. “Greg’s still getting ready,” they told me. He joined us soon after, freshly coifed and showered. “Is there coffee?” he asked. Bill and Sherry looked at one another. “Sherry fixed some and I had a cup too, so it’s all gone,” Bill said.  “Oh,” Greg said, heading back toward the kitchen. “I guess I’ll fix my own.”

Bill told me he had tried monogamy for “five awful days back in 1984.” As I expected, all three of them argued that human beings are not naturally monogamous, that–biologically!–we are not structured to have one mate. Even that nice story about swans and ibises mating for life–that’s apparently bunk.  I’d heard it all before; my first husband harped on these “facts” for ten years of our marriage. Old boyfriends said it, even therapists say it’s true to some extent. But, in the same way that alternative lifestyle folks often say they’ve known since they were little kids that they [are bisexual], “[like to dress in women's clothing and do 'lady things'],” or that they’re “[asexual and masturbation is just a release],” I have known since I was 12 and had a crush on Skip Hollister that I am monosexual and like to stick to one person at a time. According to Freud and Kinsey, I’m part of a teeny tiny minority,  just five percent of the earth’s population. I’m only one in only three hundred fifty million (that’s equivalent to just one of me in the whole United States). There’s hardly enough of us for a rally.  I’m not even going to bother with a flag design.

Our world is crawling with lovemakers of all shapes, sizes, and orientations, and Bill, Sherry and Greg weren’t my first encounter with polyamory. But a relationship with one person at a time is hard enough, so I wanted to know how they juggled multitudinous relationships. None of the three are polyfidelitous–while they’re all committed to their intimate triad, that is, they each go out on the town.

But before you start picturing Wife Swapping parties from the 70s, let’s look at the day-to-day. Just as in a pair,  functional triads, quadrangles, hexagons and rhombus groupings have all variety of arrangements with one essential element: Honesty.  (Start taking notes, Bill Clinton, David Letterman, and Tiger Woods. And, my ex-husband.) My favorite sex writer and podcaster, Dan Savage, insists that this is the essential ingredient for all healthy relationships, no matter their configuration.

My interviewees were forthcoming about the play parties they had in the backyard pool. (Suffice it to say water wings were not the only flotation devices.) They also told me about their “dates”: one or more of them often become interested in another woman or man, but they take pains to be sure make everyone is on the up and up about the arrangement. And they make it clear that they aren’t available to be another person’s serious mate.

Bill, who’s from West Virginia, says that when he’s interested in a married woman, he likes to bake a pie and take it to the couple. Ah, the Southern polyamorous tradition. My Southern mother taught me that you must never return an empty pie pan–you always have to bake another pie and return it to the owner. But in Bill’s case, this sounds like an even trade.  Pie/Wife, Wife/Pie. I like to think of one half of the couple heading off on their date with Bill as the other hollers, “Save a piece for me!”

I asked about jealousy, and all three of them shook their heads. “It comes up, on occasion, but then we just think of why it doesn’t matter,” said Bill.  Where’s the drama in that? I thought to myself.  They’ll never get their own reality show if they keep this up.

But honesty isn’t just a value they share with one another, it’s something each must have with his or herself. Talking to Bill, Greg, and Sherry, I was reminded of a sweet friend of mine whose husband wanted to have a foursome with another couple.  She went along with it because she was gung-ho for pretty much anything (one of the things most of us love about her), but she also became sullen and severely depressed. She actually loved the other couple, she explained, but in the end, she had to admit that she had only done it to please her husband, not because she really wanted it herself.

But Bill, Sherry and Greg have been together for more than ten years, and they seem truly happy. Once Greg had made his own cup of coffee, we all sat in the living room chatting about life and love. It was easy to believe that more really was merrier.

When I got home after the interview, I was famished. Luckily, when I walked in the door I could smell burgers grilling. “Oh boy,” I said to my outré, “I’m starving.” Eber looked at me, then at the empty frying pan. “Sorry, you’ll have to fix something else. I ate the last one.”

Just goes to show you, no matter how you slice it, there’s never enough love to go around.

Photos by ljcybergal, net_efekt

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My sister, 10 years my senior, made certain that I understood that Ken was by no means anatomically correct. At nine I didn’t know what “anatomical” meant, but I knew she meant that the bulbous area at Ken’s crotch was not how it looked on real men. It didn’t bother me, because it was Barbie who rubbed up against that area, not me.

Barbie and Ken would do it on the dollhouse couch made of two by fours and contact paper. The sounds of sex coming from these hard plastic dolls:  click clack, clickety clack.

Afterward, he’d sit on the sofa with his legs sticking straight out in front of him, reading a miniature newspaper, and she’d put on a sundress and high heels and begin dinner. My older sister should have also let me know that Ken was a chauvinist.

As an adult, I’m happy to say the doll manufacturing world has fixed that anatomical incorrectness. The stiff legs, the plastic pyramid breasts, the sock-shaped crotch, have all been revamped with silicone. She hasn’t just been given new breasts, botox or collagen injections; Barbie got a full-body implant. Of course, it’s not Mattel’s doing. I’m talking about Real Dolls by Abyss Creations. Their website says, “Our dolls feature completely articulated skeletons which allow for anatomically correct positioning, an exclusive blend of the best silicone rubbers for an ultra flesh-like feel, and each doll is custom made to your specifications.” No more clickity clack sex sounds. No more bogus genital areas! These dolls are full-fledged pseudo human beings.

Choices go beyond just Malibu Barbie, PJ, and Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken. You can choose between 50,000 options. Choices range from lip color, nail shape, pubic coif, magnet-based removable faces, and nipple size. There’s a flat-back doll that falls perfectly in position when dropped on your bed. Come up with a flawed mortal part, and Real Dolls will answer with a flawless immortal silicone replica. And Real Dolls aren’t just for men any more.  Two male dolls are available for purchase, and for an additional fee you can have a penis attached to a female doll to create a she-male. Something for everyone, or rather, for every relationship.

While it still might be a game — let’s pretend that you, the perfectly gorgeous woman of my dreams, wants to have sex with me, a lush who hasn’t brushed his teeth since 1979 — reality still reels its ugly head after the last post-coital snore. In addition to the clean up (Real Dolls come with a cleaning kit), just like every relationship there’s every day life on the other side of that initial stage of passion.

When I first started researching the Real Dolls, I wondered who would spend $6000 for a body that needs to be heated up with an electric blanket just so the “user” can avoid feeling like a necrophiliac. I assumed they’d be low-life sex addicts who objectified women, and some of them probably are. But I can’t help also picturing men who are terribly shy or awkward, who have tried and tried to find companionship, like the title character in “Lars and the Real Girl,” a must-see movie (and one that’s done a lot to shape mainstream perceptions of Real Dolls and their owners).

When I was a kid, I played with Barbie during the day, but at night I slept with a stuffed monkey named Pinky (not  an original moniker, but he never complained). He fit just right between my arms and just under my chin when I curled on my side. One night when I had a stomach virus, I threw up on him. My mom tossed Pinky in the washing machine, and after the spin cycle he never quite looked the same — his pink fur, now more of a silvery fuzz. But I loved him even more for not rejecting me after I puked on his head.

Perhaps the Pinky/Real Doll comparison can only go so far — Pinky had no orifices, while a Real Doll has a throat that is seven inches long. (With her gaping mouth, each doll looks like she’s gasping.) But while Real Dolls probably endure much of the same abuse Pinky did, and more, I see proof in the online catalog that these owners also love their Dolls even more after the spin cycle. For instance: the part of the Real Doll that wears out the fastest is the feet. The Dolls weigh close to 80 lbs, and since they don’t walk on their own (robotics have not been perfected yet, though the lab is at work on sensitizing the genital and nipple areas so the doll exerts an “ahhh” sound) there’s quite a bit of dragging around the house being done. So, new feet are required, and replacements are available. It’s like the carburetor of the little woman, some engineer’s idea of TLC.

In some ways,  Real Dolls and the Men Who Love Them (MWLT) have a perfect relationship. She’s there whenever he needs her, she’s always in the mood, and she never lets her figure go.  But the Real Doll can’t clean house, she can’t grocery shop, and she can’t entertain his mother. She can keep him company during just about all of the above, except maybe entertaining his mother.

Even at $6000 a pop, sales at Abyss Creations are strong. What does this say about the difficulty of finding someone who will just be with us?  Someone who we can be intimate with, who we can care about and feel safe with. Someone who we are happy to buy new feet for when hers get worn out from being dragged around.

While a Real Doll may not be able to laugh at your jokes, and may be generally lacking in the conversation department, when she does embarrass you, you can just stuff her in the closet. And if we are really honest with ourselves, who hasn’t sometimes wished they had a partner who would (maybe just for a short while) be quiet, disappear, look sexy, wear what you wanted them to, didn’t interrupt, didn’t criticize, and yet would always be there when you needed them to be?

Of course, we shouldn’t all switch from real humans to Real Dolls, but I can’t condemn the men who find a truer happiness for themselves because flesh and blood just wasn’t really their type. For the lonelyhearts with an extra $6000 dollars lying around, I hope that at least one can trade in the teddy bear he’s cried into, jacked off on, and slept with since he was 14 and find happiness with something just a little more adult. My advice, and this goes for all types of relationships: Just don’t wait until it’s too late to replace the feet.

Photo credit: come as you are cooperative and kankalas

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Earlier this month, we had to watch as yet another celebrity was revealed to be doing something naughty. Judging celebrities on their bad behavior gets a little tiresome to me. But okay, David Letterman had to fess up to all the sex he partook of with his staff (apparently we’re talking about more than four staffers). Obviously I’m clueless about how many is “too many,” so I can’t judge Dave on that. Diagnosing Dave with a sex addiction is out of my professional realm as well, yet I don’t think I’m so off target when he meets the addiction criteria of American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV). Albeit a relatively new consideration, sexual addiction today is even being treated clinically.  So, when his first words to the public were “I have to protect my family,” I started thinking about how he–and all sex addicts out there–might protect their families before stepping outside their relationships.

Now, the experts all say that Dave and Regina should keep things private after his admission. That he should spend some quiet time with her. They may be alone, but I guarantee you she’s not keeping quiet.  She may not be bothering to say anything to us, but there’s some screaming going on behind those closed doors. Okay, let’s pretend that it was an open marriage: Dave seems to be pretty capable of pretending, and as for the public’s response, believing theirs was an open marriage is a way of protecting Regina, making her seem like less of an oblivious fool. Marriage has a surreal quality to it anyway. But alas, that’s Regina and Dave’s business, not ours.

What made it our business was when Dave announced it on national television, and well, inquiring minds want to know: Does this make Dave a scumbag? I don’t have a definitive answer to that, but he did inflict some pain. It’s also hard to believe he’s going to stop doing what he’s been doing for at least the last 48 years. So, how about Real Dolls? You’ve probably heard of them: silicone, life-size, anatomically correct “companions.”  Some reports claim they’re a lonely man’s dream come true.  Others argue that Real Dolls help creepy men stay creepy.  (Disclaimer:  there are male Real Dolls, but the rate of sales and available selection are so much higher for the female dolls, that I’ll save that for another story. For now, I’ll have to rely on sexist statements–but yes, there are female sex addicts.)

Having a Real Doll might help Dave, and others like him. Their starting price (without any extras) is around $6,000–although, like buying a car, once you start adding on the extras (like elf ears and facial expressions), it can really add up. Not cheap, but on Dave’s salary it’s a drop in the bucket, and definitely less expensive than a $2 million extortion bill.  Right now, with the bad economy, the Real Doll company is offering monthly specials.  Last month it was a free face with purchase!

Besides the cost savings, the Real Doll provides everything else that men like Dave are hungry for. Always need that euphoric rush of first time sex? Real Dolls come with replaceable body parts. You can get just about any hair color or body shape you desire: Ten female body types, and 16 interchangeable female faces are available. The body and head are sold separately, and if you like a girl that you can just fling on the bed at the perfect angle (i.e., flat on her back with her legs spread), you can get the Flat-Back Doll that’s just a torso.

Interestingly, the parts of the doll that wear out first  are the feet. Yep. The Real Doll is so real that she weighs the same as a chubby Ralph Lauren model–75 lbs. That’s a lot of chick to have to haul around the house. I mean, not everyone wants to do it in the bedroom night after night: Sometimes you’ll want to bring her to the den for TV watching, or maybe the kitchen for a little something-something on the linoleum. And dragging a woman around by her hair is just so caveman-like. A real man with a Real Doll can wrap his arms around her waist and stumble together with her to the next room. But don’t worry about that little foot problem. You just order a new pair!

One drawback of the Real Doll is that (unlike women who are real with a small “r”) they have no natural body heat: unless he’s into necrophilia, a Real Doll owner will probably want to wrap his synthetic lady  in an electric blanket to warm her up  first, which can really put a damper on spontaneity. Luckily, Dave has that “bunker” above the Ed Sullivan Theatre where he could store his stash of Dolls. He could request that his choice Doll be pre-heated while he’s busy working. Surely, he has an intern who could be in charge of this chore.

Dave could have a whole harem of Real Dolls, and it wouldn’t really be like stepping out. He could get a variety of faces and body types and it would seem like he had as many women as he does now, without the personal involvement, without chance of extortion, and Regina would know that he was still true to her…sort of. The Lettermans could go about their business as a happily married couple, whatever that is in their eyes. Dave could go to work as usual, and spend every commercial break with a different real doll.  Lunch hour with the brunette, coffee break with the large-breasted Flat Back. By the time he got home and kissed his wife and kid goodnight, it might come as something of a relief.

There’s just one thing missing that could ruin my whole idea. David Letterman could have all the sex dolls, Real and not, in the world. He could replace their faces and feet, and keep their bodies fresh, warm and plentiful. But the only way Dave can truly ”protect his family” is if  one particular part inside of him is real.

The heart.

Photo credit:  Come As You Are Co-Operative, Come As You Are Co-Operative

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A good friend of mine once witnessed identical twins French kissing.  You can’t get much more narcissistic than that.  Kissing yourself?  I’m not even sure I’m attracted to myself enough to want to goose myself on the butt, much less stick my tongue down my own throat.  But then, I’ve never been attracted to insecure people.

Last week Mackenzie Phillips published her new memoir, “High on Arrival,” and announced on Oprah that she’d had consensual sex with her father, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.  Coincidentally, I was reading Kathryn Harrison’s memoir, “The Kiss” (about her own adult affair with her minister father) the day of the Oprah announcement.  Had I not been reading Kathryn’s book, I may have thought Mackenzie was making a big celebrity scene about an issue she otherwise should have kept to herself.

I’ll pause here to add the disclaimer that my experience with incest is limited to a trip to London I took when I was seven. After a day spent visiting museums and statues, my mother leaned over me as we stood outside Buckingham Palace waiting for the changing of the guard and explained, in all seriousness, that the reason the British monarchy was so hideously ugly for many generations was all the inbreeding—she thought the idea of subjecting a child to a life of frizzy hair, a stunted nose, beady eyes and mental ineptitude might make me think twice before falling in love and procreating with my first cousin.

But back to Mackenzie and Kathryn, and “The House of Yes,” the 1997 movie starring Parker Posey.  When does “close” become “sick,” and the usually reassuring “between two consenting adults” get seriously complicated?

Family members can be close.  Very close. Family ties can be as simple as the guilt that makes us show up for Thanksgiving, even though we know it will just end up a boring repeat of last year—when Aunt Judy brought her mincemeat pies decorated with leftover Halloween candy corn. “The House of Yes” is a laugh-out-loud comedy about the uncomfortably close relationship between Parker Posey’s character, “Jackie-O,” (who thinks she’s JFK’s widow), and her brother Marty (played by Josh Hamilton).  When Marty brings home a girlfriend (Tori Spelling), all hell breaks lose, as Jackie-O suddenly realizes Marty isn’t completely “hers.” The craziness comes not from genes being crossed, but from the manipulation we exert in that ridiculous familial way. It’s one of the rare films to portray this kind of relationship, and though it’s part mad-cap comedy, something about the relationship between these siblings rings true.

But family isn’t always funny.  And possession rarely is.  My neighbors were perhaps too close–they only had one twin bed in their home, and they were both large people (maybe one of them had a bad back and opted to sleep on the wooden floor?).  I don’t know the internal psychological workings of their relationship, but Mackenzie Phillips calls what happened to her the first time “rape.” Kathryn Harrison describes her relationship differently, but she’s explicit about the subtle control her father had over her.  Both memoirists were exploited by very narcissistic men.  Both men called this possession romantic love.

Some bloggers say Mackenzie should keep her trap shut and talk to a good therapist, accusing her of exploiting the situation.  They say she’s gone public just to make money.  Really?  I bet Mackenzie has lots of money-making options available to her that don’t involve putting herself through what she had to know would be a public backlash.  Or maybe she did it just to get that big hug  from Valerie Bertinelli on Oprah.  (I snagged one when I interviewed Val at the LA Times Book Festival, so I understand.)

Both Kathryn and Mackenzie exposed a secret they carried inside for a long time.  Secret-keeping can wreak havoc on a person’s emotions and general psychological state. That’s any secret, from the Matchbox car I stole from my Sunday school class when I was five, all the way to the CEO embezzling from his company. The gradual meltdown is why we don’t do well at keeping secrets.  And a secret like “my father makes love to me”—if that doesn’t drive you crazy, I don’t know what will. But who do you tell?  Who will believe you?  And who are all the people who will be hurt by it?  These considerations are overwhelming, so it’s easy to understand why people would keep something like this locked away.

Love, as adults, comes in many shapes and forms. We should never shy away from it if it fits us well. I heard once that perversion is only as perverted as one’s perspective—a kind of extreme version of the “two consenting adults” excuse. But often, “love and commitment” can be a guise for one person wanting acceptance, and the other taking control. To me, Mackenzie and Kathryn’s stories don’t seem like tell-alls. The act may be the same, but the stories are their own. Each was seeking love from their father and in the end discovered a more complete love for themselves. Every relationship has two perspectives (well, menage a trois has three and so on…), and no two relationships are alike.  Relationships come in a variety of packaging, but no matter what the wrapper looks like, the candy on the inside should be a sweet one.

I hope my neighbors were happy in their own way, whatever that was, and that the Christmas tree experiment was not some cry for help that I missed.  As the months got warmer, I worried about the possible combustion of the dried pine needles in the hot car. The only thing I can be pretty sure of is that the tree was probably another family obligation that neither had the wherewithal to take to the dump.

Photo credit:  serikoytik1970, bubjay, Fire Monkey Fish

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