American Thighs (19 page)

F
irst, of course, they are BOYS, and all evidence indicates that it's a case of early onset approximately 100 percent of the time. Once upon a time, in the little town of West Point, Georgia—which is the only place in the universe that I know about where one can get crispy-fried black-eyed peas, and that is at the Heart of the South Tea Room (which also has THE finest Southern cooking anywhere on the planet)—so it is worth going there if for no other reason than that—just to experience the miracle of the black-eyed peas, which are like salted peanuts only peas and nobody can figger out quite how they do it and they ain't tellin' so you just have to go there if you want some—there lived three little boy-type brother boys.

By boy-type boys, I mean the kind that're just as full of their
own boyness as they could possibly be without busting wide open. Just so BAD, you could pinch their heads off—if they weren't so dang funny about it.

Okay, so Mom is driving them to school one morning and they are all buckled up in the backseat. The one in the middle announces that he is experiencing that happy-boy thing—the hard-on—and he is, in fact, quite happy about it and is equally happy to share the glad tidings with his fellow passengers. Brother-to-the-left gives a cursory glance in the direction of Middle brother and says, hmph, yeah, looks like you do, and goes back to staring out the window. Brother-to-the-right does not even look in Middle brother's direction but maintains his steady window gaze, but nonchalantly says, “Yeah, when I get a hard-on out in public, I usually just tuck it up under my belt.”

This at first seems to Middle brother to be a most excellent—indeed brilliant—solution to what could be a troubling matter—since he, too, often found that he would be visited by the hard-on fairy at public and therefore inopportune moments—and his face kinda lit up at the suggestion momentarily. Just as quickly, his expression turned to confusion and then consternation as he processed the entire equation and realized that either his pants were too high or his equipment was too short for him to avail himself of this fine remedy.

If the smug faces on Left and Right brothers did not betray their treachery, their ensuing guffaws certainly did, as Mom
just watched it all in her rearview mirror, thinking to herself what mean little shits they were—but she still laughed.

Phase Two

I'll grant you, they do walk a bit more upright these days and the prehensile tails seem to have vanished so, yes, they have become Men, but it would seem to me that there have not been any real discernible upgrades to the product in the last several thousand years.

Queen Jamie told me she'd been reading the online personal ads and came across this one that some igmo had posted: I am lowering MY standards so that YOU can RAISE YOURS. Where was he listed? In the Unmitigated Gall section? And how many affirmative responses do you reckon he got with THAT plum of a come-on?

Another one that we can't imagine working for 'em: “I'm a real catch—I've been to jail but never to prison.” Oh, hey—can't let HIM get away! Can you even imagine—if that's the best thing that he can think of to say about HIMSELF?

If you've read any or all of my previous books—and, of course, you know that I fervently hope that you have or will—you know that I have talked at some length about the everastounding igmonosity constantly plaguing men—and by
association, also women. To the best of my recollection, I believe that if not all, then certainly by far and away the majority, of my rants have been concerning igmos of the heterosexual male persuasion.

I guess, in my mind, homosexual males are either above or somehow exempt from overt acts of male-pattern stupidity. Once again, I have had a lesson in Just How Wrong I Can Be.

Queen Maria has been married and divorced four times herownself and she has blocked out most of those memories—keeping only enough of them handy to avert altar trip #5—but she has a bestest buddy who is a gay man who is, according to my research, the first documented Gay Igmo on record. The QueenBoy first of all went and married a woman—which is a total igmo thing for a gay man to do. They did ultimately divorce, of course, but THEN—here is the REAL igmo part of it—HE MARRIED HER AGAIN. We can only surmise that the fool just loooves to have a wedding. We can't imagine WHAT in the world SHE'S thinking.

But anyway, it doesn't even stop THERE. It seems that QueenBoy also drinks a bit on occasion—no, that's not completely accurate—it seems that QueenBoy drinks a bit MUCH on occasion. It also seems that QueenBoy likes to SIT in his TRUCK and listen to the radio while he drinks a bit much. (Okay, he's not only an igmo gay man—he's a REDNECK igmo gay man—what next? Does he at least listen to show tunes on the radio?)

So, the other night, he sat in his truck, in the dark, drinking
vats of beer, singing along with the radio, and he sat and drank and sang until he got sleepy, but when he decided he'd be better off passing out inside the house—he made the understandably alarming discovery that HE COULD NOT MOVE.

In a complete state of panic, he decided that he had consumed so much beer as to induce a stroke in his brainpan, so he did what any normal, clear-headed, right-thinking, married-but-gay drunk man would do when he realized he was paralyzed in his own truck in his own driveway in the dark—he called his best friend, Maria.

Maria, already getting in her car and speeding the few blocks to his house, said that she would, of course, come to his aid but that 911 MUST also be called and trained emergency personnel MUST be summoned. He whined that he didn't want to call them because he was in his UNDERWEAR and he didn't want them to see him.

They were still arguing about calling/not calling 911 when she wheeled up behind his truck, leaping out of her car before it was fully stopped, heart in her throat, raced over, yanked open his door, and discovered the source of his “paralysis.” He was WEARING HIS SEATBELT.

So it would seem, gay or straight, makes no difference: we STILL can't make nothin' but a Man out of 'em and I don't care who he is, when we get 'im home, there's something BAD WRONG with him. However, that being said, there also has not been found a reasonable substitute for them and so we must
continue to make do with what we've got, and thankfully, we're fairly happy with it most of the time.

It's not for lack of TRYING, however—all manner of Man Substitutes are available in the marketplace, many of them shockingly anatomically correct, while others are inexplicably styled to look like small woodland creatures. Others are not primarily designed to be battery-operated boyfriends at all, but Necessity is, after all, a Mother, isn't she?

Oh, yeah—Queen Tammy went on a Girl Trip to Hawaii with a whole bunch of her grown-up women friends—no Larva allowed—and, as will happen quite often over cocktails, the subject of BOBs came up for a lively discussion. Pros and cons of all manner of apparati were talked over at great length until one woman spoke up and said it was just silly to clutter up the house with a lot of superfluous equipment when one common household tool can do dual duty and can be left sitting out in plain sight in even the most conservative homes.

She was not allowed to speak again for several moments as they all, at once, tried to guess what this device that was both handy and dandy could possibly be. There was unanimous jawdroppage when she allowed as how the ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH made a perfectly FINE boyfriend—you just had to remember to apply the back, not the bristles, and also to have a Designated Brush for Alternate Duty.

You won't find this in the owner's manual, of course, but you have to admit, it does seem brilliant—dazzling smile AND
Something to Smile About—talk about your twofer! And here I thought it was smart to figure out you could use a regular ole manual-style toothbrush on your eyebrows—clearly a case of Not Thinking Big Enough.

Okay, Once in a While, It Does Happen

“It” being that one of US, meaning females, does something that qualifies us for a pretty high ranking on the Igmo Scale. Let me qualify that—we are quite often—way too often—guilty of committing gross igmonosities in our choice of MEN and in the resulting relationships with them—but in just regular ole day-to-day-living-type stuff, I don't think we are quite as prone to doing your basic random stupid shit as some others, namely, guys, are—BUT, as I said, once in a while, it does happen.

It happened once at the Michigan State Fair, where a nameless young Queen was strolling through the agriculture display building, along with her buddies—some of whom were boys, some of whom were girls; it is neither known nor relevant whether any of them were both. At any rate, the group of young ne'er-do-wells was, as I said, strolling, and they chanced upon an enormous fiberglass cow, as one is wont to do on occasion while strolling through an agriculture display, and often when one does make such a chance encounter, one is tempted to mount the beast—simply because, as they say, it is THERE.

And so it came to pass that our young and hapless Queen was herself stricken with what proved to be an overwhelming, albeit inexplicable, desire to clamber up on top of the big giant fake cow, which, as it turned out, was not quite as sturdy as she appeared to the casual observer to be. And so it was that our young and very-soon-to-be utterly-without-hap Queen used all the grace and skill she'd acquired in all the years of dance and gymnastics classes her parents worked so hard to pay for—and somehow managed to pull herself way up high—on the back of the really big giant cow. Just as she was beginning to catch her breath and really enjoy waving regally to her friends, who looked so tiny down there on the ground, so very far beneath her, there was a startling development cow-wise. It seems that Bossy was not really designed to be a load-bearing bovine, and after just a few short moments of supporting our young hap-deprived Queen, Bossy's back sort of opened up and, well, swallowed our friend.

Her friends, who, it seems, were no friends a-tall—had just been watching her with a mixture of misguided pride and envy, way up there on the big giant cow, and then POOF! She was gone—vanished before their very eyes, which were, truth be told, having just a leetle trouble focusing by this point anyway. They couldn't see the top of the cow so they had no idea that a great cow crater had formed and devoured their friend—it appeared to them that she had simply vanished. I'm quite certain there were more than a few mystified “Whoa, dudes!” exchanged before it was decided that the group should go. Not so much for
help as for more beer—they didn't really see how anybody could help with this—nobody even knew the proper authority to notify in case of a person's disappearance from the top of a big giant cow—but luckily, somebody did know where there was beer to be had and so it was decided that leave should be taken in pursuit of beer and possibly burgers—looking at the big giant cow having reminded them that they were hungry.

And so off they went and the lonely cow-girl was forgotten. Not silent, though. It didn't take her long to ascertain that she was, in fact, buried alive inside a big giant cow and that she was furthermore trapped and unable to free herself from her oxlike ossuary, but she knew she and her worthless cohorts weren't the ONLY people touring the ag building that evening—somebody else was BOUND to come to gaze at big giant cow—and who knows—perhaps even be moved to climb it and discover the bottomless pit into which she had fallen. In any event, she figured sooner or later somebody surely would get close enough to hear her hollering—which she was doing a lot of—from inside the cow.

By and by, some folks did happen by and hear her pitiable cries for help, but they could not discern from whence the pleas were issued—no damsel in distress could be detected in the area. Of course, it never occurred to them that there might be a live girl trapped in the belly of the big giant cow—who could blame them, what are the odds of finding a live girl in such a place?—and it never occurred to her to offer hints as to her lo
cation. The cow belly apparently being the equivalent of a soundproof booth, she could not hear her would-be rescuers asking that most pertinent of all questions, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?” And thus, she just lay in the bowels of the bovine, wailing, “HELP ME! HELP ME!” over and over, until she began to sound like a large cat meowing, and the folks started to think maybe that's what it was—just a big cat outside or on the roof or something.

They were beginning to get thirsty and hungry as well, but just as they started to head for the beer tent, an officer in the State Department of Natural Resources happened by, looking all official in his uniform, and so the folks stopped him and advised him that they thought they were hearing somebody yelling for help—but now they thought maybe it was a big cat, what did he think, and he stopped to listen in his official capacity.

As he did so, he put one hand on the side of the cow, to sort of lean against her for support while he was officially listening to officially determine if the sound was being made by a person or a big cat, and as he did so, his ring made a “thunk” against the cow's leg—a sound that could be heard by our prisoner, and upon hearing it, she renewed her frantic cries with great gusto and also with key information added: “HELP ME! HELP ME! I'M IN THE COW! I'M…IN…THE…CO-O-O-OW!”

Like THAT made any sense. Nobody believed it for a good few minutes but she stuck to her line—“Help me, help me, I'm in the cow, I'm IN THE CO-O-O-OW”—until the DNR guy
finally radioed for somebody to “Come to the big giant cow and bring a ladder.”

Like THAT made any sense. But he apparently was a high-ranking officer and had enough clout that a radio message from him demanding a ladder be brought to the big giant cow was met with compliance on account of presently, somebody did show up at the cow with a ladder, whereupon someone else was ordered up the ladder, and upon reaching the top, a girl-swallowing gap could be seen. Plus you could hear her hollering pretty good from up there.