Faster Than Kudzu

The Sex Class

You know those sleep number beds?If you are a veteran of the insomnia wars, I AM SURE YOU DO.

While I sat up watching the sleep number bed infomercial at a zillion o'clock in the black pit of night, I decided I need my own ranking system. I need a mental illness number. The scale will be 1 - 100 with 1 being “grounded in reality and relatively cheerful,” and 50 being “needs medication” and 100 being “sucking own toes and paddling about in the bloody remains of the neighbor’s dog.”

(Although the bloody remains part would be JUSTIFIABLE DOGRICIDE because that great hairy object habitually comes over and has his morning constitutional RIGHT BY THE MAILBOX ON THE CONCRETE OF MY DRIVEWAY. Which really, I should kill the neighbors who have apparently never heard of BAGGIES or COURTESY, not the dog, but by the time one has a mental illness number of 100, these fine distinctions are beyond one.)

After several days of mental illness numbers in the high 50’s and low 60’s, I think I got over 70 yesterday. NOT GOOD. I showed my butt to my friend Theresa who NEVER shows her butt. That makes it infinitely worse. I mean, Julie and Jan are USED to me being a complete headcase, but I have tried to keep a lid on it around Theresa because she is the most GROUNDED person I know. Her mental illness number is about negative 7.

BUT NO. I had to have a big old tantrum in front of her. See--- I had to miss my class because the nursery worker did not show up. AND I REALLY WANTED TO GO TO THIS ONE. It’s my marriage enrichment class, and I have to say it has been a very good class. We have really enjoyed it, and I wouldn’t want to miss it ANYWAY….BUT. THIS WEEK WAS SPECIAL.

It was the SEX TALK week. Our teachers have been married to each other for over 60 years so the writer in me was dying – DYING – to be at this particular class. Come on!!! Material like that does not just walk in off the street!!! And I missed it. MISSED IT!!!!
And everyone in the class SWORE to give me a play by play and then after class they all kind of shrugged as I avidly questioned them and said “Oh it was, you know, a good class. Like always. It was fine.” Julie added, tantalizingly, “Oh, one of the teachers did talk about ‘swinging.’” AND THEN THEY ALL PROBABLY SWAPPED KEYS WENT HOME WITH EACH OTHER’S HUSBANDS BECAUSE THEY WERE SO CHOCK FULL OF FANTASTIC UNSHARED OCTOGENARIAN SWINGER STORIES.

I went home and ate half a box of chocolate covered cherries and watched infomercials, completely unfulfilled as a woman.

Posted by joshilyn at July 2, 2004 9:14 AM