Three Things I've Learned This Week

-Much to my surprise, I learned that Spanxs are more like boxers than you'd initially think:
Struggling to get into my Spanxs on Tuesday morning, my foot found its way through a hole I never knew existed. Having successfully maneuvered the body condom over my waist, I looked down to find a limp leg of fabric hanging at my side. I'd never realized that #1. you can ditch panties when wearing Spanxs #2. you don't have to play a game of tug-of-war every time you use the ladies room. Just like boxers, Spanxs have a front door...

- This week I signed up and learned how to use Car2Go:
Owning a car has never been my top priority. I could tell you that it's because I enjoy being driven, like the duchess of cambridge. Or I can be honest, and tell you that most of the money I set aside for my own car, goes to fixing the damage I've done to others. With one of our family cars in the shop, thanks to me, I decided to sign up for Car2Go. For only 38 cents a minute, I can drive one of the hundreds of Smart cars located around the Denver-Metro area. Although I'm still learning how to drive these clown cars without completely deteriorating my ego, I've learned the basics, and I must admit it's better than hitch hiking.

- I learned that my mother demanded divorce only hours after her wedding:
To preface this story, there are three very basic things you need to know about my dad. #1. He hates the heat because he hates sweat. #2 He hates socializing. #3 He hates anything and everything sticky and dirty.
On the day of my parent's wedding, it was 114 degrees in Stockton, California. The University of Pacific Church, where they exchanged their vows, had yet to install an air conditioning unit. My mom had picked out heavy pink shirts and blue polyester blazers for my dad and his groomsmen to wear. Dizzy with heat, the flower girl fainted after walking down the aisle. Shvitzing buckets at the alter was strike #1 for the infamous wedding day.
At the reception, my parents were stuck in a never-ending line. For hours they shook the hands of eager guests who had lined up to wish them well. Marinating in his sweat drenched shirt while socializing was wedding day strike #2.
Thinking he was finally home free, my dad left the reception to pull the car around. Nearing the exhausted yellow Rabbit, my dad noticed an odd luster on the windows. Grabbing the car's handle, his hand slid off the oiled knob. Running his fingers over the windshield, he realized that the car had been covered in butter. In a frantic attempt to leave the wedding, he turned on the windshield wipers only to find that it made the mess worse. Forced to drive with his head out the window, he picked up my mom in a belligerent fit. Over socialized, hot, and covered in butter, my dad had a momentous melt down as he drove my mother through a carwash. Sitting in the passenger seat, still wearing her wedding dress, my mother watched the mops rub against the buttered windows while my dad endlessly complained about their wedding day. By the time they reached their San Francisco destination, my mother had asked for a divorce.

The Time I Almost Debuted on Dateline

Growing up, my babysitter had a strange infatuation with kidnap and murder cases. She followed stories like JonBenet Ramsey’s with pure fascination, rattling off facts she’d gathered from Dateline. A few years letter when the Elizabeth Smart case developed, her infatuation rubbed off on me. While my parents were out, we’d eat chicken McNuggets while watching reenactments of the kidnapping. At night, I’d sleep under my blanket, certain that my kidnapper was lurking under my bed. Although I was 11, I still thought my blanket made me invisible. (I was a late bloomer in terms of getting in touch with reality.)

When I was younger, my mom had me act out self-defense skits. My mom would pretend to be a creepy man walking her dog in the park, or driving a rundown van with “Candy” written along the side. I’d pretend to fall for her “charm,” but quickly realize she was a kidnapper. Then I’d do what I was taught, – scream at the top of my lungs and kick her in the balls.

Thanks to my mom and Elizabeth Smart, whenever something churns my gut I automatically think, “this is the part where I get snatched.”

While studying abroad in Cortona, Italy, I bought a train ticket to go visit my then boyfriend in Florence. To get there, I had to take a bus into Camucia where I’d catch my train. I was running late, so I broke into a light jog as I made my way down Cortona’s famous hill to the busses. Before I knew it, my jog had turned into a mad dash with the hill’s slope. My arms full of bags flailed in the wind as I lost control, tripping over a cobblestone and somersaulting down the hill. The first of my embarrassing moments to come that day… 

When I finally reached to the bus circle, I couldn’t find a single bus.

I hobbled into the near by hotel, a little sore from my gymnastics routine, and asked when the next bus would arrive. “Two hours” the large Italian said with a smile. With only 30 minutes until my train left, I weighed my options – either walk/run the rest of the way down the hill into Camuchia and catch whatever train I could, or simply give up. I toyed with the idea of surrender until the soundtrack to my romantic comedy started playing. Just like a tic I can’t control, my life often becomes a movie inside my head. Similar to the train scene in Casablanca, I imagined my boyfriend waiting for me in the rain only to find that I’d never come. I opted for a happier ending, one that involved me falling off the train into his arms - so I decided to hitch hike.

It wasn’t long before a man in his early 50’s pulled up beside me in his rundown Fiat. He didn’t speak a lick of English so we communicated via hand motions and yelling. I squeezed into the front seat of his car that smelled like sausage and said Camuchia? He smiled a crooked teeth smile and gave me a thumbs up. Since we didn’t have anything to say, he turned up his Euro-techno, rocking his body back and forth while smiling awkwardly. “Like?” he said. I returned the thumbs up. Before I knew it, he had taken a detour off the main road and had pulled up to a ramshackle house on the edge of town. I thought to myself, “this is the part where I get snatched!” I felt a prick in my armpits as they begin to waterfall. He got out of the car and held one finger up as if to say, one second please. I thought back to what my mom had taught me and reassured myself with the fact that Elizabeth Smart had indeed survived. Just as I was about to make a run for it, he returned carrying a small cup of wine and handed it to me. “I make,” he said pointing at it with pride and then motioned for me to drink. I was so relieved that I hadn’t been snatched that I drank it all in one gulp. His eyes lit up and a wide grin spread across his face. It wasn’t until we were back on the road that the possibility of drugs dawned on me. My mom and Elizabeth Smart hadn’t prepared me for this type of ending. I waited for the onset of my wooziness as I envisioned by body being thrown in an Italian ditch. I was so consumed by visions of my bodiless funeral that I hadn’t even realized we had made it to the train station. 

The sausage smelling, crooked smiled, woman-snatching Italian opened my door as I climbed out of the thoughts in my head. He kissed me on the cheek and before I knew it, I was standing there with my bags at my feet watching him drive off as the credit song began to play.  

And that’s how I learned that not everybody is out to snatch me.