“What the hell happened to Veronica’s hair?!”

Chapter 8 – The Great Swami

It’s been two weeks since I attempted the “fake it till you make it” with Drew and I think it was a total success. He knows I still want him and that got me off the hook for a little while to try and get my libido back in shape. I had a little bit of doubt that my performance wasn’t good enough and that Drew suspected I had been faking that day, but after a little pep talk to myself, I knew I was a golden shower.

I had made Liz play that scene from When Harry Met Sally seven times and then Claire made me act out the scene to make sure I got it right.

“Don’t keep your eyes open. You’re totally giving it away by staring straight ahead looking bored,” Claire stated.

I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and started moaning loudly.

“How’s this?”

“You sound like a dying cat. A dying cat that’s trying to catch snowflakes. Put your tongue away and close your mouth,” Liz scolded.

“Really get into it. Picture someone telling you that tonight, you will sleep twelve hours straight without any interruptions,” Claire instructed.

I screamed in ecstasy and shout words I didn’t even know how to pronounce.

“Wow, you nailed that one,” Liz said in awe.

“Yeah, I guess we found your sweet spot. Just imagine you’re asleep when you’re banging Drew,” Claire said with a laugh.

“Hey, before we had Billy, our sex life was very exciting and I never would have needed to think about sleep. We were even finalists in a p**n home movie contest. The contest required us to use four props. Two living things, one gas operated power tool, and jumper cables,” I told them.

“You really need to stop sharing things like this with us,” Liz complained. “But seriously. Do it exactly how you just did and it will be perfect.”

It had been perfect, if I do say so myself. I don’t get why Drew is still acting weird though. You would think that since he got off he would be in a better mood. I mean, he came without even having sex. That’s got to be a good thing. And since he thinks he got me off too, he should be feeling pretty good about himself. But he’s been moody and sad and hasn’t even made any comments about bending me over the table in days. Something definitely isn’t right with him.

Our neighbors call to invite us over for a cook-out this evening, and I take them up on their offer. In the few years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve never done anything with our neighbors. They are a very strict, religious couple, and we obviously aren’t.

Before I had got pregnant with Billy, Liz hosted a sex toy party on our back deck. The wife had been outside tending to her garden and saw thirty women waving vibrators around and trying to pop blown up condoms by grabbing a partner, putting the condom between them, and hugging each other as tightly as they could to get the condom to explode. The condoms had been full of lotion and everyone was screaming and throwing vibrators at each other.

I’m pretty sure that’s why every time I see her out in the yard, she turns and runs back into her house.

Getting an invite from her for a cookout had been a shock but I figure it couldn’t hurt. If anything, maybe this couple could help Drew and I learn to communicate better. I mean, they are religious people. They must know how to talk to each other and how to make a marriage work. I bet I can get some really good advice from them.

“The freaks invited us to their house?”

“Will you stop calling them that?” I complain as I put a pink bow clip in Veronica’s hair.

“What’s a fweak?” Veronica asks.

“The crazy people who live next door,” Drew replies as he pulls a onesie out of Billy’s drawer that reads: Screw the titties and milk. Give me a beer.

“No. Absolutely not. You are not putting him in that shirt.”

I walk over and snatch the onesie out of his hand and put it back in the drawer, searching through Billy’s clothes for something appropriate.

“How do we not have one good shirt for our son to wear?”

“What are you talking about? These are ALL good shirts,” Drew argues as he pulls out a red onesie that says, “I shit my pants when ugly people hold me.”

“These are nice people who invited us over for a nice dinner. He needs to wear something nice,” I state as I keep digging through the drawer.

“Boooo. Nice is lame,” Drew states.

“Fweaks are lame,” Veronica pipes up.

“Yeah they are! High five sister!” Drew exclaims as he puts his hand in the air for Veronica to smack.

At the very bottom of the drawer I find a shirt that says, “Pooping in progress” with a percentage line under it showing forty-five percent.

“This will have to do. Can you get Billy dressed so I can do my hair?” I ask as I lay out the shirt and a pair of tiny little jeans to go with it. “Also, you need to change your shirt. You are not wearing the shirt with a picture of Jesus and a crying Virgin Mary that says: Bitches be trippin’.

“I just want to state that for the record, I do not think this is a good idea,” Drew yells as I walk out of the room.

“Doodly noted,” I yell back.

~

“Okay, everyone, it’s game time!”

Seven seconds after walking across our yard and stepping foot onto the neighbor’s back deck I realize I’ve made a mistake. This isn’t just a fun get-together with our neighbors and a way to make new friends and hopefully learn from them about how to make a marriage work. This is the Twilight Zone and we are never going to escape. We are surrounded by women wearing ankle-length jean skirts and their hair in braids down to their asses. They pray before dinner, they pray in the middle of dinner, and they pray after dinner. They pray so much I can almost imagine Jesus himself sitting up there on a white puffy cloud saying, “Oh for the love of my dad, shut the f**k up already. I heard you the first eleven times.”

Drew keeps poking me in the side and snorts every time someone says, “Let’s bow our heads and give thanks.”

“If they ask us to drink the Kool-Aid, grab the kids and run,” Drew whispers as everyone pulls their chairs into a circle in the middle of the deck.

“But I like Kool-Aid. Grape is my favorite,” I whisper back in confusion.

“We’re going to go around the circle and everyone has to tell an embarrassing story!” the hostess announces.

“Oh this cannot end well,” Drew says quietly.

I elbow him in the side as one of the jean skirt women starts to tell her story about her husband playing a trick on her. When she had asked him to get her a glass of grape juice, he had handed her a glass of prune juice instead.

“Oh my fu-fart!” Drew states loudly as everyone around us laughs.

It’s been a challenge trying to curb our language throughout the night. At least Drew is managing to catch himself before he lets something awful fly out of his mouth.

“That’s not embarrassing. That’s just sad,” Drew whispers. “You realize that every single one of our embarrassing stories ends with one of us na**d, right?”

Thankfully, halfway around the circle, people start running out of stories to tell, and I don’t have to try and find a way to clean up the story about how we experimented with popsicles and chocolate sauce and had to use a blow dryer to unfreeze the popsicle from the inside of Drew’s thigh.

“So, how did you two meet?” one of the men asks as everyone turns their attention to Drew and I.

I look over at Drew in a panic and wonder how I’m going to explain to these God-fearing people that we met after a sex toy party.

“Um, well…we, um have these friends. And they have a store that sells…um, Tupperware,” I flounder. “We met after one of their Tupperware parties.”

Everyone smiles and nods and Drew starts to giggle.

“Yeah, they have GREAT Tupperware. Every shape and size you can imagine. Jenny likes the great big Tupperware,” he says with a snort.

“Ooooh I love Tupperware too!” one of the women states excitedly. “I use it every single day. It really is a life saver.”

I just smile and nod, trying to mentally telephone to Drew that he needs to shut up.

“Do you like to use the gigantor Tupperware or the teeny tiny Tupperware?” Drew questions seriously.

“I like to use both at the same time,” another woman pipes up.

“Yeah you do!” Drew smiles and nods, giving her a wink.

“My husband takes Tupperware to work and everyone is always asking him if Tupperware is better than GladWare. I tell them that Tupperware can fit in all sorts of places and can be used for your pets,” someone else says.

“Wow, that’s disturbing. But good for you,” Drew says.

“GladWare is the poor man’s Tupperware, that’s what I always say,” one of the men pipes up.

“Amen brother!” Drew shouts.

A chorus of “Amen’s” is muttered all around the circle and I have to cover my face with my hands because I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Tupperware really has saved our marriage,” one of the women says with a laugh. “Before I filled my pantry with Tupperware, Steve was using Zip Lock bags and his stuff was just spilling everywhere. He made such a mess!”

“Ha ha. Oh, Steve! Look at you spilling your stuff everywhere. You’re so bad!” Drew tells the guy sitting on the other side of him.

“I went to a Tupperware party once where everyone was passing around the different sizes and then they sold those at the end of the party. It seemed very unsanitary to me. Everyone touching the Tupperware and putting their hands all over it and then you were supposed to just take it home and use it?” another woman states with a look of disgust on her face.

“Oh, they make a special cleaner for that,” Drew tells them.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Steve, the “stuff spiller” says. “Drew seems like a good sport. I bet he would love to play The Great Swami game.”

The circle erupts into laughter and nods of approval. Everyone starts rearranging chairs so there are two in the middle of the circle, facing each other.

“The Great Swami game, you say? I’ve never heard of it,” Drew tells them.

“Oh, it’s great fun! You have to try and do everything The Great Swami does. So far, no one has been able to beat him,” Steve says excitedly.

One of the other men takes a seat in one of the chairs in the middle of the circle and a few people direct Drew to the chair opposite him.

“Bring on The Great Swami. I will totally kick his assss-ascot!” Drew cheers, catching himself just in time.

“Okay, so Eric is going to be The Great Swami,” Steve informs Drew. “All you have to do is follow along and do the exact same things he does.”

I have no idea what’s going on but it looks like a safe enough game where Drew won’t get in trouble with his mouth, and hopefully it will have something to do with having a good marriage. Eric puts both of his arms up in the air, making a 'V', and Drew does the same. Eric then touches his finger to his nose, which Drew copies immediately.

“Man, this is easy. The Great Swami is going down!” Drew exclaims as he copies every single move Eric does with his arms and hands. I’m feeling even more confident that we will at least end this evening on a good note, even if we don’t get any good marriage advice from these people.

Since Drew has his back to me, he doesn’t see one of the women sneak up behind his chair with something in her hand. I can’t see what it is since she’s hiding it in front of her, but everyone around the circle starts to giggle when they see her.

The Great Swami Eric does a few more arm movements that Drew repeats and then suddenly he stands up from of his chair. Drew immediately follows the movement, at which point, the woman sticks what I now see is a huge, sopping wet towel onto the seat of Drew’s chair.

Eric quickly sits back down onto his own chair, and Drew follows suit, smacking his ass down onto the wet towel and the puddle it makes in his chair. He quickly pops right back up and twists and turns to try and get a look at his ass while everyone around us is rolling with laughter

“SON OF A MOTHER FUCKING JESUS BITCH! WHAT THE FUCK ASS SHIT BITCH JUST FUCKING HAPPENED?!”

I can almost feel Jesus on his puffy cloud shaking his head in shame at us and saying, “You should have known better than to mix with my people. They will f**k you every time.”

We quickly gather up the kids and thank everyone for a wonderful time. Drew tells them we need to leave because Billy has explosive diarrhea just as Veronica begins singing at the top of her lungs, “SHIT POOP DIAWEEA. SHIT POOP DIAWEEA!”

The whole walk back to our house Drew complains, “Fucking stupid ass f**k Swami. Next time we’re invited over there, I’m going to f**k that Swami up.”

I’m not going to hold my breast for another invitation any time soon.

Chapter 9 – Great Head

“I can’t believe you’ve never played The Great Swami game before. I’m disappointed that you would fall for the oldest trick in the book.”

My dad, Andrew Senior, shakes his head at me in pity as we share a beer up at the local pub and watch the Browns game. I had invited my dad up here to get his take on Jenny and see if he would be up to tailing her for a few days. I’m not one hundred percent positive that she’s falsifying a workman’s comp claim since she stopped limping the day after she hurt her ankle, but I still have my doubts. Something stinks in suburbia and it’s not my balls.