I live in a five story building in Chicago. It takes about a good six minutes to get from the shut of my car door to the shut of my apartment door. It’s often that I leave work and decide to wait for the restroom at home. By the time I actually get to my restroom, I’m crawling and praying to make it to the toilet. It’s quite dramatic actually. You would think I got shot down in the middle of gang battle, dragging my wounded limps to safety and crawling as fast as possible out of dangers way.  It’s like a clip from “Good Fellas,” except my escape vehicle is the toilet. Nope. I just forget I’m an adult sometimes and hold it so freakin long that the pee pee dance can’t sustain my bladder! It’s cute when you’re little, but when you’re over the age of 11, holding yourself and gyrating to the bathroom… it’s a little weird… inappropriate… disturbing really.

When I received the email below, I sympathized with Lisa (and suddenly had to use the restroom.) In a bladder crisis, getting to the actual toilet is the focus, shutting the bathroom door is frivolous.  Here’s Lisa’s story:

I’m not going to lie and say this hasn’t happened before. How many times do we do something inappropriate and don’t learn our lesson until we’re caught? I was at a client’s office enduring a very long meeting. After the first 30 minutes, I had to use the restroom. An hour and half later, once the meeting closed, I was scared out of my mind that if I stood up, my bladder would lose control and run down my leg. I was in pain. We said our good byes. I carefully, without breathing, exited the conference room and asked for the ladies room which felt like a mile away. Once I got to the restroom, I was throwing my things on the floor and unbuckling my belt before the door closed behind me. Oh, and I forgot to mention that this was a public bathroom shared by the east end of the office floor. I ran to the stall, peeled everything off and finally was able to breathe.

Seconds later, I heard the bathroom door shut and footsteps walk toward my stall. Not to be graphic, but no one likes to sit on public toilets these days, so in my suspended position over the seat, I was looking down the entire time. I heard someone yell, “OH, EXCUSE ME!” I looked up to meet eye to eye with my client while in mid-stream. In my frenzy to reach the stall, I forgot to close the door after me. I was embarrassed and extremely uncomfortable. One minute I’m going over court papers and the next minute I’m staring her in the eyes with my pants down. My pants were zipped, hands washed and I was bolting toward the elevators before she could get out of her stall. It gives a whole new meaning to being caught with your pants down.

It’s very often that we run into a situation where we’re kicked in the ass instead of serviced as customers should be. For example, last week when I had revisions to my salad, the waitress sighed and acted completely put out. Oh, Daddy made you get a job because he realized you’ll probably live off him for the rest of your life? BOO MF’in HOO!! Buck-up, Blondie and get me a free brownie while you’re at it, BITCH! Or perhaps the woman at the dry cleaners who looked at my white blouse that I had dribbled (poured an entire glass of Pinot Noir while snort-laughing) on and said, “You shouldn’t wear white since you spill so much.” Listen woman, aren’t I the customer here? Don’t I pay you like $20 bucks to rub some bleach on a white shirt? I’m so sorry if you’re back there with a scrub board while I’m living life and indulging in mother nature’s fruits… in liquid form. Cry me a river and scrub my shirt, Bitch!! Chop, chop! And when you’re done with that, I have some WHITE pants that have grease stains on the knee from when I perched my burrito there.

Yes, we’ve all ran into bad service and wished we did something about it, instead, some of us (me) just sit there silently then blog about it. However, my girl, Lindsey, decided to speak up and put a whip on some deli-workers! Way to tame that horse, Lindsey!! Make them cut that meat… uhhh.. what? Nevermind, here’s her story…

On a random weekday, let’s say it was Tuesday at 11 am, the Wal-Mart deli was anything but busy. But, of course there was one woman waiting on everyone while two co-workers did everything possible to look busy at doing nothing (sound familiar to anyone?) After about 5 minutes of me awkwardly peeping around the counter and looking over the scales and trying to quietly give the workers “the look” while remaining, polite…something in me snapped. About this time, another customer walked up next to me, waited for about 30 seconds, and then asks me, “I guess those two are prepping for lunch or something while the other lady waits on everyone?” I don’t know what grabbed a hold of me, but I loudly say, “Or they are just f***ing avoiding eye contact because they are afraid they might have to do their f***ing jobs!” Silence fell over everyone, customers and workers, and everyone looked at me. The lady next to me smiled the greatest “I love that you just did that” smile I have ever seen.
I calmly asked for my pound of cracked pepper turkey breast, waited for it, said thank you, and left.
I felt like I had just won a gold medal. Or at least an honorable mention.

It’s sometimes painful to be me, hence, I had to start a blog because, for my sanity, I have to know that other people share my pain.. and mortification. Britney baby, although I didn’t have two children by the age of 25, marry a white wanna-be-rapper who aspired to be ghetto, change accents when I change wigs or cry on national TV while I smacked gum and let snot run down my face for effect .. I do think we could be close friends. Call me.

Anywho, you know I’m Queen of blurting before braining.. this is why I’m categorizing myself with Britney Spears and.. Vice President Biden … away we go!!

Yesterday afternoon, two of my female coworkers and I got a sweet tooth. We work in the Merchandise Mart (in Chicago. On levels one and two there are endless opportunities for high calorie treats, I’m talkin’ every type of fast food vendor you can think of.  We started throwing out options: Cookies? No..  brownies? Nah.. cupcakes… maybe ice cream? Maybe… wait! Milkshakes!!! Ladies, I think we have a winner.

Because it was late afternoon and our brains are dead and perverted at this specific time of day.. we got on the subject of the “Milkshake,” song by Kelis – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ-FAV9fBII.  One of my coworkers wasn’t aware of what “milkshake,” really meant. We then clued her in that “milkshake,” in this song, was a euphemism for a BJ (oral sex to a man.. you never know you’re audience.) She laughed and gasped… haha.. funny.. then it was over. Before we went downstairs I wanted to be polite to the Creative Director and Design Manager in the next room. So I went next door, walked in their office and said:

“Hi, we’re running downstairs real quick, would you guys like a blow job?” WAIT!!!!!! NO! NO! NO! NO!!!!!!! Lauren – Freudian Slip!!!!!! AHHHH!!

“Oh my goodness.. I’m so sorry…. I meant Milkshake. Oh my god… I… am.. horrified.. We were talking about this song because we’re getting milkshakes, right, and what it meant in the song..” Lauren.. just shut-up. Just turn around and walk off.

The Creative Director is a conservative gay man and the Design Manager is a female – both cool -  but, still – COME ON!!! They were immediately stunned – eyes shot wide open – followed by “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?”

UGH!! It hurts! It hurts so bad… make it stop!

Girl, you’re not alone if three pairs of feet fit in your mouth with room to spare. I feel ya, Britney baby.

I was very young and naive. My first serious boyfriend (i.e. first, wink wink) and I were a sheltered pair. We both spent all our time in the dance studio among the same group of friends equally focused throughout our teenaged years. At the time, I had short, cropped, very curly hair. Think Shirley Temple; only all corkscrew and tighter. People called me sheep-head, poodle-head and various versions.
My boyfriend heard a cute term and thought it described me well. “Muff-burger, so soft and furry, you could just eat it all up.” his words. He took to calling me “Muff-Burger,” as often as he could. It got to the point, that when we would meet on the street, he would yell down the block, “HERE COMES MY LITTLE MUFF-BURGER!!!!!” Picture Michigan Avenue, rush hour, two teenagers a block apart:

“TWEETY BIRD!!!!”
“MUFF-BURGER!!!!!”
Run, run, hug, kiss

After a few YEARS, a friend asked both of us if we knew what a muff diver was. NO, what is that? She told us what the general population defines as a “Muff,” and what my boyfriend’s little pet name really meant. OMG!!!!!! HOLY SH*T!!!!

Lynn
Chicago, IL

Hello GYNA Ladies! Heather here.

This week’s topic is Nicknames. I’ll jump right in. Now for whatever reason, I’m a person with a lot of nicknames, most of them cute and endearing. One very embarrassing – guess which one I’m going to share with you?! GYNA-mite

I was living in an apartment with five other dancers. This was in the age of answering machines and we had only one machine that was shared between the six of us. One night my mom called and left a message saying “Hi Heathie, it’s Mom…” I like it when my parents call me Heathie, however, this has always been a name reserved for them alone. My roommates, on the other hand, decided that they would also call me Heathie. I figured that if I didn’t make a big deal of it, they would grow tired of calling me Heathie and soon go back to calling me Heather.
After a couple of weeks, all but one of my roomies went back to calling me Heather, but, Murphy’s Law, the one person that still called me Heathie said it in front of my boss. My headshot was hanging in his office along with headshots of all of the other employees that were in the arts. She pointed to it and said: “There’s Heathie”.
If you are not a dancer, singer or actor, you most likely will not know what a headshot is. It is a photo of yourself, a really big photo, 8×10 to be exact, that you are required to bring to any audition that you attend. Your headshot is also printed in the program for a performance next to your biography so the audience members can put a name to your face. Or, your headshot can be hung on the wall of a restaurant, bar, or office of your boss.

My boss misunderstood my roommate and thought she said, “There’s Heavy.” He thought it was a little weird and kind of mean that she was calling me Heavy, especially considering that my roommates and I were all dancer, but hey, if that’s my nickname, that’s what he’d call me too! To this day, he still calls me Heavy, which I gotta say is pretty embarassing considering I work full time at a health club.