Ah, guilty pleasures. Everybody has them. Or at least should have them–it’s only healthy, ya know?
“But wait, what’s a guilty pleasure?” you (and the Elder both) ask.
Well, as I explained to my favorite first-grader last night:
You see, a guilty pleasure is something you really enjoy, but are too embarrassed to admit you enjoy it. For example, if I watched Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on our local PBS station with you girls, then that’s cool. But if I secretly watched it by myself after you went to bed, well, I sure wouldn’t tell any of my friends I did that!
Grown-ass man who is merely making an analogy1Just kidding. I know that this is an example, or a hypothetical situation, but definitely not an anAlogy. and does not, in fact, watch daniel tiger’s neighborhood when he’s alone
And often times guilty pleasures come with a side serving of regret.
You see, back in the day after the Boss Lady and I were married, but before we had wee ones, a couple of her close friends decided that for there joint birthday celebration, they wanted a themed party.
The theme? You guessed it: guilty pleasures.
Around that time I had discovered that she would listen to owner-of-an-obnoxiously-sultry-voice and nationally syndicated radio D.J., Delilah. In turn, I did what any loving husband would do and teased her about it endlessly. So, it was a no-brainer who she would be going as:
For my part, my secret vice was also directly related to the public’s contemporaneous poor taste in music. Though I almost hated myself for it, any time I was alone in the car, I would rock out to party-girl and pop-rock sensation, Ke$ha:2Image source: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25297496
Yeah. Her. Known for such hits as “Tik Tok,” “Blah Blah Blah,” “Your Love Is My Drug,” and “Take It Off”3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_(Kesha_album)–most of which are not only party-centric, but controlled substance-themed as well. A rocking good time for the ears, to say the least.
So there. I admit that I loved her music. Ke$ha’s love was my drug and her music my guilty pleasure.
But I couldn’t go to this party dressed up as her music…no problem, though, because, apart from an arbitrary marking on our birth certificates, her and I were practically twins, dare I say…doppelgängers?
I’m pretty sure you could see where this was headed even before you started reading this. Yes, you are correct: you better believe that I’m not going to pass up a socially-sanctioned opportunity to cross-dress. For me, Halloween in January will beat out Christmas in July any day!
That evening as we were getting ready, the Boss Lady got me half prepared for my role before realizing that she needed to hop in the shower if we didn’t want to be too fashionably late. So there I was just chillin’, waiting for her in nothing but pantyhose, a balloon-filled bra, a sexy af mini-skirt, and most of my make-up. However, I still had yet to don a properly-torn top, boots, and the blonde wig.4Not that I needed the wig. I had plenty of luscious long blonde locks as it were.
…and that’s when the knock on the door came.
I peeped out the window and saw a young girl from our neighborhood, probably about 9 years old, patiently waiting outside our door. My mind frantically raced…should I pull Natosha out of the shower? Should I just answer the door?
As the tiny-fisted knocks reverberated through our door and throughout the house a second time, the situation became even more urgent, as I realized why she was calling upon us at such an hour.
She was slanging that mid-winter’s crack that every American knows and loves and is chemically dependent upon: Girl Scout cookies.
Me: “Babe, I know you’re in the shower, but what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?!?”
TBL: “Just answer the door! I don’t want to miss my main shot at a freezer loaded with Thin Mints!”5(TM)
“I know, I know! I desperately need my Peanut Butter Patties6ibid and Samoans,7Almost ibid… too, but I haven’t finished getting dressed–not that being fully-dressed would help the matter any.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, they’re cookies, not a South Pacific people group? Samoas, not Samoans! A didn’t marry no ----- cannibal!”
“Don’t change the subject!”
“And you don’t make me answer the door naked!”
“Too bad! There’s no way I’m answering it–it’s just too ----- risky!”
…and that brings me back to regret.
Regret can be combined with Girl Scout cookies in many different ways:
- regret not ordering any
- regret not ordering enough
- regret eating the whole ----- box of Thin Mints8(TM) in one sitting
- regret not holding up the cookie delivery truck and robbing them blind
- etc. etc. etc
However, in this case I thought I would change it up and illustrate-by-counter-example.
You see, during my first year of grad school, I was the only one of my roommates home when the local Girl Scout9Technically, not the same one from earlier. came by in the middle of one cold-ass winter afternoon. Not thinking much about it, my Midwestern hospitality kicked in, and I instinctively invited her inside to get out of the cold while I fetched my checkbook.
When she automatically declined with all politeness, I had a brief moment of clarity, realizing that I probably seemed much more creepy than courteous No biggie, though.
Well, sure enough when she came around again the next year, there I was, home all alone with no one to answer the door. And once again, I realized too late that I was inviting her in…
The point of the story is, I strongly recommend not answering the door when a Girl Scout comes a-knocking and you’re halfway dressed in drag. I guarantee you will experience nothing but the opposite of regret. Especially when you’ve got two strikes against you and you’re on the verge of becoming a registered sex-offender–in the eyes of the local Girl Scouts, at least.
And we all know that there is no higher authority under the heavens than She Who Controls the Cocaine Cookies…
Content created on: 12 February 2020 (Wednesday)
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