By staff writer David Nelson
February 18, 2007
Essential New Word of the Week: burritoing (definition hint: frustration hibernation)
I sometimes get feedback from readers who happen to know my family, and they invariably tell me that Parental Dining Humiliation is one of their favorite articles. If you’ve ever seen my dad try to find loopholes in a restaurant’s “food-in-exchange-for-money” policy, you surely understand why. I’ve long wanted to write a follow-up article, but there was always one problem: I set the bar too high initially.
You see, any humiliation I might suffer in my adult life can’t possibly compare to hearing my parents banter with a waiter. And when I say banter, I mostly mean ridiculous complaints and veiled ethnic slurs. But now, I’ve remembered another of life’s little chapters where the humiliation potential runs equally high: Moving.
Hauling all of your earthly possessions to a new address is just a fucking nightmare. Much like finding the clitoris, there’s no easy way to do it, and it’s hard to find the motivation to try. You can hire movers, but they’ll rob you blind, take their sweet-ass time, and treat your stuff like Dog the Bounty Hunter treats Latino bail jumpers.
“Out spilled a big vibrator. Just me, my friend’s mom, a mostly empty room, and The Space Dong 6000™.”
Or, you can call in some free labor from your friends and family. But if you do that, I hope you don’t embarrass easily. By the end of the day, your dad might well be drunk in his tighty-whities, telling your new roommates how he once caught you masturbating to a picture of your cousin.
The last time I moved, I timed it so that I could avoid humiliation. God only knows what would have happened if someone from my family found, say, my roommate’s secret cache of horded kitchen utensils. It would have been like a quantum feedback loop of weirdness. So, I haven’t experienced the full force of parental moving humiliation myself, thank god. But I’ve seen it. Oh, how I’ve seen it…
Last summer, my friend bought a house in the country, and recruited some of the guys to help paint and fix up the place. And it really needed work. The basement, in particular, was a dank, filthy pit that even Buffalo Bill would have dismissed as “too creepy.” Trust me, if you found yourself down there, you wouldn’t think twice about putting the lotion in the basket. Nevertheless, we were all happy to help out.
This new place was located right on the same property as his fiancée’s parents. Some would say it’s crazy to move so close to people who might, at any given time, have 5 or 6 good reasons to hate you. My own dating experience tells me a girl’s parents generally want to lynch you for defiling their daughter. But this guy was friendly with his future in-laws and even roped them into helping with the renovation.
I was assigned a room to paint. Apart from applying green to girls’ breasts on St. Patrick’s Day, I don’t have much experience in that genre. But thankfully, it was easy enough. One of my fellow workers wouldn’t be so lucky. He had to remove a bunch of nails sticking out of the floor. During one of our not infrequent beer breaks, the fiancée’s mom started paying him a lot of attention. At first, she just praised his hard work, which was pleasant enough. Then, the massaging started.
Let me try to set the scene. My friend and fellow worker is sitting innocently, enjoying a well-deserved beer. His long-time girlfriend is standing not five feet away. And now, our friend’s eventual mother-in-law is gushing about how strong and burly he is, and starting to massage him. I realize this sounds like the intro to a badly written MILF porno script, but don’t be fooled. It was actually much more surreal and disturbing than that.
You might accuse me of exaggerating a harmless gesture. But if this little rubdown started out as innocent, trust me, it didn’t stay that way. Hands moved from the neck muscles down to the chest. Pectoral muscles, or possibly man-boobs, were caressed lovingly. And all the while, this nice lady is cooing over his testosterone-filled pockets of virile manliness. It was quite a scene.
I know this guy pretty well, and I could tell that he was burning with the fear and humiliation of a thousand bedwetting children. I have to give him credit, though; he tried to play it down. He kept the conversation light and airy, as if nothing strange was going on. Meanwhile, his friend’s fiancée’s mom was practically raping him in front of a crowd that included his own girlfriend.
Have you ever experienced a moment of comedy so pure and true that you can’t even wrap your head around how funny it is? Strange as it sounds, seeing all this unfold was so great that I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh. In truth, I was actually a little sad, because I knew I might never again in my life witness anything as hilarious.
That said, comedic zen has a short shelf life. Moments later, I was racing outside so I could laugh my guts out. I don’t even mean that figuratively; I laughed so hard I actually vomited the burger I had just eaten. To this day, the mere mention of this incident will cause my buddy’s voice to raise about three octaves while he insists there was nothing he could have done to avoid it. Naturally, I try to mention it as often as possible.
And recently, I had another “write-about-this-and-I’ll-kill-you” moment while helping a friend move. The lucky homeowners, a wonderfully hedonistic couple, enlisted his parents in addition to myself. In other words, the ensemble cast was all wrong for an Extreme Home Makeover, but just right for an epic humiliation.
It started innocently enough. We were randomly packing stuff in the car and making multiple runs. On the first trip, his dad began noticing some of the people walking around the new neighborhood. “Yeah, I’ve seen her walking around in the summertime with those short shorts. Nice ass on that broad.” Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, but if my dad opened up with that conversational gambit, the exchange would likely end up with me seeking a therapist.
On the next trip, we encountered some of his new neighbors personally. One was a fairly attractive middle-aged woman. For some reason, she didn’t have the expanding hips/moustache control problems of most women her age. Now, I realize I just got done mocking a friend’s MILF encounter. But I would still do shirtless yard work for this lady if I thought she might try to take advantage of me with an innocent offer of lemonade. Or so it plays out in my mind.
We also met a hot teen that I presumed was her daughter, although I don’t like to rule out the possibility of a lesbian sugar momma thing. Particularly if their bedroom window affords an unobstructed view. My friend’s father, ever the opportunist, quietly confided to me some of the things he’d like to do to the pair. Suffice it to say, I was too mortified to remember to call dibs.
I got the feeling that this was a family that didn’t exactly keep much from one another. My friends are pretty enthusiastic about pot in all its forms, so a good deal of the work involved finding room for the various paraphernalia. In a way, it was kind of charming to watch his parents and his girlfriend work together to pack up the bongs, the pipes, the bricks of hash, etc. Many hands make for light-headed work.
Back when I lived at home, I went to great lengths to conceal even the incriminating smell of cigarette smoke from my parents. And yet the only thing that concerned my friend was that his enormous bag o’ pot might spill if his mom packed it wrong. I wondered if there was anything at all that he wouldn’t want his parents to find. Soon, I would have my answer.
I was packing up random stuff, most of it clothes. Trying not to think of all the various ways I might be contaminating myself, I dutifully stuffed every t-shirt, sock, and pair of boxers I could find into garbage bags. I know stoners have a reputation for orderliness and hygiene, but surprisingly, that’s just not the case. I spotted a large knapsack in the corner, where his mother was working, and I suggested we use it to ferry some of the loose clothes.
She might not have heard me. Like the Nobel Prize committee, she might have been ignoring me. I can only hope so, because when I picked it up, out spilled a Great. Big. Honkin’. Vibrator. Just me, my friend’s mom, a mostly empty room, and The Space Dong 6000™.
This penetrative party-crasher was at least 14 inches long, and gunmetal gray, with a black base. For reasons best left unexplored, it curved up at about a 45 degree angle. They say that moments of pure panic leave extremely detailed memories. That must be true; I shudder to think what part of my subconscious filled in those details if it’s not.
I’ll never forget the sound it made either. Sure, there was all the clatter you’d expect when a huge synthetic phallus tumbles onto a wooden floor. But for a brief, horrifying moment, I thought the impact had somehow switched it on. This situation was going to be hard enough to deal with; I sure as hell didn’t want to chase it across the floor.
As it turns out, the buzzing noise I thought I heard was just the radiator. I wasn’t entirely sure if my buddy’s mother saw the beast or not. I know he’s got liberal parents, but I took a stab in the dark and guessed that he would he wouldn’t want his mom scrutinizing the futuristic sex toys he uses with his girlfriend. I had to act fast.
This uterus-smasher had almost certainly been used within the past 12 hours, so the last thing in the world I wanted to do was touch it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very pro-vagina, but getting that friendly with the gear of one’s long-time friends… that’s definitely crossing some kind of line. Ultimately, loyalty to them and their privacy won out over my squeamishness. Barely.
I made a move to grab Acockalypse Now as quickly and discreetly as I could. To my sheer delight, it was greasy to the touch. Well, at least it wasn’t still warm. Making a mental note to burn off a layer of skin when I got home, I looked around for someplace to hide it. I wanted to help out my friends, and keep his mom from seeing it, but there are only so many places you can conceal an electric dildo in an empty room.
Needless to say, the most obvious solution was right out of the question. Who would have thought that something designed for insertion would be so difficult to make vanish? Finally, I remembered every crappy magic show I’ve ever seen, and I vanished the offending device down my shirt sleeve. I bet Siegfried and Roy never did that particular trick.
It would have been a great solution, if the motherfucker hadn’t gotten stuck partway in. I knew I shouldn’t have worn cuffs that day. So here I am with the curved end poking out of my sleeve, like a cross between a perverted Captain Hook and Edward Penishands, when my friend’s mom finally looks up from her busywork.
“Oh, just put that candle in that box over there.”
Could it be that she really thought I was holding a mere candle? Or did she want to spare me a bout of humiliation I clearly didn’t deserve? I’m pretty sure it was the former, but either way, I was grateful for the out. I went into another room, buried Proto-Schlong in an inconspicuous box (snicker), and used about a half a gallon of hand sanitizer.
After all was said and done, I told the couple about the incident over a drink. At first, she just denied it outright. But it didn’t take long to realize that I couldn’t make up a story like this. And if I did, it would somehow involve me fucking two Natalie Portmans at the same time. We had a good laugh, and I know she was grateful for my efforts, weird and unsettling though they were.
As for him, he summed up the experience with the following sentiment: “The next time I move, it’ll be into a pine box.” I couldn’t agree more.
Essential New Word of the Week:
burritoing [ber rito’i? g] n/v
Guys, let’s be honest… girls always find a way to hog the blanket. According to my sources, the ultimate application of this occurs when a girl, out of coldness, frustration, or possibly both, executes a lateral bed spin, effectively cocooning herself multiple times in the blanket, and leaving none left for her man. The technical term for this is “burritoing,” for obvious enough reasons. Only the eponymous Mexican treat could adequately represent such a zesty concept. It’s also worth noting that burritoing is a foolproof defense against the dreaded Dutch Oven.