Excuse Me, Brother, Could You Spare Some Pants?

I don’t normally make claims of my own social graces. In fact, I generally describe my level of smoothness somewhere between hacksaw blades and glass in the Vaseline. As we speak, there are probably 15 raving, bible-toting lunatics on street corners in New York who’d be less awkward to have dinner with. Basically, there are only two groups of people with whom I can banter that won’t immediately peg me for the degenerate psychopath I truly am: friends, and parents of girls I date. And honestly, with the first group, it’s only about 50% of the time that I manage to pull that off.

I really don’t know why I get along well with parents. I suspect it’s because I’m missing the section of my brain that can identify what is “cool.” I mean, I still think corn cob pipes, Velcro and Christopher Walken are neat.

“What? Your daughter’s last boyfriend drove a motorcycle and listened to ‘the hip-hop’? How amusing! Now what say we sit down and discuss the future, responsibility, and good, old-fashioned, American chastity?”

To give you an idea of my level of smoothness, I once dated a catholic girl.

The dad: a Dominican ex-cop who had retired to run his own martial arts school.
The mom: a stay-at-home deeply religious catholic.
The girl: Daddy’s little angel, apple of her family’s eye.
Me: white, fast-talking city Jew, here to corrupt Ms. Perfect

I showed up at the house and built her dad a deck for their pool. After dinner I drove home and showed up the next morning early enough to cook breakfast with mom.

When we broke up a few months later, they called me to apologize for their daughter.

That was an extreme case. But like I said, I can charm the pants off a girl’s family. However, when I do it, I like to do it on my own terms. Meaning I take some time to look vaguely respectable and coherent. Sometimes, however, fate doesn’t allow us prep time.

I was lying in bed, clothed only in boxers and wrapped around a girl when suddenly the door was flung open.

“Hey Sis! What—oh.”

There I was, pants-less; his sister: also pants-less. Lying on the dresser next to me, blatantly obvious and impossible to miss was a stack of condoms. As far as first impressions go, this about the bottom of the barrel. I would have been better off snorting coke off his dead grandmother.

In all fairness, he was pretty cool. I, on the other hand, was trying to split my time between wondering whether it would make matters worse to try to hide the condoms, and inwardly praying to be struck dead by a congenital heart defect.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with a fully clothed person you’re trying to impress while clad only in boxer shorts. The only way I can think to describe the situation is this: imagine that you are picked by your employer to give the single most important speech in your company's history. You prepare diligently, spending weeks on your presentation. When the day comes, you know you’re not going to be good: you’re going to be great. You’ve never been so confident about anything before in your life. You have a great night of sleep and awaken energized, and ready to go. Checking the mirror on your way out the door, you see that you look fantastic. Your suit is so sharp that you make Sinatra look like a 1930's dust farmer. As you drive in, you catch every green light and find a parking space close to the door. That attractive receptionist holds the elevator for you on your way in, and blushes profusely during the ride up. The meeting starts, they announce your name and you tell your ice-breaking joke. Everyone laughs. Then you flip on your slide-show presentation and all that comes up is page after page of Monkey porn.

Honestly, I have no idea how the conversation with the brother went. In fact, I can’t even remember anything that I said. However, I DID think of a great line to use should I ever run into him again.

Me: Hey, I’m Ehren.
Brother: I know. We actually met before.
Me: I know, but I wasn’t sure that you’d recognize me with my pants on.