Bad Call

Probably the worst part of dating is the first phone call. That’s the stage where you feel like you have the most to lose. You’ve already impressed the girl enough for her to give you her number, so you know she’s interested. The trick now is to be charming enough over the phone that she’s still convinced she wants to get to know you.

This is usually the place I end up shooting myself in the foot. Chances are that her number’s been burning a hole in my pocket for three days and I’ve thought of nothing but what to say and how to act. This is why I don’t succeed. One of my biggest problems is over-analyzing situations. So I’ll walk around for three days thinking up things to say, and then call the girl and nothing will go as planned.

Or even worse, I’ll get the voicemail. I don’t have a whole lot of filtering between my head and my mouth, but the problem is only exacerbated by nervousness. Translation: I’m usually that guy who calls and leaves babbling, semi-coherent messages on a girl’s machine. Some girls find it endearing. Most do not.

Example:

“Hi Cindy. It’s Ehren. The kid from the club a few nights ago. Not that you probably know a whole lot of Ehrens. Well guy Ehrens. There are a lot of girl Ehrens that you might or might not know out there…but I’m not one of them. I mean, you know me, but I’m not a girl. Anyway, I was thinking that it would be cool to go…what the devil are the kids doing these days? Um…Hang out at the Box Social together. So you can get in touch with me through Bat Signal, Vulcan Mind-Meld, Astral Projection, or you could be conventional about things and call me back. Here’s my number. Hibye!"

Generally, I’ll give the girl two days and if I don’t hear back I’ll call once more. That’s it. I figure that if she’s not calling back after that, further messages aren’t going to help. What would help? Sending dead puppies. Girls like dead things, right? Damn, I’m smooth.

I’ve discovered that I’m far better when I don’t have time to obsess over these things. Last night I made a snap decision to call a girl with no preparation what so ever. And things went fantastic. Granted, I still rambled a whole lot and probably scared her off when I granted her request for a complete dating history. But all in all, I think it went well. Hey, I consider it to be a rounding success to only slightly freak a girl out.

Men Behaving Badly

There are just some moments that totally sum men up as a gender. I walked into my friend’s house one day and yelled, “I’m coming in! Are you wearing pants?” This is the kind of thing that can never be assumed. Let’s just say I it’s a lesson I learned the hard way.

“Ehren, it’s 3:30PM on a Sunday. Hell no! Why would I ruin my weekend like that?”

So I walked in to see my friend stretched out in bed, watching a movie. True to his word, there were no pants in sight. Luckily, he was wearing boxers. I counted myself fortunate and pulled up a chair.

After about 10 minutes of the most excruciatingly horrible dialogue and plot developments, I turned to my friend and asked, “What the hell are we watching?”

“The Gift. I hear Katie Holmes takes her shirt off.”

“I’m in!”

So I proceeded to waste a sunny, Sunday afternoon watching one of the most tasteless B-Movies ever created with my pantsless friend simply because there was a chance of seeing Katie Holmes’ boobs. And you know what? It was a fair trade. Of all the gifts given to mankind over the last hundred years, there are few greater than Katie Holmes’ breasts.

Somehow I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that women would do. I was speaking to a girl recently who said that a man’s attractiveness increases, the better she gets to know him. That implies that attraction for women is more of a cerebral thing.

Men are attracted to things far more shallow.

I had a friend who was lying in bed with his girlfriend, when she said, “Honey, would you love me even if I got a little bit of a belly?” My friend’s response: “Are you kidding? If you don’t drop five pounds by next week you and are finished.”

Warning: Politics May Be Hazardous To Your Health

I’d like to state right now that I did not watch the State of Union address. Why? I decided I’d spare myself the unneeded stroke and/or brain aneurism.

I have reached the point in my life where I feel that the politicians have won: do what you want, just don’t bother me anymore. Seriously. Don’t even pretend that you want my voice, opinion, feedback, guidance, interest or criticism. I’m ready to just bend over and take Uncle Sam’s inevitably bloody ass-rape.

Following politics today boggles the mind. Every time I turn on the news or read a news story I feel like I’m the only sane person left in the world. Example: Bush says Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and is going to bomb us. We go to war and there are none. Now the administration says that we went to free Iraqis. Everyone nods sagely and goes back to work. Apparently, I’m the only one who notices or cares.

Example: Bush supporters attack John Kerry as being cowardly during Vietnam. Somehow, this gets air-time. Look, John Kerry could have gone to Vietnam and slaughtered children and his own troops and STILL been more courageous than Bush. Bush didn’t do dick during the war. He allegedly skipped out on the champagne unit and got high on cocaine. I was more courageous than Bush, ok? And I wasn’t even born yet.

Example: Bush is accused of illegal wiretaps. He says it’s for security. Everyone accepts it and moves on. And I sit here wondering how different this really is from Watergate. But I’m the only one who cares.

Following politics these days is like this: a Bush crony comes out and takes a massive shit in front of the cameras. Someone asks, “Why’d you do that?” Bush crony attacks the journalist as unpatriotic and the rest of the room stands and applauds. The next day, the Bush crony denies there ever was a shit.

I used to follow this stuff. If I seem like a stressed out person now, you should have seen me during the Republican National Convention. I literally reached my snapping point. I found myself standing on a chair, screaming at the top of my lungs at the television. My blood-pressure must have been at the same level as a hummingbird. Why?

OK, someone correct me if I’m off base here. The entire Republican National Convention was based on: 9/11 was tragic and Bush led us through that. The Daily Show had clips at the end counting the number of times the words “September 11th” were spoken. It had to be in the high 30s.

So here’s what led me to my meltdown: I fail to recognize how overseeing the biggest security melt-down in U.S. history is grounds for reelection. Unless the point was, "we promise not to fuck up again!" It was like Clinton running on a pro-blowjob platform. And yet the entire country just nodded and agreed. No one in the media said a thing.

The current goal in politics today is to punish you for thinking or knowing anything, so I’ve finally decided to play ball. I’ve accepted that apparently I’m the only person who pays attention and I can’t deal with that level of stress and responsibility anymore. If I didn’t quit, the only possible path for me was to take a riffle up to the old book depository.

What’s life like without politics? It’s ok. I have a lot more things to be stressed about: women, my job, the weather, car-payments and music. The only thing that’s really bad is that politics keeps poking its head up around the periphery of my world and getting my heart-level racing again. So do me a favor: don’t ask me if I watched the State of the Union Address. It should be obvious I didn’t. Why? I’m not dead of a massive coronary.

Blog Bites Man

I have finally run into a moment where my blog has worked against me. Look, I started writing because I wanted to express myself. There’s no way I' going to censor my opinions or feelings. I don’t think there’s a reason to. I’ve never written anything that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. However, there may be a difference between hearing something from someone’s lips and seeing it posted in a public spot. I already feel that the situation I’m about to recount is beyond repair, so I might as well just come clean with the whole damn thing.

A girl inspired a bunch of my recent posts: the friend in the wings, the long distance date, and the “is this a date?” post all owe some of their origins to my recent interactions with her. Here goes: I met her years before and asked her out.

Side story here that I don’t believe I recounted. She and I met working together. We hung out together for a few days and I asked her out by saying something charming like:

“Say, do you ever eat food? I though that some night you and I could go out and I could buy you food.”

To which she responded, “Food is good!” And walked away.

Needless to say, I was perplexed. Was that a “yes,” a “no,” or a “fuck off, I have pepper-spray”? So the following day, not to be deterred, I went up to her and said, “Hey, yesterday I asked you out to dinner and you said, ‘Food is good.’ Does that mean, ‘Yes, I’d be delighted to go out with you some time’? Does it mean, ‘Get away from me you freak and don’t talk to me’? What does, ‘Food is good’ mean?”

She responded, “Oh…Um. Actually, it means, ‘I have a boyfriend.’”

See, this is the kind of shit that I’m somehow expected to know. And people wonder why I’m so crazy. At any rate, she and I remained friends. We hung out a lot and stayed in touch over the years. Recently, it came to my attention that she was single again. I always detected a certain attraction to me on her part, so I figured I’d give it another shot. We had coffee and she invited me to come visit her up at school, 40 minutes away. This pretty well covers the three posts I mentioned earlier.

I'm not going to lie. I thought she was hot! But I also genuinely liked her as a person and had a cool time hanging out with her.

It would seem that she read my blog and feels that my motives are now somewhat suspect. Hey, I apologize for nothing I’ve written here! All this blog is meant to be is a window into a guy’s mind. Yes I focus a whole lot on sex, but if you read closely, you’d see that not all I’m looking for.

I got drunk and asked her exactly what her intentions were. Not an outrageous demand on my part, considering I was going to be driving up and spending the night (perhaps?). I figured asking would be a whole lot less awkward then driving up, making a pass, and getting shut-down in person. She sort of panicked, threw a few lines from my blog into my face and disappeared.

I guess the safe thing would be to not call attention to this and prepare for another opportunity further down the road. However, I’ve decided instead to make a stand:

I refuse to apologize for shit everyone thinks. I also refuse to let women get away with this sort of unpredictability and tip-toeing around the issues move anymore. You know what? If she had issue with anything I wrote it’s fine. Bring it up and call me on it. But I’m done with letting women pick fights on unrelated topics and then refuse to admit what’s bothering them.

You want to know what drama is? Drama is when the person you’re with or interested in has secrets or problems that they won’t own up to. I wouldn’t expect other people to put up with my drama, so I’m done doing it for others. Ladies, if you’ve got drama with me, fess up or you’ll find that your production is playing to empty theater.

I Stand Behind Homosexuals...Well, Not "Behind" Them...You Know What I Mean

I was asked by a friend to write a post on lesbianism. Let me say that I believe in taking requests, but it’s not my intent to start talking about politics. Why? Because as sexist and alienating as my views on inter-gender relations are, my political beliefs tend to be even more divisive. Unfortunately, these days, it’s impossible to mention gay-rights and not get into the recent legislation and “public debate.”

I’ve always been of the mind that the largest problem with this country (other than New Jersey, I mean) is that so many people obsess about other people’s business. If you have nothing better to do than worry about what the hell other people are doing, you’re not being nearly productive enough. Get a hobby, get religion, or get laid; just quit bitching about how other people live.

There is no reason to be against gay marriage. The only people who are threatened by it are closet homosexuals. There are laws in some states against oral and anal sex. I’m proud to be criminal, and somehow, Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead to smite me down yet. Here’s what I don’t get: how many times a year do we see stories on the news about owners marrying two dogs? Where’s all the uproar about that? Are you telling me that two dogs getting married isn’t a mockery, but two loving adults who happen to be the same sex is an affront to all marriage stands for? Please. Get your ass out of the closet and quit your bitching. The only way gay marriage affects straight couples is if you’re into spouse-swapping.

The reason that these amendments keep getting shot down is pretty simple: about 30% of the population is extremely homophobic. I’m not sure what the percentage of gay people is in this country, but it’s got to be lower than 30%. Everyone else is like, “Huh? This is an issue?” The two ends of the spectrum fight it out and everyone else just sort of looks around blankly and shrugs.

I’m proud to announce that I’ve got no problem with gay people. Go you! Way to teach the rest of us how to dress! I’m strongly pro-lesbian, and not just because of the Cinemax specials. In fact, I’ve been doing my best to convert women to lesbianism, one girl at a time. I’ve got nothing but respect for girls who are fed up with the bullshit of men.

I don’t have a problem with gay guys, either. The way I see it, it’s just less competition for us few, diehard heterosexuals. That’s it, my gay, brethren: give up and leave the woman to me. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

One of my friends was telling me today that they were asked, “What would you do if your son or daughter turned out to be gay?” I wasn’t aware that that would be something that warranted any sort of action. It’s sort of like asking, “What if your son grows up to like boxing?” In either case, you pat them on the head and say, “I support your decision to take a shot in the mouth from another man.”

Damn, I’m going to make a bitching dad some day.

Rednecks, Religions, and Screwing With Christians

I don’t usually use this forum to start a ruckus on racial issues, but I just saw a really amazing film:

http://festival.sundance.org/2006/watch/film.aspx?which=423&category=DOC

The film really reminded me of my time at college. When I went away to school, I went to a whole new world: Western New York. The whole place is sort of like…imagine a region, where all they really know about cultures, beliefs, and diversity they learned from watching snippets of documentaries that were airing on TVs, as they walked past the electronics department of Wal-Mart.

It’s not that they’re all hicks. They just generally have no clue that other cultures actually exist. It was there that I first sort of ran into anti-Semitism. I want to be clear: no one ever singled me out, made degrading comments or excluded me. They were just pretty much oblivious to anything but their own self-importance in a way that made you want to slap them. I’ll give you an example:

I was up there when September 11th happened. For the next month and a half, all everyone talked about was, “How close to home the terrorists had struck” and how “We could be next.” This from rednecks in a town 9 hours by car to New York and 45 minutes from Buffalo. Unless the terrorists were coming after America’s most inbred farmers, there was no reason to strike there. I had to walk around and tell people, “Please. Terrorists are not coming here. What are they going to blow up? You're sheep? This isn’t even the same state as New York. This is Alabama-lite.”

I once had a girl argue with me that Buffalo had better pizza than New York City.

You get the idea. It was the sort of thing that slowly grew on me until all I wanted to do was to start seriously fucking with the Christians, to make them half as uncomfortable as I was. I got sick of hearing things like:

“Really? You’re Jewish??? How exotic!”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t celebrate Christmas/Easter/Lent’?”
"I've never met one of 'you people' before."
“Wow. I knew this kid in kindergarten named Harvey who was Jewish. Do you know him?”

I reached my boiling point during my junior year of college. I had a bad week. There were five or six guys on my floor who were members of the Christian faith club. They kept slipping pamphlets under everyone’s door. On top of that, I was hanging out with some friends, drinking one night, when one of them grabbed my arm. She pulled me close and said, very concerned, “Where are you going???”

“I’m going to get another beer.”
“Don’t go in the kitchen!!!”
“huh?”
“I don’t want you to fall in the oven.”

Yes, that’s a holocaust joke. The whole thing was just so weird to me. On one hand, I never considered myself religious; on the other hand most of these people had never met a Jew so I felt responsible for representing an entire race.

So I reacted the way I always do: by making inappropriate jokes and fucking with people. In this case, the two were one and the same. I designed a serious of T-Shirts and bumper stickers, all with the intent of bringing the world crashing down around the ears of culturally oblivious rednecks. Oh yeah, and don't bother me with your screams of religious insensitivity. I've got nothing against Jesus and Christians. These are meant to lash out people oblivious of other cultures. If I put up with four years of it, the rest of you Carpenter Worshipers can get a sense of humor for ten seconds.

Enjoy:

Large Jewish Star, under which is written: I killed your God.

A large cross, with bold lettering reading: “Love Jesus*” at the bottom was written, “*Violators will be persecuted.”

“Who says the Jews are no good at sports? We ran down Jesus!”

Bed, Blankets And Beyond

I don’t usually like to post quizzes or “top ten” lists, but I was speaking to someone the other day who asked me some really fabulous questions. I’d like to repost them for you now (credit for list goes to Mandy):

1. What’s on your bed?
2. Blankets or comforter?
3. What side of the bed do you prefer?
4. Do you sleep on your side, on your back, or on your stomach?
5. Pajamas, underwear/t-shirt, or in the buff?

These things are all of high importance in maintaining a healthy relationship. Sex is only the beginning of bedroom activities.

I’ve always been a big bed person. It probably all goes back to my room growing up. In my room, I had only one other area where it was possible to sit: on a chair. Unfortunately, my chair also served as the default clothes hamper; so if you had hopes of doing anything off your feet, it was the bed or the floor. As a result, I became meticulous about the state of my bed. It’s weird, I know. It continues to this day: when you walk into my place, everything else might be a wreck, but the bed is always made.

I’m a strong believer in blankets, comforters and a whole lot of pillows. Men, I’m going to let you in a little secret that we as a gender seem to be behind the ball on: pillows are fantastic—and I ain’t talking about for sleeping on. A little imagination and bunch of pillows will do wonders for your bedroom performances. Maybe that’s a topic for another blog…provided I can track down some of those karma sutra pictures to help illustrate.

The girls who own 40,000 stuffed animals are really pretty scary. Not only can they be a literal pain in the ass, it’s this whole factor of 80,000 eyes watching you. If I wanted to have sex in public, I’d be running website instead of a blog. Hey, I own a webcam!

A bit of a side-note illustrating how I’m not really a “stuffed animal” guy. Back in college, my roommate and I were browsing through an antiques store when we happened on a dead, stuffed fox. We were considering it as an impulse buy. I mean, I figured it’d be a cool conversation piece. My roommate turned to me and said, “What do you think?” I paused and finally said, “You know, as cool as that thing is now, it’s probably going to be a whole other story when you wake up in the middle of the night and think it’s looking at you.” That sealed the deal. The money was spent on beer instead.

I once had to spend the night in the same room as a ventriloquist dummy. I swear, every time I woke up, that thing was a little closer to my bed.

Aside from actual bed comfort, there are a whole lot of other intangibles that come into play when trying to share a sleeping space. It all reminds me of a sweaty, ill-conceived, incredibly complex game of Tetris. Just when you think you’ve finally positioned your arm under her, you get an itch, or you have to go to the bathroom, or one of you is slightly warmer than the other and you get pools of sweat forming between you.

I’ve been told (unsolicited, I might add) from a number of women that I’m a good cuddler. The line I like to use is that I was a pro for the Olympic team—until I was banned for using performance-enhancing drugs.

What to wear is another key element. Generally, I’m a pajama guy…in fact, I had an amazing pair of flannel cowboy p.j.s that absolutely killed with the ladies back in college. But when there’s company, I don’t like to make my guests feel under-dressed, so I opt for boxers or nothing. Of course, I believe in promoting easy-access (I suspect that’s why so many girls love the kilt). There’s nothing better than a girl who know how to wake you up right.

Then again, I had no idea that morning foreplay could be such a challenge, until I started seeing a certain girl. I guess morning sex was hugely important on her list of needs. Hey, generally I wouldn't complain, but she had no idea how to actually go about getting it when I was asleep. Girls, I’m going to let you in on how not to get morning sex:

I was dreaming about fighting crime on the streets of Hong-Kong with an elite vigilante group, when suddenly my opponents became a whole lot more physical…in fact they started landing punches. I finally realized that the foot to my sternum was not part of my dream-world.

“Hzzz? Huh? Wha?” I stammered, in my usually coherent and insightful manner of speaking.

“GET UP! I NEED SEX!!!”

“Then haul your ass to the curb. I'm sure you can find someone with 15 bucks and a backseat!”

I grabbed the blankets, turned over and continued my dream.

The Misery of Virginity

Sex is a really funny thing. I remember being generally puzzled about sex when I was growing up. On one hand, it’s something that’s hugely publicized across our culture: it bombards us from sit-coms, commercials, videos, movies ads, books, music…virtually everywhere. On the other hand, it’s something that kids weren’t supposed to talk about. Grown-ups got SO uncomfortable around kids talking about sex that they usually told them to be quiet.

Once I reached puberty, I held out a pretty respectable amount of time before I gave away my virginity. I waited until I was 19. The circumstances leading up to this monumental event were kind of interesting.

My graduating class in High School was 26. Not only that, but I had been at the same school since 2nd grade. What this meant was that by the time graduation rolled around, dating anyone was pretty much akin to incest. How the hell could you be attracted to someone you’d known since they were 7? To make things worse, I pretty much hated everyone in my class. I had three friends, two or three acquaintances and as far as I was concerned, I could care less if everyone else was wiped out in a tragic boating helicopter accident.

Despite all that, I did have a girlfriend my senior year, one who made the offer to put out. I politely declined. For those of you knew to my on-going saga, she was the one who proved to be pretty nuts: she sent me threatening letters when we broke up.

Once I reached college, I sort of launched myself at the freshmen girls. It was a natural reaction. I had spent my entire dating life choosing from a very limited pool. Suddenly there were all kinds of choices, varieties, and possibilities. So I was a man-whore for about a semester and a half. But, I was a whore who wouldn’t put out. Years earlier, I had settled on some important requirements for the event:

1. No losing it to other virgins. The way I looked at it, the last thing I needed was to try to figure it out with someone who also had no idea what the fuck they were doing. This turned out to be a wise move on my part. Years later, I bedded a virgin. The event was so traumatic that if it had been MY first time too, I probably never would have tried to have sex again.
2. The girl I lost it to would have to be in a long term relationship with me. I didn’t want, years later to say, “Yeah, it was a magical night with…uh…umm…what’s her name?”

This second rule had another benefit that I hadn’t even considered. See, almost every outlet of our culture portrays sex as a talent: either people are good or they’re bad and that’s it. In reality, sex is really more of a skill particularly for men. Girls can say what they like about the work they do in bed, but the reality is that men are the ones up there shooting the free-throws. In a long term relationship, I was able to progress from a total bust to a barely competent lover. Hey! The important thing was that progress was made! I think I’m pretty good now. And if you don’t believe me, feel free to take it up with my sex-references.

Virginity is a strange thing. I remember that as a virgin, I spent so much time building up what sex was supposed to be, that when I actually did it, it was something that wasn’t nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be. That was the REAL lesson of that night. After that, I was able to relax about sex enough that I could relate to girls better because it wasn’t always forefront in my mind. That is to say, when I was speaking to girls I thought about it only 85% of the time instead of 99% of the time.

Usually, I’d say everyone should take things at his or her own pace. However, if a person holds out too long, it’ll become nearly impossible to do. The longer you wait, the bigger you make it in your own mind until it’s something that totally devours you. That being the case, I’d like to draw attention to a truly noble cause. My faithful readers, I urge you to dig deep in your pockets and help give a young man the greatest gift of all: hot stripper ass. Praise you, brothers and sisters!

Guns, Wal-Mart and The Mexican Stand-Off

Guns are a weird part of American life. I’m not really sure where the big obsession with owning guns comes from. I mean, I’ve somehow managed to survive 26 years without owning anything more powerful than a pellet gun…and I didn’t even use that all that often. Please understand, I’m not really pro-guns or anti-guns, I’m really more of the “puzzled by why the fuck anyone would need 8,000 different types of guns available around the clock and at a moment’s notice.”

Wal-Mart is like the ultimate version of this weird part of the American mind that says:

Nudity = bad.
Cursing = Evil.
Guns = Hurray weapons, mayhem and death!

I went to a school in a town so small that it was inconceivable to think of surviving without patronizing Wal-Mart. People used to go grocery shopping there. The thing about the place that always pissed me off was that you could walk in there and buy guns, ammunition, and condoms, but not any CDs with curse-words on them. Essentially, Wal-Mart’s stance was that it was ok to kill people and it was ok to fuck people, just don’t write a song about killing or fucking people.

My friend and I were looking for apartments in the paper recently, when he stumbled on this little beauty:





Yes it’s charming, spacious and in our price-range, but if you look closely, you’ll notice what we can only assume is Police Tape over the door. My friend’s exact words were, “For that price, we can afford to stay strapped.”

See, I’m not frightened about living at the site of a brutal triple-homicide. Where they hell else do motivated sellers come from? What I am afraid of is the inevitable bloodbath that is going to break out, not as a result from people outside, but from within.

I read somewhere that the majority of people who are shot, are shot by people they know. That should be a great comfort to those who fear random violence. I somehow envision the number of gun-shot woundings by friends taking a dramatic leap upwards the second my friends and I start purchasing firearms.

The problem is that I know that every argument in the house would ultimately be decided by who was sitting closest to the gun.

“Yo, turn on the game.”

“No, man. I’m watching this.”

“Turn on the game.”

Click “Ask me again, mother-fucker. ASK ME AGAIN!!!”

It would be a perpetual scene from Pulp Fiction playing out every waking moment.

A lot of people would think that the solution would be to simply purchase two guns. If anything, that would only make matter much, much worse. If each of us had guns, my life would instead turn into a never-ending Mexican-standoff.

I can see it now, each of us inching our way over to the sink to brush our teeth, slowly pouring cereal, guns cocked, and easing our boots on with our fingers on the trigger.

See, I guess here’s the difference between my friend and me: He looks at a good apartment in a bad neighborhood and sees a deal. I look at a good apartment in a bad neighborhood and see a 4 year Mexican-standoff.

Kilts, Soccer Moms, and Fashion Rage

One of my jobs at school was driving the “rape van." The rape van drove around the campus until 4 every morning so that women didn't have to roam the parking lots at all hours of the night. I loved driving the Rape Van. I used to have theme nights: Funk Night, Surf Night and Disco Night. But one evening, I decided to conduct a poll: If socially acceptable, would you wear a kilt (if male), or be attracted to a guy wearing a kilt (if female). The results were a staggering near 80% pro-kilt. I’m telling you, The Gap is missing out on the next big trend. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’d like to announce right here, in the presence of God, friends, and random Internet Weirdoes that I own my own kilt. I always get asked if I’m Scottish, when I wear it. The answer is no. I just like fucking with people.

I’ve had some great times in kilts. I started wearing it when I was working at a day camp, just as a gimmick. But then I began rocking the kilt in the real world and I’ve had fantastic results with it thus far. It first dawned on me what a chick magnet a guy in a skirt is when I was working at camp, directing traffic. I would wave the single moms through and they would be all prim and proper until they’d dropped their kids off. Once the kids were out of the car, they all turned into sailors on shore leave. The filthy things these moms would holler at me defied belief, courtesy, and all levels of dignity. Needless to say I was thrilled. One of my favorite moments was when a mom slowed down to yell, “Hey, what are you wearing under there?”

To which I immediately responded, “My girlfriend’s lipstick.” A stunned silence followed.

I used to wear it around college on warm days. It was spectacular. I remember sitting in class when I happened to notice a girl checking out my legs. My first thought was, “That chick’s looking at me like a piece of meat. I feel so violated. This is AWESOME!"

Girls used to come up to me in the dining hall and just give me their numbers. It was unreal. First Scotch Whiskey and now kilts? God bless those drunken, moor-dwelling Scots.

The whole phenomena got me wondering about men’s fashion. Understand that I’m not pretending to know anything about style. It just makes me think that current fashion doesn’t really help you get ass. Maybe it’s because men’s fashion tends not to reveal much, or maybe it was simply that I had the balls to wear something so non-conventional. Whatever it was, all I know is that women love a man in a kilt. I had a girlfriend who would absolutely molest me every time I climbed into the thing. I got pulled into so many closets that I people just assumed I was a janitor.

I'm beginning to think that I'm the same way about non-conventional dressing women. I get really turned off by girls who are dressed too trendy. Something about says, "I need culture at large to tell me how to do everything--including how to dress." I’d never wear anything just because someone told me it was cool. For example pink.

Every weekend I’ll be walking around the mall and I’ll see some dude in a pink shirt with the collar up. When I do, it takes every fiber of my self-restraint not to kidney punch him and beat him with the nearest blunt object until he loses bladder control. Wearing Pink is the perfect example of someone doing something ONLY because they heard it was cool. Guys don’t wear pink. Guys don’t look good in pink. Guys who wear pink deserve to be castrated immediately with what ever is handy before they contaminate the gene-pool.

Then again, who am I to pass judgment on a dude wearing a “girl color”? This is, after all, from a guy who rocks a skirt. So lassies, I present a picture for your viewing pleasure and so you know what to look for next time you're out on the town. Just a warning: I don't always wear the face-paint.