Monte

I knew I’d eventually make the mistake of confusing my acne cream with my athletes foot cream. It was inevitable. When I purchased the athletes foot cream and took it out of the box, I realized that it was in the same kind of metal tube that my acne cream comes in. At that very moment, I said to myself, “Monte, make sure you look at what cream you’re putting on; Lotrimin for the toes, Tazorac for the face.”

Unfortunately, tonight my head went into autopilot mode. It usually happens only when I’m driving, but this evening it occurred right after my shower. I got out my little tubes of cream and started unscrewing the caps without paying any attention. I squeezed out a little pea-sized drop onto one finger and massaged it into my face. It wasn’t until I began putting the cap back on that I noticed the words “jock itch” written on the side of the tube in small lettering. It still didn’t hit me at first. I paused for a second and thought, “Hmm. That’s strange. This acne medication heals jock itch?”

That’s when I turned the tube around and saw the word Lotrimin. I screamed and ran to the bathroom to wash it off.

When I told my mom what happened, she called me a dick face… literally.

My grandmother’s in town visiting for a couple of weeks. She didn’t want to stay alone in New York after Grandpa died.

Yesterday we were watching television together. Grandma loves soap operas. Her favorite is The Young and the Restless. I don’t usually watch television (unless Seinfeld’s on), but I figured I should spend some time with her and “bond.” So I sat and ate a bowl of Cheerios and watched her soap opera. I only made it through two segments before I had to go back to my room. One more second of “daytime drama” and I would have spewed Cheerios all over the kitchen floor. But from the two segments that I did manage to withstand, I noticed a couple of things:

1. All of the characters live in extremely dim houses.
2. Every room in their house has at least one vase with fresh flowers in it.
3. All of the characters have big, expensive, fully-furnished homes and yet you never see them go to work.
4. There’s always a hospital scene.
5. Every soap opera has a bitch in it who loves to stir up trouble.
6. There’s always a nut job too.
7. Nobody dies on a weekday.

I once watched an entire episode of Days of Our Lives. It was a long time ago, and the only reason why I remember it is because it had the most ridiculous plot imaginable: One of the characters was an evil gypsy, and with the help of her sidekick, a male midget, the two of them cast a spell which trapped another character inside of an ice cube–what the fuck?!!

Anyway, speaking of midgets, I saw one at CVS Pharmacy the other day–at least I think he was a midget. He certainly was small, but not too terribly small. He was probably no taller than four feet. He really was adorable. He had long, shaggy, blonde hair and beautiful black eyes and a piercing in his left ear. I think I may have given him the wrong impression; I wasn’t staring at him because he was a midget, I was staring because I felt extremely attracted to him. I couldn’t look away.

Imagine, me, Monte, attracted to a midget. Last night I made love to my pillow again and imagined it was him. We shared a glass of milk and nervously kissed and held hands. We talked about his low self-esteem and I assured him that I thought no less of him because of his height. I told him what a wonderful personality he has and how he makes me laugh. And then the conversation hit a lull (as one would expect when talking to a pillow), and I pulled his flannel body close to mine and kissed him passionately. We made love for a good thirty minutes. He was the best lover I’ve ever had, and believe you me, there have been plenty. First their was the pizza delivery guy (who I’ve decided is named Billy), and there was Jimmy, the boy who I shared a room with in San Antonio, and, let’s see, who else? There was Torrance from New Zealand, that 47 year old guy on Match.com, and just last week I imagined making love to Mr. Vanderbuilt, the English boy who sits at the front of my History class. God, I feel like such a slut. All of these strange men coming and going in and out of my life, in and out of my bedroom. I admit, sometimes I forget which one I’m sleeping with and every now and then I’ll accidentally moan the wrong name. But no big deal. It’s fine. I just rewind the tape in my head, stop, and press play, and then I begin again, and this time I’m sure to moan the right name: either Billy, Torrance, Vanderbuilt, or Jimmy–I usually get it right the second time.

But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’ll scream out the wrong name a second time and then Jimmy and Vanderbuilt and Billy, they all get mad at me and leave. And I try to rewind the tape back again, but it sticks. It won’t go back any more. And I become silent, and for a moment I think about how stupid I am. The tape has stuck.

When I was little, I use to fix broken cassette tapes. Or sometimes I just liked the look of a cassette case so I’d take that case apart and replace the tape inside with the tape from another cassette which had all of my favorite music recorded on it. I’d take the screws out carefully and disassemble the case, careful not to disturb the delicate ribbon inside. Sometimes my little surgical procedure would work, but sometimes the ribbon would become unraveled, and I was never able to wrap it back up, so I’d instead unwind all of it from the wheel and play with it. I’d squish the wad of ribbon together into a ball and put it on top of my head and pretend it was hair. Then I’d prance around my room swinging my faux hair back and fourth enjoying the way it felt on the back of my neck.