7 Things You Didn't Know About Me: 6-7

6.) I had a pet chameleon when I was in eight. His name was Abu and he was so noble and adorable that I want to vomit everywhere just thinking about him. 

My family had mixed emotions about old Abu. Becca was a straight-up hater (speaking of our shitty relationship growing up) because I had adopted him from Olney Elementary's third grade this-is-how-you-take-care-of-a-lizard unit...that apparently happened. Five years prior to this adoption, Becca asked if she could adopt her class' lizard and our parents wouldn't even entertain the thought. Five years later I asked and our family gained a new beloved pet. Similarly, Becca wasn't allowed to have an American Girl doll because our parents thought that they were laughably expensive and frankly, you've got some stones for even asking, missy. But me? Proud owner of both Samantha and Kirsten. Is this evidence that our parents love me more? One could certainly make that argument.

My father, on the other hand, was a big Abu fan. I might even go as far as to say that he was Abu's best friend...? In the whole world...? When I first got Abu, it was very much a FINE, BUT HE'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, YOUNG LADY situation, but somewhere down the line he stole Richard's heart and my dad spoiled that damn lizard rotten. Every Friday he'd go into the pet store he passed on his way home from work and buy Abu some new top of the line lizard accessory or gourmet bag of crickets the store clerk promised you couldn't find anywhere else. To give you an idea, Abu came to us in a small plastic fish aquarium and left in a giant glass habitat with mahogany detail, deluxe electric heat rock, and his choice of five high-res images of the Grand Canyon to serve as a backdrop, depending on his mood. (Although he didn't have an American Girl doll, so: Abu: 1, Meg: 1, Becca:...it's questionable.)

As far as pet's deaths go, Abu's was pretty traumatic. (Not as bad as the time Rachel killed my cat when we were in Hawaii and I missed the luau because I couldn't stop crying, but hey—we all make mistakes.) Like any other morning, I woke up, spritzed some water onto the side of his habitat and waited for him to scamper over and PFFFT! PFFT! PFFFT! it up with his little missile tongue. Instead, Abu, who was noticeably struggling to breathe, could only manage to turn his little lizard head towards the water and stick out a tiny portion of his pink little tongue before he collapsed completely. This image is scorched into my memory. This happened 18 years ago and I can still remember what pajamas I was wearing and what was on that bookshelf. It was almost as bad as the Christmas morning my family sat down at the kitchen table for breakfast and our neighborhood fox walked up to the deck and dropped dead. Almost. 

Back in 1993, I freeeeeeaked the fuck out, burst into tears, ran to get my mom and made her call pretty much every veterinarian in the state of Maryland until she found one who'd be like, "A one-year-old shitty little class chameleon? THAT'S AN EASY FIX! Bring 'em on in!!!" But she never found one. SHE NEVER. FOUND ONE. Instead, my mom sat me down on the living room couch and very sweetly explained to me that all the vets she talked to agreed that one year is an impressive amount of time for a chameleon like Abu to live and maybe this was just his time to go. Holy shit. It was horrible.

I blamed myself for Abu's death for months afterward because I was also babysitting Teresa's chameleon at the time, and instead of putting hers in a separate room, I put him on the table across from Abu so they could see each other. I thought he died of jealousy. How tragic is that??

Oh my God. Why did I choose to tell this to you this story? I feel like I'm about to cry and all I want to do is call my mom, but it's 5 o'clock in the morning and I feel like she'd disinvite me to Hanukkah dinner and Lord knows she only makes those sweet, sweet latkes once a year. I am completely miserable, San Diego.

7.) This last one isn't so much a piece of trivia as an anecdote Dan's been trying to get me to tell on the blog for a year now but I've been resisting because it makes me seem...well, racist.

Growing up, I lived a few streets over from an African American girl named Amber who's father was a police officer. A few years ago I somehow found myself having a conversation with a co-worker about how cops are assholes. My co-worker made the point that although yes, most police officers are assholes, it's also a really mentally and emotionally draining job that in the long run can have damaging effects. 

"So many of these cops," she said, "are put in a position where they have to shoot someone on the scene because it's a matter of public safety, but afterwards, it really fucks with their head and they're never the same. Nobody really thinks about that."

"Oh my God, I know exactly what you're talking about," I told her, "My friend Amber's dad was a cop and he had to pull a gun on someone one day and it totally fucked with him. He came home and got his hand stuck in a pickle jar and I remember he lashed out at Amber's mom and she was like, 'It's not about the pickles, is it? You had to pull a gun on the job again today, didn't you?' It really does affects family's lives."

After I said that my co-worker continued on with our conversation, but in my head I stopped and was like, "Huh...I wasn't really that good of friends with Amber. How do I know all of that? Specifically the pickle jar thing. Why can I see that happening so vividly...?" And that's when I realized that that in no way happened to my friend Amber's dad—I was thinking of a plot line from Family Matters. I had just confused the black family in our neighborhood with a cop for a dad with THE WINSLOWS.

I immediately turned beet red and all I wanted to do was acknowledge what had just happened, but I didn't really know this girl well enough to be like LOL RACE LOL!, so I had to just stand there like an asshole and finish having this conversation about my "friend" who's "dad" got his "hand stuck in a pickle jar" and then he and his neighbor got in the "Sexy Urkel Machine" and "Laura" was suddenly "interested" and it was an important "life lesson" about how it's what's on the "inside" that counts.

A year has passed since I told this story to Dan, who has since moved halfway around the world, but I still regularly get text messages from him being like, "I just thought about how you told someone your friend Carl Winslow got his hand stuck in a pickle jar and laughed-out-loud in a meeting," and all I want to do is melt into a puddle and slither out of the room Alex Mack style because it's so fucking mortifying.

So, 7.) I am a racist asshole.

Announcement, some general notes and a phone call from Dad.

HEAR YE. We found a way to make the purchase of a “Sorr about the” bag even more tempting. A portion of the profits from the sale of each bag will go to starving children in Africa.

SIKE. We’re really going to set aide an amount of the profits to fund a new blog feature, “2 Birds Investigates.” Meg and Chris will be going undercover to bring you, dear reader, the scoop on some of the Eastern Seaboard’s wackiest gatherings and subcultures, filtered through a lens of snark and ethanol. Monster truck rallies! Star Trek conventions! Maybe a bondage club? We’ll be going where you never wanted to go, but always wanted a friend to go and report back. So the more bags you buy, the more hijinks we’ll get into. Coming soon.

Also, I want to say thank you to everyone who has made me feel welcome to the blog. I appreciate it. I also want to explain that I’d like to comment and interact with our readers more than I do, but I don’t have internet access at home, so I can’t do as much as I’d like. I do read and enjoy your comments, but it’s usually far enough after the fact that I doubt anyone’s still following the thread. I also have access to the chris@2birds1blog.com email now, so… you know, holla. [Editor's note: Also, clearly, Tulane Chris will now be blogging in Ex Co-Blogger Chris Green instead of purple. Is it because I'm too lazy to think of a joke that corresponds with "Meg blogs in red, Chris blogs in purple?" Yes. Yes, it is. And while we're on the subject of Tulane Chris being welcomed on the blog, miscommunication between the two of us was the reason for yesterday's No Post Monday. So kindly direct some of your hate towards him. Perhaps at chris@2birds1blog.com. K, BAI!!!!1]

Several people commented asking about the origin of Giant Camel’s nickname. He looks like a camel (light brown, big brown eyes, sad mouth), is four inches taller than me, and wears a size 16 shoe. It’s not even a story, although I now plan to invent one.

I did have a few closing remarks about the Kotex post. To the commenter who said that a tampon fits neatly in a cleavage: I’m sure it does, but Kotex’s words were “stuff a few.” Stuff. A few. I’m still seeing Hilda Clump grabbing a fistful and putting them all in one cup. It reminds me of the conversation my mother and grandmother apparently had prior to my mother going on her honeymoon in Mexico:

Grandmother: “Put your money somewhere safe, they have pickpockets. I hide mine in my bosom.”

Mom: “Oh, I put mine in my sock.”

Grandmother: “Your sock is not as safe as my bosom.”

Yet somehow, whenever I say I feel “safe as Grandmother’s bosom,” I get looks. As far as Diva Cups go, they don’t alarm me. I know a woman who uses one and swears by it. My first reaction was “that must save money,” and my next thoughts were the usual ones men have confronted with complex vaginal logistics, as in “So it just stays up there? What if she laughs really hard or has an orgasm, does it fly across the room?” We don’t have an instinct for these things, which must be why a friend emailed me a news article about a woman stealing a flash drive by hiding it in her vagina, “nature’s purse.” I would have been worried about moisture damaging it and, you know, explaining myself, but I guess she was in a hurry.

Onward and downward. I have had a shitty two weeks. A family problem came up, not a “I’m-calling-in-to-work-so-I-can-go-to-Atlantic-City” family problem but a real one. Giant Camel is gone for the summer. Finals. You know the drill. Anyway, yesterday I updated my Netflix to the five-at-a-time shut-in Super Saver plan that allows me to get a whole season of “Designing Women” at once, bought some candy, and settled in for a good, old-fashioned sulk. Then Dad called and fixed everything.

Phone rings. “The Munsters” theme song (I love my ringtone so much that sometimes I miss calls intentionally so I can hear it.)

Me: Hi.

Dad: Hey, bud. (He never calls me “bud” except when he answers the phone. It’s a thing.)

[Five minutes of generic catching up.]

Dad: So, I have news. It’s weirder than when Grandpa wanted to get married.

Me: Married to the schizophrenic, or when he tried to elope to Virginia?

Dad: Both.

Me: Oh, God, Stepsister’s not getting married, is she?

Dad: Not even close. Not even the same ballpark. Stepmother swabbed my cheek and sent it to Ancestry.com.

Me: What?

Dad: Ancestry.com has a program where you send in a cheek swab and they get DNA and try to match you with other people in their database.

Me: You just let her swab your cheek and mail it to the internet? They might clone you into killbots or organ donors. Also, why’s she so grabby with your DNA? She has a family.

Dad: She did all hers. Besides, it’s some Y-chromosome thing only men can do.

Me: Like driving and word problems?

Dad: Kind of. Anyway, this kid in Missouri popped up as a 1st-generation male-line match. I call him my “love cousin.”

Me: Don’t… don’t call anyone your love cousin.

Dad: This kid is your generation. His father was born in 1955 in Oklahoma, and was adopted by this woman, the kid’s grandmother, and they don’t know anything about his birth family. So the assumption is that this guy was fathered by someone in my father’s family, one of the three brothers. I think I know who, since it’s polite to assume it’s not one of the two ministers.

Me: Oh. Well. Uh.

Dad: The kid was very polite on the phone. He seemed to know it was going to be awkward. Here’s the punchline, though. He said his father is “very dark-skinned.”

Me: We have black cousins.

Dad: Well, I don’t know. Your cousin John is dark-skinned.

Me: No, John tans. He’s not “very dark-skinned.” We have black cousins.

Dad: Well, maybe. I’m going to ask for pictures. I’m sending them ones of me and my Dad so they can see do we look alike.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. My great-uncle had an… “adventure” and now I have black cousins, just like those Jefferson descendents. Here’s the best part about it: that kid is probably typing on his blog right now, “I have white cousins.” I have no idea what the etiquette for this situation is. Should we invite them down? They’re family, apparently, but we’ve never met them, so it seems kind of… abrupt to just have them down for the weekend. On the other hand, they’re our cousins, so we should. Also, no lie: I kiiiiiiiind of hope they invite us up to Missouri for a trip to Branson, America’s Ozark Wonderland. I imagine Branson as Dollywood without the grace and glory that is Dolly. Eager families pushing past each other to fill up at the buffet in time to catch a The Band cover band called “A Band” is not my idea of a great time, but my God, I would have blog material for a month. Also, does anyone remember “The Patty Duke Show” about the identical cousins, both played by a pre-drugs, pre-Lord, pre-moving-to-Idaho Patty Duke? It’s a long shot, but WHAT IF THIS KID LOOKS JUST LIKE ME? Think of the crazy stunts we could pull!

Also… what if he’s hot? I figured it out. We’re half-second-cousins (I think.) It’s not that related. We have two out of sixteen great-great-grandparents the same (I think), which is further apart than most Hapsburg or Kennedy marriages. I’m just keeping an open mind, is all. And it’s not like we’d accidentally make kids with flippers and tails. God, this just turned into a Jeff Foxworthy moment. “If you go on Ancestry.com to get dates, you might be a redneck.”

But what if they’re awful? What if they try to convert us to some weird, recent religion that Chinese people do in the park? What if they’re in a really shitty father-son Sublime tribute band? (Why are those the first two potential problems that come to mind?) How do you get rid of long-lost, ethnic family members if they suck? “It’s not the long-lost thing…and, uh, it’s not the race thing… it’s just… I’m sorry, we just can’t stand you. You clean your ears with your keys, and then clean your keys on your pants, and I’m fairly sure you peed in the houseplants. Here’s your ‘Sorr about the’ bag and a box of Thin Mints. I need you to go.”

So now it’s your turn. You knew what to do about widescreen DVDs, menstruation, and parasites as allergy relief. I turn the debate over to the loyal 2Birds Army. What do I do? What do I say? What do I wear?

I dare you not to cry...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here's my present to you: the most heart-wrenching episode of Family Matters in existence: It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Urkel. Enjoy!

Tulane Chris Does Death: Part 2

My heaven post is going to be the first in a series called “Tulane Chris Does Death.” I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently. I flew at the beginning of November, and my left ear never popped back after the plane, and it annoyed me enough that I did something completely out of character: I went to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. Either they find something wrong and I’m sick, or they don’t and I’ve wasted an afternoon. I especially hate going to a new doctor because I have to give a family medical history, and my genetic heritage is unenviable. I’m lucky I grew bones.

“Any illnesses in your immediate family?”

“High blood pressure, kidney stones, Alzheimer’s, costochondritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, migraine, manic depression, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, premature dementia, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, blindness, psychosis, irritable bowel syndrome… a lot of female stuff I probably don’t have to worry about… that’s probably it. Jury’s still out on lupus. Oh, and my mother’s allergic to every single domestic animal except cows.” (Author’s note: Yes, really.) We can see color and our blood clots, but otherwise we’re rapidly turning into one of those European royal families that got so overbred they started producing kings called “the Mad,” “the Simple,” “the Unready” and “the Bewitched.” I lucked out by only getting ADHD and costochondritis, which is a painful but not dangerous inflammation of the chest cartilage, so if I were king all the histories would start “Christopher the Inattentive rubbed his chest and winced.”

Anyway, I didn’t go to the doctor because my chest hurt and I couldn’t pay attention. I’m used to that. I went because of my damn ear. Instead of completely ignoring the rest of my body like I wanted her to, she started looking in things and measuring things, and apparently I have something called “high blood pressure.” I blame American politics; our immigrant neighbors have heard me shout at the newspaper so much that they think every single politician’s name is pronounced “Oh-God-that-jackass,” and that the two major political parties are the Shitheads and the Shitforbrains. I’m supposed to take some expensive medicines called “exercise” and “not eating so much salt.”

Fuck that noise. I didn’t tell the doctor this, but I don’t want to live a terribly long time. Eddie Murphy keeps making movies, and I just am going to get Alzheimer’s. That is a fact. I carry that gene. Men in my family check out on their seventy-ninth birthdays. On November 25, 2063, I will start making even less sense than I do now, so if you want help with a crossword puzzle ask me before then. Now, I could stop eating salt and watching Murder, She Wrote for exercise and have my body live to be ninety-six, or I could keep pouring butterscotch into my bourbon and have my body and mind quit on the same day. The doctor thinks I should stop doing things I like so I can spend my last decade in a facility where occupational therapists named Tillie try to remind me how to do the Hokey Pokey. I think she should fix my ear. Her warnings have made me think about my eventual end, though, so check this space for the next episode of “Tulane Chris Does Death.”

P.S. Grammar check wants me to change “Fuck that noise” to either “Fuck that noises” or “Fuck those noise.”

Why the thought of me getting married is laugh-out-loud funny

Let's talk about Helena. As I've mentioned before, Helena is my biffles. My "biffly-biffly^maxpower," if you will. I like Helena a lot. She's super fun and snarky and slightly mean and easy on the eyes—pretty much the embodiment of everything I look for in a friend. But more than that, I just feel like Helena knows what's up in life. And her opinion is extremely important to me. Before making any decision, major or minor, I consult Helena. And what she says goes. I've been practicing this method of decision-making for five years now and it hasn't led me astray once. Actually, that's a blatant lie. One time Helena and I were shopping at Pacific Sunwear (which is highly out-of-character and comical to think about now) and I asked her if I should buy an ironic John Deere Trucker baby-tee. Without missing a beat, she said yes. So I bought it, wore it and immediately regretted it. Later she confessed that she only told me to buy it because she thought it would be "hilarious." But you know what? She was right, yet again. Because it was hilarious. I'm willing to own up when I look like a douchebag, and guess what? I looked like a giant douchebag. So in conclusion: Helena is always right and I'd trust her with my life.

Now let's talk about marriage. Marriage freaks me out. Well, that's a lie. Marriage at this point in my life freaks me out. I've always associated marriage with two groups of people: grown-ups and white trash. Being neither of those things (John Deere Trucker tee aside,) I have absolutely no plans of getting married in the foreseeable future. I mean, I'm only 24; I've got wild oats to sew! I want to dip my wick in anything that moves! (...I apologize.) I want to have a bullshit job with no responsibilities! I want to throw big Jäger parties and come to work hungover! That's pretty much where my priorities lie right now. And I've always thought that that was OK. Sure, pretty much everyone else I know is in a serious relationship and going to grad school or law school and moving on to the next step in their life, but I've always felt confident about where I am. But that changed last week when Helena casually mentioned that she and her boyfriend have discussed marriage. Like in a it's-probably-going-to-happen-sooner-than-later kind of way. After she said that, I could feel my heart drop into my butt and I had a very quiet, but very real Total Life Freak Out.

Don't get me wrong—I love Helena and I love her boyfriend and I love them together! It's just that if Helena gives getting married at this stage of our lives the green light, that makes it officially acceptable. And if it's officially acceptable, that means it's not just for grown-ups and white trash anymore; it's for people like you and me. Because we are those grown-ups. And that scares the shit out of me.

The idea of me getting married is laughable. Like literally laugh-out-loud, Family Matters level funny. I can see myself in a relationship, sure, but marriage? Fuck no. Because getting married is a big fucking deal. You are, in the most literal sense, marrying your life to another person's and saying that not only am I responsible for my life, I am now responsible for yours. Just typing that statement made me want to vomit. Because I can barely take care of my own life. I went on Facebook for the first time in 9 billion years the other day and saw that my best friend from elementary school is now married with a child. And not a baby! Like a walking, talking, thinking, feeling, straight-up little child. That shit is bananas. I wouldn't trust myself with a hot plate, nevertheless a child. But there she is. Adorable and alive and kickin'. Is that where I should be? Should I be retiring my abnormally busty frat boy lifestyle, get a Netflix account and settle down? Normally I would say no, of course not, Meg. You're only 24 and you have the emotional maturity of an ashtray. But now that Helena's gone and given marriage her stamp of approval, I'm starting to think yes, that is where I should be. But I'm really not. What's wrong with me?

Welp, I can actually tell you exactly what's wrong with me. Via this list. The list of Reasons Why the Thought of Me Getting Married is Laugh-Out-Loud Funny:
1.) The following is a photograph of the inside of my refrigerator:

You will see that it contains a lot of beer, a dozen eggs that might be hatching into chickens as we speak and a Ziploc bag of spaghetti my mom gave me in early October. Hope you're hungry, baby.

2.) Gummy fangs. It's not just an on-running blog joke; it's also what's for dinner.

3.) Sometimes I honest-to-god hibernate. Like a bear. If I've had a particularly rough Saturday night, I'll just sleep through Sunday, waking only to eat gummy fangs before going right back to bed until Monday morning. Soooo...there's that.

4.) I will do anything to avoid doing laundry. For example, I realized this morning that I'm out of clean shirts, so I am currently wearing a backwards Patron t-shirt with a cardigan thrown over it. And guess what? I probably won't do laundry again tonight.

5.) I have a very Me vs. My Body mindset that isn't very conducive to a life partnership. The following is a real conversation Co-Blogger Chris and I had this weekend:
Me: Ugh, these migraines won't away. I think I'm going to have to give up and go to a doctor.
Chris: Uhh..."give up," Meg? I don't think that's called "giving up," I think that's called being responsible for your well-being.

...Point taken. I hope my future husband never comes to me sick or I'll treat him like a level of Donkey Kong.

6.) Sometimes I play this game called "How Long?" The object is to see how long you can go without paying your cable bill and having it shut off.

7.) I am never, ever wearing pants.

8.) The second room isn't for a baby. It's for the Jäger cooler and my brand new shot dispenser.


9.) When something goes wrong, my immediate reaction is still to call my mom. And if she's not home, I have a history of leaving long voice mails of me making whiny noises. No words. Just whiny noises. For upwards of three minutes at a time.

10.) I still sleep with a stuffed animal. His name is Jason. Let's not pretend like I haven't discussed his existence before. Let's also not pretend that everyone who comes over and hugs him doesn't immediately understand why he's in my life.

Sigh... Guess I'll be buying "fruits" and "vegetables" if you need me. Thanks a lot, Helena.