V Day-The Girliest Day I've Had in a while

I'm not going to lie, Friday was a little emasculating. DeWayne and I took our full time staff in Tahlequah out to dinner earlier this week. Our store in Broken Arrow closes at noon on Friday, so it gave us the chance to take the staff there out for lunch. We had talked previously about having a post rush dinner, but we did not make it happen in the fall, so we were determined to make it work this semester.

The ladies from Broken Arrow decided that they wanted to eat at The Pink House in Claremore, which is about 20 miles northeast of Tulsa and Broken Arrow. This worked out well for us since we had to go to Claremore after lunch anyway. The Pink House is a tea room in an old pink house in a semi residential area of Claremore. They serve quiche, salads, baked potatoes, soup, casseroles, desserts and about a 100 different kinds of tea. If men are traditionally hunters and women are traditionally gatherers, this menu falls under the latter rather than the former. In other words, NO MEAT! However, our meal was great. I also scored a piece of coconut cream pie, so the meal was definitely not a loss!

We headed back to Tahlequah to drop things off at the store. I went home to get ready because I was working an event that night. In honor of Valentine's Day and the 10 year anniversary of the Eve Ensler book, the Liberal Arts department on campus was hosting The Vagina Monolgoues at the Jazz Lab three times this weekend. Lauren came in to town this past Saturday, so I worked the performance Friday night, DeWayne took Saturday night, and we had a part time employee, also named Lauren, who worked the matinee performance by herself. She also worked with DeWayne and myself at both of the evening performances.

I am not going to lie, I was nervous about going to the performance all week. I have never seen The Vagina Monologues before, but that did not stop me from forming some preconceived notions about the show I would be attending. Every college campus where I have worked has done a performance of this show for Valentine's Day, or V-Day, as they call it. I think their "V" has a different meaning. You be the judge. As I said, I have always had a picture in my mind of what a performance of this show would be like. I pictured a woman like the comedian Alex Borstein standing on a stage in all black and screaming at me about her vagina for two hours, with a short intermission. Well folks, I was not too far off.

I got to the Jazz Lab at 6 o'clock. The performance started at 7. Eve Ensler had a new book come out last week so we were selling copies of the book at the performances all weekend. No one purchased a book from me Friday night, but they sold several copies of the new book at both of the Saturday performances. I may have had a "deer in the headlights" look on my face the whole night that may have kept people from coming too near the table. Anyway, the show started and I went inside. The place was packed. I knew people would show up, but I had no clue that it would be standing room only. Lauren, my employee, and I sat upstairs. The basic premise of the show is for several different women to get up and do monologues from the original book. All the women were dressed in black, with splashes of red thrown in here and there. I guess I was only half right about what they would be wearing. I consider myself a pretty open minded person, but I am also sure my eyes were about as big and round as they could be for most of the monologues. To tell you the truth, I was most concerned that I would laugh inappropriately at the performance and have everyone turn and look down their liberated noses at me. For example, I still enjoy a good fart joke. I heard someone use the word rectum in a medical reference the other day and it made me giggle. When someone burps I always look a them and say "nice!" I was petrified that someone would use a slang word at the performance and I would laugh. I am pretty proud of myself for not doing that. However, I could have easily done just that! These are the names of some of the monologues that I heard the other night. (feel free to giggle as you read, no one is around) "Because He Like to Look at it", "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could", "My Angry Vagina" and "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy." If I had to pick a favorite I would probably say it was "My Angry Vagina." It fit in the most with my vision of what the night would be. And let me just tell you, her vagina was angry! It cussed, yelled, screamed and pointed! It really was pretty funny. The woman who performed this monologue is a student and a customer of ours. She unintentionally cracks me up every time she comes in the store. She has a way of tucking her head down and bobbing it back and forth when she speaks. She does not have a lisp, but she has a certain way of speaking that is lisp like. I have a pretty good impression of her too, so feel free to ask me to do it next time you see me. Her monologue was right after intermission, so I was not quite as shocked as I had been in the first half and able to enjoy it more. It probably helped that lots of people were laughing at this one too.

They were also selling t shirts at the performance. As soon as Lauren showed up to work the event with me, she had to have a shirt! They were white shirts with red lettering that said "Vagina Warrior" across the front. Underneath, in much smaller letters, it read "until the violence stops." She immediately went into the bathroom and changed into her new shirt. From any reasonable distance, the shirts looked like they only said "Vagina Warrior." Lauren informed me that she would be wearing her new shirt to the bar that evening. Lauren is a funny girl. She is in ROTC and will be joining the military as soon as she graduates. In her words, this performance was "really not my thing," which made the fact that she wanted a shirt even funnier. Apparently being a Vagina Warrior does not make you impenetrable to the effects of alcohol, because Lauren was late to the next days performance at 1 o'clock. She called me to tell me she was going to be late. I said okay and asked why. "Have you ever seen Dude, Where's My Car? That happened to me last night. I'm still looking for my car."

Afterward, I packed up my books, picked up my manhood at the door and headed home. When I got home I fixed myself a stiff drink and turned on the tv. I checked my dvr and saw that a Wanda Sykes comedy special that I had set to record a week ago had taped sometime during the day. I polished off my gin and tonic and fixed a margarita. I figured I would finish off my girlie day by drinking a margarita from a fancy glass. The comedy special was hilarious, regardless of whether it was girlie or not. She did a bit about her fat roll and how it was trying to creep out of her spanks. It had its own voice and loved cheesecake and booze. While I cannot relate to the spanks part, I am a member of the fat roll community, so I got a kick out of it.

She also did a couple of fart jokes . Priceless.