A Sponge Bath and A Screw

I've told you about my gorgeous, hilarious friend Jen before. She's the one that prompted me to join her in following Officer Delicious to the scene of a crime in Petworth.

Jen and I are talking about a weekend in Rehoboth, which is what we did a couple years ago, right after my most serious relationship ever ever ever ended, and before she took off for China. It was a completely spontaneous, fun, carefree weekend. The kind of weekend that you just could not have planned better if you'd actually tried.

That week, for some reason, Jen was particularly fixated on her fertility. Her fertility was the topic of the week. After that week was over? Never heard about it again. That weekend, however, starting with the car ride down, every couple hours we'd have a Jen fertility check.

"I probably have, oh, 5 good years of fertility left in me. Don't you think?" (Might have been 10. I can't remember. In any case, it was a lot of years.)

A couple hours later it was, "I think I'm down to about two years."

Her years of fertility were decreasing rapidly as the weekend wore on. She'd peer over her wine glass and say, "A year and a half!" Later, "Eleven months!"

Jen has close friends who are a couple, a truly fabulous, cute, funny, interesting gay couple, who have a house in Rehoboth. We went out with these guys and their friends both nights.

We had fantastic weather. We had fun people to hang out with. We had a ton of wine.

So Saturday night we went out with this big group of guys. To some gay bar, the name of which I cannot recall. It had karaoke - that much I remember. We were standing in a group, drinking and chatting, when all of a sudden, Jen's beautiful green eyes narrowed, just slightly. She darted them back and forth. Her delicate nose went up in the air.

And she said, "There are straight men in here!"

Our crowd whipped around saw a few guys in rugby shirts or something similar. One of them was very cute, despite the attire.

Jen sashayed over to them. I watched animated chatting, delight, laughter. When she came back, we said, "Sooo?"

"He's straight. But he's in college!"

"Huh?"

"I asked him which team he plays for. And he said he plays basketball at Buckacluck State! In college! What kind of answer to 'which team' is that?"

"Buckacluck State?"

She wailed, "Oh, somewhere in the Midwest! A child!"

Before we left, Mr. Buckacluck came over and asked for her number. And she gave it to him.

The walk home, as sometimes happens when fueled by that much alcohol, involved cartwheels on lawns we passed, wildly inappropriate conversation, and even arm wrestling.

The next morning Jen and I woke up in our hotel room. She turned her head very carefully and looked across the several feet that separated our beds.

She moaned, "I don't think I can move."

I peered over very gingerly. "Me either. Too. Much. Wine. Ow." And then I remembered. "You gave your number to a child!"

"God, I did!"

She thought a moment and said, "How am I going to take a shower? I have to bathe. And I can't move."

I said I wasn't going to shower. I hurt too much.

She said, "I have to bathe. A sponge bath! I need someone to give me a sponge bath!"

I laughed, a feeble, too much wine last night laugh. And suggested perhaps "the child" could help out.

She added, "And a screw."

"What?"

"My fertility!" she said. "It's probably down to fifteen minutes, max!"

"Right, I'm sorry! I forgot about your fertility!"

"So now I need a sponge bath and a screw."