Author: laurenne

Bikini waxes and grocery shopping: Two things I feel obligated to do even though thinking of doing them actually hurts me physically. When the time comes to shop or wax, I usually create some kind of obstacle to prolong my arrival. I’ll feel a sudden urge to download a Rob Base song. I’ll decide the ice trays need a very thorough cleaning. Or I’ll be delighted to see that the lone string hanging from my sweater sleeve would make a perfect leash for the spider on my wall. Anything to keep a stranger from pouring hot wax on my fox hole or finding myself in line surrounded by gossip magazines to pay $80 for a cartful of shit that will go bad in my fridge. Yes, most things go bad in my fridge. It’s because I am single. The grocery experience happily reminds me of that with every 10-for-10 deal on yogurt.

A sweep through the supermarket is no Supermarket Sweep. The entire grocery experience is horrifying, and as I approach the supermarket doors, my hands tremble, not at all soothed by the hand wipes now provided to clean each cart handle before use. I’m probably one of LA’s premier germaphobes, and I don’t even think the hand wipes are necessary. This is LA. Girls will give blow jobs to strangers in bar bathrooms or drop vaginal fluids onto movie seats because of their mini “dresses.” But they can’t touch a cart that some single mother just touched? Really?

As I head inside, my nipples furiously protest. I understand that foodstuffs should be cold so as not to spoil, but every supermarket I’ve ever been in is colder than my mother-in-law’s heart. Not really. I don’t have a mother-in-law (as established), but I’ve always wanted to throw in a M-I-L joke so I could get a mainstream laugh. Hey Raymond, everybody loves ME now!

I weave through the tundra-like produce section, stopping only to grab some bananas and pre-cut carrots. Because who the hell has time to cut their own carrots these days? I’m so thankful some genius came up with prepackaged mini carrots, saving the innocent from ever having to eat a full-size carrot. Seriously. The horror.

In an attempt to save a few cents, I occasionally get caught up comparing the price-per-ounce of ketchup or the price-per-ply of toilet paper. But once I become aware of my stalling, my nipples insist I pick up the pace. Must get out. Must be free of this stew of unnecessary goods.

And then it happens. Every time. My cart spins past the twenty types of tortillas for sale on the end of the bean aisle and gets stuck behind a Slow Shopper.

The Slow Shopper is always in front of you, never behind. She peruses the sauces, reading every last ingredient. Somehow, she always seems to wedge herself between an aisle and a display of pie crusts or fluorescent flexi-straws, depending on the season. She blocks you in and unknowingly bends to inspect the vegetable oil just as you attempt a pass. She never seems to notice that your nipples stand as much chance as a mole in a dermatologist’s office, and this nonchalance is MADDENING. Unfazed by the subzero temperature and the sold-out veggie burgers that had been advertised 2-for-1, she waddles through the aisle and won’t let you through. Her constant indecision over Fuji or Golden Delicious prevents a swift grab at the pre-cut carrots. You’ll never get around her or in front of her. Her cropped cargo pants mock you as you try because they know any attempts to speed up the Slow Shopper are futile.

Mrs. Slow Shopper, have you nothing else to do with your day? Do you actually enjoy shopping or do you simply enjoy any time spent outside of your house? On behalf of most shoppers, I’d like to tell you: MOVE.

NOTE: This post did not cover the Bluetooth Shopper or the Couple Shoppers, also funny humans but sold separately.

The latest Taboo Tales went off with many a hitch. The projector exploded. A storyteller broke her ankle the night before. The mic made weird and very distracting noises. One performer decided not to read the piece she submitted and rambled on for twelve minutes instead. One storyteller called another one an asshole. Another storyteller called that storyteller a cunt with a retarded kid.

It was mayhem. And all I wanted was someone to fix it. It sure sucks when you’re the one who is supposed to fix stuff. This is why I’m still on the fence about the whole adulthood thing. I thought all my anxiety about the show was unwarranted, especially because I met a medium a few days before the show who told me that creating Taboo Tales is part of my life’s work and that she heard that from… the other side. If I’d had my preference, I would have rather heard from my dad. Maybe a ‘Sorry. Love you. See you soon.’ Or, if he was busy, maybe a ‘BFF’ from Uncle Edmund. Still, I was happy about the message. I’ll take validation from anywhere. Hi five, deadlies!

I just wish those on the other side could have warned me about the weird energy in that theater last week. Something was off, making for a strange and almost sad experience.  At first my ego, Lawrence, was upset because he wants everyone to think I’m perfect. This shit show proved to everyone in attendance (all 100, some even sitting on the floor) that perfect I am not. But, more than that, I felt like my security had been breached. Storytellers calling each other names meant that there was a lot of judging going on. I get that people judge. I do it. You do it. You think I shouldn’t be wearing these sweat pants right now. But the very idea of Taboo Tales is to provide an atmosphere free of judgments, where people can feel comfortable getting up in front of all those people and talk about their darkest places. I couldn’t control the breach of contract, but it happened before my eyes. I wanted to fix it, but there’s only so much you can control and fix. I know that now.

Fortunately, the audience was amazing. They filled the bucket of taboos with their honesty. They knew how to share and do so without judgment. And share they did. Thirty times. The following are the taboos we found in our big box of taboo. It’s kind of like Post Secret, only nobody has to get out the glitter. And somebody (me) has to say all these things. Out loud. In front of an audience. I’m getting used to talking about sticking your fingers in your butt on a stage now. I don’t know where that will get me, but I know it will be far. I can just feel it. (the getting far part. not the fingers part.)

More taboos at {TabooTalesTheShow.com}

UPDATE: LA Weekly reviewed the show and didn’t mention any of the bad parts! Score. Check it out HERE.

Living is supposed to be hard. We are supposed to tend the land all day and hunt and gather and make fire by rubbing sticks together. But now there are drive-thrus. And bagel slicers. And canned corn. And Lunchables. Cows and pigs are cut up and packaged. Lemons and apples are picked by some underpaid dude and squeezed conveniently for us. We sometimes “find the time” to grab ingredients at the store, but if we want to cook them into a meal there are five-minute recipes and microwaves and Tupperware. Hunting and gathering has conveniently become unwrapping and nuking.

Life has become too easy.
And we’re bored.
We don’t realize we’re bored because we have calendars and meetings and projects that MUST get done. RIGHT NOW. So many things to do. But compared to how we used to live, we have plenty of time on our hands. Too much. And so, we invent things to do: Hobbies, activities, stuff, priorities that convince us they are of utmost importance. Here are some funny things humans do:

We go back to school – Why not get another degree? It avoids committing to any career and you get a student discount at art stores and movie theaters.

We have meetings – We love getting together to talk about procedures and, in corporate spots, there’s nothing greater than having meetings about meetings. Lots of times, meetings happen over lunch and we get to eat pre-packaged sandwiches for free. Those are most people’s favorite meetings.

We go shopping – Usually the first thing we do on a weekend or a trip to a new city, we buy so many unnecessary things. A 20th pair of shoes. A new coffee table when our old one is just fine. I choose to shop at discount stores. I buy clothes for $3 or $4 and never wear them. But I have a closet full of ugly shirts if anyone needs one.

We go sky diving – We jump out of planes and occasionally die from this, but it looks fun.

We watch TV – We spend hours upon hours each night watching other people be fake.

We play video games – We spend hours upon hours pretending we’re other people and being fake.

We look in the mirror – We analyze our own bodies, deem them unacceptable, and then either remain unhappy with ourselves, run in place for an hour a day, or pay someone to either cut fat off of our loins or insert bags of silicone into our chests.

We eat – They say not to eat with our mouths full, but we love to go to dinner with other people and talk. We try not to talk with our mouths full during this time, but it proves difficult, especially if we have a point to get across. If we want to get together just to get together, that doesn’t seem to make sense. Humans MUST get together over food, coffee, or alcoholic beverages.  We also like to eat when we’re not out at dinner. We just grab some popcorn or crackers and eat while we’re watching TV. We’re also fat.

We go camping – We like to pretend we don’t have all of our conveniences for a while, so we go to the woods and sleep in the wilderness. Usually, though, we bring lots of gourmet cheeses and alcohols so that it’s not really that different from our normal living conditions. Except the bathrooms. We think we’re really roughing it when we have to pee and poo in a hole. During those times, we like to leave little crumpled toilet papers on the ground so everyone can see that we just either peed or pooed in a hole.

We go dancing – Some of us go to dance clubs. We like to get pumped up with substances that give us bravery and then we wear short skirts and dance seductively until men come up and bump up against us. Sometimes we exchange numbers with these people and then meet them outside of the club to take those same substances and bump against each other in a bed.

We go hiking – This is just walking but with specialty shoes and cameras and bottled water.

We go on cruises – We spend a lot of money to take a ship that doesn’t seem like a ship to an island where we are only allowed to disembark for a few short hours because we have to get back on the moving hotel so we can overeat.

We get angry – We love to let little things bother us. Politics. Coworkers. Ants. The new book return policy at the library. Then, we complain over and over to our family members about how unfair these things are.

We do drugs – We pay a ton of money to snort a substance and make our minds forget about all the things we have to do and all the things that make us angry.

We masturbate – We make our own bodies quiver while we scream out “Daddy! I want Orange Julius!”  This one is totally acceptable and actually is of utmost importance.