The last party we attend is odd. The climate, the atmosphere is weird to me, not the actual party. There are a lot of details that take me by surprise. Things that are probably alike all over, but I’ve never noticed. Of course, to be honest, I don’t have a lot to go on in this category. How many parties have I been to in my life? Real parties, without parental units? Real parties, where I didn’t wander in at the end, attempting to avoid everyone? I can count on two hands. And if we narrow it down to parties being defined by there being more than six or eight people, then we are down to one hand.
I have always felt cheated. Growing up, I had teen movies (Heathers, Risky Business, Revenge of the Nerds, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) to show me how teenage parties happen. I can go to a video store and rent them on a whim. The other fads from my youth had been choked out by cultural Darwinism. Hardy Boys, Pac-Man, Danger Mouse, Double Dare, trouble in Central America, Ollie North, Cyndi Lauper. All forgotten. Video stores don’t have this problem — you have the entire catalog in front of you. Not simply the newest fad. It makes you spoiled. You forget all the other things that have happened in the last 100 years. You think that is what life was like. You learn to expect the same.
The parties in the movies were a lot more fun. More real.
Maybe it’s because there aren’t many people here for me to cling to and the ones I do want to see or talk to are drunk. Maybe it is because I want to avoid Kate. It doesn’t really matter.
As appears to be the usual trend, cans of beer fill the bathtub. The kegs are in the kitchen, but there are also cans in the bathroom. Bring your own liquor. I head into the bathroom, to pee. The genius of this setup is that there is a single bathroom so while you urinate, people can’t get cans of beer. It isn’t genius at all.
So I go in, closing and locking the door. I walk over to the toilet. On my way past the tub, I realize it isn’t simply full of beer cans. There is a boy passed out in the tub, surrounded by ice and floating cans of beer. Face up. I debate for a moment. I walk over and make sure he is breathing. I ask him his name. Nothing. Thinking for another moment, I go and pee. He isn’t going anywhere, isn’t in such bad shape another minute or so is going to matter. He isn’t drowning. I really have to go.
I finish and flush. Wash my hands. Open the door and look around for someone I know. No one. The little hallway is empty. Surprising.
I walk back in and reach down. I am wearing shorts and a tee shirt; I’m not concerned about getting wet. It takes several minutes of work before I pull him completely out of the tub. His hands over his head, arms out, head out, torso, legs. There, he won’t drown. I wipe my hands together, in a dusting type motion, as if to signify I have accomplished something. A job well done.
I walk out.
A minor thing I noticed in the bathroom while peeing — there is a window right beside the toilet. While I stood there peeing, I was staring out the window. At another beach house. It brought to the forefront of my mind the idea of windows in bathrooms. And why? Maybe it’s just me. I don’t really care if people can watch me in the bathroom; I’ve been enough places in my life that I’m not modest when peeing. Shitting? Yes. But not peeing. But why houses are built with giant windows that allow others to easily watch you is beyond me. Isn’t there some level of basic privacy? I’ve never understood the concept of big windows in bathrooms. It’s all well and good to have natural light and even a window (perhaps better served by a skylight though) in the bathroom. I’m not against that. But to back the damn thing right up against the toilet? Especially in places where people, other people, can easily see in? Isn’t that just plain silly? I don’t understand. It’s not really important though. It’s just one of those things in life I’ve never figured out. It happens to me all the time. There are too many things in this world I simply don’t understand.
Now what really struck me in that bathroom. If I had had more time to investigate, I would have.
There are magazines by the toilet. A rather large stack. I had assumed this was a boy’s house, or there are boys staying here. Some stereo magazine, a car magazine, even some porn perhaps. But no. On top of the stack is a Cosmo magazine. With a subscription label. The significance of all of this does not, for a second, pass by me.
Maybe you’re the type of person I am, in that you know where this is going before I get there. I don’t have to spell this out for you. But I will, in case you don’t think like I do. To my fragile 18-year-old mind, clearly without enough experience or perspective.
I thought only boys read in the bathroom. I thought only boys were dirty and stupid and insipid enough to have to have large piles of magazines to take their minds off the fact they were spending months in the bathroom taking a dump. But, you see, this magazine implies otherwise. How? Boys don’t read Cosmo. And they certainly don’t subscribe to it. And boys do not have a name like “Elizabeth Stokely.”
This blows my mind. Girls actually take long shits in the bathroom too.
And they read while doing it.
To say this astounds me is an understatement.
Girls are people too. Not simply people. Girls, like it or not, are like me. They really aren’t any different. They have different hormones; they have different features and perhaps even different chromosomes. But the changes are tiny compared to what is similar. They are in my league. They are not some unapproachable unicorn, some Greek fantasy, some Roman goddess. Adam’s rib, indeed. I will marry one of them.
She might even take month-long dumps in the bathroom while reading Cosmo as well.
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