Underpants On The Outside

Some of you probably know this by now, but Wonder Woman is pregnant. When we tell people, the reactions we get are fascinating. Wonder Woman’s friends think is this is the most specialest, wonderfulest thing of all time. They cry and hug and generally use lots of exclamation points. My friends, on the other hand, think this is hilarious. I don’t see why – I am perfectly capable of handling the next twenty to thirty years in calm and collected manner. See how calmly I typed that?  I’m going to be fine.

So what if my wife has the super-senses of Daredevil now? [smells self] Oh, crap.

According to all the books she’s reading on “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” (Cute title, but I would have gone with: You’re Screwed: What to Do, Now That You’ve Made a Baby) the hormones going through her body are heightening her senses, like she was bitten by a radioactive bloodhound, then a radioactive bat and then a radioactive eagle. It makes me feel just terrible for her. The sight of food residue on dishes makes her ill unless I wash them vigilantly. She needs me to take out the trash sometimes or she might throw up, even it’s only been a day or two and I can’t smell a thing. Even the noise of me eating peanuts while I watch TV irritates her so much that I need to leave the room.

Didn’t think I’d catch that, did you, woman?!? Well, you thought WRONG.

Of course, I can’t prove that Wonder Woman is using her “+1″ status as leverage. After all, she’s got tons of literature on her side saying that it’s impossible to predict what kinds of sensations will irritate a pregnant woman, but it’s nonetheless real. And if it just so happens that the things that tend to nauseate her are “whatever I’m eating, unless it’s cookies”, and that they tend to nauseate her between the hours of “whenever she wants to watch TV” and “whenever she wants a backrub,” well, the female body is a mystery…

Bullshit. You wouldn’t know it listening to the so-called “mainstream media”, but there’s plenty of literature that says pregnancy is, and I quote, “a walk in the park.” (Oberman, Zach. It’s Just Nine Months; What’s the Big Deal? Underpants on the Outside Publishing, 2011)

Who are all these “books” written by, anyway? CHICKS. Sure, they’re doctor chicks, but they were chicks before they were doctors, amirite? How do we know they’re telling the truth, fellas? It’s a chromosomal conspiracy, I tell you! What if they found out that blueballs wasn’t really excruciating and possibly fatal?!? What if this is their revenge? WHICH ONE OF YOU TOLD???

Sigh. I kid, of course. As excited as women get when we tell them the news, the first thing that every one of them asks is how Wonder Woman’s feeling. They also ask it in that tone of voice that suggests they expect the news to be bad – the tone of voice in which you’d ask someone, “Is the city going to make you pay for it?” That’s telling. The truth is that despite the last several paragraphs, we’ve been lucky so far. (I’d knock on wood, but I’m pretty sure it’d get picked up on sonar in the next room, and I’d insert a Hunt for Red October joke here, but that would imply my wife was a submarine.)

I’m certainly in no position to condemn someone for whining, either. To hear me tell it, I don’t get colds; I get semi-annual Black Plague. Every 2-3 weeks, Wonder Woman has to wax my ears, which has gotta be right up there with waterboarding. We live a half mile from a Target, and God forbid we buy both dishwashing AND laundry detergent, because the return trip becomes the Trail of Tears 2: Jewish Edition. I’m training for a marathon, and my three months of discomfort was enough that I felt I needed a separate blog to complain on.

I may kid her a little, but in all honesty, WW’s been a trooper so far, and I’m not just saying that because “you’d better, Mr. Ha-ha-funny-man-with-the-stupid-jokes-on-his-stupid-blog.” If my end of the bargain is a few inconveniences to help her be more comfortable, then between now and November I’ll just have to try to not blink so loudly.

One of the following things is true:

Observations on the Physiological Response to Aerobic Exercise in a Caucasian Male over the Age of Thirty in Relation to Tubbiness

Abstract: We’re going to make a fat man run a bunch, and see if it kills him or makes him sexy.

A very dear friend of mine is now nine months AND ONE WEEK pregnant.  She’s gone on Facebook, asking people for suggestions for what she can do to pass the time while she waits on the kid.

Personally, I think she’s looking at this problem all wrong.  Why so passive? She’s the kids mother, for crying out loud!  It’s never too early to start teaching good manners, starting with: it’s rude to be late to an appointment.

So here are my top 6 8 things she can do about her (adorable I’m sure) little wombguest who, quite frankly, is starting to overstay his/her welcome.

1) Playskool’s “My First Eviction Notice.”

2) Invite friends over. Make it sound like there’s a totally awesome party going on just outside your vagina.

3) Put speakers against your belly and start playing Metallica. Psychological warfare.

4) Take a rolling pin. Start just below the breasts, and work your way down. (Be careful, obviously.  You don’t want to hurt the kiddo – you just want to let him know you’re not messing around.)

5) Smoke ‘em out.

6) Pacifier + fishing pole = baby.  For the line, I’d say a ten pound test oughta do ‘er.

7) Find something to do – something where the absolute most inconvenient thing that could happen during it would be to have a baby.  For instance: drive to Los Angeles.

8) Start baking cookies.  Stand near oven.  (True, this is similar to #2.  But everyone loves cookies.)

How ’bout it, Underpants readers?  Any more?

I’m currently sitting in hour 6 of a sales conference that can only be described as “riveting”.  Well, that would be the only way to describe it, on the condition that you knew no other words.

The speaker just asked “Who can tell me a use for cream cheese?”  About ten seconds too late, I turned to the guy next to me and whispered…

“That’s between me and my fuck-bagel.”

Thank you – I’ll be here all week! (Literally.  Yay sales conferences.)

Hi there,

I owe you an apology.  We haven’t known each other long – about three hours now.  In three more hours or so we’ll be touching down in San Francisco.  Are you from San Fran?  I’m guessing you are – you don’t seem to be wearing very much makeup.

Sorry, I’m rambling.  This is just a bit awkward for me, but… here goes.

I’m sorry that I smell so badly.  I don’t know what happened.  I put on deodorant this morning, but I get a little nervous when I fly.  I didn’t realize how bad things were, but when I reached over to get my drink from the stewardess – oops, flight attendant – I couldn’t help but catch a whiff of myself.  I am really glad I’m not sitting directly to my left!  Unfortunately, you are, and for that I am sorry.

Have I smelled this bad the whole time? I can’t help but think of all the things I’ve ordered so far from the stewarde-oops, there I go again.  (I just thought of a funny name for them: “altitude wenches.”  Oh c’mon, that’s funny.  Don’t get your flannel panties in a bunch.)  There was the water, then the tea, then that cheese platter, then the second round of tea.  Then she’s gotta come around again afterwards to pick up the trash, and then it’s all, second verse, same as the first.

I should also apologize for having to get up to go to the bathroom so much.  Was that The Time Traveler’s Wife you were watching?  It looked intense.  Why was Rachel MacAdams crying?  In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best time for me to get up, but it’s all this tea, y’know?  Speaking of which, I’m going to need you to wake up now…

Okay, I’m back now.  I was debating whether to mention this, but I thought about it a bunch in the bathroom and I decided I should come clean.  (Sorry I kept you waiting – I didn’t realize you had followed me.)  It should come as no surprise by now that yes, it’s me who’s been farting.  Did you know people can become lactose intolerant in their later years? I’m starting to think that’s happening to me.  Side note: the cheese platter is surprisingly delicious for airplane food.

I hope you can forgive me.  Please understand: much like Eric Bana’s character in The Time Traveler’s Wife (or at least what I could gather without the sound) my body does things that I don’t understand, am unable to control, and have a negative impact on the women around me.  (But don’t get any ideas – I’m married!) I just hope my bodily issues don’t cause me to get shot by hunters.

Oh yeah: sorry for watching over your shoulder so much.  That really seemed to annoy you, though I don’t see what the big deal was.  Was that girl at the end his daughter?

- The Guy in 7F

P.S.  Please forward this to the girls in 6F and 8F.

Today, Life handed me the following pop quiz:

You’re standing there with your dick in your hands, and you’ve just said the words “I guess this is our special place.”

A) Where are you?

B) Who are you talking to?

C) What are you responding to?

After the test, I looked at the answer sheet.  The acceptable answers were:

A)    Your bedroom.

B)     A girl or guy (your choice).

C)    Having just lost your/taken their virginity.

Or

A)    Anywhere with snow.  Or a desert island.

B)     No one.  Just you and your penis.

C)    Having just signed your name with urine.

My answer?

A)    A men’s room.

B)     A co-worker.

C)    The statement: “we sure seem to meet in here a lot.”

I’m hoping for partial credit.

[Ed note: Special thanks go out to my zipper, which showed incredible comedic timing in choosing JUST THAT MOMENT to get stuck. Thanks, outlet mall pants!]

Sorry, everybody. I had to run to the john really quick, make a few phone calls, you know how it is. What’d I miss?

Oh. 2009. Well, whatever. Personally, I think 2009 was a total bunk year, and I’m glad it’s gone. I’m racking my brain, but other than a few good Lost episodes in there and the fact that I finally got around to watching Battlestar Galactica (which was amazing)… I got nothing.

I will say this: when the most memorable things about your year are a couple of television shows, it’s safe to assume you just got fatter. What’s weird is I’m not that much bigger or  heavier than I was on January 18, 2009, and yet somehow I’m fatter none the less. 2009 made my soul fat.

But I’m not here to dwell on the negative. 2010 is here and I’ve got a good feeling about this one*, so the Underpants is back in business! As someone who spent months debating whether to start his wedding vows with “In all likelihood…”, I’m not one who likes to make promises, but I’m going to post much more often this year. Count on it!  (Don’t count on it.) I’m also bringing back my 24 posts, as well as posting on the final season of Lost, because this year, the Supermodel is finally going to let us hit that.  (She’d damn well better.)

Auld Lang Syne, everybody.

*You gotta like any year that starts with you waking up to the following text: “You punched mark in the chest, me in the chest and arm and bit Katie in the ass. Well done.” For those of you who don’t know, my wife is not named Katie.  Well done indeed, me.

The first thing you must know to understand my story is that Wonder Wife and I have no security at our building, so any packages we order have to be delivered to my job at “The Magic Kingdom.”

The second thing you have to know is that Wonder Wife and I are the type of lame-asses who order coffee from across the country.  We drink expensive coffee and cheap wine.  That fact didn’t seem stupid to me until I had to write it out.  That’s like saying I’ve got a solid gold bedspring for my futon.

A box of coffee arrived for me at the office the other day.  The entire mail room smelled like it. The mailroom attendent even commented on it by saying she couldn’t smell anything else.  I replied, “That’s the idea!”  For some reason I wanted to imply that I was using the coffee to transport cocaine and thereby seem bad-ass; looking back on it now, I hope I didn’t give her the impression that I had farted.

(Dear “Magic Kingdom” HR reps.  There was no cocaine in the box.  I also did not fart.)

By sheer coincidence, we had some co-workers from our Chicago office in town, and I had had a spirited discussion about coffee with one of them the day before.  I had even given her the name of my supplier.  (To reiterate, HR reps: no cocaine.  I did, however, fart just now.)

With a box of the good shit in my hand, it occurred to me that my colleague might enjoy a little sniff or two. (Okay, that time I tried to make it sound like coke.)

There are times – all too rare in my life – when I actually think about what I’m going to say before I say it.  Thankfully, the short walk from the mail room back to my desk gave me just enough time for such an opportunity.  Otherwise I would have walked right up to a co-worker, in an office environment, and invited her to take a whiff of my package.  Oh dear.

Regretably, the moment of realization came afterI had got her attention.  So now that she was looking at me expectantly, all the muscles in my face went slack as I stared off into space and tried and think of a better wording. But under the pressure, every phrasing I could think of was worse than the last.  Wanna smell my box?… Put your nose to this here box of mine…My package gives off a fragrance you’re sure to enjoy…

In hindsight, I was way too focused on the verb, rather than the noun. If I had just thought of the word “parcel” I’d have been home free.  Eventually, I went with something filled with too much social awkwardness to ever be mistaken for a come-on: “The, uh… contents of this box… which I received in the mail just now, mind you… give off an odor that… er… I think you would enjoy… y’know, from a safe distance…” (In my high school years, that was how I asked girls out.)

Just when I think my career has made a Matrix-style bullet-dodge, another co-worker sitting two feet away whips around and says, “He wants you to smell his package!” then looks at me like I should high-five him.

In the end, I think the moral of this story is that there are many ladies who should take my package gently in their hands, bring their face in close, open up their sensory organs and prepare to be amazed.  If only there was some way for me to tell them that…

Oh yeah.  If you want a kilo or two of this high quality shit (though they’ll probably make you buy it by the pound) go to Graffeo.com.  Get the dark roast.  Personally, I get the shit raw and step on it myself.  (I mean, you can’t beat fresh grounds, right?)  Tell them Z sent you, and I want to say thank you to Thunder Lizard for hooking me up in the first place.

Man, I miss The Wire.

I’ve been published in Geek Monthly – hooray!  For those of you who don’t know, that means I’ve hit the big time – I’m in print.  I imagine you’ll all want to buy yourself a copy as a collector’s item.  You should be able to find yourself a copy at most comic book stores or distinguishing magazine racks. If for some reason you can’t find it, check behind Girls and Corpses magazine.

Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about!  Girls and Corpses!  Because “Girls With an Enormous Number of Deep-Seeded Psychological Issues” was too hard to fit on the cover!

This thing really exists.  On the January issue’s cover, there’s an attractive girl with a samurai sword and what really appears to be an actual human corpse.  Part of me wishes I had looked inside more that I might better report back to my readership, but there’s no unremarkable way to take an issue of Girls and Corpses down from the rack. (“Girls and Corpses?  Oh, no, I just read it for the stories…”)  They even keep it on the top shelf so there’s no way for you to take a copy down without making a spectacle of yourself.

Think I’m lying?  Check out the piece they did on G&C magazine on Attack of the Show.

Here is some interesting trivia:

• G&C has over two million readers.
• G&C has been around for five years.
• All of you just re-examined what you do for a living or whether or not you want to bring children into this world.

I now know the elation that comes with appearing in a magazine for the first time.  [Shit, I was gonna write a blog post about it!]  First thing I did, I called my family, so naturally I began to reflect on the family dynamics that might bring a woman to become a “Slaymate.”  [I don't know if they're called Slaymates.  I just made that up myself.  In fact, I pray they're not called Slaymates, because if they are I'm getting divorced in three...two... one...]

Okay, actually, I’ve spent over an hour trying to come up with a family background traumatic enough to lead to the cover of Girls and Corpses magazine while still remaining plausible.  This is the closest I’ve come:

• Ma always pressured her to carry on the family business.  That donkey show had been passed down through six generations.
• Typical family dinner was a salad made of cigarettes drizzled with rye whiskey.
• Pa never paid much attention to her, working nights at the funeral parlor.  But he tried to provide: her fondest memories are of Christmas mornings, when he would come home with a paper bag for each of the children.  Inside was a rag soaked in embalming fluid, and they’d all sit around the tire-fire, huffing, sharing stories, and roasting squirrel.

Seriously: nothing says “Dear Dad, you’ve failed epically,” like a spread in Girls and Corpses magazine.  Somewhere there is a clown with his dick in a garlic press saying, “Girls and Corpses?  Man, that’s fucked up.”

But wait – don’t forget: this post started because I’ve finally been published in print.  We’re here because that milestone of my writing career was stashed BEHIND Girls and Corpses.  And let’s also not forget that this is the article that was supposed to run back in October, which would have coincided nicely with my appearance on the “Contributors” page.  (This month, I’m not as prominently featured on the contributors’ page, and my name is spelled “Zacj Olberman.”)

You know what, though?  I couldn’t care less.  I’m in print, motherfuckers.  And while they may not be the biggest game in town, and they may have the occasional editorial slip-up, I genuinely like Geek Monthly magazine, particularly the January issue, with Janeane Garofalo on the cover, a tremendously funny article on page twelve, and most importantly, my name spelled correctly in the byline.

In the words of the immortal Peter Gabriel: “BIG TIME!  I’m on my way, I’m making it…”

An era ended yesterday. After almost ten years, I finally gave up my old L.A. phone number.  To illustrate just how old that phone number was, I received a call on it six months ago from MY VERY FIRST GIRLFRIEND. [That was fun.  No, wait, I mean awkward: (To protect her identity, I will refer to her instead as Charlie.  This is funny for people who knew she was Vietnamese.)

"Hello?"

"Hi... Zach?"

"Yeah?"

"Hey, it's [Charlie.]“

“Oh… Uh, hey… how’s it going?”

“Wait a minute… is this Zach OBERMAN?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry… I called the wrong Zach.  I’m so sorry.”

It’s like they say: once you go Zach, you never go back, though the specific Zach may change.  I just have to wonder: what was I doing in her phone?  I deleted her number sometime in 2000.  Yeah, there’s good odds I was sobbing when I did it, but whatever. I know I lay the pipe well, but she’s got to give up the ghost.]

I moved to New York four and a half years ago.  At first I kept my number because my dad is a skinflint, and he wanted to avoid long distance charges.  I don’t even know if phone companies have domestic long distance charges anymore.  One day he’s going to say something like that to my kids and they are going to stare blankly at him.  I’ll have to remind them to humor the crazy old man, just like when he starts going on about the “CD player,” “gasoline” or “Taiwan.”

More importantly, I kept my number because it was one of the greatest numbers of all time:  310-488-1488.  Look at that repeating 488 sequence!  When have you seen something so sexy? Its curves are so sensual, yet the four gives it an edge. The eights say, “when you’re sick, I”ll give you soup and a grilled cheese sandwich,” while the four says, “and a blowjob, first.”  I thought I would never give up that number, but I’ve got a new love now, and her blowjobs are much less metaphoric.

Wonder Woman and I decided to join a family plan, which will save us a good deal of money.  What we didn’t know is that to be on a family plan, all of the phones must have numbers in the same “market”.  Again, the idea of “area codes” seems like an outdated concept.  Let’s just accept that phone numbers are now just ten digits long and move on with our lives.   But that still left us in the phone store with a dilemna: one of us would have to change our number or we wouldn’t be able to get the family plan and save that money.

I was speaking with John Law about this yesterday and he told me that when he and his wife ran into the same conundrum, they forwent the family plan altogether.  [Did you know that forwent was a word? I sure didn't.  It looks wrong, but who am I to argue with an animated paper clip?]  If I didn’t know them as well as I do, I would think this is a bad omen for their marriage.  I can just see them in a delivery room:

“What should we name the baby?”

“Theresa.”

“I was thinking Samantha.”

“Well, then you’ll just have to have your own daughter then.”

“Fine! Dibs on this one!”

“No way! I saw her first!”

“THAT’S BECAUSE SHE WAS COMING OUT OF MY VAGINA!”  (and scene!)

Because I’m as stingy as my father, WW and I both knew we were going to join the family plan come hell or high water; it was just a matter of deciding who was going to give up their phone numbers.   If you haven’t done it lately, it’s a scary prospect.  All of a sudden you find yourself imagining the tremendous list of people who will need to be notified.  You picture nightmare scenarios of people frantically trying to contact you: what if your stockbroker needs to tell you that your $26 is now only worth $13? Or what if your junior-year lab partner finally finds your pencil?  Or what if your ex-girlfriend needs you to tell you that she is sorry for everything that happened (because it was all her fault) and that no other man has ever measured up to you, and that she only pretended to have called the wrong Zach because she was afraid you’d reject her when she begged you to take her back?

Then you think about your spouse.  After all, why can’t he or she change his or her number?  Nobody calls them!   Goddamnit, why do they have to be so selfish all the time!  Why must I sacrifice so much of myself!?! You wonder how the statement, “Judge, I had that number for nine years!  NINE!” would play in a divorce hearing.

All of this takes place in three minutes, and neither of you says a word.  Instead, your faces contort between anxiety and rage while the AT&T rep debates how long she has to watch this pantomimed marital drama before she moves on to the next customer.

Eventually I gave in, because I realize that WW’s phone number is on a lot more important documents than mine.  I’m not saying she’s a more important person, I’m just looking at the facts: she’s a lawyer; I aspire to write dick jokes professionally.  I also see it as a gesture of my overwhelming willingness to compromise, which I intend to hold over her at the movies tonight. [It's all worth it if I don't have to see Benjamin Button.]

If there is a silver lining, it is that I no longer have to deal with Larry Goldstein.  Larry Goldstein used to be a broker for Merrill Lynch if I remember correctly.  He also was the previous owner of my 310 number, and I have every reason to believe that when he changed his number he looked at his address book filled with hundreds of contacts and said to himself, “Fuck this; I’m going to Chipotle.”  [I imagine Larry going to Chipotle because it is the nastiest approximation of Mexican food, made by people who have clearly never met a Mexican person. I can't understand why it is popular, and I've concluded that it's because assholes - like Larry - eat there.  Also... it just occurred to me for the first time that Larry might have died.  Just now. That's how long my brain needs to think "outside the box."]

For the first year I averaged at least one call a day for Larry.  I used to plead with the callers that when the found Larry: would they please ask him to notify his contacts?  No dice.  Sometime in year two when the calls showed no signs of abating, I decided that Larry was my new archenemy, beating out my previous archenemy – American cheese – by a wide margin.  It was time to hunt Larry down.  First I got his last name, simply by asking, “Larry who?  Oh, Larry Goldstein???  No, he’s not at this number anymore.”  Then with the next caller, I pretended to be Larry’s assistant, and I took down the caller’s info.  Then I called back immediately and apologized, saying that I actually worked for a different man – Harry - and that I hadn’t been paying attention, and sorry, Larry wasn’t at this number anymore. [I really did this.  I was bored a lot back then.]

The next part of my plan was to wait a day or two, then have one of my cute-sounding female friends call up Larry’s contact and explain that she had been trying to contact Larry, and that the nice young man who had answered the phone referred her to this number in case he knew of a way to reach Larry.  Then I was going to use that info to hunt Larry down.

Except then I started playing Halo and that was pretty much it for my grand scheme.  The calls gradually stopped, though even after this much time I still got one or two a year.  Ah well; they’re someone else’s problem now, along with a call from my ex-girlfriend in about five years.

So that’s it.  I have a new phone number.  I emailed most people about it, but I’ve never been the most thorough of people. Don’t take it personally if I didn’t email you; if you are under the impression that I like you, please email me and request my new number, and we’ll find out once and for all whether you’re correct.