Back last year Woney and I were having a conversation about taking a trip. Like, last year in May as we were training for and completing a half marathon.
“We,” I wheezed, “are going,” <wheeze> “on a cruise,” <wheeze> “right?”
<Wheeze> “Yes, because,” <wheeze> “I hate being,” <wheeze> “cold,” wheezed Woney.
“I want to go,” breezed Squash as she sped past us.
“Me,” <wheeze> “too,” wheezed Nurse Bananahammock.
Wheeze.
Planning that trip pretty much got us through those 13 miles, and as we sipped celebratory cocktails that evening, we nailed down the details for a cruise nine months out. That was where this picture was taken and the base line for the story I wanted to tell. Wanted. Not want.
Now that I’ve been wishy washy, I’m going to tell the original story I wanted to tell because everyone abhors a tease, but before any of you who will soon be perched at your desk with your mouth hanging open, kind of gaping at the words that pour forth from my fingers, fires off a salvo to me tell me how you’ll never read me again because you cannot believe I’d say something so pervy, I’ll remind you that there is more story coming. Please get to the end before writing me off as a floozy.
While we were at the port stop in the Grand Caymans, Woney and I found ourselves on the sidewalk outside an ice bar, one of those places that advertises itself as five degrees below zero. All seats are made from the ice, all walls and ceilings, and you have to wear puffy coats and Russian-style babushka hats with gloves so as not to lose your appendages to frostbite. Now just nine months prior, Woney wheezed that she didn’t enjoy being cold and I wheezed my agreement so it was a bit of a surprise that we found ourselves so enamored of an ice bar. But here’s how the story went.
“Oh, look,” Woney said, “there’s an ice bar. I’ve always wanted to do that. It is nearly 100 degrees here in the sunny Grand Caymans. Perhaps we would enjoy some below freezing temperatures?”
“Meh,” I responded.
“Yeah. Meh,” Woney agreed.
“You could watch the video,” the girl behind the counter said. “Just see what it is like. We provide the coats and gloves and these awesome t-shirts for purchase after you come out.”
“Meh,” we responded.
“We offer Big Black Dick,” the girl said.
Suddenly I was intrigued. “Big Black Dick? Is that, like, a gummy? Or, you know, a man?” Woney listened with rapt attention, also, and we both dug around our respective purses looking for the twenties we could throw on the counter to gain entrance into the place that housed the Big Black Dick.
Turns out Big Black Dick is rum, and turns out it is delicious. I wanted to tell you that this face I am making is due to the Big Black Dick and then I wanted to tell you that I scampered around the Grand Caymans hollering about Big Black Dick, and also tell you that I told everyone on the ship I had Big Black Dick and also called my mother, proud as a peacock, to say, “I had Big Black Dick in the Grand Caymans!” For the record, my mother would respond in this manner: “I am so proud!”
I wanted to tell you as I wheezed with mirth that I was a woman of the world who picked up Big Black Dick on all her voyages. I would wheeze with mirth until I realized that a missionary I love reads this blog. My father reads this blog. My old bosses and all my friends read this blog. Some of them will be all, “Go, Jimmie, Big Black Dick, woo!” The rest of them would purse their lips and make tsking noises and know that I was lying about what that Big Black Dick meant to me.
Here’s the truth of my life, the story I want to tell now. I did all those things and said all those things but I live a very different story than that. Years ago, after I got my heart smashed into a pancake by a sledge hammer, I made some significant changes to the way I do things. These things don’t necessarily make sense to the world at large and I realize that I’m bucking a lot of trends here but I really cannot care about that. For example, I read up on yoga and nixed that from my exercise repertoire because the spiritual implications of the poses and chanting made me uncomfortable. I stopped attending traditional churches that promoted their own programs and rules to a fault and instead just decided to love people. I vowed that celibacy was for me until I was fortunate enough to remarry. No matter what I say about Big Black Dick, hahahaha, and how I wheeze with mirth about it, hahahaha, I won’t experience it unless I marry it, no hahahaha at all.
All this makes me super fun at parties and on dates which is likely why I am no longer invited to any of those things anymore.
But here’s how I see it – pleasing Him is now more important than pleasing me. I’ll follow His rules because He says to do it, but by following those rules I’ve found a thousand other reasons that point to them being an excellent idea all on their own. For example, loving people was always something I’ve done, sure, but once I became a die-hard, balls-to-the-wall, knocked-down, dragged-out, on-fire, hardcore follower of Jesus, (mind you not religious, not a Baptist, not anything other than following my Christ) it became sweeter. Love is just sweeter.
Likely I will catch a lot of flak for this, or likely I won’t. We each get our own story to tell and I’ve never been one to tell you that your story is wrong. I doubt anyone who loves me would repay me not in kind, but even if they do, I’m strong enough to stand on my own two feet about it. No approval necessary.
Love, Jimmie 