Regina: You know what we need to do?

Sarah: Ohhh, do I ever. Have you got a week?

Regina: No, seriously. You know Nerd-B-Gon spray?

Sarah: That used to advertise in the back of Mad Magazine?

Regina: Next to the Sea Monkeys, yeah. We need to come up with our own line of B-Gon sprays for modern women, market them as stocking-stuffers and gag gifts for the feminist who has everything, and get really rich.

Sarah: Oh, like That-Guy-B-Gon?

Regina: Exactly like That-Guy-B-Gon.

Sarah: Dude. That? Is brilliant.

Regina: I know, right? I mean, if the idiots who came up with penis pasta can get rich, why shouldn’t we?

Sarah: Um, actually, my mother invented penis pasta.

Regina: Oh, I…oh. She…really?

Sarah: Yeah. She’s got the patent and everything. So. Anyway.

Regina: Oh, well, um, you know, I didn’t mean your mom is an idiot, obviously. Actually, that’s a really brilliant idea if you think about it, and I didn’t mean just penis pasta, I kind of meant the whole genre of X-rated gifts, and besides, a lot of those products show, like, entrepreneurial spirit, because hey, I wish I’d thought of penis pasta, because your mom is totally rich now. Right?

Sarah: Hee hee.

Regina: Oh, Christ. Your mother had nothing to do with inventing penis pasta, did she?

Sarah: No, she sure didn’t.

Regina: Youuuuu BITCH! And I just said “penis pasta” like fifty times, too!

Sarah: I know. Sorry. I honestly didn’t think you’d fall for it.

Regina: Seriously, though? If your mom had spent many hours in, like, her noodle workshop, coming up with the next big thing in novelty food? That would kind of rule.

Sarah: That would totally rule.

Regina: I wish I could do that — like, think of inventions and then actually do them.

Sarah: Yeah, me too. But you could easily do That-Guy-B-Gon, dude. Easily. Just partner up with the Dirty Girl soap company or something, get them to make a nice fresh scent, do the ad copy, and presto, you’re rich.

Regina: Yeah! Wait. Should it smell good?

Sarah: I…think so. Why, you think it should smell bad?

Regina: Well, I don’t know. I mean, what’s the guiding principle of Nerd-B-Gon.

Sarah: Getting nerds to, uh, be gone, I believe.

Regina: Precisely. So, how would a spray get the nerds to get gone?

Sarah: I always just assumed that it wouldn’t work. You know…guilt by association with the Sea Monkeys.

Regina: But it has to work. According to the law, the ad can’t make any claim about the product that isn’t true, so if the ad says that it gets rid of nerds, it has to get rid of nerds.

Sarah: O…kay.

Regina: But it doesn’t have to say that it only gets rid of nerds — do you follow me?

Sarah: Ohhhh, I see. It gets rid of nerds by getting rid of everyone.

Regina: Right. And how would it do that?

Sarah: By smelling disgusting.

Regina: You’d think.

Sarah: Hmm. Good point.

Regina: So we’d have to market it strictly as a gag gift, because nobody could ever actually use it, because it would smell like ass.

Sarah: No, hold on a minute. The idea behind That-Guy-B-Gon is that it gets rid of That Guy, right?

Regina: Obviously. So?

Sarah: So maybe there’s a way to fine-tune the scent so that it only repels That Guy. Like, to the untrained nose, it smells a little musky, but That Guy sniffs the air and shrieks, “She wants to pay for dinner, eeeyyyaaaaaagggghhh!” and runs off.

Regina: I think we might have to wait for modern chemistry to catch up to us on that one.

Sarah: Yeah, probably.

Regina: And besides, then we couldn’t advertise it as actually able to get rid of That Guy. I mean, it has to work.

Sarah: Right. Hmm.

Regina: Ooh, ooh! I’ve got it. Packaging.

Sarah: Packaging repels That Guy?

Regina: Yes!

Sarah: How? We wouldn’t market it to That Guy, so who cares if he hates the packaging?

Regina: No, no, not that packaging — the packaging of the bottle of spray! See, there’s the outer packaging, the box, that just says “That-Guy-B-Gon” on it or whatever, and then there’s the bottle itself.

Sarah: What about it?

Regina: Well, if the bottle is a big old dildo-esque aluminum-looking thing with the word “FEMINAZI” in giant black letters on the side, and if our target customer decides to spritz herself during a date…that should do it, am I right?

Sarah: You expect our customers to get the spray out during dinner and anoint themselves?

Regina: The idea is not to be polite. The idea is to get rid of That Guy.

Sarah: But if our target customer wanted to get rid of That Guy, why would she haul this big old Bauhaus penis out of her bag and spray herself all ostentatiously with it instead of just shrugging, “Gotta go, That Guy,” and calling a cab?

Regina: But in order to sell the — you know, that’s a good point.

Sarah: See, I think you had it right the first time. We’d have to market it as a gag gift.

Regina: But couldn’t we also sell it as a hip, fresh, confident fragrance? Like, go for the funny joke about That Guy, stay for the scent?

Sarah: Kind of like the old Charlie campaign, but snottier.

Regina: Or the Jean Naté one, except that instead of splashing in on herself, she splashes it on That Guy and he bursts into flame.

Sarah: “I can’t seeeeem to forgeeeet you…”

Regina: “…your That-Guy-B-Gon stays on my miiiiiind.” Right on. It’s genius.

Sarah: We could really do a whole line of That-Guy-B-Gon merchandise.

Regina: Absolutely. Soap, lotion, scented candles, you name it.

Sarah: Free “Shut up, That Guy” button with every purchase!

Regina: Yeah! God, I wish I had one of those button-makers.

Sarah: Me too!

Regina: Except it’s good that I don’t have one, or I’d just sit around all day making bitchy buttons.

Sarah: Me too. And then I’d pin them all on my jean jacket like we did in high school.

Regina: You did that too?

Sarah: Oh, totally. I had a whole collection of “witty” pins in high school, and I would change the one on the lapel of my coat every week, and people would actually check my lapel on Monday morning to see what the new pin said. Like, on my birthday, my friends always gave me pins and then they’d bitch at me if the pins didn’t go into the rotation right away.

Regina: Um…

Sarah: Yeah, I know. Remember, all-girls’ school.

Regina: Right. Say no more.

Sarah: We did a lot of weird shit.

Regina: Everyone did. You can’t drive, you haven’t had sex yet, all that leaves is weird shit.

Sarah: Well, okay, up to a point, but…finger-knitting?

Regina: What the hell is finger-knitting?

Sarah: Exactly.

Regina: No, seriously. What the hell is finger-knitting?

Sarah: You use your hand as, like, a loom. It’s hard to explain.

Regina: Finger-knitting.

Sarah: I told you.

Regina: We just drove around.

Sarah: Oh, we did that too.

Regina: And sat around.

Sarah: Yep, us too.

Regina: Occasionally, we milled around.

Sarah: Sure, lots of milling.

Regina: And once in a while, we’d do all three.

Sarah: Sure. Drive around until you find a party, sit around until it gets busted, mill around until your friend brings the car around.

Regina: Lots of “around” in high school.

Sarah: But it seemed really fun at the time, didn’t it? Like, you’d get ready to go out, and your parents would want to know all the gory details, and you’d go, “Dunno, nothing,” and they’d just stare at you all horrified like “dunno, nothing” wasn’t a perfectly good activity.

Regina: I know! But I never came in after a night of “dunno, nothing” and felt unsatisfied.

Sarah: No, me neither. But we didn’t exactly do nothing.

Regina: Well, no. We drove around.

Sarah: Listened to music.

Regina: Dissected the break-up of a third party.

Sarah: Went to 7-Eleven for snacks.

Regina: Discussed boys.

Sarah: Stuck our hands out the sun roof.

Regina: That never gets old, does it?

Sarah: It really doesn’t. And a lot of limos won’t let you do it now, which is a shame. My senior year, I rode the whole way to my boyfriend’s prom out the sun roof. It was about twenty miles to the hotel and my hair looked like Nick Nolte by the time we got there, but it was so fun.

Regina: And nobody wants to do a Chinese fire drill anymore. Like, to the point where they will pretend that they don’t know what a Chinese fire drill is in order to get out of doing it.

Sarah: Please. That’s no way to live.

Regina: Seriously.

Sarah: Now there’s a cool name for a perfume. “Chinese Fire Drill.”

Regina: A cinnamon scent with notes of musk.

Sarah: Or a nail polish.

Regina: I would love to name make-ups. That just seems like the most amazingly awesome job in the world.

Sarah: And everyone currently doing it is getting kind of burned out, I think, because the names are so abstract now. I mean, “Knob”? I don’t really get a feel for the exact shade from that.

Regina: Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I get that there’s only so many ways to imply that a given shade is in the brown family, but you just can’t call a lipstick “James.”

Sarah: Okay, but that’s not a good example, because — James Brown? In a lipstick? That shit is cool, man.

Regina: Okay, James Brown is cool, but — Eric The Red?

Sarah: You didn’t really see a lipstick called Eric The Red.

Regina: No, not yet, but it’s getting to that point.

Sarah: “Great lipstick. What shade is that?” “I’d really rather not say.”

Regina: Well, yeah. It’s like when you go to Denny’s and you really do want a Moons Over My Hammy, but you cannot bring yourself to say “Moons Over My Hammy” out loud because it’s ridiculous and you’ll have to live with the fact that you said the words “My Hammy” out loud, with witnesses.

Sarah: So you try to just read the ingredients in a Moons Over My Hammy to the waitress instead of saying the words, but does she help you out?

Regina: No, of course not. She yells out, “Oh, a Moons Over My Hammy, then,” and then you want to kill yourself.

Sarah: And you want to kill yourself even more for caring whether you said “Moons Over My Hammy,” because it’s just a Denny’s for crying out loud.

Regina: You know where else you run into that problem?

Sarah: Condoms.

Regina: Yes. Condoms.

Sarah: You try to ask for the box based on color.

Regina: And it never works.

Sarah: No. No, it doesn’t. The guy behind the counter has to confirm the style of condom.

Regina: He wants to make sure you really do want the lubricated ones.

Sarah: It’s nice of him to take an interest.

Regina: On the other hand, you do feel that “the purple box” got the job done.

Sarah: And it’s the same thing — you feel stupid about feeling stupid about the condoms.

Regina: Because you shouldn’t feel stupid. You should feel responsible and mature.

Sarah: Right — mature enough to buy a box of freakin’ condoms without feeling fifteen about it.

Regina: But then there’s the word “lubricated.”

Sarah: It doesn’t help.

Regina: We’re going to die alone.

Sarah: Alone and pregnant.

Regina: With Trout nail polish on.

Sarah: Stinking of Nerd-B-Gon.

Regina: In the parking lot of a Denny’s.

Sarah: Because we fell out the sun roof of a limo.

Regina: Okay, seriously? That’s so Behind The Music that we need to start a band immediately.

Sarah: I heartily concur. Do you play any instruments?

Regina: Not really.

Sarah: Okay, you sing, and I’ll play the Casio keyboard with built-in drum machine.

Regina: No. No Casio keyboard. Not even ironically.

Sarah: But I can’t play anything except piano!

Regina: Who cares? The Sex Pistols couldn’t play anything either, and besides, wedding bands don’t get on Behind The Music.

Sarah: There’s a first time for everything.

Regina: So I guess I have to get Jim Morrison drunk and fall off the stage during “Daddy’s Little Girl.”

Sarah: Yeah, that ought to do it.

Regina: No, we have to do some real punk Yoko Ono shit or something. Like blow bubbles on the stage.

Sarah: Bubbles made of AAAACID, maaaaan!

Regina: Yeeeeaaah! Wait, LSD acid or, like, hydrochloric acid?

Sarah: Ooh, hydrochloric acid! But tell them it’s LSD acid!

Regina: Or we could do that in the video for our hit song “Catch It On Your Tongue (And Die)”!

Sarah: Yeah! And then Partnership for a Drug-Free America buys the song to use in their ads, because they think it’s about staying clean!

Regina: And then we get really rich!

Sarah: Go on the cover of Vanity Fair wearing only body paint!

Regina: Get arrested in the Hollywood Hills!

Sarah: Break out of rehab!

Regina: Mount a comeback based on a rap-core remix of our most famous song!

Sarah: Botox!

Regina: Vicodin!

Sarah: Isolation!

Regina: Death!

Sarah: So what do we call our band?

Regina: I like That-Guy-B-Gon.

Sarah: Sold. Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll start learning the guitar, and you…you go get addicted to something.

Regina: Rock and roll.

Sarah: Rock and roll.

September 23, 2002

Tags:   feminism