Sarah: Okay, hypothetical.

Regina: Okay.

Sarah: Let’s say there’s a guy, and he —

Regina: What guy?

Sarah: What “what guy”?

Regina: What — what GUY what guy!

Sarah: There is no guy. It’s a hypothetical.

Regina: But it’s the guy who —

Sarah: It’s not any particular guy. It’s just a guy. A hypothetical…guy.

Regina: Okay.

Sarah: Okay, so the guy —

Regina: Wait, so it’s a guy that I, like, hypothetically know? In theory?

Sarah: He’s hypothetical, Reg. Really. There’s nobody to know.

Regina: Sure, but there’s the “if we had penises, we’d never leave the house” kind of hypothetical, and then there’s the “it’s a true story, but I won’t use names so that I’ll feel less guilty about shit-talking” kind of hypothetical.

Sarah: It’s the second kind. Well, sort of. It’s kind of a hybrid of both kinds. Because I would use names, except that it really is a hypothetical question.

Regina: Okay, got it.

Sarah: You wouldn’t leave the house?

Regina: Huh?

Sarah: If you had a penis. You’d just hang out with it at home?

Regina: It depends. How long do I have it for?

Sarah: “How long”…?

Regina: Yeah. Like, did I get turned into a man for twenty-four hours only, or do I get the equipment for life?

Sarah: I don’t know. For life, I guess.

Regina: Okay. Then I’d go out.

Sarah: But for only a day, you’d stay in.

Regina: Well, here’s the thing. I’ve got a penis, right?

Sarah: Heh. Right.

Regina: Seriously. I’ve got a penis. I’ve got it for a day. Do I want to waste valuable time going out and trying to pick someone up to use it on? Because that might not work out, and then I’ve spent hours that I could have used to experiment with —

Sarah: Wait, did you just get a penis, or you’re totally a man now with chest hair and whatnot?

Regina: Totally a man with chest hair and whatnot.

Sarah: Okay.

Regina: Just a penis? I’m definitely not going out.

Sarah: Oh, totally not. But even for twenty-four hours, you wouldn’t just want to walk around in the world…having a penis?

Regina: It’s too complicated, dude. By the time I figured out how to dress myself with that thing, it’d be —

Sarah: It’s a penis, not a colostomy bag.

Regina: Yeah, but —

Sarah: It’s my impression that you just pick a side for it, zip up carefully, and go about your business.

Regina: But then I’d still wind up walking all bowlegged and self-consciously. And what if I got big feet too? I wouldn’t have any decent shoes to put on. It’s too much trouble. I’d just stay in.

Sarah: See, I already have big feet, so I’d go out.

Regina: And pick up chicks. Bun chicka wah wah.

Sarah: Heh. But wait — so I would be a straight guy? Or would I be me, but in a guy’s body?

Regina: Well, if you were straight, you’d still be you. You’d just like girls that way.

Sarah: That makes no sense.

Regina: Sure it does. You’re you. You’re straight. Your straightness is just directed at women now.

Sarah: All right. So I’m straight.

Regina: Yeah, you’re straight.

Sarah: Okay, I’m changing my answer, then.

Regina: You’re staying in.

Sarah: Staying in.

Regina: Because of the girl thing.

Sarah: Yeah. But not like that. It’s not the actual hooking up with a girl that would make me stay in, because —

Regina: Because you’d be straight.

Sarah: Right. It’s that I’d be totally inept as well.

Regina: Riiiiight.

Sarah: You know? Because I’ve never slept with a girl before? So even if I can pick up a girl, she’s in for the most miserable sex of her life because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Regina: Oh, God. Can you imagine?

Sarah: That’s what I’m saying. I mean, I’m pawing at her boobs, I’m trying to put the penis in her bellybutton…it’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Regina: But it’s not like — well, okay, would you go out if you were gay?

Sarah: Hmm. I don’t know.

Regina: Because I figure, if I’m straight and I pick someone up, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but if I’m gay and I pick someone up, at least I know what he likes, so I can just wing it.

Sarah: Right — but wait, that doesn’t really hold up, because we used to be women, right?

Regina: Right…?

Sarah: So it’s not like we wouldn’t know what the women liked. Because we used to be women. So we could wing it there, too, presumably.

Regina: Right…right. So…

Sarah: So the issue isn’t really the other person. The issue is that I don’t have the proper experience with the equipment.

Regina: No, I know, but in the case of being gay, you’d have experience with their equipment.

Sarah: But that’s true in the case of being straight, too, because we had the — ohhhh, I see what you mean.

Regina: Because it’s not like I’d have had the opportunity to stick a penis into —

Sarah: Right, right.

Regina: My head hurts thinking about this.

Sarah: I know, right?

Regina: Like we’d ever wake up with penises anyway.

Sarah: Please. I’ve barely mastered the current set-up.

Regina: Seriously.

Sarah: How did we get on that subject, anyway?

Regina: How did we get on the subject? Penises…gay or straight…

Sarah: Staying in versus going out…

Regina: Hypotheticals!

Sarah: Right! Right, okay.

Regina: So…

Sarah: So hypothetically, there’s a guy.

Regina: Okay.

Sarah: No guy in particular, just a guy.

Regina: Yep.

Sarah: You go on a date or whatever. It’s time to say good night.

Regina: Is he cute?

Sarah: Regina. For God’s sake. It’s not a real guy.

Regina: I know that! I just wondered if the hypothetical guy is hypothetically cute!

Sarah: He’s not — it doesn’t — can I please get to the hypothetical question before we both turn forty over here? Then you can add as many qualifiers as you want.

Regina: Well, I just figured it might be relevant.

Sarah: It isn’t — okay, it is, but — okay. Can I talk?

Regina: Talk.

Sarah: Okay. It’s time to say good night. You get to the front door.

Regina: Whose front door?

Sarah: Reg, STOP INTERRUPTING!

Regina: I’m gathering information!

Sarah: Fine, so gather it later!

Regina: Fine, so get to the point already!

Sarah: Fine, so STOP INTERRUPTING!

Regina: Fine! I won’t say another word!

Sarah: Okay!

Regina: Okay!

Sarah: “Okay” is a word!

Regina: Bitch, quit bugging and ASK THE QUESTION!

Sarah: OKAY! So there’s a guy, you go on a date, it’s time to say goodnight, he kisses you, it’s bad. What do you do?

Regina: I — can I talk now? It’s my turn to talk, right?

Sarah: Yes.

Regina: I don’t get it.

Sarah: The kissing. Is bad. He’s a bad kisser.

Regina: Right. No, I still don’t get it. What’s the question?

Sarah: “What do you do” is the question.

Regina: “What do” — okay, see, this is where knowing whether or not he’s cute would come in handy.

Sarah: Why?

Regina: “Why”? What kind of question is that?

Sarah: Well, what kind of question is “is he cute”? Presumably, you’ve got your eyes closed, so what difference —

Regina: Well, if he’s cute, then there’s an attraction there.

Sarah: Of course there’s an attraction there. You’re kissing!

Regina: But if he’s not cute, then you’re just perversely attracted to him in a Steven Tyler kind of way.

Sarah: You know, I would love to tour the facility of your brain one of these days because WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Steven TYLER?

Regina: You know what I mean.

Sarah: No, I really don’t. One minute we’re talking about what we’d do with penises, then we’re onto bad kissing, the next thing I know Aerosmith is involved?

Regina: Well, Steven Tyler isn’t cute.

Sarah: Yeah, thanks for the update. What does that have to do —

Regina: But if you think he’s cute enough to kiss him for whatever reason, then —

Sarah: I don’t! I don’t think he’s cute enough to, to, to anything! He’s Steven TYLER! I would never kiss Steven Tyler, because he’s STEVEN TYLER!

Regina: But IF you thought he was cute, then you’d want to kiss him, right?

Sarah: No, I — okay, seriously, that is less likely than my waking up with a dick, for real.

Regina: But if it DID happen.

Sarah: Reg, it won’t happen, okay? It won’t. And I don’t see —

Regina: Okay, the point here is that the hypothetical guy —

Sarah: NOT Steven Tyler.

Regina: Whatever, the hypothetical guy is not cute, but YOU think he’s cute, so he’s therefore cute. Just not, you know, empirically.

Sarah: Are you high? I’m not joking. Are you high right now?

Regina: Look, if he’s not empirically cute, then you have to determine —

Sarah: But there IS no “empirically cute.”

Regina: Sure there is.

Sarah: Like, a “cute” that everyone can agree on?

Regina: Yeah.

Sarah: No, there isn’t.

Regina: Brad Pitt.

Sarah: See, I don’t think he’s cute.

Regina: NOW who’s high?

Sarah: He doesn’t do it for me.

Regina: This is EXACTLY my point. He doesn’t do it for you. But you see that he could do it for other people, right? That he’s empirically attractive?

Sarah: Sure. I mean, he’s not ugly or anything.

Regina: He’s just not your thing.

Sarah: No. So then it’s your contention that the cuteness —

Regina: My point is, is that the guy in question, who is theoretically a bad kisser, is also cute by an objective standard. Because there’s “cute by an objective standard,” and then there’s that Steven Tyler attraction-repulsion thing.

Sarah: But that has nothing to do with — all right, whatever. I can state with certainty that that’s not the case here.

Regina: I thought that it’s not a real guy.

Sarah: It isn’t — that’s the whole point!

Regina: So then how can you say —

Sarah: It’s irrelevant! The subjective standard is what’s relevant. Theoretically, you think he’s cute enough to kiss, or you like him so much that he’s become cute.

Regina: Ah. Velveteen Rabbit cute.

Sarah: If you tie this in to Steven Tyler again, I’m hanging up.

Regina: I won’t. You read The Velveteen Rabbit as a kid, right?

Sarah: Sure, sure — he becomes real, blah blah blah.

Regina: So if you treat a guy like he’s cute, he becomes cute.

Sarah: Well, yeah, of course.

Regina: So we agree.

Sarah: I’m still not confident that I know what you’re talking about, but…sure, I guess. Except that that’s not the issue.

Regina: I know, but it affects the decision-making process.

Sarah: How?

Regina: If he’s cute —

Sarah: Look, we’ve established that he’s cute. He’s cute enough to kiss. You’re looking forward to the kiss. You’re happy that the kiss has come to pass. The cuteness is no longer germane to the discussion, because however cute he is or isn’t or whether it’s inner cuteness or applied cuteness or WHATEVER, that cuteness has gotten you to the point where you want to kiss him, and you kiss him, and the kiss is not good. THAT is the issue. Not the cuteness.

Regina: I disagree. I think it affects you on a subconscious level.

Sarah: The cuteness does.

Regina: Yes. Because if he’s really super-Noah-Wyle-cute, maybe you tolerate the bad kissing, but if he’s not, maybe you just give up.

Sarah: Have you done that? Looked at a guy and thought, “Eh, not that cute,” and just ditched him?

Regina: Well, it’s not ditching him because he’s not cute. It’s ditching him because he’s not cute AND he’s a bad kisser.

Sarah: But, see, if you think he’s cute enough to kiss, then whether he’s Brad Pitt or he’s — I don’t know, he’s, like, George Costanza or something but he’s got a really great personality, it’s still a bummer if he’s all slobbery. Because in your mind, he’s cute. He’s earned the kissing in whatever way.

Regina: Yeah, I see what you’re saying.

Sarah: You know? The cuteness question is, like, answered already by that time.

Regina: Yeah, I guess you’re right.

Sarah: So that brings us back to the question of what you do next.

Regina: “I had a great evening. Call me!” Run inside, slam door, move to Des Moines.

Sarah: I’m serious.

Regina: So am I. You think I moved here for work or something?

Sarah: Hee.

Regina: Sweet job, huge apartment, good group of friends — you finally get settled and then you run into a guy who kisses like a washing machine and you’ve gotta rent a U-Haul.

Sarah: Heeeee hee hee. Next time that happens? Move to New York. These phone bills are killing me.

Regina: That’s the plan.

Sarah: Okay, really, now.

Regina: Okay, really? I don’t know what you do. Because what can you do?

Sarah: Exactly. It’s not like you can say anything.

Regina: No. Because how rude is that?

Sarah: Totally. And you don’t want to be all “I, the expert on kissing, will now chasten you,” because it’s kind of — arrogant.

Regina: Yeah. And you figure, you know, maybe some women like that.

Sarah: The washing machine? You think?

Regina: Well, washing-machine kissers keep kissing like washing machines, right? Like, well into their forties, some of them? Which leads me to believe that some women out there actually like the washing machine.

Sarah: Or don’t have the guts to say that they don’t.

Regina: Yeah, there’s that, too. I mean, have you ever said anything to a bad kisser?

Sarah: Yeah, a few times.

Regina: You DID?

Sarah: Yeah, what’s the big?

Regina: You just came out and said, “You’re a bad kisser.”

Sarah: I didn’t just say it.

Regina: What, you used semaphore flags?

Sarah: There’s a way to put it. You know, you sort of try to…influence them.

Regina: “Influence” them?

Sarah: Yeah. Like, I never did it with a washing-machine kisser, but you know those guys that, like, try to get your whole face in their mouths?

Regina: Uccchh. Yes. God, I hate that.

Sarah: Once a guy was kissing me like that — if you can even call that “kissing,” I mean, I was drenched — and I said something like, “Why don’t you let me kiss you back.” Or whatever, I don’t remember. It’s cheesy, but it’s the only way.

Regina: “Why don’t you let me kiss you back”?

Sarah: Oh, shut up.

Regina: That is hilarious.

Sarah: Shut up! What was I supposed to do? I’d been chasing this guy for weeks, finally one night he walked me home, he kissed me, and it sucked, but I couldn’t just give up after all that hard work!

Regina: Oh, calm down. I just think it’s funny.

Sarah: SHUT UP!

Regina: Did it work?

Sarah: Yeah, actually. It took an hour or two, but it worked.

Regina: I can’t believe that worked.

Sarah: So what’s your solution, then?

Regina: I kind of tell him, “I like it when you do it like this,” and then I demonstrate.

Sarah: Snork. How Our Bodies, Ourselves of you.

Regina: Oh, cram it.

Sarah: Hee! It’s like a Pointer Sisters song or something.

Regina: “Why don’t you let me kiss you back” is so much better?

Sarah: It’s the same thing, that’s why it’s funny.

Regina: Yours is Smurfy.

Sarah: No, yours is Smurfy.

Regina: Yours is Smurfier than mine.

Sarah: Hey, at least it worked. Did yours work?

Regina: Yes. Sort of.

Sarah: “Sort of”?

Regina: Well, it worked, but then each time we started kissing, I’d have to say it again.

Sarah: So it didn’t work at all, then.

Regina: Oh, it worked, but it would only last as long as the night lasted, and then the next time I saw him, I’d have to start over.

Sarah: So, like I said, it didn’t work.

Regina: It worked! In short bursts!

Sarah: Okay, then.

Regina: Shut up.

Sarah: But you know what’s weird? Certain types of bad kissing, you can’t do anything about. Like, they’ve got their thing and they’re sticking with it.

Regina: The tongue-flicking guys.

Sarah: YES. That is exactly who I mean.

Regina: What IS that?

Sarah: I don’t know, dude. But damn, is that annoying.

Regina: And in certain ways, it’s not even as bad as the slobbering or the washing machine.

Sarah: Yeah, I know, and yet it’s still irritating.

Regina: It’s all — lizard-y.

Sarah: It makes me feel like I have to sneeze or something. It’s itchy. And they won’t hear reason, either.

Regina: No, they won’t. Neither will the tooth-lickers.

Sarah: Now THAT is a rare breed. Thank God.

Regina: I always start thinking about how I haven’t flossed in two months.

Sarah: Plus the tongue pushes your upper lip around in a really icky way. I hate that.

Regina: And you’re really aware of it, too.

Sarah: Totally.

Regina: You don’t get too many bad kissers, though, at our age.

Sarah: That’s true. College was a horror show, but it’s not so bad now.

Regina: But do you ever wonder how the bad kissers got this far?

Sarah: Well, it’s like we said before. Either other women kind of like the kissing we think of as “bad,” or nobody’s ever told the guy that it’s bad because life is too short.

Regina: I guess.

Sarah: We’re going to die alone.

Regina: Alone and kiss-less.

Sarah: Except for the cats.

Regina: Cats don’t have lips.

Sarah: No. No, they don’t. And that would be sick and wrong.

Regina: Should we try to be less picky?

Sarah: Probably. But you know what, if it’s bad kissing and it’s not your thing, then he’s not your thing, like, globally. Because good kissing means good in bed.

Regina: Always.

Sarah: Well, there was that one time that it didn’t.

Regina: But the exception proves the rule.

Sarah: I suppose it does.

Regina: And would you rather be alone, or be with a guy whose kisses you dread?

Sarah: Alone, I think.

Regina: Me too.

Sarah: We’re such dorks.

Regina: I know.

Sarah: “I like it when you do it like this.” Hee.

Regina: “Why don’t you let me kiss you back.” Snorf.

Sarah: Dorks.

Regina: Complete dorks.

Sarah: Speaking of which, what’s with the Steven Tyler thing?

Regina: You know your Stellan Skarsgard thing?

Sarah: Shut up. Yes.

Regina: It’s like that. Hypothetically.

Sarah: Right.

Regina: Ew, Stellan Skarsgard.

Sarah: Oh, don’t try to change the subject.

Regina: What? It’s hypothetical!

Sarah: Yeah, right. Gross.

Regina: Shut up.

November 26, 2001

Tags:   boys (and girls)