So begins one of Scott Poole’s poems from his new poetry collection Sliding Glass Door, which he read from at last night’s Planned Parenthood storytelling benefit “It’s Not Me, It’s You.” I bought the book for my mother as a thank-you present for not actually attending the event, because his poems are hilarious and poignant and I think she would like them, and also because I am very grateful she didn’t show up to hear any of the mom-unfriendly stories I told during my lightening-round face-off with Sarah Mirk. Sarah won our portion of events, unsurprisingly (she has some of the worst dating stories ever, and in fact I think she should share some of them in the comments… Sarah?), taking home a copy of fellow storyteller Sarah Wexler’s Awful First Dates as her victory spoils. And in a stroke of divine, hilarious coincidence, the story Wexler read was about going on a date with the author of a cookbook called How to Get Laid—attentive readers will recognize that as a thinly veiled reference to the Cook to Bang guy, whom I got into an email fight with a couple years ago. I still can’t believe she actually went on a date with the dude who invented “Get Stuffed and Bust-a-Nut Squash.” Amazing.
The best part of what was a really great night all around, though, was Kevin Sampsell’s story about losing his virginity to a prostitute. I admit that before the show I gave Kevin some shit for reading a pre-published excerpt from his memoir A Common Pornography instead of telling a new story—but that’s because it’s been a while since I’ve read it, and kinda forgotten how brutally funny and soul-baring parts of it are. He killed the entire room with his story, which transitions beautifully from the comic awkwardness of two teenaged boys idly checking out prostitutes as they cruise small-town Washington streets, to the grimy, empty sadness of Kevin actually buying one. It was a great, great reading, and because I don’t think anyone actually promoted the book last night—it’s called A Common Pornography, and if you want to get it you should buy it at Powell’s ’cause Kevin works there.
Thanks to everybody who turned up last night, and to hosts Cort and Fatboy for being their typical hilarious selves, boner jokes and all. It was a great crowd and doubtless raised some serious cash for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. And hey, if you missed it? You can still give ’em some money right here.
SARAH MIRK DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT RED FLAGS OR WARNING SIGNS ARE. TRUFAX!!!
@ Graham, +1. That’s why it was hard to vote: Sarah’s were the worst objectively by a lot, but since she didn’t experience them that way subjectively (because she is apparently a being of infinite enthusiasm and optimism) it’s hard to say who had it worst.
But you both did a fantastic job, and found a really entertaining and creative way to present what can otherwise be something that’s too self-indulgent/unfunny.*
I won’t name any names on the latter, but we left after Sarah & Alison, so anyone who went probably has a good idea which storyteller I’m talking about.
* I mean “unfunny” as trying and failing to be funny.
I want to add that over 500 people came and Planned Parenthood DOUBLED their fundraising goal for the night. Yay! Thanks for coming everyone.
And ohhh bad dating stories. I have at least three times as many as I told onstage. CC is right on the money that I’m just attracted to weird enthusiasts of all stripes and am up for any adventure that sounds like a bad idea, so I very cheerfully wind up in objectively terrible situations.
I think the story I like best is about my high school boyfriend. He is now vegan, bisexual, married, living in Oklahoma, and posts a lot of sci-fi poetry on Facebook, but when we broke up, he made me a mix CD of songs I had ruined for him. And every single song was off the Final Fantasy soundtracks.
Anyone else want to share, please?
I’ve only had a handful of straight-up “dates,” but on one of them, we walked back after dinner to where my car had been parked to find that it had been stolen.
After an hour and a half of putting up a dating front over an awkward dinner, it was fun for a few panicked minutes to ask myself, “how would (shall) a super cool guy go about reacting to this fact?” Neither of us had a cell phone, so we really were just sort of standing around wondering what to do.
The answer I came up with was to (painfully) play it all off as some funny thing, which really (further) weirded out my date…. until we discovered that I had actually parked my car several blocks away.
Btw, my whip looked like a shittier version of this: http://bit.ly/xtNKm9
No second date for some reason.
(Remind me IRL and I’ll tell you the less g-rated ones.)
One more that just came to mind:
After I discovered I had been cheated on by an ex, I refused to talk to her or have any contact for 6 months, until I finally relented and agreed to go on a walk with her so she could apologize.
During the walk she kept trying to touch me casually, and I told her to knock it off. When the conversation was over, she tried to hug me, and I backed away. She kept coming for me, arms outstretched like Frankenstein, over about a 30-40 square foot area, for what must have been a two-solid-minute-long battle of wills.
I sincerely hope this sad/ridiculous dance was noted by the neighbors in the many surrounding suburban homes.
I once had a couple dates with a girl, just after my first semi-serious relationship had imploded. Now, I’ve always been painfully awkward on “formal” dates. But this one was a well-meaning coupling on both sides with two people on the rebound. Which, of course, turned into the other person talking about why her relationship had ended. So yeah. Kind of a lot of staring at the beach and trying to be nice.
Anyway, the last date, we were at a concert. I was really into it, she wasn’t. She went to go, so I was a bit like, well… bye! I stayed for the rest of the show.
So that’s my worst story. Lackluster!