Has Anyone Seen My Pants? (6 page)

“Your FSH levels are very low.”

“Whoa,” I said as I took another deep breath. “What’s an FSH level?”

“Well, that’s your fertility hormone. It means that you have a very low chance of being able to get pregnant.”

“Oh!” I said, relieved. “Okay. So when those levels are low do women tend to get more mood swings?”

“Not that I’m aware of, it simply indicates that if you want to get pregnant, you probably cannot.”

“Well, that’s okay because I don’t want to get pregnant. What else did you find? There must be a reason why I’m so
mean to people, particularly ones who are in front of me in line at the Coffee Bean.”

“I don’t think you understand. You have about a two percent chance of getting pregnant.”

“Is there a way to make it zero percent?” I asked, not at all joking.

“This is something you need to understand. If you decide you want children—”

“I don’t want children.”

“But if you change your mind—”

“I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Women say that but then they often change their minds, and I’m telling you that you would be unable to—”

“Doctor? I get it. It’s fine.”

“But, Ms. Carson—”

“It’s Colonna. My last name is
Colonna
. I’ve told you that no less than eighty times.”

“I’m sorry, Ms.
Colonna
,” he repeated slowly and carefully. “This news appears to have upset you. Would you like some time alone to process the fact that your body may not ever be able to give you a child?”

“The news hasn’t upset me,
you’ve
upset me.”

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“I told you I understand. And you keep trying to tell me you know better than I do how I feel about children. Here’s the thing: I just don’t want kids. It doesn’t make me weird, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like kids or that I want to punch
them. Although I did recently see a baby who had his own seat in first class and I did want to punch him a little on my way to my economy seat right next to the lavatory.”

“You seem on edge.”

“Am I on a hidden-camera show? The edginess is the reason I’m here in the first place. I don’t need you to tell me anything except what’s on that piece of paper. I am not trying to get pregnant, ever. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying
not
to get pregnant. In fact, sometimes after sex, I turn on my blow-dryer and hold it right up to my vagina because when I was in high school, Kristy Stewart told me that can keep you from getting pregnant. I’m thirty-eight years old and that’s still my move. Understand?”

“Not really,” he said.

“I know you don’t. And I don’t expect you to. But let me just give you a piece of advice: if you’re going to try to make a woman feel bad about the status of her ovaries, at least have the decency to get her fucking name right.”

With that, I stormed out of the office, past the still-packing receptionist, and out the front door.

Three seconds later, I walked right back in to find the doctor still sitting in the exam room, looking bewildered.

“Can I still get some of those diet pills?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not overweight enough for diet pills,” he replied.

I stared at him for a minute, then smiled. “That’s more like it, Doctor. That’s how you talk to a woman.”

Called Up to the Majors

D
ue to my love for baseball, I’ve always dreamed of becoming a baseball wife. Now that I’m in my thirties and a little smarter, I realize that may not turn out so great for me . . . or for anyone who wants a husband who doesn’t bang a bunch of other women when he’s on the road. Yes, I know there are a few good ones who don’t do that—I’m generalizing here—but based on my past choices, I’m being realistic about which type I’d be drawn to; unfortunately, I doubt it would be one of the “good ones.”

So aside from funny people and friends, I follow a handful of baseball players on Twitter. Social media has opened a whole new world in communication with complete strangers. It’s not something that my friends and I had to deal with when we were in high school and college, thank God. But now, social media is prevalent in everyone’s life, young and old. Facebook is where everyone goes to spy on and judge people we haven’t seen in
years, or scope out photos on a new love interest’s page to determine if there is any stiff competition lingering around. There are apps like Tinder where people go to “meet other people,” which really means “fuck other people,” because what kind of relationship is really going to start with a swipe to the right? And Twitter is just a whole big combination of it all, with the added bonus that for networking, it’s a sea of opportunity.

I interact with Twitter followers more than anyone I know, perhaps to a fault. When I dare take a vacation, or, God forbid, go out to dinner and refuse to look at my phone, some followers yell at me for “ignoring” them. I even respond to those people later, defending my right to stay off my phone for hours at a time, which is totally counterproductive. But I’ve built my Twitter bed, so I have to tweet in it.

The communication goes further than that, though. People who don’t know each other follow each other and start sending direct messages back and forth. I’ve become friendly with funny women like Kelly Oxford and Jenny Johnson this way. But it’s a “club” of sorts. We know each other’s work, but we’ve never met, so we just direct-message (DM) and
boom
, now we are social-media buddies. It’s all very intimate.

Single men follow hot women in hopes of this same result. Single women follow hot men for that reason, too. Of course, sometimes married men and women follow other attractive men or women, because said people are “funny” or “informative,” but really they’re hoping for a weird Internet affair. It happens.

Combining my love of baseball and my appreciation for social media, one day I decided to send a nice little tweet to one of the baseball players I follow, letting him know that he was one of my favorites. I didn’t really think he’d respond, but I figured it never sucks to hear someone thinks you’re awesome, right? A little later he sent me a direct message saying, “Thank you! I like your work!” Please keep in mind that you can only direct-message people when you follow each other, which meant he was now following me on Twitter. This was back in the earlier days of Twitter when pretty much nobody else was following me. You guys, this was exciting! Also, I need a life.

I got pretty worked up that Baseball Player had messaged me, and by “worked up,” I mean “horny.” The timing of the tweet couldn’t have been better; it was the night before opening day of baseball season. I was at a bar at the time (shocking, I know) and immediately showed the message to my friend Chris. He got equally excited for me, as he’d also like to see me with a boyfriend in the MLB (he figures through me he could get hooked up with decent seats), so we carefully constructed my response. It was something along the lines of: “Thank you so much!!! Happy opening day tomorrow!” Sadly, it took us like two hours to construct it; we weren’t all that sober.

The next day, I was on my way down to the Angels game with two of my girlfriends, Tara and Stephanie. They were also very, very worked up about my newfound friendship with Baseball Player, and by “worked up,” I still mean “horny.”

We were en route when I got a response from Baseball Player. I read it to the girls: “It says ‘Thank You’ and there’s a smiley face.”

The smiley face threw me off at first since he’s a man
and
a professional athlete, but I’ve since reconciled with the fact that everyone loves emoticons, even grown men . . . in fact, now I do, too. I can’t even bring myself to think about what life would be like without emoticons.

“A
smiley face
? But he’s a professional baseball player!” Tara noted.

“Maybe he’s an emotional one,” I said, defending him.

“Smiley face or not, you need to give him your phone number,” Stephanie demanded.

“I agree, but you can’t just send your phone number out to the world!” Tara chimed in.

“She won’t send it to the world, Tara, she can DM it to him. He
follows
her!”

“What’s a DM?” Tara asked.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. Poor Tara, she is such a normal, non-social-media-obsessed person.

“It means I can send him a private message and nobody else will see it,” I explained.

“That’s amazing. What’s a private message?” Tara asked.

“We don’t have time to walk through all the mechanics of this for you, Tara, let’s just get him Sarah’s phone number, okay?”

Tara agreed, then we all debated how to send him the message. I was nervous, though. Why was I sending him my phone
number? We hadn’t even met! “What if he’s just trying to be nice, or just be friends, and all of a sudden I send my number all aggressive-like and creep him out?”

“He’s a
Major League Baseball player
,” Stephanie retorted. “
That’s
your
reason for sending him your phone number if you think you need a reason, but I don’t think he gives a shit about your motivation.”

Moments later I sent Baseball Player a DM, saying that we should get a drink next time his team was in town playing. And of course, I included my phone number to “make it easier to get in touch with me.”

Tara, Stephanie, and I continued to enjoy our vodka sodas aboard the Amtrak, my favorite transportation method to Angel Stadium (a.k.a. “the Big A”). Seconds later, I received a text message: “Hey there, it’s me, plug my number in!”

My vagina exploded. Tara and Stephanie’s vaginas exploded a little as well; they really wanted me to get penetrated by Baseball Player . . . they’re good friends.

Next came a series of texts that were mostly constructed by Tara and Stephanie, as I was too nervous/excited/dumb to have any idea how to respond on my own.

“Tell him to have a great game today,” Stephanie ordered.

“Tell him you’re wearing a low-cut shirt,” Tara suggested.

“Ask him where he stays when the team comes to town,” Stephanie chimed in.

“Tell him you’re not wearing any underwear!” Tara demanded.

“Okay, too far,” Steph said.

“I agree. Plus, I am wearing underwear; I don’t want our relationship to start out with a lie.”

A compromise was made and I ended up texting him a photo of the three of us, now in our seats at the Big A, beers in hand, carefully featuring my deep V-neck T-shirt and zero reference to whether or not I was wearing underwear.

“You need one of my shirts,” Baseball Player responded.

Was that a statement or a flirt? I couldn’t tell. “What is he talking about? Why do I need one of his shirts? Does he mean mine is too low-cut and I look like a slut and he wants me to cover myself up like a lady?”

“He’s a
Major League Baseball player
,” Stephanie retorted. “He means you should be wearing one of his shirts, like from
his
team . . . duh!”

“Exactly . . . and he wants it on the floor of his bedroom,” Tara explained.

“We’ll handle this,” Stephanie said as she grabbed my phone.

I was terrified, but I allowed the girls to take complete charge of the situation. I clearly didn’t know what I was doing.

“Send me one of your shirts, then when you’re in town you can help me take it off . . . ,” Stephanie typed
from my phone
.

I was horrified. “This is too much too soon!” I told her. “He’s going to think I’m coming on too strong. He’s going to think I’m a
slut
!”

“He’s a
Major League Baseball player
,” Stephanie explained. “He loves sluts.”

“You don’t know a thing about him,” I argued. “Maybe he wants a nice girl who doesn’t send slutty things about getting naked with him the first time she meets him!”

“Then he doesn’t want you, anyway, so what do you have to lose?” Tara asked.

Solid point.

We all held hands and waited for his response. Silence. No response. He had been texting me back immediately thus far and now, nothing.

“I knew it. He just wants to be friends, or maybe he thought I was a decent girl, and now he thinks I’m slutty. I can’t believe I let you guys write that! This is so humiliating.”

“He’s a
Major League Baseball player
,” Stephanie reiterated. “He doesn’t want to be your friend; he already has friends . . . other
Major League Baseball players
.”

“Maybe he’s a nice guy,” I said, trying to defend him again. “And now you’ve gone and ruined it.”

I tried to shake off my disappointment and enjoy the game in front of me . . . the beer helped.

A couple of hours later, my phone vibrated. A text message.

The girls stared at me. “Is it
him
? What did he say?” they asked.

“I can’t look,” I whined.

“I can,” Tara yelled as she grabbed my phone. She and Steph looked at the message and smiled.

“Well, what did he say?” I asked, sweating.

“Oh, this is good!” Steph exclaimed.

“Soooo good!” Tara added.

“Well, what the fuck did he say?” They were killing me.

“ ‘Ooooh, that sounds fun. Too bad I’m not in town right now’ . . . along with that smiley-face emoticon with the tongue hanging out,” Steph read. “He really likes those emoticons.”

“He’s obviously sensitive! But what took him so long to write that? Do you think he had to ask his friends how he should respond?” I wondered.

“Sure, that must be it, he didn’t know how to respond to a girl flirting with him, it’s never happened to him before . . . that or it’s
fucking opening day
and he has a game in an hour and he was warming up or taking batting practice,” Tara explained rationally, but in a way that let me know I was really stupid.

God, she’s smart (except about Twitter).

The rest of the day we enjoyed the game and intermittently discussed my future as the girlfriend of Baseball Player.

Later that night, I was home—now sans Tara and Stephanie—when my text alert went off.

“How was the game?” Baseball Player asked.

Oh, shit. How was the game? I don’t know! I don’t have my friends here to tell me how it was!

I texted them so they could help me tell Baseball Player how the game was, but they were both asleep like normal people. I was on my own, and I was drunk.

Come on, Sarah, you can do this. You’re an adult; you can
send a text message without having your friends tell you what to write.

I took a deep breath. “It was great.” No, that’s stupid. It
was
great, but that’s not the kind of response Tara and Steph would instruct me to give. I channeled their advice and started over.

“It was really fun, but would’ve been more fun if you’d been there to escort me home.” I stared at the text for two whole minutes then took a deep breath and hit “send.”

(Not bad, right?!
And
I’d thought of it all on my own!)

“That could’ve ended up being pretty fun,” Baseball Player quickly wrote back.

“Well, hopefully soon you’ll find out just how much fun I can be,” I wrote back, without even thinking about it. Man, I was getting good. Tara and Steph
who
?

“It’s a plan,” he responded.

I immediately Googled his team’s calendar. He was going to be in town in less than two months. I decided I’d go on a diet right away, then thought about it some more and figured I’d just wait until three days before he was in town and drink only juice for those three days; a much more realistic goal for me.

For the next few weeks, Baseball Player and I exchanged text messages. Flirts, photos (nothing too dirty; I never want my boobies on the Internet because my parents, although not completely savvy, do know how to use it), but mostly, we talked about getting together next time he was in town. That day was approaching and I couldn’t wait; the buildup was killing me.

So, imagine my disappointment when I realized that when he was
in
town, I was going to be
out
of town doing stand-up for my book tour.
Fuck. My. Life
.

I’d been working so hard on this tour, been out of town so much, that the only personal life I had at this point was my text relationship with Baseball Player (probably not great, considering there was a pretty good chance
I
was not
his
only “personal life”). And now this book tour was going to keep me from getting out of the texting zone and into the penetration zone.

“This fucking book tour is ruining everything,” I texted him.

“No, it’s so great and so good for you!” he responded. “We play there two more times this year; we’ll see each other then.”

Oh, God. He’s so supportive of my career, like a good boyfriend should be.

As we both continued our various travels, we kept in touch. One afternoon when he was in Seattle, he sent me a picture of the gloomy gray sky that said, “I don’t know how people live here . . . it’s so depressing.”

Ahhhh, he’s feeling down.

What makes people feel better when they’re down?
Flowers!
And he’s missing the sun . . .
sunflowers
! I immediately went online to have some sunflowers sent to his hotel but then stopped. I knew I wasn’t allowed to make this decision on my own. Also, I didn’t know what hotel he was staying in—there are a few in Seattle.