The New Rules for Blondes (15 page)

We missed the song’s final refrain of “Oh, won’t you please take me home?” because our entire party was shoved out a side door by a posse of beefcake bouncers. The four of us found ourselves in a dark alley next to Harpers Ferry as Ben’s hand continued to bleed.
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Using Boy Scout–style survival skills, Ben removed his shirt, wrapped it around his hand, and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. I already thought that Ben was great for pounding his bloody fist into a dude’s face, but now he was also shirtless in a dark alley. This night had gone from great to awesome. The moonlight illuminated his muscular body as I noticed that Ben had tattoos on his chest and arms. The night had ticked even further up the continuum of radness from great to awesome to amazing. The dim starlight and nearby streetlights bounced off Suzanne’s ashy blonde bob, and I thought about how her head caught the eye and ire of a drunken stranger, thus making this night out into an eventful one.

We four walked down the alley and onto crowded Brighton Avenue. Ben and Paul hailed a cab and headed to Mass General Hospital so that Ben’s hand could be looked at and stitched up. The guys knew that they’d be in for a few hours of sitting around the waiting room, so they told Suzanne and me to just go home and crash. Suzanne needed to get some ice on that cheek anyway.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” Paul told Suzanne as I stared at Ben and thought
, I’d like for you to call me in the morning . . . but I hardly know you. Nonetheless, I feel like we could build a relationship based on our mutual love of Guns N’ Roses, tattoos, and unbridled aggression. In the words of Axl Rose, “When you’re in need of someone, my heart won’t deny you,” so when you’re all stitched up and your fist is ready to bash in faces of other dudes at concerts, please call me.

Paul and Ben sped away in a cab while Suzanne and I retraced our steps and walked back to her apartment, our blonde heads bobbing along Brighton Ave.

“What the shit?” I said.

“Yeah—wow—what a night,” Suzanne agreed.

“Crazy the kind of rage that can be incited by two hot blondes at a concert, huh?” We laughed.

It’s that type of mayhem that can confront blondes, apropos of nothing. We have a tendency to stand out in a crowd, and sometimes that protrusion is enough to make us the target of a punch or errant beer bottle. Color blindness is a sex-linked condition carried on the X-chromosome, so males express the condition at a much higher rate than females. Many color-blind males report that the color of blonde hair stands out dramatically to their eyes. Get some of these color-blind guys drunk and stick them in a mosh pit, and they just might swing their fists and beer bottles at the first head that attracts their eyes. So in a real-world context, the bold quality of blonde hair can be dangerous, but in the computer world, its eye-catching properties mean a maximum number of clicks. As the old saying goes, damned if you do (have amazing light hair), damned if you don’t (have amazing light hair).

CHAPTER 14

RULE:
Be Capable

I
can tolerate a lot of things: smelly subway cars (you get used to them after about ten minutes and you don’t notice the stench anymore), materialistic loudmouths (sometimes I feel like these people have got me surrounded), disorganized junk drawers (it’s a junk drawer—it’s just where you toss random crap). But one thing I cannot abide is helplessness. Nothing makes my blood boil more than seeing a coworker who needs to send some documents via FedEx but can’t be bothered to figure out how the shipping website works. Or a person who refuses to learn how to drive, so she’s stuck hitching rides from friends and family and being at the mercy of others. Or a person who claims to hate a book or movie or sport, but only because he doesn’t understand it. This type of person—the willfully obtuse—drives me semibananas.
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As people of earth, and especially as women of earth, it’s so important to be capable. An incorrect stereotype about blondes is that we are vain, defenseless, and clueless. Well, we may be vain, but we’re certainly not defenseless or clueless.

Every blonde should know a few things and have a few key skills up her sleeve: know the basics of football, America’s most popular sport; know how to read a subway and street map; and know how to pump her own gas. You might already have those skills and, if so, good on ya. For you, we have a few advanced skills: know a few phrases in major languages and know how to throw a drink or a punch when in danger. Let’s learn these important items.

• Know Football Basics
  

It’s imperative that blonde gals understand the basic tenets of football in order to debunk the stereotype that women don’t understand complex sports. Any sport can be fun to watch once you understand the basic concepts. Also, football metaphors are often used in the workplace and politics, so it’s good to know what somebody means when they make a comment like “Time is running out for this project—we’re in the fourth down.”

Football is a long game that resembles a recurring pig pile for three hours. To me, the only bright spot in football is the tight pants worn by the players (and adopted by trainer-to-the-stars Tracy Anderson). These pants are fantastic: They’re made from shiny, stretchy fabric; the capri cut is fun and playful; and most football players have beautiful, round bums that are showcased wonderfully in these uniforms. But football is more than matching outfits and shiny, metallic hats—it’s about moving the ball down the field, ten yards at a time.

In football, two teams of eleven play against each other, and the game is played in four fifteen-minute quarters. The clock is stopped a lot during the game, though, so the entire game takes a lot longer than an hour. Plus, sometimes you have a jazzy halftime show adding to how long you’ll be watching a game. To start things off, the referee (zebra-looking dude) conducts a coin toss and the winning team decides if they’d prefer to kick the ball or receive it in the initial kickoff—that is, the decision of whether to play defense or offense first. With football, you might hear a lot of talk about Xs and Os, and that stands for defense and offense. (When coaches are mapping out plays, they draw the different players using Xs and Os. Xs are defense, and Os are offense.)

The kickoff is what starts the game, and another kickoff commences the second half (after the halftime show). Within the game, each team has four “downs” to advance the ball at least ten yards. Many teams need only three of these downs to move the ball ten yards or more, so often they won’t even use the fourth down. Think of the fourth down as a spare tire in the trunk of your car: It’s there when you need it, but you can probably get where you’re going without it. To advance those ten yards (or more), a team uses coordinated maneuvers called plays—running plays, passing plays, trick plays. On TV, you might see a team and the announcer says that it’s “first and ten” and all the dudes are lining up on the line of scrimmage.
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“First and ten” means that this is the first down (just starting off) and the team needs to advance ten yards. The line of scrimmage is the line on the field where both teams get into position against each other. On TV, it’s usually a yellow line that is digitally inserted into the shot. As we discussed, during their four downs, the team who is on offense (trying to score) must advance ten yards down the field from the line of scrimmage. If it’s a close call, you might see referees come on the field with two tall poles connected by a chain. This isn’t an elaborate torture device: This is a ten-yard-long chain that measures if the team moved the ball far enough. For example, you could have a situation in which a team uses all four downs but is only able to advance the ball nine and a half yards. The refs with the tall poles will come out to check it out. If the team doesn’t advance ten yards in their given four downs, then the ball goes to the other team and the line of scrimmage remains where it was. So then the teams switch up and the team that before was on offense (trying to score) is now on defense (trying to block the goal), and the team that was on defense before is now on offense. This switch-up starts things over again, so the other team is on first and ten now (first down, trying to move ten yards). See, it’s not so confusing!

Points are scored either when a player runs into the end zone (the end of the grid-like field, where the player who just scored usually breaks out some dance moves) or when a ball is kicked into the uprights (the goalposts, which are usually yellow or white and look like a box with three sides but no top side). A touchdown is worth six points, and after a touchdown, the team can kick the ball through the uprights for one point or they can opt to do a two-point conversion for two points (obviously). The two-point conversion is a bit trickier because it’s not a kick or a guarantee—it’s a play on the field that could potentially go wrong if the other team blocks it. It makes sense that the one-point option is 99 percent guaranteed (unless you have a “LACES OUT” situation like in the film
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
) and the two-point option is a bit harder but with a bigger payoff. That’s life for ya. A field goal (which is another time when a team kicks the ball through the uprights—just in a different situation during the game) is worth three points.

As with many sports, the plays in football require special “teams” or specific groups of players. The quarterback is usually the guy on the team who gets the most credit and fame—Tom Brady, Eli and Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Joe Montana. He calls the plays, and then, when the action starts, he has to find a person to pass to or he has to run the ball himself—the quarterback is pretty clutch.

If a play starts and the QB, looking for who is open and where he can throw the ball, gets tackled by a member of the opposite team before he has a chance to throw it, that’s called a “sack.” It’s usually outside linebackers or middle linebackers who pull off a sack, and it’s pretty sweet to watch. I also love that it’s called a “sack.” Let’s end this orientation to football on that double entendre, shall we?

• Know How to Read a Map (Subway or Street)
  

I have a pretty good sense of direction (until you get a few cocktails in me—then I’m useless and gunning for a fight), but nonetheless, navigating a foreign city or unfamiliar neighborhood can be confusing. Above all, try to act casual and not lost. Walk with confidence, even if you’re secretly thinking,
Where the F am I? This neighborhood is terrible and I’m scared!
Never let ’em see you sweat. If you must refer to a map, I recommend using a hard-copy map, not your smart phone or, heaven forbid, an iPad. Sure, a hard-copy map might make it obvious that you’re lost, but at least it’s not an expensive miniature computer that could be snatched from your hand. Walking around an unfamiliar area while staring at a map on your phone or iPad just looks like an advertisement for thieves that says, “Hey, thief! Here’s an expensive gadget for all to see! Take a look and come over and punch me if you want it!” So go with the old-school paper map like Chris Columbus used to use (but please have a better knowledge of geography than he did). And don’t be shy about how you hold it. I find it easier to get my bearings if I am holding the map to match up with exactly what is in front of me. So if I am pointed south and looking to walk south, I hold the map upside down. There are no rules in map handling! Cartography may be filled with standards and rules, but holding maps is not. So hold it however you like.

Most major cities have subway systems, and they’re pretty logical, despite the color-coded, crisscrossing maps. I have rocked public transportation in Boston, New York, Chicago, Paris, London, Venice, Rome, Prague, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and possibly Athens (my three days there are a blur of ruins and disappointing food). I don’t speak the language in many of those places, but a subway’s a subway’s a subway and if you can match up letters, you can find your way. Your best bet is to look at the last stop on the line of the direction you want to go. So, for example, if you want to visit a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Windsor Terrace (where I currently live and where Mindy Kaling lived when she was broke and unfamous—what what!), you’d take the orange-line F train—specifically the one that ends at Coney Island (a mystical place filled with fried food, tattooed vagrants, and a surprisingly awesome beach). So if you were in Manhattan, you’d hop on the Brooklyn-bound F train that says “Coney Island” on it. You’re not going all the way out to Coney Island,
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but the train is telling you that Coney Island is the last stop on that train line. Also worth noting is that sometimes you may need to take a train “inbound” to get to an “outbound” train.
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This is the way it sometimes works with the T in Boston. You might be thinking that you need an outbound train because you’re trying to get out from the city (and go to an outer area like Brighton or Brookline). But if you’re transferring trains (perhaps from Red Line to Green Line), you may need to take the Red Line inbound (to Park Street) to get the Green Line outbound. It’s like the old saying goes, “You gotta get up to get down,” right? Wrong? Huh?

• Know How to Pump Your Own Gas
  

This section doesn’t apply if you live in New Jersey or Oregon, two states where self-sufficiency at the pump is, strangely enough, illegal. But if you live in any of the other forty-eight states of the union, you have no excuse. Everyone should know how to pump his or her own gas—it’s simple and important. How many horror movies have scenes set at a desolate gas station with a creepy attendant and a car full of frightened coeds? Don’t be that helpless girl—pump it your damn self.

Know which side of the car your gas tank is on so you don’t pull into the gas station wrong and have to do a sixty-four-point turn flipping around to the other side. Turn off the car when you pump. This isn’t required and, in theory, you can leave your car idling while you pump, but I think it’s a bad idea. Whenever I have done that, I have forgotten that I’ve left the car idling and unthinkingly turned the key in the ignition once I got back in the car, prompting a horrific screeching sound and disdainful looks from other patrons. To avoid doing this, I make it a rule to turn off my car whenever I gas up. More and more gas stations demand that you pay (whether with cash or credit) before you pump to ensure that you don’t pump and run. So if you pull your car into a spot next to a pump, the first thing you might need to do is swipe your credit card into the machine above the gas choices or hand over your cash to the dude in the bulletproof box.

Gas choices! Let’s talk gas choices. You can use regular or diesel in most cars, but know this: Diesel cars take diesel gas, and everything else takes regular. Unless you drive a German-made sports car, you probably don’t have a diesel engine. Read the signs at the gas station carefully, though. You do
not
want to put diesel gas into a nondiesel engine. That would be like regularly using deep conditioner if you already have limp, fine hair—it is
not
a good idea. It will ruin your day and possibly your week. So, if you’re 99 percent of America, just use regular gas and don’t worry about buying the more expensive gas for your car. Unless you drive a Lamborghini, your car doesn’t need high-grade gasoline.

So you’ve positioned your car next to the pump on the correct side, turned off your car, opened your little gas trapdoor, unscrewed the cap, and swiped your credit card. Time for the real pump n’ grind of pumping that gas into your tank. Isn’t this fun? Like a 1994 song by R. Kelly! OK—there probably will be three pumps in a row on the gas stand. After you have swiped your card, select your gas choice by pressing the giant (sometimes illuminated) button. Once you have selected that, you should grab the nozzle, which probably resembles a penis made of accordion. While you’re doing all of this, you should not be smoking or talking on your cell phone. I’m not a scientist, but both of these activities, when combined with gas pumping, cause explosions. It looks cool in the movies, but in life it’s a total bummer. Don’t ask how this cell phone/cigarette/gas cocktail works—just follow my advice blindly, OK? So take the nozzle, put it into the hole in your car that leads to the gas tank, then turn back to the pump stand. Once the nozzle is resting firmly in the hole, you may need to turn back and flip the lever thing, where the nozzle was resting before, back at the pump. This will enable gas flow, but it won’t start until you pull the trigger. So flip that thing, then get both hands back on the accordion penis, and pull the trigger. You should feel gas flowing, and at this point, you may wish to cry out, “I RULE! You think I’m stupid, but I’m not—YOU ARE!” at whoever is near you. Congratulations—you’re pumping gas like a pro!