Hello Kitty

Our Honeymoon Part One: Ain’t no joke, our bed broke (Twice!!!) and I had to call a bloke who was sippin’ on a coke; All because I gave her a poke!

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When we booked our Honeymoon at a resort called The Body Holiday in St. Lucia, my spidey senses should have been tingling that something was off. I wanted to be a good sport for my wife because she was really excited about going there, but I just knew in my core that it might not be the right fit for me.

It was early April when we went and it really was remarkable. Everyone, except for me, thought the weather was fantastic, but I didn’t even make it out of the cab from the airport without completely sweating right through my linen shirt and leaving a mark on the back seat. I was literally stuck to that seat like white on rice, but I kept quiet (believe it or not) and made the best of it. Travelling with me is never an enjoyable experience for anyone, as I will readily admit, so I was really going out of my way to make this a pleasant experience for my wife. It was our Honeymoon and I wanted her to always remember these moments and have the most amazing experience.

By the time we arrived at the resort, it was dark and we were starving. They led us to our absolutely amazing suite and we dropped off our bags and went right to eat. We were seated quickly and I was so hungry and sweaty that I didn’t realize it at first, but we were outside. The restaurant was little more than a hut with no walls. It was a really nice hut and pleasant enough, but there were birds sitting on the beams of the roof. If I have neglected to mention this before, or if I am repeating myself, please accept my apology: I do not eat outside. I’m not a squirrel and I have absolutely no desire to brave the elements or fight with wildlife while trying to devour my chicken and rice. Those birds in the rafters were giving me the stare down like someone’s feisty grandmother and it’s like they knew they could take me if it turned into a fight which was very disconcerting. And do I even need to bring up my traumatizing experiences with birds anyway? There were fewer birds in the rafters at night than during breakfast the next day which was small consolation at the time.   

I will admit that it really was an amazing beach-front resort but the trouble is that I actually hate hate hate the beach. I am so pale and ill-colored that, at times, my wan complexion has been mistaken for that of an albino and I burn like a hot dog when I go outside in the sun. I actually have no tanning potential in my body; I go from zero to red-as-a-smacked-ass with no in-between. Also, beaches skeeve me out: I mean what’s relaxing about sitting in dirt? You’re sitting in fucking dirt – That’s disgusting!

As my wife went swimming in the ocean after breakfast, I was wandering around that beach all covered up under a bathrobe and Hello Kitty parasol like Michael Jackson searching for some shade. I made a bee-line to the first available beach chair that I saw with a shaded umbrella above it. There were two lounge chairs under it and I dropped into the empty chair next to the one cradling an elderly bronze woman. She looked at me and said in a very nice old lady British accent “Honey, my husband is sitting…” to which I cut her off and offered my right pointer finger along with my almost polite answer of “Not anymore!” She got mad and left in a huff, but I didn’t ask for both chairs; Screw her if she didn’t want my company.

My wife came over to me and was surprised how I got two shaded seats so quickly on a crowded beach, but I just smiled and shrugged because I just knew that she would have made me give them back to the old lady. She asked me to make sure I stayed there as she was concerned how we would find each other if we got separated on the beach. “Look around Honey – I’m like the moon out at night – you can’t miss me.” As I scanned the beach, it was almost as if I was glowing. Everyone around us had the perfect bronze/leathery skin and there was my Breyer’s vanilla complexion shining like a nightlight in the center of it all. 

The best thing (well really the only good thing if you ask me) about that beach was the drink system. Each person got a flag and when you wanted waitress service you placed your flag standing upright into the ground and they came over to take your order. Alcohol Efficiency at work and the only way to get me to stay on a beach! I actually tried to implement that same system into my living room at home, but the waitress there threatened to disembowel me if I brought that flag out again…          

After a tense situation later that afternoon, we called it a day. It turns out that taking scuba diving lessons for the first time (against my will mind you – I mean really: How many people have had these snorkels in their mouth? And can you just imagine how many filthy feet have used those flippers? All this and me without my bleach) isn’t a good idea when you have a bad stomach normally and then add a bad hangover to it. As that equipment was strapped on and we were heading under, I was getting queasy and starting sweating profusely (I know right, who else sweats in water?) and I just knew that there was no possible way that this could end well. I know those symptoms and sort of like when you hear a doorbell and you know someone’s there – I knew someone was knocking at my door if you get my drift.

I got that equipment off of me like it was on fire and ran off like a flash of lightning only to find the Housekeeper in our room cleaning. I begged her to get out immediately or at least step aside and let me into the bathroom, but something was lost in translation and she wouldn’t get out of the way. What wasn’t lost in translation was me speeding off and clenching the whole way back down to the restaurant bathroom before I caused a St. Lucian mudslide. I made it just in time and Thank God I didn’t have to sneeze or there would have been a whole new trail to follow down from the bungalows. My wife was actually mad that I left her in the water with a French speaking couple that she couldn’t understand, and she said that almost shitting my pants served me right. I caught a quick-hitter during scuba and almost shit my pants because of a rogue housekeeper yet she’s the one who’s mad?

Dinner went without incident and then we went to the Piano Bar before calling it a night. I will be a gentleman and kindly use the Fast Forward Pass and skip ahead to the midde of the night when I had to call the Front Desk because our bed broke. I will admit that at first, there was a little part of me that was arrogantly beaming with macho pride that we had just broken our honeymoon bed, but that part was quickly smacked down by the bigger part of me that was mortified as I tried to explain it to the Front Desk Agent on the phone. I’m not sure if it was me talking too fast, his heavy island accent, or more likely, me being drunk – but I just could not for the life of me explain it to him clearly so I finally just blurted out “Dude, it’s our Honeymoon – How do you think the bed broke?” Yep, cleared that right up!

Think there's any way that we can pretend it was like that when we got here?

The agent called the hotel carpenter at home to have him come and fix the bed immediately. St Lucia must be smaller than a legal sized envelope, because that carpenter was there so fast that I really couldn’t believe it. As soon as I opened the door to let him in, he gave me a knowing look and he then asked me (in his really heavy Island accent) how I could have broke the bed as he was glancing around the room. In my stupor, I had no idea what he was looking for until it hit me like a truck: He thought I was there alone and broke the bed by myself. My wife was nowhere to be found (she had locked herself in the bathroom because she was embarrassed) and there I was making small talk with the carpenter and the shit-eating grin on his face. I could have just been a mature adult, but I got embarrassed and blurted out “My wife is in the bathroom – it’s our Honeymoon you know” which I’m not quite sure he believed anyway. After what felt like an eternity, he finally fixed the bed and my elusive wife appeared from the bathroom ONLY after he left the room so she could go to bed.  

Don’t you know that the very next night, that bed broke again! I‘m not sure if it had anything to do with my training as a college gymnast or if that carpenter jimmy-rigged the bed with scotch tape and paper clips, but it was ten times more embarrassing calling the second night (to the same exact agent) than it was the first time. Forget the ten shades of red that my face was when the carpenter showed up again, and focus on the twenty shades of red that my face got when he said in his island accent while pointing at the bed “Tomorrow, you go easy on this man!!!” Needless to say I was ready to put that freaking mattress on the floor or sleep out on the balcony instead of risking that frame collapsing again…

Senior Year at regionals in college – That’s me in the scarlet unitard!

 Coming up on Thursday:

Our Honeymoon Part Two: Forget Finger Lickin’- My Masseuse was Testicle Flickin!!!

Assaulting Tom Cruise-Part 1: Hit and run

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Way before he was jumping on couches and eons before he was considered crazy – not creative – I met Tom Cruise. Well, met is a subjective term and I bet his security team remembers it a little differently than I do, but I’ll share with you how I remember our meeting.

I was studying abroad in London in the Spring of 1997 and Tom & Nicole Kidman were filming Eyes Wide Shut there so I just knew we were destined to meet – me and Nicole that is. You see, I had been carrying on a very elicit, top-secret romance with Nicole Kidman since the Fall of 1989. It was Dead Calm and I was anything but. I’m not one to kiss and tell, but we were hot and heavy. It was one of those timeless stories where the very sight of me would have her so overcome with passion and uncontrollable urges that she would just lunge at me right there. The only thing I needed was to get her to actually see me so that she could have that reaction and I could let her in on our secret romance.

They were having the premiere of Jerry Maguire in Leicester Square that night and I got all my friends to go. We were spread out across the crowd angling to get the best spots to see people, but I knew just where to go. I grabbed my friend Kate and we headed for the doorway. It was early, so we buddied up to these Swedish women at the front doorway and settled in for a wait until they arrived. More and more people started filling out the area and it got to be a really big crowd. The square was closed for the event and jam-packed with people.  

So you can get a clear picture of the area, the front doors of the theatre were the start of a red carpet that rolled out to the area where the cars let everyone out. On either side of the carpeting was the crowd fencing about three feet high and set up to keep the masses at bay. It looked like a big T with the doorway we were situated at being on the very bottom of the T and the cars drove up and let people out at the top of the T. We were in a good spot because everyone needed to come to us to get in and then back out to their waiting cars.

As time went by, we could spot certain friends through the crowd scattered all across the divide trying to get the best view and access. In the mean time, there was the guitarist from the New Power Generation (Prince’s old band) and there was Cube Gooding Jr (who would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Jerry Maguire shortly after – I’m not saying that I was responsible for him winning in any way, but I have always thought of myself as a lucky person) and then Woody Harrelson (who would go on to lose the Oscar for The People vs. Larry Flynt to Geoffrey Rush for Shine shortly after) came along. I looked over and there is my crazy friend Janet not getting an autograph from Woody, but writing down her phone number for him. This was amazing on so many levels, but mostly because Janet neither had a great smile and personality nor was she attractive at all. She was a very cool girl, but not something you’d want to hit one night in London if you were famous and had your choice of anyone…I’m just saying. 

(I know she gave him her number because later that night when she had gotten back to her apartment, her roommate’s boyfriend had just hung up the phone twice when he answered and the voice on the other end said “Hi is Janet there, this is Woody Harrelson” – He thought it was a joke! She came busting in saying that she just met Woody Harrelson and gave him her number as the phone rang again. She answered that time and he invited her and her friends to an after-party at a private club so they all got to hang out with Woody, Cuba, and the guitarist from New Power Generation all night. I on the other hand went bar to bar through the night sharing my Tom Cruise Story with everyone who would listen and even some who wouldn’t)

So as I was waiting for the sight of Nicole so we could make our love connection known to the world or just make out depending on how she felt, I saw Tom and he wasn’t with Nicole – he was with Jonathan Lipnicki, the little boy from the movie. Not one to be deterred, I threw the two Swedish ladies in front of us out of the way and then got onto the crowd fencing and started screaming for Tom to come over. As we were right by the front door to the building, the security guards started to heckle me. “He isn’t coming over, he’s already gone. Where are you from New York, screaming like that. Do you see anyone else here yelling? He’s not going to come over…” With that I stood straight up on the crowd fencing and screamed at the top of my lungs “HEY TOM…TOMMMMMMM – GET OVER HERE!!! At this point he stopped dead in his tracks (as did the crowd who all of a sudden got a little quieter and turned towards me) and started walking towards me. I quickly turned to the security guards and said “what do you think of that!” and looked over to see Kate hysterical crying at the sight of Tom Cruise literally steps away from her and I turned back to see Tom stepping up to me with a huge smile.

He put out his hand to shake mine and I don’t exactly know what came over me but instead of shaking his hand, I leaned across the crowd fencing I was standing on and grabbed his upper arm and pulled him about two feet closer right up face to face and got all up in his grill. My immediate thought was – what a great suit – nice material – but then I started screaming (literally inches from his face) “WHERE’S NICOLE – WHERE”S NICOLE – I LOOOOOOOVVVVVVE HER!!!” and everyone around us just went silent. He bust out hysterically laughing and tried to adjust his suit that I had just grabbed and then he goes “She’s filming, I love her too!” and started laughing at me. That’s when I really got out of control. I started screaming, to no one in particular, about how he was going to go home and tell her about me. (Of course, someone just grabs you and gets all up on you screaming about your wife and you don’t tell her?) I just  knew that Nicole would know about me in a matter of hours and it was just a matter of time now before she came looking for me and all sorts of crazy ramblings that make sense when you’ve had a bit much to drink as well….A reporter from Access Hollywood tried to come up and interview me but I was too hyped up and Kate was still hysterical crying at having just met him…She tried to ask us questions, but I ripped the microphone out of her hand and screamed in her face – “What’s wrong with you – Didn’t I just tell you he’s going to go home and tell Nicole about me???Nicole knows about me!!” Tom looked back at me still screaming and carrying on like one of those nine-year old Asian girls with the Hello Kitty knapsacks in the Michael Jackson videos and then he laughed and got into his car and pulled away.  

Then it hit me – I’m going to take the cardboard movie placard that he just leaned on and bring it to the Rosie O’Donnell Show – she loves Tom and she’ll get Nicole on to meet me. It’s amazing how the dynamics of a twisted mind work – because this seemed like such a reasonable plan to me. I ripped that placard off the crowd fencing and the thing was as wide and long as a dining room table, but I didn’t care. We took that placard to every bar that night as we went to celebrate meeting Tom and my eventual intro to Nicole.

I brought that to our apartment and hung it above our mantle. Anyone and everyone who was on our Study Abroad program heard about that placard and story on a daily basis. The day we were flying back home, everyone told me that they would never let me get the placard on the plane and I knew it would get ruined if I shipped it. I did the only thing a reasonable person would do in a situation like that: I forged Tom Cruise’s signature on the back of the placard and told the British Airways people that I was auctioning it off for charity in NY and it was Tom’s autograph and very valuable. The stewardesses let me put it in  back of the last row of seats on the plane home so nothing happened to it and I got it back to NY intact – now, how to get it to Rosie…Stay tuned later this week for the continuation of this story and hear about what happened when I told Rosie all about it!