That Old Story About Grandpa Cheesecake Titties in Dramedy

Facebook is kind of a cunt. It loves to remind me of people that no longer love me anymore or that are now good & dead. Sometimes it even reminds me of people that fell out of love with me before they died. (Unsure if anyone’s opinion of me has changed after their departure from this big blue & green ball of FUUUUUUCK…but I’m open to that possibility, as well.) Today’s “On this Day” had memories attached to my dead husband and that always makes me depressive…however, it also brought up comical events that were written about in an entry previously published on OD on this date way back in 2010… Re-reading this entry made me laugh & so I post it here below now. God, Al, I hope that elevator to Heaven worked better for you than the one in that goddamned 6th floor apartment.

Alex successfully completed rehab and is now home at his apartment. [Author’s note in 2023: Odd definition of “successful,” considering he relapsed almost immediately, but ok.] I’m glad he’s home, to be honest. It was lonely without his special brand of weird. He just ain’t right. Like the other day, I reminded him about this chickadee that used to nest outside the window of one of our former apartments…We called him Hitchcock because he had a fat, round profile like Alfred Hitchcock. We used to watch him going about his birdy life outside our window and pretend like he was our pet…Until one day, we opened our blinds to see him violently boffing this other bird…I mean, he violated that other bird in some hardcore birdy porn ways that would surprise even Mr. Audubon. Or Jenna Jameson. Either/Or. Anyway, our relationship with Hitchcock just couldn’t survive that kind of nasty oversexualized surprise…we kept our blinds closed more often than open, after that. So Alex and I were reminiscing about that…and all of a sudden, he got really quiet and serious and said, “The Humping Birds, that’d be a great punk rock band name…like So and So and the Humping Birds. It’s too bad I don’t have a punk rock band…” I want to buy real estate on Planet Alex…but just for a summer house.

I can’t believe I’m a paragraph in and I’m already talking about Bird-Sex.

Anyway-like I said, it’s nice to have Alex back to amuse me-even as he causes me to occasionally threaten homicide and/or divorce. We were watching tv the other day when one of those ads came on for Activia. You know the ones I’m talking about…There’s always a young woman who gets bombarded in her own living room by Jamie Lee Curtis, who apparently has let herself into the girl’s dwellings and gotten comfy and shoeless on her couch like an old friend, all with the intention of apparently discussing the status of the young woman’s colon health. The odd thing is there’s usually a female relative or two also present as the woman talks about being irregular…Like it’s a colon intervention. It ends with this glorious fanfare of bloated women’s voices harmonizing, “Activiiiiiiaa.” After seeing this ad campaign for a year or two, it suddenly struck us how completely stupid and insane it is…but what really struck us as funny was to think about it being a possible reality. “What do you think she wrote in her diary that day?” I asked Alex. “Dear Diary: What a day. I came downstairs to Jamie Lee Curtis, sitting cross-legged on my couch with no shoes on like she lived here!” Every morning, when we wake up, we now wonder whether we should worry about Jamie Lee Curtis being camped out on our couch with a container of yogurt in her hands, just waiting to ambush us.

Watch, we’re all worried about Jamie Lee Curtis and, knowing our bad luck, it’ll be the fricking Pine-Sol woman that is our undoing.

Despite the fact that our living room was not hi-jacked by Jamie Lee Curtis, yesterday really sucked. Alex and I drove all over God’s green earth to find this library that was supposed to be having a book-sale. Alex was supposed to be navigating and was doing a sucktastic job of it. We were on all these winding widow-maker back roads and Alex kept trying to convince me we’d missed turns and to turn back around. I persevered and finally found this shoebox sized library. I parked the car, turned to him and said, “I love you….but I need you to understand this: Good things happen when I don’t listen to you.” Only we get up to the door and realized they were closed…we had the wrong time. F word.

So we consoled ourselves all the way home with the promise of getting some homemade soup at our favorite little café. We go up to the door and there’s a sign. “Closed from Feb 22-28. Sorry for the inconvinience.” Alex looks at me with an annoyed look on his face, “Not only are they closed, they misspelled inconvenience.” So we’re standing on the sidewalk staring at each other like, NOW WHAT?…This grinning little old guy comes out of the café, father of one of the owners, to tell us they’re closed and to try the café down the street. First thing I notice, he’s wearing an apron. Second thing I notice? HE’S SHIRTLESS. Dear god, why is this crazy old man shirtless and wearing an apron? Please, tell me he’s not in there prepping food, PLEASE. Furthermore, does he do this when they close their doors for the day and prep for the next? Oh god, I think, the cheesecake, their wonderful cheesecake. How many times has he leaned over their perfect desserts and touched it with his bare wrinkly old man titties? And… how many times have I been served that breast-blessed piece? I feel like I’ve practically been breastfed by him. [Very unnecessary author’s note in 2023: Breast is best.] Oh god, I’m grossed out. I’m horrified. I kick at the curb, angrily, and say, “My gag reflex is stuck in permanently activated position.” Alex looks at me, smirks that cocky Brooklyn smirk, and says, “Who are you kidding? The day they open back up, you’re going to want to go get their cheesecake.”

He’s right, of course. [Author’s note in 2023: And I did totally go eat their cheesecake when they reopened. It tasted like regret. And inconvinience…with just a hint of nipple.]

So we go to the café up the street and then go back to his place. I had to leave shortly thereafter. I get in the elevator and hum as I push the B. B for basement. I look in the mirror, pick at my teeth with a gum wrapper….I’m seriously engaged in my own secret grossness when all of a sudden the elevator lurches. I’m on the 3rd fl. Halfway down. I frantically push 2…we’re already past 2 and the elevator is shaking. I hit 1. The elevator grinds to a halt. Phew. But wait, the elevator doors won’t open. Fuck. FUCK. I reach for my phone and realize that it’s in the pocket of my coat, which I left out in my locked car b/c it was actually nice out. I guess I figured if it was nice enough for Grampa Cheesecake Titties to go topless-it was nice enough for me to ditch my coat. I pull open the box marked with a phone. There’s no phone. It’s actually a hidey-hole for a can of air freshener. While I appreciate the gesture of someone wanting to share the experience of smelling a whole apple orchard in the elevator-unless the air freshener has a mouthpiece under that cap and gets good reception, I’m fucked every which way to Sunday. Shit. I start holding on the alarm button. It rings like an old rotary phone. I slap the door and yell, “HELLOOOO?”

30 minutes later, I’m still yelling Hello and banging and kicking and halfway to huffing apple orchard air freshener. Finally I hear a man yell back, “Hello?” “Hi! HI! Omg, I’m stuck in here. The elevator completely ate me!” The man goes, “Can you open the door?” I yell, “Don’t you think I would’ve tried that?!” He’s like, “Ok, Ok…Um, let me get someone.” Finally the landlord comes with a crowbar and pries open the door. [Author’s note in 2023: This man was actually not the landlord. It was the creepy maintenance man, who was a rubber mask away from being revealed as a Scooby-Doo villain. He always wore a wife-beater and jeans…even in the dead of winter. He would follow me up the halls, whistling or humming tunelessly. I’m sorry but those are the traits of a serial killer.] When the door opens, I realize I’m halfway between the 1st Floor and B. I throw my bag onto the first floor like I’m the Trunchbull competing in shot put. I then take a running start, trying to hoist myself up, but I end up just clawing up the carpeted walls of the elevator before sliding back down. I just about ripped 3 of my fingernails out and nearly split my pants before I finally make it up. Fuck the Olympics…this is physical prowess, right here, bitches! The landlord said, “So you broke the elevator?” “Send me the bill,” I growl. Today when I went over to Alex, I forwent the elevator and just took the 6 flights of stairs, even though my heart nearly busted its way out of my chest like the Kool-Aid man through a brick wall…It’s was a wise decision because when I finally got to Alex’s apartment, I heard the distant sound of a rotary phone and the telltale sound of panicked fists pounding on doors that refused to open somewhere on the 5th fl. Alex opened the door to his apartment, looked at me quizzically and asked, “Why does it smell like a buttload of artificial apples out here?” “I think you better call the landlord. There’s been another victim!”

It’s just annoying. I mean, really. You shouldn’t need the Jaws of Life handy in order for you to successfully enter and exit the elevator within your apt building. [Author’s note in 2023: I refused to take the elevator there for quite some time…refusing to not only be trapped in the elevator, but also to interact with Creepy McCreeperstein, the tunelssly humming handyman…Of course there were occupational hazards with this as well…as one time I fell down a whole flight of stairs. I may have momentarily passed out from the pain–the only thing I remember was Alex standing over me trying to make sure I was ok…All I could get out was, ‘How did I get down here so fast and why is my ass broken?’ That’s what she said.]

Yeah, someone should do something about that. [Author’s note in 2023: Yeah, someone…just not me…because it was all over within 7 months. God, I wish like hell he hadn’t died.] [Him & Grampa Cheesecake Titties.]

Written originally in 2010, revised in 2023