Cult of Jef

I’m not sure whether it’s due to sleep depri­va­tion or the early onset of demen­tia, but I’ve caught myself talk­ing to other peo­ple about a plethora of top­ics of which I know noth­ing. To hear me speak, one would think I’m an expert wit­ness for the sub­ject du jour; in real­ity, I have no idea.

I don’t mean to mis­lead oth­ers, but in my enthu­si­asm to be help­ful, I often start shar­ing infor­ma­tion and opin­ions as if they were ver­i­fied and true. For exam­ple, the other day I was in line at the gro­cery store, try­ing to sort out why the celebri­ties with­out makeup fea­tured on the scan­dal sheets were celebri­ties, when I heard the woman stand­ing behind me say to another woman, “I don’t even under­stand how Billy would even become a woman! What are they going to do? Cut his tal­ley­whacker off?”

Before I could stop myself, I turned to her and said, “Actu­ally, it’s called a penec­tomy. The sur­geon, basi­cally, removes the testes and penis, but inverts the skin of the fore­skin and penis to shape a fully sen­si­tive vagina and clitoris.”

Both women blinked at me. I wor­ried I might have been pre­sump­tu­ous by invit­ing myself into their con­ver­sa­tion, when she teared up and said, “God must have sent you to me to tell me that, you angel.”

““Well, I don’t know about that.” Real­iz­ing I might have got­ten myself in deeper than I should have, I pushed my items closer to the cashier, so as not to waste any time.

““I just don’t under­stand how my grand­son, Billy, could feel like he’s a girl born in a boy’s body. He’s six-foot-four and weighs 220 pounds and played high school football.”

I smiled. “It hap­pens in the best of fam­i­lies,” I said, motion­ing to the cashier with my head to scan my pro­tein bars faster.

““Have you been through a penec­tomy, your­self?” the woman asked.

““No, no, no, I’m still very much in tact.” I slid my debit card through the credit card reader so fast it sparked. “You know, if you just google trans­gen­der sup­port groups in Atlanta, I’m sure more knowl­edgable resources will come up.” I grabbed my bags and ran out the door.

Back in my car, I wracked my brain, try­ing to remem­ber where I’d ever heard of a penec­tomy, then recalled I prob­a­bly remem­bered it from the Brian De Palma film Dressed to Kill, which I had seen on cable as a teenager. I promised myself I would never try to be help­ful and give infor­ma­tion to oth­ers like I was an expert witness.

Since that time, I’ve shared infor­ma­tion about ham­ster aller­gies, prostate mas­sage for bet­ter health, prac­ti­cal uses for buf­falo dung, imple­ments of tor­ture and exe­cu­tion in 15th cen­tury France, the secret for­mula for Coca-Cola, and why the char­ac­ter of Dana Scully on The X-Files is so pop­u­lar with les­bians. Clearly, I’m out of con­trol, so don’t lis­ten to me if I offer to give you advice on to make the per­fect bar­be­cue sauce with peanut butter.

Instead of jet­ting off some­where trop­i­cal last week, I stayed home for my vaca­tion and cleaned my bed­room. I don’t know where all the junk came from, but I knew some­thing had to be done. I removed two desk­top com­put­ers, two lap­top com­put­ers, a pack­age of pop­si­cle sticks, two old gym bags, a plethora of moti­va­tional cas­sette tapes, bowl­ing shoes, and a slightly used black ath­letic sup­porter. And those are just the things I can remem­ber off the top of my head.

““What’s wrong with this lap­top?” Jeff asked.

““The ‘F’ key doesn’t work,” I said.

““Is that all?”

““Just try typ­ing ‘The fluffy muff is iffy and naff’ and see how easy it is.”

Jeff picked up my bowl­ing shoes. “I see you’re finally let­ting these go.”

““It’s not easy.”

““Yes, it is.”

““That’s easy for you to say,” I said. “Those shoes and I have been together for 22 years. Sadly, it’s the longest rela­tion­ship I’ve had.”

““How many times have you gone bowl­ing in the past 12 months?”

I shrugged.

““Exactly, if you go bowl­ing, you can rent shoes.”

““It seems a bit like pros­ti­tu­tion, in light of my long-term rela­tion­ship with my pair.”

Jeff held up my black Bike jock. “I’m sur­prised you’re giv­ing this up.”

““All of my work­out shorts have lin­ers. What do I need it for?”

““In some cir­cles, this would be con­sid­ered fetish wear.” He raised and low­ered his eye­brows rapidly for emphasis.

““Please don’t cheapen my pur­suit of phys­i­cal per­fec­tion with your gut­ter humor.”

““Regard­less, you’ll feel bet­ter once it’s gone.”

I opened the door to my closet and eval­u­ated the crap piled to the ceil­ing. “It’s so over­whelm­ing. I just keep ask­ing myself, ‘What if I throw some­thing away and then I need it?’”

““When did you buy this cal­lig­ra­phy kit?” Jeff asked.

““I guess in 1998.”

““Why did you buy it?”

““So I could help Rose address her wed­ding invi­ta­tions, once she found a boyfriend and he pro­posed to her.” Jeff rolled his eyes. “Don’t even go there. It’s not like I had a crys­tal ball and could have known she would become a nun.”

““I’m putting the cal­lig­ra­phy kit in the Good­will pile,” he said.

““The real chal­lenge, though, is clothes.”

““How so?”

““Because of the sen­ti­men­tal value. Some­one I cared about gave me that Hawai­ian shirt with the neon Hello Kit­ties all over it.”

““When was the last time you wore it?”

““Never, but only because the right occa­sion has ever arisen.”

““And what occa­sion would that be?” Jeff asked.

“A fund raiser for radioac­tive felines.” Once I expressed my logic out loud, I real­ized there was no point in jus­ti­fy­ing keep­ing any­thing I didn’t use. After all, I tended to wear the same clothes over and over again. “Okay, put that in the Good­will pile, too.”

““See how easy that is?” Jeff asked.

I nod­ded. It was even eas­ier not to tell him about my polka dot Bana­narama boxer shorts that were held together by a ten­u­ous seam that I sel­dom wore and were stuffed in the back of my under­wear drawer. Maybe next year, I told myself.