The Case for Mrs. Mathers

Hello again, friends! Well, I checked out yet another Match.com event last Wednesday evening, their “F#$%#@! Awesome Game Night.” It was a three hour event (and only $20!) where we would play just one game: Cards Against Humanity. If you haven’t played this game, the tagline on the box should give you some idea of what it’s like: “A party game for horrible people.” Obviously, I’ve played it before. It’s irreverent, offensive, and hilarious. If you’re a parent, its premise is similar to the game Apples to Apples (I am not a parent of human children, and have therefore never played that game. If it existed when I was a kid, I was too busy playing Candyland, Battleship, and Monopoly).

I’ll explain it to those of you who don’t know Apples to Apples, using direct quotes from the Cards Against Humanity instructions: “To start the game, each player draws ten White Cards. The person who most recently pooped begins as the Card Czar and plays a Black Card. The Card Czar reads the question or fill-in-the-blank phrase on the Black Card out loud. Everyone else answers the question or fills in the blank by passing one White Card, face down, to the Card Czar. The Card Czar shuffles all of the answers and shares each card combination with the group. For full effect, the Card Czar should usually re-read the Black Card before presenting each answer. The Card Czar then picks the funniest play, and whoever submitted it gets one Awesome Point.”

The White Cards say things like “Daddy issues,” “Used panties,” Synergistic management solutions,” “Micropenis,” and “Concealing a boner,” to name a few. The Black Cards say things like “__________. Betcha can’t have just one!” and “In the new Disney Channel Original Movie, Hannah Montana struggles with __________ for the first time,” and, on cards called “Pick 2,” “For my next trick, I will pull ________ out of __________” or “I never truly understood ________ until I encountered ________.” As you can imagine, the answers range from nonsensical to disgusting to incredibly offensive and politically incorrect, so it’s right up my alley. When I saw the ad for this Match event, I knew it was perfect for me. Also, the age range for this event was 25 – 45, which is much more my speed (speed = cougar). I figured that most people who signed up for it would appreciate the game, and that I would not only end up meeting like-minded men, but also possibly make new female friends as well. Guess what? I was wrong.

I arrived about ten minutes late, as traffic was awful and I had a hard time finding parking. The hostess greeted me right as I got off the elevator with “Are you here for the Match event? Please tell me you’re here for the Match event.” After I told her yes, she hugged me, and said that I was lucky because there were plenty of men to choose from, and so far only three women. Including me. As she spoke, I scanned the room and quickly realized that I was far from lucky. Once again, there were name tags, and we were to write, again, one thing we want to do in 2016. This time I wrote “Visit Ireland” with “Apply to Vet School” in smaller letters (think 10 point font) underneath. After she told me we would wait a few more minutes to see if more women arrive, I decided to head to the bar. At the bar I met an older woman who told me she was there to meet a man she met on Match. On the other side of me was a young man with a rather unfortunate overbite who was there for game night. The three of us began talking, and the older woman said to me, “Well, at least you have all these men to choose from! You’re the only woman here!” When I pointed out the other two women with name tags sitting in another corner of the bar, she whispered to me, “Yes, but you’re the best looking one!” I thanked her and said a little prayer that maybe a man would show up that I might be even remotely interested in. I only had a couple sips of my beer before the hostess called us over to get started. Unfortunately, not only were we short women, we were also short people in general. The game should be played in groups no smaller than four, but we only had enough people to form four groups of three (another woman had arrived by this time). The hostess informed us that she was going to grab more people from the bar to play, even if they hadn’t paid for the event, just so we’d have a bigger group. She also told us that she would let us know when a round was over and we were to switch to a new group. She probably should have told the men to stay put and only have the women switch, but I digress……..

Neither man in my first group had ever played the game, which was a very, very bad sign. Thankfully, one of them wasn’t afraid he was going to offend me with his answers, but the other guy? He just kept repeating “I don’t know if I want to use this answer or not…..I don’t want you all to think less of me,” accompanied by a nervous laugh, for nearly every single answer. It was incredibly annoying, and spurred me to finish my beer before we rotated to our second group.

My second group included one other woman, as the hostess had wrangled a few more. She was in her twenties and thought pretty much anything any of the men said was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard in her life. We’d already gone through two Black Cards when the hostess brought another man over to join us. His smell preceded him, as he had clearly been outside smoking approximately a pack and a half of cigarettes, and of course he sat right next to me. He also seemed out of it enough that I couldn’t figure out if he was drunk, high, somewhere in between, or simply had no sense of humor. Thankfully, we only got through two more Black Cards before we switched groups.

My third group was again just me and two men, one of whom had been in my previous group. He was overly concerned with the subject/verb agreement of the answers to the point that he would choose the best answer based upon its grammatical correctness, as opposed to its political incorrectness, which is obviously how I choose my best answer, and HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED. This is the group that caused me the greatest amount of exasperation, because eventually the two dudes just kept awarding Awesome Points to each other while I sat and watched (and downed my second beer). That’s not really my idea of an interesting threesome. Just saying.

For the last group, the hostess gathered us all together, then split us in half for a final round. Many of the people she had gathered from around the bar had left by now (or realized, like I did, that not only had no one there sparked their interest, but also that this ordeal was something akin to psychological torture), so my final group had six men and two women (including me). I debated a great deal on how to describe the other woman without offending anyone (ironic, huh?). Suffice it to say that she already had a few strikes against her in the looks department, she was almost short enough to be considered a little person (“We represent the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild…..” yes, I know she’s a woman and no women were in the Lollipop Guild, but…….never mind), and her sparkling personality did nothing to compensate for her liabilities. The young lady, probably in her late twenties, sat right across from me and next to a man who, even with the few strands of hair remaining on top of his head (which he tried to compensate for with the giant tufts of hair on either side of his head), was probably the most decent looking guy in the bunch. He was also the only one with a sense of humor, but, again, I digress. Any time I made any sort of comment, she glared at me. Any time Combover made a comment, she would laugh hysterically and run both her hands up and down his bicep. As a matter of fact, any time any man spoke, she would laugh loudly, flip her hair, and bat her eyelashes. It was absolutely mesmerizing. I spent almost the entire time in that final group laughing, and it wasn’t at the game. When it was finally over, the hostess asked me if I’d made any Matches, and I told her no. She then tried to hook me up with the bartender (who appeared to be about 22…..I’m a cougar but I’m not that lethal) by telling him that a woman named “Michelle” was interested in him. I thanked her for her efforts, finished my beer quickly, and left. But wait, there’s more…….

My favorite part of the evening, that I must share with you all, was learning how many men cannot pronounce words composed of two syllables or more. “Tabernacle choir” became “tay-ber-neck-lee chewy-er.” Say that out loud, slowly, and you’ll have an idea of the pain I went through playing this game with such intellectual giants. “An Oedipus complex” became “ode-e……” We helped the guy with that one, because it is possible he never studied mythology in school. Or that he ever went to school. “Leprosy” was “leap-roz-ee.” Again, spoken S-L-O-W-L-Y. KILL. ME. NOW.

What, you ask, does this have to do with Marshall Mathers and the title of this post? Ah, well, you see, friends, since I was a little girl and realized that I liked boys (David in Kindergarten, Vito in 1st Grade….), I have continually (not continuously…..I WAS happily married for over eight years) maintained a crush on a member of the opposite sex. If it isn’t someone in real life, it’s a celebrity (Simon LeBon in 7th grade, Bruce Willis in 8th grade……). For the past seven or eight years, it’s been Marshall Mathers, a.k.a. Eminem. Sure, there have been other celebrities during that time (Hunter Pence, Chris Evans, Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba……), but Marshall has always maintained the top spot. There’s got to be someone who’s the object of my dreams, the star of my fantasies when I’m mast……uh, playing with……yeah, you get it. Anyway, as I once again left a Match event disgruntled and alone, and as I have no current crush in real life, I have returned to old reliable: Marshall. There are many reasons I’m attracted to him. He’s a lyrical genius, he’s funny, he has beautiful eyes, he can pronounce words with greater than two syllables (and rhyme them with others), and he’s left-handed. I’m left-handed too, so I like to say that we belong together for that reason alone, even though my friend says that two left-handers don’t make a right. Ha. Ha. Ha. Anyway, he was born in Missouri, I went to Basic Training in Missouri. He grew up and lives in Michigan; I lived in Michigan for almost six years. He’s 43, I’m 42. We only have three degrees of separation: I’ve met Tony Lucca, who worked with Adam Levine on The Voice, who sang on “My Life” with 50 Cent and, yes, you guessed it: Eminem. Are you tracking now? You see, friends, it’s easier to live in this fantasy world where Marshall Mathers is my soulmate than to continue to subject myself to what’s out there (tay-ber-neck-lee chewy-er). What’s that? No, I haven’t had my head examined recently. Why do you ask? Anyway, because I intend to continue writing this blog, and because I will never give up on love, I will continue to put myself out there, even if it only results in fodder for aforementioned blog. Because Marshall WILL call. Right? It could happen! Look at Elvis and Priscilla. That ended well! Wait…..okay. Point taken.