This summer, two convicted murderers broke out of prison in Upstate New York.
You probably know about them. Richard Matt and David Sweat. There was a thing in the NY Times yesterday about the female prison employee who helped them escape.
She did it because they flirted with her and got her to crush on them.
Especially Richard Matt, who’d dismembered his former boss, but was super good-looking. He would surprise her with a big, sloppy kiss and then say, “Hey, can you go buy me a screwdriver bit?” Or “I’m so into you, I want you to give me a quick blowie and then get me a hacksaw.”
{Blush.} Sure thing, you big hunk o’ burning boss-dismemberer.
“I enjoyed the attention,” she told the police in her confession.
And it made me think:
Been there!
OK, maybe not on a felony level. But c’mon, haven’t we all debased ourselves for someone we thought was hot?
Here are some pathetic things I’ve done for male attention.
SNIFF THE PEE PANTS
At camp, when I was 10, my best friend in my cabin pissed her Wrangler jeans when we were all laughing. It happens. No one judged. We all laughed together about it, and no doubt some of us peed a little laughing about her peeing while laughing.
Suzie lay her pee-pants on a rock to dry in the sun, without washing them. A urine-stiff party trophy.
That day, we had a surprise visit by our brother cabin from the boy’s camp down the road. Did you hear me? BOYS. Boys came to hang out with us.
Boys didn’t like me. I mean, they liked me OK, but not in that way. I didn’t know how to flip my hair right. When I tried, it looked like I was attempting to shake off a bee. So I used my own version of feminine wiles, which was, “Hey you guys, Suzie peed her pants! Wanna smell them?”
The boys all took turns inhaling the butt of Suzie’s pee-pants while she ran off and cried.
Throwing Suzie under the bus — or tinkle trolley — got me laughs from the boys, but laughs don’t get you asked to the square dance. And Suzie was mad at me for the rest of the summer. She reneged on her promise to let me wear her denim tiered skirt to the square dance (this dance was a big deal, and her skirt was way cooler than my home-sewn calico one). She also ganged up on me with the other kids in our cabin the next summer, which was fair.
MILK AND COOKIES
At 21, I told some hot dude at a bar, just to make conversation, that my friend standing nearby was nicknamed “Milk and Cookies.” She was nicknamed that, by two guys she’d invited up to her apartment on separate nights for milk and cookies, which in both cases included doggy-style sex on a shag rug. But she was a good friend, plus a true blue wing-woman who stayed out with me even though she had a teaching job to get up for in the morning, and that nickname was not for sharing with outsiders.
SO NOT A DATE
Also at 21, I accompanied a party promoter I had a crush on to a party downtown. I’d thought it was going to be a date. “Wear something hot tonight,” he told me. “Something edgy.” I wore a cropped black jacket and black short-shorts over black tights, an outfit my friend later pointed out looked like Liza Minnelli. (“So jazzy,” she said. Not a compliment.)
When we got there, Party Promoter Guy handed me a stack of fliers for a club. “You take that side of the place, I’ll take this side. Hand these out only to hot, sexy people. No mooks.”
I didn’t see him till two hours later, when he came over to tell me, “Quit talking to the models. And stay away from that guy who was rubbing up on you. He has herpes.”
Are you getting this? Because I liked this guy, I handed out fliers for his club. I’m all for honest work, but handing out fliers is a low, low job even if you knowingly sign on to do it. It’s like standing outside a car wash in a sandwich board or chicken outfit. But way worse when you thought it was a date and then it turns out not to be.
“Here’s 40 bucks,” Party Promoter said when we left. “You did OK.”
Reading about the prison worker who helped homicidal psychos escape made me feel so much better about my choices.
Now you.
What low things have you done for attention from someone you had the hots for?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
My first thought was, wow, that’s not anything I’ve ever done, thankfully!
That smugness lasted about one nanosecond when I remembered…
I once had a crush on a guy who was clearly in love with another woman (who was not interested in him). So I assumed I could help him see how much better he could do by dating me. Ha!
He was so not interested.
Then I remember him mentioning his telephone cord would get tangled (this was back in the 70s, a.k.a. the Jurassic era before cordless phones), and it annoyed him.
So I bought him a new cord for his phone.
The worst part: It did nothing to change his mind.
Omg Laura, thanks a lot. I’m having to fight off about 100 memories of crap I’ve done for guys. Most of them aren’t funny, they’re just sad! I was so hopelessly clueless. I could break your heart into teeny pieces with some of the lame ass shit I’ve done.
I’m just gonna randomly select one:
My 7th grade best friend Nicole got detention a lot (she was my “bad” friend). Consequently, she would come home on “the late bus” and I’d meet up with her after. My crush of many years, Frank, also took that ride of shame home quite frequently. I would get home from school, change into something more revealing than I would have been allowed to wear to school, usually just a bikini top even though I had negative cup size boobs, and go wait for the bus. I’d stroll casually up and down Rues Lane with an air of “oh ya know I’m just hanging out, whatev” and I wouldn’t even look up at the bus when it came. I’d play it super cool. Sometimes I’d bring my big pink bouncy ball to play with or sit on (best not to throw it when the bus was in view, I was super clumsy) and I guess I thought it added some sex appeal. I hoped Frank would see me and ya know… fall in love with me from afar.
Nicole ended up dating Frank and we stopped being friends. (In hindsight, I should have gotten detention. I would have been IN. Except for the boob factor… Nicole had the biggest boobs in school)
I’ve since reconnected with them both. Nicole just had a baby (not with Frank, I never would have forgive her).
Frank just got engaged, and I actually gave him a little pep talk to help him make that move.
Hey, you got a story AND a happy ending! Would ya look at that!
Love this, Akin. Nice piece of writing! And let’s give 7th-grade you some credit: the ability to play it cool, even if you were faking it? Never looking up? Oh how I admire your discipline. (And oh how I long for the days when I had negative cups.) Frank was clearly looking for a fellow fuckup. Now, purposely getting detention to impress him, that’s the pathetic kind of thing I would’ve done.
I’m sure there is something low I’ve done to impress a guy, but I think in most instances I was just dodging tinkle-trollies.
I just flashed back to some scenario where I was outside hanging around the neighborhood with one of my middle-school “BFFs” (total mean girl) when a couple of boys in our grade came walking by. One of them asked a question about some dog collar that happened to be lying around (which I’m pretty sure was actually a cat collar and a leash that our other friend used to walk her cat–this is odd, right?). And I think one of the boys, quite innocently, said something like, “(Insert what my memory has forgotten here). Is that what the dog collar is for?” And my friend put her hand around the back of my neck and said, “No, this is what the dog collar is for.” It’s a wonder I didn’t grow up to be some self-deprecating ho bag.
It’s a wonder you don’t wear a cat collar! I wonder if that friend thinks about when she did that to you and feels the shame.
I am wearing my most “cringe worthy, can’t believe that was actually me” face as I type this!
Here’s my truth:
When I was 16 I used to sneak into discos (yes, they were actually known as discos back in ’79). One night I got into a scrag fight with another girl just to impress this 23 year old guy who was missing one of his front teeth. OMG you should see a picture of my scrunched up, horrified face now. EEEEWWWWW.
Thanks for dredging that one up Laura.
S 🙂
Wait, did you know before the hair-pulling party that this guy was missing a front tooth? Or just discover it after? That’s key. On another note, I went to Spain in ’85 and they were still calling them discos there. Those discos played “One Night in Bangkok” over and over.
OMG, that’s why you like shag rugs?
You’d think Dad would like them more.