Starbucks = Power Exchange, i.e. Do Not Read This Post If Your Name Is One of the Following: Edgar, Judy, Andy, or If Your Name Ends With In-Law

Somebody--bury me in a Y-shaped coffin. I am a whore. A slut. A dirty, dirty girl the likes of which Prince writes songs. Not that I hang around hotel lobbies with magazines, but last week? When I was hanging out at various Starbucks throwing back chai after chai and cattin' around with the town bicycle WiFi? I contracted something, a computer STD. First my laptop broke out in some nasty warts, a rash, the screen began to itch, went black and then died. Like dead died. Which would be one type of problem if the laptop were mine but it is/was Bryan's with all of his architectural software on it, drawings, work, and now he hates me and I have been branded with a scarlet Valtrex. This post? I am writing it from my mother-in-law's computer which might comes as some relief to her should she ever type h-e into her Google search engine only to have it automatically pull up herpes symptoms and treatment. Don't worry, that was just your daughter in-law doing some research for her blog. I have never had herpes and to my knowledge none of your children are secretly searching for the cause of any errant itching of the nether region.

So I called The Geek Squad and they basically told me that connecting to the internet at Starbucks is like going to a sex party holding a venti. Only this was the Geek Squad so he didn't say anything about sex per se, but you just know that's what he was thinking. He meant that because I hadn't updated my virus protection I was basically having sex with multiple partners in the dark without a condom. With other people looking on. And maybe getting slapped on the ass for good measure. So yeah, Starbucks is the new Power Exchange and unsecured WiFi the new glory hole. But 30 is the new 20 so it's all good.

I actually went to the Power Exchange when I was around 25, and right about now my parents are wishing they had heeded my warning for them not to read this. But here's the thing: I didn't mean to go to a sex club. Nor did I mean to dip my ponytail into a small plastic container of lube, but it happens. And "dip my ponytail into a small plastic container of lube" is not a sex party euphemism for group sex. At least not that I know of.

It was Valentine's Day, 1997. I was out with 3 girlfriends and each of us had our own sob story about why Valentine's Day sucked that particular year. Bryan was living in Italy, so there was no amore por mi, or something like that. We went out and got extremely drunk. My friend had the number of a cabbie named Robert. She would call him to pick us up wherever we were and take us to the next bar, the next club, whatever. I was so drunk I called him RohbAIR all night long; I thought he looked French when really he just looked like an old pervy cab driver. At some point he began to tease us about how we thought we were so daring, so city, when really we were just a gaggle of Marin girls feeling jilted on Valentine's Day. Long story short, he bet us we wouldn't go to his favorite club and seeing as how we truly were just a gaggle of Marin girls feeling jilted on Valentine's Day, we did, we went to the favorite club of a 70 year old cab driver who pronounced the 't' at the end of his name.

Let me tell you--nothing sobers you up like walking into a dark room full of men having sex. Or standing next to a friend you've known since the second grade while a fat naked woman gets flogged right in front of you. Or backing up into a bar full of little salad dressing sides of lube and screaming like a girl when you realize your ponytail has dipped into one of them. Or suddenly realizing halfway down a hallway that there are holes in the wall on either side of you with penises poking out. Penii? (Me thinks the plural of penis is hell-to-the-no-effing-way.) Nothing sobers you up like a man asking if he can masturbate in front of you and not knowing what level of politesse the occassion calls for. No thank you? How does one demur to a man in ass-less chaps? Bonus points to anyone who knows the answer.

The next morning my friends and I went out to get bagels, all of us quiet and hungover. The world was a different place suddenly, a place where the old man hands shaking at the newstand could have been out the night before with a ballgag in his mouth. We sat and ate our bagels, avoiding each other's eyes and trying not to think of the word schmear.

And this, my friends, is how I got from a computer virus to a sex club, from Starbucks to the Power Exchange. Yes, this is how my mind works and at times I curse it, (like right now with the word schmear.) But most of the time it's good times here in Being Susannah Blogovich, rainbows and chocolate chips, flowers and Funyuns. And the best part? Bryan is now buying me my own laptop! For some odd reason, he no longer wants to share his with me.

Happy Monday (indeed)!