By Leighann Lord
My husband and I text each other all the time. Mostly innocuous fare: “I love you. How was the show? I’m on my way home, do you need anything?” I was completely unprepared for, “Um…Baby…Why is there a condom on my kitchen table?” To be fair, my husband was probably equally unprepared to find a prophylactic by his breakfast bowl, and my reply, “I love schwag” didn’t really clear things up.
The night before, I had done a benefit comedy show, Avoid the Clap – Jimmy Dugan sponsored by Condom Cents. The title was taken from an obscure but funny line said by Tom Hanks in the film A League of Their Own. The venue, a cute and cozy room at the back of O’Hanlon’s Bar, featured comfy couches and low tables each sporting neatly packaged individual condoms. Woo hoo! At other shows I’ve been given tee shirts, pens, mugs, and hats, but this was my first comedy condom.
The next day before leaving the house to run errands, I cleared out my handbag of all the stuff I didn’t need, leaving the condom on the table.
Unchecked, my kitchen table has the ability to morph into an open air junk drawer. Mail, newspapers, magazines, house keys, pens, business cards, notes, loose change, receipts, computer equipment. We put something down for just a minute and weeks go by. It’s the Table of Convenience & Indecision. It’s a convenient place to put stuff we want but we’re just not sure what to do with. Sometimes stuff migrates from the kitchen table to the chairs and then back to the table, with a possible stop on the living room couch.
This particular morning, the table was relatively clear and so the condom stood out. If my husband were a jealous man this would have been a dangerous moment. A random condom raises eyebrows. Laying there with no explanation, any man would wonder: “Why is this here? Where is my wife? Who do I have to kill?”
Call me sexist, but I just don’t think women make those kinds of mistakes. You find out a woman has cheated on her husband, when she’s sitting in the nursing home, turns to husband Harry and says, “Jack, is that you?”
In retrospect, what I feel bad about is missing a chance to be romantic. I could have left a cute note with the condom saying, “Hey Baby, save room for dessert.”
This kind of mis-communication probably deserved a phone call instead of a return text, but for my husband — a comic, movie buff and avid baseball fan — Avoid The Clap – Jimmy Dugan seemed to suffice.
© 2010 Leighann Lord
A very funny lady on the stage and on the page, stand-up comedian Leighann Lord pens a weekly humor column with topics ranging from the personal to the political, from the silly to the sophisticated. Reminiscent of a modern day Erma Bombeck (famed nationally syndicated humor columnist), a fan dubbed Leighann, “The Urban Erma” and the name stuck. It’s a fun, fast read that leaves you laughing, or at least wondering why we don’t have a comprehensive mental health care plan. Follow Leighann on Twitter and be a fan on Facebook.
