Slow Motion by Dani Shapiro, which I liked a lot. I caught Dani Shapiro’s name in one of the myriad magazines I read – Glamour? Marie Claire? Cosmo? I don’t remember which – where she’s a frequent contributor, and read the review of the book, immediately purchased it, and left it sitting on the shelf for something like 2 years. You know, if I had ANY self-control at all, I’d wait to buy these books ’til they come out in paperback. God knows I always have more than enough books to last me for the better part of a year, and yet I keep on buying. What’s up with that? But I digress…) or take a nap, and Fred informed me that he was going to take a bath. "Want to take one with me?" he asked with a come-hither look. I just grinned and went back to my silent contemplation of my two options – book, or nap? Nap or book? He shut the bathroom door behind him, and a few minutes later opened it and gave me the waggly-eyebrow look again. I smiled, he shut the door, and two minutes later the whole scenario played itself out again. After about the fourth time, I decided he wasn’t kidding. The last time we tried to take a bath together, there was 208 pounds more of us, and we hadn’t had much luck. Hell, we were lucky the tub hadn’t cracked down the middle and sent us through the floor into the basement. Since there was an entire Rosie O’Donnell less of us, I decided to give it a go. Fred turned off the water and sat down in the tub. Once he was settled, I stepped into the tub and sat down facing him. He was sitting with his legs along the outside of the tub (it’s a garden/ jacuzzi-type tub, if I haven’t mentioned that), and when I settled in, my legs were kind of tucked under his, with my feet resting dangerously close to his butt. Pleased that we’d managed to fit comfortably in the tub, we splashed and passed the bath bomb back and forth, making conversation and tickling each other. Keep in mind that we’re both still fat, people. Though we’ve lost a lot of weight, we still have a ways to go. And the tub isn’t really a tub built for two, either. After about five minutes, I said I’d get out of the tub so he could go on with his bath. And then it occurred to us that we were going to have one hell of a time figuring how to move around so that I could get out. The bath bomb had made things a tad slippery, you see. Finally, Fred told me that he could move to the side and kind of prop himself up while I got my feet under me. With visions of having to call the paramedics to rescue us dancing in our heads, he did so. "Careful!" he said repeatedly, worried that I was going to do damage to the family jewels. I flailed around, trying to get my slippery feet under me, the slipperiness of the tub not making it any too easy. His cries of "CAREFUL!" changed to "Hurry, I can’t hold this position much longer!", and then, just as my foot grazed his ass, just as I was about get my feet under me and triumphantly rise to a standing position, before I knew what was going on, I felt a violent chain of bubbles hit the top of my foot and at the same time Fred let out a gentle moan. As I drew in a breath to ask what was going on, a rancid stink drifted past my nose. He’d farted on my foot. The bastard. —–]]>
02/05/2001