One Weird Night

One weird night a couple of weeks ago Pep got up in the middle of the night. He couldn't sleep so he started watching tv. Then I woke up. I was wide awake too for some reason, so I sat down to watch tv with him. It had to be 3am.

Pep flipped the channels around until he stopped on a show that made me blink, rub my fists in my eyes, and then blink twice more. A librarian-type gal was standing behind a counter covered with very exotic-looking um . . . "self-gratification devices." She held one up and ran down it's powers to please, in very general rapid-fire language. Nothing she said was too graphic - although she did use proper words for naughty bits. Then she plopped the first item on the counter and quickly took up another, which she also described with unstimulating words like "water-proof" and "needs 4 double-A batteries."

Pep and I looked at each other with our mouths hanging open. I mean sure, it is 2007 and all, but we're from North Carolina! And we live deep in the country of rural Ruraltown, Virginia. Neither of us had seen the LIKE on television before.

Truly, the two women showcasing the products looked like soccer moms. The were dressed in conservative casual tops and slacks. They wore hardly any makeup. None of the descriptions of their showcased items were salacious. The most inflammatory thing they said was "And this c**kring is very snug for men who prefer a tighter grip." Oh my!

The set looked worse than the one Kramar pulled out of the Dick Cavett's trash bin. It was a white curtain with colored lights shining on it, behind a lumpy brown sofa. The coffee table in front of the two sales librarians wasn't visible, but the three mismatched candle chimneys on it were. It looked like they'd decorated with stuff they found in the woods behind Big Lots.

One of the librarians kept saying "this model provides perennial stimulation." "Wow - the stimulation you experience with that one comes back every year" I thought with burgeoning awe. Then I realized she meant "perineal."

At one point she pulled out something that looked like a hydraulic pogo-stick. It was at least 6" in diameter and three feet long. Pep said "that one's a bong!" But he was wrong. So very wrong. It wasn't a bong. It was a "one-handed str*ker." She turned it on. It made a very loud train-like CHUNK-A CHUNK-A CHUNK-A noise as a piston inside the clear cylinder flexed like a cartoon gas-hose.

"OMG! What's the advantage of str*king with one hand?" I asked in a panic for any man foolhardy enough to bring this thing near his privates. "What is he doing with the other hand - eating potato chips?"

"That thing looks like something Tim the Tool Man would rig up in his garage" Pep said. "You crank that thing up and lights will dim all over the neighborhood."

"Yeah - they'll all see the lights brown out and hear that thing leaving the station and say 'Tim's shining his spanner again!' "

Before we got bored and flipped the channel to watch the 2nd worst Sean Connery movie in the world (more about that later) we surmised that this low-key pitch was for ladies who might need sleep aides you can't find in CVS. Two phone numbers were provided - one for men and another for women. We wanted to call each to see if the sales staff on the men's line talked all breathy and giggly. We feel sure they did.