On Blowing…

Hi there, my name is Hilly.  You may remember me from such films as “Hilly Hates Hollywood” or “How To Hook A Guy in 365 Days”.  No?  Never heard of me?  Well then, aren’t you the big winners when it comes to deflating my supposedly gargantuan ego!  Pish tosh and all that….

So anydiddle, as many of you know Karl *just* left my house hours ago.  You’d think I would be rid of the dude for awhile but noooo, I still have this duty to be a good Summer of Love guest-poster extraordinaire and shit.  Ah well, that’s okay because I’m actually drawing from a conversation that Karl and I had at brunch the other morning.  Somehow we got on the topic of the things people pick up from the various girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses or best best best friends over the years.  Karl mentioned that he does laundry a certain way because of one ex-girlfriend and he orders his pizza extra saucy because of another.  Um, let’s pause here, shall we?  I *hate* extra sauce on my pizza.  In fact, I ask for light sauce.  Yes, you really did need to know that before I continue, sheesh.

So yeah, Karl had lots of little examples of this phenomenon and I sincerely struggled for close to ten minutes, trying to find a habit or anything similar that I had picked up from someone that I dated.  After realizing that most of them were bad habits that I had quit back in the 90’s (like smoking or calling in sick to work so that I could do speed), I was a bit flabbergasted that I could find nothing recent.  Hell, I know that Shawn (my husband) never used to eat dessert before he met me and now he’s the first whore to flag down the waitress for his sweet sweet decadence.  But me?  I’ve got absolutely nothing…

Except maybe phraseology.

Look, I’ll be honest…I’ve always had a dirty mouth.  In fact, my Dad has often told me that it’s not dainty to swear like a fucking trucker.  I know he’s right about that and the important thing is that I actually *do* know when to put my foul mouth in the “off” position.  Anyway, swearing has always been a habit but *creative* swearing didn’t start until I met Shawn.  One of the first swear words out of his mouth was “cocksnuggler” and upon hearing the sheer brilliance of putting swear words with other words to make the funny happen?  I was on it, developing my own brand of swear words and doing quite well at it.  I know, I know…lofty goals, huh?  Bedsides the swearing, I picked up another little habit that Shawn and his friends all have in common…using movie, TV and other quotes in every day conversation way too fucking much.

When you visit my house on poker night, it’s not uncommon to hear the following phrases slipped in between the cracks:

“Is it good for the hair?” -  [Caligola]
“Pablo, honey?” – [Jerky Boys]
“Let the record show that the witness made the drinky drinky motion.” [The Simpsons]
“And what’s Fonzie like?” – [Pulp Fiction]

Honestly the list goes on and on, but I don’t want to bore you (too late?).  There is one other phrase that I’d like to mention…one that *I* brought to the table.  That phrase is, “but blowing is it’s JOB!”.  How did that little gem come to be?  Well hey, how about I tell you.  It basically started out just like this.  I was telling a story to Shawn and his friends and once the “catch phrase” came into play, it was adopted into the repetoire.  The story that I mentioned just now goes a little something like this:

When we were young kids (around 8-10), my sister, stepsister and I would swim every day.  We had this annoying 1980’s pool sweeper thing that was always getting in our way and blowing those crazy cold bubbles as it went by our little legs.  For some odd reason, my sister and step-sister decided that they needed to name the damned thing.  I have no idea why other than the fact that they were yanno, kids.  So my Dad was laying out on one of those cheapy fabric lounge chairs from the early 80’s, I was laying on an air mattress in the middle of the pool, and the Marconi sisters were over there trying to name their “pool sweep invention”.  Suddenly, my step-sister gets that light bulb look in her eye and says, “I know!  We can call it a blow-job!”.  My Dad swung his head around so fast to ask her what she just said that his lounge chair broke and he toppled to the pavement.  I sat amused on my air mattress because I was older and I totally already knew what “blow job” meant, by the way.

“Where did you come up with that?”, my Dad yelled.
“I just ma-ma-made it up…”, said my step-sister with a quivering lip.
“You did NOT just make that up”, said Dad, “tell me HOW you made THAT up!”.
“Because…sniff, sniff…BLOWING IS ITS JOB!!!“

And that spawned a lifetime of “because blowing is its job” being a phrase that has been used by almost every significant other I’ve ever had. I like to think it’s a cute story but realistically, dudes just like it because it alludes to blow jobs.