Speaking of a Drawer Full of Toys....

Wonderful Christine's comment on the previous post made me realize that I have a story that I have not shared with hardly anyone....and would not have necessarily wanted to share. Unfortunately, a few years ago I made a vow to never keep anything secret that anyone could possibly hold over my head.

Sometimes that vow really sucks. But I suppose I would rather just tell everyone now before Sophie decides to blog about it when she gets a bit older and realizes just how funny the story really is....

In my first long period of celibacy (yes, this is my second period of celibacy thank-you-very-much) I was coming up on my second year anniversary of no sex. I decided right then that I would either need to lay myself right down and have a big ole cry OR....I could have a party. That was that day that my Celibacy Celebration was born. My period of celibacy lasted three years, enough to have two Celibacy Celebrations AND a Shari Got Her Groove Back Party.

The first party was met with some confusion and embarrassment by my friends. But enough Margaritas into it, they begun to understand. One of my "friends" went up to the DJ in the club we were in and had him announce to all present that it was my second year of celibacy and everyone should congratulate me, etc. Amazingly enough, the intelligence level at this particular establishment was such that for the rest of the evening, really drunk men kept slurring "Happy Birfday Sweetheart"'s. I was not impressed. And the celibacy thing started really making a whole lot of sense right about then.

The second year people were really ready. There were gifts. There was food (Penis-shaped Pasta Salad, mini wieners, plastic cutlery with anatomically correct handles....). One of the gag gifts was a tiny vibrator in a case about the size of a Life Savers package. It (the package) had the multi-colored rings and the words "It's a Lifesaver!" on the outside.

The "Lifesaver" has resided in my underwear drawer ever since.

Ahem. Moving on.....

This summer, during one of the many barbecues, Sophie came running out onto the deck with the Lifesaver package in her hand.

"Mom! What's this? I thought it was candy, but look! What is it?" she said as she took the vibrator out of the package.

I moved very, very fast.

Amazingly enough, everyone who was at the party had been distracted only moments earlier by my neighbor Eric, and had gone over to his house. The only person who witnessed the disaster was Natalie (neighbor and wife to Eric).

Oh my God we laughed hard. And Sophie knew that what she had done was incredibly funny, although she didn't know why. She also recognized immediately that this incident had the miraculous power to make me immediately embarrassed and willing to threaten her with horrific bodily injury if she tried to tell the story to anyone.

I suppose that I didn't threaten the correct person in this situation. The other evening as I was leaving Natalie and Eric's house (the girls were spending the night over there with their friend Grace) I heard words that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Eric said, "Good night. Maybe you can spend your evening with a roll of Lifesavers."

Natalie is totally going to get it.