I locked my stupid keys in my stupid car today.  After a shitty day at work, I stopped by the grocery store and didn’t realize that not only had I locked my keys in the car, but my car was running, and I was almost out of gas.  Know who helped me get them out?  Dudes.  A maintenance man, a security guard, two cart boys, and a man who may have been homeless but definitely looked like Drunk Santa Claus.  Oh, and all the guys from a firetruck.  (The maintenance man said the Fire Department would charge me $500.  Is this for real?  They didn’t say anything, and I got transferred to them by calling the Police Non-Emergency Line, and I didn’t say it was mandatory or anything.  But the chief – of the truck, I guess? – did write down my address.  So…I really really really really hope not.)

Amazingly, this was not the worst part of my day.*  But anyway.

I spent 4.5 hours on Saturday cooking stuff for a bridal shower and every single thing I made looked like a food abortion.  The avocados for the guacamole had gone a little brown because of this weekend’s sudden drop in temperature.  The upside-down cake I made was in a circular pan because I forgot I owned a springform until after it was already made, so of course it followed the laws of cake physics and fell completely apart when I tried to get it out.  The goat cheese and fig palmiers were deflated-looking and sad.  Thankfully I brought liquor and the lighting was dim.  If anyone noticed my ugly food, it was because everything else was arranged very prettily on plates and mine was in Gladware tubs.

It was weird to be in Shannon’s house surrounded by a bunch of women.  Normally it’s an even mix of men to women, or she and I are outnumbered by all the dudes.  I’m generally more comfortable around men than I am with women.  I don’t know how to talk to women.  Most of them are really concerned with stuff like weddings and shoes, and I’m struggling to keep up with the conversation.  Or, as on Saturday night, struggling to make the conversation happen at all.  At one point of the night, Shannon was out of the room and all these women were sitting around the living room staring at one another.  Just staring.  For like 40 seconds, no one said anything.  I had decided that it wasn’t my responsibility to talk because I only knew two other people in the room, but even I can’t stay fixated on a cocktail for 40 seconds of silence.

“Sooooo,” I began, pointing at a woman I’d just heard drunkenly swearing in the kitchen, “Are you the one who’s getting a new job?”

She was.  But I didn’t care about her job.  I just wanted there to be sound, and I was at a loss for anything else women would want to talk about.  It got them talking, at least, and I was free to stare at my drink for a few more minutes until I could reasonably fake having to go to the bathroom.

They weren’t bad people, they were just typically female people.  I felt much more comfortable later that night when it was just a few of us and we could speak freely about food and bars and hilarious Internet videos.  You know.  Important stuff.  And then on Sunday, I went to Strange Folk with Vern and Christy, two shining examples of women I know who are great.  Also there were alpacas.

Later on Sunday, I went to the mall with Graham so he could buy a groomsman’s suit.  I figured that as long as I was at the mall, I’d get the strapless bra-buying over with and went to Victoria’s Secret.  After not being able to find any strapless bras, I asked for help.  Of course the woman had to know my size.  Now, I don’t normally shop in the mall because I feel either gigantic or tiny when I’m there.  I’m either waiting in line between 90-pound tweens at Starbucks or figuring out how to get around enormous people who think shuffling from Orange Julius to Auntie Anne’s is a workout.  This is normally frustrating, but the only women who’ve ever been nearby at Victoria’s Secret are the tiny girls, and aside from learning that their size is due to a parasitic intestinal worm, nothing makes you feel better about your size compared to theirs than does having way bigger tits.  Or maybe that’s just me.  So I told the woman I was usually a B, but could probably pass for a C.

“You don’t look like a B,” the Victoria’s Secret woman said, eyeing my chest.

“Well, all my bras at home are B’s, and they fit fine.”

“Do you mind if I size you really quick?  I mean, I’m sorry for looking at your boobs, but…”

“Meh, it’s your job,” I said, and spread my arms.  “Size ‘em up.”

She did.  As she pulled the tape around my nipple line, her eyebrows went up.  “This says you’re a 36D,” she said.

“Are you high or something?”

She talked me into buying a 36C.  It does fit a lot better than my other bras, actually, so I ended up buying two (not cheap at Victoria’s Secret, either).  Then I went back to the suit store and told Graham that he should go thank the short blonde woman at Victoria’s Secret.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because she made your girlfriend into a D-cup.”

He spent the rest of the night calling me (or my boobs, I actually wasn’t sure to which entity he was referring) “D-Cup.”

Pssshhhht.  Women’s troubles.

*I was going to write about some work stuff today.  It sort of involves females and the tendency they have to move in a vicious, wolfpack-like pattern when faced with a perceived common enemy, but I’m just…whatever.  There’s nothing I can do at this point but pretty much not communicate with anyone at all, because my bosses apparently prefer to employ an emotionless robot army in which I am the most productive but also most silent member.  Fucking figures.