I Hate Everyone, Except You(18)

Lisa sat on the couch, and I sat on the floor. We watched the entire movie from start to finish in engrossed silence. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us took eyes from the screen for one second. We sipped champagne and refilled our mugs without looking at them. We lit, smoked, and extinguished cigarettes without looking at them. We were taking it all in, every sexual act, moan, and groan. But mostly we were memorizing the dialogue.

Like clockwork, when the movie ended, I hit rewind. The tape whirred in the machine and abruptly stopped. I hit PLAY again, and we began our second viewing of the evening, this time repeating all the dialogue we could remember and voicing our critiques. Such was our creative process.

Caddy Shack Up is the story of Cathy, an attractive young woman with a slightly crooked front tooth and shockingly conical nipples, who takes a job as a caddy at the Burning Bush Golf Club. In the first scene, we learn that while she would be open to meeting and marrying a rich club member, she is also just plain happy using her body for sexual pleasure. “You don’t have to have an alterior motive for everything,” says Cathy. To which Lisa cried: “The word is ulterior, you illiterate skank. Not alterior Ulterior.”

Cathy is soon undressed at the hands of a more experienced female caddy who says, “Why don’t you just lay down here and I’ll show you my specialty—the club massage.”

“What is with these people?” I wondered aloud. “You want her to lie there, not lay there. Lie means to recline. Lay means to place. I have never been so disappointed in the American educational system. Canadians must watch this stuff and laugh at us.”

“Well, they are the superior race.”

The second scene was our favorite for its pure absurdity and aggressive sex. It featured Sam, played by some catfishy mustachioed guy in a royal blue polo shirt (identical to the one I had just changed into!), and an actress named Purple Passion, who quickly became our hero. She was black and spoke with an exotic accent (which I recently learned was from Baltimore). They were in the clubhouse bar and Purple Passion was putting the moves on him. Sam started off the scene by mumbling, “Hellacious caddy, hellacious caddy.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Lisa asked.

“He’s setting the scene, letting us all know what a bad caddy she is, which does seem like a mean thing to say while she’s rubbing all up against him.”

“Prick.”

Then we had to stop the tape and rewind it a few times because we couldn’t understand what Sam was saying. It took us a solid ten minutes to determine that he had muttered: “I like to putt with holes this stiff.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lisa said. “He must’ve screwed up his line. It was probably, I like to putt with poles this stiff. Not holes.”

“You don’t putt with a golf pole. You putt with a putter.”

“Who cares? I hate golf, and this guy is obviously drunk.”

Sam and Purple get down to business, despite the fact that Lisa and I agreed Purple Passion could have scored a better-looking dude. She seemed like the type of girl we could hang out with, if there were any black kids at our school. Everyone we knew was Italian, Jewish, or Puerto Rican. A black porn star friend would have been fun.

While she’s having sex with the drunk golfer, apropos of absolutely nothing, Purple Passion declares: “It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me havin’ the body.”

This line outraged Lisa so much that she demanded I stop the tape.

“What’s your problem?” I asked.

“She missed her opportunity for the best line in this whole stupid movie! She should have said, ‘It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me knowin’ the strokes!’?”

“Yes!” I yelled, startling the dog, who up until this point had been asleep, despite all the sex noises blaring from the TV. “It’s not me knowin’ the clubs, it’s me knowin’ the strokes! Of course! I just fucking love you.”

It was true. I did love her, not in any sort of romantic way, but for her wit and her grumpiness and her loyalty and her dependability. She was The Id, and I was The Ego. And tonight we were operating free of The Superego, who was probably fast asleep in her bed, dreaming of making sweet love to a nervous-looking man with glasses on a bed of iceberg lettuce. Or romaine, which would be fancier.

Lisa went home after we finished watching the movie for the second time. Cathy the Caddy thinks about quitting, but then she decides not to. That’s the entire plot. I told Lisa I would return the tape on my way to work the brunch shift the next morning.

“Give me one ring when you get home so I know you’re not dead,” I told her.

Lisa rolled her eyes.

But a few minutes later, the phone rang once, and I curled up on the couch where she had been sitting, shut off the lights, and fell asleep.





TURD IN THE PUNCHBOWL


Had I known when my alarm rang that Paula Deen was going to ruin my Wednesday, I probably would have just said fuck it and gone back to bed.

“Oh, my Goddddd,” I groaned. “I’m so tiiiiired.” It was 6:15, about the same time I wake up every morning, give or take fifteen minutes. Usually, I spring out of bed with considerable energy, the source of which mystifies me, but not today. Mary had kept me up half the night by wedging herself right up against my kidneys.