My Subscription to Cosmo Girl

I just walked my September Issue of Cosmo Girl over to the neighbor’s teenage daughter. I can’t believe that I have a subscription to Cosmo Girl. To know that my name and address are fixed on the cover? The mailman knows. Everyone at the post office knows. The people at Cosmo know. And of course, the neighbors know. Not that I care that they know, but that I spent the money on it. Maybe they think I subscribed for a niece or a daughter. Maybe they think that I’m a Nellie queen. Maybe they think that I subscribed for a niece AND that I’m a big Mary. See, I guess that I do care that they know.

I’ve moved ahead of myself though. Let me backtrack a bit. There was a young guy that came to our door some time back. When I say young, I’m guessing 19 or 20. He knocked on the door around 7:30 on a rainy evening. He was a quick talker, starting off with how he had trouble talking with people. He seemed nervous and told me how he was doing this to get over a fear of social interaction. In hindsight, he certainly didn’t seem to have a problem. It was his deal, which was the thing he’d say to get someone to listen when it came to door-to-door sales. I didn’t even know that anyone still did door-to-door sales. So, before I know it, he’s in our place, writing down something and trying to sell us a magazine subscription. Will was making dinner, looking at me out of the corner of his eye like, “What the hell are you doing?” I had pulled a tall parcel box that had come in the mail that day, in between us. He was writing on some paper on the box. He was asking if he should take off his shoes, when I realized that I had just let someone into our home, someone I didn't know. I got scared and pissed. Pissed at myself that I could be so stupid…so gullible. I’m a former social worker – so he tugged at my heartstrings. But, I’m a former social worker – from the inner city, I should know better, I should be more aware of how quickly someone can talk their way into your home. I was caught off-guard. I found myself getting angry and told him that we weren’t interested and he needed to get out. He tried to keep talking – a persistent sales call that was standing in front of me instead of on the other end of the phone. Normally I could just hang up, but if I had to, I’d push him out the door. I said that he needed to leave and he did, back into the rain, putting his shoes (that were already off) back on as he was mumbling under his breath. He left and I felt foolish, violated by my own hand (and not in a fun way). It frightened me to think that I could have let some stranger into our home and put my family at risk. I mourned over my vulnerability for a couple of days and then let myself off the hook by learning a lesson.

About a month went by and I was out running errands. I had an hour to kill and found myself at Shoreline Park, which overlooks the Pacific, Santa Barbara and the Coastline - a really striking place, invigorating and grounding. I seldom get to go there, so I was thrilled to have the chance and I settled onto a bench for some deep breaths and contemplation. Not 5 minutes after I took a seat, a young guy approached me. He was wearing a tie, dressed quite professionally and was extremely polite. He asked if I was enjoying my day and I thought that he was going to begin telling me about the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Well, it turned out that he was from Cleveland, where I had worked as a social worker. He grew up near where I had gone to college – Kent State. He was a minority trying to make it. He was such a nice guy, humble and had sense about him. My guard went down. The time kept ticking as we slightly philosophized together and then he told me that he was selling magazine subscriptions. Damn it. Another one, but at least this guy wasn’t a weasel. Did I tell you that the other guy was a weasel? He was a weasel. Actually, a weasel whore from someplace evil. An evil weasel. But I really wanted to help this guy. I had $20 in my pocket and about 2 minutes left before I had to leave. I handed him the 20 bucks and told him that’s all I had. He said, “No…you need to put that towards a subscription, you can’t just give it to me…”
I said, “can’t you send some subscription to a homeless shelter or a hospital for me?” Neither one of us had any addresses of anyplace. And he was so honest. He really wanted to do it the right way. The cheapest subscription? Cosmo Girl. The only address that we had? Our home address. Now we get Cosmo Girl. I’m sure that Will thought I was retarded when I finally told him. That was when we received our first issue. He wondered why in the hell we were getting Cosmo Girl. I said, “Oh…yeah…I forgot to tell you…” He just looked at me like, “Forgot to tell me what? What could possibly lead to us having a subscription to Cosmo Girl?” He was so wonderful about it though. He just laughed. He never tries to make me feel foolish about anything I manage to jack up. I suppose that I make myself feel foolish enough.

So now, our neighbor’s teenage daughter, who has to share her bedroom with her two younger sisters – much younger, now receives the magazine via us. They don’t have much money so we hope that she looks forward to it. I would still like to rip my name off of the cover, but I don’t. I’ve rationalized that I’ve helped that young man and now we are helping a teenage girl to escape for a while from her younger sisters…(such philanthropic martyrs, we are) granted it’s nothing but garbage – hopefully no sex tips, that comes with the adult version. So it certainly doesn’t fall into any literature category, hopefully she’s getting that at school, along with those sex tips. However, while her sisters are screaming, scratching and ripping each other’s hair out, she can swim in the waters of teenage-girl-pop-culture. She can learn what Nicole Richie really thinks about Paris Hilton’s coffee breath. She can read about how Katie Holmes is engaged to a movie contract and if you have to hoe yourself up the ladder of success – do it, literally or figuratively. She can get the low-down on breast augmentations as two really wonderful high school graduation gifts, from loving parents no less. Just so she can’t hear hair being torn from scalp, just so she can’t smell the stench of burnt Sponge Bob Squarepants and just so she doesn’t have to watch as Barbie Dolls fly through mid-air, taking the form of Chinese Throwing Stars. That all can fade into the woodwork.

And why am I writing about this? It comes down to balls. I’m trying to defend my testosterone levels…When will I have balls big enough to not defend any of my opinions or positions or actions? When will they be big enough to truly not care? It’s okay that I have a subscription to Cosmo Girl, isn’t it?