I Went to This Baby Shower and All I Got Was to Second Base With My Cousin.

This is not a New Year's resolution failure, people, I was just seriously lacking in blog fodder. As per usual, my winter times have been filled with copious amounts of beer, food, and sitting on my ass watching the Wire. (I may have also written an entire semester's worth of Kindergarten AND school-age curriculum, in addition to a grant, but that's besides the point.) What I mean to say is this -- winter is boring, y'all, and bitching about the 3-week inversion, total lack of sunshine, and sub-zero temps does not make for easy reading. So daily blogging fell by the wayside in pursuit of warmer endeavors, like sleeping.

But today I hit pay dirt. Beware, this story involves two loud-mouthed cousins, a little bit of lesbian action, and a baby shower.

My brother and his wife are pregnant with their second child. For most people, this is a joyous occasion. The promise of new life always makes people so damn happy, and to celebrate the impending birth people throw baby showers. These "showers" are really giant estrogen fests, chock full of sticky sweet treats, inane baby games, non-alcoholic punch, and a cake made of diapers. Did I mention the total lack of alcohol? Needless to say, baby showers are not really my bag, mostly because of the lack of alcohol, but also because I don't really like babies.

*Parenthetically: Oh, who am I kidding?! I don't like baby showers because I am jealous -- jealous because there is no "you made it to 30 without an expensive, unplanned pregnancy" shower. I mean damn, I could use a raft of free shit, too. But no. Good behavior is rarely rewarded. So I waltzed into that baby shower colored a lovely shade of bitter. I'm not proud of it. I know it's not a good look for me. But there it is.

After doing a lap to survey the snack/gift/prize tables, I settled into a seat near the left side of the room. I was soon joined by my mother, stepmother, cousin Rosanna, and her 8 year old daughter, Sydney. Slowly, the rest of the ladies (because it's ALWAYS ladies) grabbed seats and readied themselves for some FUN.

We played the usual baby shower games -- guess mommy's circumference (I won), baby animal match (I won AGAIN), name that nursery rhyme (second), and how many? (I won one, lost one). Normally I'm not a terribly competitive person, but timed trivia is totes my bag, so victory was really the only option. Bitterness coupled with sweet victory was not making me any friends, so I did the next best thing -- I pulled out my cell and started taking pictures -- pictures of my sister-in-law and her mountain of gifts, pictures of my half eaten plate of little smokies, pictures of the fam.

See, don't we look nice? Everyone looks happy, there's a bit of cleavage, no one's got food in their teeth. That cleavage thang was a sticking point for my mom. Upon reviewing the picture she happily declared, "Look, I've got some cleavage!" My cousin Rosanna demanded to see the pic again, wondering if she, too, had the cleave. At which point moms turned to her and said, "You should. You paid enough for it."

WAIT. WHAT? WHAT?!

My mouth agape, I was speechless for the first time that afternoon. "Didn't I tell you?!" moms questioned.

WHAT? UH, NOOOO.

"Yeah! I got a boob job, uh, last September!" my cousin proudly declared.

The shower effectively stopped being a shower at that point, at least for me. It was now a Top Secret Exploratory Mission, wherein I was tasked with rounding second base with my cousin in the neighborhood clubhouse men's bathroom. It was, I soon found out, NOT a mission impossible.

I grabbed her arm and slyly whispered, "Can I see them?!"

"OH YEAH!" She loudly and emphatically agreed. Why buy the cow, eh?

So we snuck off to the women's bathroom, only to find it fully occupied. UGH, of course. Being related and having relatively (HA!) little shame, we both shrugged our shoulders, nodded our heads, and ducked into the deserted men's bathroom. After securing the lock and double-checking the stalls, she pulled down her tank top, lifted up her sports bra, and presented her fantastically augmented fun bags. I stared in awe -- not because I've never seen boobs (I've got a fine set myself), not because I've never seen fake boobs (porn, anyone?), and not even because they were hideously weird or deformed (although that would have been fun). I stared in awe because we were in a men's bathroom, sharing body parts like children. There was no shame or weirdness or gross-me-out factors involved AT ALL. In fact, it seemed so natural that my only response to her fake tits was, "Can I touch them?" And there, in the men's bathroom at my sister-in-law's baby shower, I felt up my cousin. I was pleasantly surprised to find them soft yet firm, with just the right amount of bounce. And my cousin being a fairly small woman, I found the upgrade suited her quite nicely. She showed me the scars, one on the underside of each breast, and claimed nipple sensation was even better than before. Gone were the bulky, padded bras of her teens and twenties, replaced with dainty, lacy sports bras or nothing at all. I nodded and mhmm'd while she discussed the finer points of her fake-boob-attaining-decision-making-process at the snacks table. Rosanna was born with a cleft lip and palate and has been visiting plastic surgeons all her life. OF COURSE she'd been looking at breast augmentation pics for ages. It was a natural choice, she explained.

After we'd both loaded up on snacks and shit, we returned to our table. Both my mom and step mom were silent on the subject of boob jobs and neither one dared ask if I'd actually completed Mission: Impossible. But for me, it was a TOTAL WIN.