Ms. Lap Sitter

It’s that time of year again.  The Christmas season.  Time to go sit on some pervy Santa’s lap and ask him for random stuff.

Like the rest of the masses, I figured that I should take the time to put in my order with Papa Christmas.

Papa Christmas.  Is it just me, or does that sound dirty?

Ah, who the hell cares?  I’m already sitting on his lap at this point.  No turning back now.

So, Santa, let me get all nestled in here.  Why is it so comfy?  This is more than a little disturbing.

Anyway, listen up, Père Noël.  Here is what I want — nay, NEED — this Christmas:

• MOJO.  I lost it somewhere in London, and I need to get it back.  Help me before I take myself to a nunnery.  (Ms. Rock Chick in London, Ms. London Mojo)

• MATCHING UNDERWEAR SETS.  As racy and frilly as they come.  Why?  A girl’s got to be able to compete on this lacy Parisian scene.  Besides, Santa, I know that you enjoy picking out lingerie, you pervy cad, you.  (Ms. Victoria’s Secret Angel)

• MORE PANTS.  I tend to lose them when I drink.  And not in a good way.  (Ms. One Night Stand)

• GAME.  I’ve never had it.  I’m about as smooth as sandpaper.  On second thought, sandpaper is MUCH smoother than me.  (Ms. Boston Man-shopper, Ms. Mac Lover)

• And last, but not least, please send me JUSTIN LONG for Christmas.  Please wrap him up in a snuggly sweater.  No need to tie him up with ribbon.  I’ve got plenty of ribbon and accoutrements at my place.

Please deliver all gifts to the family compound in California, and I will arrange for transport back to Paris.  My stocking is the one with the obese snowman on.  Do NOT, under any circumstances, give Justin Long to either of my sisters.  As God is my witness, I will hunt you down and beat you with a stocking full of fruitcake-shaped rocks.

That is all.

Joyeux Noël.

Wait, why am I still on your lap?

 

Ms. London Mojo

After the debacle that was Operation Hot Sister, it was clear that I had lost my mojo.  Granted, it is debateable whether I ever had any mojo to begin with.  Either way, my self-esteem was in tatters.  Not paper-shredder-sized tatters.  I am talking about tatters each about the width of a quark. 

Ryan, my partner in Operation Hot Sister, was also in low spirits.  So between the two of us, we attempted to go the route of retail therapy to soothe our smooshed egos.

Buying skin-tight pants from Uniqlo did help a little.

But it wasn’t enough.

We were still despondent.

So Ryan came up with the brilliant idea of lunching at one of her favorite Italian restaurants, where the flirtatious waiters would be sure to boost our sadly deflated egos and give us our mojo back.

However, instead of flirting with us, our waiter essentially accused us of being gluttons and warned us against eating the after-meal chocolate lest we get horrendously fat.  He even played a little charades and sketched out the outline of an enormous pregnant food belly with his hands to indicate just how fat we would get if we ate that damn piece of chocolate.

He then proceeded to flirt with the elderly women at the table at the other end of the room.

Clearly, mojo was nowhere to be found.

Man-shopper vs. Mojo Mountain

Later that day, I found myself in a pub by Gray’s Inn.  I had arrived a bit ahead of schedule, and so I went to the bar to order a drink while I waited.  Much to my dismay, they didn’t do hot whiskies there.  I didn’t really want to drink anything else, so I was left standing there, looking utterly lost as I stared at the list of brews on tap.

At this point, the elderly gentleman standing next to me suggested that I order a whisky with Stone’s green ginger wine instead.  He admitted that it was an old-fashioned drink that only an old codger like him would know about, but that it was a nice winter drink and that I may like it all the same.

I was thrilled to have someone take charge of the situation, so I agreed to try it.  The elderly gentleman insisted on paying for it, saying that he would feel terrible if I ended up disliking the drink after taking his advice.

Being the lady that I am, I graciously accepted and introduced myself to my elderly savior.  He told me that his name was Roger, and while we both waited for our friends to arrive, Roger and I chatted about bonobos, the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Californian politics.  (Clearly, I am great at small talk.)

Yes, Roger was old.

No, Roger wasn’t trying to hit on me.

But this was the first time in my life that a random stranger has bought me a drink in a bar.  Sad, but true.

But you know what was even more pathetic?

This was the closest that I’ve gotten to recovering my mojo after the Camden meltdown.

Oh yeah, baby.  I’ve still got it.

I am the Mojo MASTER.

Ms. Rock Chick in London

Last night, Ryan the Wandering Menace and I completed Operation Hot Sister.  This is our code name for an experiment that we devised in order to test the theory that dressing sluttaciously and exuding off-the-charts stupidity yields greater man-shopping success.  It was also an opportunity for some introspection, as Operation Hot Sister required us to play a character who is our opposite in every way.

This is the profile that we created for me:

Name : Kayti

Style : Rocker glam

Intelligence : Minimal

Personality : No sense of humor, plagued with pretentious angst

Profession : Barista (and bitter about it)

Man-shopping goal : Charm at least one gentleman into giving her his number

So I decked myself out all in black, including the mini-est mini-skirt on the market, I eye-lined the shit out of my eyes so that I looked like a raccoon, and I piled on as much jewelry and hardware as I could (including a belt buckle that was a rhinestoned skull with a bandana).  For a comical visual, you can check out Ryan’s depiction of me here.

As for sounding unintelligent, this is a skill that I was born with, as I am a native Californian.

In a similar vein, Ryan’s character was a bimbo/aspiring actress named Rachel who, on a good day, has the IQ of mud.  She rocked a skin-tight leopard print number, leg-warmers and a pompadour (see photo to the left).  For her full account of Operation Hot Sister, complete with kickass illustrations, check out her blog post here.

Our preparation for Operation Hot Sister consisted of six easy steps:

1. Buy bottle of sparkling wine from cute French man at Nicolas, who seemed somewhat appalled by our lack of knowledge about champagne.
2. Buy pastrami sandwich from Pret for dinner.
3. Buy turkey and stuffing sandwich from Pret as a back-up sandwich, just in case.  One always needs a back-up sandwich when one intends to imbibe alcohol.
4. Once home, put on Katy Perry’s “California Girls” to help us get into character.
5. While primping, consume wine and primary sandwich.
6. Place back-up sandwich in refrigerator.  Congratulate ourselves and feel smug about our foresight.

After picking up some last minute essentials (i.e. ridged salt and vinegar chips), we hopped on a bus to Camden Town and commenced Operation Hot Sister in earnest.  We wandered into the first pub/bar that we saw…

A photo of all the guys NOT checking us out. This is what things looked like from our point of view... only the backs of men's heads.

… and promptly left after realizing that the male patrons of this particular establishment were between the ages of 18 and 20, sported hair that was longer than ours, and looked like they only tore themselves away from playing World of Warcraft in their mothers’ basements once a week.

In the next bar that we entered, the male clientele was age-appropriate and did not cut their hair to look like Legolas from Lord of the Rings.  This seemed like a much more promising venue, so we decided that this would be our base of operations for the evening.

However, despite the fact that we looked smokin’ hot, nobody even glanced in our direction.

NOT EVEN ONCE.

Not even THIS guy would look in our direction.

I mean, COME ON, Ryan was wearing leopard print, for god’s sake.  Somebody should have at least glanced in our direction.  The genetically-challenged girl with the 80s side ponytail got more male attention than this scantily clad blonde-Asian sandwich of hotness.

We never got a chance to unveil our characters and test our theories.

Honestly, at this point, my goal of getting a guy’s number was no longer on the table.  At this point, we would have settled for getting one glance in our direction.

I am not exaggerating.  The most attention that we received was from an elderly gentleman who tried to force us to dance.  But he was drunk enough to be legally blind, so that doesn’t really count.

It occurred to us that something horrific had occurred and that overnight we had become repulsive to the opposite sex.

This revelation was difficult — nay, IMPOSSIBLE — to stomach.

So what did we do?

"No mojo? What the hell, Man-shopper??"

We drank.

And judging from the pictures that I found on my phone the morning after, we must have drunk a copious amount.

After an undetermined number of shots and hours of watching our self-esteem crumble like dust between our fingers, we decided that the only way to salvage the situation was to leave and buy foot-long sandwiches from Subway.  (In our drunken haze, we probably forgot that we had back-up sandwiches waiting for us at home.)

And finally, in the wee hours of the night/morning, at the Camden Town Subway, Ryan and I finally received the male glances that we had been craving all night.

Except that it was from Subway employees.  And instead of desirous glances, we received some wow-you-broads-are-gluttonous-pigs looks.

And then a fellow Subway customer loudly and vehemently criticized our choice of sauce.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So to sum up, here is what I have learned from Operation Hot Sister:

• I am repulsive.
• I should probably never drink tequila again.
• Chili sauce is not popular at Subway.

In short, Operation Hot Sister was an unmitigated disaster.

Except for the sandwiches.

The sandwiches were delightful.

ESPECIALLY the chili sauce.

Ms. London Snow Bunny

Within hours of my arrival at St. Pancras Station, I found myself hitting the streets with Ryan, the Wandering Menace.  And as we approached Oxford Street, we promptly found ourselves at the mercy of two charming gentlemen.

While I slept in this morning, Ryan has detailed this encounter here.  The incident definitely gave me a different understanding of the term “snow bunny.”

This item of clothing didn't quite make the cut for Operation Hot Sister.

In other news, as I write this, we are preparing to hit the town and implement a man-shopping experiment that we devised last week, something that we now call Operation Hot Sister.  Our plans for this evening include the following items:

• leopard print
• mini-skirts
• leg-warmers
• 1 kilo of black eye-liner
• black lace
• alter-egos
• sparkling wine
• back-up sandwiches

More details about Operation Hot Sister to come.  Stay tuned…