How to Offend People in a Pizzaria (Probably Not all that Work-Safe)

I was enjoying my favorite cheesy jalepeno bread and talking with my gal pal Sherry. One of my biggest complaints about school I think is that I really don’t get to see that much of her. I think I’ve seen her three times this semester. I’m horrible at picking up the phone, too, but since she’s always on hers and doesn’t have call waiting, I guess I’m in the clear.

Sherry simply rocks. I really cannot convey how utterly wonderful she is, and how grateful I am to know her. She saved me last semester–we went to her sister’s house, and we (she) worked tirelessly on my PowerPoint presentation because I had no idea how to do it. She also proofread my papers. She thought the one I did on Harleys was good, but that was what I call a “fluff piece.” Something that takes about 30 minutes of research (although I did a lot more, actually) but doesn’t really take all much in-depth analysis.

I have never seen this place so packed. It seemed that every teenaged group in North America was jammed into this little pizza place. The local junior high band and choir were there, in addition to some missionary group. Neither of us have kids, so we were extolling the virtues of our lack of Catholicism and so on.

I of course, like the vain woman I am, hesitated about .000001 of a second when she asked to read my paper. I warned her it would be boring (I am, after all, not too insensitive to know that not everyone is as nuts as I am), but I really wanted to let her see the prof’s comments. She’s always been so incredibly supportive; I wanted to let her see that I had finally found my literary writing voice, which she kept saying I would even when I never thought I’d get it. She reacted appropriately, and promised margaritas after the semester.

I was disinclined to disagree.

She asked me what I was going to do my next one on, and I told her that I wasn’t quite sure yet. The lone guy in my Shakespeare class is doing his on — get this — the sodomy in Othello. Now, to put this in perspective, sodomy in 16th century England was not limited to what we in a senior level English class so tactfully refer to as “de buttsecks.” It actually referred to anything considered “unnatural” such as marrying outside of one’s class, interracial marriages, prostitution, and the practice of magic, all of which Othello has, in addition to the implied “buttsecks.”

Really, now. Would a heterosexual adult male jump in bed with another heterosexual adult male to “soothe him of a toothache” ?

Looking through A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I’ve noticed a lot of, shall we say, power issues. At the beginning of the play, Theseus has just captured an Amazon woman and is marrying her in four days’ time. I couldn’t help but think that Wonder Woman just would not have been down with that. The funny this is that most literary criticism of AMND says that this woman loves her captor, but after having read the play, I see a lot of wiggle room for sarcasm. There are actually two extremely strong contrasts in the play. Hermia, who defies her father (and her Duke) to run away and marry the man she loves and remains pretty much constant throughout the play. Helena, her best friend, on the other hand, is completely submissive to the man who spurned her (submissive, that is, except for the whole “Go away” thing). Hell, she even begs him to let her be his “spaniel.” And we won’t even go into the domination of Titania, the Queen of the Fairies. She’s forced by her husband to fall in love with (and presumably have sex with) an ass. An ass other than her husband, that is. The one with the big fuzzy ears that digs oats.

I was telling Sherry about this and between us, we came up with this title: “Women in Bondage: Submission and Degradation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

In my defense, I did wait until the church group had left before we got this far in the conversation, but there were plenty of other folks around. I did try to be somewhat stealthy, but screw ‘em. That’s what they get for eavesdropping, right? Of course, considering that conversation followed the one about “de buttsecks,” I wonder how many dirty looks were aimed at the back of my head. I know I caught at least two.

I wonder, though, if I could get away with counting these as two separate sources: