Alas I Will Never Be Mrs Jeff Pooka Shells
These lovely flowers were delivered to me at work on Valentine’s Day. I was in the middle of teaching an acting class … so they caused a bit of a stir. I am not sure if you’re aware, but acting studios tend to be a bit of a hotbed for gossip…and when the gossip involves the acting coach…especially when the note is simply signed…
Happy valentines Day, Marlene from the guy in the Pooka Shell Necklace who showed you his penis behind the arcade on Tahoe
Who was this mystery man? This man who offered such promises of love. This silver tongued devil. “Enquiring” Minds wanted to know!
Well the mystery started the summer of my 14th year. My Best Friend called me and told me her parents said she could choose a friend to bring on their family vacation to Lake Tahoe and she chose me!!! After much begging and cajoling my parents agreed to what in my mind was my first very grown up adventure. I was after all 14 years old and thus the epitome of cool.
We were staying in a motel right on the main street in Tahoe…which was adjacent to all the Big gambling establishments. During the day we splashed in the pool and at night…well my friend’s parents went out to have grown up fun at the gambling establishments, so we were basically on our own. This was very exciting for two nerdy sheltered 14 year olds!!! On our very first night we discovered …
THE ARCADE
The mythical Arcade where all the townies gathered every night in summer to smoke cigarettes, play pinball, and hit on the vacationing girls…it was everything to us that summer. During the days we slathered ourselves in baby oil and fried in the sun and at night we went to the Arcade and we flirted. Come on we were 14…nothing more was going to happen…until the third night when everything changed for me…when he walked into my life…That’s right the famous “Jeff Pooka Shells.”
He had tight 501’s, feathered hair, and pooka shells. He was everything. I did not have the nerve to talk to him because I had braces, my pre-rhinoplasty nose, and at 14 had not yet hit 5 feet tall…I was sure I was not quite Jeff Pooka Shell’s cup of tea…so I admired him from afar and then went to drown my sorrows at the Basketball hoop machine in the back of the Arcade. You see I grew up in a basketball house. My family watched basketball, breathed basketball and we even had a hoop in our backyard where we spent hours every night after dinner playing H-O-R-S-E!
Well my hours of backyard hoop playing paid off because I somehow got in the zone! I was making basket after basket on that electronic basketball game in the Arcade and a crowd had gathered around me…and right at the center of that crowd was my love…Jeff Pooka Shells.
My basketball skills had caught the eye of Jeff Pooka Shells and next thing you know he and his friend, joined myself and my bestie for a double date, across the street in the parking lot of the Frosty Freeze. Where with his arm draped casually around my shoulder, I had an ice cream cone while I watched him smoke cigarettes and nod and say “‘sup” to everybody who walked by, & ignore me. He was dreamy. The next day he and his friend came to swim at our motel and they let us buy them lunch from the vending machines. It was quite the summer romance! It was a short romance because we left that day. But snuggled into the back seat of my friend’s station wagon, as we pulled out of the hotel, I knew one thing for sure…This was my one great love…and surely I would one day be Mrs. Jeff Pooka Shells. It was my destiny. I would either marry him or at least make out with him.
As soon as we got home I started high school, and through all the new adventures of 10th grade my heart remained true to Jeff Pooka Shells. I lived for the next summer when once again I would join my friend and her family in Lake Tahoe. When I would be reunited with him. To either marry him or at least make out with him.
The day arrived! We were in Lake Tahoe. All the way there my friend and I plotted about our night at the arcade with our long lost loves (she had her own lost love who was coincidentally Jeff Pooka Shell’s best friend Lee Turquoise choker). This year her parents had rented a cabin and so we were not right on the strip…thus in order for us to go to the arcade we had to leave early so her parents could drop us off for their night at the casino.
I got all dressed up in my tube top and daisy dukes (I had been on the TWA stewardess diet for months so I could dress like a teenage Tahoe townie and carry it off). I sprayed on some Love’s Fresh Lemon perfume and lathered my lips in Strawberry Bonne Bell lipgloss and we were off. Her parents dropped us off at a hot dog stand across the street to wait until Arcade time. We bought a hot dog and were about to sit down on the curb to munch on them…when lo and behold I spotted…wait…could it be…Jeff Pooka Shells standing in front of the arcade!
I was so excited that I forgot to spit out my Hubba Bubba gum. With my gum in my mouth I took a bite of my Hot Dog and stepped into the street to meet up with my long lost love who clearly knew this was the night we would reunite. I also was so excited that I also forgot to look both ways before crossing and the next thing I remember is waking up in an ambulance with blood everywhere. I was later to learn I had been hit by a car that was speeding down the Tahoe Strip. I was hit so hard that I flew through the air and landed on my head…
At the hospital the police came in as my head was being sewn back together, as it turns out the driver stopped for a minute to ask someone if I was dead… and then he sped off. They never did find him and I often wonder if I don’t cross his mind every once in awhile. Anyhoo the police had two questions they needed to ask me.
1)Had I seen the car that hit me? and 2) How was it possible to chew bubble gum and eat a hot dog at the same time?
Well obviously I lived. But I had a nasty headache, a concussion that made me slightly nauseaus for the next year, bruises down the entire left side of my body, and a scar on my head shaped kind of like the state of Texas. But I was 15 and resillient and though my parents wanted to come get me and take me home…after much consulting with the doctors who assured them I was fine, and even more begging on my part they let me stay. So I lived another day to be Mrs. Jeff Pooka Shells or at least make out with him.
After a few days rest I was ready to hit the arcade. The outfit was different as I had some bruise coverage to worry about and a huge head bandage that I covered with a jaunty beret…but overall I was feeling like I looked pretty happening to become Mrs. Jeff Pooka Shells or at least make out with him (I was choosing to ignore the rolling bouts of nausea and the bruises that made me wince in pain whenever they brushed against…well anything).
My Bestie’s parent dropped us off at the Arcade…and I come to discover I am a local celebrity. It turns out my hit and run was the talk of the arcade!!! I was surrounded by people wanting to hear all the details. I enjoyed my celebrity for a few minutes but all the while I was wondering if…wait there he was…
Yep there he was in all his pooka glory…and as the crowds seperated to let him through, and celestial music played, he sidled up to me and said..
Sup?
He was so dreamy.
He followed that romantic greeting with…
“You’re the chick who got hit by they car. I thought you were like dead. Cool. Hey I want to show you something. Come with me.”
And just like that Jeff Pooka Shells took me by the hand and started guiding me to a scenic area behind the arcade. I chose to ignore the fact that he appeared to not remember me from our great love affair the summer before…perhaps he was just in shock over my near death experience or was dazzled by this tidbit he shared with me as we were walking to our romantic spot behind the arcade…
“So like when you got hit by the car your tittie fell out of your shirt…I kind of saw nip.”
Yay
Anyhoo we arrived at his intended location where I was going to clearly become Mrs. Jeff Pooka Shells or at least make out with him, and I soon saw what it was that he wanted to show me. It was Pooka Junior, Jeff Shmeckel, Pooka Schlong…not getting it? Ok It was his penis. Now I am not ashamed to admit I was a pretty innocent 15 year old…and well this was the first one I saw…so I gasped in shock.
“So are you going to touch it or what?”
I chose what…which was running and crying. As I ran off I heard him sneeringly yell…
“What did you want to do, “Make out?” You are such a baby …Marlene.”
And that is the story behind the card…
Happy valentines Day, Marlene from the guy in the Pooka Shell Necklace who showed you his penis behind the arcade on Tahoe
Who were those flowers from? They were from someone who knew that card would make me laugh…from someone who likes to make me laugh.
Because you see…though I will never be Mrs. Jeff Pooka Shells..he did do me a big favor. Because he was such a massive douche, that I learned at a young age…that the men who treat me with respect and kindness and who make me laugh…whether they be friends, coworkers or lovers..are the ones I choose to have in my world. I know some truly awesome men.
Oh sure I still can be turned by a Pooka Shell…but these days it would more likely look like this.
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