Bush Money

My friend calls it his "Bush money." When I got my own Bush money—six hundred dollars from the Department of the Treasury—I stared at the words. Economic. Stimulus. Package. I’m not one to buy China-made plasma TVs, but I did want to help the American economy by buying something I wouldn’t have otherwise bought. Something fun. Something stimulating. So I decided to trade in my economic package for a different kind of stimulating package. The silicon kind.

I nervously made my way to the Smitten Kitten, Minneapolis’s progressive sex shop. I had always lacked the guts to go there because, well, I’m a prude. A prude-and-a-half, really. But, as I entered the store and checked out the clientele and merchandise, I told myself I had to help America out. There were plenty of customers amidst the colorful dildos and vibrators, which, had they been in a paint store, would have had names like "mint moonshine" and "silver dawn." I shared company with a woman who I mistook for a honky-tonk man named Cletus, a coiffed blonde who could barely walk on her wedge-heeled sandals, a man bearing striking resemblance to Paul Wolfowitz, and three young girls in trendy leggings.

I hung back while Jennifer, the seven-month pregnant owner sporting Mary Janes and a pixie haircut, fielded customers’ questions. She made her customers feel comfortable by talking about sex like she was discussing the ins and outs of turning a rotisserie chicken or changing a bike tire. One of the younger girls asked Jennifer in a mousy voice for a book that would shed some light on the personal problems she and her partner were having. Jennifer suggested ditching a book in favor of self-experimentation.

"Yeah, cool…cool," the girl said, shrugging one shoulder like a junior high student trying to impress a friend while hanging out at the lockers. "Yeah, cool," she said once more like she had never said the word in her life.

That made me feel better.

It was my turn to ask Jennifer for help. She would have sensed my discomfort even if I hadn’t let it spill out of me like a broken bag of rice. I started out by bumbling on about how this whole excursion was inspired by Bush, and ended up saying something like, "blah ha ja ha blah." She listened patiently and then told me she’d start with a tour of the store.

"It’s just like I’m giving a tour of the library," she told me. "You know, here’s the microfiche, and there are the atlases."

Yeah, cool…cool. Libraries. I know a thing or two about libraries.

Halfway through our tour we paused at the remote controlled vibrators. One caught my attention because the graphic designer of the "Waterproof Remote Egg Vibrator" had done a bang up job of creating the crappiest cover ever. It donned a busty model looking like someone had accidentally splashed her with a container of day-old popcorn butter. Looking at the cover, I had a hard time understanding how this image really turns people on. For all my mistrust of the Waterproof Remote Egg, though, Jennifer assured me that this was the best one of its kind. I was about to ask her just how she knew, when, reading my mind, she cut me off.

"We took the remote around the corner," she explained. "You know where Falafel King is?" I was familiar. "Well," she continued, "it still worked even when we turned on the remote all the way from the Falafel King."

I pictured a staff member with runny cucumber sauce and falafels in one hand and the remote control in another. Then I tried to imagine a lover trying to get his/her partner off from the local falafel store, and still had a hard time understanding just why this whole remote control thing would be necessary. I must have looked dubious because Jennifer told me, "It’s a good product." She stopped and turned over the Waterproof Remote Egg Vibrator, spying a crack down the fuchsia plastic. "Oops, this one’s broken," she said apologetically.

I assured her I wasn’t going to buy the floor model anyway.

When we got to the end of the tour it was time to shop. Standing among the multi-textured dildos I felt like I had entered the cereal aisle of a grocery store. Do I want Life, Cinnamon Life, Chocolate Cinnamon Life, or the new Fruity Life? Shoot, I thought, how could there be so many options? It is America, but come on. I mentioned this to Jennifer, who laughed and told me that, yeah, there were a lot of options.

She paused for a second and added, "and then there’s size." Gulp. She picked up a dildo with the word "Randy" on the side of the box.

"Randy?" I asked. Randy would be bionic if he were real, like the Incredible Hulk. On steroids.

"Oh, they all have names in this brand," Jennifer told me, passing me Randy. "Todd, Jim, Spike, Joe."

Oh, geez. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Randy. I asked her if they had a George, but no such luck.

Feeling like a teenager in a Judy Bloom novel, I looked at the overwhelming selection as Jennifer left me to size up the situation on my own. Despite my novice attitude, I finally picked a nameless dildo and bought some books on great sex writing. The price tag for everything was $84.14, which meant I could still dump $515.86 into my savings account. This was definitely a shopping trip I wouldn’t have made without the help of the government.

Fun? Yes. Stimulating? Yes.

Thanks, Dubbya.

I have only one regret. Half my purchases were made in Germany.