Brad and I have been researching homes for the mentally disabled that might be a good fit for our daughter Shiloh, as we suspect that she’s retarded. (She refuses to call Cheetos by their proper name but says ‘Cheetoths’ instead, and indeed insists on pronouncing all ‘s’ sounds as if they were written as a ‘th’; she consistently reads words backwards; she refuses to hear what anyone says if they address her from her right side). In the course of our research we were horrified to discover that seven employees in one of our preferred homes for the mentally disabled have been suspended for allegedly staging a "fight club" among residents. Brad was so upset.

You see, Brad hates to hear about fight clubs because it reminds him of the film. Predictably, he burst out crying and sobbed, “I don’t get it—is it just one guy, or is it a ghost and another guy, or is it like a fraternity brother thing and it’s rush week—??!” He thinks The Reader was a commercial for American Literacy Outreach and is convinced that Shiloh is a Nazi because she can’t read, so.

The truth is, Brad is nothing like his character in Fight Club. I found this out the hard way.

I thought with Brad would be a refreshing departure from my old man. I used to date an old man, as many of my readers are aware: Billy Bob.

Do you know how mentally exhausting sex with a senior is? Pretending that his slack flesh doesn’t frighten you—that you’re not fantasizing, relentlessly, about someone else— that you’re not appalled when he tosses you a nickel afterwards and asks you to have the darkie bellhop bring him the early edition…

Frankly it’s more work than pretending you’re an authentic member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Homo sapiens who breathes oxygen and obeys the laws of physics. Hah, hah--not that that’s work for me; a normal, human woman with an erect body carriage that frees the forelimbs (arms) for manipulating objects and eats food and feels emotions. Hah, ha! (Laughter sounds, yes?)