of the South. A good, old-fashioned Repressed Gay Summit.
The timing was purely coincidental, but it did keep me from giving my April Fool’s joke the follow-up attention it deserved. This was back during that brief period of several weeks in the early 2000s when cell phones could ring with a polyphonic rendition of “Baby Got Back” but not yet book your round-trip tickets to Orlando or turn your sprinklers on. Or, for that matter, email.
The only indication I had of how people were reacting was a voice mail I heard from my friend Adam during a layover.
“OHMYGOD! I’MSOHAPPYFORYOU!! OHMYGOD! SHE’SBEAUTIFUL!! I’MEXPLODINGWITHJOYANDLOVEANDHAPPINESSFORYOU! I’MSOSOOOOOOOTHRILLED!!! ICANNOTIMAGINEBETTERPARENTS! OHMYGOD! IT’SSOFUCKINGGREAT!!!!!!!”
So far, so good. I turned my phone back off for the connecting flight.
Soon, I was sitting with Greg and his two college friends in a restaurant that served gator fricassee. If you’re in a group of four gay men, it’s inevitable that you’ll compare yourselves to the ultimate group of four gay men, the gals of Sex & the City .
One of Greg’s friends repeatedly demanded, “I want to be the Miranda! Let me be Miranda! Come on, please can I be Miranda?” We said yes because, really, only a Miranda would want to be Miranda. (Although if he’d brought it up one more time, we were going to make him Stanford.)
Miranda branded Greg’s other friend the Charlotte. Charlotte had never seen the show, so Miranda had to explain his reasoning. “She’s a prude.”
“Oh. Okay.”
One thing nobody debated was that Greg was Samantha. Since his metamorphosis, he’d been slutting it up all across Manhattan. With this trip, he was expanding his conquests to below the Mason-Dixon Line. He arrived the night before the rest of us, bravely ventured into a gay bar, and hooked up with a guy he met there. It was that easy—and so was Greg. I’d spent my delayed adolescence as the shy wallflower. Greg had actually become Sweet Talk.
I was labeled the Carrie, the protagonist, the moral center. Lest I be too flattered, Miranda reminded me it was only because all the other roles were taken. Bitch.
While we were breaking the ice and eating okra, I sent a couple of phone calls through to voice mail, but when Drew called for the fifth time, I decided I should probably pick up.
He was practically hyperventilating. “Have you checked your email?” he asked.
“I’ll have to do it back at the hotel. Are people falling for the Chinese baby joke?”
“Hard,” he said. It was just as I’d hoped. My prank was weaving its delicious black magic. I let rip the delicious cackle of April Fool’s triumph.
“It’s not funny!” Drew shouted. “I’ve had people come into my office in tears! They’re so happy for us! I feel sick!”
“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t send it to anyone you work with.”
“I forwarded it to them. Now I wish I hadn’t. They want to throw us a baby shower!”
The more he told me, the more I exulted. My caring, trusting friends had taken little Fu-Ling into their hearts. It was an April Fool’s Day miracle!
Too bad my boyfriend was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I tried to calm him. “Look, I knew I was going to be out of town, so I composed an email to let everyone know they’d been had. If you want, you can send it on my behalf.”
“Where is it?”
I gave Drew instructions how to find the message on my desktop computer, back at our apartment.
“All I ask is that you hit ‘Send’ precisely at the stroke of midnight tonight!”
“Fuck that!” Drew replied. “I’m going home and sending it now. This has gone too far!” He slammed down the phone.
I was dying to check my email back at the hotel, but first, I had a date with the undead. Our Miranda had signed us up for a “haunted” tour, which seems to be the only kind of tour they offer in New Orleans. He wanted to save a few bucks, so he booked us with some no-frills outfit
The timing was purely coincidental, but it did keep me from giving my April Fool’s joke the follow-up attention it deserved. This was back during that brief period of several weeks in the early 2000s when cell phones could ring with a polyphonic rendition of “Baby Got Back” but not yet book your round-trip tickets to Orlando or turn your sprinklers on. Or, for that matter, email.
The only indication I had of how people were reacting was a voice mail I heard from my friend Adam during a layover.
“OHMYGOD! I’MSOHAPPYFORYOU!! OHMYGOD! SHE’SBEAUTIFUL!! I’MEXPLODINGWITHJOYANDLOVEANDHAPPINESSFORYOU! I’MSOSOOOOOOOTHRILLED!!! ICANNOTIMAGINEBETTERPARENTS! OHMYGOD! IT’SSOFUCKINGGREAT!!!!!!!”
So far, so good. I turned my phone back off for the connecting flight.
Soon, I was sitting with Greg and his two college friends in a restaurant that served gator fricassee. If you’re in a group of four gay men, it’s inevitable that you’ll compare yourselves to the ultimate group of four gay men, the gals of Sex & the City .
One of Greg’s friends repeatedly demanded, “I want to be the Miranda! Let me be Miranda! Come on, please can I be Miranda?” We said yes because, really, only a Miranda would want to be Miranda. (Although if he’d brought it up one more time, we were going to make him Stanford.)
Miranda branded Greg’s other friend the Charlotte. Charlotte had never seen the show, so Miranda had to explain his reasoning. “She’s a prude.”
“Oh. Okay.”
One thing nobody debated was that Greg was Samantha. Since his metamorphosis, he’d been slutting it up all across Manhattan. With this trip, he was expanding his conquests to below the Mason-Dixon Line. He arrived the night before the rest of us, bravely ventured into a gay bar, and hooked up with a guy he met there. It was that easy—and so was Greg. I’d spent my delayed adolescence as the shy wallflower. Greg had actually become Sweet Talk.
I was labeled the Carrie, the protagonist, the moral center. Lest I be too flattered, Miranda reminded me it was only because all the other roles were taken. Bitch.
While we were breaking the ice and eating okra, I sent a couple of phone calls through to voice mail, but when Drew called for the fifth time, I decided I should probably pick up.
He was practically hyperventilating. “Have you checked your email?” he asked.
“I’ll have to do it back at the hotel. Are people falling for the Chinese baby joke?”
“Hard,” he said. It was just as I’d hoped. My prank was weaving its delicious black magic. I let rip the delicious cackle of April Fool’s triumph.
“It’s not funny!” Drew shouted. “I’ve had people come into my office in tears! They’re so happy for us! I feel sick!”
“Wait,” I said. “I didn’t send it to anyone you work with.”
“I forwarded it to them. Now I wish I hadn’t. They want to throw us a baby shower!”
The more he told me, the more I exulted. My caring, trusting friends had taken little Fu-Ling into their hearts. It was an April Fool’s Day miracle!
Too bad my boyfriend was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I tried to calm him. “Look, I knew I was going to be out of town, so I composed an email to let everyone know they’d been had. If you want, you can send it on my behalf.”
“Where is it?”
I gave Drew instructions how to find the message on my desktop computer, back at our apartment.
“All I ask is that you hit ‘Send’ precisely at the stroke of midnight tonight!”
“Fuck that!” Drew replied. “I’m going home and sending it now. This has gone too far!” He slammed down the phone.
I was dying to check my email back at the hotel, but first, I had a date with the undead. Our Miranda had signed us up for a “haunted” tour, which seems to be the only kind of tour they offer in New Orleans. He wanted to save a few bucks, so he booked us with some no-frills outfit
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