"If you have half a brain...." *

_____In the midst of reading Vonnegut the other day, I came across a line in Slaughterhouse Five remarking that cliche romantic situations are actually anything but. There has got to be some level of hell reserved for people like me who take one of the world's greatest expressions against human evil and use it as a tangent for a blog that reveals trivial absurdities in this world like magnetic dog poop and composite turkey. Sins against true genius aside, let's talk about the reality of our little romantic fantasies. With experience we come to learn valuable lessons like chocolate syrup burns your throat, whipped cream leaves sticky residue and causes queasy feelings upon digestion of mass quantities and flavored sex aids usually lead to unwanted teeth marks. Below I have laid out, shone a bright light upon and then destroyed the biggest lies in the big dream of romantic love (making).

Rain (standing in, kissing in, running through, smell of, curling up with book in)

_____Nothing says hot, passionate sex like goose flesh, running noses, sticky skin and heavy chafing soaked jeans. Standing in the rain, running through the rain, doing most things in the rain is usually a highly dangerous thing. Aside from the onset of things like pneumonia and the freezing hack you get deep in your chest, rain and getting caught in it is a miserable experience. Do you know how long it takes to dry soaked sneakers? Even when you think they are dried, you put on your socks and go out only to realize that in a matter of steps, you are standing in a hot wet shoe. That's the worst too because the wet socks are warm because of your body heat and taking them off is comparable to that slightly creepy sensation you encounter when you sit down in a plastic chair that has been previously warmed.

_____When a storm rolls in, most people want to sleep because their sinuses have swelled so extensively their skull feels like it's about to snap from the pressure. People will say they love the smell of rain. I think that inhaling the dirty and toxic rain water during a sinus swell borders on pure genius. And while I am on the thread of inhaling things that are highly dangerous, let's talk about gasoline, Sharpie markers, and that New Car smell. There is nothing awesome about inhaling fumes that have been proven to wipe out brain cells faster than viewing an hour of America's Next Top Model.

The Love of/on the Road

_____One of my favorite myths of the foolish romantic is the joy of the open road. Driving blows, people. If it's not the jerking stop and go of a city street, packed with impatient people like myself waiting eagerly for that flash of green only to get a taste of 30mph before having to stop again and wait to be able to do more than sit there with your right foot on the brake, it's hours of gray, rolling, six lane monotony. "I just want to get in my car and drive for hours". Sorry honey, but unless you have the greatest book on tape known to man or a never ending supply of mentally stimulating music (and I know you don't), driving for hours is the most intellectually arid practice invented. What does your brain do when it is not occupied? It meanders, bringing up thoughts that, most likely, require action. Too bad you are stuck like a bee in a jar, a jar hurling through the air at 80. Plus, being hypnotized by the passing of yellow streaks and phone poles increases your likelihood of passing out if you aren't like me and calculating precisely how the asshole in front of you will manage to stop short and you will be sent sailing through your windshield.

_____"But Anne", you say, "What about road head? Aww yea." Aww No. Since the invention of bucket seats, this practice is not only difficult to perform, but it is highly uncomfortable, a choking hazard if you have to stop short, and yet another reason why people behind you are calculating precisely how they will sail through their windshield when you stop short because your girlfriend has got herself caught on the emergency brake.

Shower Love

_____In my experience, men are the ones who harbor this notion. The shower is cramped and slippery. It is also limited in its capabilities to supply endless amounts of hot water. Unless you are financially gifted, there is no where to sit, hold on to, prop yourself up, or to use for resistance. This means you have to be especially flexible as a female and if you are anything like me, you are moderately flexible and will bend over, stretched to the limit and in great pain, to give the illusion that you can indeed do all the things Barbie and Carmen Electra can do. So, while you are in this awkward position in the romantic destination of a 3 by 5 shower, the water drips down your neck and up your cheeks and inevitably into your nose, causing you to choke and sneeze and sputter like an old jalopy. Let's not even talk about the fact that it's either your head, your ankles or his ass that is in constant danger of the faucet. It's quite clear that shower sex was dreamed up by a homeless person.

Staying in Bed All Day

_____Admittedly, I have often thought and even convinced myself over the years that this was indeed an awesome practice that was at the peak of romantic action. Of course staying in bed all day would appeal to me, the laziest woman alive. Sadly, one day after looking over at my significant other covered in a thin sheen of grease and emitting the potent fragrance of morning, now turned late afternoon, breath mingled with leftover sex residue I knew that this was not the fabled fairy tale I had heard about. After clawing my way out of the bed-ditch our bodies had formed through massive spring abuse and hours of just laying there, I decided that a shower (no sex) would be a saving grace. Unfortunately, after a certain amount of hours, no matter how much you exfoliate or how hot you turn the water up to, you can't get rid of that half drunken all day in bed stupor. A lull like that mixed with the frustration and grime that comes from doing nothing all day inevitably leads to fights or that "Ok, I've had enough of you. Time for you to go home" feeling. I may even go as far as to say the stay in bed day is a surefire way to destroy an otherwise perfect union.

The Beach

_____The waves crashing, Sandy and Danny Zuko making out in sand, chasing each other down a beautiful open shoreline; we all know this image. The part they don't show is Sandy digging wet sand out from her asscrack and parts nearby. After they get up from their rolling around in the surf, they are both covered in clumpy mounds of sand that house millions of sand fleas. When Danny is done helping remove the sand castle from Sandy's hair he turns around, careful not to step on either a hypodermic needle, a used condom, someone's old tampon, a man of war or a half decomposed roll of toilet paper. They run back to their car while they dodge pointy coral, hidden rocks and the homeless man peeing in the bushes. Now Danny's Greased Lightning is nothing short of a child's sandbox and the saltwater leftover on both of them leaves a faint musk of rotting fish that the breeze from the top down action can't cover up. As Sandy's hair blows in the breeze, it is twirled around itself forming dread locks from the leftover ocean that has now turned her hair to straw. The straw texture is especially sexy, the way is smacks her in the face and leaves marks as they change direction. Not even some paint on leather pants and a flying car can bring back the sexy for them after a night of beach lovin'.

So, if you like pina coladas (which are usually made with cheap rum), getting caught in the rain and all the rest of this culture's idealistic romantic love scenarios, you have clearly never experienced any of them without the aid of drugs, alcohol or a very strong dose of delusion.

* Rupert Holmes "Pina Colada"