Jemima and the Sugar Plums

A recent Doonesbury had a strip where a character applying for college had to answer an essay what page 201 of their 300 page autobiography would say….. Here, ladies and gentlemen as part of Literacy Week on this blog, and with a wink to Oprah’s pal Mr. Frey’s work of non fiction we proudly present page 201 from my unauthorized autobiography!


2001, a year, a decade, and maybe even a century marked by the horrible events of one September morning was coming to an end… Each and every day things slowly started to get a little better. And, as December arrived, we all started to look forward to the arrival of 2002 so we could finally bid farewell to 2001.

I was still single back then, and as usual, I was trying to meet women, yet I found brick walls on virtually all of my adventures. I came up with this brilliant idea - do volunteer work. A friend of mine had told me he had joined an organization and was meeting a ton of hot babes…. So I signed up.. put on my good cologne and off I went to meet these babes.. And to volunteer of course!

Within moments of getting there, I met a woman who for the purposes of anonymity I will refer to as “Jemima”. Jemima was actually quite attractive, I’m sure she still is; it’s been years since I have seen her, and I had originally heard about her through a friend of mine who in some convoluted Jewish Geography had gone to camp with her many many years ago. I had been warned about one trait about Jemima. She’s one of those people who when you first meet her, she tells you her life story. Within minutes of my first introduction, I knew more about her than I did about most of my friends…. She even told me about a cousin of hers who was born with an undescended testicle. Very very fascinating.

Jemima was one of those girls who was kinda hot.. But the notion of dating her just didn’t register.. Unless I started to lose my hearing… She would go on and on and on about all this personal stuff…ex boyfriends…feminine problems… her allergy to peanuts and how she would get skin rashes in unmentionable places. Nonetheless, she was a nice girl who I could handle in short doses.

Then one day she let a little nugget slip out…. She was not exactly the most virginal girl. In one of those streams of consciousness to be filed in the TMI department, she revealed that she had quite the active social life, and confessed to me while I was eating a piece of apple pie at Starbucks that she was aware that people knew and were gossiping about her active personal life. I sort of danced around it and told her I didn’t know anything about this.. Although, in reality she did have a bit of a “reputation“, and many of my single male friends had been asking to be introduced to her. As I walked with her to the volunteer group, she asked me if she had a bad rap… “Nah”, I said…fibbing…

As we turned the corner, she casually tossed out a nugget that she had just joined a Sexaholics Anonymous group and was trying to work out her problems through there. Even Paul Lynde couldn’t have a comeback for such a confession. Then one week later, she informed me that the volunteering was a scheduling conflict and she wouldn’t be going because she had to go to her group and it was just too tight for her schedule.

She invited a bunch of us over for a little get together that November… and I was impressed by how incredibly hot AND friendly her friends were. I called the next day to thank Jemima for the invite and she casually mentioned to me that these friends of hers… were actually fellow addicts from her support group. After I picked the phone up off the floor…. it was corded and easy to recover…. she also said she was coming back to the volunteer group the next week and asked me if I wanted to join her at Starbucks beforehand. Did I ever?

We met up and I was on my best behavior praying with all my soul that she might set me up with one of these addicts! As she got to Starbucks I queried why she was coming back to the volunteer group. Well… she said… I spoke to my girlfriends and we decided to quit the group. My eyeballs popped out of my head… Jemima philosophized further.. “Look… we’re all modern women, and we find the whole group to be very sexist… and lets face it.. If men are sexually active they’re studs; women do it… they’re hos”. I couldn’t, shouldn’t and wouldn’t argue with that logic.

As we strolled to our volunteer group, Jemima dropped another piece of news. She and her friends were hooking up for a small party that Sat night… December 29th at a friend’s house and asked me if I wanted to come along. Did I ever? I could only imagine what kind of wild and crazy activities would be taking place there. I had visions of sugarplums dancing through my mind… oh yeah.. I called her friends the sugar plums… I was PSYCHED!! I was as excited as Yankee fans were in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series when Mariano Rivera took the mound in the bottom of the 9th inning against the Diamondbacks! And the implications.. I just might meet someone and have a date for New Years Eve. I even went out and bought a new outfit for the occasion! It was tough to find time though since I kept having to call Jemima to ask if I could add yet another single friend to her guest list after they begged me and bribed me with gifts that would make Jack Abramoff blush..

The morning of December 29th I went to synagogue.…and afterwards stopped at the post service kiddush to grab some diet coke. It was going to be a late night and I wanted to be ready, so I started pumping caffeine into my bloodstream I ran into a friend of mine… who I’ll call Carrie… mainly because that’s her name and she did nothing controversial to keep her anonymous. We were just chatting about the usual stuff… I had recently moved to the area and started going to this synagogue. From a distance I noticed this adorably cute girl was walking over and I detected a limp in her gait. I had recalled some friends had mentioned that they knew a girl from the same temple who had sustained an ankle injury. One friend had even recommended setting us up on a blind date,… which sounded intriguing because a woman with a foot injury has a harder time running away.

Carrie’s friend kind of jumped into the conversation and my immediate thought was … how come these matchmakers never told me that she was so CUTE!! The 3 of us chatted for a bit and they mentioned an event that they were going to together after services. The cute girl… then turned to me and invited me to join them. “Wow”, I thought “I can get to know her better.. And still make it in time to meet Jemima and her friends!” I could do the wholesome Waltons activity in the afternoon and then hook up with the Sugar Plums in the evening!

As I was getting ready to leave, I asked the two women what time the little get together would be that afternoon.. “Afternoon“, said the cutie…”No, no we‘re getting together tonight“….. and yes it was exactly the same time as Jemima and the Sugar Plums. My heart sank into my stomach.. Kind of like Mariano Rivera a few months earlier when his error in the 9th inning gave the Diamondbacks the World Series. I had been looking forward to this shindig and had been counting down the minutes. But now I had a real dilemma on my hands since I really wanted to get to know Carrie’s friend better… and little did I know that 3 years later this cute girl who I had just met would become my Trophy Wife!

That concludes Page 201.