Anonymous Mailbag

It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for the anonymous mailbag.

Send your anonymous mailbag questions to claytravis@gmail, anonymity guaranteed. With that in mind, here we go. (Make sure you read the final story.)

“The other weekend I said my brother “knocked up a chick” in regards to him getting his wife pregnant. Both my brother and his wife got very offended by this statement and the whole thing has become a big issue. My nephew is 10 months old and my brother and his wife had been married for over a year before the baby was born so I am having trouble seeing what the issue was. Is the term knocked up pejorative when used for a married couple? I understand that when two people are unmarried it could mean an unplanned pregnancy, but does that still apply to a married couple?”

First, who did you say this to? Was it the couple themselves or were you describing this to someone else? I think that matters in terms of how this is received. If it’s the couple themselves, they know how the baby was conceived, if it’s a stranger and it gets back to them, I can see how that could be confusing.

Second, and more importantly, I think when the phrase “knocked up a chick” is used it’s not typically being applied to a husband getting his wife pregnant. That phrase has an unexpected connotation — hence the movie “Knocked Up,” — and so it doesn’t really apply here. It’s the same thing as calling a wedding that has been planned for over a year a “shotgun wedding.” It’s just a misapplication of a phrase.

If you told me that your brother knocked up a chick, I definitely wouldn’t think he got his wife pregnant. And I’d imagine if you flip the script and someone said his sister “got knocked up by a dude,” I’d venture to say most people wouldn’t expect you to be talking about a married woman getting pregnant by her husband.

Further, I imagine it’s not just the “knocked up” portion of the statement that the couple objects to but also the “chick” portion. You described your brother as your brother, but you described his wife as a chick he knocked up. I can easily imagine her saying, “WE got pregnant and I’m not a chick, I’m his wife.”

If you’d said that your brother knocked up his wife, I don’t know that she’d object to the phrase; I think it’s the combo of the two. Plus, by naming your brother and then using both knocked up and chick she may see it as you attempting to demean her, her relationship with your brother, and delegitimize their union. I’m not saying you did or intended all of this, just that this sounds like something that reinforces a preexisting idea she already had and explains why she’s mad. (Your brother is probably not mad, but he’s got to pretend to be mad so his wife will still sleep with him.)

Having said all of this, on the offensiveness scale, I don’t know why this would last very long at all or “become a huge issue.” I’d just say, “Sorry, I was thinking about the movie “Knocked Up,” people my age say that instead of pregnant. And I say chick or guy to describe anyone. My bad.”

At the same time you do this go buy two shitty baby tshirts that says something like, “My mommy is a hotty,” and “My dad is a baller,” and give it to your brother’s wife. When you give the shirts to her you can say, “I just wanted to make sure no one thought you got knocked up by a stranger.”

If she has any sense of humor at all, you’ll be fine going forward.

If she has no sense of humor then your family is fucked anyway and what you do in the years ahead won’t matter.

“I work in an office in an SEC school. The majority of my co-workers are recent grads from SEC schools as well. We all had similar college experiences and have heard similar stories about the glory days. The office recently added a new grad from an extremely small school that is much closer to the Mason-Dixon Line. Within this guys first week in the office, he tells us a story about his wild Tuesday night. He found him a Tinder gal. But this is where it gets interesting.

After completing his obligations to this woman, he proceeded to turn to the bench and get his roommates involved. The girl was excited about this opportunity and “all had a jolly time.”

My fellow SEC grads in the office and myself found this just mind-blowing. None of us had ever heard of such a thing. The small Mason-Dixon grad says it’s common practice. So we have come to the Lord of Outkick for a decisive decision. Do you believe this is a normal activity to get a sub mid-game? And how weird is it from the roommates perspective?”

The better question is this, what percentage of girls would be fine banging two guys in the same night and, significantly, have both of those guys know it happened?

I find it unfathomable that it’s more than 5% of women. (Roughly 99% of men would be totally fine banging two different girls in the same day.) But 5% of women is probably way too high. I also find the odds so unlikely that even if I thought it was a good idea it would have never occurred to me to ask.

I mean, can you even imagine saying to a girl, “Hey, I know we just banged. But do you mind if I go get my roommate? He’d probably like to have sex with you too.”

The balls on this guy must be otherworldly in order to even make that suggestion. Honestly, you should probably just go ahead and make him CEO.

“Clay,

Got stung in the ballsack by a wasp. Wife offered to relieve the pain with a blowie. Question: What animal/injury would you purposely let violate your undercarriage if it guaranteed you some mouth-to-meat time?”

None. I’m so anti-animal there’s no way I’m taking a bee sting on the balls for a blow job. What if it got infected? I once got an infected hair follicle on the shaft of my penis — I promise it wasn’t herpes — and I thought I was going to die.

But if I did get stung on the balls by a wasp, there is a 0% chance my wife is giving me a blow job to make me feel better. You must not have kids yet. If I even made this suggestion my wife would say, “It was your stupid ass who got stung on the balls by a wasp. Why should I reward that?”

“Clay, I am 21 years old and currently in college and my roommate has invited me and one of our other roommates to stay with his grandparents in Orange Beach at the end of summer. The problem is that my girlfriend is turning 20 at the same time I am supposed to be on this beach trip with my roommates. She says that I am being selfish and a terrible boyfriend if I skip her “celebration” that will involve dinner at a restaurant we frequent and going out to a bar we frequent (with all her underage friends) in our college town. Am I really being such a selfish boyfriend if I skip this celebration that can be done on any given night throughout the semester, to go stay for free with my friends at the beach that may never happen again? Is this breakup material if she tries to tell me I cannot go and have to attend her celebration and skip the trip?”

Man, I’m torn here.

Because I’m thinking about this as a grown man as opposed to a college kid. As you get older you’re going to have tons of times to go to the beach with your buddies, but how many times will you get to go out drinking with your girlfriend and her hot 20 year old friends? (If your girlfriend doesn’t have hot 20 year old friends, you should break up with her for that reason alone.) In other words, when you’re my age which night would you look back on more fondly– the time you went to the beach with your two buddies and stayed at his grandparent’s place or the time you went out with your girlfriend and her hot friends in college celebrating her 20th birthday?

I’m thinking it’s the latter.

It’s much tougher to replicate that at 27 than it is the beach trip with buddies.

Plus, you’re staying with his grandparents. That’s great of the grandparents to offer, but it’s not like you’re bringing tons of girls back to the beach house for a crazy house party.

Having said that, I’m also anti-random birthday celebration guy or girl. And your girlfriend is clearly doing this to demonstrate how much she controls you. You being there for her birthday isn’t that big of a deal. Moreover I don’t get the whole birthday party obsession outside of major birthdays that double as significant life events — 16, 21, 30, 40, and the like. You know at 16 you can get your driver’s license, at 18 you’re an adult, at 21 you can drink, and round numbers thenceforth are kind of big deals. But does everyone need to wildly celebrate you turning 23 or 33 or 43? Should you guilt trip them if they aren’t there? Especially where, as here, when turning 20 is a ghost of the party that you’ll have when you turn 21.

Congrats, you lived another year without dying.

It’s a tough call, but I think I’d pick the beach trip not because it’s going to be infinitely more exciting, but because your girlfriend shouldn’t be guilt tripping you over her birthday weekend.

“So I worked at this camp down on the coast for a few summers back in college. Awesome job basically hired guys from all over the southeast to come and live on the beach for free and work manual labor keeping the place up, lifeguarding, running concessions, etc. We had different groups come in and out all summer we interacted with them some but mainly they did their own thing and we just worked our asses off.

So I met this girl when I was lifeguarding one day that was a smokeshow. We got to talking over the week and basically I got her number before she left. Now hooking up in any way with any of the guests was strictly enforced so I didn’t really know what I could do with her number since she was a few states away. Anyway she texted me later that night saying that her family was coming back in 2 weeks to a beach about an hour away. So we kept talking over the next week and I decided one night I am going to go see her at her grandmother’s beach house.

This is where it just gets awkward af. So I don’t even get there until around 8pm. I go in the house and the entire family is eating dinner and there is nowhere to sit. So I interrupt them get the hey how are you handshake from mom and dad, chick has like 5 sisters-it’s odd. So I go sit in the living room by myself until they finish. Fast forward we go on a walk together her younger sister joins us I think I have completely wasted my time coming up here.

Get back to the house and the entire family sits down to watch a movie in a damn what seemed like a 4×6 living room. Dads in the recliner, sisters laying at my feet in the floor mom across the way on the couch….and her and I on the couch. Well she gets a blanket and puts over us. 10 minutes into the movie she’s feeling on my thigh and I am looking around thinking this is about to get weird. So we do that a while then she reaches over and is just exploring the ins and outs of my boxer shorts. One of the sisters GETS UP and leaves the room. I am so uncomfortable I mean her dad is literally 3 ft from me with a birds eye view in his chair. Thennn he starts snoring and this chick didn’t wait two seconds before it’s full handjob mode. I mean it looks like I am holding down a wild animal under the blanket it’s straight Vince Vaughn on Wedding Crashers. So I go full on DBAP mode and start returning the favor. Sisters all over the living room just couldn’t care less.

I knew if I made it out of that place without her dad killing me I was going to have the best story ever. So I am about to reach the point of no return when I start to panic on what to do so I just push the blanket down and vacate all of my glory into this blanket. Ok so I’m in a mess at this point I have to get out of there. I zip up and scoot from under the blanket and say ok I’m gonna head out. Here is the best part I stand up to leave and her dad wakes up…he stands up and says nice meeting you and extends a handshake. My right hand is covered in jizz and my left has his daughters vagina juice all over it…I panic and shake with my right and grab his elbow with my left. IDK what I was thinking, he immediately knows what is going on and I bolt out of there. Come to find out later he not only knew but they went to pack up to leave 2 days later and she got in trouble for “her friend ruining the family blanket grandma sewed for them 20 something years ago.” It was incredible, never spoke to her again.”

Man, do we buy the story? The only reason I buy the dad’s behavior is because he has five daughters. At some point I think this dad just gave up on life. If he had one daughter he’s watching you like a hawk, but five daughters, he’s checked out.

My vote is yes, I believe the story, but only because the guy sent it from his corporate email account. That is, it’s not an anonymous email account. Meaning I could just out this dude and make the top Google result his name and this story.

I eliminate some email stories or questions for this very reason — if they come from anonymous email addresses it’s impossible to believe they’re real.

So that’s kind of my rule for stories like these, if the guy or girl sends it from a work email address, it seems insane to make up. (You can also argue this is an insane story to send from a work email address, but this also makes me think it’s real. Why risk emailing me a story like this from your work email if it’s made up?)

So that’s my vote.

Also, clearly, I want it to be true.

…

Send your anonymous mailbag questions or stories to claytravis@gmail.com, anonymity guaranteed.