"New Lala's"

For Easter, my family and I went to my grandmother's house as we do every Easter. My uncle recently married a woman who is different than the general Schrodt personality, but someone we all like a lot nonetheless. After dinner my mother, my new aunt (I've known her maybe 6 months) and myself decided to walk around the block. We began talking about wedding stuff and eventually found our way to the topic of wedding showers (a wedding tradition I don't get too excited about). We told her the date for the shower we are having for family and friends and she then asked me if I was going to have a personal shower. I immediately began dancing around the question because 1. I don't know for sure when or where or what kind of personal shower I will have and 2. I think it's an awkward event to discuss with my mother and a woman who I don't know too terribly well. However, in true non-Schrodt fashion my aunt went on to say that I must have a personal shower because I have to get some "new lala's." Gulp. Did you just say new lala's? To me? In front of my mother? Oh weddings, you exhaust me.

Mind you, still today I am not exactly sure what "new lala's" are. My sexual ignorance has cropped up at numerous points among this planning adventure and occasionally makes for an awkward encounter amongst people who make assumptions about Cody and me. I responded to my aunt with some casual response about ironing out those plans closer to the wedding, when I wanted to explain to her that I don't need NEW lala's, I think I need lala's in general. Even recounting this story makes me uncomfortable.

This experience with my aunt made me even less excited about the shower portion of a wedding. The normal family and friends shower with blenders as gifts will be painful enough. But the execution of a personal shower will be quite the feat to pull off without the most ridiculous amount of uncomfortable lala comments.

Who wants a personal shower anyway? Who came up with the idea of getting numerous women together (a lot of which I don't talk to on a daily basis about anything, much less lala's) to give someone stuff to wear (or not wear) while having sex? WHAT?!?!? So weird. I went to a personal shower once that was without a doubt one of the most painful experiences of my life. The group of people who were at this thing did not know each other well enough to sit and discuss someone else's sex life. The bride responded to each opening of lingere with the same somewhat overwhelmed faked excitement. We all tried to come up with something to talk about with the large penis cake in the room acting as the enormous elephant none of us knew how to overcome to socialize like normal adults. It was awful. It was weird. It was so weird that months later I still am scared of a personal shower. If I want sexy lingere, I will get myself lingere. If I want massage lotions, I can also get that. And if I want nipple tassles, I will disguise myself and find my way to the adult superstore and purchase those nipple tassles on my own.

I have hit the point where the events of this wedding are exhausting me. I don't want new lala's. And I'm probably not the bow type. Wearing a wedding dress is probably going to be a pretty big stretch for me. At some point, I wonder where you draw the line and decide the traditional things that people do, don't have to be the things that you do. Getting my lala's in the first place will be complicated enough. I need the lala's everyone else assumes I have before I can imagine getting creative with them.