Eye Have No Idea How I Got Into This Situation

Writing about my New Year’s Eve champagne bottle trick failure last month got me thinking about past New Year’s Eves and how something always goes wrong for me…like last year when my best friend Beth got married on New Year’s Eve in Tucson. What could possible go wrong? Erin, that’s what!

It all started when a stray spark from one of the sparklers that was given out at midnight burned a hole through the top of my pantsuit. Next, as I went to use the restroom inside Beth’s parent’s house, I heard a faint voice calling my name in the other bathroom down the hall. Who the hell was calling my name? I was a little drunk and very much confused. As I made my way down the hallway, I noticed it was my friend Kari’s husband, Elan, calling out for my help. Why was he calling my name? Where was Kari? This was not good…

Just then, Elan burst out of Beth’s parent’s bathroom looking like he had just done something horrible. He looked at me like I was the light at the end of his tunnel. “Erin, I just puked in the toilet and it isn’t going down! Don’t tell Kari!” Great! This is all I need, to be stuck in the bathroom with my friend’s husband keeping secrets. This was starting to feel like a bad soap opera. I promised Elan that I wouldn’t look into the toilet; I pushed him out of the way and proceeded to take the back of the tank off the toilet. As Elan stumbled to get out of the way, he knocked over his glass that was sitting on the edge of the tub, shattering it. Wonderful! Now I had two messes to clean up, stuck in this bathroom with my friend’s husband. Was I being Punk’d? Where was Ashton? I told Elan to clean up the glass as I reached my hand into the tank and manually flushed the toilet. Yes, I am part boy sometimes. As Elan was on his hands and knees drunkenly cleaning up the mess, the toilet cooperated with me and his puke went down…success!

I stepped over him to get to the sink to look at the damage I had done to my face and hair and noticed that my eyes were a bit red. For anyone who knows me, I don’t take well to red eyes and may even admit to a slight addiction to eye drops. I opened Beth’s parent’s medicine cabinet (now I was just overstepping every boundary) to see if there was any Visine inside. I found something resembling eye drops and quickly squirted the liquid into my eye before someone discovered I was shut in Beth’s parent’s bathroom, alone with my friend’s husband, rummaging through their medicine cabinet. Before I could even get the cap back on, my eye started to burn and I doubled over in pain and screamed. Through my other watery and half open eye I peered at Elan, who was now standing over me in complete horror. He had no idea what was happening and looked like he had just discovered a dead body. Just then, I heard Kari say, “Where is my husband?” and Beth’s dad walked in the bathroom to see what was going on. Elan and I tried to explain the situation as he called for help. Can you say embarrassing?

Just then, a small crowd started to form outside the bathroom and Beth’s sister-in-law who is a kindergarten teacher and has flushed sand out of plenty of kid’s eyes on the playground walked in to assist. I showed her what I put in my eye and she immediately shook her head. Apparently Beth’s mom is the last person on Earth who uses hard contacts still and I had poured the solution she uses to wash them directly into my eye. Brilliant, Erin! After a ten minute session under the faucet getting my eye washed out while Elan tried to explain what happened, I could see again. I should have brought an eye patch that night because for the remainder of the reception, my left eye was completely bloodshot and I had mascara stains all down my cheek. Beth and Kris are still married, Kari is still my friend and Elan told his wife that he puked, so I guess it wasn’t all that bad…

An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctors Away

A few weeks ago, my friend Lisa, who is a producer on the daytime talk show, The Doctors, left me a voice mail asking me if I would be interested in coming on the show. Honestly, I had never seen the show before and had no idea what I would be doing but I was intrigued, so I called her back. When I got a hold of her, she told me that the segment was going to be about ‘bumps down there’ and they needed an attractive girl with a big personality who would liven up the segment. Me? I laughed….here I was, trying to pursue my dream as an entertainment host and now I would be on television talking about vajayjays? Why not! I told her I would do it as long as I didn’t have to lie and say I had any sort of bump down there short of occasional razor burn and she convinced me it would be fine and gave me all the details. I was a definite yes. I called my mom and told her that I was going to be on the show talking about vaginas and she laughed for about ten minutes.

That next Thursday, I took the day off from work, slept in, picked out an outfit and headed to Paramount Studios sans makeup because she told me I would be getting my hair and makeup done before the show. Snap! When I arrived at the lot, I parked and let her know that I was there. I was surprised when she said that she was sending a golf cart to pick me up and I already felt like a celebrity. Now I understood why these D-list reality stars milk their fifteen minutes of fame for all its worth- it felt great to be ‘famous.’ Once we arrived at the stage, she led me upstairs to my dressing room, yup, MY dressing room. It said ‘Erin’ on the door and everything (I mean that IS my name but it was just fun seeing it there). Okay, so now the girl from Maine was coming and I think I peed a little from excitement as I waited to get my hair and makeup done. Once I was camera ready, I hopped out of the makeup chair and lined up with the rest of the ‘audience members’ waiting to head down to the set. Spoiler alert- all of those TV shows that you see where you think the audience members are chosen out of the blue are a hoax! Basically everyone in the audience is an extra and the chosen ones who will actually be brought up to the stage are all planned. Nothing is real on TV, not ever the cases on Judge Judy… sorry kids!

After being placed in the audience and getting prepped on where to stand once I got up on stage and what I was supposed to bring to the segment, I was a tad nervous. Basically I was supposed to be the audience member who got called up when the gynecologist was discussing good and bad bumps on the vagina and feel these make believe bumps and say what I thought. Here I was, Erin from Maine, touching fake vaginas on TV…my family was definitely going to have a viewing party once the show aired. What if I blanked and couldn’t think of something witty to say when asked about the vagina? What if I did horrible and my friend never wanted me to come back?  How did I get in this situation again? Then I took a deep breath and thought, it’s just casual vajayjay talk on national TV….Yikes! 

When my segment began, it all seemed like a flash and the next thing I knew, I was up on the stage next to Doctor Lisa and the hot doctor (who is too hot to have a name) grazing my hand over a board of bumps commenting on how one looked like a wad of bubblegum and if I saw that one I would run screaming to my doctor. Soon enough it was over and I was on my home. My friend texted me shortly after and said that I did fabulous and I was happy she thought so, because it was all a blur to me. At least I made her happy…and my vagina, I’m sure!

Unlikely Proposal

LA is very weird....today, as I was walking back to my car in Mid-City, I got a sweet proposal, but it wasn't from my boyfriend. My car was parked off of Wilshire and Hauser at a meter and as I got in the driver's side, I figured I would call my sister because the meter was blinking green indicating that I had more than enough time to stay in the spot. So, when the City Parking Enforcement pulled up next to my car, I naturally kept on gabbing because I wasn't doing anything wrong. After a few minutes, the car didn't move and actually pulled up so he was eye to eye with my window. I glanced over wondering if I was about to get towed or something and he motioned me to roll down my window. Oh crap, now what? I told Grace to hold on as I rolled down my window and replied, "Yes?" He asked me if he could ask me a question so I told him yes. Looking me right in the eye, he said "Will you marry me?" Completely taken aback, I burst out laughing, rolled up my window and drove away. LA is very weird....

Six Reasons I Am (Who Else But) Erin...

There are various reasons (as those of you who follow my blog know) that I am Who Else But Erin. Here are my top six reasons...Why not five? Because I'm Erin, that's why!

• I am still getting over my intense fear of squirrels. Yes, squirrels.
• Last night while I was shaving my arms in the shower, I accidentally cut my hand with the razor.
• I love bananas on their own, but I can't stand eating anything mixed with bananas like strawberry banana yogurt. Yuck!
• If I start eating outside, like on a picnic, I love the fresh air. But if I am eating at the dining room table and someone opens the sliding glass door and I smell fresh air, I get grossed out.
• One of my goals in life is to find a dead body.
• I have a pickle obsession. I love all pickles, pickle juice and anything pickled. I could probably pickle my own arm in a jar and eat it....well, not really. Anthony and I went to Costco this weekend and he bought me a big jar of pickles (because I was a good girl) and said, "don't eat that whole jar tonight!" I replied, "I can’t promise you anything..."

Party Trick......Gone Bad

Everyone should have a party trick, whether it is breakdancing, belching the alphabet, doing the worm or being able to do a back handspring on command. My party trick? Opening a bottle of champagne with a butcher knife like Cameron Diaz did in What Happens in Vegas. And yes, I did spend hours practicing that trick after I saw the movie until I perfected it. Last weekend, I taught my friend Nicole how to do it during our Sunday Funday brunch which reminded me of that one time my party trick went bad…

A few New Year’s Eves ago, after I had just learned the champagne trick, I was at a house party FULL of people that I didn’t know. After a few drinks, I thought, what a better way to ring in the New Year, then popping a bottle of champagne at the stroke of midnight? Feeling overly confident, I was telling people all night about my party trick and how I was going to blow their minds when they saw it. Well, my moment came and I guess I didn’t anticipate the entire party stopping what they were doing and following me into the kitchen to see my trick, so I got a little bit nervous. The key to the trick is shaking the bottle first, and then making sure you slide the backside of the knife up the seam of the bottle. Easy, right? Not when you have about a hundred people staring at you. My first attempt failed, as did my second and my third. Knowing I had to show these people what I had told them I could do made me more and more determined to open this sucker. So, instead of being patient and doing it the right way, I took the knife and kept chopping until I chopped the top off the bottle harshly sending glass and champagne flying through the air and all over me. I had never cleared a room so quickly. As everyone stood there in shock, the floor wet, shards of glass everywhere and blood dripping down my arm, I looked at my friends Beth and Kris (who was also bleeding from the glass) and nervously smiled. Happy New Year!?? Not only was I never invited back to that house, I made sure that I never performed that trick until I was certain that it would be a success. And to this day, I haven’t failed. Knock on glass…..er, wood! Lucky for you, I have a video (below).....and yes, it's embarrassing!

http://vimeo.com/18469177

Living In A Frat House?

Everyone has experienced an odd living situation, right? Whether it was sharing a room with a friend when you were first thrown out into the real world to save money, or an odd dorm experience in college, we have all been there. I may have you all beat on this one though…

A few years back, my little sister Grace and I lived in a house in Boston with my best friend, Alicia, and her boyfriend, Ryan. When our landlady suddenly sprung upon us that she was selling the house, we had to find a place to move sooner rather than later, like our normal plans were. Grace was planning on moving to the North End in a few months with her college friends, Ryan and Alicia already had plans to move to Maine and I was planning on moving back to LA, but not right away. So, we all hoped that the house wouldn’t sell right away, buying us that time we needed to perfectly overlap our next living situations. But of course, the house sold faster than the newest Taylor Swift album, which meant we were screwed. Alicia and Ryan packed up and moved to Maine and Grace and I were left scratching our heads looking for a cheap, temporary solution.

We both had solid plans to move in about a month and a half so we couldn’t do anything permanent and living in a hotel was way too expensive. We got very creative with our ideas, thought about crashing on our friend’s couches, contemplated creating a “bed” under our desks at work (George Costanza style) and even tried to convince our parents to let us sleep in their RV at a national park close to Boston. We even weighed the option of moving back home to Maine and commuting to Boston every day! One by one these ideas seemed to get more and more ridiculous and no one seemed to want to take us in for a one and a half month temporary lease. Just when we thought we were totally screwed and on the verge of being homeless, we got a call from a girl in Allston (college student central) named Patricia who called me “home girl” and said she may be able to help. I loved her already!

She was occupying one bedroom of a three bedroom apartment at the time, while the college guys that lived there were home for the summer. Patricia just bought a condo and wanted to move out sooner, but since the guys weren’t coming back to their apartment until early September, she needed someone to sublet the bedroom she was subletting for a little over a month. Perfect! Well, I thought it was perfect…Grace, not so much (I think she still resents me for this decision). But she had no other choice and she wouldn’t be alone, so she couldn’t really pass it up, right? In theory, this subleasing of a sublease sounded ideal (considering it was only $200 each), but there were a few issues….

The guys who lived there kept all their stuff there while they were home for the summer, including the stripper pole in the living room and the rotting food in the fridge. They weren’t the cleanest frat boys in the world so we literally sat on towels on the couch (they didn’t have cable so we watched movies on our laptops) and found slices of moldy limes in between the couch cushions almost daily. Another issue? Since we were sharing a room, we were also sharing a bed every night…of course we slept in sleeping bags on top of the bed, which forced me to think I was having a slumber party every night with my kid sister. The best part? We were A.) convinced that there was a hidden web cam somewhere, and B.) were given fair warning by Patricia that the guys may come back a few days earlier than we expected. So Grace and I were constantly aware of every noise in the house and anytime we got home from work, we nervously crept up the stairs with a big, “HELLO?” Looking back, it makes me appreciate any living situation that I have been in since. I told Grace that we would laugh about it one day and as I chuckle to myself thinking about it, I still don’t think she has laughed yet….

(In Alicia Keys' Voice) "Your Leg Is On Fire!"

While I was in college, I worked at a hot dog stand in Maine during the summers where I met some of my greatest friends and made pretty good tips. As I began to become poorer and poorer, as most college kids do, I also took on the hot dog stand duties on my Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, standing outside in the freezing cold, slinging wieners for the tourists. Some days we would stand outside for hours in the snow, freezing rain and ice chilling wind. The winters in Maine are pretty brutal. Our one savior were the heaters that were provided to us, that we kept behind the hot dog stand and in front of the cooler. I would get as close as I could to that little propane miracle, trying to keep myself warm and motivated enough to stay out there as long as I could.

One day, I was fixing up an Italian sausage for this man and his wife, really taking my time with the spicy mustard, grilled onions and peppers and toasted bun. I noticed him looking at me in horror and I thought, is there mold on the bread or something? All of a sudden, I felt a warm sensation running up my leg and when I looked down, my jeans were on fire right below the knee. Naturally, I finished dressing the sausage and handed it to him as he ran behind the stand. I knew my leg was on fire but I didn't think it was that bad....I bet you have never heard that line before. I kept saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine!" Hardly the truth with fire on your body is involved.

As my customer (who turned out to be a doctor) knelt down and helped me put out the fire on my leg, he grabbed a snowball and told me to put it on my wound. It turned out not to be that bad (although I still have a scar today) and I continued to work until closing time. My boss thought I was an idiot for not wanting to go home but I just said I was a hard worker as I finished up the day in my ripped up pirate jeans.