Summer Time Hayes
So I’m at a hotel pool party in West Hollywood. To my right: Hollywood hills. To my left: Downtown L.A. All around me: Models. Beauties. Brutes. Half naked bodies, half drunk girls, fully flexing guys. All perfectly sculpted. Breasts, pecs and high heels. Wonderful.
Along with me, a pasty white, almost burnt Irish guy with a big pink pig head reminiscent of Steve Staunton in World Cup ’94, just standing waist high in the swimming pool trying to cool down, wondering why I’m cursed with such narrow, womanly shoulders, a skinny neck and a head shaped like a toaster. This place does wonders for your confidence.
It’s weird in L.A. – well, it always kind of is – but for months people had been asking me “Are you beach body ready for the summer? Ya gotta be!” Never sure how to respond besides looking confused, seeing as it’s my postwoman who asked me this time round and also because it’s always roasting hot so isn’t it always beach time?
Apparently not. Here, 70 degrees is considered a tad chilly. Today it’s only 95 degrees. Sweltering. My mouth’s dry even at the thought of speaking. Feel a bit depressed it’s so hot. Just want to crawl up into a waterbed. No clue how people wear clothes and achieve things when it’s this hot (writing this naked, obviously).
And yet, despite this insane heat, I was just at someone’s house where they had the fire on. The fire!?
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I shouted when I walked in which was a bit rude seeing as I didn’t know the person, friend of a friend.
“Oh it’s a bit cold, no? Very breezy, I thought I’d just warm the place up.”
YOU NUTTER, I screamed back.
(By ‘screamed back’ I mean I stood there with sweating eyes and stared in disbelief.)
Not to be ruder, I graciously accept the host’s offer of a nice hot cup of coffee and a bowl of piping hot soup, you know, just to warm me up. I think I got a cold from all the heat being forced onto me. Great lunch.
Small talk focused on beach body this, personal trainer that and plastic surgery there. Lunch with rich, perfect looking, bored folk usually revolves around horrendously inane conversations but at least the food is tasty.
One of the blonde girls at the table remarks how it’s going to cost her $18,000 if she wants to get a nose job, chin implant and boob job, reeling off the numbers as if she’s telling you how much it’ll cost to get her car fixed.
$18,000? I snort back, soup streaming out of my now burnt nose. Are you going to?
“Of course, don’t be basic. You have to turn up. You should get some done.”
Huh? Why would I- What? I look grand. Glance around the table for nodding heads in my direction to confirm I look good – Nope.
Instead a brunette asks, “Have you ever considered Botox?”
Excuse me? With this face? Not a chance.
One plastic looking guy then tells me they’re doing Groupon deals for lip jobs at the moment, if I want to get mine fixed. Fixed? What’s wrong with them?
“You can never go too big in lips, have some fun. Yours are uneven. Don’t be basic.”
Nod along like I’m in agreement with them, taking an extra long sip from the Hot Toddy I was served as dessert. Burnt my stupid uneven sliver lips. Tut.
After we leave the person’s house I ask my friend – whom I made a mental note not to really be friends with anymore – how many of that group of ten had had some sort of plastic surgery?
“They’ve all had something done.”
Seriously? Some of the girls were only in their early 20’s?
“It’s never too early to look perfect.”
Why don’t they just go to the gym more to look fitter or eat healthy or not booze?
“We do that too. We do everything to look this good. Don’t be basic.”
Still not sure what they all meant by basic but I was beginning to think I was camped at the very base level of being basic. So that was nice of them to say.
After I get home, soak in an ice bath for an hour and pump up the cold A/C like it was blaring out AC/DC, I decide to take a look at myself in the mirror. See if there were any places for improvement. Towel off. Mirror on.
At first glance it all looks grand and in order but then I remember: I’m basic! What do my eyes know? Look harder, scrutinize like you’re a piece of worthless meat, you basic piece of worthless meat!
So I look. Stare. Peer. Then the flashbacks hit me.
Back when I’m about thirteen-years-old and had not yet started to grow upwards but instead began to pile on the pounds from eating too many boxes of Coco Pops, Frosties and Special K. Cereal blubber, we’ll call it. Back when I used to suck in and hold my breath to hide my blubber belly and nut-hiding squirrel cheeks.
Now I can see clearly: You are basic, I say to myself in the mirror.
I think I have love handles (they should really call them hate handles). I think I might have a fat back too (if I pull hard enough at my skin it looks like fat) so maybe I should get liposuction.
I also think I might have B-cup man boobs (if I relax my whole body and push out my stomach and hang my mouth open like I can’t control my chin I don’t look great) so maybe I could do with a chin implant and a slight pectoral tuck, if that’s such a thing.
Where else sags? Take a long, hard look at myself down below the equator. The ponder pipe’s fine but can the two boys be tucked up? I remember reading George Clooney had his pair done before so if it’s good enough for him I should definitely consider it. Tuck on.
With that I dried myself off, sobbed while doing press-ups and then went hunting for the best beach body plastic surgery Groupon offers I could find.
Still a good month or two left of pool parties. I’ll just have to sell my car and probably my body to afford all the work I need to get in shape in time but in return my chin will be chiseled, my pecs will be nipped, and my ball-boys will be tucked. My postwoman will be delighted when she sees.
Tags: Beach, Bodies, Body, Boobs, Comedian, Comedy, Cork, Dublin, Examiner, Fake, gym, Hollywood, Irish, LA, Mark Hayes, Plastic Surgery, PreDumb, Randumb, RanDumber, Writer, Writing
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