Aug. 13, 2025

RAD RERUN!! Basic Instinct

RAD RERUN!! Basic Instinct

Ok,  here's another situation to give you anxiety-- a baby shower. A super fancy baby shower when you're expecting a downtown, ripped-jeans type of situation.

A baby shower that may make you want to crawl into a sewer or quit your job or all of the above!!

Whatever is nagging at your brain today, here's a story of someone who re-defined humiliated in a single Sunday afternoon.

🌈 Lost your EarPods? Procrastinating at your computer? Hate the sound of Jo's voice? Then you're in luck!

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Jo & Morgan

WEBVTT

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To the restless, the insomniacs, the stressed out, the overwork

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the doom scrollers, the worried, and the board. This is

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for you. Good writing is meant to make you think.

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This is the opposite. Short, funny, and unfortunately true stories

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that have mostly to do with nothing to help you

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turn off your brain and turn on your rim. All

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names have been changed to protect the guilty. These are

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anxiety addicts bed time stories.

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Charlie anticipated a lot more fanfare when she came out

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as a lesbian in college. Nobody seemed to care. It's

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not that she was expecting her own gay pride parade,

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but she felt like she was sharing a huge new

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piece of her identity and her family and friends didn't

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seem the least bit interested. And she knew she should

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feel lucky. So many of her peers encountered so much

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negative drama during their coming out stories. She knew that

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that would have sucked, but it weirdly made her question herself,

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did everybody know this before she did? What did that

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say about her instincts and her self awareness? If her

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twelve year old cousins knew her better than she knew herself.

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This bugged Charlie and nagged at her throughout her early twenties.

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She questioned herself relentlessly before every life decision, big or small.

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It wasn't fun. The prevailing sentiment in the early aughts

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was that your post college years were the prime time

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and space to get to know yourself, to find deep

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rooted confidence and awareness, and meet the person that you

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were supposed to be. Charlie imagined that coming out as

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gay would be like the Door and the Lion, the

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Witch and the wardrobe, where she'd enter one world and

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exit another. It hadn't quite worked out that way. It

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didn't simplify her dating life or her career as a

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budding photographer. She still struggled to trust herself and her choices.

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That all being true, things seemed to be going pretty

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darn well for her. She moved to Brooklyn with a

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college roommate and got a job in an alternative magazine

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who sent her on weekly photo assignments all over the city.

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She didn't have a serious girlfriend, but had built a

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fantastically cool community of creative beer drinking women with neon

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hare and tattoos. She felt mostly at home in the group.

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Then at work, there were other friends. The founders of

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the magazine all knew each other from growing up together

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in New York City. They were decidedly alternative, but also

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seemed to be really dialed in. They knew the latest

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fashion designers and artists and chefs, all cool, young, hip,

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downtown type people. But Charlie got the feeling that their

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lives were drastically different from hers, even if she couldn't

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put her finger on exactly what the difference was. It

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came about a year and a half working into the

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magazine in the form of a bridal shower. Ugh, I

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can't believe I have to do this. My mother says

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that it's my grandmother's dying wish, even though she isn't dying,

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but she is super old, Kim explained, while placing a

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heavy and expensive looking monogrammed invitation on Charlie's desk. Maggie,

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Kim's co founder, popped up from behind her monitor. But

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it's gonna be fun, she insisted, smiling at Charlie as

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Kim shook her head walking to the copy room. Maggie

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walked over to Charlie's desk and whispered, it's not going

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to be a stuffy old lady thing. We're all going

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to get her lingerie. Oh nice, Charlie forced a smile.

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She'd been curious about Kim's fiance since she'd met him

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at an art gallery opening the year earlier. She had

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been introduced over plastic cups of wine and had been

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surprised that he was a man. Yeah, Charlie had just

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sort of assumed that Kim was gay too, And on

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the subway ride home later that night, she was annoyed

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with herself. Why didn't she have any instinct when it

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came to people. Was it her small town upbringing? It

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felt like it. Since she'd moved to the city. It

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seemed like the people she met had a whole other

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sense that she was missing. It wasn't gaydar, as people

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like to call knowing someone else's sexual preference. It was

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this instinctual understanding of who you were talking to and

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where they were coming from that Charlie simply did not possess.

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It made her feel like there was this giant inside

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joke that the city was having and she was on

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the outside. The weeks leading up to the bridal shower

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were busy at the magazine. Charlie found herself working late

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into the evening, sharing take out and laughs with Kim

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and Maggie. And the more time she spent with these

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two young women, the more she felt like she didn't

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know them. They were both deeply into the downtown alternative lifestyle.

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They wore Chuck taylors and ripped jeans and seemingly thrifted

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vintage looking coats. They smoked Parliament lights and knew all

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the best hole in the wall flaffel stands. But there

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was something about both of them that Charlie just couldn't place.

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One Friday night, after a twelve hour work day, Charlie

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got out of her tiny Brooklyn shower patted over to

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her small fridge to see if she could scrounge up

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anything edible. On the door was the invitation. She glanced

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at her Whitney Museum calendar hanging above the toaster. The

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shower was on Saturday, as in tomorrow. Crap, Charlie thought

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to herself, looking at her overflowing laundry hamper, wondering if

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she had anything clean. She grabbed a non expired yogurt

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from her fridge, took the invite from the door, and

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plapped herself on her not very comfortable couch in her bathrobe.

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She turned the heavy card stock over in her hand,

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noting the Park Avenue address the Upper east Side. Hum

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Charlie hadn't noticed that it was a neighborhood that Charlie

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only went to to visit museums. The streets comprising that

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area were replete with pre war door man buildings with

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long awnings shielding their residence from their glass doors to

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black cars awaiting them at the curb. The Upper east

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Side was old money, old New York money, and a

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stark contrast to Charlie's life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That night,

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falling asleep, Charlie felt that familiar, uneasy feeling of being

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out of the loop creep up on her, and she

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wasn't sure how to place it. Then she remembered that

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she needed a gift, and that it had to be Lingerie. Ugh,

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But then she got night, Charlie smiled to herself. The

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next morning, on her way to the party in a

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thrifted velvet dress in Doc Martin boots, Charlie got off

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the two three train in the West Village. The spring

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air was fragrant and flowers bloomed on the trees. Crowding

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the skinny streets. She got herself a coffee and checked

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her watch. She had plenty of time to get a gift,

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hopefully have it wrapped, and be on the uptown subway

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in time for the noon start time of the shower.

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She thought of the bride to be and almost spit

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out her latte imagining Kim walking down the aisle in

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all white towards the man whom she was now betrothed.

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Your instincts aren't right, Charlie told herself. You're a small

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town girl just figuring out real life. What do you know?

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She wasn't being particularly nice to herself. But this is

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a super fun idea, Charlie gave herself a small mental

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pat on the back as she walked into the pleasure

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chest and walked out with a perfectly purple strap on dildo.

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Charlie giggled to herself imagining Kim opening it up in

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her bedroom. She'd only briefly hesitated on the selection, but

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was pretty sure that a lingerie party should include gag gifts.

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This was for a woman who she'd never seen in

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heels or shaved armpits. Sure she'd understood that the shower

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was for Grandma's sake, but she felt confident that this

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would make the comic relief for Kim that much more valuable. Well,

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as you can imagine, Charlie was wrong. As she gave

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her name to the doorman on eighty six of them park,

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Charlie immediately felt uncomfortable. Sharing the leather tufted elevator with

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two women in floor length firs. Just added to the

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mounting weariness in her stomach. She muttered Kim's name and

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watched the elevator man press the pH button. Even though

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she grew up in a small town outside of Philly,

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Charlie still knew that those letters stood for Penthouse and

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that she was going to the top. Once inside the

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tall ceiling department, it was easily ten times the size

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of the magazine offices, Charlie felt like Oscar the Grouch

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standing in the middle of Barbie's dream house. Her pleasure

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chest bag was ripped from her hands and placed on

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a white table piled with bags from places like Lapurla

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an agent provocateur. Her nose pierced, usually dirty converse wearing

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coworkers greeted her looking like they were playing dress up

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and had to tow Ralph Lauren neither had chip nails

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or dirty hair, but looked like they'd been put through

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the fancy lady version of a human car wash. Perfectly

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shiny hair framed both of their faces, and just the

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perfect amount of shimmer shone from their blushed cheeks. Charlie's

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face burned in self consciousness as she tried to make

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small talk. What a beautiful place, she offered, with a huge,

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hopefully not obviously forced smile. Oh thanks, said Kim, allowing

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just the tiniest bit of awkwardness to escape from her

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poised mannerisms. My grandparents got this place a million years ago,

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like before New York was New York. Charlie was not

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sure that this statement made any sense, but went along

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with it anyway. An actual human in an actual black

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and white dress of a maid's costume offered her a

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cucumber sandwich. Charlie was grateful to have something to do

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with her mouth. It turned out she very much liked

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cucumber sandwiches, and ate nine more. With her belly full,

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she stood adjacent to plenty of interesting conversations about the

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upcoming nuptials, Manhattan real estate, and who was planning on

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going out to the Hamptons a bit early this year

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to quote get away from it all unquote. Charlie accepted

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a piece of asparagus that had a wedge of goat

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cheese piled precariously high on top, and then a fig

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on top of the cheese, and then a piece of

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bacon balancing on the top like the leaning tower of

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appetizer foods. She was just problem solving on how to

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get this thing into her mouth without spilling it on

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the white sofa when a woman in a blowout and

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pearls announced that everyone would need to come sit in

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the living room to watch Kim open her gifts. Oh no,

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Charlie opened her mouth creepily wide to get the vertical

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or driven. She was not gonna stick around for this.

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She tried to make her way over to the gift table.

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Her plan was to just grab her iridescent purple bag

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from the white table and slip out of the giant,

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light filled hell hole that was Grandma's penthouse. But no luck.

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The presents were whisked from the table by the cucumber

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sandwich deliverer, and now there were nine waspy women standing

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between Charlie and her bag. She stood awkwardly next to

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a group of girls in headbands and tiny designer purses

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nestled in their elbows. Charlie stood motionless as Kim opened

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up one gorgeous, expensive French lace lingerie set. And then

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this wasn't a joke. These were not gag gifts. These

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all looked like what Kate Winslet wore under her large

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dresses in Titanic. Kim's grandmother, seated on her right side,

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clutched her pearls when a teddy was unwrapped. You must

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very much be looking forward to your wedding night, she

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exclaimed to her granddaughter with a wink. Charlie accidentally let

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out a quiet snort. Here was her, well technically her boss,

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founder of one of the edgiest magazines in downtown Manhattan.

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In Generational Pearls, opening up underwear in front of a

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woman who clearly thought her granddaughter was a virgin, Charlie's

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mind wandered to the fully nude art show she'd covered

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for last month's issue and assumed that grandma had no

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idea what Kim did for a living. This thought made

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her smile until one of the headband wearing girls placed

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the purple bag into Kim's lap. Charlie gasped she had

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to stop this, but it was too late. Who's this from,

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Kim asked, uncomfortably scanning the room. You bet you're ass.

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Charlie didn't say a word, and she pretended to be

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just as appalled as the rest of the room. When

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Kim pulled out a professionally gift wrap strap on dildo,

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the perfect little party erupted into chaos. Someone ran to

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graandm aside to stop her from falling on her chanelled ass.

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Who in the world would do such a thing? The

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old woman was appalled. Charlie picked that moment to tiptoe

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out of the room in her heavy, clunky boots and

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beeline it to the elevator. She pressed the button repeatedly,

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feeling the cucumber and cream cheese rumble in her stomach.

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She looked over her shoulder at the penthouse door and

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decided to run for the stairs, which she took, all

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twenty six flights of them. She ran down Park Avenue

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and the floral scented air, completely unsure whether to laugh

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or cry, She decided to walk as far as her

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boots would allow, skipping the subway, getting fresh air cooling

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her burning cheeks. Embarrass didn't begin to cover how she felt.

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How could she have read the situation so wrong? Well,

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there was an answer. The upper east side apartment, the

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tall windows with heavy drapery, the help, the sandwiches. That

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scene didn't exist in her consciousness prior to two hours ago.

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She didn't know people lived like that. She certainly didn't

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know that the pearl wearing totally out of touch grannies

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had grandchildren running a magazine dedicated to alternative culture in

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a roach infested office next to a gay bar. The

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whole thing was mind boggling. She walked south through the

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pristy neighborhood until she got to Midtown. The uber diverse

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hustle and bustle of office workers, delivery men, sidewalk yellers

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all made her feel a bit more at home. She

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returned a smile to a woman with neck tattoos carrying

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a yoga mat. She walked all the way down through

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the forties, then another mile to a Union Square which

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had been taken and over by an art fair. On

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a whim, she purchased a stained glass of Britney Spears's face,

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thinking it would be the perfect addition to both her

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office and her Christmas tree. Hey maybe the office Christmas tree. No,

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that ended up not being in the cards for Charlie.

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The next few weeks of the magazine were awkward and stilted.

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Charlie applied for a position at a less progressive but

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better run publication. When she handed Kim and Maggie her

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resignation letter, they didn't let out a syllable of protest,

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and unsurprisingly, she never received a wedding invitation. But that

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wasn't the last time Charlie saw Kim. She saw the

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wedding announcement in the New York Times, she saw the

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magazine get eaten up by a larger, less alternative one,

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and then three years later, she ran into Kim downtown

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at the Cubby Hole, a lesbian bar in the village.

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Kim had a buzz cut and a woman on her arm,

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and no diamond rang on her finger. Charlie just gave

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her a wave and a nod. Her instincts told her

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to leave the woman alone, and that moment was extremely validating.

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She apologized to her instincts and promised to trust them

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moving forward, because hell, they'd been right all along.