Shane is an older middle aged paleface, a Vietnam Vet, who keeps in shape, has a decent job, and has a sweet girl—eh, and a wife. Well, he and the wife don’t get physical anymore, each figuring the other is probably having their intimacy taken care of somewhere else. His girl is young and no way does he need another kid, so he always puts on a “rain coat.”

Unfortunately—though fortunately for the pride of the Caucasian race in Shane’s small corner of the world in Parkville, Maryland—he was blessed with two things, a strong heart…and a cinema-worthy endowment. [Shane blushes as he obliquely refers to this in conversation, regarding it as something of a curse.] The problem is, finding the right size at the 7-11 on the way to his girl’s early in the morning before work, is not always easy. Most places do not even carry his size, so he swings into the city and hits the 7-11 there, where the brothers shop.

Once, late at night, he used the Giant over in Ravenwood. Shane stood patiently behind a young black couple as they argued over whether or not to buy the condoms with the “ribs on them.” He became impatient, what with his girl waiting in the car and his wife waiting up to watch the Jimmy Falon show with him, so said, “Excuse me,” and reached between the squabbling youngsters and took the last box of Magnum Extra Large off the shelf, to which the young girl’s eyes popped open wide as she checked out Shane, and then darted narrowly to her ever-shrinking man and sneered, “Ribbed, you weak-ass nigga.” She then flashed a plastic smile at Shane as her man complied in abject humiliation to her request for artificially enhanced girth, and said as sweet as could be, “Have a nice night, sir,” then ripped into her man again, “En he payin’ for dat shit too, boy, while I payin’ ta bag yo weakass shit!”

Shane, who had harbored black girl fantasies, never felt that way again after hearing that, just imagining how much the pillow talk would remind him of getting stuck up by that Puerto Rican on the parking lot of the CVS drugstore.

Usually the African guy at the counter just sneers at him when he makes his $4.99 purchase for a 3-pack. But this past Thursday morning, before the sun rose, he faced embarrassment on a different scale. A tall, pretty black girl with the face of that Ethiopian model that was popular in the 1990s, and a fit, figure greeted him with a smile, obviously indicating this was her first week on the job.

Shane stepped aside to let the junkie looking white dude with all the tattoos, left over from the previous night, ahead of him. But the guy motioned that he was not ready yet. Immediately suspecting that this dirt-bag might be fixing to rob the joint, he kept one eye on him the entire time, [1] and, kind of embarrassed over being a basically ancient dude buying condoms at the 7-11 in front of these two twenty-somethings, pointed at the condom rack.

The young lady spoke clearly, “A box of condoms, sir?”

He looked at the dirt-bag, who stopped rooting in his pockets for change at those words, and after they both made eye-contact, looked back at the young lady and nodded meekly.

She replied with a very professional demeanor, “What selection, sir.”

He mumbled, “The black box.”

She looked at him directly and said, “Magnums, sir, what kind?”

The dirt-bag was straight up staring at him as he held out his hand and held up two fingers.

A smirk crossed her face as she said, at a normal conversational tone that rang like a loud speaker at 5 a.m. in this empty 7-11, “Extra-Large, sir.”

He nodded affirmatively as he took out his wallet, keeping an eye on the dirt-bag, and handed her a $5.

The woman halted, before ringing up the purchase, tapped on the counter where was pasted the face of the 7-11 actor portraying the 30-year-old dude that must be carded to buy cigarettes, and said, “I’ll need to see your I.D., sir.”

The dirt-bag jerked his head as if he had been struck, as Shane’s mouth gaped at the woman, and she said, in a very professional tone, “Please, sir, it’s the law.”

The dirt-bag, who had been developing eye-contact report with Shane, mouthed “what-the-fuck,” as Shane handed over his I.D., to which the young lady suddenly became most unprofessional, leaning forward until she was prone on the counter on her elbows, one propping up her chin with the $5 between the fingers and the other holding the Maryland State I.D., which she waved, “Mister Man Shane, lives right around the corner. Isn’t that convenient for lonely Queenita.”

The dirt-bag let out a grunt as Shane stood dumbfounded, realizing that this ghetto bitch now knew where he lived and could walk right up to his front door and.—“I’m married,” he blurted.

Her seductive smile then melted and she returned the I.D. and rang up the purchase as she said, “That’s a Shame, Mister Man Shane, because I’m not a ho, and we’ll have to pass on what might have been.”

Her smile made him think that she was some kind of comedian, that she was enjoying this way too much, like his wife put her up to it or something. Then, after ringing up the sale and placing the penny in the hand with the box, she held it pack with a wry grin and said, “I have to know.”

The dirt-bag was just standing, gawking, and Shane gave him an indignant look, to which the dirt-bag shrugged his shoulders as if Shane’s intimate business were public property.

Dumfounded, he said to the smirking girl, younger than his daughter by a decade, “I don’t understand.”

She then smiled openly and placed the heels of her hands on the counter and said, “Come on, I know you all men name your critter. I just want the name and you can have your pro-tect-ion.”

Dumfounded, he stood back and looked at both of them, suddenly having the impression that he was in an asylum. The dirt-bag broke the ice, “I’ll go first. I ain’t proud.”

Queenita snorted, “Okay, let’s hear it—no strings attached, alright.”

The skinny little man with the Mickey Mouse tattoo on the back of his hand and a black heart on his throat, put his hands up next to his neck and did some hand flourish and said, “Vanilla Nice!”

Queenita, who was winning Shane over as a person with her bizarre but in control sense of humor, said, “Not bad—I believe that’s original, and most importantly, is not too boastful. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to hear, ‘Here comes Big Johnson,’ as if he was the first dude that named his critter that.”

They then both stared, looking up at him expectantly, like his children had on Christmas morning. He shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment, and the dirt-bag assured him, “It’s all good, Pops. We’re all friends here.”

Queenita winked at him, which gave him the courage to name his totemic mating image and he answered her as he extended his hand for the box, “Jaws.”

Queenita handed him the box with her mouth open, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, as the dirt-bag laughed in a gargling fashion and gave Shane a high-five, “Fucking right, Pops!”

The dirt-bag then noticed that Queenita did not have a clue, and as Shane stepped to the door he said, “It was a movie about a great white shark that ate bitches and boats, yo!”

To this Queenita stepped back and pumped her fist in the air, laughing in a high-pitched squeal and stomping one foot, smiling like she had just added a valuable to some rare collection. [2]

There is no real moral to this story, but was too damned funny not to preserve in a book about bitches, of which the ‘blatant” variety had not originally figured into the outline.

1. Shane thought for sure that this guy was going to rob him or the store.

2. Shane mentioned, by way of comparison, the look on his friend’s face in 1968 when he added Baltimore Orioles, first baseman, Boog Powell’s card to his baseball card collection.