Once he got the shot he needed, he moved on to the matter at hand or, as he described it, "to see the girls out."

"Bye!" I yelled after them. "Bye, girls!"

"Oh, I'll be back, shitface!" Wendy hollered.

The next day Sylvan had an early flight, so I didn't get to see him before he left, but he sent me a text saying that he wanted me to know he never had sex with Wendy and that he only got dry-humped by her: "please trust that she was the aggressor, chelz. I did get to see her booty which was nice and big, like a full moon."

I showed the text to Ted after I stopped convulsing.

"Oh, my God. He's worried you're upset? Little does he know, this is what you live for. That's the main difference between you and me, Chelsea. I consider last night a mockery. You consider last night one of the best nights of your life and a huge success."

"Maybe I do."

"I've never seen anything like that in all my life."

"Well, you've obviously been running with the wrong crowd. It was like God came down from the sky and handed me an Easter basket. An Easter basket with three chocolate bunnies."

I turned sideways in bed to face Ted. "Did I ever tell you that my favorite holiday used to be Black Friday?" Since I have one African-American friend, when I found out about this holiday, I thought: It's about time. I was psyched that she would have a day just to relax and celebrate herself for being black. I also thought it was really nice that Black Friday took place the day after Thanksgiving; if my friend worked for someone who didn't take advantage and give her a four-day weekend, she could still get off work by telling her boss that she's black and Friday was her day. I had forgotten to get my friend Loni a gift for Black Friday a couple of years ago, so I ran to the mall to get her a new weave. The place was a disaster; all the stores were having sales and there were people everywhere. That's when I found out what Black Friday was. I've since turned my attention to Flag Day, primarily because I'm a fan of June.

"That's a pretty dumb story," Ted declared, when I was done.

"Thank you," I replied. "I appreciate you taking the time to listen."

Chapter Eight.Dear Asshole

Against all good and reasonable judgment, my mentally retarded father insists on renting his Martha's Vineyard summer home at astronomical rates, mostly based on how much income he perceives the family who's renting makes. His assessment depends on three factors: their vocabulary during the initial phone conversation, the region of the country they live in, and how much experience he thinks they have in being taken advantage of.

The following is an e-mail my sister Sloane forwarded me from one of my father's renters after the renter and her family made the mistake of paying to stay at our house.

July 16, 2008

This is a lovely letter from last week's renters. They came after dad stayed for 1 week and chose NOT to have maid service after his stay or attempt to clean up after himself AT ALL before leaving the house. He is cagey about who he brought to the vineyard with him which means it was one of his Jamaican girlfriends… enjoy.

July 14, 2008

Mr. Melvin Handler

35 Morningside Drive

Livingston, NJ 07039

Dear Mr. Handler,

This letter is intended to follow up in writing on the telephone conversation that you had with my husband, on Tuesday morning, July 8, 2008. During that conversation, my husband detailed to you a number of problems and deficiencies that we discovered on July 6th and 7th upon our arrival at your home on Martha's Vineyard, for which we had contracted a week's rental from July 6-13, 2008 for the price of $7,900, including a $150 housekeeping fee, plus a $500 security deposit.

Our initial realization upon our arrival was that the house had not been cleaned. There was food left out on the counter, in the cupboards and in the refrigerator and freezer, most of which was well past usable condition. The counter, stovetop, toaster and table were covered with crumbs and food stains; the oven and refrigerator shelves were very dirty. Someone had left a package of squid (bait?) behind in the freezer, which had melted (due to freezer problems described below) and dripped smelly, fishy puddles onto the bottom of the freezer unit. We all spent the first several hours in our "vacation home" cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and sweeping floors. As you might imagine, that was hardly the way we had hoped to begin our stay on Martha's Vineyard.

Also, the grill was filthy to the point of being unusable. My husband went out and purchased tools to clean it, and he and a friend (that hasn't spoken to us since) spent several hours scrubbing grilling racks, burners and the inside of the grill to remove grease and food debris, and hosing it down before we could reasonably cook on it. By this time, one of our other friends had already gone to the local hardware store and purchased a new grill for $479.95 which we had shipped back to our house in West Virginia at the end of our week for another $275.00.

Additionally, we found that items that we assumed belonged to your family had not been removed or stored prior to our visit. There were clothes in closets and drawers, along with children's toys and boogie boards and home maintenance items such as paint [and] varnish cans. There was a full laundry basket of unfolded towels and dirty clothes in the laundry room, as well as dozens of household items stored untidily under the kitchen sink and in the laundry room, not to mention an empty container of Tide cleaning detergent.

As our first 24 hours in the house progressed, we realized that there were several essential appliances that simply did not work, including:

* the refrigerator and freezer. While we were able to maintain the refrigerator portion somewhat cool by turning the cooling dial to its maximum level, the freezer did not work at all.

* the dishwasher. We loaded it to capacity Sunday night and Monday morning after our initial meals, added detergent and set it to run when we left for the beach Monday morning. Upon our return seven hours later, the dishwasher was still running. We had to unload the dishwasher and wash all of the dishes, which were caked with dried soap.

* the toaster. The manual "pop-up" latch was broken, which required two of us to jury-rig a method for getting the toast out before it overcooked by turning down the "light/dark" knob and pulling forcefully up on the toasting lever. My husband and I sustained several small burns on our fore and middle fingers, since we were too embarrassed to let anyone else use the toaster.

Additionally, there were several areas of the house in serious need of repair:

* The ceiling in the first floor bathroom had an obvious plaster patch over the toilet. On Monday evening, that patch fell through, scattering plaster dust and ceiling pieces around the toilet and bathroom floor. Throughout the week, small bits of plaster and drops of water fell into the bathroom.

* The bathtub faucet in the first floor bathroom leaked a continuous stream of very hot water into the tub and had corroded right through the faucet itself. Both the tub and faucet were rusted badly. We came to the determination that this constant hot water leak must have been a contributing factor to the complete shortage of hot water for showers; when ten of us returned from the beach and wanted to clean up, only two of us could do so with even reasonably warm water.

* While there were three screen doors out onto the deck and one in each of the first floor bedrooms, one screen door in the living room was completely blocked by the location of the television set, while the other two, as well as the one from the bedroom to the back deck, came off in our hands upon our first exit from the house. We set them back on their tracks, but were forced to "repair" them constantly throughout the week in order to use the deck at all.