Love Shack Pegasus

TGIF, turkeys! Greetings from 1982! So, how'd you spend last New Year's Eve? No wait, let me guess... you drank alone and then masturbated while sobbing hysterically. Well, mine was far-out. My girlfriend, Candace, was out of town. Again! Or so she claimed. And it's really getting to be drag considering we've been dating (as far as I'm concerned) for about a year and the last time I actually laid eyes on her was the day before Valentine's day. So I thought I was just going to do my usual New Year's Eve thing: selectively dry-hump some choice booty in the throng at Times Square. It's perfect for me because the crowding is so dense they can't really turn around to slap you. Although you can tell they really wanna. But on December 31st, this bouncer I know, Leopold -- he's like, 6'6 and built, like he's chiseled out of granite or something, and he always has the grooviest suits and a ton of gold chains and this handlebar mustache that looks fantastic, I mean, he's just so cool, he probably has like a billion girlfriends -- anyway, Leopold actually invited me to his pad for New Year's Eve "to see the ball drop" as he put it. I told him I bet his apartment would be literally swarming with chicks and he said "I can think of one bitch who wouldn't miss it for the world" and I said, "Well, sign me up!" It turned out that I was the first person to arrive but Leopold put a drink in my hand as soon as I walked through the door, just to make me feel at home. I don't remember much after that but I do recall waking up the next morning naked on a garbage barge and there's a peculiar new wart on my pecker so I assume I had a blast. But enough about me! I'm here to help you losers score more foxes!

Did you know that your home is one of your best tools for winning the mating game? It's true! If even one aspect of your domicile is a turn-off, it's good night nurse for you. I learned that one the hard way! I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. (Although that would be pretty hilarious.) As a sort-of "worst case scenario" let's look at my first date at my first apartment, illustrated by scenes of something equally pathetic: Dazzler's visit to Project Pegasus!

I picked up my date, a gorgeous former teen model, let's call her "Patsy", under the pretense of being a limo service. When I veered off the prescribed route, she began to get nervous. And to be honest I didn't have any good answers for her. But I flashed my thousand-watt smile and flexed my pecs and she seemed to be satisfied with that.

My place was pretty big, for New York, but it was also in the top floor of a butcher's shop. That caused Patsy some alarm, let me tell you. But once we got up the stairs (and once that mook Gino got the slaughtered veal calf off the landing) I figured it would be smooth sailing.

One of my roommates was a good-looking actor and we walked in just as he was putting on his "Burger Clown" costume for an appearance at the opening of a fast-food joint. And even though he was covered in polka dots and clown white, he wasted no time in flirting with Patsy. And she was flirting right back! It must have been the tight clownpants. I was losing her! I had to act fast. So I hustled clown boy out the door and offered to give Patsy "the tour."

When we got to the kitchenette, we found one of my other roommates and his girlfriend sitting on the counter dunking donuts into a big bowl of bong water. And the donuts were covered in chocolate already so I don't think that even did them any good! Christ. The girlfriend started getting in Patsy's face, saying "You, you're that girl in that thing, you're that girl, I saw you, you're in that thing" and then one of her legs gave way and her head banged against the stove and she started laughing her ass off so I took that opportunity to get Patsy out of there. "Oh, this is such an adventure!" Patsy giggled and then she looked at me and said, "Lance, was it?" And I said yes and then I kicked myself for not giving her a fake name. Oh well.

I'd forgotten about that telescope I keep in the TV room and Patsy didn't buy my story about checking out the night sky with it since it was New York and you just plain can't see any stars at night and the fact it was pointed squarely at a boxing club didn't help my case at all. But then I explained that I was ogling the boxers' wives and she seemed to be cool with that. It was time to head for my bedroom! But first I had to make it through what I like to call "the gauntlet."

My bedroom is at the end of the hall so first we had to get past the two roommates who almost never leave that section of the apartment. First there was "Goo-Goo" Goolagong, an Aborigine body builder who's always tying up the phone talking to his mother in Australia and throwing wall-punching temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way. "Goo-Goo" was standing in the hallway with the super-long phone cord wrapped around his biceps. "Sweet ass," he smirked as we squeezed by him. And then he said into the phone, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. No, I do have a filthy dustbin mouth. Yes, mum. I'm getting the soap right now..." and then he dropped the phone and bolted for the bathroom.

My other other roommate is a creepy little guy who lined his bedroom with foil gum wrappers so the government couldn't spy on him and who spends all day typing up newsletters he gives to the rest of us to Xerox and hand out on streetcorners. And we all tell him we do it, too, but since he never gets past the hallway we just use 'em for coasters and paper airplanes. He tried to slip Patsy a copy of his latest screed but I grabbed him by his nose and shoved him back into his little hole.

Finally we made it to my room and if I may say so, it wasn't bad. Patsy let out an amazed gasp because I'd done my damnedest to make it female-friendly. I figured a lady would want to feel like she was making love in her own bedroom, so I had a four-poster bed with a frilly yellow canopy and lots of stuffed animals and the walls were covered in paint-by-numbers horse pictures (nothin' but). Also I had the most bitchin' stereo system, like, ever ready to crank out some David Cassidy at a moment's notice. But here's the thing. When I put the headphones on Patsy's adorable head, I forgot to check the voume knob.

Patsy swore like a sailor as she ripped the headphones off her head. She looked at the room again with these kind of crazy eyes and she looked at me like I was a cockroach or something. Her face fell. She kind of whimpered "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and she tore off into the hallway. I ran after her just in time to see her throw "Goo-Goo" (who still had a bar of soap in his mouth) out of the bathroom and slam the door. And then I heard her puking and I finally figured out she was drunk this whole time.

So naturally I started throwing myself against the door, over and over and over. When it finally busted open she looked at me with her face all shiny and tense and weird. She pushed me down and pretty much stepped on me to get out of there. And I wound up following her out the building and down the street, pleading with her to calm down but she just freaked and said "You take one more step and I'm calling the cops on your ass, you fat, slimy queen!" Which was just bewildering to me on account of my not being even close to gay but hey, it was said in the heat of the moment so I forgave her. Anyway, I walked back to my apartment in a daze and I wound up spending the whole night puzzling over what had happened, trying to figure out where I went wrong. And then it struck me.

Not enough paint-by-number horse pictures.