disco balls: a family story

my brother lumpy really likes gold bonds.

Whether you're looking to stay cool and dry for peak performance or just want to relieve and prevent skin discomfort, Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder gives you the Powder with the Power.

true dat.

as i'm sure he'd want you all to know, he specifically likes to use the gold bonds medicated powder on his underplums. he lives in new york. it's hot and sticky there. draw your own conclusions.

i know all this because when i see him, he tells me things like:

you know, zack? gold bonds is like a breath mint for your jimmy.

or:

gold bonds is like tea-bagging an angel!

everywhere he goes, he brings his gold bonds.

so when the wife and i were in san francisco, and he came out to visit, we thought; why not add a little something special to the mix?

like an entire pot of body glitter?

i mean, what could be better than tea-bagging an angel when you've got disco balls?

being responsible, considerate family members, and having a good friend selflessly provide us with body glitter at exactly the right time, we hesitated not at all. nu-huh. last night in town, we pry the cap off his gold bonds, only about a fifth full at this stage, and dump in all the glitter.

then we laugh all the way back to australia and wait... and wait... and then, when we hear nothing, shrug and wonder? did he not notice? it's been a month! did he throw away his gold bonds and buy a new, full one? what has happened?

we finally got the following email:

so a few weeks ago, i can't remember when, i noticed that my goldbonds was...well...glittery. it left my scrotum somewhat more pretty than i recall it being, and i wasn't really keen on the idea, but it wasn't something at the top of my mind, so i kept using it. i hate sweaty balls. i just figured that since i had bought the generic brand of goldbonds, that one of the defects was that at the bottom of the container there were some glittery bits.

and like a week later, i got an email from you reminding me that i was a tiger. a tiger with disco balls. i didn't really think anything of it.

and then last week, someone at work was like, "hey, dude, you have glitter on your face," and i immediately thought, "um, that must be from my hands, which were on my sparkly balls. i do not like knowing this." and so i made a mental note that it was time to buy new goldbonds and stop inadvertently glitterizing my nuts.

and then a few days after that - i had thrown it out by then - i got a text message from tratt while he was in NY. we had tried to meet up but we were too busy and so he sent me a message that ended with, "take care, discoballs."

and i thought, "something is amiss here. everyone is referring to the glitteriness of my nutsack when, in fact, my nutsack is glittery. how does everyone know this?"

personally, i'm just sorry his girlfriend didn't notice. or, say, his doctor. i'm also sorry he didn't immediately realize that his underplums were sparklified because we thought he could use a little social boost, a little extra sumpin-sumpin to put the swing into his schwing.

still, i am proud that we managed to decorate his intimates thusly. it's a prank that's up there with paolo's plastic monkey wrench or the cross-dressing party that wasn't. and i'm glad he finally put two and two together to make four extra-sparkly disco balls.

i hope that he realizes that we're going to call him Disco for the rest of his life. and i highly encourage any of you who know him to start singing Stayin' Alive when you see him. would you all please rise and join me now:

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother, You're stayin alive, stayin' alive. Feel the city breakin' and ev'rybody shakin' and we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Ah, ha, ha, ha, Stayin' Aliiiiiiiii-iiiii-iiiii-iiive.