On the way home today I listened to Me’Shell Ndegeocello’s Plantation Lullabies CD. I put “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)” on repeat and sang along. That song always makes me think of my friend J.H. because she’ll bring up the following story and then crack up. It makes me laugh every single time I hear the song.
J.H. and I worked at a very conservative bank back in the mid-90s. She still works for a spin-off of that bank. Only they aren’t so conservative anymore. The bank was so conservative that one day I wore a tailored suit and got the up and down look from one of my colleagues. The look was I can’t believe you wore pants today. The bank finally decided to go with a strict interpretation of business casual on Fridays. Then the bank got sold and I know that casual rules in some parts of that bank.
Anyway, it was Christmas time and the boss had provided our department with a boom box. The boom box sat in the middle of our portion of the floor and was strictly for holiday music. I brought in a mix tape of holiday music and snuck it into the tape player after the hundredth playing of KennyFuckingG. My mix tape played merrily and included blues versions of many holiday standards. Everything was just fine until the tape flipped to the other side and Me’Shell started belting out “But if that’s you boyfriend he wasn’t last night”. A hush fell over the office and I purposely let a few more lyrics go by before I rushed to the boom box and put KennyFuckingG back on rotation.