Dir: Vincent Voss
Rating: 8 This is weird. Without consciously doing it I have been removing my wedding ring before I masturbate. I'm not certain when it started or why, but I began noticing it a few weeks back. I've been thinking that the reason may be that I don't think it's acceptable to wear my ring when having sex with another woman, imaginary or not. Or maybe the ring just feels weird on my pecker. But I don't ever use that hand (actually I pretend to only have one hand like the drummer in that band), so I don't think that's it. When I was in Atlanta in July on my little Skinema book tour, I found myself ringless and pretend-armless in my room unloading my awesome before I went to the bar. Earlier that morning I kissed my wife good-bye for three weeks; hours later I was already missing her. And her mouth. So when it came time to get busy with mine own self I naturally removed my ring. But this time I forgot to put it back on. I dressed, primped what little hair I have left, blew into my hand and made sure my breath was stinky, tied my shoes, and walked out of the hotel to drink. Ten minutes from the hotel all the subtle nuances hit me: the street painted rainbow, the moon in the sky having a pink triangle drawn around it, the male homeless offering blow jobs for change, the abundance of men wearing Speedos, and everyone being so well groomed. I was in the gay part of town and all the fellows seemed to be giving me the googly eyes. I looked down and saw the tan line from my wedding ring and imagined that they thought I intentionally took off my ring so I could step out on my wife with some Grade gay man meat. I began to panic, not that I would accidentally give a few hundred men hand jobs but that maybe my subconscious had picked up on the gayness of the neighborhood and forgot to tell me. Maybe leaving the ring in the room was no accident. Maybe I did have some change for the stinky homeless. I sat at the bar and the not-gay male bartender asked what he could get me. I yelled, "Not a blow job!" and stormed out. I called some friends and had them meet me at the hotel. I grabbed my ring and met them in the lobby. We sat beside two pretty girls from Boston and their 60-year-old leather handbag they called a mother. They were in town for some prayer convention. They sold prayer cards is what I got out of it. My friends were trying to bed down with the two young ladies. So I pretended to show sexual interest in the old lady. I asked her, "Do you have a ring on that finger, sweetheart?" She said yes. "Well, me too," I told her, "but we can get around all that." "No," she said, "my husband is dead." "Oh," I said and without thinking about what the alcohol was making me say I said, "Well, if you like, I can kill my wife so we can be even." She lost her mind. Started crying. Saying what a good man her husband was and a lot of other stuff I didn't care much about. "Lady, I was just kidding. Don't be such a baby," I said. She stormed off, sobbing. I was now the fifth wheel. I said good night to my friends and the girls and went to sleep. That night I dreamed I had those eyes that grow out of potatoes growing out of my ball sack. All I could think was, "Great. Just great. I don't have health insurance." For more of Chris go to Chrisnieratko.com or Myspace.com/njskateshop.