The BetsyG-Spot

 

 ”Speak into the mike.” —Guys from my high school days

 

By BetsyG

With all the rain we’ve had this summer, it’s been a banner year for mushrooms in New England. Indeed, my friend Bonnie noticed an odd one on my lawn the other day that looked as if it was covered with black, velvety polka dots. Quite a visual treat.

The recent influx of fungi reminded me of something that happened a couple of summers ago. My friend Angie, who lives in North Carolina, IMed me to tell me about a strange mushroom she’d found growing in her yard.

“It looks exactly like a penis!”

She sent me a picture. It did bear a remarkable resemblance to a penis, I agreed. A real one-eyed monster.

 

 

Also known as a stinkhorn, its Latin name is phallus impudicus. Angie was advised to dig it up whole, put it in a trashbag, and seal up the bag tightly, because if the stinkhorn broke open, it would live up to its name and emit an odor most foul. She performed the operation and we had a good (virtual) laugh as she told me about it.

A few days later, I was in my yard when I saw a flash of white in the planting bed in front of my house. Rising through the bark mulch was…a large penis, with an enormous set of kohonas.

I, too, was being visited by the phallus impudicus.

If you hadn’t already decided that this story is weird, allow me to explain the two levels on which I think it’s weird. Angie had never before and has never since seen a phallus impudicus. I live 800 miles north of her and I, too, had never seen one before and haven’t seen one since. Nobody I know has seen or heard of it. And as far as I know, the only yard in my neighborhood that featured a not-quite-to-scale replica of an erection that week was mine.

It’s not as if there was an East Coast epidemic of stinkhorns. Yet two days after my friend who doesn’t even live in the same climate zone as me finds this bizarre thing growing in her yard, I find one growing in mine.

I can’t even begin to guess at the cosmic meaning of that.

The other weird thing is…what?? Have you looked at the picture? If you’re areligious as I am, this garden schlong has to make you stop and think. Why would something that looks so exactly like the male anatomy exist in fungus form? There’s some real weirdness in nature, but you can generally figure why the thing adapted as it did or the purpose of the odd trait. Porcupines have quills to ward off attack. Butterflies are painted to look like leaves and plants so they’ll be less likely to be eaten. It’s all about survival, Baby.

By what is the point of this mushroom looking so perfectly phallic? I have a couple of odd thoughts swimming in my head (curious women will touch it, thus breaking it so it can spread its spores?), but I keep coming back to thinking that it’s to prove not just that there’s a God, but that God has a wicked sense of humor. It’s so random and ridiculous, and if you saw one in real life, you might start to think that too.

Giant balls. Really.

While you’re pondering that, I’d like to tell you my mother’s favorite joke. I might have to record this for youtube so you can hear it with the Jewish accent, but for now, use your imagination.

——

Lance, a young actor trying to make his way in Hollywood, has just gotten the news that he’s landed his first part in a movie.

“One thing,” his agent explains. “You have to do a nude scene. So you need to get an all-over body tan immediately.”

Lance is so thrilled to have a part in the movie, he goes straight to the beach, wearing nothing but a thong. He gets an awesome tan.

The next day, he goes to the movie set and shows the director his tan. But the director has a fit.

“No, no! An all-over tan, I said! And when I say all over, I mean all over!”

Lance is eager to comply, but now he has a tan everywhere but his boy parts, and he figures if he lies out naked, the tan will be uneven. So he comes up with a briliant idea to bury himself in the sand, leaving just his penis exposed to the sun.

He goes to the beach and does just that. While his manhood is toasting, two older Jewish women—Sadie and Ethel—walk by.

Sadie stops Ethel and points to Lance’s member. (Oh, please try to hear the Jewish accent!)

“When I was young, I was scared to death of it,” she says. “When I was middle aged, I couldn’t get enough of it. And now that I’m old and have no use for it…it’s growing wild!”

(Mom was generally quite genteel, but any joke that allowed her to perform with her Jewish accent was acceptable. No one tells a joke better than my mother.)