Chelsea Handler: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

My father said he'd be outside warming up the car. You never knew which car this was because we had about ten in our driveway. My father fancied himself a used car dealer, but as I understood it, "dealing" meant buying and then selling. Cars would pile up in our driveway for years at a time, and on most mornings my father would have to jump-start one or more to get us to school. Each car was more embarrassing than the next and none were made in the decade in which we lived.

I went outside and jumped into the car that was smoking, which was a fluorescent turquoise Plymouth something or other with vinyl interior. I was flying so high from my victory, I decided to compliment him on the car.

"I love this color, Dad."

My firm yet supple seven-year-old ass had hardly touched the vinyl when my own father sucker-slapped me. Right on my nose. I was in pure, titillated horror. I couldn't even respond with words. I thought for sure my nose was broken, but then the tingling sensation died-just when I was starting to enjoy it.

"You thought you were gonna get away without a smack, didn't you?" he said.

I instantly broke down and cried like a little girl. I knew, of course that I was a little girl, but I did not like acting like one. And I was both hurt and angry at having to drive to school with someone who just smacked me. I felt like such a moron for thinking I could outsmart my father with some lame compliment about his piece-of-shit car. This was definitely a feeling I didn't like then, or the hundreds of times I've felt it since.

I didn't say anything the whole ride. When we reached the school, I got out and slammed the door. He drove away with some sort of car part scraping the sidewalk, possibly the muffler.

Now when I look back at that experience, I realize that maybe walking in on my parents in all their glory was what led me to embrace my own sexuality. The way those two were enjoying themselves made me realize there was more to life than macaroni and cheese and The Brady Bunch. I wanted in on that action and didn't appreciate having to wait another ten years to get the real party started.

I wiped my tears, picked off a Lucky Charm that was stuck to my skirt, tried to recapture some semblance of dignity, and headed inside the school.

Obviously, I would need to tell all the first graders about seeing my parents have sex.

MANY PEOPLE FEEL like a one-night stand is something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. I disagree. There are many ways to get to know someone, and my personal favorite is seeing them naked in Happy Baby pose.

I also feel it is important to have sex soon after meeting someone in order to find out if you have sexual chemistry together. Otherwise, you could wait two to three months after you start dating someone only to discover that your new boyfriend is bad in bed, or even worse, is into anal beads and duct tape.

I can remember my first one-night stand like it was yesterday. Well, maybe not the first. Or the second… or the fifth. I'll just begin with what I can remember and not concern myself with order.

It was a starry summer night at the Jersey shore. Picture violins and a harmonica. Now picture the harmonica up my ass. I think it's safe to say that the Jersey shore, specifically an area called Belmar, isn't what pops into mind when thinking of romance.

I was around eighteen at the time. It's hard to say since I started lying about my age as soon as I got my boobs. My girlfriend Ivory and I had just graduated from high school and decided to celebrate by the water. Ivory and I had met freshman year and had been close ever since. Her parents came to America from Cuba long before Ivory was born. They had since tried to prove their loyalty to America with every child they'd had. Her brother's name is Cincinnati and she has a sister named July, presumably after the fourth. Somewhere along the way, they also converted to Judaism.

We were discovering the Jersey shore for the first time and felt it was our duty as Jersey girls to really pay our respects to the Garden State. We were tired of sleeping around with the average Joe, Dick, and Harry. A challenge was in order.

We were in the mood for dancing, so we found a loud, dark bar with music pouring out of it. I had her pick out the hottest guy in the bar and I fearlessly approached him. It was very empowering to go up to a babe like him and be received so well. I thought, Wow, I must be really good-looking. Until I started dancing.

I don't know if you've ever seen a Jewish girl who's been self-diagnosed as tone-deaf cut a rug on a Jersey shore dance floor before, but it definitely resembles someone whose motor skills haven't fully developed. In my state of drunkenness, I was fueled by delusions of being an original cast member of the play Chicago. I decided to do the number where I rub my ass into my partner's crotch while my arms grab his neck behind me. When in doubt, ladies, this move will always guarantee you at least a slice of pizza.

I decided on two slices instead of one; I'd burned a number of calories during my Flasbdance number and wanted to reassure my guy that I wasn't one of those girls who didn't eat. We had a great time eating and watching my best friend Ivory make out with her score for the night. Her guy was a real piece of Jersey trash, and they ended up tearing off in his banana yellow Camaro. I went back to my guy's house and proceeded to have some of the best sex I can barely remember.

What I do recall is turning his ceiling fan on "high" (there are two things in this world I cannot sleep without: a fan and a silk set of eye shades), ripping his clothes off, and looking at one of the finest bodies that our ecosystem has ever created. The next morning I was walking with a considerable limp and wasn't able to deduce if this was a result of the dancing or the sex. After catching a glimpse of my hair in the mirror, I considered scheduling an audition for the lead in The Lion King.

I dated this beautiful hunk of flesh for the next eight months. His looks overrode his personality for the first couple of months, but after a while it became harder and harder to ignore. We would go out to dinner, and the minute he was done eating, he'd put his fork down and ask for the check. The summerhouse he rented with four other guys had hot water for only the first ten minutes and then it would become freezing, so he insisted on taking showers before me, because I was his little "trouper." This was also someone who wouldn't let me borrow his toothbrush on an occasion when I forgot my own, for fear of mouth germs. I liked his roommates better than him, so I would hang out with them during the day and then go up and have sex with him at night. I'd turn up the music loud so we wouldn't be tempted to talk.

Our relationship finally ended when he took to waking me up in the wee hours of the morning when he would go surfing. He thought it might be fun to have me come and watch. "Fun for who?" I wanted to ask. I had never asked him to come to Happy Hour and watch me drink. I gently explained to him that I would rather sit at home and staple my hand to a wall than watch someone wearing a wet suit wipe out every thirty seconds. Besides, my ass didn't look so good in a bikini after a summer of margaritas, and I thought it was time I found someone farther inland.

I realized that summer that a one-night stand is called just that because it should only be for one night.

ONE SUMMER, MY girlfriend Ivory and I decided that after all our hard partying at community college, we deserved a vacation. My parents' summer home in Martha's Vineyard would be empty until mid-July, so Ivory and I generously volunteered to look after things.

We had many rules that summer. After a long conversation about money and responsibility, we both agreed that a job would add too much pressure to our very hectic drinking schedule. At one point during that summer, when we were really broke, we were left with no choice but to join a cleaning service. It only took fifteen minutes of scrubbing the inside of a toilet for me to realize that the only time I felt comfortable facedown in one was after a hard night of margaritas. It was then that we resolved it should be men's responsibility to pay for our alcohol and whatever small amount of food was required.