Chelsea Handler - Are You There, Vodka, It's Me Chelsea

I followed him to a Wendy’s parking lot, where he parked the Mustang and got out. Motivated by pure boredom, I decided to go to the drive-through and get some chicken nuggets. After ordering, I pulled around to the window to pay and found my father standing there telling the woman behind the window that he wanted a cheeseburger. The lady was trying to explain to him in broken English that he needed to be in a car to order food, when I interrupted and told him to take a hike. “You’re not having a cheeseburger, that’s the last thing you need.”

My father looked at me, looked at the woman through the window, turned, and walked back to the Mustang. Soon after, the Asian who had called about the car pulled up in a black Honda Accord with his son and parked next to the Mustang. They got out of their car and spoke for a couple of minutes with my father before getting into the Mustang to take it for a test ride. This I had to deduce on my own, because it would never occur to my father to come over and tell me he would be back in a couple of minutes.

Just as they were pulling out of the parking lot, the car stalled. My father got out after a couple of seconds and popped the hood. I was watching this circus from inside the minivan while chewing on a chicken nugget, wondering what my father thought he was going to find under the hood. He’s not a mechanic. Unless the problem was something as obvious as the battery not being attached, he wouldn’t be able to fix a car if his life depended on it. He leaned in under the hood for a couple of seconds and then walked around to the driver side, where the Asian father was seated, and gestured with his thumb for the man to get out. Surprisingly, my father hopped in and was somehow able to start the car. He got back out, shut the hood, and walked back around to the passenger side.

I sat alone in the Wendy’s parking lot for about forty minutes until I was joined by a homeless woman with full eye makeup wearing a cape. The driver-side window was only open a crack and I was too lazy to turn the engine back on to lower it. “Here.” I took one of my chicken nuggets and squeezed it through the open part of the window. My calculations were off, and instead of the nugget fitting perfectly through the quarter-inch opening, it ended up losing its breaded coating on its way out. She took the chicken nugget, looked at it, and then slammed it on the ground. I understood that the nugget had lost some of its appeal in the transfer, but was a little alarmed at her reaction. I was, after all, sharing. We stared at each other for a full minute before I reluctantly took a dollar out of the consul and shoved it through the window.

“Good luck with everything,” I yelled as she walked away without saying “thank you.”

I retrieved my eye shades from my purse, reclined my seat, and fell into a light slumber until I heard the car door open and saw my father grabbing one of my books out of the Barnes & Noble box. “Make it out to Quan,” he barked, and handed me a Sharpie.

He took the book and walked back over to the Asian man and his son. They looked over with big smiles and waved. Then the man took some money out of his pocket, handed it to my dad, and got into the Mustang while his son got into the Honda and drove away.

“How much did he pay for the car?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.

“You must be a good-luck charm, love,” he said, patting my leg and then taking out a wad of cash. “Nice guy for an Oriental-had to negotiate a little bit, but he ended up buying the car after all. And he bought a book!”

“How much did he pay for the car?” I asked as I moved my leg away from his hand.

“Asking price was $2,235. I gave it to him for $2,225. But I made $5 on the book. Charged him twenty bucks for that. I paid fifteen bucks for it at Barnes and Noble,” he said, as if I didn’t know how much my own book cost.

“Let’s take the girls out to dinner and celebrate,” he said. “Call your mother and tell her to meet us for dinner.”

“She said she was taking a nap,” I replied.

“She’ll be up by now, and call that Mormon sister of yours. She won’t turn down a meal. And don’t miss the goddamned light!” he yelled as we approached an intersection with a yellow light.

“Goddammit, Chelsea!” he screamed when I did the unthinkable and decelerated instead of stepping on the gas and gunning it through a major intersection in a minivan at ninety miles an hour. “This light is a disaster. We could be here for hours.” Then he opened his passenger-side door, got out of the car, turned his back to me, and peed in the middle of the street.

After sleeping around for the better part of my twenties, it somehow occurred to me that I wasn’t giving everyone a fair shot. There were men I’d encounter who I wouldn’t think twice about having sex with based on their appearance alone. I knew that if I ever had a chance at becoming a respectable ambassador for countries such as Uganda, Kazakhstan, or the Tropic of Cancer, I would really have to be more of an egalitarian. I had slept with a handful of black boys in my late teens, and knew that I would have to open my borders even further in order to be taken seriously by any third-world government. It was time for a redhead.

Along with the 97 percent of women who can see, I have never been a fan of redheaded men. First of all, I am unclear as to why they are called redheads when, for the most part, their hair is bright orange. Obviously, bright orange-head doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way, but in all honesty, it should either be “orange-head” or “Hawaiian Punch-head.”

For a woman, being a redhead is a completely acceptable trait. Oftentimes it can be extremely attractive. Conversely, being a redheaded man is pretty much a lose-lose situation. It’s incredibly hard to take redheaded men seriously, never mind think of them in any sort of sexual capacity. Obviously, it’s not their fault that they were born with red hair. However, it is their responsibility to change that hair color once they have access to a convenience store or supermarket. It’s one thing to have a harelip, or even a leg that’s a couple of inches shorter than the other, but if you’re a man with red hair and don’t opt to do everything in your power to alter that, then obviously you’re not serious about experiencing all life has to offer.

My theory on the redheaded race is that they have no positive role models paving the way for them. It’s not like Ronald McDonald or Carrot Top have really helped their cause. Who are they supposed to model themselves after? Danny Bonaduce?

I did not set out to find a redhead; I was fortunate enough to have one come my way. My manager, Dave, had called to tell me a screenwriter he knew was coming to see me do stand-up. He was interested in basing a character on me in his new film. My manager didn’t mention that this guy had red hair, which I think would be a fairly reasonable thing to mention, especially if his hair took up more square footage than a Mini Cooper.

His name was Austin, and he introduced himself to me after I performed at a bar on Sunset that has since changed names four times over. Austin was about six-two with a completely beautiful body. He was really muscular-and not in a ripped, infomercial kind of way. He was built, but softer. I liked his body instantly. His head was a completely different story. “How,” I wanted to ask, “could you think that a bright orange Afro was acceptable?” It looked like he had gone bobbing for apples in a barrel filled with Fanta orange soda.

Despite his appearance, he was seemingly coherent as we made introductions and then took a seat at the bar. I kept waiting for him to stutter or have a bout of Tourette’s-something to back up his decision to leave the house in what could have very well been a clown’s wig. But there were no such symptoms. He was perfectly normal, bright, and chivalrous. He pulled out a bar stool for me, asked me what I wanted to drink, and ordered.