“Guy in a Van…”

It’s taken me a while to post this picture that was left on my windshield last night because it’s so much more than just comedy gold in the form of a creepy note. I have so much to say. Let me take you on a journey into the mind of a woman.

It all starts here.  I’ve gained some weight. Blah, blah. I already know what you’re going to say. “You look great!” “Men love curves!” “Hollywood is so oppressive!” Sure. Trust me, my normal weight is considered “fat” for the average actress. I am happy with my normal weight. I have no energy to starve myself or work out too much. BUT I have gained more than a dozen pounds over my “normal weight” and my jeans don’t fit. (They would if I removed my ass from my body  - but my health insurance isn’t that comprehensive when it comes to cosmetic surgery.) I want my clothes to fit - the clothes that I already have and have been wearing for years. It’s a slippery slope to go from “I gained 15 pounds so I’ll just buy new clothes” and then suddenly you are you are sitting in your living room with your couch bonded to your ass and Richard Simmons is outside with a forklift trying to bring you to a gym.

So, rather than diet - I’m just going to simply stop eating like the world is ending and get back to the gym. In the meantime, I decided that I deserve a pair of jeans that fit. I finally resigned myself to looking into buying a brand of jeans called, “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans.” I don’t have a daughter. Or a son. Or even a pet. I don’t want to buy “mom jeans” but these are supposed to make you look a size smaller and not mom-ish. But the name just sounds like, “Hey, I give up” rather than “I’m an empowered woman of a certain age and shape.”

So I go to Nordstrom Rack and ask the girl at the counter.

Me: “Do you have Not Your Daughter’s Jeans?”

Girl: “Are they for men?”

Me:  “No. They are for women. For me.”

Girl: “Oh, I just thought that it meant they weren’t for women.”

Me: “No, they aren’t for young women, women who are skinny. They are for career writer-ly type women who have a candy drawer at work and can’t control themselves and then get into too deep of a sugar coma to go to power yoga at the gym next door, so they use their yoga mat that they keep at their desk as something to wipe their hands on if there are no paper towels available.”

Girl: “Hmm. We don’t have any of those jeans but we have a lot of other jeans.”

So I get seduced by trying to fit into my normal brands. I say to myself, “I’ll buy the same skinny jeans but just one size bigger.” Try three sizes bigger and it still looks awful. Skinny jeans really are meant for skinny people not people with a post-pregnancy body who haven’t even ever given birth.

So, I leave the store. I’m not feeling down on myself. I’m just trying not to feel. I get into my car after notice a note on the windshield. This is the note:

Okay - this is creepy & upsetting for many reasons.

1.  I was walking in a parking garage at night by myself oblivious to the fact that there was even a van or a man in a van watching me.

2.  The way he wrote “Guy in van” makes me think that at some point we made eye contact and he thinks I’ve seen him. I must walk around staring off into space instead of my former-death stare I used to walk the streets of New York City with back in 1999.

3. “I thought you were pretty.” It’s like saying, “Hey, I know most people think you’re gross but I THOUGHT you were pretty.” He could have said, “You are pretty,” or “You must hear this all the time but let me say it again, you are pretty.”

4. Why couldn’t he get his ass out of his van and ask me out? He thinks that I AM GOING TO CALL HIM? What if I were more of a Megan Fox type - would he expect a woman like that to call him? Or does he think that the woman who can’t find any jeans to fit into should just be willing to call some guy in a van??

I take this note to work and show everyone and they all agree that it’s #1 - hilarious and #2 - so silly of me to take offense to the notion that this would-be-rapist wants me to call HIM.

Until…..my friend Steve Google’d this guy’s phone number. Within seconds we found out - HE IS A MALE ESCORT. WOMEN (or probably mainly men) PAY HIM FOR SEX.

So, he gave me his number so I could pay HIM for sex? Am I so beyond “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans?” and on to “I Have To Pay For Sex With Guys In a Van?”

My husband said to me, “Jen, he’s probably a sex addict. He has sex for a living and was also just trying to pick you up - thinking, ‘well, I’ll take a chance.’ But he wasn’t going to charge you.”

Let me ask you this - how many times has a yard cleaning, house-painting, car-repair company put a flyer on your windshield with a number to call for their services and then they DIDN’T CHARGE YOU for said services?

I just have to say here - to try to preemptively avoid the “don’t be upset” emails…I really am kidding. But the timing of when a sex addict/escort in a van wrote me a sad note right after I couldn’t fit into any jeans…..it’s the Universe saying, “You are trying to buy mom jeans. Guys in vans want you to break all the natural rules of social order and CALL THEM to PAY FOR SEX. Keep your hands out of the candy drawer, Jen and in the meantime, carry some mace.”