Buying the perfect gift for someone is a special skill. I used to think I had the talent, but I find that every year around Christmas, I get overwhelmed by the list of people I need to buy for, and I give up. That’s when I log online and order ten of whatever gift set Oprah is shilling on her favorite things list. My nearest and dearest have gotten more truffle salt than they know what to do with. When my brother kindly informed me that he’s still polishing off the fancy sodium I gave him the year prior, I forced him to watch Hocus Pocus and reminded him that salt wards off evil spirits. My gift was a service, and I encouraged him to use it to fight sassy witch trios in the event any virgins in town light a black-flame candle! I like to think I’m easy to shop for—I enjoy video games and pop culture junk I don’t need. Get me a Rosie O’Donnell Barbie or something Nintendo, and I’m good as gold. Really anything nostalgic will bring a smile to my face, which brings me to holiday 2019.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, my boyfriend and I decided to binge old episodes of MTV’s Newlyweds featuring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. It wasn’t widely available to stream, but we found a bootleg version online that had each episode broken into thirty-minute chunks. In one of the episodes from the early 2000s, Jessica is seen doing a photo shoot for a dessert beauty line that was advertised as “lickable.” The products were incredibly popular when I was in high school, but unfortunately, I was so closeted that I was afraid to purchase them for myself. I got a lotion for a friend as a birthday gift junior year, hoping she would leave it in my car one night, but alas, it never happened.
Upon rewatch, I mentioned to my boyfriend just how badly I had wanted the product during my youth.
“I’m so jealous of teenagers now who are so comfortable with their sexuality. I was always so afraid to like the things I liked. I worried people would judge me,” I told him.
“You wanted lickable body products when you were sixteen?” he asked.
“I needed lickable body products when I was sixteen. It seemed so aspirational to me. I fantasized about having a boyfriend who wouldn’t be able to resist licking me once I applied her products,” I explained.
In the Newlyweds episode, Jessica is doing the promotional ads for her line and ends up with an upset stomach from the shoot. A red flag if there ever was one. Yet still, I wanted nothing more than the banana split body frosting and the cotton candy sugar-shimmer body powder of my own.
There’s a lot I know about Jessica Simpson. In my first book, there’s an entire chapter dedicated to my queen. But of course, there are some facts I’m fuzzy on. For instance, I know she has a successful fashion brand, but I don’t know much more than what I’ve seen on the shopping channels when I watch her hawk her anaconda pant or kitten-heeled shoes. I naively assumed the lickable body products were still in production in 2019. After all, it was something everyone wanted in 2004, so I assumed it was a thriving part of her brand.
My boyfriend is one of those excellent gift givers I mentioned earlier. He surprises me with thoughtful birthday gifts and romantic Valentine’s Day presents, and he always remembers our anniversaries. We started dating around the time of the first iPad, and I’ll never forget when he re-created that scene from Love Actually. You know, the one where Andrew Lincoln shows up at Keira Knightley’s house with giant cue cards to confess his love for her, even though she just married his bestie? But instead of cue cards, my boyfriend used his new iPad and filmed himself scrolling slides with romantic messages on each one. (I hadn’t gotten hitched to his best friend, so it was a less inappropriate and more sincere version than what ultimately appeared in the film.)
He’s also great about getting me those nostalgic gifts from my childhood, taking notes throughout the year and then perusing eBay. One year, he got me a collection of Nickelodeon magazines. Another time, he gave me HitClips—remember those small square gadgets that played less than a minute of a song? The quality was bad, and you never got to hear the bridge, but they were cute nonetheless. Then, on Christmas 2019, I opened a misshapen package wrapped in Frosty the Snowman paper, only to discover my very own gift set of Jessica Simpson lickable body products! I was thrilled!
In retrospect, perhaps I should’ve known that the product was one of his online-auction finds instead of a current line of goods, but…that’s not what happened. I set the treats aside and opened a few other gifts, grateful to have such a thoughtful significant other. Still, when friends and family asked what he gave me for Christmas, I mentioned everything but the Jessica Simpson stuff. Even though I was an out gay man, I had some residual shame left over from my teen years. Telling people I received bath and body products targeted to women was not something I was strong enough to do in 2019.
Days went by, and the potions sat on my bathroom counter, unopened. With Christmas break wrapping up and just a few more days left before going back to work, we decided to smoke a little weed we found in an old drawer. Marijuana is not something I partake in often because I have zero self-control when it comes to eating. In fact, knowing that I was going to smoke, I decided to get rid of all the holiday treats we had been indulging in throughout December. Diet was starting. Unfortunately, the weed had other plans and jump-started my typical cravings.
“I’m starving!” I told my boyfriend.
“There’s some pretzel slims and almonds in the cupboard,” he informed.
I’ve never been someone who can survive off pretzel slims and almonds. Pretzels are already slim enough—why did someone decide to make them thinner? And nothing infuriates me more than when I open a magazine or turn on a talk show and see a nutritionist instructing people to eat a handful of almonds as a snack. First of all, they don’t actually mean a handful; they mean four individual almonds. That’s not a handful. Second, that’s not enough. I’m six three and have a healthy sweet tooth. Give me a king-size Kit Kat and at least two sleeves of Oreos or nothing at all.
“I’m gonna order food,” I said.
“No ordering food! We promised we would start eating healthy and saving money,” he reminded me.
Fuck. I hate when he’s right. And I was hungry! I excused myself to our apartment restroom so I could devise a plan to get food. I quietly raided the drawers next to the toilet in my high state. I found a few Luden’s cough drops, which are basically Life Savers candy, and since they are technically medicine, it means they don’t have to put nutrition facts on the packaging, which I take to mean that I can eat as many as I want, and it doesn’t count toward any calorie counts. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something else edible: the Jessica Simpson lickable lotion.
You can all imagine what happened next. I know you’re disgusted, but I was high and decided to eat it! Stop judging me! People eat crazy shit when they’re stoned! My old college roommate once put a Kool-Aid packet in bong water because he was thirsty. This was lickable, so it was basically like whipped cream! Besides, I wasn’t spooning it out of the bottle—I was simply putting a bit on my arm and licking it off. At least that’s how it started. The first bite was what I would call “dainty,” but the weed was strong, and suddenly I was like a Hoover vacuum, sucking it up and chasing it with cherry cough drops. My boyfriend eventually knocked on the door, wondering where I had been for so long. Time has a way of stopping when you’re high, so I honestly don’t know how long I was in there eating old moisturizer with a side of cough medicine, but it was long enough that it was a cause of concern for him.
“Be right out!” I said.
Exiting the bathroom, I felt satisfied and no longer craved sugar. We sat down to watch The Family Stone, and by the end, I was no longer stoned. I started the film like Luke Wilson when he’s high and finds out Diane Keaton’s character is going to pass away, and I ended the film as sober as SJP when the movie starts. Does that make sense? Although I was no longer high by the end of the night, my stomach started to turn.
Around midnight, we headed to the bedroom to get some sleep, but as soon as the lights went out, my insides felt like they were on a roller coaster. My boyfriend drifted off to dreamland while I sat on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. I’ve never felt such pain in my life. I always thought I had a tough stomach. Sure, I’ve gotten the occasional food poisoning from gas station sushi or a cheap vacation buffet, but never had I felt so bad. And it just kept getting worse. Aside from a dry heave, nothing was coming out of me. Maybe the cough drops blocked the outlets. As I hunched over, holding my tummy and praying for relief, I looked up at the counter and noticed the beauty product I had stuffed my face with. I gathered my strength and reached for the butterscotch-toffee shimmer mist. I turned the bottle and noticed a manufacture date. It was 2006. Thirteen years prior. Oops.
I survived most of the night, but by sunrise, I knew I had to go to the emergency room.
“Boo, can you take me to the ER? My stomach isn’t right,” I said as I shook my partner awake.
“Must’ve been something you ate, but didn’t we have the same food yesterday?” he asked.
“Well…look, I just need to get to a doctor,” I countered.
The way to the hospital was rough. My stomach cramps were not letting up, and I didn’t know what to do. When we arrived, the clumsy holiday crowd filled the emergency room. I signed in at the front desk but knew I couldn’t wait my turn. There was an alien inside me trying to get out.
A nurse saw my coloring was bad and sat me in a wheelchair and drove me to see the nearest doctor.
“What did you eat?” the nurse asked.
“Um…I mean, it’s the holiday season. What didn’t I eat?” At least I didn’t lie.
I did everything I could to buy myself time. Moans and screams came out of me, but some of them were just a way for me to stall as I figured out how to explain that I ate something that (probably) wasn’t even fully FDA approved back in 2006 when it was manufactured. Before I could answer, a specialist entered the room.
“Sounds like you have appendicitis,” he said with confidence. “We’ll run some tests, and you might need to have an emergency appendectomy.”
He seemed so sure of himself. So sure, in fact, that I wasn’t interested in telling anyone around what happened that night before. Until now in this book. I had my appendix removed, and post-surgery, I suffered from some internal digestive issues that lasted months and months. I saw stomach specialists and internal medicine experts, all of whom were unsure how to diagnose me. Each of them asked what my diet was like, but none of them knew I ate something a pop star advertised over a decade earlier.
My stomach is good now, as I believe the affliction has finally passed. There’s no real way to know exactly what happened to me, but for years, I have dealt with the guilt of not telling any of the professionals I saw that I accidentally got high and ate a bunch of stuff that wasn’t meant to be consumed since Bush was in office. Even then, it was only meant to be licked. LICKED! A way to spice up sexy time with your hunky boy-bander boyfriend, not a meal replacement. Hunger got the best of me, and I inhaled a pop-star-endorsed lotion that wasn’t meant to replace cupcakes. The good news is that I survived and no longer have to worry about my appendix bursting at an inopportune time. Now that I no longer hold my secret, I can release the shame I felt for so many years. It remains to this day my sweetest sin.