Group therapy in a blog.
NYC: C is For Condom, That’s Good Enough For Me
Ahh, New York City mid-Valentine’s Day hailstorm. As the pellets land on my windowsill, I open up GTalk and note my friend Bronwen’s “status,” which is only a website URL. I click, and discover that New York City is the first city to brand its very own condom. “And it’s NYC to the core,” the site boasts.
I’m trying not to overthink this. And obviously failing miserably. Why does NYC need its own condom? What is “NYC to the core”? (Pollution? The Yankees? Rudy Giuliani?) And how that could be applied within the condom context?
And once we’ve determined what that elusive NYC ingredient or factor or characteristic is, how would other cities tailor and manufacture their condoms? I imagine Rome and Jerusalem would have their condoms manufactured faultily on purpose, to encourage breeding rather than contraception. The Los Angeles condom would likely be made of silicone and each box would come with the person’s headshot and resume. In Chicago, it comes with a scarf and hat so you don’t catch cold. And in Florida, they’re all orange-flavored.
Wanna get your own? Here’s a list of distributors…and Happy — oh, you know.
Umm, I really don’t know why I know this, but this was a trend actually more than 100 years ago. Military units had their own colored ribbons attached to their condoms. Back then they were Not latex, but sheep’s intestine (still sold as ‘lamb’s skins’), and you needed to ‘tie them off’ with a bit of ribbon for them to be effective. Ergo, your own unit’s ribbon colors would be sported on your intimate person so all and sundry could see & be impressed that you were with the ‘1st Light hussars’ or some such. This still survives in some vestigial form in the public wearing of ‘regimental’ or school neck ties. Towns and cities were also represented in this practice, then as now. This bit of strange bits of history brought to you by Bit-o-Honey, ’cause everyone wants a bit of honey. Thanks. Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
VJ, I had no idea. And I’m not sure why you know that either.
I guess I really enjoy history, the stranger and more obscure the better. That’s a start. Then you get into the numbers that no one knows, and you’re off to the races, right? Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
Wait a minute Esther, I know exactly where this started! It was a Punch cartoon not a few years back, and that’s from an even older joke, (probably told in a vernacular Irish accent to make it funnier) that probably pre-dated the cartoon. So it’s British in origin & practice I suspect. Or at least they still have a historical memory of it. But then again they just might, right? But yeah, I plead Punch for a start. My honey got me a subscription when I was in Grad school. So it’s another thing that reminds me of her. All the sick Brit jokes she never quite appreciated! Cheers, ‘VJ’
The D. C. one comes in elephant and donkey patterns, and you have to pay $500 to open it up.
San Francisco? Black latex, of course, with a ring at the end for extra sensation.
Houston? In extra-large sizes. (Everything is bigger in Texas.)
The Boston one is red (a red sock), and shrinks if placed next to a NYC condom.