The Man Who Woke Up One Morning With A Vagina In His Forehead
By Jim Goad
It was a summer morning like any other—except for the fact that when he looked in the bathroom mirror while splashing cold water on his face, Gregg Sandstone did not expect to see an adult human vagina occupying the center of his forehead.
Gregg—who over the years had allowed his appearance to implode into the soft lumpiness of middle age—rubbed his eyes, squinted, and looked again. There was no mistaking it—there was an honest-to-goodness female sex organ smack-dab in the middle of his forehead. He’d seen a handful of vaginas in real life and thousands more in porn, so he knew what they looked like.
He reached into the medicine cabinet, frantically tapped out three Xanax from a small clear-amber pill bottle, and swallowed them without water. He jumped into the shower, taking extra pains to softly soap his new vagina while he shampooed.
While toweling off, he realized to his deep shame that rubbing his vagina was mildly pleasurable. Then he tossed the towel to the bathroom floor, breathed the deepest sigh of his life, and went into the guest bedroom to get dressed.
His wife, Erma Sandstone, was sleeping in their master bedroom. It had been nearly a dozen years since she’d been laid off from her job when the State of New Hampshire replaced its highway tollbooth collectors with machines. She’d never tried to find another job. Once Gregg said he’d be willing to cover all their costs until she found something else, she’d come to believe that it was a man’s job to provide, anyway. For years now she’d forced him to get dressed for work in the guest bedroom because he always woke her up by getting dressed in their bedroom.
Dressed in one of his five work suits—he couldn’t tell the difference between any of them—Gregg tiptoed back into the bathroom so as not to wake Erma. He wanted to make sure there was still a vagina in the middle of his forehead.
Yes. There was still a vagina in the middle of his forehead.
Realizing that he’d be fired if he showed up late, Gregg decided that there was no time to come up with a cockamamie alibi. He grabbed a Navy blue wool cap, pulled it over his head so that it came right down over his eyebrows, and headed to work.
An acquisitions manager for the largest ball-bearings manufacturer in New England, Gregg made it a point to always show up on time, do his job, and attract as little attention as possible. But it’s hard not to attract attention when you’re wearing a winter ski cap on a summer day that’s projected to top out at 100 degrees. And despite the triumvirate of Xanax tabs that were oozing through his veins, he had already accrued enough stress sweat that both of his white dress shirt’s armpit areas were completely soaked.
Still, Gregg tried to manage. He always tried to manage. Gregg never saw the point in getting angry, belligerent, or sometimes even assertive.
“Hey, Sandstone,” said a man peeping in the doorway of Gregg’s office, “did you get the papers signed for the Tomlinson contract?” It was Rick Dixon, Jr., son of the CEO and Vice President of Operations. Rick had the easygoing self-assurance of someone who’d never had to worry about anything in life, mainly because he hadn’t. He did a double-take and and asked, half-laughing, “What’s up with the beanie, Sandstone?”
Gregg cleared his throat, realizing he couldn’t maintain the charade forever. “Can you come in and close the door?” he asked quietly.
“Sure,” Rick said, realizing things had suddenly gotten serious. He closed the door and stood in front of Gregg’s desk. “What’s going on?”
Gregg took a deep gulp and removed his wool cap. “This just happened…this morning. I woke up, went into the bathroom, and…it was there.”
With a look that was equal parts amusement and horror, Rick stammered, “But…that’s…a—”
“—a pussy,” Gregg said. “I know. I have a pussy on my forehead. And it’s a real pussy. And I’m freaking the fuck out.”
“Yeah, no shit, dude. I’d be freaking out, too. In fact, I’m freaking out for you right now.”
“I don’t know if I should talk to a doctor or go to the police, or both.”
“Does Erma know about this?”
“Nah, she was sleeping when I first saw it.”
Rick pulled up closer to Gregg’s desk and whispered, “You know about what happened to the Old Man of the Mountain, right?”
The “Old Man of the Mountain” was a geological formation in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire that from a profile view looked like the side of an old man’s face. As the story goes, centuries of erosion finally brought the old man’s face crumbling down.
“Yeah, his face finally fell apart due to all the winter storms, right?” Gregg asked.
Rick laughed. “Yeah, that’s what they want you to believe. Did you ever hear the story that the reason the Egyptian Sphinx has no face is because Napoleon’s soldiers realized it showed a black face, so they did target practice on it until you could no longer see the face?”
“No.”
“Well, anyway, a similar thing happened with the Old Man in the Mountain. It was the biggest tourist attraction for years up here. Then one morning, the first park ranger that appeared on duty noticed that the Old Man suddenly had a huge pussy in the middle of his forehead—just like yours! There was no mistaking it for anything else, either—just like yours! Well, the State of New Hampshire couldn’t quite afford to become a laughingstock, so they cut some backroom deal where a demolitions squad under cover of night just blasted off the rest of the Old Man’s face. Ha, I mean, I’m not suggesting that’s what you should do—we need you here, buddy!”
“Weird.”
“By the way, did anything weird happen last night?”
“No, just another argument with Erma.”
“Another one? What about this time?”
“Something stupid like always. You know I spell my name a little unusually—with the two ‘Gs’ at the end. Well, often I’ll explain to people, ‘That’s “Gregg” with two “Gs.”’ Last night she and I got into an argument about how it’s not actually two ‘Gs’ but three—one at the beginning and two at the end—and how it annoys her whenever I tell her it’s two ‘Gs’ because it’s actually three. She said she couldn’t believe how stupid I am that I couldn’t even count the letters in my name. So instead of having sex, we just argued and fell asleep on opposite ends of the bed again.”
“Wow, what a cunt.”
“Yeah.”
“Ha—and now you have a cunt!”
“Yeah.”
“OK, look, I know it sucks. Just have a doctor look at it or something. But let’s get back to work—I need you to order me up more of these steel balls.”