C.A.W.
Summer 2008 will forever be known as the glorious, exciting, harrowing time I went completely off the rails. Alas, it was the first time since my rebellion filled adolescence that I consciously went rogue, and decided to give no fucks about the societal impositions that suggested how I should be living my life.
It also helped establish the C.A.W. movement, but more on that later.
After a particular mentally bleak winter, June had swung around and my birthday was finally on the horizon. I’d completed a year of self-imposed celibacy to get my mind right about a variety of shit, and was game and ready for action.
Basically, I was determined to get laid.
Looking back, I approached this goal with all the subtlety of a grizzly bear - ravenous and on the hunt. To this day, I firmly believe there was some funky planetary alignment going down, combined with an undetected pheromone leak into the balmy Los Angeles basin. This unique set of circumstances also propelled me into my first full-scale manpage.© (Similar to a rampage: a manpage is a course of wild and uncontrollable behavior involving exclusively the male species.) .
I'd decided to up my inner vamp, sex kitten, femme fatale game. Which in layman’s terms, meant I spent the entirety of the summer acting like a big ole’ happy slut.
There were the usual recruitment activites: happy hours on hotel rooftops, Taco Tuesdays, sports bars, jazz lounges, Throwback Thursday’s, reggae night, salsa Sundays. I turned into a vicious flirt on every dance floor, veranda, and bar stool. I drug my girls along; made them accomplices to my fuckery, and ignored all rational advice. I sized up every dude within eyesight; praying to stumble across a bootleg version of Idris. (no dice) But if some guy met even the minimum attractiveness quotient, had a nice grill, and didn't say anything too ridiculous, he was hastily promoted to the front of the list.
There were a flurry of prospects. Plenty were weeded out early on by their mere stupidity, cluelessness, boring ass drag, or questionable sexuality. I’d engaged in the kissing game with a few, but none had inspired me to full on attack. Then, just as I was about to online shop for wine and dildos – he appeared. A shiny new someone. He was a colleague, a fresh transfer from another department - tall and athletic, perfect teeth, quasi-metro swag, with sun-kissed bronze skin of the Latin persuasion. We were introduced, and he could clearly observe something up with me, considering I shook his hand a little too long while politely eye-fucking him.
Turns out he was intelligent and fun and mischievious, and seemingly ready to come outside and play. A week later, we had our first martini lunch date. Screwing around at work was an all-around horrible idea, and so of course, I proceed with a quickness.
Fast forward a month. Our liasions had included fondling in the botanical garden, kissing in an elevator, and pawing each other in the parking garage after sundown. I’d told him all about my celibacy jaunt, and current mission. He was amused, which was cute – but all I really needed to know was if he was down. I laid it all out, like a business proposal. No drama, no regrets, all enjoyment.
We kissed on it, and promised to be discreet.
Our version of being discreet was holing up in my office the next day for lunch, where a variety of adult shenanigans quickly went down. Necking and groping ensued. His pants dropped, my bra unclicked. I slipped him the foil packet I’d secreted in my skirt. It was all so exciting, risky, and we were intoxicated with anticipation, and dammit I was finally about to get laid; and then this whole scene was completely eviscerated when some student worker barreled into my office and busted us in the (almost) act, approximately ten seconds later.
My goofy, horny ass forgot to lock the door.
I was fucked. And, ironically this is what I wanted.
Right?
There was major fumbling, a few "oh shit" and "sorries" offered as we regrouped. The student worker shot back out the door, to bleach his stunned eyes no doubt. And me? I hid in my office the rest of the afternoon, ignoring multiple texts from my would-be lover to meet with him after work. I couldn't do it, my high was completely ruined. The dude from the mailroom had seen my tits, for christ's sake.
Later that eve: Completely demoralized, I recounted the grisly details to my girls. I prepared myself for the laughter and ridicule; how the infamous retellings of my latest dick fail would go down.
One of my consigliere’s caught me completely off guard when she said:
“Sometimes we’re just nasty. Don’t feel bad. Women fought for the right to fuck around at work…”
Did we?
I remember the suffrage movement, and then that Lilly Ledbetter Act, but..
She went on: “Fuck ‘em. It’s your damn right if you want to get a little cock at work. You better walk in with your head held high tomorrow. If you get shit from anybody - start a protest. Fight for your fucking around rights at work. We can print up T-shirts, create a logo, throw up a website; the whole nine.”
My eyes narrowed, thinking of a name for this suddenly righteous campaign.
“Cock at work?” I offered.
“Hell yeah," she answered. "Cock At Work.”
And with this the C.A.W. movement was born. Now when any of my crew is thinking about a tryst with a fellow co-worker – we recount my cautionary tale, then start a shrieking chorus of: caw caw caw, like the sound of a raven swooping down mercilessly on its prey. It is both a warning and rallying cry.
It means: Get yours, girl!
But first, lock the damn door.
