Only You.

(A Singular Sensation)

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, where you send me your personal anecdotes for my use next week, and in return I send you my personal anecdotes for your instant contempt and derision. This weekend’s Gene Pool is about you, only you.

Example:

I’m pretty sure I am the only man in The United States who has visited prostitutes not once but twice, ponied up full price each time, and didn’t ask for or receive sex of any type, or anything resembling intimacy, or, like, soothing mommy diaper fetishism, or any sort of meaningful companionship at all.

Both were for newspaper stories. On the first, back in 1976 during the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden, I dropped by the dirtiest, sleaziest midtown brothel I could find. It was for a story in which I tried (but failed) to get New Yorkers to act stereotypically by fleecing a naive out-of-towner in various ways. (I was wearing a campaign button suggesting I was a delegate from Iowa.)

At the house of ill repute, I asked the vaseline-haired gent at the front desk if I could “check my bag” with him while I went up to see the lady. He said sure. The bag had a $20 bill in there, visible right at the top if you unzipped it. Upstairs, I merely talked to the lady for 15 minutes, which clearly befuddled her; she kept urging me to at least accept a Boebert, though she didn’t call it that at the time.

On the second occasion, in a story you might have read in The Washington Post, the lady at the “massage parlor” — in a shimmery, see-through cocktail dress and, so far as my discreet glances could tell, no undergarments — listened to me earnestly explain that I wanted her help in massaging away a crick in my neck. She considered this carefully, then performed exactly as instructed, somehow making it last the promised half hour, while giggling the whole time. I declined the apparently de rigueur shower with her, and never removed or unzipped my pants.

So, I’m declaring myself the world’s one and only in this particular, rarefied, highly qualified category of having seen prostitutes twice, paid, and received no sex.

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Here’s another Only Me. I am now — recently became, in fact — the only Gene Weingarten in the United States. That happened when this fella died. Rachel has me beat at this category: Based on diligently un-thorough research involving Facebook and Teutonic-targeted googling, she appears to be the only Rachel Manteuffel in the world.

So that is your challenge for the Weekend: In what way, however convoluted, can you reasonably assume you are a one-off? The odder the better. The funnier and more intricate the better. Be creative in your thinking but not in your telling: Whatever you claim must be the truth. If you are fine with my using your name, make sure to tell it to me in the body of your text, at the end.

You don’t have to be absolutely sure of your only-ness, especially if it can be inferred from its unusual and seemingly un-duplicatable nature.

Send your One-Offs or other questions and observations here:

And semi-finally, our Gene Pool Gene Poll:

A friend emailed me yesterday to say that in this election, he has only one issue, and that no other issues matter. One goal, one aim, to assure the defeat of one candidate. Forget the economy or war or crime or immigration or abortion, and any nuances therein. All these are comparatively irrelevant and pointless to discuss.

And finally, a brief digression into baseball. Only a few measly paragraphs. If you are sick of it, you may avert your eyes.

For two months now The Chicago White Sox have been shaping into a very, very, historically bad team. Last night, they officially accomplished their mission, becoming the losingest team in the modern history of baseball. I noticed this possibility before most or all baseball writers did, and took manic, inane joy in flogging it, here in The Gene Pool. Two months ago, when this team was on few people’s radar, I proposed a “Badwagon” of fans to support the team’s reluctant but mighty crusade to become The Worst Team Ever. I contend there is a perverse glory in historic failure.

Last night the Sox lost their 121st game of the season, fulfilling their mission by defeating (through their own defeat!) the 1962 New York Mets. Let’s raise a glass to the Beautiful Losers.

The Great master of doggerel, Piet Hein, wrote these lines.

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
And you're hampered by not having any,
The best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
Is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
While you're passively standing there moping;
But the moment the penny is up in the air,
You suddenly know what you're hoping. ”

Toward the end, I was indeed hoping, but not quite in the way I’d expected. The Sox had won three games in a row, and had three to go. Had they won those last three, against the Detroit Tigers, a good team fighting to get into the playoffs, the Sox would avert the magnificent infamy of ignominy.

That’s drama, my friends. Two teams with urgent goals. Would sheer grit and will defeat actual talent? Just how strong is the power of shame? Journos know that drama is always the best story, and I began hungering for the best story. I bought plane tickets to Detroit.

I’d held a contest to come up with a suitable placard to root the Sox on to a glorious loss, and promised to finance a trip to Detroit for the winner and a guest if — and only if —the team’s record going into that final day of the season was exactly 41-120. The winner was Richard Alexander, who suggested “Hey, Sox. Every time you win, God kills a puppy.”

God spared a puppy last night, two days too early.

When the coin was in the air, I knew what I wanted, and it wasn’t that.

So, let’s give a toast to the fabulous, threadbare Sox. A hobo’s socks. It was joyous, and thrilling finale — or to paraphrase Sam Mertens, who got first runner-up in my contest:

You lost it like your virginity.

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See you all on Tuesday. REMEMBER TO SEND IN YOUR ONE-OFFS.