I Tricked My Girlfriend Into Thinking a Box of Trojan Products Were Her Birthday Present

I’ve had a tote full of unopened Trojan products in my possession for many years.

Trojan makes a lot of stuff for dudes, like prophylactics. And if you’re thinking I have an unused carton of ultrathin lambskins with nonoxynol-9, you’d be wrong. Well, I might have those things. too. But that’s not what I’m referencing in this story. What I own is a full bag of female Trojan products. I received this bounty at a blog conference.

The title of the conference was BlogHer and that alone ought to imply it’s a female-centric event. Out of the five thousand attendees, 99.9% of them are the fairer sex. But most of my blog friends are women and I’m so evolved I don’t even see gender, so I bought a ticket.

Editorial Note – I’m kidding about being evolved. I totally notice gender. How else am I supposed to decide whether to challenge someone to an arm wrestling contest?

One of the highlights of the BlogHer conference is that their corporate sponsors hand out product swag.

Trojan was one of the sponsors and had their own booth. In order to receive the Trojan swag you had to spin a wheel and answer trivia about how to best protect your health from STDs. The big prize was their top of the line vibrator. Which is great if you’re a woman – their target audience for this device. I wasn’t interested in the giveaway because even if I won the vibrator I didn’t have anyone to party with. At the time I was single. I was going on plenty of first dates, but I had no steady action. And I feel like whipping out a marital aid after a first dinner wouldn’t impress an emotionally healthy woman. She’d run from your condo screaming. These kinds of toys are best utilized by couples once they get bored with each other.

However, a Trojan rep came up to me and asked if I would like to spin the wheel. She was attractive and I have a policy that I will do whatever a pretty women asks of me. I walked to the back of the line.

There’s no way not to look like a creep to passersby because I’m a guy at a women’s conference standing in line at the Trojan booth. It’s my turn a few minutes later. I spin the wheel, answer the trivia question correctly and someone forces a huge vibrator into my arms. It gets a few laughs from the other bloggers watching my humiliation. Then, as I’m walking away, the attractive rep says, “Hey, take some lube!” Stacks atop the vibrator six boxes of female jelly.

At this point I start to panic. It’s one thing to win something a bit embarrassing. It’s another thing to be loaded to the hilt with sexual devices. The next booth over was Ulta where they were providing free makeovers. I had to walk by seven women receiving full-mascara and rouge airbrush treatments while they stared at me. The only good news was that my lanyard with my name, blog, and social media info was hidden by a box of heat-activated, lavender lubricant sticking out from my chest. I needed to ditch this stuff and ditch it fast.

I scanned the room trying to figure out what to do. Across the way was a sponsor handing out free tote bags. I couldn’t tell you who they were and I didn’t care. It could have been an ISIS recruiting booth and I would have still grabbed the bag. The guy working the booth tried to say hello but I moved right past him. I snatched his complimentary tote from the counter and dropped everything inside. He saw all of this and I wish I was lying, but he actually said, “Dude, that’s a lot of lube.” And he wasn’t laughing. His tone suggested concern and judgment.

I beelined from the sponsor expo directly to the parking garage. I dumped the bag of goodies into the trunk of my car. And then I promptly forgot about it.

You might be wondering why I kept any of the Trojan products if I was this embarrassed. A normal person would have thought about how to use it in a future lovemaking session. The truth is that idea never occurred to me. I thought that at some point in the future I could do something funny with these items. But after the conference I forgot about it being in the car. I never thought about it agin.

The tote sat in the trunk for months until I got hit and my car was totaled. I wrote about this event and how I had to explain to the woman I was on a third date with why these products were in the trunk of my car. We were on our way back from the theater at the time. In case you didn’t know, I’m cultured and certainly not the kind of guy that would have a stockpile of female lubricant and a vibrating pole in the trunk. But I did.

After the accident I was temporarily car-less and forced to bring the Trojan goods inside my condo. Again, they were put aside and forgotten. This time in the back of my closet away from prying eyes.

Two years elapsed.

A few months ago I moved in with my girlfriend. This is the same woman who was present during the car accident. The tote surfaced while I was packing up my old place. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t seem to throw it away. I still held onto the ridiculous notion that I could use this stuff one day for something funny. Worst case scenario I would donate it. I’m not sure there are any charities that support women with lubrication issues, but there should be. Someone could start one and call it Sahara Gals or Brown Leaf Ladies. (I’m not good with cute organizational names.)

So, into a mover’s box the vibrator and metric ton of lube went and traveled to her condo. I wasn’t sure where to put this stuff when I unpacked, so I temporarily set it on the multi level shoe-rack we have in the closet. Once again, I forgot about it entirely and went on with my life.

Her birthday was a few weeks ago and because she’s the type of jerk who will peek at presents in advance, I had to hide her gifts. One day she walked out of the closet and says, “What’s in the blue bag?” Which is a funny question since it had been sitting in the same place at eye level since the day I moved in. You cannot NOT see it. But she never noticed it, I guess.

I realized that I had a unique opportunity to actually use these damned things.

No, not in that way, sicko.

I feigned surprise and stuttered excitedly, “DON’T LOOK IN THERE!!”

She took the bait and asked if there was a birthday present in the bag. I said that in fact she was correct and that I needed to move the blue tote because it contained her BIG BIRTHDAY GIFT. But then I told her I was NOT going to move it because I trusted that she wouldn’t look inside. She pleaded with me to move it because she guaranteed the moment I left the room she’d look in it and ruin the surprise. I told her that was her problem and that if she wanted to spoil her own birthday to go right ahead.

Well, she told me later she made it exactly eleven minutes before tearing into the bag.

Can you imagine what must have gone through her mind in those eleven minutes? She most likely fantasized about diamond earrings, tennis bracelets, plane tickets to the French Riviera, a new spatula, etc. I wish I would have put a camera to capture her reaction but I think that’s illegal. And the last thing I would want is to have to explain the whole deal to a judge.

By the way I did give my girlfriend a wonderful birthday, and she’s very happy with the new spatula.

So, now that the joke is over, where is the bag now? In the same damned place it was when I moved in. Even after the birthday joke. I’m just going to toss it, I think. It served its purpose. Finally.