Sisterhood of the traveling porn.

About 10 years ago, I worked at a dot.com start-up with a group of really cool, really fun women. Though the company did not last long, our friendship has managed to last. Those long working hours and all that creative passion has created a very strong connection between us all, even now that life and love have scattered us to the winds.

Back then, we were all young and single. But when the first of us fell and accepted a proposal of marriage, we did the only thing we could think of to celebrate the milestone. We headed to the local sex shop to buy the nastiest, dirtiest porno movie we could find to give to her at her bridal shower.

I remember specifically being the one, full of some liquid courage, asking the balding, creepy store clerk for the "grossest, most out there" video they had. I should have known that the bar was set pretty high when he had trouble deciding.

Anyway, we bought the video -- I think it was called Bukkake Twins or something like that -- and laughed our asses off when K. opened it up in between crockpots and 250 thread count sheet sets.

But K. had the last laugh. When the next of us succombed to marriage, H., guess what she received at her shower?

And since then, every momentous occasion -- weddings, babies, promotions, a divorce, the decision to leave a job to travel for 6 months -- has been celebrated with the gift that keeps on giving -- nasty porn.

So I should have known when I received an unexpected package from S. that there were shenanigans afoot. But I was so busy entertaining my family, who had been staying for a few weeks, that it didn't even occur to me to be suspicious. Instead, I said, "Oh! How awesome!", touched by the unexpected gift, and then handed the package to my mother to open, as Munchkin was running amok.

"Here's to a Busy and Satisfying Deployment!" the card read, covering a DVD with a gaping vagina and erect penis on the cover.

I don't think my mother will ever recover.