Flo Motion

Attention! Very Important News Here Today:

I have a new crush.

It's a celebrity.

OMG PAINFUL UNREQUITED LOVE!!!!
Her name is Flo, and she's the gorgeous bossy/nice/bitchy woman on those fucking Progressive commercials.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to go here immediately to watch her in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrtMM5suUCg&feature=related
How is it possible that I never noticed Flo before??
I've been watching those stupid commercials for over a year without ever really paying attention.

Here's what happened: Last night in my hotel room, in between back-to-back episodes of The Office, a Progressive ad came on. I didn't have to pee. I wasn't changing the channel. I wasn't going to move if I could possibly help it. I was a lazy, receptive audience. She appeared onscreen. The Progressive woman.

Her fiery lips were like scarlet pillows. Her liquid eyeliner was drawn with a heavy hand, giving her a feline appearance. Her slightly-too-light foundation announced to the world, "I'm a pinup girl! I have something naughty on, underneath my starched white nurse-dress!"Her raven hair was restrained by a no-nonsense headband, yet I knew too well how it would tumble about her face, unencumbered, when we made love. Her nametag, stitched above a pert breast, read "Flo."
My heart thudded.

Then Flo opened her beautiful mouth. And she was bossy. And slightly bitchy. And extremely excited. She used "Mom Voice" with all her confused customers, cheerfully helping them and gently putting them in their places.

God, I loved her. I loved her sarcasm. I loved her humor. I loved her icy, flashing eyes. She's like every punk waitress I've ever lusted after.

Flo looks like a badass Seattle MILF. The kind you know has tattoos you can't see. Or a bike punk who runs a restaurant in Minneapolis. She looks like she smokes after sex and knows how to French inhale.
I wished she was my morning barista. I wished she was my 2nd-grade teacher. I wished she was my irritated babysitter telling me to "get the hell out of that tree."

In a 30-second spot, Flo was bringing up all sorts of totally pathetic fantasies for me.
She probably plays bass in a band.

When she left the TV screen, I didn't have the stomach for another episode of The Office. What do I care if Jim and Pam ever get together??(it was a rerun.) I had found true love, and I wanted more!Now, when you are an obsessive-type lesbian with somewhat fuzzy boundaries, you do the obvious thing to a crush: Google her. And then watch, on YouTube, every single commercial for car insurance that she's ever been in. Twice.

Flo's real name is Stephanie Courtney. She's in theater, mostly. She looks boring in person - nothing like the elegant vision that is Flo in the Progressive commercials.

And...she's married.

WHY??????

Flo clearly displays definite markers of femme dykeism: She's direct, cutting, wears lots of red lipstick that's not quite right for her skin tone, and she told me through the TV in a secret message that she wants to meet me in Louisville, KY tonight.

She did.
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