The things you lose always seem better than the thing you have, the biggest fish, the most perfect significant other, the story you forgot to save on your frigging laptop when the anti viral program kicked in while you were at work, shut the computer down, and decided you only needed to save the first paragraph. I’ve spent a few months grieving the best story ever, but now I am ready to move on. Well, not actually. I just have forgotten enough about the details and the pain that I’m willing to try to recreate it. It all happened just like this…maybe…
On a cold December evening in Denver, I was waiting for my friend Curt to join me at happy hour. My all time favorite bartender and I were talking, me having semi-adopted her during the course of my stays at the Hilton. I told her in hushed tones about my surgery. She beams and points to the much more than ample torpedoes on her chest, and says, “That’s great! I got these.” Now the sweet young thing is smart, petite, blond, with big blue eyes, a face like an angel, and she knows how to work it. She is however what we used to call a “nice girl”. She loves her Mom and Dad, watches over her little sister, is faithful to her not so hot boyfriend, no matter how tempted, and on top of that, you can’t help liking her. I am dumbfounded at her revelation and we are still babbling about plastic surgery when Curt joins us. The bar is filling up and she leaves us to help other customers, so I tell Curt the news. Kellie has said it’s no secret, and of course, he has only an academic interest in women. He is nonplused.
Happy hour over, and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our Saturday night, Curt and I make fresh tracks in the snow to the nearby bar Kellie recommended on my first trip in August. She says she and her guy will join us later. Curt and I like to sit at the bar and play the trivia game since we have learned to work together to win it and get free shots. On our right are two pros, Chris and Mike, who have already run up the score, and on my left sits a man named Tim who has many reasons to be modest, all of which he wants to share. He is a distraction from the game, but feeling magnanimous as I run the score up past the braggarts on our right, I flirt with him absentmindedly. He needs very little encouragement and is soon leaning against my arm, interrupting my lightning quick trigger finger. It is my habit while away from home to pace myself when drinking and to slow almost to a halt when I realize a man is hitting on me. Like the rest of us I can be stupid when drunk. I go pick up another game board for him between sets, thinking if he is trying for someone out of his league he might like another challenge. It only distracts him momentarily. Curt asks me what’s going on when Tim heads off to the toilet. “Oh,” I reply, not taking my eyes off the screen, “just a drunk guy that wants to go home with me. Curt! Hit number one. The answer is cheese.” He pushed the button on command, knowing I am the culinary and science expert, he the best at TV shows and current music stars. “You think he’s really drunk?” asks Curt with that great Minnesota lilt, as Tim walks cautiously back to the barstool. I shake my head in the affirmative and direct Curt back to the big screen for the next question.
Tim watches my hands as I play and suddenly spots the big rock on my finger. He freezes and stammers at me, “You’re married! I didn’t know you were married.” Amused, I goad him, “Oh, does that make a difference?”
“Well,” says Tim, “I’m Catholic.” A dark cloud passes over his face as he ponders the moral dilemma. I am trying not to laugh at his presumption and the relative sin quotient of adultery over fornication. I envision poor Tim calculating how many Hail Mary’s he will have to do for this one and I am tempted to play devil’s advocate and tell him that he has already sinned in his heart. He sighs briefly and the moment of indecision passes.
“Women like you don’t usually even talk to a man like me.”
“Well Tim”, I tell him, quoting my dear friend from Canada, “If you’d like my advice, confidence is usually the best card to play.” He redoubles his efforts to woo me and I to win the game. Kellie and boyfriend come in just as we win a round of shots. Tim is distracted for only a minute, because she is hanging onto her boy. The shots are some god-awful kool-aide tasting concoction that Anna the barkeep refuses to name. Kellie, an expert in these things declines to comment. I can’t taste any alcohol as I down it in traditional one gulp fashion. Tim, having not come close to Curt and I in scoring does not get one, but he has an idea, probably learned from watching frat movies.
“Bring me three more of those,” he commands Anna. He sits and sips his like fine cognac and smiles at his expected luck as Curt and I tip ours back once again. Kellie gets a courtesy Margarita from Anna, but her boy looks uncomfortable with the lot of us. Having bought me a drink, Tim makes his move. “Why don’t you come home with me and see my world?” I manage not to laugh, mostly because I imagine his apartment plastered with pictures of girls with their eyes blacked out, looking like the place CSI found the mass murderer. He seems innocent enough, and he probably isn’t a mass murderer, but the creep factor has gotten to me. It’s almost last call, Kellie leaves, and Curt is ready for sleep. Tim is holding onto my arm like I am the last lifeboat on the Titanic. I pick up the napkin from the bar and ask him if he has a pen. He produces one instantly and I write down a phone number in Virginia. I have no idea whose phone number it is and if he called you, I’m really sorry, especially since it was almost 2 am in Denver. I extracted my arm and told him I had to go to the toilet. On the way back I picked up my coat, grabbed Curt in one fell swoop, and raced for the door. Laughing like lunatics, we crunch an erratic path through the fresh snow and manage not to fall in a ditch on the way to the hotel.
The next night at happy hour Kellie asked me about the guy. “He was kind of cute,” she says, but then, I know her taste in men. At this point Curt volunteered, “He was really drunk.” I back him down on this one,
“So, you’re saying he wouldn’t have hit on me if he was sober?”
Kellie interjects, “Of course he would. You’re a babe.” The two of us do a mutual admiration bit that bores Curt, so he stirs the pot again.
“Did you give him your phone number?”
“Well Curt, I gave him a phone number. I’m not sure who it belonged to.”
“Oh my God, What are you going to do if you run into him again?” Curt seems genuinely concerned, but I know his straight faced and dry wit.
“I’m going to tell him how mad I am that he didn’t call me.” I replied, having already thought this through.
“You would seriously do that?” my suddenly moral friend intones. Then, the true Curt emerges and he replies admiringly, “I would never have thought of that.” Kellie smiles knowingly. I don’t have to ask if she’s ever done the same because, well, she’s a really cute girl who works in a bar. It was a bonding moment for Curt and I as he realizes that women are more devious and complicated than he ever imagined. After that he always asks my opinion on what he should do in relationships. I don’t advise him, I just ask him questions and make him figure out the answer himself. He thinks I’m brilliant with social interaction. He can’t understand how I can sit down anywhere and make friends instantly, but he wants to learn the trick. He gives me advice on clothes, makeup, and tells me when I need to fix my hair or have a run in my stockings. He has a new mantra after that evening, “we work hard, we play hard.” It’s true, we do both very well, and we make a great team. We have never seen Tim in the bar again since that night. I sure hope he made a good friend in Virginia.
Drat, that’s nowhere near as great as the story was the first time I told it. Seems like I might be forgetting some of the finer points. Maybe there were police involved, maybe more liquor, music certainly, and penguins. I don’t want to steal anything from fellow Bloggers, but I’m pretty sure there were penguins. I’ll just leave you with the phrase my husband taught me, the one I never heard anyone in my Kentucky family utter, “I could be wrong.” Have a great weekend.
On a cold December evening in Denver, I was waiting for my friend Curt to join me at happy hour. My all time favorite bartender and I were talking, me having semi-adopted her during the course of my stays at the Hilton. I told her in hushed tones about my surgery. She beams and points to the much more than ample torpedoes on her chest, and says, “That’s great! I got these.” Now the sweet young thing is smart, petite, blond, with big blue eyes, a face like an angel, and she knows how to work it. She is however what we used to call a “nice girl”. She loves her Mom and Dad, watches over her little sister, is faithful to her not so hot boyfriend, no matter how tempted, and on top of that, you can’t help liking her. I am dumbfounded at her revelation and we are still babbling about plastic surgery when Curt joins us. The bar is filling up and she leaves us to help other customers, so I tell Curt the news. Kellie has said it’s no secret, and of course, he has only an academic interest in women. He is nonplused.
Happy hour over, and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our Saturday night, Curt and I make fresh tracks in the snow to the nearby bar Kellie recommended on my first trip in August. She says she and her guy will join us later. Curt and I like to sit at the bar and play the trivia game since we have learned to work together to win it and get free shots. On our right are two pros, Chris and Mike, who have already run up the score, and on my left sits a man named Tim who has many reasons to be modest, all of which he wants to share. He is a distraction from the game, but feeling magnanimous as I run the score up past the braggarts on our right, I flirt with him absentmindedly. He needs very little encouragement and is soon leaning against my arm, interrupting my lightning quick trigger finger. It is my habit while away from home to pace myself when drinking and to slow almost to a halt when I realize a man is hitting on me. Like the rest of us I can be stupid when drunk. I go pick up another game board for him between sets, thinking if he is trying for someone out of his league he might like another challenge. It only distracts him momentarily. Curt asks me what’s going on when Tim heads off to the toilet. “Oh,” I reply, not taking my eyes off the screen, “just a drunk guy that wants to go home with me. Curt! Hit number one. The answer is cheese.” He pushed the button on command, knowing I am the culinary and science expert, he the best at TV shows and current music stars. “You think he’s really drunk?” asks Curt with that great Minnesota lilt, as Tim walks cautiously back to the barstool. I shake my head in the affirmative and direct Curt back to the big screen for the next question.
Tim watches my hands as I play and suddenly spots the big rock on my finger. He freezes and stammers at me, “You’re married! I didn’t know you were married.” Amused, I goad him, “Oh, does that make a difference?”
“Well,” says Tim, “I’m Catholic.” A dark cloud passes over his face as he ponders the moral dilemma. I am trying not to laugh at his presumption and the relative sin quotient of adultery over fornication. I envision poor Tim calculating how many Hail Mary’s he will have to do for this one and I am tempted to play devil’s advocate and tell him that he has already sinned in his heart. He sighs briefly and the moment of indecision passes.
“Women like you don’t usually even talk to a man like me.”
“Well Tim”, I tell him, quoting my dear friend from Canada, “If you’d like my advice, confidence is usually the best card to play.” He redoubles his efforts to woo me and I to win the game. Kellie and boyfriend come in just as we win a round of shots. Tim is distracted for only a minute, because she is hanging onto her boy. The shots are some god-awful kool-aide tasting concoction that Anna the barkeep refuses to name. Kellie, an expert in these things declines to comment. I can’t taste any alcohol as I down it in traditional one gulp fashion. Tim, having not come close to Curt and I in scoring does not get one, but he has an idea, probably learned from watching frat movies.
“Bring me three more of those,” he commands Anna. He sits and sips his like fine cognac and smiles at his expected luck as Curt and I tip ours back once again. Kellie gets a courtesy Margarita from Anna, but her boy looks uncomfortable with the lot of us. Having bought me a drink, Tim makes his move. “Why don’t you come home with me and see my world?” I manage not to laugh, mostly because I imagine his apartment plastered with pictures of girls with their eyes blacked out, looking like the place CSI found the mass murderer. He seems innocent enough, and he probably isn’t a mass murderer, but the creep factor has gotten to me. It’s almost last call, Kellie leaves, and Curt is ready for sleep. Tim is holding onto my arm like I am the last lifeboat on the Titanic. I pick up the napkin from the bar and ask him if he has a pen. He produces one instantly and I write down a phone number in Virginia. I have no idea whose phone number it is and if he called you, I’m really sorry, especially since it was almost 2 am in Denver. I extracted my arm and told him I had to go to the toilet. On the way back I picked up my coat, grabbed Curt in one fell swoop, and raced for the door. Laughing like lunatics, we crunch an erratic path through the fresh snow and manage not to fall in a ditch on the way to the hotel.
The next night at happy hour Kellie asked me about the guy. “He was kind of cute,” she says, but then, I know her taste in men. At this point Curt volunteered, “He was really drunk.” I back him down on this one,
“So, you’re saying he wouldn’t have hit on me if he was sober?”
Kellie interjects, “Of course he would. You’re a babe.” The two of us do a mutual admiration bit that bores Curt, so he stirs the pot again.
“Did you give him your phone number?”
“Well Curt, I gave him a phone number. I’m not sure who it belonged to.”
“Oh my God, What are you going to do if you run into him again?” Curt seems genuinely concerned, but I know his straight faced and dry wit.
“I’m going to tell him how mad I am that he didn’t call me.” I replied, having already thought this through.
“You would seriously do that?” my suddenly moral friend intones. Then, the true Curt emerges and he replies admiringly, “I would never have thought of that.” Kellie smiles knowingly. I don’t have to ask if she’s ever done the same because, well, she’s a really cute girl who works in a bar. It was a bonding moment for Curt and I as he realizes that women are more devious and complicated than he ever imagined. After that he always asks my opinion on what he should do in relationships. I don’t advise him, I just ask him questions and make him figure out the answer himself. He thinks I’m brilliant with social interaction. He can’t understand how I can sit down anywhere and make friends instantly, but he wants to learn the trick. He gives me advice on clothes, makeup, and tells me when I need to fix my hair or have a run in my stockings. He has a new mantra after that evening, “we work hard, we play hard.” It’s true, we do both very well, and we make a great team. We have never seen Tim in the bar again since that night. I sure hope he made a good friend in Virginia.
Drat, that’s nowhere near as great as the story was the first time I told it. Seems like I might be forgetting some of the finer points. Maybe there were police involved, maybe more liquor, music certainly, and penguins. I don’t want to steal anything from fellow Bloggers, but I’m pretty sure there were penguins. I’ll just leave you with the phrase my husband taught me, the one I never heard anyone in my Kentucky family utter, “I could be wrong.” Have a great weekend.
Hey, easy on the penguins, you! So how do you know her boyfriend is unattractive? Did she tell you that?
ReplyDelete“Well,” says Tim, “I’m Catholic.” A dark cloud passes over his face as he ponders the moral dilemma.
ReplyDelete--That's why I'm an atheist. I'd do you and your daughter at the same time while your dog watched.
I don't have a dog, but her boyfriend might do. I met him. He's not only unattractive he's manipulative. I don't get why so many of us get ourselves into these relationships. On second though, he wouldn't have sex with her for the first 6 months they dated, even though she wanted to very much so I doubt he's be interested in watching. Maybe we could tie him up. I'm sorry. That didn't sound right at all. I'd so be going to hell if there was one.
ReplyDelete