Blunt Wit

This story only makes sense if you know a little secret about me. I’m clueless.

Really.

I put on this act of worldly sophistication but in truth I’m just a country bumpkin. This means I trust far too easily and am pretty much blind to the wicked ways of the world.

Well, most at least. Words like ‘quaint’ and ‘gullible’ only go so far in describing my singular ability to misread the most obvious signs and step into danger.

Today’s story took place years ago on a cold winter’s day in Beijing near the Wangfujin district.

My mane had grown long and shaggy and in dire need of a haircut. So one Sunday afternoon I strolled out into the frigid Beijing air and set off for the barber pole not half a mile from our hotel.

A cute, bouncy girl two funky pony tails sticking out the sides of her head and too much make-up on greeted me. She asked if I wanted ‘full service’. Thinking this meant a wash and cut I said, “Why not!” matching her infectious enthusiasm.

I was then ushered into the back and handed off to a more demur woman named Xiaomei. She proceeded to wash my hair and cut it. Timid with the scissors, I couldn’t help noticing that it seemed as if she’d never cut hair before.

I watched her botch my haircut right before my eyes in the mirror. At one point – I guess when she inadvertently snipped off a piece of my ear, drawing blood – I thought about stopping her. But I was mesmerized by her complete lack of skill. When she was done I looked like Sid Vicious on an off day.

At this point she started to massage my shoulders. Hmmmm, I thought, this is weird, but it feels pretty good so I let it ride. I got so comfortable I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew she was attempting to unbutton my pants. Startled I jumped out of the chair.

She seemed genuinely crestfallen when I refused her ‘full service’ and skedaddled out of there looking a bit worse for wear.

Later in recounting the story to my colleagues at work they howled in laughter at my naiveté. Apparently, the barber pole was the common symbol for brothel in China. To think I went there for an actual haircut and left after paying for services not rendered.

Have you ever had a haircut, perm, etc. go awry? Watched it befall a loved one?

There is only the barest discernible audible trace when a heart breaks. It’s not like a badly breaking bone. Crunch. Snap.

You cannot help but notice when that happens and you wince when you hear it. No, the breaking heart, from the perspective of the hapless bystanders hearing on, just beats near imperceptibly faster. And the faintest of tears registers, picked up possibly only by acute dogs without the capacity or reason to fathom what they have just heard.

Let us assume you are the breakee. For you it is a much different story. For you it is like death warmed over. The tiniest of fissures grows with the gravitational force a black hole. For a split second all the world’s light and love and beauty get sucked through to nothingness. The vacuum left in that wake creates an ache of devastating loss. It ranges from pit of your stomach to the nadir of your soul. That chasm grows ever wider and deeper.

You blame, you curse, but no one hears. You poke, you punch, but no one hurts. You seek solace. You seek that whole feeling again. Instead you find anguish. Instead you fall into that pit and wallow in your own sorrow.

Now let us assume for a moment that you are the breaker. For you it is easy. For you it is like a sunny walk in the park. You go about your life as if nothing happened. Like a molting snake you squeeze out of the skin that had been constricting your freedom. You come out all shiny and new and fresh. Your leavings draped across you ex-lovers lap.

You dance on their grave. You leap with joy. Little do you realize in those flush first few moments that a part of you died as well. That you, too, were fundamentally shaken to your core. Your recovery time is faster, but your scars will tell a far different story.

You see when two hearts come together and keep time they synchronize. Their fluids mix. They take on an auricle familiarity. So any separation process is bound to cause trauma, leakage, and pain. The leading cause of this separation is an imbalance in pumping power. This has to do with a mismatch in timing more than anything else. One heart invariably beats faster, stronger for the other.

As a result even the minutest of tears can lead to a painful rendering that produces the faintest of faint audible sounds, the sound of a heart breaking.

What is the sound of heart break to you?
Have you had your heart broken and how would you describe the experience?

She had a pretty face that spelled trouble.

What I noticed first were her high, proud cheekbones. Rosy to match her cascade of crackling red hair and bright eyes that beckoned me to come over. I’ll stay above the neckline as I’m happily married and from experience know that to peer down below there only invites trouble. Let’s just say if she were a gun, she’d be loaded.

I had my son in tow and we had a simple mission. Deliver my old friend visiting from Tokyo at the A and F store to my wife at the appointed time. Anyway, because I’m not fond of malls this was a precision strike: in then out. Quick. Enjoyable in fact. No money to be exchanged. No needless items to be purchased. At least by me.

We were almost home free when she appeared all red hair a flamin, smilin, in her cute little black get up in front of a stall in front of the mall side Macy’s entrance, selling … salt.

“Come here and let me wash your hands,” she cooed.
“Do you know the Dead Sea.”

She practically grabbed my budding teenage son but he was only too willing to sidle up to her. I had to follow. I could tell immediately she was Israeli. The lilting accent, the hard body … typical of young Israeli women who compulsively join and train hard in the IDF.

“Face, JD, focus on the face, above the neck line,” I screamed at myself in my head. Ack, I was breaking my own ironclad rule!

Anyway, she captured both mine and my son’s attention and the next thing we knew we were rubbing salt on our hands and listening to her list all of its therapeutic properties of Dead Sea salt. She took my hands gently into hers and poured water over them and presto, they actually began to feel considerably softer and suppler with a strangely pleasant smell.

“Ma shalom ha,” I said jovially in my broken Hebrew. She immediately corrected me, “Ma shalom mesh” since I am a girl and you are addressing me.
“You speak good Hebrew,” she lieingly complimented me.

“No, I once ran an Israeli company and thus I spent the equivalent of several months in Israel.”
“Ah then you have you been to the Dead Sea. It is some 1300 feet below sea level … yadda yadda yadda.” She switched back into sales pitch mode.

I interrupted her mid-pitch and deadpanned, “My brother was there last year and floated in the Dead Sea. He was looking for some scrolls but never found them.”

She didn’t even blink. Israeli’s with their sense of humor

She sweetened her offer. “A free body lotion to go along with a years supply of Dead Sea salt to exfoliate and cleanse not just the body but the soul all for the low price of $50.”

Having been (a rather poor) salesman myself in the past I clearly recognized her tactics and attempted to repulse her entreaties.

“You seem very special,” she said to me in a sultry voice.
“Well I’m starting a company and all of my money has gone into it. So while I have enjoyed washing my hands with you, alas, I cannot afford your wonderful sea salt.”

“So I give you $10 off along with the free lotion.”
So I asked my son, “Do you think Mommy would like this?” clearly hoping he would play along and say ‘no’.

She had him smell the lavender lotion placing her hand gingerly on his shoulder as he leaned forward.

“Technical foul!” I thought.

“Yeah, I think she would,” he said.
Damn!
Sensing my weakness she moved in for the kill.
“I’ll give it to you for half price. It will make your wife so happy.”

Betrayed by my own gullibility I had no fight left in me and acquiesced.

I walked away with a jar of Dead Sea salt and lotion from the Israeli woman with the pretty face.

Have you … ever succumbed to the charms of a pretty face? Please give us some details.
Have you ever bought something you didn’t need due to a salesperson’s flair?

So in the foggy past my son and I were playing golf at the local 9-hole short course and happened to get paired with a Frenchman and his 14 year old son. On the seventh hole young Benjie fired his approach shot into the butt of one of the many geese who were rutting and strutting on the course, it being the mating season and all.

Gerrard, his loquacious father, said in a toasty French accent, “Nice birdie!”

I winced (while chuckling inside). Jokes that bad should come with a money back guarantee. I missed my subsequent real birdie putt. Damn lame joke!

But this is all digression.

My story begins a few minutes later on the tee box of the 9th hole as I sized up my many options. A sneaky little hole.

Meandering stream to the left where vagabonds straight out of a Mad Max movie hung out on the banks and prayed for you pull your tee shot so they could collect your ball out of the creek and sell it to the Pro shop (for you to buy it back the following week).

Fairway for Hole One on your right where you risk bodily harm and a lawsuit if you slam your tee shot into any one of the approaching unsuspecting golfers. No, the only play on this hole was right up the middle. The arguably weakest point of my game!

Thus lost in my Tiger Woods moment, without warning, I felt something hit me on my back, just under my right shoulder, hard. I spun around half expecting to see that I had been hit by a ball but to just catch out of the corner of my eye three geese flying overhead.

My back/shoulder suddenly felt … warm. So I pulled my shirt around and lo and behold I had been pelted with goose shit! Dive bombed! Seriously, I didn’t know geese could do that. Be that resourceful. Be that vengeful (as I think his or her load was meant for Benjie’s head and I, an innocent bystander, was caught in the goose shit crossfire). Most of it, greenish in color, still clung to my yellow shirt.

My son laughed up a storm as he helped me scrape it off. Needless to say that night at the dinner table my son reported the entire incident to the rest of the family who laughed uproariously.

I was still pissed I missed that birdie putt.

Have you ever been shit upon – either literally (like me in this case) or figuratively?