Blunt Wit

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?

So I’ve driven up to San Fran from waaaay down on the Peninsula like a million times. Some days you zip up there in the veritable blink of an eye. Other times it seems to take days. Predicting the traffic patterns is akin to anticipating a woman’s (or read here significant other’s) behavior: erratic (note: I did not say erotic) on a good day.

So the other day I headed up to one of those high power VC soirees on the Pier by invitation of a friend, the Philmeister. Wouldn’t you know that on this day like some latter day Moses parting the red sea of traffic, I somewhat miraculously sailed through and arrived a full twenty minutes early.

So I parked my car on a side street near some restaurants and apartments and….shhhhhh…tried to ‘borrow’ a loose wifi signal to hook in to the net. Alas, nothing. So I wandered into a super market just as a tall, well-dressed African American male (model type) was completing his purchase. I thought his shoes might crawl off his feet, the alligator skin looked that fresh.

I asked the gruff looking Pakistani cashier if there was a nearby café with wifi –in my best Pashtun. Ok, in truth, maybe I just imagined I was speaking Pashtun. The attractive customer (ok, yes I admit he was handsome) chimed in to suggest a café a few blocks down. I thanked him and hit the road.

I found the café, went in, ordered an iced tea, fired up my connection and hunkered down to get some work done. I had just gotten comfy when out of the corner of my eye I spotted, Mr. GQ walking in. He ordered his half-calf/half-decaf skinny mochachino and then sashayed over to make sure I was “OK” and began to chat me up.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t gay since he was so damn hospitable. And truth be known, I was trying to get up the nerve to ask where he got his shoes.

So after some polite conversation, I begged out to go to my event which was just across the street at a nautical-themed home décor wharf. A place where you normally buy scented biodegradable soaps, Alpaca handtowels, kayaks and I’m pretty sure, whale blubber. The VC, who has an office one wharf over had rented it for the evening.

You see these days the Web 2.0 conference was lighting up the San Francisco conference center. Eight thousand people applied and a lucky 1000 were actually invited. This was one of those fabled “after parties” for all the technogliterati. I figure Norad must have picked it up on their radar due to the concentration of high power electronic devices.

I got a florescent blue nautically- themed drink with rum in it (the drink was a manly skipper’s drink since it came sans umbrella) and started to mingle. There were hundreds of professor types triangulating on moneyed Mr. Howell VC types. I met the guy who writes a top 50 blog (worldwide and yes it’s techy), a hulking 6′7″ guy who used to write for Forbes and now drives mini’s cause they’re easy to park in SF (I know I had a hard time imagining it myself), and a famous VC in a wolf’s costume. Or again maybe that was my imagination getting the best of me.

Just then two booth babes, kind of hot Ginger types distinguished by their stunning looks and vacuous demeanor, sauntered up and diverted his attention away from moi.

Anyway, I digress. Sorry, it’s the rum. I swear. Gin might make you sin but rum makes you dum.

Eventually I struck up a conversation with the event organizer. She had a quaint Mary-Ann quality about her until I asked her if I might not be able to get some whale blubber to go. She screamed, “You’re such a Gilligan!” and chased me out.

And I spent the next two hours in a traffic jam driving home.

Some days I hanker for simpler existence. You know, a life afloat in a sea of middle class ennui, unmoored ambitions, and Starbucks iced tea. Do you?

Yet for some cosmic unknown reason, I’m a magnet for high drama and complication. I can mutate the most innocuous of situations into danger and intrigue.

Take my recent road trip to the Tarheel state for instance. That day the sky had the distinct look of the opening sequence of the Simpsons: whipped cream fluffs of clouds dappling a sky blue horizon. Fall hung lightly in the air, the ups and downs of hilly trees lining I-40 all acrispining golden hues, fiery reds and chocolate browns.

We were all lulled into a false sense of happiness. Little did we know what awaited us over the next hill, the upcoming dale? Maybe we should have paid attention to the signs. First there was an exit for Batcave, NC. Is there a Gotham City in North Carolina? Anyway, I began to feel like God was a messin with me cause the next exit was Mocksville.

Shortly thereafter we rolled into the Piedmont Triad area. I always knew China had a big issue with organized crime but never considered they were a pernicious problem here in the U.S., especially in rural North Carolina. Next we came upon the Yakin Pee-Dee river basin and I got an unnatural urge to talk and pee at the same time.

Then I noticed a tan expedition bearing down on us ominously. I clipped along at a healthy 74 explaining the ten mph rule to my daughter, “Just so long as you keep at nine miles per hour under the speed limit you’ll never be caught.” She was the first to notice the SUV passing us was an unmarked police car. So there began a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

On moment slick willy copper was ahead of me.

The next I would find myself unconsciously accelerating past 75 and he would come roaring up from behind causing me to hit the brakes setting off red brake lights of guilt and shame.

Just then we passed a truck that had “To walk on water you have to jump out of the boat” stenciled on it’s side. This just fed into my growing sense of invincibility. Distracted by a fascinating story on NPR about ‘sex lives of sloths’ I nonchalantly passed 80mph. The next thing I knew lights were aflashin on the damnable tan expedition behind me. I started to move over conceding abject defeat. And he just roared past me. Thank God for small mercies.

So have you ever been pulled over for speeding?
Do you ever hanker for a simpler existence?
Ever traveled on I-40? Ever notice they are endlessly fixing that damnable road?

Have you ever been torn by conflicting urges? Frozen in inaction, angsting an impending decision or course of action, Hamleting your precious life away?

So I have. In fact, some would say I gain some perverse pleasure from this purgatorial state of being. I, of course, would disagree.

So to frame today’s story I must give you two key pieces of information about me.

One, I have an almost maniacal urge to eat healthily. Thus, lots of lean meats, whole grains, fruits, veggies, the works. I almost never eat red meat. Hamburgers make me cringe.

Two, I adore a bargain. I have been known to commit unnatural acts to get a good deal. It is like I’m hardwired to pay less than retail. Of course, while some would call me “cheap,” I prefer “thrifty”.

So recently we found ourselves flying down I-40 and hungry. As we pulled into a supercenter to buy gas, we noticed a Wendy’s Hamburary grafted onto its side. And in big bold letters “Double Stack Burgers for 99 cents.”

In an instant I found myself betwixt the Sylla of good diet and the Charybdis of a tasty deal. I became wracked with internal conflict. Should I not be such a prude, loosen up my dietary restrictions and enjoy some juicy cow flesh? I mean in calories per cents you can’t beat the double stack. It practically screams “eat me and get fat”.

Or should I buck up and order a baked potato with broccoli? Maintain my pristine state of being, unpolluted by deliciousness? I mean, I’ve long since given in to the fact that whatever tastes really really good is horrible for my body and thus developed a taste for spiced cardboard.

As I shuffled up to the dumpish cashier lady wearing a grease-spattered blue denim shirt, she let loose a hail of joviality that almost bowled me over.
“What a wonderful day, good sir,” she beamed with pernicious genuineness.
“What can I get for you on this most glorious of days?”

Before I could respond, I thanked god I wasn’t packing heat otherwise I’d have gone postal on her right then and there. The vision of this Wendy’s girl getting cut down in barrage of my dietary grief ran like a Youtubed video in the back of my mind.

I stood motionless for a good thirty seconds while the people behind me grumbled and Grease Momma mockingly smiled at me like she could see straight through to the angst churning in my soul.
“Um, double stack,” I finally bah humbugged.
“Would you like our tasty lettuce and fresh tomato on that as well, good sir?”
“Nah, just the meat, honey. Why spoil it with ridiculous veggies?”
With this she perked up. “I think I can get them to make it a triple stack for you at no extra charge!”
“Grand,” I replied, “Just grand.”

So have you ever been internally conflicted?
How did you resolve your angst?
Do you eat healthy?
Do you crave a bargain?

So why do you read anything anyway? Great literature, newspapers, magazines, blogs; every word we digest builds up emotional muscle, laughable ligature, spiritual sinews.

Like calories, we intake words to live. They inform us, educate us, entertain us and on rare occasions even enlighten us. Unlike bricks and mortar, they do not crumble and crack with age. They hurdle us back in time. They transport us forward in time. They come to us always at just the right moment.

Words create parallel realities just askew from our own. These imaginary universes look, taste, smell, sound and feel much like the one we currently inhabit. Yet something’s just not quite right. No words can capture the blue in the sky, the clashing sweetness and sourness of Tom Yum soup, the aroma of freshly baked sex, the anguish in Morrissey’s voice or the rapture of the beautiful game. Words form only close approximations.

But alas, today I’m not here to contemplate the what or the how or the why of words. No, today, it is all about the where. Where do you like best to take in your words? Do you like to slurp them with your morning meal? Do you prefer to caress them in a well lighted place? Or do you blatantly voyeur them through the window of your computer?

Me, my favorite place to cavort with words is on the toilet. Yes, that’s right, sitting upon my very own thrown, I find it soothing to sink deeper into the muck of a story. There exists a certain regularity that breeds peace of mind, a solitude conducive to the sweet release of the day’s troubles in the reverie of a tale well told.

How about you, where do you most like to read your words?
What words do you inhale the most?
Is there any book/blog/article that has enlightened you in the last little while? Please share!