My mom always told me to introduce myself when I met people so I feel obliged to honor her request that way. Now, that might seem a bit old fashioned to some of you folks but hey, who am I to say otherwise?
A lot of what I’m going to try and do here is going to consist of stories. I hope some of them bring a smile to your face or a tear to your eye depending on the intent. You might love some of them and hate the others or you might find it the other way around. Some are going to be as true as the day I was born, some are going to be enhanced with tinges of the truth and some are just pure bullshit. (Look at my user name for cryin; out loud!). That’s gonna be your call. I guess all those sorts of things might be called a series of “conflicting emotions” but to me, that’s what life is all about. The old “one day you’re up, the next your down” kind of syndrome. Nobody stays the same forever, imagine how boring that would be?
Given my penchant for trying to weave a tale out of what otherwise might be ordinary circumstances, well, I hope you’ll indulge me. I try and find even the most simplest of things interesting. It keeps me on my toes. I’m also going to try and keep the tone of my writing as conversational as I can. I don’t know about you fine folks but after a while, I get tired of being lectured to
The first one involves a girl and just like the song says “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places”. (You probably knew that already didn’t you?)
She was a pretty little thing, blonde hair, blues eyes and outgoing as all get out. I guess back in the days of old she’d be called something akin to a real “head turner”. Yup, when she walked into (or out of) a room, you couldn’t help but notice. Only problem was, she was married.
Now get this, the fella she was married to just happened to have the same last name as her first one. (For privacy sake, I won’t reveal that here, you never know who’s watching and best to err on the side of caution.) I’d liken it to that if she was a guy her name would be something “William William” or “Raymond Raymond”. I can’t recall what her maiden name was but it must have been pretty bad else why in the hell would she want to be referred to as ‘XXXXX Squared?”?
Anyhoo, we must have worked together for five or six years before the storm clouds on her marriage finally broke and they wound up getting divorced. Finding myself under similar circumstances, well, lets just say that we wound up spending a lot of time commiserating over drinks and then going our separate ways. I think both of us wanted to avoid one of those “office romance’s where you wind up the subject of gossip and sometimes remorse.
So one day I get a call from a headhunter with a new job offer that put the meager wages I was presently making to shame. Needless to say, I jumped on it. I’m guessing that was somewhere in October of 199X because when I got to my new place of employment there was already plans underway this years office Christmas Party I called “XXXXX Squared” and asked her on our first official “date”.
I’ve been known to take a drink or two in my lifetime and all of the details of the Christmas party get kind of fuzzy but I do remember a couple of things.
The first is the way she looked when I picked her up. A pretty red dress that would’ve made Santa Claus himself reach into his bag of presents and give her something special. The second was the way she smelled. I’ve heard perfumes called “intoxicating” before but damn, she smelled like a fresh meadow with the early morning sunlight just peeking over the mountains and like the rain had scrubbed the air clean.
The third, and probably most important thing was giving her a ride home after the party. We were about a mile or two from her house and I just happened to blow past a cop car that was sitting there lurking in of those local speed traps. Sirens and flashing lights decorated my rear view mirror and I could feel the sweat on the palms of my hands as they gripped the steering wheel tighter and tighter. My pulse hammered and my brain fidgeted. If called upon, I was sure to “blow over”.
So I pull over and hand over my drivers license and registration to the cop and wait as he runs my plates for warrants or outstanding tickets or whatever else they got stashed away on that little machine.
I figure I’m clean but since I am after all, the “silver tongue devil”, all the while I’m formulating this plan to try and talk my out of whatever was going to happen. Big mistake.
As I’m running my mouth to the officer he just happens to mention that he has caught whiff of alcohol on my breath and would I please step out of the car. After standing on one foot and having that little pencil light shined in my eyes he starts asking me questions. I explain to him about the Christmas party and how I was just takin’ the girl home and we were only a mile or two away and so on and so on.
He listens politely and then asks my date to step out of the car. They talk quietly off to one side out of earshot. I guess he was trying to corroborate my story or something. After a little while they come back.
The cop says something along the lines that he probably shouldn’t let me go but this being Christmas and all, consider this a gift. He does have one provision though.
He says that the girl seems to have her wits about her and she’s going to drive the car. I breathe a little sigh of relief and say something to the effect of “Hey, no problem! Merry Christmas to you and yours!”
Then the real kicker comes. He says he’s going to follow us to make sure that we get where we’re going and if he drives by later in the evening and doesn’t see my car parked in front of her place until morning the shit is gonna hit the fan.
I think it’s one of the only times in my life that I felt like kissing another man. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination but it was the best Christmas present I had gotten in quite a long time.
When I finally got around to asking her what she and the cop had talked about while I was there in peril of shitting my pants, she told me it didn’t matter. Something’s should just remain a mystery.
Damn I miss that girl…
“Buy you a drink sometime?”