Been Here, Done This -

Been Here, Done This - Saint Paul, of Fraters Libertas, who acfually lives in St. Paul, tells a tale that I've lived way too many times:

I was in the final leg on my trip home from work and turning onto my street, nearing my garage, I spied a beautiful young woman up ahead of me on the sidewalk...She was in a word, perfect, and I swear I saw her wistfully gazing off in the distance at the last fleeting robin's egg blue of the day time sky as the sun reluctantly slipped beneath the tree tops and roof lines that make up the western horizon in these parts...

I run across this from time to time in my neighborhood, too. And Saint's next bit is painfully true here as well:

Needless to say, a huge opportunity and one that doesn’t come around too often in my neighborhood. For whatever reason, old people and distinctly not beautiful people are the norm here in the residential familyland of inner city St. Paul.

Pardon me. I have to cry.

He's right, you know. I mean, sure - neighborhoods like mine are crawling with college girls, but they don't seem quite as interested in 40-year-old fathers of two as they do in the movies.

But it's the denouement that caught my attention:

A warm wave of confidence washed over me as I opened my car door, got out, and strode toward the predestined intersection of her, me, my garage, and the future. It was all falling into place. She arrived right on schedule, her head turned my way, her big baby blues looked into my own, the right side of my upper lip began to rise and with it the killer smile to be delivered and ....... I heard a man shouting. Actually, screeching is a more accurate description, screeching like a stuck pig. I turned my head toward this sound and I then heard angry words, frenzied histrionics about .... tax cuts.

My God, it was Jason Lewis. In my angel headed distraction, I left my car door open and the radio was on LOUD to the local talk radio station. And now, at the critical moment of my existence, Jason Lewis was engaged in the violent process of disabusing some caller of the notion that the richest 5% of Americans aren’t paying their fair share. Just as he was wailing “WHAT YOU LIBERALS DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND IS....” I turned my head back, just in time to catch my lovely future bride rolling her eyes, scoffing in my direction, and rushing past me and away down the street, forever. I stood there for several minutes, not believing what had happened and just listening. (Fade to black)

Aw, Saint. I feel for ya, Bro.

If it's any consolaton, it's probably good that you flushed out her bigotry before you got, say, married. I remember once, on a second date, with someone I was getting along with famously, the topic of politics came up. I gingerly mentioned that I was a bit right of center. The woman's face became flushed, and she looked at me with that look people get when the policeman in their rear-view mirror turns on the whoopie lights. "Oh, my. If I'd known that about you, I'd have never gone out with you in the first place".

So I'll see you down at the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club for happy hour, k?

Posted by Mitch at January 17, 2003 07:18 AM