4th Grade Wasteland

I had the pleasure of reconnecting with a woman who I’ve known since kindergarten.  We ventured through elementary, middle, and high school together and I hadn’t seen her in 35+ years.  We both looked great, actually we looked fantastic, in my humble opinion.  The one problem was our meeting brought up a fair amount of adolescence angst for me. You see, Susan and Lynn aside, Connie was my first REAL love.  Barbara Eden and Chris Evert (think 70’s) didn’t hold a candle to Connie!

We had a great conversation reminiscing about Mrs. Almadova, our 4^th grade teacher, who was from Hawaii, Mr. Hazard, our custodian who would allow the teachers to smoke in the boiler room.  Talk about freaking me out – teachers smoked!  We lamented not being about to participate in a square dance routine for our parents due to sickness.  She brought up my love of drawing monsters, something my daughter is quite skilled at as well.   Thankfully, she didn’t recall the day I came to 1^st grade with hole in my pants, right below the zipper.  I walked around all day carrying a tube of tinker toys in front of my nether region covering up said hole (true story).

The conversation took a turn for me when we started going through the list of classmates from Alderwood Elementary.  We hit on the few that, unfortunately, aren’t with us today, what this person is doing, etc.  The discussion then segued into our first crushes.  She mentions Guy, Mike, David, Mr. Hazard, her bus driver, the kid who wet his pants in 3^rd grade, the mannequin in the back of our Mr. Cole’s class, our mascot, a husky…….. on and on.  I’m anxiously waiting for my name to pop up. I’m sure you could imagine the look on my face – weak smile, wide eyed, raised eyebrows, hands gesturing.

The conversation of her caste of adolescence loves had me remarking with, “Yeah,” “Sure,” ending with “Anyone else?”

“Nope, that’s about it,” she replied.

You sure?”, I said.

Connie said, “Yep. Oh wait, there was Bret but he had a weird lunchbox so my crush didn’t last but a month in 2^nd grade”.

My head’s spinning as I’m thinking, “WHAT ABOUT ME?”  “For God’s sake, you named our entire class.  I could draw monsters, had access to minibikes, waterfront property, chickens, pigs, good weed (no, I didn’t have weed, but might have helped).   Was it that I played the organ?” Seriously, I did.

OK, I get it now. Forty-five years later she pretty much seals the coffin on any potential that we could have been an item.  There was never an opportunity for us to hold hands sitting in those tiny chairs with accompanying tiny tables, walking hand in hand down the tiny halls, using tiny urinals (OK, not the urinals).  I harken back to the comment the Rankin/Bass stop motion character, Yukon Cornelius, from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer said when he’d lick his ax after pitching it in the snow looking for gold: “Nothin’”.  So it goes, after all these years: nothin’.  I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Oh well, there was Susan and Lynn right? Susan? Lynn? Hello? Hello?

Fight Club

I’ve never been in a fight. Sure, I’ve had verbal fights but not one involving fisticuffs (how often do you get to use that word?) where my intent is to inflict physical harm on someone.  I told this recently to some guys at work and they were shocked. I guess, in their opinion, fighting makes you more of a man.  I always thought my best line of defense was 50 yards and, if you spot me this distance, bad guys aren’t going to catch me!  Or in the words of Michael Jackson, “I’m a lover not a fighter”.

The closest I ever got into a fight was in one of the most beautiful locations in Europe, Bled, Slovenia.  A small touristy hamlet, located on an alpine lake with an island in the middle, complete with a 17^th century church on the island.  It doesn’t get any more picturesque than this. 

I spent the night there a few years ago while on a business trip and no, it wasn’t a boondoggle.  I had a late afternoon check in followed by a run around the lake. **Side note** The crazy thing when you look at the lake is your assumption is it has to be a good 12+ kilometers around it.  Surprisingly, it’s only about 6k, or, about the size of Green Lake (excluding the hundreds of people and dogs).  After my run, I walked to dinner and then stopped off for a cold beer, aka, pivo, at one of the local pubs.  I sidled up to the bar, ordered my beer, and took in the establishment.  This is when things got interesting….

In walks two men, one big guy, sober, early 30’s, I’m guessing. His friend, mid 20’s, was drunk off his arse, think Foster Brooks drunk, and wasn’t about to slow down his consumption.  Slovenia’s Foster Brooks proceeds to the bar where I’m sitting and tries to strike up a conversation with me. Fact – I can’t speak Slovenia so I was crossing my fingers he couldn’t speak English.  No luck, the guy’s pretty good at my mother tongue and asks me where I’m from.  I tell him Baffin Island (no I didn’t but hindsight’s 20/20).  When he hears I’m American, the party begins.  “I love America, let’s dance”, he spits out.  He proceeds to grab my hands and pull me off the bar stool.  I’m looking at his friend with my best worried, what the F look, hoping he’ll intervene.  Again, no luck. I tell him let’s relax, go back to the bar and talk about fly fishing, how do you pronounce Slovenia’s capital city, Ljubljana, baseball,  but he keeps me out on the floor.  Please note, it’s not a dancing establishment.  We are the only ones doing the Macarena. When I break his grasp he then lunges forward and applies a full nelson on my family jewels, Peter, Paul, AND Mary! I either turn left and cough or fend for my life. I don’t know if he intended on “going south of the border” but this is where his hand ended.   Here’s when bad ass Pazaski goes Rambo and pushes him away followed by my fists at full attention.  What the hell next?  I yell, “That’s not cool”, which was kind of a stupid thing to say, and look at his friend again telling him to get his buddy away.  I’m now envisioning Foster staggering at me and I’m going to have to nail him.  Hell, I sucked at “Rock ‘um, Sock ‘um Robots”!  What if I really connect and knock him out when I unleash my 155 lbs. of twisted steel? I’m then arrested, thrown in a Slovenian gulag having to explain to the local burgermiester (or whatever they are called in Slovenia) that I was only trying to defend my manly man parts. 

Fortunately his buddy does come to my rescue and grabs Foster, pulling him to a table to sit down.  I quickly paid my bar bill and exited the establishment.  End of story. My dance card was full. 

Starbucks Dilemma

While standing in line the other day @ Starbucks I was confronted with a “should I or shouldn’t I” dilemma.

After dropping off a CD at Skyline High School, I stopped by one of 27 Starbucks on the Sammamish Plateau. This particular Starbucks is a couple blocks away from Columbia Athletic Club, and I use the word “club” loosely, considering I could join this “exclusive” organization.  As Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn’t join any club that would have someone like me as a member”.  I digress. Back on track.  I’m in line with two gals in front of me who appeared to be coming from the club.    A good guess considering they were wearing work out gear, glistening with sweat, quite fit, and craving caffeine, not that I was looking or anything.

The woman ordering, we’ll call her Sweaty Woman A (SWA), while paying, drops, what I thought was a headband or bandana.  The chivalrous thing for me to do would have been to politely walk around Sweaty Woman B (SWB), and pick up said article of clothing.  I refrained for fear of losing my place in line.  SWA pays and walks around the large counter to wait for her skinny, no foam, triple shot, extra hot whatever.  SWB steps forward, looks down and begins laughing.  She then leans over the counter and whispers to the cashier.  The cashier laughs and whispers something to a co-worker. 10 seconds later the co-worker is rounding the counter with a broom and dust pan to sweep up (now my light comes on) what is, not a headband or bandana but, a lovely wadded up multicolored thong.   

Which leads me to a multitude of questions: Is it common for women to carry sweaty thongs around in their purses?  What would the reaction of SWA have been if I picked up her undergarment?  Better yet, what would I have done if I, while holding one of Victoria Secret’s finest, realized I’m now clutching a woman’s thong while standing in line in a busy coffee shop?  What would SWB think of me doing an end around her to pick up a thong? “What a perv”! I used to call, what are now called flip flops, thongs.  When did the name change?

Considering I live in a household with three women I’ve washed and folded about 60,000 pairs of women’s underwear.  I am no stranger to underwear.  I should have been more perceptive from the beginning realizing what I was looking at but it’s sort of like seeing a chicken running through a movie theatre; you just don’t expect to see it.  Which leads to more questions: why fold women’s underwear, especially thongs?  It’s not as if they come in pairs and you have to match them.  Folding adds no value to their appearance. Do we fold jock straps?  Can I skip this delicate procedure and move on to more trying articles of clothing to fold, like sweatshirts and towels?

Did I do the right thing by avoiding the situation and merrily go on my way and order my grande drip?  I’m guessing yes, but in the unlikely event this comes up again, may have to, at a minimum, go for the gold and pick up what falls from “Grace”…or whatever her name may be.