she suffers well

She was svelte and blond and from

Louisville, Kentucky,

6’3” in heels.

Within the first 3 minutes of

meeting me, she announced drily

that Paxil and Prozac couldn’t fix

her personality, and she was now

putting the responsibility

of fixing it squarely on my shoulders.

Over a plate of beans and onions

she confessed to having a

pool-hall education.

“And am I the only one who feels

uncomfortable watching old men

playing with babies?” she said.

“The only one who can’t look a

stroke victim in the eye when

they’re talking?

Or figure out what to say to

somebody in a wheelchair?

And why do I always get

chest pains when reading

from the New Testament?”

I asked her if she had ever considered

becoming an observational comic.

She shook her head and said,

“I’m only funny when I’m menstruating.”

And while explaining to her how I received

teeth marks on the thumb of my left hand,

she interrupted me and said,

“I once dated a guy into coprophilia and urolagnia…Lemme tell you, man, there is nothing erogenous about feces and urine,

I don’t care how horny I am, OK?”

During the cab ride home,

as she lit her twentieth clove cigarette

of the night, she said,

“We’re so doggone quick to believe

celebrities who admit to entertainment

reporters how they’ve been battling

with depression all their lives and so quick

to doubt our own family members who

suffer from the same affliction…”

We made plans to go moonlight bowling

the following weekend, but when I called

a couple days later, her roommate

told me she had quit her job and moved

to Las Vegas to learn to become a croupier.

I hung up stared at those teeth marks

on the thumb of my left hand and decided

that the story of how I received them

probably deserved to be interrupted.

Reviews

[Philip Gaber]

Oh, thank you very much...

[Chris]

Would make a great sitcom script...