That Person

(Or: Thank You, Come Again… and again...)

I have a knack— “mojo” if you will— for attracting total strangers who feel comfortable “opening up” to me. I guess I come off as the kind of person who “will understand”. Truth be told I wasn’t very understanding at first: I simply smiled and nodded (usually to a friend in the hopes he or she would disentangle me from the labyrinth of someone else’s sordid consciousness I had somehow found myself mired in). But after 15 years of accumulated (and unsolicited) “openness” under my belt (and socked away in my brain— forever) I have, indeed, become that person.

Hence why, a week ago, when a highly intoxicated chap told me:

You’re hot. You gave me french fries. I like you.

it didn’t really faze me. This man was not even a “blip” on my “freakdar”. What’s more, he really needed/wanted those fries. I figured that out after he poured 3/4 cup of catsup on them and proceeded to  scoop the resulting slurry into his mouth with a knife.

Not that I want to come off as judging the previous gentleman for his dissolute state— or unconventional take on flatware usage. We all have those days; you knock back a few beers after a rough day and before you know it they’re knocking you. We all need “friendship fries” at one time or another. Especially in Greenpoint. In these times.

That said, all because I might (probably) understand the problem which afflicts you doesn’t mean I want to know to know about it in the first place.

DATELINE: August 20, 2009;  Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 11222

Sweaty mid-fortysomething man plops a VHS porno tape on the counter:

These are $2.00 each, right?

Me: Uh, I think so.

SMFM:

If I already have this one can return it and get another one?

Me: (Speechless)

(This is getting into territory I care not to tread upon. No worries, he goes there anyway.)

SMFM:

I’m buying this for my father. He has Parkinson’s Disease, you know what that is?

Me: Yes, my grandfather died from it.

SMFM:

Well, the medications he’s on. They have side effects. He wants to do nothing but buy lotto tickets and watch porn. My sister buys him the lotto tickets…

(ASIDE: If purchasing large quantities of lotto tickets and watching copious amounts of pornographic films is a “side effect”, I suspect a fair number of folks in my community are afflicted. Without fail if I need maxi pads— or beer (to go with said pads)— STAT— I get stuck behind some man purchasing $20.00 worth of “Quick Picks”. Or porn. Often both.

In the lattermost case(s) the person in question will ask me to help select his literature du jour: BIG BLACK BOOTY or the more prosaic (but straight to the point) ASS HOLES? That is the question— because I have become “that person”. An ad hoc Dorothy Parker moderating a round table of round rumps.

As I said before, I do not begrudge others for their human frailties. I have my own. I just wish they wouldn’t coincide so often. At the local bodega. When I’m on my period. I’m learning things about people I really don’t want to know. Which brings my back to the conclusion of this post.)

I’m buying him this movie. It’s the side effects. All he wants is lotto tickets and porn. He’s on something that had to with brain chemistry. Dope… dopa…

Me: Dopamine.

SMFM:

Yes! And that’s what makes him crave this stuff. I researched it on the Internet and it said so.

Me: Do you want a bag?

SMFM:

Yes, please, I do not want to be seen with this.

So I dug up an “Apple Store” bag that happened to be laying around, replete with drawstring, frosted plastic and silver logo. I grabbed Gang Bangers Vol. X…

Or was it Unfaithful White Trash Housewives

Or Dirty Debutantes Volume 45?

In the Astroglide slick, John Holmes thick, dark and hung highway that is my memory— replete with occasional DDD cup speed bump, big booty bypass or butt plug— I simply cannot recall which movie it was. After awhile it all becomes a blur of body parts. A geyser of guy juice. A mountain of mams. A world where Grey’s Anatomy has gone way, way, awry— and household objects are not used correctly.

I dropped the tape into that sack of respectability and mustered what little enthusiasm I had left and said:

Thank you, come again!

And I’m certain he will— in more ways than one.

Miss Heather