Friday, January 13, 2006

Welcome To BS Friday

Welcome once again to BS Friday. This is how it works; I’ll write it and you tell me if it’s BS or truth. Simple. This week’s story is called: “I’ve heard of worse reasons for sex.”

Not long ago, in my ‘other life’, I used to go to the beach pretty much every other weekend. I had friends who had places to stay and never had to pay for rooms. I made a lot of friends there since they noticed me around. It was one of the best stretches of time in my life to date.

One weekend I was hanging at my favorite bar sucking down free beers and talking to my friend Shane, who happened to be the bartender. I was just minding my own business, not much interested in my surroundings when a woman came into the place and ended up sitting one bar stool down from me. I was on the corner and the place was fairly busy so the best choice was to sit near the end where I was.

She sat down and Shane came over to take her order. I noticed some things right away about her. First, she looked a lot like Elizabeth Perkins (who I thought was sexy) and second, she ordered 2 drinks. She wasn’t alone. I guessed her age to be maybe 37-38. (I was 25 at the time.)

Shortly her guy came in from parking the car and he sat beside her. I noticed something about him too; he looked like Robert Goulet and he kept looking over at me like a shark or something.

I continued to sit and talk with Shane in between his filling drink orders until Liz said to me, “Excuse me, but didn’t I see you last night playing music at that deck bar?” I just smiled and said that yes, I had been there sitting in with someone. (I sat in a few times with this Coast Guard guy who played guitar and sang at the local deck bar nearby.) She smiled and said she thought it was me. The she started asking me about music and was I a musician and all that type of small talk stuff. She seemed nice. She then introduced herself, Sylvia and her ‘friend’ (her word) Ted. (I smiled when she said Ted. For some reason that cracked me up.) We chatted for a while. I introduced her to my favorite wine and she had some. At this point I thought they seemed like ok people.

When she asked me if I was a full time musician I told her no and then told her what I did. I was surprised when she said she knew exactly what I was talking about. Apparently she was some kind of research scientist and was very interested in one of our companies products, which at the time was a huge thing in the scientific marketplace. She started asking lots of questions then about the product and what I did with it... yada yada yada. At this point I decided for sure that she was OK. Smart and cute and funny. I liked her.

Old Ted didn’t seem to be into the conversation though. He didn’t say much until I mentioned that I came down to the beach facility to calibrate the instrumentation there. Then he started.

He started asking technical questions about some of our equipment. It was obvious right away that he didn’t really know what he was saying and that he just wanted me to stop talking to Sylvia. At one point he said “So, does that reader use a laser or is it one of those latching relay switches?” I nearly fell off the stool when he said that because that told me everything I needed to know about him. There would never be a latching relay switch (whatever that is) in one of our readers. He was faking his stuff to impress the lady.

Soon his questions became more and more forced and obnoxious. He then started saying that he thought I was making up stuff and that it didn’t sound like I was in the field at all. I could see Sylvia was getting a little tense now. So I looked her right in the eyes and said, “This is why most of my best friends are women. Men can’t keep the testosterone out of their mouths long enough to be friendly.”

He got pissy then and asked what I meant by that smart assed remark. I just looked at her again and said “Funny, I took you to be smarter than that.” When I said “that” I nodded toward Ted. That really set old Ted off. He was pissed. He started with the old “so you want to take this outside?” and “I’ll kick your ass you little jerk” stuff. Sylvia, on the other hand, just started laughing out loud. When he wouldn’t settle down, Shane had to ask him to leave. Sylvia apologized and started to leave with him. Then she stopped and asked if I would be playing again that weekend. I just smiled and told her that I would be.

I stayed and closed down the bar with Shane and when we were walking out, guess who was walking in? Yep, Sylvia, coming back for a ‘nightcap’. Shane told her that the bar was now closed. She said that was ok because she had something else in mind. She raised her right hand and showed me the wine bottle she was carrying, Behringer Johannesburg Riesling. Now we were talking!

We ended up spending the night together where I was staying. It was a blast. In the morning I asked her why she had come back. Her answer was simple. She said, “Well, being in the science world I don’t get many chances to be with musicians, especially young ones who know good wine. But the real reason is that I wanted to see where you kept your testosterone.”

I guess I’ve heard worse reasons.

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