Hey gang, since my reputation for laziness is known far and wide, I get the opportunity every now and again to offer up the scribblings of a guest blogger. We've had Reverend Dave, Josie, Marlisha, and now Vegas Joe, one of my long-time readers who I met several years ago at the annual Buffoonic Convergence that happens out here every March. Anyhow, he had an experience that he thought was worthy of sharing with the group, and he tells me that he wrote it as a tribute to my style of storytelling. I'll let y'all be the judge. But here is a tale sent in from Vegas Joe, about living the bachelor life...
As a single guy I recently attended a Singles Mingle dance. You know what that is….one of those dances for middle-aged people where you pay a few bucks for admission, some guy is spinning CD’s, you get to meet people in a low key situation and have the opportunity to “strut your stuff” on the dance floor. Well…that’s what I thought.
I swear though, instead of spending $7 on a ticket to the singles dance, I should have bought a bullet and rented a gun. I swear. I’ve never seen such a cluster of pathetic losers in a group I belonged to since I was in 8th grade and a member of the audio-visual club. I didn’t think my life could get much lower but it never ceases to amaze me.
First, the men…..
I’ve never seen so many comb-over hairdo’s, jet-black dyed hair, shirts opened 3 buttons down to show hairy chests, and pants hiked up so high that I kept thinking it must really be raining for those guys to be wearing flood pants like that…in my life. The term “smarmy” comes to mind. There were guys just trolling around the place acting like they were really something else in their print shirt and dockers. I almost began suspecting that I was at a vampire convention because there was no way those guys could have a mirror in their house and actually go out in public looking like that.
There was one guy who really mesmerized me. Although admittedly he was a decent dancer, he was just so “over the top”. He would raise his arms as he would lead a girl into a spin or kick his leg up and out as he was entering his own turn that he clearly thought he was a cross between Fred Astaire and Maurice Chevalier. He reminded me of the type of guy who would be on a cruise ship and hired by the cruise line to dance with the older ladies.
If he would have toned it down a bit I might have been impressed. But as it was, he just looked like a big geek dancing. I’m guessing he was about 65 years old, jet black hair, long side burns (jet black), and a skinny little mustache (jet black, of course). His pants were a little too tight for a man of his age and they were hiked up higher than normal. I’d imagine that the little bulge that was in his front pocket was either an inhalator or perhaps a long pill box that probably kept his heart pills and Viagra.
It looked like he was either wearing makeup or had gone a little crazy with a bottle of instant tan because he had an orange hue to him. Thank goodness they keep the lights low in there. And I can see why.
Now let me tell you about the women….
I was sitting at a table and these two Slavic women came and sat by me. I couldn’t hardly understand them and the woman sitting next to me who was trying to strike up a little conversation had breath like 3 day old borscht. (Not that I know what borscht actually smells like but whatever was on her breath was not pleasant). She would ask me questions in a deep raspy voice that sounded like Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons like “Thees yaw virst time heare?” and “Dis caaan be inteemidating, noooo?” I thought I was going to pee myself.
They weren’t in the least bit attractive and I’m pretty sure the one sitting next to me could’ve kicked my ass without breaking a sweat. And she was the more feminine of the two. I know she wanted me to ask her to dance but I just couldn’t see how I could expend that much energy dancing and still be able to hold my breath for the 4 minutes the song would have lasted so I wouldn’t have to smell her breath. I would have either passed out on the dance floor or, if I had been thinking, could have feigned injury just to get off of the dance floor.
At one point, a guy who kind of reminded me of Pee Wee Herman wearing one of the flowered shirts that seemed to be so in vogue at the event, asked the one woman (the one not sitting next to me) to dance. That left me sitting alone with nasty Natasha and I could really feel the pressure increasing of her wanting me to dance. She even turned to me and said, “Soooo dooo yoooou daaannnnce?”.
Proud of my last 9 months of dance lessons and not thinking fast enough to realize that answering this question with a “Yes” would result in having no alternative but to ask her to dance….I did tell her “Yes” but was quick to recover and add “….but I don’t know this song”. It really was a pretty stupid answer since you really don’t need to know a song to dance to it. But hey, I was under pressure and it was the best I could do.
I sat there in stoned silence and praying that the good Lord would be merciful and throw a minor miracle my way and have someone come and ask my new best friend to dance. Or if he wouldn’t do that, would somebody please come by and offer her a breath mint? But no….there was no minor miracle for me and the good Lord did not send anyone.
When enough time passed that I knew there was not going to be any divine intervention, I put away the rosary (figuratively speaking) and just sat there looking around the room trying to make it appear like I was looking for someone. My thought was that if I appeared to be busy she wouldn’t ask me to dance. My ploy worked long enough for me to wait until a strategic moment where I knew she could see me out of the corner of her eye and I lifted up my head as if I was nodding, said out loud “Hey” as if I was acknowledging I saw someone I knew and I got up from the table.
I stopped in front of one of the comb-over guys on the way to the door and paused long enough to make it appear from my back like I was engaged in a brief conversation. Mr. Comb-over didn’t know what was going on during my brief pause in front of him and I just said “Excuse me” to make it appear to him as if I was just a kind of a confused clod who didn’t know how to walk around someone but instead would walk up to them expecting the other person to move. (Something that was certainly not unusual given the crowd I saw).
I ended up walking out the back door and going to the bathroom. When I returned, I spent the remainder of the evening standing in the back.
I saw one woman walking by (a rather large woman but who could probably get by with being described as rubenesque) wearing a dress. The dress had a halter type strap to it that went around her neck, and then criss-crossed down the back over her shoulder blades. Not a bad looking dress and she wore it rather well…all things considered. Of course, had she had the foresight to not wear her white bra under it may have improved the appearance further.
That’s right. I said I could see her white bra.
She wore the bra and you could see the straps going over her shoulders. I guess she came from the same vampire city that the men did and must not have had a mirror (or been able to see her reflection) since she wore the dress and bra proudly. My only hope for her is that she is totally colorblind and that at least she thought she was at least wearing a flesh colored bra.
Now I know I’m no Tom Cruise…I don’t have his looks nor do I remotely have his money. So making this next observation may be a bit cruel. (BTW, just as aside, I’m not a closet gay person like Tom Cruise has been accused of being. But a few more dances like this I might have to begin weighing the pros and cons of becoming one. But I digress).
Anyway, the women attending were, how can I say this delicately, for the most part “beauteously” challenged. Yep. I began thinking of the old ugly jokes from my youth. (i.e. “She’s so ugly, people go as her for Halloween” and “She’s so ugly, she makes onions cry”). I felt kind of guilty but I just couldn’t stop myself from doing it.
And I wondered what was the deal with many of these women and their makeup? Some of them had such a heavy base color on their face…and nothing going down their necks blending in….that you would have thought they had on a mudpack or something. Thank goodness again for the poor lighting which may have been the one thing that possibly prevented me from experiencing temporary blindness…or a more permanent blindness condition….as a result of me gouging my own eyes out.
I did see a few attractive ladies. But they were mostly being swarmed by one of the 100 or so “Corsican brothers” (i.e. two wild and crazy guy types) that were attending the dance. So I didn’t even think about trying to approach them for fear that some of the grease from those guys’ over-moussed hair would have dripped onto the floor and I would twist a knee and end up on crutches.
I did manage to dance twice. I asked one lady and one lady asked me. Both ladies were very nice but the dances were slow dances so I didn’t have the opportunity to “strut my stuff”. Both dances were just turning in little circles pretty much the way I danced at my high school prom.
I left around 10:30 or so (about 2 hours and 15 minutes after I arrived) because my feet were getting sore from standing the past 1:45 minutes. I was really afraid that if I sat down again my two Slavic girlfriends would come and sit by me again. Or even worse, they’d kick my ass for having ditched them the first time. So by standing, I was always ready to make a quick beeline for the door and it made me feel safer to stand.
I used to have a healthy respect for the creativity of comedy writers of television and movies. But after seeing the stereotypical clowns I saw I realized that those comedy writers are not all that creative. They’re just normal people who go to these type of events and write down what they see. I’m not kidding. You couldn’t have scripted a better caricature of sleazy men and nerds looking for fun.
And what is most painful is that I am one of them. These are my people Mikey. This is what I’ve become.
But still being in a state of denial, I am writing this long description so I can tell myself that I’m really not one of them. Instead I am more of an investigative reporter after a story.
I can’t wait to go again because you can’t make this stuff up. Next time you’re in the area you have to go with me so you can see for yourself. I’ll bring the garlic cloves and wolfbain.
VJ
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