Gwendolyn Viper

Tomorrow  is my birthday, so I am in Scottsdale celebrating with my little cousins Miri and Bella (4 and 18 months respectively) and their parents and my Aunt Judy. 

Thought I could let my hair down and you would all understand this silly post.  The Beatles song “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64” keeps playing in my head but I digress.  This happened a few years back and “Bob” is a compilation of many condensed into one.

If you’re hanging out on the many internet dating sites looking for your “soul mate,” my only advice is get a thick skin.  A few years back I made the grievous error of putting a profile on one of those dating sites.  When you put “poet” as your occupation, men get curious.  I think they think you are partially cute but mostly an airhead.  Who reads poetry these days anyway? 

“Bob” sends me a couple of emails, requests my phone number, then calls.  He lives in Toledo, Ohio – wants adventure, wants love, wants to meet his soul mate.  After a couple of my cleverly written emails, he is definitely smitten.  We’re on the phone every night for two weeks for hours on end.  When am I flying to Toledo for the weekend?  Please, pretty please. 

As much as I would like to meet my soul mate, I don’t fly off to meet strangers that I’ve talked to on the phone whom I met on the Internet.  Sorry…

So I begin listening very carefully and asking real questions.  He didn’t like his first wife very much.  She was a Shiksa (a non-Jewish female).  He’s been single since the divorce.    Let me get this straight, doesn’t date Jewish women, never has since he graduated from college.  Oh, okay, well I’m Jewish and he’s Jewish.  What am I supposed to do – convert?  And if so to what religion?  Then comes the Achilles question, “Did I have a retirement account?”  Since I worked at such a big company that does business with the government, how was IRA doing?   Well Ira is just fine but the retirement account that’s another conversation.  A tad more polite than how much money do you have in the bank.

Very clever man indeed since it was summer of 2003, and the market had been swaying a lot.  Not bad I guess.  I had been flipping mutual funds on a daily basis in my company IRA and making about 35% (all legal, no fees, though no one tells you these things until you ask).  Not a bad return all in all for six months of playing. 

Soooo… the Achilles question, was I going to let him manage my retirement account when we got together?  At which point I looked at the ceiling in my kitchen (where I was making tea) and asked God “Why me?  Why do all the weird ones show up on my doorstep?  You’re still punishing me ‘cause I wanted the divorce.  This is not fair.”  God knows me real well and has for a long time.  Just like the therapist my ex-husband took me to, to get me fixed, God has been up there on a regular basis LHAO (sorry Dr. Sanders, sorry God, just broke another commandment – again.  My mission statement for my life to keep all these people in stiches with my stories. ) 

I sweetly informed Bob no one touches my money but me.  The silence on the phone was audible.  He got a little miffed, the conversation ended with it was late in Toledo, and he had to be at work early.  And the emails got a little rude and mean.  Remember, one shouldn’t mess with writers.  Right Dane? 

Responded to his last email as follows:  

I hear you are available, looking for adventure, are tired of Toledo, Ohio, and would love to take a trip to California.  Come on down, my name is Gwendolyn Viper.   I’m 55, blond (?), thin (?), and hate my ex husbands (all 5 of them… they were losers).  I have 6 kids, though 4 are in the penitentiary and the other 2 won’t talk to me, and I have piercings in places you can’t imagine.  But guess what?  I’m a Shiksa and don’t live in Toledo.  I have a couple ostriches living in my backyard, a green iguana for a pet, and read tarot cards for a living.  My palm parlor is in Banning outside of San Bernardino and if you fly into Ontario, I’ll come pick you up in my decorated VW bus.  It’s the one with all the bumper stickers and the peace sign on it so you’ll know me when you get off the plane.  Sorry, it has no air conditioning, but what the hell we’ll be so sweaty by the time we get out of the parking lot we won’t need any anyway.  We’ll have to stop at the RV place at the nudist colony on the way home to take a shower; they all shower together, so I hope you don’t mind, do you?  You’ll be the only Jewish guy anyone’s ever seen…   xoxo Gwen

Never heard from “Bob” again.  Can’t imagine why?  Guess he didn’t have a sense of humor after all.

 

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd

Ingenuous Centerfold

A friend’s husband once looked at me over Thanksgiving dinner as I was telling another story and said, “Jeez, Sara you are so ingenuous!”  I remember Ted sitting across the table shaking his head with a smile on his face and a look.  Still not sure what that was about, but I remember grabbing the Webster’s when I got home (no Dictionary.com in the 80’s).  Me – naïve, innocent, frank, guileless, – not possible.  Why would he say that?  I am not naïve.  Never was, never will be.  I’m smart, I have street sense.  You could drop me off anywhere in the world and I’d find my way home.  And the rest of it is nonsense.  A woman needs be smart, talk well, and smile.  It’s called the “female card” which I knew how to play on automatic pilot. 

Then my mind, with a mind of its own, generally takes over and says, “…but what about General Dynamics?”  Its 1979, I’ve been at the military industrial complex in Pomona about seven months.  Seven months of getting up every morning at 4:30 am checking to see what new dress or skirt I’m going to wear to impress this man or that one.  Used to wear pants since I fell in love with Katherine Hepburn and jeans in the late 50’s; however, when you’re surrounded by fifty men daily, you don’t wear pants.  You wear a black pencil skirt (short but not too short, have to be able to bend over without looking like a slut), black hose, and stilettos.  And, if you can find a pair of black patent stilettos with a shiny aluminum metal stripe starting at the top of the back of the shoe going all the way down to the bottom of the heel – even better.

Jack Peterson is now the Director of the Contracts Department and once a week on Fridays in lieu of our lunch hour, we all lunch together with sandwiches delivered from the local deli, to discuss the status of the week’s contracts.  Me in a conference room with fifty men; Lord thank you, what wonderful thing did I do in my last life to deserve such good fortune?   I’m sitting in a conference room upholstered chair with casters on the legs.  Which, thank God, push all the way under the gigantic table so no one will know that my stiletto clad feet don’t touch the floor.  Before we get to the statistics of the week, one of the guys decides to start a going around the table game called – When you were in high school, what did you want to be when you became an adult?  What is wrong with men anyway?

Off we go around the table, with each story funnier than the next – the usual fireman, policeman, Marine Corp, pilot, accountant, inventor, surfer dude, rock star, and on and on.  The stories are getting closer to my side of the walnut table; I have to think fast (not a good situation for me to be in as no one had told me yet that I was ingenuous).  Lights, action, camera, quiet on the set, and the actress speaks her lines, “I always wanted to be a Playboy bunny centerfold.”  I don’t understand, why this is so funny.  Why is everyone laughing hysterically?  Why am I turning red?  Why is Mr. Peterson shaking his head at me again?  Did I spill my lunch on my white sweater?

Remember when your mother told you, “Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, then to open it and remove all doubt.”  Remember that line Sara?  Where have you been since seventh grade?  It gets better, because sitting to my left is the adorable Contracts Department clown who hasn’t had a turn yet.  “Steve,” Mr. Peterson says hoping the laughter dies down soon so we can end this nonsense and get on to business.  Steve looks to his right – me head down, still bright red to my stiletto toes, “I always wanted to be a Playboy bunny photographer.”

Mr. Peterson still shaking his head leaves the conference room and tells us to go back to our desks when we have finished lunch.  I think the Vice President of Contracts called and wanted to know why we were having so much fun.

All rights reserved.  ©2009 by Sara Fryd