Fred Bob.

I love that man. He is one of my favorite drinking buddies. He’s usually at the bar after work, and I love walking into the bar to see him sitting there. We don’t always talk either, and that’s one of the things I love about him. We’ll sit there in silence for quite a few minutes, then one of us sees something on the t.v. and we comment; or we’ll overhear someone say something stupid and we just look at each other and laugh. We confide in each other; and seeing as he’s about thirty years my senior, he’s usually giving me advice.

As far as ‘stirring the grits’ and ‘seeing things before they happen’ goes, he likes to be a little antagonistic. For instance, a couple nights ago, there weren’t any seats near us when our buddy Donna walks in. She decides she’s going to sit across the bar from us. The guy who is sitting in the seat next to her was at the bathroom. Donna is prim and proper, and a huge fan of cleanliness. There’s not much room at the side she chose to sit on, about three feet between the bar and the wall. Fred Bob says to me “Lisa, watch this.” And he points over in Donna’s direction. I notice the guy coming back from the bathroom. He’s about 250lbs., greasy looking, and I can imagine-but don’t know for sure- smelly too. Donna gets this look of surprise on her face as she sees this big man coming towards her to squeeze himself in between her, the barstools, the bar and the wall. She is just squirming, and shirking, and contorting to try not to get touched by this man. And the look on her face!- She was mortified! We fell out of our seats laughing. She didn’t think it was as funny as we did.

The man's got a dirty dirty mind. My reactions vary depending on the subject matter. Sometimes he can be so sickly funny. He forever ruined my receiving of compliments from men. He bought a birthday card for a lady friend of his one year, and showed it to me. This is what it consisted of:

“What men really mean when they say to you:

You look nice today = I wanna f*%k
I like your hair = I wanna f*%k
(more compliments = same)
I wanna f*%k = Give me a bj”

And yes, it’s just a joke card, but he had me convinced that this is the truth. And ever since then, it never fails that either he or I say to one another “I like your hair…..” I cannot receive a compliment from a man now without thinking ‘yeah right, I know what you’re up to.’ Crazy? Maybe, but it’s just one of those things that has become thoroughly engrained in my brain.

Speaking of things being engrained in your brain, my mother just asked me to get this gargantuan cockroach and put it outside. “Can I just kill it? They reproduce like mad.” Mom: “No, its an outdoor cockroach, let it go.” So I get the roach, I throw it out over the porch and see it lands on its back on top of the grass. Mom now has me seeing this roach as a 'special wee being', and the kinder self in me has to now get her socks wet to go flip the roach over so he can crawl away to find another entrance inside my house. It’s like the time one of my friends caught a lizard and was going to give it to me as a pet. I tell my mom, and she says “Och, the pur wee critter, let it go. You can’t keep it caged up.” After that, I had to let it go I just felt too bad. Mom’s guilt trips.