I’m being quiet…sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room. I’m being quiet, because I just heard a little click from across the room, where my Lady Wonder Wench is sitting on the couch doing her needlepoint. I’m pretty sure her fingernails made that click. I like the fact that her fingernails are long enough to make a click like that for several reasons. One’s obvious. Even to the pimple people. It has to do with the terrible need for a slow, thorough scratching a Louie-Louie Generation guy’s back develops over time. I don’t know if Pimple People guys have the same problem. But I have a deep, heavy duty, emergency level, need for long, luxurious, ladylike, fingernails slipping up my spine…starting all the way down at the bottom…slowly skittering up between my shoulders… sneaking into the hair on the back of my neck…and s c r a t c h I n g my head…all the way around to my forehead. Oh it feels good… just talking about it.
I must confess that her fingernails are not the first of my Lady Wonder Wench’s feminine characteristics that initially ignited my sinful nature. In fact, when I first met her, she had her fingernails clipped very short. She was a secretary, and long fingernails were not a good idea when you used a typewriter all day back then.
What happened to typewriters ? It’s like all of a sudden they never existed. I guess the same thing happened to typewriters as happened to “back then.” Whatever happened, probably happened on the same day that major league baseball players started looking like little leaguers, and rock and roll became just rock, and movies became films.
Of course we started making movies on tape instead of on film a long time ago. And now they’re not even on tapes any more. They’re discs…and little thumbnail icons that start when you right click them. And how come we’re still calling them movies ? We’ve been watching pictures move for quite a while now. Why do we still call them movies? We seem to have stopped updating what we call them. We seem to have jumped right past updating them by calling them talkies.
That would have been a terrible mistake. I can’t imagine taking a girl for dinner and a talkie…because as a practical matter guys…why would you want to pay to go to a talkie unless you were dating a very quiet girl? (I think I’m going to catch hell for that one.)
Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.
1- Why is it better to talk about Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck rather than about Smokey the Bear in the United States ?
2- What’s a good thing to remember in Canada if you get scared in an airplane?
3- Why don’t they serve beer in Guelph, Ontario?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
A long time ago, I had a friend by the name of Sandy Baron. He was a fairly well known comedian, who had a successful tv show, and did some Broadway acting on the side. My Lady Wonder Wench and I went to see a play he was in. The main gimmick in the play was that he was a completely straight guy, but he wore a necklace. That was a long time ago. Now, lots of straight guys would feel naked leaving home without a necklace, ear rings, and five piercings…only four of which the general public would get to see.
But fancy fingernails are still strictly a feminine frill. I like that. It’s simple. I have enough problems trying to figure things out without being confused about which are girl hands and which are not. It’s a confusing life. I was digging in my yard yesterday and I started wondering how far down did I have a right to dig. I mean do I own my yard all the way down to the middle of the earth ? And if I dug all the way through to the other side of the planet…would I fall all the way down that hole, or once I passed half way, would I pop back up? That started some similar questions going in my head. Like, if you fart and burp at the same time, would that pull your navel back inside ? And you know the signs on restaurant doors that say No shirt, no shoes, no service? What would happen if I went in with no pants ? And if I did get my dinner in there, how come they’ll give me catsup if I order French fries, but not if I order mashed potatoes ? Life to a Louie-Louie Generation guy like me…is sometimes a confusion contusion.
But an email came pouring in a few days ago that made something startlingly clear. There are people in this huddle of ours who are very special to me. One of you calls herself “Somebody Nobody.” And her note says, “Each time I look in the mirror and dislike my eyes and see in them the hard times I’ve been through, I always remember that you love eyes that have cried, and have little wrinkles from how much she smiled at you. And when I remember…I feel better. So thank you for loving your Lady’s eyes. I’ll never forget that.”
And I’ll never forget your note…Ms. Somebody Nobody. It made me look back a lot of years, to a story I wrote when I first met my Lady Wonder Wench. We were very young. The first time I touched her face, it took my fingers a half hour to calm down. It felt like I loved her long before either of us was born. And it still does.
Some of you are sitting there with your hearts torn out, because there’s a big, cold, cave there where someone you thought loved you used to live. You might think I’m cruel to tell you stories about what it’s like to love my Lady Wonder Wench. But listen. The reason I’m telling you about my Lady Wonder Wench and me is that I want you to know that lives like this do happen…for real…and for keeps.
I understand that right now, you don’t know if this kind of being in love will ever happen to you. But you also don’t know that it won’t. Remember what Big Louie always says: “There’s nothing permanent about your future.”
The story I wrote all those years ago is called Tears. It’s very old. It’s not in any of the personal audio CDs. At least not yet. I just recorded it because I wanted Ms. Somebody Nobody to know how special her note is to me. I’ve already sent it to Ms. Somebody, and if you like it, you can either just keep the current podcast, or I’ll be glad to send the story by itself to your email address. No strings attached. I’d just like you to have it. You and Ms. Somebody Nobody.
My Lady Wonder Wench is still clicking away with her fingernails over there on the couch. She’s doing her needlepoint. It’s time for me to bring my back over there, so hopefully…she can put her clickers to better use.