I hate doing these technical or "housecleaning" updates, but this one's a must. And not that my peeps should be too alarmed, but, lately, my inbox has grown to suffocating proportions. Checking my electronic mail used to be fun; now it's hours and hours of printing off and framing the many friendly yet subtly pushy reminders from our Nigerian "business partners" (and their barristers). It's gotten to the point where I simply must adopt a different stance toward which missives to open, and which to, en masse, delete.
What I'm saying is I've tried the laissez faire approach, I've tried to just let things sort themselves out, hoping that "natural medicine," as it were, would suffice. But it hasn't. So, you guessed it: it's time to operate.
In other words it's time to take desperate measures.
Now, please, regs, don't change for me. Don't email any more or any less often than you already do. All I'm asking is that you mention something intrinsic to my site in the subject box of your emails. A nod to Mr. Salsa or his wife would do the trick. Or his girlfriend would. Better yet, try something like "Kevin has harmless chat with Dawn," or "Sombrero-wearing guy digging Tiffany's pic in Facebook," or "Wire spills out of Beth's Kibbles 'N Bits bag," or, well, you'll think of something. Something apropos, that is.
In other words, what's in your subject box needs to appear unSPAMish.
Changing gears, erm, nothing new to report. Well, other than Duane mostly holding up his end of our "monitoring/tailing" agreement. His van actually made it all the way to salsa's place. And back. Without breaking down. Skeet found a chemical toilet on eBay, and I agreed to pay for it in exchange for five more stake outs in the van. Conditions remained, eh, somewhat "rosy" for a spell, but then Duane got wind of this.
"So there's sumpin' in my voice?" Duane abruptly asked during our first shadowing session without the Skeeter.
It was so out-of-the-blue and I hadn't visited here for so long that his question caught me off guard.
"Your... voice?" I asked. "What about your voice?"
"Don't worry. Skeeter showed it to me. What?--I'm not good enough for you?"
"I don't-- Duane, I don't have the foggiest idea what the--"
"Yes, you do. It's in your blog thing. What you said about me... that hanging off your tailgate thing. All that."
And then it started coming back to me. "No, no, Duane. You're taking it all wrong. Dawn's the one. She's like that. She's the one who can't handle a real man in her life. Like, you know, a guy like you. She can only handle metrosexual types like me. But she's not really a prude, though, either. It's kinda... It's hard to explain, Duane."
"Yeah, I bet." He irritably tapped his unlit "Stop Smoking" ciggie against the steering wheel.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting cross-legged in the back of his van and cleaning my binoculars, and he's in the driver's bucket seat like two feet above me, fiddling with the radio and scanning Kevin and Tiffany's neighborhood with, at best, lukewarm interest. I needed to at least hop in the passenger's seat for this conversation to work. But I couldn't take a chance on being made again. It's not like there's an endless supply of disposable vehicles out there.
"Jeez, Duane." I exhaled. "It's a... it's like a compliment. To say some guy is exceedingly facile with limited resources, to say he's obviously more world-wise, that's a compliment."
"So you keep people like me at arm's length? And then just use us when it's convenient? How's that a compliment?"
"No, it's not completely a compliment, all right? It's like I was saying on my site--not my blog, by the way, it's not a blog--I was saying how you're proficient at some things, and I'm proficient at others things. No biggie."
"Yeah, you're proficient--you and your big words--you're proficient at cool things, and I'm proficient at going around the block on my face."
"Look, I can go back and rewrite it. I mean we've hung out, and you know I don't feel that way about you. When I wrote that I was... I was knackered."
He paused. "Knackered, huh?"
"Yeah, I was worn out. Had a bad day at Acme."
"That sounds... yeah, that sounds like something a metrosexual would say. But we both know you're down in the hole half the time at your job. Your boots are as dirty as mine. So how come I'm this ruffian?"
"I said you look like you've been around the block more than I have. That's a compliment. And this--what we're doing right now--is not 'at arm's length.' This is conducting a serious stake out together. Now, can I do something else a he-man macho guy like yourself never does? Can I apologize?"
"Hah!" Duane laughed. "There's nothing to apologize about. Besides, friends don't ask to apologize. They just do it."
"No, I've obviously done something that requires an apology. I hurt your feelings. I must have hurt your feelings. And for that I apologize."
He chuckled again. "Um... indubitably? Right?"
"Right? Right, what?"
"You were gonna say 'indubitably' again, weren't you?"
"Do I say that word?" I asked.
"You have."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I've never said 'indubitably' in any kind of serious way."
"Herb, you have. I don't know anybody else who would just drop that word in regular conversation. And you have. My memory's not that bad."
At this point I
thought it best to cut my losses and change the subject. We sat around another hour or so,
nothing happened, no vehicles arrived at or departed from Kevin's home, so we
made our way back to Palookaville.
FORWARD to what happened next
BACK to the beginning of "Incident @ Wal~Mart"
OVER to HerbNation HOMEPAGE