From afar she looked like you wouldn’t want to tangle up with her in some dark alley. To be frank, she looked like the type you wouldn’t want to bring home to Mother. Up close she looked even worse, but on one of my early evening walks, I decided to slow down my pace and smile at her.
“What,” she growled, “you can’t say hi?”
To be more frank, she scared the hell out of me. “No,” I demurely countered, “But I’m lady enough to say hello.” I wasn’t going to let her bully me!
She’s a hefty thing and looked slow moving, but she managed to cut me off in three giant steps. “I don’t want to say anything,” she began, “but you’ve been walkin’ by my place for years now and it looks like you haven’t lost an ounce. If anything, you look bigger and broader.”
“I know,” I sighed, “it just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll tell you what doesn’t make sense,” she snapped. “I’ve lost 60 pounds, gained back 45, but who cares? Got only my stagnant job, T.V. and food to live for. I’m an emotional eater, and there’s just nobody to try and look pretty for — anymore.”
Darn if she didn’t read my thoughts. “I know what you thinking,” she said. “ It would take a hell of a lot more then just losin’ weight for me to attract some guy. I don’t smile, never have and that scares people away.”
“It does sort of make me want to rethink my evening route,” I confessed. “Why don’t you smile? And what do you mean by — anymore?”
“Never developed those facial muscles. I’m so sick of hearing that it takes more effort to frown than it does to grin — not for me it doesn’t. Did rope one guy in once — my first husband. Met him in some seedy saloon and thought to myself, ‘this is probably the best you can do, girl.’ They say never marry anybody you meet in a bar and never settle. I did both, but guess what?”
“You proved them all wrong because the marriage took and the only reason you’re not married today is because he went to heaven’s watering hole?”
“Hot damn, you’re good. He did die but only after we had been divorced many years and guess what?”
“I’m tired of guessing,” I complained.
“The signs were right there from the very beginning that I should have dumped the dude. Ya know those stupid little stuffed animal cages with the claws and you try to retrieve an animal?”
“Can’t say that I do,” I confessed.
“You don’t get around much, do you? Well, we fought over a silly soft stuffed duck that he claims he nabbed with those claws, but really, I was the one who nailed it. And in the divorce settlement, guess what the SOB asked for back? That damn stuffed duck. He swore it was really his, but really, it was mine.”
“I can see why you never smile,” I teasingly commented. “Life’s been so cruel and unfair to you.”
“Damn right it has been, but what nobody knows is that if they had me for a friend, I’d be their buddy for life.’
“Wanna walk with me?” I asked.
“Hell no. Think I’d walk with just anybody who happens to be crusin’ by?
You know, I’m sort of glad he won custody of that damn duck.
Karen White-Walker is a Wilson resident. Her column appears every Tuesday.
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