Post-Holiday Life Lessons
Dear So and So,
Yesterday, I was in Beverly Hills. Please refrain from judging. I’m not one to hang out on Rodeo Dr. drinking soy lattes and tripping over my Ugg boots, but I had to pick up some shoes from the shoe repair. The streets were adorned with the usual holiday decor ala Beverly Hills, meaning everything was suuuper nice and extra gold. Eager after-Christmas-shoppers scooped up the occasional Hermes tie but mostly there were windowshoppers. Swarms of windowshoppers. Families of L.A. transplants visiting their aspiring actor, screenwriter, development exec relative or their Ivy league son or daughter who needed a new suit to strut around the CAA mailroom. Dare I say, I was feeling pretty festive.
Feeling like I had accomplished a lot after picking up my shoes and making a quick deposit at the ATM, I took my time strolling back to my car. I enjoyed the brusque wind that blew across the perfectly manicured shrubbery and shook the twinkling lights hanging elegantly from wrought-iron street lamps. I struggled coyly with my wool skirt as the wind playfully blew it up and I smiled as passing cars took notice. Damn, the silver fire hydrants never looked so silver.
With a skip in my step, I turned a corner into the parking garage, bidding farewell to L.A.’s main street USA when…SMACK. I bumped right into someone’s chest. I look up to meet two chestnut eyes and the warm embrace of serious man hands. It’s not everyday that you see a young, tall man in L.A. wearing tweed and elbow patches. I liked him immediately.
“Do you have any change?”, he asked with a booming Aussie/Hugh Jackman voice and an easy smile that could literally melt the tits off an Ice Queen. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but the Scarlett O’Hare in me suddenly revived, fluttered her lashes and I heard myself saying, “Why, yes, yes of course,” as if I had been taught to oblige like a good little school girl. I rummaged through my purse all the while thinking, “my what a grip he’s got”, only to find I didn’t have any change, but only a ten dollar bill. ”I’m so sorry, this is all I have,” I said, chin down, imploring eyes, offering the bill up with two fingers as if it were a cocktail napkin with my number written in lipstick. In my mind I’m thinking out the chess moves, fast forwarding to a coffee or some civilized lunch locale with sex appeal and wondering if I put the good underwear on that day.
He smiled as if to respectfully decline, touched my arm (!) and said,
“Thank you,” as he plucked the bill from my loose, two finger hold. “Merry Christmas,” he exclaimed as he bounced out of sight like a chorus line dancer rounding out a musical number with a comic tip of a top hat and fading jazz hands.
Ten minutes later: Engine on, hands on the steering wheel, an angry handicapped woman honking at me to get out of my space, I’m sitting in my car wondering how I just got ten dollars poorer. If this is a new holiday money making tactic, goddamn is it working…Ho ho ho.
Yours,
Curmudgeon
