“Before I go.......”

“Gotta do it,” I told myself as I climbed out of the pool at Canandaigua YMCA.
I just finished my hour-long aquacise class.
“Gotta walk all the way over and talk to that lifeguard. She seems to like it, and if that puts her off, it ain’t my fault.”
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Sexual Relations. Hilda was my Sunday-School superintendent and next-door neighbor. She convinced me all pants-wearers, including me, were unworthy of female attention. That girls would avoid me like the plague.
My parents, as hyper-religious zealots, concurred.
My wife was inadvertently complicit in this. The fact she liked me made it possible for me to avoid females — she made other females unnecessary.
Now my wife is gone; she died over five years ago.
Way too late I’m discovering Mrs. Walton, and my parents, were flat wrong.
Every relation with females doesn’t automatically have sexual connotation.
A while ago I had a really pretty physical-therapist. Intimidated at first, I got so I could look at her. In my head Mrs. Walton was nattering me, but cutie was disproving her.
So on-and-on it’s gone. A couple weeks ago this lifeguard seemed to like I said hello to her.
So I walked over and started jawing. She smiled. Mrs. Walton is spinning in her grave — 14,000 rpm!

• “Q” stands for “Quincy.”