GO TO HELL!

—“No pretty girl will talk to you, yet here you are talking to me.”
I said that to my cute 19-year-old contact at the kennel that used to daycare my dog.
I think by now she’s 20.
I’d been recounting my hoary childhood. “You don’t know my history,” I told her.
What’s notable is I backhandedly inferred she was pretty, and she noticed.
Ten years ago I couldna done such a thing.
A while ago I said something similar to my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua's YMCA swimming-pool: “no pretty girl will talk to you,” etc. etc.
I was backhandedly telling her she was pretty, and she liked that.
I could see it in her eyes.
“Yes, I think you’re pretty, and despite my childhood I’m gonna tell you that.”
“GO TO HELL, BOBBY! DO NOT PASS ‘GO’; DO NOT COLLECT $200. GO DIRECTLY TO HELL!”
Again, what’s notable is I can do this. 10 years ago NO WAY, JOSE!
That’s a flirt = EVIL, I tell ya!
That kennel-girl smiles at me and I melt.
It helps I’m not some lecherous geezer, but 10 years ago I woulda been scared.
Me, a disgusting scum-bag, male (gasp!), possessed with evil intent and lust?
70 years ago my parents, et al, convinced me I was disgusting. I carried that albatross ever since. Only now, since my wife died, do I realize it was bunk.
“I sure hope your boyfriend makes you smile like I do.”
“I wear the pants,” my friend said. “But he’d take a bullet for me.”
“And I wish I’d known 10 years ago what I know now. I coulda made my wife happy too.”
So now off to Altoony, hoping to meet my cute receptionist friend at our Motor Lodge.
“You’re doing it again, smiling at me.”
She will, eyes flashing, and I’ll love it.
As my college friend said: “if it’s fun, it’s sin!”
But it sure is fun!
“GO TO HELL, BOBBY! GO DIRECTLY TO HELL!”

• “Bobby” is of course me: Bob Hughes.