Loose as a goose!

—People lined up outside our restaurant last night to get in.
Instead of dutifully falling into line, as I woulda done five years ago……
I barged past them all, and through those lined up in the entranceway, saying I had a reservation.
Inside I met a pretty girl at a podium, the greeter I presume.
Our eyes met, and she smiled at me. That’s all takes: tact and diplomacy be damned!
“You have pretty eyes,” I gushed.
“Why thank you,” she said, smiling even harder, eyes flashing.
Per COVID-19, we were all wearing masks. “You can hide behind that mask if you want, but you’re smiling. Your eyes give you away.”
I’m sorry readers, but this blows me away.
“No pretty girl will smile at you!”
I was convinced of that as a child, but now many do.
I’m so thrilled by that, I say things I shouldn’t, like “you have pretty eyes.”
And sadly I had to lose my wife to notice. If she was still around I’d probably still be as difficult as I was, and she jealous.
A lady-friend once told me “the eyes are the window to the soul.”
So now, like our prez checking out the physical attributes of women in that infamous Billy Bush video…..
I find myself checking out females at my supermarket, except what I check out is their eyes.
“WOW! Looka them!” Then “gorgeous,” then “do I know her?”
Eyes, eyes, and prettier eyes.
“Flat as a board,” our prez would say; some of my male friends too.
To which I say “who cares? She smiles at me!”
Some masked cutie-pie flashes her eyes at me, and “Yer hittin’ me with me them eyes again!”

• Ever since my wife died (over eight years ago) I been eating out once per week with fellow bereavers. The others are all widows, so I am the token male. I started with another widower, but he seems to have disappeared.