Another supermarket encounter

—“Are you who I think you might be?” I asked a lady approaching me in my supermarket.
“Probably not,” she said; “since I don’t recognize you.”
“It’s these masks,” I said. “You look like someone I know.”
“And who might that be?” she asked.
“Her name is ‘*****’. She’s a lifeguard up at the YMCA swimming-pool.”
“Well my name is *****,” she said.
“Same hair, same eyes, but wrong person,” I said. “Sorry!”
Sorry I keep thinking about *****, readers. It’s hardly sexual. At my age?
She’s not gorgeous, but she’s attractive for age-64. She looks in her 40s on her lifeguard stand.
***** may be the first attractive female to say hello to me in my entire life. There probably are others, but she’s pretty close.
There was an earlier cutie-pie as my therapist following my knee-change.
***** was probably just being sociable. But she was saying hello to me by name, for no reason other than to say hello.
She wasn’t welcoming me to a class; it wasn’t “good morning Bob.”
Had it not been for the my earlier success with that cutie-pie therapist, I woulda never said hello back to *****.
“Did you say hello to me earlier?” I asked.
“Yes I did,” she said.
“Sorry I’m late, but hello back,” I said.
***** smiled, and she’s not an easy smiler.
I was probably an hour past her saying hello. Yes, I did generate enough nerve to say hello back.
So began reversal of my torrid childhood, whereby “NO ATTRACTIVE FEMALE WILL EVER TALK TO YOU!”
Had my hyper-religious parents come to my defense, that Sunday-School superintendent neighbor, the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, also hyper religious, woulda crashed mightily in flames.
But no; my parents heartily agreed. I was just as disgusting as that neighbor said I was, all because I couldn’t worship my holier-than-thou father.
Any contact with anyone of the opposite sex, even if only verbal, would be evil and disgusting.
Convincing a five-year-old little boy he’s disgusting is just as disgusting.
“Marked for life!” I always say.
I’ve since befriended many more women, many of them pretty, way more than expected; mainly by talking.
And if I may say so, I think women really enjoy talking = the simple exchange of emotions, whereby we trigger each other.
I’ve had it happen so many times. And ***** may have been first. Plus she stayed with me despite the incredible flubs and faux pas I precipitated trying to get used to interchanging with women.
The fact I never had her phone number probably made our friendship possible.
So now that neighbor and my parents all spin in their graves: 14,000 rpm, enough to power FL south of Orlando.
“Go to Hell, Bobby. Do you not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to Hell!”
It’s also notable I’ve gotten so I can strike up a conversation with a complete stranger = someone who might not be who I thought she might be.
Five years ago, after our eyes met, I woulda walked right past if I didn’t recognize her.

• “What about your wife?” people ask. “She was different,” I always say. “She was raised by her mother to be a frump; I think I convinced her she could be pretty.
• A recent crotch-rocket motorcycle might be capable of 14,000 rpm. A Detroit V8 will start tearing itself apart at 8,000 (if it gets there).