So many pretty ladies, so little time

—Three pretty blondes in about 15 minutes.
Yr Fthfl Srvnt was out delivering his annual train-calendar the other day to various local friends.
One was pretty *****, head-honcho at my in-store pharmacy in the supermarket I use in Honeoye Falls.
***** is not a railfan, but her little boy is. He’s age five or six.
She likes receiving my calendar, but she passes it to her little boy.
***** is not gorgeous, but she's pretty enough to have previously been intimidating.
“No pretty lady will ever associate with you!”
Since my wife died over eight years ago I’ve gotten much better at associating with ladies.
***** may have been first.
She’s no longer intimidating. That may be because I previously coulda been perceived a lonely hot-to-trot widower. And back then, I was dazed-and-confused dealing with women.
Pretty ***** and I are now friends; and that’s actual friends, not Facebook “friends.”
She knows I’m aware she’s married. Her husband’s name is “Steve.” He runs that pharmacy when she’s not there.
“Steve” is lucky; ***** has pretty blue eyes. I hafta force myself to not say anything.
Sometimes pretty ***** is more chipper then I’m used to. She’s not chipper with me anymore — she’s more at ease.
I’d suggest she update her pharmacy phone-greeting, since it’s so chipper it isn’t the ***** I now know. (I haven't, since I don’t wanna hurt her feelings.)
So I parked my car in the supermarket parking-lot, next to another car containing a barking dog. One of them little dust-mops. Lotta sturm-und-drang.
The dust-mop was barking furiously at me as I got outta my car.
But he was inside the car, behind a window.
At the car-door was a pretty blonde number-one.
She was only somewhat pretty, but had gorgeous long blonde hair. She was loading groceries.
As I walked around, the dog increased his frenzy, but now through an open window.
I considered flirting — which to me is only striking up a conversation — but I didn’t.
“Protecting your master, eh?” I said to the dog. I didn’t say anything to the lady. I didn’t wanna make her nervous.
A little overly made up = heavy on the eyeshadow and mascara. I suppose blondes hafta do that if they’re actually blonde.
Her pretty tresses were probably dyed, but I didn’t see brown roots.
We men can do that = decide whether a lady is gorgeous. This lady was attractive, but not smashing. Too much make-up, but her long blond hair was pretty.
I didn’t stop or anything – I just kept heading towards the supermarket. All I did was address the dog.
After delivering my calendar to *****, I came back outside into the parking-lot, and about 40 yards from my car was another blonde — pretty blonde number-two.
40 yards is too far to strike up a conversation, plus it looked like a man was with her.
Trying to strike up a lady-conversation with a male around is asking to get punched.
Although I’ve done it. I think the reason I didn’t get punched back then was because I talked to the man first.
That made his girlfriend/wife/whatever secondary. And in fact I was more interested in jawing with him than his main squeeze.
She kept looking at me and smiling. (Gorgeous eye-contact.)
Finally I had to say something: “please excuse me for saying this, but your eyes are gorgeous.”
“Why thank you!” she smiled.
What I didn’t say was her gorgeous smile was lighting up the path we were on: Lehigh Valley RailTrail, where I’ve engaged so many pretty ladies.
I think I was perceived as telling the dude he was lucky to have such a gorgeous sweetheart.
So I didn’t say anything to pretty blonde number-two.
After the supermarket I drove across the street to a Goodwill. I wanted to get rid of some rags.
I pulled in behind Goodwill, and right next to me was pretty blonde number-three.
She was so gorgeous how do I strike up a conversation with her?
She was lugging a heavy computer-printer into Goodwill. She was probably the secretarial eye-candy and charwoman for a small-business CEO.
So, “do they take stuff like that here?” I asked.
She avoided me at first, but then she realized I was talking to her.
“Yes they do,” she said after our eyes met. “I checked it out online,” she added.
10 words with a gorgeous blonde = LAH-DEE-DAH!
Would that she smiled like that earlier sweetheart.
What’s notable here is I’m no longer afraid of attempting to strike up a conversation with a pretty lady.
If it bombs, so what? Pretty ladies are a dime-a-dozen.
And quite a few like that a guy notices, yet isn’t on-the-make.
I’ve had it happen, and it reverses Faire Hilda, who 70+ years ago convinced me no pretty lady will associate with me.
So if a pretty lady appears, I try to make contact. All I do is try to strike up a conversation. If that makes the girl nervous I dive.
But making pretty ladies nervous is so infrequent I’m surprised.
Hilda spins in her grave. Ladies seem to enjoy my company, but I still feel unworthy.
Maybe that’s why they like my company.

• My brother and I photograph trains down near Altoona PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. Every year I take 13 of our 89 bazilyun photographs to assemble into a calendar — I do it with Shutterfly. I give those calendars as Christmas presents.