It’s becoming second nature

—“Thompson-Health Physical-Therapy, ****** speaking, how may I help you?”
“******,” I said. “Someone I know,”I said.
“Hi Bob,” she said.
“Yes,” I thought to myself. “I know you, and you know me. I like it!”
****** could thereafter deliver her COVID-19 speech.
I was Bluetoothing from my car as I approached, and pretty ****** is one of the “temperature-ladies” per COVID-19. She takes your temperature with one of them infrared guns as you check in.
****** is astonishingly pretty, as is her sidekick, who has prettier eyes, but she’s not as overall pretty as ******.
****** is not gorgeous. “Gorgeous” are the smilers.
****** smiles at me occasionally, but she’s not lighting up the room. If she were to do that we would be in deep trouble.
I’m always a sucker for the room-lighters.
****** was setting up a wheelchair for someone as I came in.
“I checked in with her,” I said to her sidekick, pointing at ****** as she arrowed the wheelchair outside.
I noticed ****** as soon as Physical-Therapy restarted maybe eight months ago.
****** is extraordinarily pretty, and by then Yr Fthfl Srvnt wasn’t as scared of pretty girls as I was maybe two years ago.
So how do I befriend an extremely pretty girl?
By then I’d had numerous successes telling ladies they had pretty eyes. So I thought I’d try the “pretty-eye” bit on ******.
KEE-RASH! I made her nervous — I could see it. A “lonely hot-to-trot widower” eager to flirt with every pretty girl that comes along.
I backed away; no words exchanged for over a month. I figgered I lost her completely, but one day while entering ****** left her workstation to go out.
“Hey! Where ya goin’?” I asked. “You can’t leave! Who’m I supposed to talk to?”
Dare I say it? She melted! (“Impossible!”)
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
Apparently I said the right thing: “all is forgiven if we can talk.”
Leaving Physical-Therapy is via a side door, not the lobby. The parking-lot is separated from the lobby by huge glass window-wall.
One afternoon while heading to my car, I looked inside, and there were ****** and her sidekick sitting at their workstation.
I knocked on the glass, and ****** et al waved back excitedly.
“That Hughes guy is nuts, but he wants to say hello to us. Ergo we’re attractive!” (“DREAMIN’!”)
There have been numerous waving encounters since.
The other day I looked through the window-wall, and pretty ****** waved at me before I did anything.
Usually I hafta get ******’s attention first.
And pretty ****** is the one most likely to wave at me.
I hafta get used to this readers: “No pretty ****** will be your friend, Bobby! You are EVIL and disgusting!”
Enter pretty ****** — and I thought I lost her forever.
I should take it for granted a girl and I are gonna enjoy talking with each other. It’s happened too many times.

• Anything red is my critics, except for “flirt,” which I always do you red.
• I’ve had critics get mad at me, if they find me pleasantly jawing with a lady friend. (“You don’t wanna talk to that guy!”)