Excuse Me ... What?

Is it just me, or does everyone feel like an alien?  Dropped off on the planet to observe, take notes, and report back to galactic HQ whenever the mothership returns.  I think they’re gonna like Wet Leg.  At least I hope so because, at the moment, I can’t get that furniture song out of my head.

More on that in a bit.

A rare night when I’m not doing Village or fire stuff, so there’s some television on.   Some show about a goofball who owns a Frank Lloyd Wright house and is brave enough to build another one from plans that were on Frank’s desk when he died.  Having seen Frank’s desk and having dropped to the floor to take a picture of its construction methodology (completely normal thing to do, I assure you) an architecture nerd show is just my speed.  It's not like we’re gonna be watching Titanium Bachelor, or some such thing. 

Wait … hold that thought.  The phone just rang. 

Sweet Pea One calls Marcia to report her workplace spelling bee team won because she grew up in Iowa.  The winning word was derecho and she knew that word because big wind knocking down miles of corn is a thing you learn in Iowa.  That she won a spelling bee in Ohio because she grew up in Iowa is kinda funny.  Well, so long as you’re not a corn farmer.   

When the mothership arrives and they ask what the funniest thing I ever heard was, I’ll retell the story of Marcia’s brother Terry standing next to me at Tavos’ wedding reception thirty-something years ago.   Big Chicago ballroom, swanky view, young and in love vibe.  Very cool.  I’m just hanging out, against a wall, with Terry next to me telling stories.  Terry is a great guy and tells fantastic stories.  Taking it all in for whatever reporting needs to follow. 

Marcia’s other brother is Bill.  Another great guy.  Whip smart.  Restores old Volvos and does some health care software engineering something or other.  Married to Nicole.  Maybe more than once.  Maybe today, maybe not.  I don’t really know because I try to stay in my own lane on in-law stuff.  I’ll just say Nicole is spunky, effervescent and …a little fancy.  Sometimes too fancy for the room?  Who’s to say?

Terry.  Terry is to say.  Standing there, leaning against the ballroom wall as the reception is filling up.  Terry nudges me with his elbow and points toward the door into the ballroom a hundred or so feet away.  “Hey (he says deadpan, pointing to his brother and sister-in law entering the ballroom) Bill brought a _______”. 

Legendary joke, though I am not going to name the profession Terry suggested.  Nicole is dressed … I’ll say maybe a touch risque for a wedding reception … and leave it at that. 

Back to the story.  The architecture nerd show is paused, Marcia and Sweet Pea One are chatting and, because Marcia can operate both the text and phone at once (she really did marry down) she exclaims, “What?!”.  To which I ever so intelligently respond, “excuse me, what?”. 

Tavos has texted to inform Marcia that Nicole is on Golden Bachelor.  My first reaction is to be shocked Tavos watches Golden Bachelor.  I’ve only seen commercials for it and it looks ...  hold on a second ... is it purulent or prurient that means inappropriate interest in the intimate affairs of others?  Prurient.  Purulent is about discharging pus.  There's a show for that too, because of course there is.  

My second reaction is to flip open the laptop and do some Googling.  Marcia conveys the breaking news to Sweet Pea One - who strikes the perfect combo of gleeful surprise and of course she is predictability - and scrambles for the remote. 

The channel changes and there’s a cabal of women in some absurdly garish house all dressed … um, festively, flitting about, waiting for some old dude to walk in the door.  Because it is television, and only old people watch the medium, the old dude arrives in an old Rolls Royce.  Oh .... that is fancy.  There is some sort of date in the works.  Guessing the early bird at Red Lobster, but I could be wrong.

Marcia is trying to figure out if the Nicole we know is the Nicole on television.  But it is hard to make sense of twenty women all wearing colors from a four pack of crayolas.  It is kinda like the deck of an aircraft carrier, but with more knee braces.  I have already scrolled down to N on the list of women on the ABC website and learned Nicole is a 64 year-old yoga instructor from Miami Beach.  Okey dokey. 

Marcia says it can’t be her, because the Nicole on tv is blonde.  Which I find ever so charming, believing something on television can be real.  Of course she is a blonde yoga instructor from Miami Beach.  You have to be a blond somebody from somewhere if you are going high-heels to high-heels with twenty-two other pre-packaged victims of our national preoccupation with voyeurism.  Those pills on the commercials ain't gonna sell themselves.

Nicole has a brief speaking part and Marcia says, “it is her!”.  Which I already knew from the Googling, where I saw her flip the double bird to the camera on a promo when asked – basically – is she too old for love?

You go, Nicole.  A blond yoga instructor from Miami Beach is exactly what an old football player needs.  More than that, it’s what America needs.  ABC did not take that panning shot of you on the chaise lounge for giggles.

Or, maybe they did.  It is all so alien to me, and fortunately so.  Thirty (forty?) something years ago, I got plucked from the herd, and I’ve counted my blessings ever since.    

I best get back to the architecture nerd show.  There might be a quiz on Frank Lloyd Wright joinery when the mothership returns.