When I was writing about my encounter
with a fellow multiple myeloma sufferer for last week's column, I
felt I needed to be especially careful. Not for just the usual
reason- that he didn't ask to be part of it. He shared some serious
concerns and observations with me that I don't think he would share
with just anybody.
I have become so open about my disease,
and in fact, my life in general, that I forget people like to keep
some things to themselves. Really. I think they do. Right? I mean...
Don't you?
It isn't like with my friend Peters,
though. When I wrote “Peters (not his real name),” I was stating
a fact. When I first knew him it was part of the name he used when he
was on the air at the same radio station I worked at. No subterfuge
necessary.
Most of the time, working around names
is not that hard. It's usually a privacy issue more than anything.
But this week I'm faced with a doozy. I think the other person might
be embarrassed, so I want to be careful. Even trying to describe what
happened is tricky because it gives a lot of clues.
See, if I wrote, for example, that the
conversation took place in a building where you could pretty much
ignore the advice “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” you might
guess- library. That would be correct. What about a place where there
are constant comings and goings and people try carry no more of a
burden than absolutely necessary? Airport, right? Oblique baggage
reference and all.
So, when I was transacting some
business the other day and the person I was dealing with said
something that actually left me at a loss for words, I knew I had to
work out some way of using the incident, but without getting anyone
in trouble. C'mon, Jim Arnold was at a loss for words??? How am I
going to let that go? It's almost like an eclipse- you'd have to view
it through a cardboard telescope, otherwise seeing me without a
snappy comeback might actually hurt your eyes. Brothers and sisters-
I needed to tell the story.
So I walked into... this establishment
and asked the... person... who was working there a money question.
Let me say right off that it wasn't a bank. No. Nuh uh. Not a bank.
It was another money-type of place. Yeah. Another place where money
would change hands. Right. And it wasn't Western Union. You can still
make money transactions at WU, I think, but that's not what or where
I was doing this particular transaction.
There I was, then, not at a bank and
not at Western Union... Oh, it wasn't a bottle deposit return place
either. I mean, I wasn't picking up the story from when the cans and
bottles had already been handed over by me which would allow us to
start talking about money. Right. Not a bank, not a Western Union,
not a bottle deposit return place. Got it? Clear?
I needed this person at this place to
give me 40 one-dollar bills. Not for nothing, mind you. I handed over
two $20 bills and made my request.
“What are you going to do with 40 one
dollar bills?” the person asked.
I was taken aback, because, as I
pointed out in my answer, “That isn't really any of your business,
is it?”
We both smiled, since we were
apparently enjoying a nice piece of verbal jousting, badinage, if you
will. Notice, though, I was surprised, but not speechless. That came
next.
“Oh, I know, You're going to...”
and the person pantomimed what could only be taken to as a reference
to sticking dollar bills in a key portion of an exotic dancer's
costume. I'm not kidding. This person was, jokingly, I think,
suggesting I would take my dollar bills and reward a st... str...
strip... A... you know.
First let me say this: I have no problems with strippers. I was friends with a female stripper once who used a boa constrictor in her act who was surprised when her husband left because he couldn't stand the snake crawling into bed with them at night, looking for warmth.
For a time, I also lived below a male
stripper. My teen-age daughters really enjoyed that one. I lived in
the basement and any time they heard his upstairs door close they
would climb all over each other and anything else to get a glimpse of
this guy out the window.
So. Strippers? Good people. I think I
was left speechless because I couldn't imagine what in my demeanor
would suggest that even watching exotic dancers would be something I
would do, never mind going to a non-bank, non-WU, non-bottle deposit
place to gather one dollar bills to stick in their- let's call that
what it is- underwear.
Admittedly, I don't know what such a
person would look like, but I knew they wouldn't look like me. If the
person had called me a jerk, a goof, a creep (although in some
circles, I suppose that's what they were calling me), or a potato
head, I would have had a snappy retort.
I admit to occasionally playing the
cancer card when I want something, but this may have been the dumbest
use of any of the get-out-of-jail variety of cards ever when I said,
“I'm very ill. I wouldn't do that.”
And let me just say that the whole
incident was funny. I wasn't offended, but amused. But it was sort of
like a “Nobody puts baby in the corner” moment. “Nobody leaves
Jim Arnold speechless. Nobody.” Well, now it has to be “almost no
one leaves Jim Arnold speechless.” So kudos to you, nameless person
in an unidentified location. Kudos to you.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere
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