In which my college boyfriend tells me he loves me and I don't know what to say back because he got me out of bed (I was skipping statistics)

I have changed R.M.'s name to Calvin because it is easier to type.

I went back to school after Christmas break. I had a boyfriend. I guess. I had won my bet. I had gotten him to kiss me. Was that enough? Or did I want to keep seeing Calvin?

I must have, because we did indeed date.

"Dating" meant going to the movies at the Chemistry lecture hall on Saturday nights for a dollar. Or going dancing with a group of friends, most of whom couldn't have cared less about the liquor we were not legal to buy - we were at the Winchester Club to two step and polka.

Primo thinks country western dancing is dumb, but that is because Primo thinks he cannot dance and has never tried to two step. Primo might have had a better shot at getting laid in college if he had spent more time dancing than drinking. And if he hadn't been obsessed with a crazy (seriously) girl who used him. Just saying.

He will learn to dance this winter, though, when we can't play tennis any more. He promised. We dropped in on the polka class at a festival and he did just fine, as I knew he would, because he is a natural athlete with a good sense of rhythm. The teaching at the salsa classes we took last year was not so good. Polka Society teachers, though, are about 80 years old, patient and encouraging. One teacher helped Primo get the knack of it and told him, "Youse are generally doing pretty good today," which made Primo say that maybe dancing wasn't so bad after all.

His dancing with me is my Christmas present from two years ago. Last year, his present was that I do not have to visit his mom and dad with him, although how will I ever get enough material for a good tell-all nasty out-law memoir if I don't spend more time with them? Am I willing to make the sacrifice to get that bestseller and the condo on Key Biscayne, just five miles down the road from Palacio de Jugos with its lechon, arepas and batidos de guayaba?

Yes. I think I am. If I can get more drugs. Did you know I had a migraine for 12 straight days last year in anticipation of the visit and during the visit itself? I need painkillers and preferably something that will let me sleepwalk through the experience so instead of getting mad and arguing with his dad, I just smile beatifically and say, "That's fantastic [how you were never held accountable for your performance and held the taxpayers of your state hostage to your union/tenured demands]!"

By the middle of sophomore year, we could all get into bars without fake IDs because we were finally 19, not the 18 we had been the year before when we had to borrow IDs from upperclassmen. Karen, who was 5'1" and brunette, had borrowed an ID from Bea, who was 5'10" and blonde. The bouncer just looked at it and grunted. And took Karen's two dollars.

Still, the upperclassmen hadn't always wanted to lend their driver's licenses to us, so during our freshman year, my friends Anita, Heather, Rene and I were forced to go to the flea market held every Saturday to get fake IDs. Someone knew someone who sold IDs way in the back of the market, past the bright cotton Oaxaca dresses, the serapes, the counterfeit Long and Silky shampoo, the tamales and the used auto parts spread out on a blanket on the ground because when I need a part for my car, the flea market is the first place I think of.

Our fake IDs did not look remotely like legitimate driver's licenses, what with their greenish cast, but they had the right birthdates on them, as in, making us each ten believable years older.

It's not like the bars cared, anyhow.

Calvin and I went to movies and danced and ate at the gyro place and at the empanada place right across the street* and took long walks around campus in the evening, which you can do all year because there is NO SNOW and talked about whatever two horny college sophomores talk about when they are not necking, which was our favorite activity and which we usually did in the physics lab or on top of the geology building, as both of us had roommates who did not leave the room enough.

He was usually late to pick me up, which annoyed me to no end. I hate it when people are late and I especially hate it when it is Saturday night and the reason they are late is because they were helping Jim or Scott or Bob with the physics homework.

It's Saturday night.

Tell them to wait.

The kissing made up for it, though. For a guy who had never kissed a girl before, except one little kiss from Candace Allegra C., Calvin's big high school crush, who, I am sad to say, is showing the effects of never having used sunblock on her face her entire life and I know this how? Because I am a googlestalker with way too much time on her hands and I remember names.

Wear sunblock and a hat. This is what I am telling you. Do you want to look like an old lady when you are only 46? No I didn't think so. Heather's mom tried to warn us when we were in college and would sit on the sundeck but did we listen to her? No I did not and I regret it now.

Also, take the stairs as much as you can when you are young before your butt starts to fall. Better to keep that from happening in the first place than to try to fight gravity once it's too late. You can thank me later.

We had been dating for a couple of months and things were going swimmingly. I had some status now as a girl with a boyfriend. Not that it was so hard to get male attention at Small Private School: the male students outnumbered the female students two to one. Still. I had a boyfriend. I wasn't thinking any further than the next weekend.

A few months into the semester, I was sleeping late and skipping class, which was my wont, which goes a long way to explaining my college GPA vs my grad school GPA. Did you know that if you prepare for class, go to class, sit in the front row, and ask questions when you don't understand something that you do a lot better on tests than if you 1. don't do the readings and 2. don't attend class?

I had a huge misunderstanding of what a roll was. I thought it was a class so easy that you didn't even need to attend to get an A.

Wrong.

It was a class where it was easy to get an A if you prepared, attended and asked questions.

Who knew?

I thought I was so smart taking probability and statistics for academic majors (as opposed to P&S for science and engineering majors). I'd already taken calculus and differential equations. Shouldn't P&S have been a piece of cake?

Well sure.

If I had gone to class. And when I took P&S in grad school, I did very well. I had learned my lesson.

But as a college sophomore who had just changed her major from electrical engineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering so I could go to med school and then design bionics to English, I was not so clueful.

Hence, the skipping class.

That morning, I heard a knock on my door, which annoyed me as it awoke me at the crack of dawn hour of 9:15.

It was Calvin.

Now that I think about it, why wasn't he in class? He never skipped. People borrowed his notes. They went to him for homework help.

He had something to tell me, he blurted out.

Not until I've had a shower, I told him.

I made him wait while I bathed and wondered what on earth he could be so nervous about. Was he going to break up with me? Would I be upset if he did?

I emerged from the bathroom, dressed, I suppose, because we were not at That Stage. We were still at the hand-holding, kissing, and touching only above the neck stage. Yes, it is completely possible for college students to be virginal. We were of the No Sex Before Marriage group, remember?

And he told me he was in love with me.

Well.

Nobody had ever said that to me before. Nobody who wasn't a relative.

I had no idea what to say to him.

So I told him I had to get to class.

As soon as I could, I called my mom and dad. What am I supposed to tell this guy? I demanded.

They laughed. Whatever I wanted to, they told me.

I thought about it and a few days later, as we took a late-evening walk through the quad, I told him I loved him, too. Then we talked about getting married because that is the logical progression for two college sophomores in love, one of whom plans to get a PhD and would not be ready to support a family for many years.








* Note to self: get a dozen empanadas - cream cheese and blueberry, pizza, banana and dulce de leche - when Primo and I go to our 25 year reunion next month.

In which I stalk my college boyfriend before we start dating so he will want to date me because every man wants an obsessed woman

When I left you, I was on a "date" with Jake, my physics lab partner, and had just met Calvin, who later became my boyfriend, then not my boyfriend when I met his hot friend Seth who had the fabulous abs, then my boyfriend again when I realized Seth had no interest whatsoever in me, then my fiance' and then not my fiance,' but only after my mom had reserved the church and I had bought the dress.

I took one look at Calvin and thought, Well now he's a hottie, isn't he? only I didn't think the word "hottie" because it was not yet in use in the early '80s. "Stud" and "studmuffin" were the terms of art back then. "Hunk" was also used, although "hunkalicious" would not find popularity until 2009, way too late to use for Calvin.

But they all applied.

He was hot.

Even more appealing to me than his smoldering dark good looks and cute smile was the fact that he was completely, totally uninterested in me. No vibe whatsoever.

Nothing I like better than a challenge.

I'd had only a date or two my freshman year of college, if you could even call them dates. A date implies interest on the part of both parties, not an interested guy and a girl who's too startled at being asked out to know how to say, "no." It implies that the girl know when a guy tells her that he has an extra ticket to the Tom Petty concert and does she want to go that he is really asking her on a date, not trying to keep the ticket from going to waste, because if that's all he wanted, he could have asked his roommate. But some girls will just go because they've never been to a rock concert before (really!) and then be shocked, shocked when the guy tries to hold their (her?) hand because when has she ever shown any interest in this guy?

See also, "I go to a play with my roommate's brother's roommate and then he walks me back to my room and won't leave so I sit with my roommates to watch TV and pull out my knitting, then go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror with the cute guys who walk past our room and invite anyone who wants to go with them."

I needed a strategy to make Calvin mine.

Part of it was to lose 25 pounds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's what's inside that matters, but 18 year old men who can choose from an entire cafeteria of girls will choose the ones they find most visually appealing and select for personality later. I needed to catch his eye before he would even talk to me.

Over the summer, I de-chubbed. What a pain in the neck. Eating less, exercising more. I hate it all.

But when I returned to school that fall, there was less of me to love and I had a better haircut.

Then my roommates, who were in on the plan with me, and I began to include Calvin in our group activities. We were already friends with some of his friends, so it wasn't too hard.

He was a hard nut to crack. Study, study, study. He was majoring in electrical engineering and physics and had appointed himself the homework helper to the world. He didn't have much free time.

Yet I persisted. I would visit him and his roommates - just saying hi! Just making myself obnoxious!

Over Christmas break, I saw my chance. My family lived in San Antonio. So did his. I proposed that we get together and do something while we were home. Probably too surprised to say no, he agreed.

My friends bet me that I couldn't get him to kiss me. He was too shy, they said. He wasn't interested in girls. Or in me. Fine. Show me the money.

What did we do? I can't remember. Maybe we went to a movie. I do remember that he picked me up. (He had his own car. He was an Only.)

When he dropped me off at the end of the evening, he walked me to the door. Took my hand. Kissed it.

Oh no, I told him. Not there. Here. And I pointed to my lips.

He gave me an awkward peck.

I was disappointed. Really? That was it?

You can do better than that! I exclaimed.

He tried again.

Practice did make perfect.

In which I meet my college boyfriend, who later became my fiance' but then I changed my mind about getting married and he married my roommate instead

Let me be clear about one thing from the outset: my college boyfriend, Calvin, is a great guy. My decision not to marry him had nothing to do with his being a jerk (he wasn't a jerk - I dated him for three years - even I don't put up with jerkness for that long) and everything to do with my being only 22 years old at the time. Twenty two is very young to marry. It's also young to make career decisions, but what can you do?

My freshman year of college, beginning of the second semester, it snowed. In Big Southern City. This happens once every gajillion years or so. Big Southern City is usually quite humid (= Hell is the staging ground for Big Southern City) but on the snow day, the air got really dry. My eyes got dry. That was back in the day when I wore hard contact lenses. Dry eyes + hard contacts = scratched eyes, which meant a trip to the ER (had I known then what I know now, I never would have wasted medical resources like that, but it felt as if someone was pouring acid in my eyes and I was 18 and didn't know what else to do). They rinsed my eyes and told me to keep patches on them for a few days.

My roommates kindly drew me a wardrobe of eyes to wear over the patches and escorted me to the commons for meals and to my classes. I didn't, however, go to my first physics lab (I was an engineering major before I changed to the oh so practical English), which was when everyone picked their lab partners. I was partnerless when I showed up for the second class. So was Jake, who had twisted his ankle playing basketball. He hobbled and I squinted into class.

It was destiny.

We were great lab partners because we would calculate what our results should be (density of water? rate of gravity? easy!) and set up the experiment to get the results we wanted, which meant it took us half the time it did the other students.

Suckers.

Our labbie might not have approved, but bless his Korean graduate student heart, we couldn't understand a word he said, so even if he had been telling us to tear it all down and start over, we didn't know.

This method didn't hurt Jake too much. He got a PhD in chemistry from CalTech, which makes me think his technique wasn't so far off.

Naturally, I developed a crush on Jake because he was funny and smart, which is the lethal combination that always gets me.

One day, as we walked back from lab to our dorms, Jake asked me, "Do you want to go to [this dorm dinner]?"

I paused. What did he mean? Was he asking me on a date or was this an in-theory question, like, "Would you like to be two inches taller and 20 pounds lighter but with bigger bosoms?"

Well duh.

Who wouldn't?

I answered cautiously. "With you?"

Wouldn't you be concerned? What if I had answered, "Yes!" and he had said, "Well I hope someone asks you."

Then I would have felt dumb.

"Yes, with me!" he said impatiently.

Well yes then!

I was so excited. Maybe my feelings were reciprocated.

They weren't. Jake just wanted a date for the event. I don't even remember how I figured out he was not at all interested in me but it didn't matter, because his roommate, Calvin, was also at this event and without a date.

And really cute.

And really smart.

I looked at him and thought, "That's the man I'm going to marry."

And I almost did.

But it took some work to get to that point.

More on the Calvin, who had almost never kissed a girl, story next time.

In which I work for a crazy boss

I know, I know. Everyone has a crazy boss at some point and I should consider myself lucky that this boss, Crazy Cathy, was only a short-term boss in a temporary employment situation. I was considering going into the Peace Corps and didn't have a whole lot vested with CC, but it was still a pain in the neck.

I was in Austin and had finished my MBA. Unlike my wiser fellow students, I had made no effort whatsoever to find gainful employment before graduation. I was aloof, sure that I would escape the corporate rat marathon that everyone else seemed so eager to run.

Ha. Stupid me. I forgot the part about how if you want to make a decent living, you have to work for your money. As in, they don't pay you the big bucks because it's fun to go to the office every day; they pay you because it's hard and you have to deal with idiots. Not all of us can be major league ball players or actresses. We don't have the talent to be athletes or the photogenicity to be on film. That leaves corporate cubicle dronedom, unless of course you are a trust fund brat and inherited wealth is a whole separate category that I won't address here as I have no experience with it, except that it wasn't until I got to college that I first encountered people who were from another socio-economic strata from mine. Most families on military bases are about the same income level and even if someone has wealth from another source, you wouldn't know because base housing is assigned by need and rank, not by wealth. One of my college classmates was getting some fancy car, though, and his dad was having it custom made. Actually, even being around students whose parents were paying their tuition and giving them spending money for beer was a novelty.

But I digress.

He who wants to eat must work and eating is my favorite hobby, which means work is a necessary evil.

Still, I didn't want to go back to another big company because I had just left a big company. I had this vision of working for a small company where life would be all rainbows and unicorns. So I waited until after I had graduated, then spent the rest of my savings on a ten-week traipse through Europe, Turkey and Israel, before I commenced my job search.

Surprise!

Nobody was hiring in the summer of 1992. At least, they weren't hiring me.

I started networking, as rumor has it that is how one finds a job.

I contacted former clients from when I had worked for the insurance company before grad school. One of them, Crazy Cathy, owned a small company with her husband. When I asked her to keep me in mind if anyone needed to hire someone such as I, she asked if I would do some work for her. Her human resources director had quit and she needed to hire a replacement. Would I go through the resumes and screen the candidates?

Sure. Piece of cake.

But there was more.

Each candidate in whom she might be interested had to be tested. If the person passed the test, CC would interview him. I graded the test as the candidate waited and knew right away if he would proceed further.

But CC wouldn't let me tell people that they were out.

I had to leave them hanging, which as anyone who has ever looked for a job knows, is a horrible feeling.

I myself had to take the test. I missed one question out of 20 or so. What do you call the person who runs a factory or an apartment building? Apparently, the answer was "superintendent," but considering I had never lived in New York* and every person I have ever heard of running a factory is called a plant manager or the like, superintendent was not the word that sprang to mind. CC said I had one of the highest scores she had ever seen. Whatever.

Once a candidate had passed the first test, he had to take a second one - a personality profile called the Birkman test. This test is not supposed to be used as a hiring tool, but that did not stop CC. She fancied herself a psychologist.

Here's the rest of it: the first test was an intelligence test.

In the state of Texas and I know this because I called the Department of Labor and a friend who used to be an HR director for Kraft and who had worked in Texas, it is illegal to give an intelligence test as part of the hiring process. Or, probably, it is illegal to consider the results of an intelligence test in hiring someone unless you can prove that intelligence measured in that way is a necessary part of the job.

I was quite uncomfortable with doing something illegal. I thought maybe CC just didn't know, so I mentioned my call to her. She was furious. How dare I! How DARE I?!

Yet I continued to work there. CC, who showed up a few hours a week, would call for me while I was away from my desk (OMG! I went to the ladies' room sometimes!) and would be livid when I returned her call. Where was I? Why hadn't I been at my desk?

She paid me to feed their cats while they were out of town, which was just fine except she charged those hours to the company instead of paying me out of her personal funds. Tax fraud. And - they paid their employees below-market salaries because they (claimed they) had profit sharing. Profits that were artificially diminished because she was charging her personal expenses to the company.

None of this was the last straw, though. It wasn't until the head finance guy had me go through all the customer files to identify California customers and their 1990 purchases so the company could remit sales tax to California that I lost it. It wasn't pulling the 1990 purchases - it was after I had spent three days going through every single customer file to make a photocopy of any California customer purchases, the finance guy said, "Now do the same thing for 1991."

"But why didn't you just ask me to do both of them at the same time?" I sputtered, incredulous.

He shrugged. "You're being paid by the hour, aren't you?"

"I'm not being paid to be bored and inefficient," I shot at him.

Then I burst into tears. "I used to make $75,000 a year and I had my own secretary!" I sobbed as I left his office, furious. Nothing more humiliating than crying at work, in front of a jerk, over something so stupid. He was right. I was being paid by the hour. I should have welcomed the extra work, no matter how excruciatingly dull it was.

Three hours later, the finance guy showed up at my desk. "We won't be needing your services any more," he announced. He waited for me to get my things and walked me out. Because you know, I was going to trash the place. I couldn't believe I had been fired from such a corrupt place. I should have reported them to the IRS and the Department of Labor. Jerks.





* Which was why the taxicab medallion example made no sense to me in Econ 102, and yes I should have raised my hand and asked what the heck a medallion was and why it had anything to do with supply and demand, but I was a timid thing when I was in college and my professor was intimidating.

In which I go out with the train guy and am soooo bored but he does not appear to be bored at all

Y'all, I am not going to write too much about Kip, the cute train guy, because 1. he is such a nice guy and I don't want to appear to be mocking him and 2. I don't remember much about what happened. If only I had been a blogger back then. I would have archives.

After I had been riding the train for a few weeks, I started to recognize the other passengers. A lot of us read on the trip and would talk about and exchange books. Then there were the two recovering heroin addicts who had met in their 12-step program or treatment center or wherever and were conducting the clothed part of their affair (they were both married, but not to each other) on the ride to work every morning. Good thing there were frequent traffic accidents and suicides that extended the trip, right? More time for looove.

I noticed Kip waiting for the train at my stop. He got on at Ft Lauderdale and got off where I did, in west Boca. He was very cute. He still is. I google-stalked him (oh like you don't*). He has aged well, which is fine. It's only the men who were jerks to me that I want to see looking like Keith Richards on a bad day.

I don't remember who spoke to whom first, but maybe I was in one of my sensible "let them come to you" phases. I seem to have had far less heartache when the guy pursued me rather than when I pursued him. Maybe he first spoke to me about the violin I brought to work every Wednesday. I was taking violin lessons and didn't want to leave the violin in the car all day in the heat while I was at work. I wasn't worried about it being stolen because car thieves in Miami were not known for their interest in classical music and it's not like there is a big market for hot violins. That I know of.

He asked me out.

I said yes.

Why wouldn't I? Cute guy, employed, educated. I am easy.

He said he would take the train from Ft Lauderdale to Miami, then connect to the metrarail or whatever is was called, because why drive when you have a train pass?

I asked if I should pick him up at the station, which was about a mile from my house, and he said no. He would walk.

OK. A man willing to walk a mile just to see me?

I was flattered.

He arrived early so he could repair my washer. I am putty in the hands of a man who can repair my major appliances. It took him only half an hour, then what to do?

He deserved some kind of payment.

So we made out.

Not my proudest moment.

Not unlike my first kiss when I was in second grade. A boy on the playground wanted to kiss me and I told him no, but then he offered me a piece of gum, so I said yes. I was a little Double Bubble hooker.

Then we went to supper in Cocowalk, where he talked and I listened and thought, He is so cute but I am so uninterested in what he has to say and he doesn't seem to be interested in what I think, so why are we here?

But he asked me out again and again and again. And sat by me on the train. And sent me emails and called me at work. And invited me to his office to have lunch at his company cafeteria and meet his friends.

Primo suggests that even though I was bored with him, Kip might not have been bored with me.

I can't imagine how Kip would have found me not boring considering all I did was listen to him talk.

But maybe that's all he wanted.

After a few weeks, I decided that Kip needed to be free.

But I think he might have broken up with me. I can't remember.

Whatever it was, it wasn't acrimonious because every year or so, I would get an email from him. He married the next woman he dated (that happened to me a lot: I was the prep girlfriend) and had a baby.

I went on to date Yves, the guy who sent me the e-card for my birthday. Oh yes I can pick them.





* I just looked up Cindy C, who was the prissy first chair violin when I was in orchestra in junior high. Her mother drove her to school, so Cindy could take her violin home and practice every day. I rode my bike to school, which meant moving a violin was more challenging. I would like to point out that even though she practiced a lot more than I did, we split first chair most of the year. Ha.

She wore even dorkier underwear than I did, so I had someone to feel superior to in gym. Elaine down the street wore lacy underpants with a matching bra and she had the figure for it. Cindy and I were in waist-high, flowered underpants in 7th grade, but by 8th grade, I knew to insist at least on bikini underwear. I don't even have lacy underpants now. Just not practical or comfortable. But Cindy stayed in her waist-high undies and undershirts! Not even a training bra, but an undershirt with a little bow at the bosom. Poor Cindy. Her mother was clueless.

She is now a flight attendant, which is about the last job I would have put her in, but man, I hope I'm a little more socially adept than I was in 7th grade. The question: should I friend her? I was not kind to her when we were in school. But it was all behind her back. Mostly.

In which I date a really nice but kind of boring guy I meet on the train

I quit my job in Miami with the Yellow Truck company after one year and one day of employment. My boss, Luke, who is a really nice guy and still a friend (and who no longer works at that sweatshop, either), made me wait the extra day just so nobody could hassle me about repaying the move package or not getting my vacation time.

I quit the sweatshop job because I got a new job. The new job office was in Boca Raton, but they told me not to move from Miami to Boca (about 60 miles?) because they were going to be moving the office to Miami soon. SOON! Really!

I think they were just too cheap to move me up to Boca, not that I had any interest in living in Boca. They never have moved that office to Miami because the guys I worked with had no interest in living in Miami. This was the Latin America group of the paper company. I interviewed with everyone in the office. One of the sales guys spoke no Spanish whatsoever and had no interest in learning. (And how could such a man be salesman in Latin America, you ask? Good question!) When he found out I lived in Miami proper, he was astonished. How, how could I live in Miami?

What's wrong with living in Miami, I asked, genuinely puzzled.

He would never live there, he told me. He had children.

Oh. Right. Miami. Not safe for kids.

He was a racist jerk.

Anyhow. I didn't even consider moving to Boca. If one is going to live in Florida, one might as well live in Miami or else one is just in a giant anonymous suburb that used to be an orange grove. At least in Miami, you know where you are. Some other cities that will go unnamed but that I have had to visit against my will could be anywhere that has a Best Buy, Target, and Starbucks. Not that I don't like any of those places - I do (well, not the Best Buy, which I don't dislike but really I couldn't care less about an electronics store) - but if I have to put up with nasty summers and hurricanes, I want either great Mexican food or great Cuban food. Plus, I really like Miami. It's a neat place. I'd move back.

Even though I had no interest in moving to Boca (home of the Early Bird Special), I also had no interest in driving 120 miles to work and home every day. Hence, the train, which took 80 minutes to get from the airport stop in Miami to the West Boca stop, which was 50 yards from my office, and which was subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer, thank you very much.

Taxpayers, aren't you happy to pay more so some of us can ride the train to work while you are stuck in traffic? Sure, you feel all superior when the train is delayed because someone decided to commit suicide by stopping his car on the tracks and keeping the passengers from getting home before 9:00 p.m., but other than that, you're jealous. Many a naked man is visible from the train, even if he thinks nobody can see him standing by that pickup behind the Home Depot in Ft Lauderdale, and that is a worthwhile sight indeed.

Riding the train was kind of fun, just because there were so many weirdos. Also many nice people. There was Marisol, who suggested very sweetly when I was coughing that I should try some Veevahporoo to make me feel better. You know. Veevahporoo! That pungent cream in the blue jar known as Vicks VapoRub to us gringos and as the miracle cure to the Cubans.

The weirdos, though. I had no idea I was so unbearably attractive to men until I started taking the train. Well, I had some idea because I had traveled from Chile to the U.S. over land and had the opportunity to be hit on by many, many men on trains, buses, and boats in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico. And points in between. So I had learned to be firm. Gringo code didn't work. Being nice but distant did not put off Latin men. They've seen Baywatch. They've seen American movies. They know what American women are like. We will sleep with anyone, anywhere, any time.

Thus I was prepared one morning when I sat in an empty coach and the only other passenger got up from his seat 20 feet away and sat right next to me.

Right next to me.

Not across from me. Not across the aisle. Not behind me.

Right. Next. To. Me.

I knew the next step was conversation and I wasn't interested. I had my Economist, I had my book, I had my newspaper. I had plenty to occupy me for the next hour and 20 minutes.

Yet he persisted. It was 6:00 in the morning and this guy thinks we're in a disco. "Where are you going?" he asked.

I looked at him and said coldly, "There are a million empty seats on this train. Why do you have to sit here?"

He huffed and said that he was just trying to be nice and sheesh, why was I such a bitch? and he'd show me.

Fine.

Leave me alone.

My instincts were correct. A few weeks later, once I started taking the more sane 7:48 train (my boss didn't care when I got to work or left as long as I did my job), a man asked if he could sit across from me (the coach was almost full). I couldn't stop him, so I shrugged and went back to my book. He didn't need to ask. It was an empty seat. But all cons start with a question that demands a "yes" answer. "May I ask you a question?" is about the first thing any panhandler asks you. Just say "no" and keep walking is my advice.

He asked if I would move my newspaper, which was spread on the table between us. Then he removed a thermos from his backpack (he was in a suit) and a pack of instant oatmeal. "I eat my breakfast on the train," he confided in me.

Really? Do tell. I kept reading. Did I look interested?

He ate. Then he pulled out a ziplock bag full of potions and concoctions. And started to tell me exactly what each pill did. And how he lived with his mother.

What do you say to someone like that? What do you say to get him to shut the heck up because there is not another empty seat and you can't move? You just have to get over the dread of being thought Rude and Be Rude. You can justify your Rudeness by telling yourself that Vitamin Oatmeal Man is also being rude by presuming to talk to you while you keep POINTEDLY RETURNING TO YOUR NEWSPAPER after each, "Um-hmm."

So yeah. I avoided VOM after that.

And then there was the airline baggage handler guy with the wandering eye. Not that his wandering eye was his fault, but it did make him seem creepy. He was always staring at the women. Well, part of him was staring and part of him was looking elsewhere.

But there was Kip, the nice guy. He was cute and I watched him. He got on the train at Ft Lauderdale and got off at West Boca. I'll tell you about him next time. I wasted too much space on the weird people today.

In which my gaydar is activated

At book club last night, we talked about Assisted Loving: Double Dating with My Dad, or something like that, a memoir by Bob Morris, who is a writer for the New York Times (a newspaper out of New York City).

A few of us knew right away at the beginning of the book that Bob was gay, but some of the other readers did not.

Why was this?

Because some of us have either dated gay men or had crushes on them or both, hence, our gaydar has become highly refined. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, etc.

And some of us had married our high-school boyfriends, so never had reason to be amazed years or weeks later that our boyfriend/crush was gay. Gaydar not such a factor in those cases. It must be developed and who needs gaydar if she is already involved?

In the defense of all women who have dated gay men and not known they were gay - if a guy is trying to pass, he can do it.* Or maybe he doesn't even know. But if you have dated a guy (as a college student or as an adult) for more than a few months and he hasn't tried to get into your pants, that is your first big clue.

Straight men want it with the women they date. They want it with their friends, even, because in most cases, a single, straight guy is not going to waste time being "just friends" with a woman unless he thinks that someday, they will be more than friends.

You don't believe me?

Ask your brother, your boyfriend, your husband how many good women friends they had - as in, spent a lot of time with - as single men where they did not have an ulterior motive.

That's not to say that men and women can't be friends, but unattached men have a keen sense of the ROI for sex/time.

Anyhow.

My gaydar had been developed by

1. Learning that my short-term high school boyfriend who kissed me only once and told me I tasted like macaroni had come out, but only after he had become a pilot in the air force and gotten married (and divorced). So like I was supposed to figure it out when I was 16 and he was either unaware or fighting it tooth and nail? I barely knew what gay was. This was in the late '70s when high school students were not plugged in like they are now.

2. Having several very out gay friends in the Peace Corps. Nothing like talking to men about men. It's fun. You learn good stuff.

3. Having a major crush on Liam, my good friend from work who had a "girlfriend" so he would fit into the world of corporate finance. He came out to me, then to his parents (who were mean to him about it, I am sad to say), and then got a new job where he asked in the interview about how gay-friendly the company was because he didn't want to work any more in an environment where he could not be himself.

OK. Back to the gaydar incident. My friend Liz and I went to a returned Peace Corps volunteer party in Miami. Those parties were something else. People there really cared about who was on the RPCV board and who had power and what Good We Can Do In The Community.

In the RPCV group my friends Megan and Leigh and I started in Springfield, I was elected president because I made the mistake of going to the bathroom right before the nominations and voting. We didn't care about The Community; we started the group as a way to meet men and to have parties.

There was that one woman who insisted we Do Something for The Community. I had finally learned the management skill of bouncing back, which is when you say, "Fab idea, Melissa! Why don't you be in charge of that?"

Much to my (not) surprise, Melissa never did a thing. Indeed, four months later she called me to say that she was pregnant and couldn't be involved, tempting me to ask why she couldn't use her brain and her uterus at the same time, but I resisted.

Liz and I were at this party, talking to a cute, interesting guy, Tim, by the pool. Liz, who is pretty and athletic and trim and smart and interesting and fun, was not dating anyone, which just seemed inexplicable to me because I would have dated her if I were a guy. But we both worked really long hours and it's not like the guys we worked with were worth pursuing or if they were, they were gay. [See: Liam]

When were we supposed to meet men otherwise?

We left the party and started to deconstruct it in the car.

"Tim is cute!" she said. "He's fun!"

I agreed.

She said she would like to go out with him.

"But Liz!" I exclaimed. "He's gay!"

Her head jerked back. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"He's gay! You couldn't tell?"

"No. What makes you think he's gay?"

"Because when we were talking about what countries we wanted to visit, after he told us his top three, he turned to you and asked what you thought. Then he listened."

"So?"

"When is the last time a straight man asked you what you thought about anything? Besides your dad, I mean?"

She thought about it. "That doesn't mean he's gay," she insisted.

"It's a good clue. And then there was this: remember when we were talking about Al Gore?"

"Yes. So?"

"He said that he wanted Gore to spank him."

Game. Set. Match.



* See "gay American" former governor McGreevey of New Jersey. His wife looked stunned at the announcement and why shouldn't she have? They have a daughter together! Maybe she was in on it all along, but McGreevey had a lot of motivation to keep things on the down low. BTW, McGreevey, most people probably didn't care that you are gay, but they did care that you hired your foreign lover for a high security level job with New Jersey taxpayer money.

In which I slave to find the perfect gift for my French self-proclaimed millionaire but miserly boyfriend and get only an e-card for my birthday

Remember Yves, the French boyfriend who claimed to be a millionaire but lived in spartan, washing his clothes in the sink, miserliness? He also implied darkly that he had been a spy and had had some run-ins with the Russians when I asked him about what appeared to be cigarette burns on his arm. Then there was the hereditary English title of which his family had unjustly been dispossessed.

Whatever. I just rolled my eyes when he went on about this stuff. Like, I'm an American. I couldn't care less about hereditary titles. As in, England might want a queen but I would never bow to her because I AM AN AMERICAN and WE BOW TO NOBODY.

Plus if he was so rich, why didn't he have a washing machine? And a full-sized refrigerator? I know it's France and they are so superior and all, but my idea of superior leisurely living does not include washing my clothes by hand. I had enough of that when I was in the Peace Corps.

Still, he was interesting to talk to and there was a certain glamor (and convenience) to having an overseas boyfriend. Although I should have learned my lesson with him and not made the Gomez mistake. For dumb.

After meeting at work and dating for a few months, we had decided to be "just friends" after coming to the conclusion that this intercontinental dating wasn't really going to work. Then we decided that as "just friends," it might be fun to take a trip together to the south of France. We would split the expenses as "just friends" and he would do all the driving and hotel finding and speaking to the locals, as my French is abysmal. A French teacher once told me in exasperation that I spoke French "like a Spaniard," which is undoubtedly true, as Spanish is my first foreign language. I started learning it when I was six and my brain knows two accents: American and Spanish. Those are the accents I apply to every other language, including French, Italian and Portuguese.

I was to fly to Marseilles and meet Yves there. His birthday happened to fall during our trip. I wanted to get him something special. I knew he liked American bourbon - he had even toured Kentucky visiting distilleries.

I researched bourbon, about which I knew nothing. It's booze, right? You use it in Bourbon Balls at Christmas?

I learned that there are boutique bourbons, single malt bourbons, snob bourbons. I learned how they were rated.

I emailed one of Yves' colleagues, whom I had also met through work. What bourbons could one buy in France? I asked. I wanted to get something that Yves could not get through his regular liquor channels.

Only the big names were available overseas, so I was safe with the snob brands.

Then I went to four different liquor stores in Miami before I found one that carried any of the snob brands. Yes, I would have tried calling beforehand, but if you have ever lived in Miami, you will understand why that would have been a stupid idea.

I spent $50 for the bottle. That was a lot of money to me back then. It had taken me a year and a half after the Peace Corps to find work and I had been working only two years. Before the Peace Corps, I was in grad school and I had a year (of temp work) between grad school and the Peace Corps, so I had had five years of barely breaking even, if that.

$50 for booze is too much for me now, as well, but then I don't drink. I'd rather spend that money on shoes. Or a purse.

I couldn't pack the bottle in my checked luggage - I was afraid it would break. Apparently, nobody thought I would try to get the entire plane drunk (ha - as if I would share something so expensive) and I was able to take it in my carry-on bag.

A bottle of bourbon, even the fancy bourbon, is not light. But I carried it across an ocean so I could have a nice gift for Yves.

He picked me up in Marseilles and we had a great trip, even deciding - ahem - to be more than "just friends," at least for the duration of the vacation.

We stayed at a small hotel on the water in Marseilles and were confused by the signs informing us that it was interdit to take non-guests into the room, but then we realized it was a sailors' flophouse and they wanted to keep the hookers out.

Our room was decorated in a jaunty nautical theme that included bunk beds instead of a double bed, but I suppose that would have been no impediment to a lonely sailor on shore leave.

The only rough spot on the trip was when I ran out of the pain meds for my tooth that needed pulling. My dentist refused to pull the tooth right before I left for France, telling me that such a procedure two days before an international trip was not wise. He did give me drugs.

He also asked if I was interested in meeting his single, employed brother. His mother, who ran his practice, and he had discussed this over my two years of being a patient and had thought we would be a good match.

I suggested that waiting until a week before I was moving from Miami to Iowa was not the best timing. Did I mention that? That I was moving from Miami to Cedar Rapids? Well, I was.

Anyhow, I ran out of drugs and my tooth started to hurt so much that I demanded that Yves find a hardware store, buy a wrench, and pull the tooth himself. He refused, but did call his doctor and get me a new prescription. At the time, I did not know codeine was available over the counter in France (it is! stock up when you are there!), otherwise I would have just stayed stoned until I got back to the States.

Back to the bourbon.

Yves loved it. Thought I was so thoughtful to go through all that effort. Of course I told him how much work it was. Wouldn't you?

I went back home, moved to Iowa, and we carried on our emailing relationship along with an occasional phone call. He even visited me in Iowa on a work trip to the States. He did not, however, impress me by deciding to fly back to France out of Chicago instead of Cedar Rapids as we had originally planned.

"I thought you could drive me to Chicago to catch the plane," he explained.

I explained to him that Chicago was over 200 miles away - that just because something is only one inch away on the US map does not mean it is a quick drive. But he didn't care. He didn't want the more expensive ticket (that the company was paying for) - but he was OK with my putting 400 miles on my car and my paying for the gas.

What can I say? This is the same man who drove to Cedar Rapids from Memphis against my advice. "It's a boring, boring drive," I told him, "and a long drive."

He didn't believe me until he got to Cedar Rapids. "It was hours of nothing but corn fields!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yeah. I told you so," I answered.

After we broke up, I emailed him and told him I wanted the gas money.

But that was later. Yves went back to France. I continued to work. As my birthday approached, Yves got excited. Oh, the special thing he had planned for me! It was tres cool! I would like it SOOOO much! He could hardly stand it!

I was intrigued. What could he be getting me that was the equivalent of $50 boutique bourbon? Did he really know me that well? I couldn't wait, either.

My birthday arrived.

Nothing in the mail. Nothing delivered to work. I waited. I waited.

I checked my email.

There it was.

An e-card.

An E-CARD.

That was the special birthday present he had arranged for me.

Two days later, he broke up with me.

Know what?

I didn't care.

In which I meet a doctah on match.com and become slightly, no, really stalkerish

In my days of desperate dating, I went to the man mall on the internet, as anyone who has access to the internet at work while she has long, boring conference calls does. (This only worked when I had my own office. Once my spineless boss let another department kick all eight of us out of our offices and into cubicles in the converted warehouse 13 miles away where people were carjacked occasionally and we were warned not to walk to our cars alone after dark, I could no longer indulge in all the internet foolishness that I wanted to.)

I eventually met a long-term boyfriend on matchmaker.com (and know a few friends who have married internet matchups - Hi Kim!), but my first foray into the online personals was not the greatest of successes.

I found a guy - Gus - a couple of years older than I. Never married. Employed. A doctor! That's high on the scale. Owned his house. Cute. Not Catholic, but you can't have everything.

We emailed. Liked each other as much as you can like someone you've never met. He suggested we meet for lunch.

I had to make sure he wasn't an ax murderer first.

My real estate fair godmother/landlady is married to a physician. This was a smallish town as far as that sort of thing went. I asked Mary Linda if she had heard of this guy and if he was who he said he was.

Oh yes. She didn't know him, but she knew of his father, also a doctor, who had abandoned Gus and his mother when Gus was a kid for his receptionist or something like that. Not an ax murderer, though.

We met for lunch. I agonized over what to wear and made the bad decision to don my olive-green pantsuit. Bad because 1. I look like crap in olive and I don't even know why I owned that suit and 2. I look way better in a skirt than I do in pants and I say this with all modesty. I am just blessed with nice legs, at least below the knees, the same way I am not blessed with a bosom. There has to be some compensation for getting the short end of the stick in the cup lottery.

I thought we hit it off, even though he was 20 minutes late. I had expected that. (I expect almost everyone to be late, which is why I almost always have a book with me. Just because I expect it, however, does not mean I like it.)

We discussed U.S. energy policy. Isn't that the ideal conversation to have on a semi-blind date? I didn't make any major eating mistakes. Didn't pick my nose. None of that. We walked out to the parking lot and he asked if he could call me again.

I said yes.

I thought he really meant, Could he call me again?

Apparently, that is guy code for, "I wouldn't cross the street to pee on you if you were on fire."

Or maybe just, "You're nice, but I don't want to go to bed with you."

But I didn't figure this out until later because I thought, Could he call me? meant that he was going to Call Me.

I had several other blind dates set up by my fairy godmothers. None of the others asked if they could call me, so I did not expect a call. They just said "Nice to meet you" and that was that. Which was fine. You don't always - indeed, you rarely - have chemistry with someone. Still, they all insisted on paying for lunch, even though I think on a blind date, you should go halfsies. But this was The South and in The South, The Man Pays.

When I returned to my office (not cubicle), I sent Gus what I thought was a witty and charming email reiterating the points I had made about energy policy.

He did not answer.

He did not call.

Hmm. Maybe there was a hint there. I'm not totally deaf.

Then a friend said I shouldn't give up. She had baseball tickets she wasn't able to use. Why didn't I invite him to the ball game with me?

I debated. Should I put myself out there again? It seemed pretty clear (now) that he was not interested, but maybe he had just been too busy to answer my email. Maybe it had gone into his junk folder. Maybe he had laryngitis. Maybe he'd gone out of town. Maybe he'd been hit by a bus!

Besides, what man can resist free tickets to a ball game?

I was too chicken to call him, so I wrote him a little note. On nice stationary (ery?), of course. Taking twice as long to write as I usually do so that my handwriting was not completely illegible.

He never called.

All that humiliation for nothing. But did I learn my lesson?

No.

But that's another story.

PS He is now married with two kids, one at least of which who came with the (slim, bosomy) wife. It is amazing what you can find on facebook when people do not set their security properly.

PPS Even though I am very happy with Primo and he was worth the wait, there is always a bit of the Sally/Harry moment of, It's not that he didn't want to get married, he just didn't want to marry (or date) me.

In which the neighbors prove to be complete losers

My Miami duplex was part of a pair - two duplexes sharing the same yard. My across the yard neighbor, Mousson, was great. We were friends. Her duplex neighbors were two Argentine guys whom we rarely saw. There are more fun things to do in Miami for a young man than hang out with his neighbors.

My duplex neighbors were jerks.

The first neighbor, who moved out after a year, had two big dogs that she let poop in the yard and on the sidewalk. This would not have been a problem except I had to go past her half, on her sidewalk, to get to my half, on my part of the sidewalk.

She did not think it was her responsibility to clean up any dog poop after her half of the yard or the sidewalk. Actually, I don't even think she cleaned the poop out of the yard.

My half of the sidewalk was always poop-laden, which is bad for its own sake but really bad considering I rarely got home before dark. Once I had navigated my way through the land mines that Neighbor's two DOBERMANS had left, I still got to smell the poop as it wafted into my bedroom window.

She finally moved out.

Then Marta and her husband moved in. At first I thought, well cool! She's from Venezuela and her husband is Brazilian, so I can practice both Spanish and Portuguese.

Then I asked Marta to watch my place while I was on vacation for two weeks. (Mousson was in Haiti for the summer.)

"Please take my newspapers," I asked her.

"I don't read the paper," she told me.

"Then please just put it in the trash," I asked her. I hadn't put the paper on vacation hold because there was a rumor that some of the customer service people at The Herald would provide that information to burglars.

"Please move my mail away from the mail slot in the door," I asked her.

"Please water my plants," I asked her. Then I gave her my house key.

Then I went happy to Ireland with my friend Lenore. Tralalalala I don't have to worry about my house in Miami, where I have to chain my washer and dryer to the outside wall next to the back door and guess what? dryers are not meant to be outside in the rain and they will rust on the inside and you cannot get rust out of your clothes for love or money, where late-night revelers from Cocowalk pee on the side of my fence and throw used diapers and condoms into the ditch, where my license plates have been stolen twice and my car has been broken into by thieves who smashed the window and stole everything - my prescription sunglasses, the spare change in the ashtray, four quarts of motor oil - except my music cassettes, which was a real slap in the face. I mean, you guys steal the old shower curtain in the trunk in case I had to change a tire in the mud yet you don't want my music?

Philistines.

I returned from Ireland with a little gift for Marta because she had done me this enormous favor.

My friend Susan, who picked me up from the airport, and I arrived at my house.

My car interior light was on.

What the?

It was on because the door was slightly ajar.

Because it had been broken into. Again.

I opened the gate (the one with the "Perro malo" sign that kept out nobody but the FedEx guy, so when I got my job offer and signing bonus from my post-yellow truck employer, it was delayed for three days as I tried to convince FedEx to deliver it) and saw two weeks' worth of newspapers in the yard.

I tried to open my front door. I had to push hard to get through the mail that had accumulated at the mail slot.

My plants were dead.

I went next door and knocked. Marta opened the door and started to speak fast in Spanish: "They tried to break into your house! They broke into your car and then we heard somebody late one night trying to break into your house so we called the police and yelled at them and they went away!"

"Thank you," I said. "Thanks for preventing them from breaking into my house. But - um - Marta? How do you think they knew I wasn't at home?"

She looked at me wide eyed. "I don't know!" she answered.

"Do you think it could have been that all the newspapers were in the yard?"

She gasped. "No! That's how they figured it out?"

"Yes," I told her. "That's why I asked you to put them in the trash."

"Who would have thought," she mused as she shook her head.

Yeah. Who would have thought.

She never did explain why she hadn't bothered to close my car door.

In which I realize I have a bad landlord and even worse neighbors

When I got the job in Miami, the Yellow Truck Sweatshop Employer, who shall go unnamed, flew me to Miami for a few days a month before I was supposed to start working so I could find a place to live. That day, I found a cute, cute duplex in Coconut Grove. A little stucco house with wood floors and a porch and arched doorways and a built-in bookcase. It was to die for. Expensive, but hey I was rolling in the dough now.

I also got my drivers' license in about two seconds because Florida allows you to make appointments at the DMV. I was the only person who seemed to have figured this out, because when I got there, there was nobody at the "appointments" counter and a huge line at the other counters.

Driver licensing is the one public service that Florida does well. Getting license tags and getting the car inspected were nightmares. My first year, I got to the car inspection place, which closed at 5 during the week, not that I could have gotten there even if it stayed open until 7, or 8, or 9 because I would still have been at work, on Saturday morning at 7:30 in anticipation of the 8:00 a.m. opening. There was already a long line around the block. When they opened the gate, we moved into four lanes. After I had been waiting 40 minutes, someone drove from the outside, around those of us waiting, and to the front of the line.

NO ONE DID ANYTHING!

Another car decided to try the same trick. I thought, "Not on my watch, buddy," so I honked and did the Latin America finger wave, which is when you move your index finger from side to side. That means, "No way in heck are you doing this and if you do, there will be severe repercussions."

It worked. Spurred by my example, the other drivers showed a bit of cojones and honked as well. The breakaway car had to slink to the back of the line. That had probably never happened to him before, as line cutting is an enormous problem in Miami. They would even cut in line at communion at church, which come on - you're not going to miss communion and it's not like church will end any faster if you cut, unless you're like me and leave right after communion because you cannot stand to hear one more awful song from the "Gather" hymnal.

Back to the landlord. He seemed like a decent guy, although it's pretty clear from some of my other rental decisions that I am completely incapable of judging landlord character. I told him if he would buy the paint, I would re-paint the living room. He dropped off the paint and the brushes. I asked where the dropcloths and the tape were.

Oh no me preocupe, he told me. Don' worry 'bout it.

I didn't understand how he could be so cavalier about his own property. I bought tape and dropcloths because although I do only a half-assed job on things like washing dishes - clean enough not to give anyone food poisoning is my mantra - I am a kick-ass painter. Dishes can be re-washed. Painting is a different story.

He did jump to my aid when I called him to announce there were rats in the kitchen. Or rat. I didn't know how many. At least one - it was eating my bread (through the wrapper). Then I saw it scurry under the stove one night. In a completely instinctive reaction, I jumped onto a chair. When you see that scene in a movie, do not laugh. It is what rational people do in response to seeing a nasty, disease-laden, eats the noses off babies rat.

He came over the next day with a mousetrap and the advice to get a cat or a snake. Because snakes eat rats, you know, and wouldn't it be nice to have a snake roaming the house?

The trap didn't work. I put cheese in it and the rat stole the cheese. I read that I should use peanut butter instead. I tried that - the peanut butter was untouched, but the bananas were nibbled upon.

I bought poison, something the landlord had been unwilling to do. Cheap? Ignorant? Who knows.

I saw the poison level (the box was in the kitchen) decreasing a little bit each day, but saw no dead rats. A few days into it, I came home to find a stoned rat in the poison box.

He had been eating the poison and was happy, happy, happy. I tried to sweep him out of the house, thinking to take advantage of his drunken slowness, but he still scrambled under the stove.

The next night, the same thing, only this time the rat had the nerve to wave at me.

Then I didn't see him again, but a few days later, I smelled a whiff of something nasty. That whiff became a horrible odor.

The rat(s) had climbed underneath my floor to die. And to decompose. Thank you, humid Miami climate, for carrying that stink into my house for two weeks.

I checked into getting cats. I went to the adoption fair that the crazy cat ladies were running at the bookstore. I picked two cats, but could not take them home until my house had been inspected by the crazy cat lady.

"Vere vill ze kitties eat?" she demanded.

"In the bathroom."

"Zey cannot eat in ze bazroom!"

"Um, in the kitchen?" I said weakly. It's not like she would be coming back to inspect once the cats arrived.

She seemed satisfied with that answer.

"Vere vill ze kitties sleep?" she continued.

I shrugged. "Wherever they want, I suppose." Had she never observed a cat in action? If someone can tell me the secret of keeping a cat from going where you do not want it to go, please share this information with me. Primo and I have two cats who have taken over the kitchen. Over the house. I have surrendered and now use a cutting board (stored in the cupboard) for preparing all food because I do not want my food to touch the counter where the cats have trod using the same feet they use in their litter box.

"Vy do you vant ze kitties?"

"Because I have rats," I told her.

She staggered and put her hand to her chest. (OK, not really.) "You cannot haf ze kitties if you haf ze rats!" she exclaimed, horrified.

"Why not?" I muttered. "I have to work for a living. Why shouldn't my cats?"

Somehow, I passed. I don't know if the cats could have killed any rats, but perhaps their constant killing and eating everything but the heads of the cute bright green geckos that lived on my blinds served as a warning to the others. The heads and tails would disappear on Saturday mornings when I would put on my glasses and clean the house. The rest of the week, I just didn't look. Plus I usually didn't get home from work until like midnight and who cares if she has a clean house at midnight. Have I mentioned I hated my job at the place that rhymes with "Sider?"

I don't think the rats were scared of the cats (whose names I have forgotten - shame on me - I had to give one of them away when I moved to Cedar Rapids - the other was killed by a car and more about that later when I talk about my really clueless neighbor), but perhaps their mere presence was a deterrent. Yes, there was the gecko killing, but it's easy to pick on something smaller than you. The rats were almost as big as the cats and it's not like my cats were hungry or anything because during the day while I was at work, they hung out with my neighbor Mousson (not the bad neighbor - Mousson was really nice), who, along with her teenage son, Rudolph, fed the cats on demand. Cats need to be a little bit hungry to be truly effective hunters.

Back to the landlord. His responsiveness kicked into super low gear when I discovered that the roof was leaking and that the plaster above my sofa was getting soggy. I called him every day for five days, telling him that there was a leak and it was damaging his ceilings. On Sunday, I awoke to see that the plaster was sagging about an inch. It was going to fall.

I pulled as much furniture out of the living room as possible and covered the sofa with an old sheet. A regular sheet. I didn't have many old sheets in the sense of "used up and replaced by new sheets" because I had been in grad school for two years, then a year unemployed, then two years of Peace Corps, then another year unemployed, all of which meant that I had only the sheets that I had had for years.

But a sheet is easier to replace than a sofa, so there you go, just as the Good Towels are easier to replace than the basement carpet when the sewer drain backs up, which it has done every summer since Primo and I bought our house. Primo freaks out that I am bringing the Good Towels downstairs to blot the water ("blot" being used in the sense of "try to sop up the five gallons of water that are now inhabiting our new basement carpet") but I point out that the carpet cost $1,000 to install and yeah, the insurance paid for it but still do we want to go through that hassle again and towels are not that expensive at TJMaxx and you can even get stuff that's not made in China, which is a quality I seek as I am not a fan of slave/prison labor.

I called my landlord again and left the message that the ceiling was about to fall and he might want to arrange for the repair.

Then I went to a movie. When I returned, the plaster had indeed fallen - a chunk about 3' x 8.' I pulled my trash can in from the street and began tossing the plaster into it.

Do you know how heavy wet plaster is?

It is very, very heavy. And a trash can full of it is very, very, very heavy, even when you are dragging it back out to the curb rather than carrying it. I could hardly walk the next day at work. Who knew my glutes needed so much work? I should have left it for the landlord to clean, but I didn't want wet plaster soaking through to my sofa. And he probably wouldn't have done it.

Why he just hadn't fixed the leaky roof in the first place I do not know. Wait. I do. I was in Miami a few years ago with my former boyfriend (the one who gave me the belt sander, which I still love) and we drove past my old place. Only it was gone. It had been replaced by some crappy new construction. My place had been built in the '40s. It was solid, good construction - wood, stucco, tile. The corners were square. The materials were high quality. It had character.

It had been replaced by a McCondo. So sad.

I was going to talk about my bad neighbors, but I'll do that next time.

In which I have a huge crush on a co-worker friend and think he likes me back but then he outs himself to me

I moved to Miami for a job with a big company, which will remain unidentified but let's just say "yellow trucks," in the sweatshop known as corporate finance. It was a horrible, awful job, where we drones (aka "financial analysts") worked until 9 or 10 at night because the director and VP wouldn't meet with us to review our work until 7 p.m. and really, who would have a problem with that after arriving at work at 7:15 a.m.? After all, we could drop our dry cleaning off on the first floor and there was an on-site cafeteria and a gym. Why would anyone need to go home?

I hated that job with a passion. Hated it. The only thing that made my one year and one day there somewhat bearable is that I liked four of my co-workers a lot. They all quit shortly after I did. The others are still there. Are you seeing a connection?

I especially liked Liam. We got along great, hitting it off from the beginning because of our shared love of travel and our shared hatred of our workplace. Although who wouldn't want to go through the past 15 years of annual reports and calculate what the stock price, revenues, and profits would have been had the company not sold its aircraft division ten years earlier? That is Very Useful Information. One of my co-workers had to do a cost-benefit analysis of installing a security system in the building. It didn't matter that the system had already been installed and the money already spent.

Liam had majored in Chinese or Asian studies or something like that. After college, he got a job running a small factory in China. He spoke Chinese fluently and had traveled all over Asia. He returned to the US to get an MBA, then got his job at The Sweatshop.

Liam and I became fast friends. We went to lunch together, volunteered in a business program at an elementary school together, went out to concerts together, went dancing together. We got an opera subscription together. We would use the tickets investor relations got to attend gala events together, like the Yo-Yo Ma concert and the small dinner afterwards. Oh yes. I have been not ten feet from Yo-Yo Ma. Are you impressed?

Liam had an out of town girlfriend, Claudia. But they were having problems. He would discuss the problems with me. I hoped he would ditch her. I never met her. He didn't have a photo of her. But she sounded like she did not deserve him.

I thought it odd when Liam told me that he had given Claudia a fancy camera for Christmas. Not very romantic, I thought. But that was before Primo gave me a digital SLR for my birthday a few years ago and before a former boyfriend gave me a belt sander. Those are two of the best presents I have ever gotten. So the camera should not have given me pause at all. At the time, though, it did.

Liam and I spent so much time together that our colleagues thought we had something going on.

"We're just friends," I told them.

"Right," they said.

I would then say, "Look at Liam. Do you really think we go together?" Liam was 6'2", blonde, green eyes, fab body. Gorgeous. And smart. And super nice. He'd been picked for the Cutty Sark clipper sail from Norway to England. As in, they picked the civilian crew for their photogenics.

A guy like that can do much better than me. Not that I am chopped liver, but I am not the female equivalent of Liam. Brooke Shields is the female equivalent. (Except she has a lot more money than Liam does.)

I was flattered that they were so convinced.

But no.

One day, Liam asked me if I thought it was better to be with someone who was like you ("you" in the non sex specific third person sense) or one who was different.

Thinking, "I am the one who is like him! We both love chocolate!" I answered, "Definitely the one who is like you."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I think you're right."

Then he told me he had something important to discuss with me and could he come over to my house that night.

Oh yes! This was when he was going to confess his feelings for me! I knew I wasn't his looks match, but we clicked on everything else. It could happen.

I bought a baguette, some good cheese and some grapes. Liam showed up with a bottle of wine.

Oooh! Makeout city tonight! My only other social and - other - actions since I had moved to Miami had been a phone message one Friday night asking if I wanted to buy a septic tank, which I did not because 1. I was connected to the sewer system and 2. I rented. Having a guy over was a big deal.

We started talking. I was waiting. Waiting for him to tell me, "I want us to be more than friends," because really, how many guys hang out with a woman as much as we did without an ulterior motive?

That is not what he told me.

What he told me was that he wanted to tell me something important that nobody else at work knew but he was tired of having to keep secrets all the time.

He told me he was gay and that Claudia was a man.

"You're dating a man named Claudia?" I asked. I didn't get it.

"No!" he told me. That was the name he had given to his boyfriend, Pedro, so he could take about him/her at work and nobody would suspect anything.

My jaw dropped. I usually had pretty decent gaydar - I had several gay friends from the Peace Corps. But they were out. Maybe guys trying to hide it in a suit and tie corporate environment could turn it off.

Well crap.

Well rats.

Well I knew it was too good to be true.

Oh well.

In which I get taken advantage of by a family that took advantage of babysitters, then make things worse by giving them my best friend's phone number

My friend Jackie still has not forgiven me for this. She brings it up every time I see her, which sadly, has not been for the past few years. We seem to have lost touch, despite my calling and writing. My automatic assumption is that I did something to make her mad and not want to be my friend any more, but the last time we talked, things were fine. I would rather have her be mad at me than be dead or in a coma, though.

When I was in high school, my main source of income was babysitting. There weren't many options for the teenagers on base in Panama. Teenage jobs, such as bagging groceries or teaching swimming, went to Panamanian nationals, which only makes sense: these people had families to support, we just wanted to buy clothes and makeup. Well, some girls wanted to buy makeup. I might have, had I a clue of how to use it, but I didn't get that gene. My sister did, so she does a makeover on me every time I see her and darn if I don't look better after she is through. But I am way too lazy to do what she does, so I usually remain unadorned.

I made 75 cents an hour, which you will note was less than minimum wage at the time. I think it was about $2.25 then. (This was the late '70s.)

Babysitters in my neighborhood today make about $10 an hour. Much higher than minimum wage. Why should babysitters make more than minimum wage here? Maybe the parents have to compete with McDonald's to get babysitters. Or maybe I live in a higher-income area than I did when I was in high school and these girls aren't going to leave their houses for less than $10 an hour. Whatever it is, I have considered babysitting as my second career. Ten dollars an hour, cash, tax free is not too shabby. (My friend's daughter gets $20 an hour in San Francisco.)

One day, I got a call from a family a few miles away. I usually babysat within walking distance of my house and did not know this family. I don't remember who referred them to me. I wish I did so I could call that person and let them know what's what. I should have been suspicious that they were calling someone so far from their own neighborhood.

But I wasn't.

They offered me $10 to babysit for a whole day so they could go fishing.

It seemed like a fortune.

Ha.

I wish I remembered their names so I could call and demand more money.

They picked me up at 6:00 a.m. and dropped me off at their house before speeding away, wheels spinning in the gravel. The concrete. The roads were paved, even in enlisted housing.

I walked into the kitchen.

Horrible mess. Not a "we didn't finish the dishes last night after supper" but "we have not washed dishes in a week plus we do not understand the concepts of 1. wiping off the table and the counter after preparing a meal and eating and 2. occasionally sweeping the crap off the floor."

Granted, they had four children, but I know other families with four kids and they do not live in pigsties.

For other families, I would wash the dishes after the kids went to bed because I was usually pretty bored once I had found the Playboy magazines and eaten cold cereal of the kinds my mom never bought, like Cap'n Crunch. (An addiction that haunts me to this day, such that I avoid the cereal aisle altogether lest I find myself buying the 2 for $5 regular and peanut butter Cap'n Crunch, eating half the box before I get home, then hiding the rest in the basement from myself and from Primo so he won't give me a hard time about eating such junk, even though he is the one who hides the Dill Pickle Pringles from himself in the basement and has a lifetime supply of ramen noodles). Washing dishes also sometimes generated a little extra cash at the end of the evening. I knew who paid for it and who didn't.

But this house - let's call this family "the McCalls" - was of a different order of magnitude. I did not want to spend an hour cleaning that kitchen. Then the kids woke up - all four of them - and demanded breakfast.

I pulled out the cold cereal and discovered there were no clean bowls and no clean spoons to be found.

I had to wash the dishes. I had to wash the frying pans with the burned-on food (hello Mrs McCall! have you never heard of scraping the extra in the pan into the trash and then soaking the pan?) and the greasy kettles and the silverware that was thrown on top of them just to clear the sink.

Then I had to wash the plates and glasses on the counter so I could find the bowls.

It took forever. Is there anything more gross than sticking your hands in someone else's nasty dishes?

Well yes there is.

When the kids came down for breakfast, I discovered that two of them were still in diapers.

Remember a long time ago when people used cloth diapers? Do you remember how cloth diapers worked? Poopy diapers rinsed in the toilet, then thrown into the diaper pail with the other pee diapers until there was a full load for the washing machine.

Do you remember how the diaper pail would smell after a day or two?

Oh yes that poopy ammonia smell. The smell that would make you gag.

Why am I writing about this, you ask?

Because there were

1. two kids in diapers and
2. not a clean diaper in the house

Yes, the McCalls were getting their money's worth. But really, how could they have anticipated that I would need clean diapers? No parent can see that far in advance.

I had to wash, dry and fold a load of diapers before I could change diapers.

Then. The kids were holy terrors. I discovered them climbing out of the upstairs window, getting ready to jump to the ground. They didn't shut up but screamed like banshees all day. If they had ever been disciplined, there was no evidence of such.

Mr and Mrs McCall got home at 7:00 p.m. After I had changed about a dozen diapers, prepared three meals for their kids and cleaned the kitchen after, because that's how I roll.

I did not have the guts to demand more money. They did not offer any.

They got the bargain of a lifetime.

Two weeks later, they called to ask me to babysit again.

I turned them down.

And gave them Jackie's phone number.

I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. I deserve for Jackie still to be mad at me today. Because although I would wish the McCalls on my worst enemy, I would never wish them on a friend.

In which a broker kisses me so I steal his biggest account

When I was working for the insurance company, I sold direct and also worked through brokers. Some accounts would take direct bids from the vendor, but many relied on a broker to collect and analyze the various proposals. Those brokers were powerful – you didn’t have a shot at the business if the broker didn’t like you.

I had a list of accounts I was supposed to sell and the only way to sell some of them was to convince the broker to let me bid.

There was this one broker, “Jim,” who controlled a few accounts I was interested in. The largest was a savings and loan with over 200 employees, which would have yielded a nice bonus – enough to pay off a big chunk of my student loans and let me eat meat more than once a week. (Well, I did eat meat more than once a week, but that was at lunch when I was entertaining brokers, prospects and clients on the company American Express. When I had to pay for food myself, it was rice and beans and peanut butter.)

I called Jim. We spoke over the phone. We met. We got friendly. We would banter. It was my job to make this guy like me enough that when his account went out to bid, I would get a shot.

I was bantering with a married man OLD ENOUGH TO BE MY FATHER. I was NOT INTERESTED IN THAT WAY.

In my mind, this was absolutely not flirting. He was MARRIED, for pete’s sake. Who flirts with a married man? A married man old enough to be her father?

Not me. I could hardly flirt with single guys my age. Flirting was not in my repertoire.

He asked me for a bid for the S&L. I gave him numbers. We didn’t get the business. We were a check bid. Big waste of time. But he did let me meet the prospect, which was rare. Most brokers liked to keep complete control and separate insurance company from prospect.

Over the next year, I kept in touch with him (and with the S&L finance lady). About eight months after the check bid, I ran into him at a park, where he had been coaching a kids’ soccer team. I said hi and he walked over to my car, bent down and kissed me on the mouth.

He kissed me. On. The. Mouth.

Omigosh.

I had no idea what to do.

So I said, “Well, bye!” and went home.

The next day, I marched into my boss' office and told him I no longer wanted to work with Jim. My boss asked why not. I told him that Jim had kissed me. My boss told me that I must have done something to provoke it. I told him I had no interest in provoking a married man my dad's age. My boss refused to re-assign the broker.

I was ticked. Remember, this was in the late '80s, before anyone cared about sexual harassment. Then, it was just part of doing business. Someone comes on to you and you don't like it? Too bad, missy. Deal with it yourself. And don't de-rail your career while you do it.

My friend B is a lawyer. She was at a work party with the other lawyers in her firm when one of the partners made inappropriate comments to her and was telling inappropriate jokes. When she protested, he looked at her, smirked, and said, "Don't forget I'm the one who does your performance evaluation."

She found a new job in Washington, DC, shortly after that. She didn't want to work in that environment and suing would have kept her from ever working as a lawyer in our state again. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits, but I am also not a big fan of people using their power inappropriately.

Back to me and Jim. I had kept in touch with the finance lady at the S&L. Her renewal was approaching, so I called to ask if she wanted us to bid again. She did. I prepared a bid. Jim asked me for one as well and I told him that I was working directly with the client.

I got the account. He lost whatever commission - 6%? 3%? I can't remember what the rate was - he would have gotten for 200 employees at about $90/month per single employee, $200/month per family. (This was a long time ago.)

Teach him to mess with me.

Unfortunately, the S&L went out of business three months after I wrote the account, so I had to return my entire bonus, but it was still worth it.

In which I go to another darn funeral

Dr J, my mother's gentleman caller, died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. He fell down the stairs ten days ago, hit his head, went into a coma, and had a stroke. He died five days later without regaining consciousness.

I am getting tired of the nice people dying and the mean people hanging on. Now I know where the phrase, "Too mean to die" comes from. Although my mom pointed out that if I were God, who would I want with me? The mean people or the nice ones? I think there is a solution for that - send the mean people to H-E- double hockey sticks, but I bit my tongue on that one because that really is a horrible thing to wish for someone.

We are devastated. Dr J was the sweetest, most gracious man. We all loved him. He and my mom live two days driving apart. He would call her and visit her and send her flowers. When he was home, he would visit my grandmother in her nursing home, which was about 50 miles from his house.

We have known Dr J since I was five and he and his family lived in the same apartment building as my mother, my brother, my sister and I. My dad was in Vietnam. Dr J lived down the hall from us.

My first memory of him was when he gave me rabies shots. Fourteen of them. In my stomach. I had played with a mouse in the window well after my mother had told me to stay away from it. When it bit me, I wrapped my finger in kleenex, thinking she wouldn't noticed a bloody tissue on my finger and put two and two together.

She did. Moms figure out everything.

She took me to the hospital for my first shot, but then Dr J came over every evening for the next two weeks to give me the remainder.

Have you ever had a shot in your stomach?

It hurts like heck.

He and my mom had to pull me out from under the bed, where I was grabbing the bedposts. Then my mom would sit on my arms and he would sit on my legs. All that muscle tensing did not make the shot any more pleasant.

I think I have since learned that the old rabies series was ineffective anyhow.

My mother stayed friends with Dr J and his wife. Four years ago, Mrs J died. Dr J and my mother began writing and phone calling. A long-distance courtship. He asked her to marry him, she said yes. She later decided that she treasured her independence too much to re-marry, but she and Dr J maintained their relationship.

He was the only non-family member at our wedding. His wedding gift to me, although he might not have known this was his gift, was to sit with Primo's parents, Sly and Doris, during our wedding supper and keep them distracted from Primo and me, who wanted to actually enjoy our meal instead of listening to his parents' whining. If you don't know why this is such a big deal, you need to read the archives of this blog, starting at the very beginning.

At first I felt guilty about trying to avoid Sly and Doris, but then I thought, "It's my darn wedding celebration and I should not have to play hostess to jerks."

Dr J was a modest man, but he passed Sly's snob/intellect meter because he was a doctor. Little did Sly know that Dr J's religious and political beliefs were 180 degrees from Sly's. Dr J did not need to inject politics into every conversation and could avoid being drawn into a political argument, even when the other side said something inflammatory. If Sly had known about Dr J's beliefs, his head would have been spinning as he tried to figure out the, "My sister! My daughter!" dilemma of, "Smart! But those beliefs! Nobody smart can believe those things!"

My mother was going to drive to the funeral, but Primo and I convinced her that jumping into the car for a two-day trek was insanity. We got her a ticket here with Primo's frequent flyer miles. She arrives today, then she and I will drive the four hours north to the visitation and funeral tomorrow. She will leave on Saturday.

Dr J is the third boyfriend my mother has buried since my dad died 14 years ago. The other two, whom I didn't know, died of cancer. Dr J, I knew well. He visited Primo and me when he was in town, taking us out to dinner at one of the nicest restaurants here. Primo drove Dr J's brand new car into town. I opened my door before Primo had stopped and gouged the door against the grillwork in front of the restaurant. Primo and I were horrified and told Dr J we would of course pay for the repairs, but he tossed it off, saying he would have the dealer touch it up.

I stopped to see him when I drove north to see my relatives. He and I sat together at my grandmother's funeral last summer and snuck out before the burial to get a diet Coke at the corner store. He was always sending wine ideas to Primo and sent us flowers and three bottles of very, very, very nice wine for a wedding present.

He was a lovely, lovely man and we didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.