j040618 (imported)
June 18, 2004
Occasionally in our lives, we make innocuous statements that seem to come back and haunt us again and again. Examples might include “Read my lips…no new taxes”, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski”, or, more in the spirit of the South, “Hey y’all, watch this!” Things said without a second thought that reverberate through one’s life, over and over.
Friday, three weeks ago
Alamo Restaurant, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
11:15 am EST
“I’ll have the lunch sirloin,” I said, looking up at the waiter. “Cooked medium rare, please.”
“Yes sir,” he said. “Baked potato or fries?”
“Fries. Can you tell me what the vegetable of the day is?”
“Steamed broccoli.”
Hell, no. Not on vacation.
“Can I get a salad instead, with blue cheese dressing on the side?” I asked. I thought briefly about the Alamo salads, having just eaten one the day before, and amended my order. “Oh, and can I get that salad without cheese on it?”
“No cheese?” the waiter said, scribbling on his pad.
You’ve done it again, my neurotic psyche whispered, What kind of weirdo — excluding Uncle Bob — doesn’t like cheese? Hey, Uncle Bob’s from Alabama too, maybe it’s a southern thing. But I do like cheese. Just not shredded up on a salad. Gross.
“Right,” I said, then added, “I like cheese, just not on a salad.” I smiled helpfully at the waiter and nodded. He left for the kitchen.
“What the hell?” Robyn asked, shaking with laughter. “He doesn’t care whether or not you like cheese on your salad.”
“Shut up,” I said.
Saturday, three weeks ago
Local video store, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
2:45 pm EST
“What the hell took so long?” Robyn asked. She’d been sitting in the rental car waiting for me to take care of paying for the two movies we were renting. She left the store some ten minutes earlier when I went to the counter to pay.
“I was just talking to the guy,” I said, feeling defensive.
“About what?”
I began to relate the conversation to her while I drove, wherein the clerk had asked where we were from, and what I did for a living. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it, but I’m a pretty approachable guy, and fall easily into long conversations with complete strangers. It’s a gift.
“How the hell does he know we have a laptop with a 17-inch screen?” Robyn asked, interrupting me.
“I wanted to know if he had a cable we could use to hook the laptop up to the TV in the motel room,” I explained, “and he asked about the laptop.”
“Jesus,” she said.
I told her about the rest of the conversation, which included discussions of owning a business, college, writing software, flying, whether or not software engineering paid well, and many other things.
“God, is there anything you didn’t tell him?” Robyn said, incredulous, when I finished. She considered. “Did you tell him that you like cheese, just not on a salad?”
“Shut up,” I said.
Saturday, two weeks ago
Home, Madison, Alabama
9:42 am CST
“Who was working today?” Robyn asked, sitting at her computer. Almost three hours earlier, I’d been grocery shopping at the local Publix.
“Shelley,” I said. “She sure is nosey sometimes. Like that time a few weeks back when she asked me if I was going to make smoothies because I was buying so much frozen fruit. Today she wanted to know why I was buying so much cottage cheese. Hell, it was on sale. I cleaned ‘em out. I mean, I didn’t tell her I did that, I just told her I ate it every morning with breakfast, for easy protein. She told me she likes soy milk and oatmeal.”
“Did you tell her you like soy milk, just not on oatmeal?”
“Gah, no. I can’t STAND soy milk. It’s about the nast–”
I realized Robyn was snickering.
“Shut up,” I said.
Last Thursday
Home, Madison, Alabama
9:27 pm CST
“Oh my God,” I said. “In all the excitement about the rattlesnake, I completely forgot to tell you about the new guy I met at the picnic!”
“What about him?”
“He was standing with Gerald by the grill when I walked up, so I started talking to them. He said, ‘You’re Fred, right?’ I told him I was, then he grinned all embarrassed-looking and said, ‘I’m Andy. I, uh, saw your book at Barnes and Noble’.”
“OH MY GOD!”
“I KNOW! I just about shit all over the place, right there in front of him. I mean, what the hell do you say when someone just up and says something like that?”
“What DID you say?”
“I changed the subject,” I said, grinning at the memory.
“Did you tell him you like cheese, just not on a salad?”
“Shut up,” I said.
Last Sunday
Rock Diver’s Quarry, Madison, Alabama
4:28 pm CST
“Hey,” I said when Robyn answered the phone. “You should’ve come. It wasn’t all that crowded, just a couple of people swimming. Mostly it was a bunch of SCUBA divers. Speaking of such, I don’t think I want to take lessons.”
“Why not?”
“Cause it takes them like 30 minutes to get ready, checking this, twisting that, getting dressed. And then another 30 minutes to get out of all the equipment. Fuck that.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
“Just this one guy and woman near the dive platform. I went stalking down the steps into the water, across the platform, and into the deep part without slowing down. When I came up, they were staring at me so I said, ‘I did that so well you probably couldn’t even tell I was about to squeal like a little girl because it was so cold, could you?’ They laughed, and we talked for a while.”
“Did you tell them you like cheese, just not on a salad?”
“Shut up,” I said.
Yesterday
My office, Huntsville, Alabama
7:06 am CST
I looked at the flashing “1″ on my answering machine, remembering Robyn’s promise from the previous night to leave me a message to call the bakery and order a Father’s Day cake for myself. Yeah, I know. She made me order my own birthday cake, too, because of her phobia about talking to people on the phone.
And you guys think I’m the weird one.
I pressed the ‘Play’ button on the answering machine and listened.
“Hey,” Robyn said. “Don’t forget to call Peggy Ann and order the cake. And make sure they don’t put any cheese on it. Love you!”
I erased the message, smiling ruefully, and looked up the number for the bakery.
“Hi,” I said to the woman who answered, “I need to order a cake, 8-inch round, white cake, white icing.”
“Okay,” the woman said. “How would you like that decorated?”
I thought back to Robyn’s request from the night before, when we were still laying in bed and talking.
“Can you put some yellow roses on it?”
“Sure can. What message do you want?”
“No message, just lots of roses.”
Inspiration hit me then, in a blinding flash.
“Actually,” I said, “can you write something around the outside edge of the cake, and put roses in the middle?”
“Sure. What’s the message?”
“It’s a weird one,” I said. “Around the top, I’d like it to say ‘I like cheese’.”
I could hear her writing. “Okay,” she said.
“And around the bottom, put ‘Just not on salad’.”
The woman on the phone started to laugh.
“I had a boyfriend like that once,” she said, “only he didn’t like cheese on hamburgers.”
“Me either,” I chortled. “Love cheese, but not on salads or hamburgers.”
We shared laughter for a moment.
“So,” I said, catching my breath. “I’ll bet you didn’t tease him about it all the time like my wife teases me, did you?”
“Sure I did,” she said. “What kind of person likes cheese, but not on hamburgers?”
