The Plain Blonde who Plays Along With You

There was a young mechanic that worked at Lance during the terrible period in which I worked there. All of my co-workers lusted after him; he was handsome, quiet, and did his work very well without drama. I wasn't particularly attracted to him, but he was nice and seemed interested in me. He used to flirt with me during our conversations, which was flattering, and sometimes I would flirt back. This incensed Slim, a very skinny older co-worker. 

Slim had worked at this company for many years. She probably weighed 80 lbs. soaking wet and sported a hairnet over the cloth turban she wore everyday. She was the "elder" of the Lance production line tribe. All of the women on the production line deferred to her.

One evening, the mechanic spent about 30 minutes hanging around my machine talking to me. Slim stared at us with a comical frown on her face. At break time, she sidled up to me at the vending machine and tapped me on my shoulder. I smiled and greeted her.

"Hi, Slim. How are you doing today?". 

Slim peered into my eyes. "Girl, why are you flirting with that boy?", she sternly queried.

She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, her head cocked quizzically.

I was surprised at her question. You needed permission to flirt? What the hell?

"Well, he was flirting with me and he's a nice guy. What difference does it make? He's not married and I'm not married, so I'm just trying to be nice".

 I was only 21 years old at the time and had not had a boyfriend to speak of yet. 

Slim looked sadly at me and shook her head. Her bony finger pointed at my face. 

She whispered, "You're way too plain for a good-looking man like him. He needs a pretty girl, not a heifer. No offense."

I looked at her astonished and chuckled. Heifer? Really?

She had always been nice to me until then. I thought it was ironic that a wizened, bony old woman with maybe 4 teeth in her head considered me to be "plain". I was amused at her assessment. My sense of self was still pretty strong despite being constantly at battle with my ego. I wasn't a super model, but I wasn't plain, either.

"Slim, I own a mirror. I know what I look like; I don't need you or anyone else to tell me. Mind your own business." , I replied, amused.

I looked impassively at her, not wanting to start a fight, but also not wanting to put up with any bullshit, either.

She stalked off back to the machine she was supposed to be running. Slim never spoke to me again in my last 6 months at that job. I would get eye daggers whenever I talked to the mechanic, though. These looks didn't kill though; they merely kicked you in the shins when you didn't expect it. The whole episode was a funny anecdote during a trying period in my life.

Lily and Beastmaster

The last place in Dallas we lived in was a two story brick duplex. My husband and I lived in the bottom part and there were a constant stream of tenants upstairs, who would usually move out when they realized that the police would be called if they had loud parties at all hours of the night. It had previously been the male tenants who caused the most issues with noise, so we were glad to see two young women move in upstairs. The girls owned two pugs, curiously named Lily and Beastmaster. Those dogs barked at everything; it didn't matter what it was. The wind could be blowing too hard and they would bark at it. Whenever anyone knocked on the door or drove into the driveway, the dogs would yap almost insanely. 

Far from being annoyed, I was glad they were loud because the lack of a fence separating our yard from the alley made me paranoid. Our bedroom window faced the alley and I was always worried. about someone trying to break in. These dogs could be a burglar alarm for us as well as the girls upstairs. 

The duplex was in a "trendy and upcoming" (aka starting to get expensive but still very sketchy) neighborhood and there was a very small back yard with a dark alley in back. Unfortunately there was no fence to keep anyone from walking right up the alley to the back door, which entered into our kitchen. That door had three locks on it, just in case.

One cool day, I had burned some popcorn in the microwave, so I opened up the back door to allow the acrid smell to escape. I was startled by the two pugs in the back yard, barking fiercely at me. They were so rowdy, I had to shut the back door so they wouldn't attempt to come inside. I love dogs, but I didn't know if they would bite.

I wore old-style hard contact lenses then and after I took them out and cleaned them, they had to soak in their solution for 4 hours before I could wear them again. I was blind as a bat and I didn't have any glasses to wear in case I needed to see clearly.  My lens prescription was so strong I could only afford contacts OR glasses at the time, not both.

One night, I had cleaned my lenses and we had both gone to bed. We were just drifting off when we heard noises right outside the bedroom window.  A sudden snort startled us both fully awake. 

My first thought  was that I wished those dogs were in the yard now so they would bark and scare any intruders off. The girls upstairs couldn't leave them in the back yard since it wasn't fenced. I looked wide-eyed at my husband and he looked back at me; was someone fixing to break in? Was it a rapist or a pervert? Had he been spying on us through the bedroom window? From the sound of it, it must have been an asthmatic rapist or pervert from all the snorting and heavy breathing going on. Maybe we wouldn't have to fight him very hard before he passed out. The night was so dark we couldn't see anything out of the window, so our minds were running riot. I imagined a scary, gasping dude armed with guns, knives, and maybe hooked up to an oxygen tank.

My husband and I quietly got out of bed and crept toward the kitchen. I had recently purchased a Three Stooges-sized meat cleaver at a local restaurant supply store, so I took it out of the drawer. My husband slowly eased the back door open a crack. We were sure that we were going to have to confront a wheezing crack head right on our back doorstep. I summoned my inner Moe Howard and brandished the cleaver, ready to bring it down on anyone we found lurking outside. A hot rush of summer breeze blew in our faces. There was nothing there. 

Then the barking started. Luckily for us, it was only the pugs.

The pooches had been let outside to relieve themselves and I guess the girls forgot they were out there. The wrinkly-faced pups barked, growled, snorted, and gasped breathlessly at us. We both exhaled. The relief was immense. It was a very warm summer night and the poor things must have been out there for a while with no water. I filled a bowl with water for them and they slurped it up fast. The girls then came downstairs to fetch them.

 After that night, those pugs never barked at us again.