I just want to record two conversations from the weekend.
1) I had the misfortune of watching an unbearably cheesy modern rock band that encored with…….wait for it ……….. “Time After Time.” I turned to the woman I was talking to and said, “I have a friend who played this song in order to get first chair clarinet in middle school. You know, toot toot toot!” She looked at me blankly and goes, “I don’t know what you just said just now, hama hama blah blah.” Then she said, “Who sang this again?” I told her, and she said, “I got a Cyndi Lauper tape and a Chaka Khan tape the same year for Christmas…..I was like in 3rd grade and…. because my last name is Khan, you see, and……..” And then she wandered away. And scene.
2) Monty and I shopped the local mattress district yesterday and settled on a nice firm mattress we liked. As we were ringing up the sale, the salesman looked at Monty’s credit card and said, “There are so many different types of Amexes.” He then opened his wallet up to display the many varieties of American Express he carried, and two gold magnum condoms threatened to drop out of it.
Wow… gold magnum, huh? He must be packing some serious heat.
Or giving the illusion of packing serious heat. Like in the Godfather, when Al Pacino stands in front of the hospital with his hand “cocked” in his jacket.
Maybe the magnums were for single girls buying mattresses. He could get all silky-voiced and talk about “firmness” and “pillow-tops.”
And just for the record, I played Time After Time on the clarinet in middle school as a solo in a concert, NOT to procure first chair. No, no, first chair required something with more panache… Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Everyone in the band was like, whoa, she played the Theme from Cheers. It was glorious.