about when they could expect to be fully vested 401(k)-wise.
The beige Midwestern hamster wheel spins and spins.
I suspect Sheila Anne met Dennis Church at some hospital function where pharmaceutical sales reps were rubbing shoulders with pharmacists, pain management buyers, psychiatrists, and other hospital higher-ups. I imagine the scenario unfolding at a Ponderosa, Glen Campbell on the radio, Sheila Anne and Dennis Church falling in love-at-first-sight across tubs of hi-cal/low-cal dressings at the buffet-style salad bar.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” she replies.
“I’m Dennis. Two N s.”
“I’m Sheila Anne.”
“You’re with the hospital. According to your lanyard you run the Human Resources Department. I’m with a top-three pharmaceutical conglomerate. That’s Glen Campbell on the radio. ‘Rhinestone Cowboy.’ Great tune. You know it was actually written by an Australian? Great American country-and-western pop song written by an Australian. Dingo ate my baby. Go figure.”
“How long are you in town for?” Sheila Anne asks, warmed by his Top 40 trivia charm.
“Only tonight. Why do you ask?”
“Because I find you incredibly attractive, particularly your masculine, aquiline nose, and I don’t want to go home and face my mediocre husband whose recent increase in body-fat percentage is only seconded by his declining mystery quotient. Plus, our sex has become like the mechanical, shame-tinted, physiological sawing you read about in Christian reproductive books written for children, where the husband and wife look like pancake people and don’t have genitals per se, but sort of smooth, glabrous, Teflon-like surfaces.”
“Awesome. You have beautiful, sea-foam-green fuck-me eyes.”
“And you have an interesting, incredibly strange but undeniably sexy fuck-me nose.”
“And without going too hyperbolically off the rails here, I have to say, glabrous —what a cock-smoking word choice.”
“Learned that word from my husband. Good with words. Bad in bed.”
“Dingo ate my baby.”
“Put that heaping plate of low-cal lentils down, cowboy, I’ll follow you out.”
But it really probably went like this:
“I’m Dennis.”
“I’m Sheila Anne.”
“You looked marooned at the salad bar.”
“Oh, I’m just being vague and noncommittal. There are too many options.”
“The variety of croutons alone.”
“It’s all just so complicated. And is that supposed to be blue cheese or ranch?”
“I’d bet my baked potato that it’s ranch…I gather from your lanyard that you’re with the hospital. I’m from AstraZeneca.”
“Is that a new addition to our solar system?”
“It’s a pharmaceutical company. It would appear that I’ve lost my lanyard.”
“Maybe it’s down at the other end of the salad bar, deeply recessed in that tub of cottage cheese and pineapple bits.”
“I’m one of the reps. This is part of my new territory. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa. Do you live in Decatur?”
“I live in Pollard. Southwest down Route Forty-one. Two-lane highway, lots of nice arable fields to take in. Corn. Cows. Silos. What about you?”
“I live in New York.”
“City?”
“The Big Apple, yep.”
“Never been.”
“Instead of corn, cows, and silos, we have skyscrapers, pit bulls, and the smell of salmonella in August. I’m actually originally from Colorado. Little town called Yuma, about two hours northeast of Denver.”
“What lured you east?”
“The job.”
“They bring you all the way out to New York City so you can work in the Midwest?”
“They fly me out here once a month. Put me up in decent hotels, rent me quality sedans.”
They smile. He reveals his white, nonbleached, staggeringly irresistible teeth.
Sheila Anne’s larger upper lip dimples up adorably.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks (finally).
“Not at all,” she answers.
And then they finish filling their plates with low-cal, colorful salad bar selections and sit together at an imitation
The beige Midwestern hamster wheel spins and spins.
I suspect Sheila Anne met Dennis Church at some hospital function where pharmaceutical sales reps were rubbing shoulders with pharmacists, pain management buyers, psychiatrists, and other hospital higher-ups. I imagine the scenario unfolding at a Ponderosa, Glen Campbell on the radio, Sheila Anne and Dennis Church falling in love-at-first-sight across tubs of hi-cal/low-cal dressings at the buffet-style salad bar.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” she replies.
“I’m Dennis. Two N s.”
“I’m Sheila Anne.”
“You’re with the hospital. According to your lanyard you run the Human Resources Department. I’m with a top-three pharmaceutical conglomerate. That’s Glen Campbell on the radio. ‘Rhinestone Cowboy.’ Great tune. You know it was actually written by an Australian? Great American country-and-western pop song written by an Australian. Dingo ate my baby. Go figure.”
“How long are you in town for?” Sheila Anne asks, warmed by his Top 40 trivia charm.
“Only tonight. Why do you ask?”
“Because I find you incredibly attractive, particularly your masculine, aquiline nose, and I don’t want to go home and face my mediocre husband whose recent increase in body-fat percentage is only seconded by his declining mystery quotient. Plus, our sex has become like the mechanical, shame-tinted, physiological sawing you read about in Christian reproductive books written for children, where the husband and wife look like pancake people and don’t have genitals per se, but sort of smooth, glabrous, Teflon-like surfaces.”
“Awesome. You have beautiful, sea-foam-green fuck-me eyes.”
“And you have an interesting, incredibly strange but undeniably sexy fuck-me nose.”
“And without going too hyperbolically off the rails here, I have to say, glabrous —what a cock-smoking word choice.”
“Learned that word from my husband. Good with words. Bad in bed.”
“Dingo ate my baby.”
“Put that heaping plate of low-cal lentils down, cowboy, I’ll follow you out.”
But it really probably went like this:
“I’m Dennis.”
“I’m Sheila Anne.”
“You looked marooned at the salad bar.”
“Oh, I’m just being vague and noncommittal. There are too many options.”
“The variety of croutons alone.”
“It’s all just so complicated. And is that supposed to be blue cheese or ranch?”
“I’d bet my baked potato that it’s ranch…I gather from your lanyard that you’re with the hospital. I’m from AstraZeneca.”
“Is that a new addition to our solar system?”
“It’s a pharmaceutical company. It would appear that I’ve lost my lanyard.”
“Maybe it’s down at the other end of the salad bar, deeply recessed in that tub of cottage cheese and pineapple bits.”
“I’m one of the reps. This is part of my new territory. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa. Do you live in Decatur?”
“I live in Pollard. Southwest down Route Forty-one. Two-lane highway, lots of nice arable fields to take in. Corn. Cows. Silos. What about you?”
“I live in New York.”
“City?”
“The Big Apple, yep.”
“Never been.”
“Instead of corn, cows, and silos, we have skyscrapers, pit bulls, and the smell of salmonella in August. I’m actually originally from Colorado. Little town called Yuma, about two hours northeast of Denver.”
“What lured you east?”
“The job.”
“They bring you all the way out to New York City so you can work in the Midwest?”
“They fly me out here once a month. Put me up in decent hotels, rent me quality sedans.”
They smile. He reveals his white, nonbleached, staggeringly irresistible teeth.
Sheila Anne’s larger upper lip dimples up adorably.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks (finally).
“Not at all,” she answers.
And then they finish filling their plates with low-cal, colorful salad bar selections and sit together at an imitation
Similar Books
