Just a fleshwound

I was out at Barnes & Noble last night, to confer with Tag about PSALMS OF THE MONSTER RIVER CULT, our forthcoming joint book effort, and as I waited for him, I traded barbs with one of the servers in the coffeeshop, whom I have had conversation with before.

I hadn't been there in a few weeks, and it is a running joke that I am always missing one of the other servers, whom I have had a few conversations with in the past, who seems very bright and interested in genetic engineering, a field near and dear to my heart (my position paper on the theological ramifications of cloning was the first document the Southern Baptist Convention's Christian Life Commission ever reviewed on the topic. I wrote it when I was 14.)...

Anyway, as we trade light barbs, she says the other server is around. I replied "And?"

She said "Well I know you only come in here because you're in love with her." Perhaps a stretch of the definition of love, but I was curious to hear the punchline, which she telegraphed the presence of with her dangling delivery...

"Well, what's not to like about her?" I was expecting some kind of joke at her friend's expense. I admit I am earnest in my delivery of compliments of people, something which sometimes makes people uncomfortable. It's just part of my "zero tolerance" policy towards lying.

"Well, you're too old for her and its kinda disgusting." Cold delivery. The kind usually reserved for a failed attempt at delivering an earnest thought as a joke. Ouch. I confess, there are only two or three words that bring blood, and that is one of them (No, not "kinda"... "disgusting") I guess I've known enough truly contemptible people, child molestors, drug dealers, insurance salesmen, in this life and the notion of being an object of loathing perturbs me.

So I sat down, drank my iced tea, read my magazines and waited for Tag. When he arrived, we worked on the book for about an hour. I did see the other server, but did not engage her directly. Tag noticed this and asked, as usually we speak. I told him the story and explained that I always consider those kind of backhanded sotto voce messages as a possible proxy for "go away"...so I decided I'd sit quietly, do my work and leave without note, which I did.

I'm not shattered or anything, and I do not feel I have been, done or thought anything untoward, and perhaps being of my antiquity and having to deal with a reader fanbase largely of college age women has rendered me sensitive to accusations of being a dirty old man. Perhaps. And, no, I am not going to launch in an historical defense of "men my age".

Snort.

On a more earthshaking level than my bruised, aged ego, I see where Steve Irwin died, television's "Crocodile Hunter", killed in a freak stingray incident. The barb caught him in the chest and tore a hole in his heart. Death was swift and, for a man who'd spent his life working with dangerous animals, apropos. Rest well, Steve, you will be missed.