Public Service Announcement

Dear men in general,

I can handle that we went on a date and you’re diabetic and forgot your insulin and thus stared at your food like a starving vulture for twenty minutes without eating it. These things happen. I could make a list of the things I’ve forgotten in life, but then I’d forget where I put it. Not a big deal. I went to lunch with an agoraphobic dominatrix last week and spent half the meal waiting for her to climb under the table, and this did not faze me in the slightest. This is a normal experience for me. I will make remarkable allowances for people’s foibles, and I will do it calmly and without thinking it weird. It’s all part of the service.*

Nor do I mind that you were fifteen minutes late. You had a good excuse, and I’ve been there myself.

Likewise, it is an enlightened era, and I am not shocked and appalled to pay for my own dinner.

And yes, if you want to talk the entire evening about a stone wall you’re building–well, I have a broad and eclectic sense of what constitutes acceptable dinner conversation, and I am willing to be fascinated by all kinds of things. I have personally encouraged a vet to do twenty minutes on “Stuff I pulled out of a dead cow last week.” I find many things riveting, potentially including masonry. I will ask questions about mortar and the shapes of stone. I once helped construct a drystone wall in my youth, and while I have not done so recently, I retain enough to ask reasonably intelligent questions.

But fer cryin’ out loud, give me something to work with! Answer the questions! If you must rhapsodize about stone (and my stepfather is a sculptor, so I understand this urge completely) be prepared to expand on it! Do not simply brood about the time you have lost on your wall in recent days. Hello! Hot chick asking about stone!? Work with me here, buddy!

*sigh*

This has been a public service announcement. (Offered only because there is virtually no chance that the party who really needs it will ever find it. I generally do not blog such matters, as y’all will have noticed, but every now and then…)

*Upgrade to the Premium Friendship Service, and not only will I cater to your neuroses, I’ll help you bury bodies! At Platinum Level, I’ll take a bullet for you, assuming that I am not distracted by an interesting bird at a critical moment.

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