Something About Mary

In last week's exciting installment of 'Modern Day Zelig', I promised (threatened) that I might begin delving into some of my 'personal opinions and pet peeves', an approach I wasn't positive would be received with all that much enthusiasm. But you guys often surprise me...

I got a lot of positive feedback on this idea, along with some challenges (if you scroll through last week's comments section, you'll see Sharon from Texas inquire as to my distaste for any entertainment produced during the Awful Eighties...trust me, I'm looking forward to delving into that one!) So yeah, I'll probably try to tackle some of these subjects in upcoming blogs. And though today's collection focuses on more job and school-era stories, I will start to sneak in some personal experiences that don't have a whole lot to do with my improbable career. Kind of like this one:

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THAT'S A BINGO!

While you try to recall what brilliant movie that line above comes from, I'll start by thanking MJM for helping pull this story from my over-flowing brain pan. Michael J. recently (and happily) has re-located to sunny Florida and begun his retirement by working in a Bingo Hall (they still call them that? Bingo establishment?) He is currently moving his way up to official Bingo Caller---you know, the person who sits in front of the room next to the glass cabinet containing the 75 bouncing white balls, pulling them out one at a time and reading them to the extreme delight (or displeasure) of the enthusiastic participants.

Well since I've done every other bizarre job in my career, it should come as no surprise to any of you that before I ever saw the inside of a radio station, TV studio, or sports production truck, my first job which entailed communicating with an 'audience' was, yes, as a Bingo caller.

Like many religious establishments, the synagogue my family attended on Long Island hosted Bingo night every week at the local VFW hall. I don't know if they charged the synagogue a nominal fee to rent the space, or simply donated it to us on a night of the week when it was sitting unused, but every Thursday the place was filled with mostly middle-aged women of all denominations, brandishing their red liquid Bingo markers and screaming in joy when that last number they needed was announced.

At first, I had two responsibilities--the first was selling pizza. The staff would go to the pizza place across the street and buy about a dozen pies. Then we'd bring them back, stack them in the kitchen area and sell them per slice, charging enough to make a profit on each pie. (Did we charge twenty-five cents a slice? Thirty-five? Probably not much more.)

Bingo players would wave you over, order pizza for themselves and their party, and we'd race back to the kitchen and put the slices on paper plates, then run them back out and collect their money, tucking the coins and bills into the little blue denim pocketed half-aprons tied around our waists. We also peddled coffee and probably soft drinks. This job was not all that exciting, the only fun part being when we'd wait for the pizza boxes to be empty, then fight each other for the cheese that was stuck to the cardboard, tearing it off and dropping it into our mouths. (My gall bladder paid the price for this years later...)

My other responsibility was much more fun: when one of the players did scream out "Bingo" after hearing the number they were waiting for called, one of us would hurry over to the lucky winner. There were microphones strategically hanging from the ceiling around the hall; we'd take the winning bingo card, reach up and grab the nearest mic, pull it down, and slowly read the winning numbers aloud so that the bingo caller at the front of the room could confirm the player's victory. Then we'd dip back into our denim half-aprons and pay out the reward. And of course, because I was me, I would oftentimes pepper my card reding with a funny remark, or whisper an inside joke to the winner as I gave them their prize.

So yes, you can blame my synagogue and local VFW hall for handing me my first official microphone!

But most of you have no doubt been to some type of Bingo event, so you're probably familiar with this whole routine. And you also are probably aware that although, as mentioned, Bingo patrons were mostly middle-aged women, a few younger and distinctively more attractive girls would often be in attendance. A few of these younger girls were actually regulars, but more often than not they were just accompanying their moms on a Thursday night when they had nothing else to do, figuring maybe they could make a couple of bucks as a reward for being dutiful daughters.

Bingo!

Nothing gives a chubby, Jewish nerdy guy more confidence than being an official staff member at a heavily-populated event, running around with an air of importance and urgency, collecting and handing out money. AND with a hot microphone in my hands.

I thrived.

OK, now we need to back up a little, to introduce the 'personal angle' of this story...

I had graduated high school the previous June and as a senior with startingly mediocre grades, I had chosen the 'elective' route for my last year, eliminating all math and sciences from my schedule, replacing them with courses like Business Law, Driver's Ed, and Home Economics.

Yep, I took Home Ec!

Honestly? Those choices were, in my opinion, the best thing I could have done for my future: I probably collected more practical information in the first month of Business Law than I would have in an entire semester of useless trigonometry. And Home Ec? Let's just say there were at least four times as many girls as guys in this class, hence it was always a pleasure to stroll into that room every afternoon.

The 'teacher' was a thirty-something housewife who actually lived a couple of towns from me; she was very pleasant and had a good sense of humor, so being the wise ass that I was rapidly becoming, I was able to keep her and many of my female classmates entertained with an array of creative quips and comebacks.

To my extreme excitement (and terror,) one of the girls in that class was the Homecoming Queen. I am going to stop for a second and guess that there are maybe three or four people on this blog's mailing list who will remember our high school's homecoming queen. For the rest of you, I will merely state that to many of us guys, she was more like Homecoming Goddess. It's probably not necessary for me to describe her--if you were a nerdy, pubescent high school student, I'm sure you had your own Homecoming Queen, or some similar Goddess whom you worshipped from afar.

I don't want to mention any names, so I'll call her--Mary. And over five-and-a-half years of junior and senior high school, I had been in exactly ONE class with her before this one. And in that class, she had spoken to me--exactly once: she had complimented a shirt I was wearing but unfortunately, I could only reply with an answer of pure drivel that bore no resemblance to a mature or amusing reply. Mary had then smiled politely and turned away. I hadn't spoken to her since, but here she was, in this glorious home economics class!

We'd all go on fun road trips, once visiting Chinatown on New York's lower east side to sample 'genuine' Chinese cuisine. Want to know what our 'final exam' entailed? The teacher invited us to her house for a summer barbecue, where we were all given different responsibilities. While she and her husband grilled the goodies, the class would go around setting up outdoor tables and filling them with things that we were asked to bring. (Don't remember what I brought. Knowing me, it was a no doubt a bottle of soda or a bag of Cheetos!)

It was a fun day, and when it was over the students who had already gotten their licenses drove home, while others waited for their folks to pick them up. I don't recall why, but neither of my parents were available that evening, so those of us who had no ride were made an offer we couldn't refuse: if we helped clean up the house, our teacher's husband would drive us home.

In those days, not every home had an electric dishwasher, so I was assigned to dishwashing duties, where one of us would wash and someone else would dry.

So here I was, standing at the sink ready to work, when my helper took her place next to me.

It was Mary.

The Goddess whom I could not complete a cogent sentence in front of, was now standing next to me with a wry smile asking whether I wanted to wash or dry...as good-looking as she was, she had a 'wry' smile rather than a pretty one. Her upper lip would curl cruelly, like she was thinking about something that she'd share with you if you played your cards right. She drove me nuts.

We agreed that since she was the girl and I was the boy that I would be better off drying. We went to work, Mary making small talk, while I tried to pry my tongue off the desert-dry roof of my mouth. But I finally got my act together and began trading barbs and quips with her, actually daring to insult her once or twice, which made her laugh. (Even at that age, I was aware that not many guys would ever think to insult her!)

My confidence grew exponentially the longer we worked, and when the teacher's husband was ready to drive us home, we piled into his truck with Mary squeezed up against me in the front cab. I suddenly wished that our houses were in like, Kentucky, so that we'd have to stay in that truck for a while. We talked the whole time and I had her laughing harder than I'd ever seen a girl laugh (well, a pretty girl, anyway;) I could feel her pressed up against me the whole time.

Sadly, the ride ended when we dropped Mary off. We said good-bye and since there were only a few days left in the semester, I was sure I wouldn't have another chance to hang out with her. I was also pretty positive that she had the dreaded BOYFRIEND, so I just went home, at the very least with a new-found confidence in my ability to make a gorgeous girl laugh. But with graduation looming, I was pretty sure I wouldn't see her again.

Until she showed up at Bingo.

Yep. I walked in one night at 6:30, smiled at the usual patrons setting up their multitude of Bingo cards and there she was, sitting next to one of the regulars whom I guessed was her mom. In the matter of seconds before she looked up, a passel of thoughts and assumptions ran through my brain. My first impression was that she had been recently crying. Assumption: she had broken up with the boyfriend! I looked closer--were there any bruises? Didn't see any. Assumption: maybe she was available! My prospects? Well, still in a different stratosphere than she was, but maybe if she watched me perform my specialized Bingo duties...

I hurried past her table before she had a chance to see me. I needed time to collect my nerve. I started to work, preparing the pizza in the kitchen with one eye out on the Bingo room to see if I could catch a glimpse of her. When I finally moved on to the floor to go to work, I went about my duties as if she weren't there, until the time came when someone at her table called "Bingo!" I picked up the winning card, took it to a hanging mic, read the numbers and came back to pay out. I said 'hi' to Mary.

It was then that I could tell how miserable she was. Her eyes were puffy; I realized that she had always worn a good amount of mascara, but what she must originally have had applied was almost gone. I think she said 'hi' back, but she didn't pay any more attention to me the rest of the night.

I went into that Bingo Hall every Thursday after that hoping she'd be there, maybe in a better mood, maybe sending out the vibes that would give me the cojones to actually ask her out. A few weeks later her mom showed up...alone. When I had a minute, I went up to her and asked how Mary was. She shook her head and shrugged. "Going through a rough time," was all she said.

I knew it! Her boyfriend HAD dumped her and she was miserable. I was disappointed that she wasn't there, but simultaneously, I somehow felt weirdly satisfied, almost superior, as if it served her right for choosing some tattooed machine-head (as I pictured him!) over somebody like me. And I realized right then that it might be better to be a happy-go-lucky nerdy 18-year-old, running around a Bingo Hall, giving out money and making people laugh, than it would be to go through a relationship gone bad. And as much as I wished I could go out with a girl like Mary, for the first time in my life, I was happier to be me.

I saw Mary at another barbecue recently. This one was thrown at a high school classmate's house about four years ago. I heard she was going to be there, and those same nerve-wracked emotions came roaring back. Of course I knew she wouldn't look the same--who does? But I just wanted to sit down and tell her these stories: remind her of the Home Ec barbecue, the dish washing and drying, the fact that I couldn't even approach her for so long. I even planned on asking what had gone wrong the last time she was at Bingo.

I didn't say anything to her when I got there, but damn, if that face wasn't the same. At one point during the barbecue, she had gone down a stone staircase into the backyard for something. When she returned, she was having trouble getting back up the stairs by herself, so I went down a few steps and offered her my hand, helping her back up to the patio. She smiled and said 'thank you'.

I could tell she had no idea who I was.

The film "Citizen Kane" contains a monologue which never gets mentioned when that classic movie is discussed. It's given by an older character who's relating something that happened when he was young: He talks about standing on a dock watching a ferry pull away, when he suddenly spots the most beautiful girl he has ever seen leaning on the rail of the boat. He sees her for just a few seconds before the ferry pulls way. "A day doesn't go by," he sighs nostalgically, "when I don't think about that girl."

No, I don't think of her every day. But I do often remember that wry and wicked smile.

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FUN WITH DICK AND JANE!

A second foray into my interest in a girl way out of my league came about a year later. For this, we go back to community college (the location of my previous attempt to pass myself off as an ax murderer!) I believe it was still my freshman year and since college actually encourages you to choose your favorite electives, I immediately gravitated towards a public speaking course.

I had actually taken one in high school, but the teacher was a Midwest transplant and had been extremely dim-witted and totally clueless about professional communication platforms. (If I recall, I corrected her once on something she said in class that was totally inane and she responded by sending me to the principal's office!)

So now I had the chance to actually attend a real college communications course and I was looking forward to it. For those of you who never had the unique opportunity to attend Nassau Community College, it was built on a property originally known as Mitchel Air Force Base. Hence, though there were some real brick-and-mortar buildings on campus, many of the classes were held in old wooden barracks scattered around the outskirts of the base. The public speaking class was in one of these.

The instructor laid the desks out for the group in a semi-circle, with a podium at the top, so that when it came time to give a speech or talk, we would present it in this rather casual configuration. And it didn't take yours truly long to spot the most attractive girl in class (at least IMHO) and since seating was first-come-first-saved, I always found a way to sit next to her as often as possible. I really don't remember her name, so we'll call her 'Jane'.

She seemed to be a year or two older, but amazingly enough, shorter than I was; she was dark and pretty and, as loyal reader Jimmy H, would say, very 'busty'. But her most alluring feature was her ridiculously out-going 'party girl' personality, a trait that has been my Achilles Heel with women forever (with, as you can guess, both wildly successful and extremely disastrous results...)

After a few weeks of making sure I got there first, so she'd see the empty seat next to me and hopefully take it, my obviously sparkling personality and cutting-edge sense of humor quickly made us classroom 'buddies' and soon we were helping each other with our speeches, then giggling conspiratorially during class.

Step One accomplished!

The only monkey wrench to my master plan was the sudden appearance of a third party. I don't recall his name either, so since we called her Jane, let's call him--DICK... (I so wanted to do that!) He was the virginal nerd's nightmare: tall, good-looking, and horror of horrors, as fast with a quip as I was. Just what I needed right about now: an attractive guy with a great personality and a quick sense of humor. I had gone through much of my life not realizing that such a unicorn even existed---and guess where he liked to sit--EVERY DAY!

Yeah, so here we were, the Three Musketeers--one attractive, outgoing female surrounded by Laurel and Hardy (a short, fat guy and a tall, thin guy, for you youngsters...) The three of us actually became kind of the center of attention, laughing among ourselves, sometimes sharing our wisecracks with the rest of the class. But make no mistake--there was an underlying war going on between Laurel and Hardy.

Though I would never blatantly show it, I was constantly trying to impress Jane, but I could tell in his own way that DICK was doing the same. He was becoming an annoying third wheel, and every time I got to class I would hope that he wouldn't show up or if he did, I'd try to maneuver the seating so that there was no desk open on the other side of our female cohort.

But after a while, it struck me that maybe I was the third wheel...like, maybe these two were already sleeping together and I was just the nerdy wingman. That observation began to terrorize me, so I started watching them to see if I noticed any previously undetected intimacy between them. And of course I saw it now, every time I watched them!

Then came the picture. I'm not sure how it was introduced, but at some point during the semester Jane showed up with a manila envelope containing a photograph, and before class began that day, she let my rival see what was inside. His face lit up, he made a wisecrack, then gave it back to her. If I recall, she had talked about recently starting a job as a part-time model, so I had to assume that the picture was of the suggestive variety. I think she showed it to a few of other people, and I don't think I imagined it, but I thought she was trying to keep it away from me.

At some point however, I was able to secure the magical envelope and I slowly pulled out the photo. It was indeed a black-and-white 'artsy'-looking picture of Jane with her arms crossed, looking wistfully off-camera. She was topless.

Now I'm not going to say that his photo got me revved up to the point where I was ready to jump on her or anything. On the contrary, it wasn't really that sexy a picture. But it really solidified my image of her as being a totally free spirit with absolutely no reservations, and that's what spurred me to take the next step.

On the day of the last class of the semester, I wrote her a very respectful, slightly humorous, but honest evaluation of my feelings, and politely asked if she was interested in having dinner. Yeah, with me. I took the letter, folded it up and got to class just after she did, making sure this time to sit across the room from her. I did not want to put the pressure on both of us, of having her read the note while sitting right next to me.

Not sure how I got it done. I probably used the time before class began when everyone was standing around chatting to slip over to her desk and place the note on top of her books. Then I returned to my seat with a stomach full of raging butterflies and waited.

It didn't take long. Soon after she sat down, she noticed the folded piece of paper. She immediately looked around to try and figure out who had left it, so I buried my head in my book. When I dared to glance back up, she was reading the note with great interest. After she had finished, she looked around again, picked up the note...and naturally showed it to DICK!

I could feel the blood traveling at top speed through my torso and towards my head as he read the note. The humiliation possibilities at this point were infinite. When he was done, he looked around, waved the note in the air and asked in a loud voice, "Hey--who wrote this?"

Told you he was a DICK!

Wait, it got worse. "Well, if no one will admit to writing it, I'll just read it..." he began. And then he started to read aloud: "Hi..."

With the humiliation needle on full and my head about to explode, the following went through my mind in the space of about three seconds: 'if I keep my mouth shut, he'll read the whole thing, including my name, which I signed at the end of it. NOT an option...

'If I say "I did", then DICK and Jane will have a laugh between them as I sheepishly walk up to him and take back my now impotent note. Option possibility: meh'

The third choice seemed the best, simply because it was the most honest and most organic, and I knew it would get a laugh from the class at the very least. I jumped up, dashed across the semi-circle and snatched the letter out of DICK'S hand.

It got a laugh. It probably also earned me a little cred in the room, as it showed that I had a little secret relationship possibly going on with the hottest girl in class. What it didn't get me was a date.

After class, Jane asked if I would walk her to the school library and I robotically obeyed. When we got there, she motioned me between a couple of bookshelves and gave me the textbook rejection speech: "It's very flattering...but I just broke up with somebody...maybe some time down the road...thank you so much..."

Yadda.

I was glad I waited until the last class of the year to write that letter. Now I wouldn't have to face her anymore. But once again, the experience gave me the confidence that no matter what I looked like or how nerdy I seemed, I now knew for sure that I was good enough to be rejected by a higher class of women!

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Well, there it is. A 'Modern Day Zelig' column that had no famous people, no on-air adventures, no failed attempts at becoming a music industry mogul. Just stories of me being an everyday shnook, just like most of us were. And some of us still are.

As they say on your Facebook feed, let me know if you want to see more or less postings like this.

And I'll tell you where the line, "That's a Bingo!" comes from next week. Unless you've figured it out already.

IG

Me as a high school senior. How could any woman resist that??