I might be French.  Not really, but today was a super French day for me.  What make’s a day French? I’ll tell you, but with a Memento motif (the time-line is not going to be your traditional beginning to end style).

I found myself at lunch eating McDonald’s with my dad (So French already, right? I mean only the French eat lunch with their fathers).  Visiting the golden arches isn’t a normal occurrence for either of us, but it was the closest food place for our forty-five minute break from an eight hour boating safety class we were taking with the Coast Guard Auxiliary guys.  My order included pineapple (all value meals come with it here) and of course FRENCH fries.  I know right?  How crazy!  I’m pretty much a frog.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Some time ago I was in an accident which damaged the part of my brain that allows me to form short-term memories…kidding, but if you haven’t seen Memento you really should, now would be the time.  But seriously, I was born in Canada (not another joke, I swear).  Canada is pretty much a country version of the Prius, where France is the electric and England is the petrol part of the engine.  Everyone there is pretty much half-french.

After I was born, I ended up in a yacht club where six people were taking this safety course.  One of the guys was named Jacques (Jock for you francophobes). He was talking about when he lived in New Zealand and some other places, so I’m not sure if he was New Zealand French or Canadian French or Real French, but his name was Jacques and he did speak with a slight accent.  In the name of full disclosure, he was also pretty old and sometimes old people just talk funny. So me and Jacques are pretty much best friends now because we are both in it to win it during this eight hour course, and there is only one person sitting between us.

So there I am, a Canadian, who will soon be having French fries for lunch, sitting next to a guy with a French name.  If you had to plot a graph of how French I’ve been in my life, the line would definitely have peaked right there. And then it happens. The instructor is telling us about what mistakes not to make because if we do:

“You are going to get pretty pissed off….excuse my French.”

Hot off the heels of Saturday’s idiom/expression post comes this whopper. I’ve heard it many times before, but never really thought about it.  So here I am, in the middle of my Frenchest day ever, and someone pulls out the ole ‘Excuse my French’ card.  Naturally,  I glance to my left to see if Jacques has taken any offense, and he hasn’t. So I take it for him. I cringe and wince in my chair unnoticed by those who have been tasked with protecting America’s shores from terrorists and criminals while at the same time wondering where the hell that expression came from.

Today Amy and I went to Ala Moana beach park for a bit to chill before her long flight home and for me to detox a bit from the usual stresses.  While we were in the water Amy noticed a guy near our towels, not very suspicious looking or acting but just, there.   I took the opportunity to make fun of her, which I have been known to do from time to time.  This time it was about one day that Amy left a note on some random girls towel on the beach.  They had had a conversation earlier and the girl was nowhere to be found when Amy had to leave, so she left her number on the girls towel and they later became good friends.

So I said to her “he isn’t leaving with any of our stuff so maybe he just left a note on your towel?” She pretended like she didn’t want to laugh but her cheeks gave her away and we had a good cackle in the ocean.

Inside jokes and sea-giggles, great story so far for you avid readers I know.  The rub comes half an hour later or so when we are back at our towels shooting the shit and I see a scrap of paper five or six feet away.  It’s folded lightly in half and the two sides that are visible to me are blank, but being a nosey-parker tree-hugger (thanks goes out to mother for my snooping abilities ), I got up to get the paper. I turn it over, and I find this staring back at me:

You are a very attractive and beautiful woman! Please write me.

I know what you are thinking.  Why the hell would this guy redact his own name and address from his pick-up-slip?  He wouldn’t, I did that for reasons I’m unsure of yet.  But let’s start with the obvious reaction: Really? If you take a minute to review the note (I know it’s short, but it holds so much power).  The fact that this note appeared a few feet from my towel just minutes after I had been making fun of Amy for doing something similar (but very different upon further review) was amusing enough.

I invite you though to take a second look at the note with me, as there are several gems hidden within it’s single-creased goodness.   Just scroll up a little and read it again, and take note of:

1. The Name: You can’t see it but I can and its a very straight-forward all American name.  It’s something on par with ‘Chris Brown’, and why this is important will be discussed momentarily.
2. The Address: Again, you can’t see it in it’s entirety, but I have left the important part untouched.  ‘Kamahameha’ is not a road/street/highway/word.  ‘Kamehameha’ (notice the fourth letter is an ‘e’ not an ‘a’) is a road/street/highway/word/king/fireball.  This guy misspelled his own address. Excellent start to what will become an epic relationship for sure. Something tells me he’s the kind of guy who asks for directions…to his own house.
3. The Statement: I can appreciate that you didn’t leave very much room for writing on your perfectly hand perforated scrap of paper. But then to use the little room you did have to be redundantly repetitious, is sorely inexcusable . It took you 46 characters (spaces included) to tell her she was hot.  Next time, if you insist on there being a next time, just write ‘You’re a hot hottie!’  That is just as redundant, conveys the same message, and is less then half the amount of characters. Woot! Also if you read this sentence a few times over it sounds like it was written by someone whom English was not their native language and with a name like ‘Chris Brown’ I refuse to believe this is the case. What’s up with that?
4. The Request: Yes. It really says ‘Please write me.’ You didn’t have enough courage to engage in a dialogue with her, fine.  You aren’t a hip kid and don’t have a MySpace/Facebook account to point her to, fine.  You don’t even have a computer or an email account, one last fine.  You took the time to write out your address wrong on a scrap of paper, and put it on her towel presumably when she wasn’t around (she may never have even read it, on account of the winds on the beach), which means you had a pen and paper at the beach but you don’t have a phone number?  Write?  Why not telegraph, or fax then?

Bottom line is, I’m not hating on paper-scrap-towel-dropping for those of us who lack Dutch courage (even though I give the roomie a hard time about the one time she did it, on occasion).  However, taking the easy road and avoiding any face-to-face interaction, only to make a request of someone to write you snail mail is a bit much, no? Maybe I’m just new-fashioned, but this is asking someone you don’t know to contact you using what is arguably the most costly and effort-laden form of communication, she needs paper, pen, envelope, stamps, the list is endless.  And if she is truly in-fact as ‘attractive and beautiful’ (two for one!) as you say she is, she probably doesn’t have anything to do but huddle herself around the fireplace alone (she is single of course, all the hot ones are) sip on a glass of wine and write you a long letter with her fountain pen.  She’ll sign the letter with her lipstick covered lips and close the envelope with a wax seal. Only for it to be found a little later on the sidewalk by some asshole with a blog.

Again, another long day of music and fun in the sun.  I could write about all the great bands I saw and great times that were had, but that would only serve to make a jealous beast of you, and we don’t want that.  So instead I will present you with a conversation that I overheard today as I was walking in front of one of the midwests best and brightest.  This is not verbatim as I didn’t have a recording device at the time, but it is as acurate as I can honestly make it, and I really am refusing to embellish because it needs absolutely no help.

Girl Behind Me #1: I’ve seen so many Barack Obama t-shirts yesterday and today, it’s so crazy.

Girl Behind Me #2: I know, right?

Girl Behind Me #1: It reminds me of this convo I had with my mom the other day.  I was telling her about this idea I had, that I thought it would be a cool show if we could like look at and watch the people that wanted to be President, and then call in to pick who the President is. Like an American Idol but for the next President.

Girl Behind Me #2: Oh my gosh, that would be so cool.

Girl Behind Me #1: I know, my mom thought it was a really good idea.  Like, I thought it was a good idea, but you know how you always think your own ideas are really good, so when my mom said it was a good idea, I was like, ‘That is really a good idea’.

Now, you know me, I’m not one to judge, but… it is a great idea.  I liked it better when our country was founded on it over 200 years ago though.  I’m sure you could come up with a great name for it Girl Behind Me #1, but I like ‘Democracy’ a lot already, I think it has a certain ring of familiarity to it we can all kinda get behind.

Girl Behind Me #1: If you are reading (I’m not confident you know how), the United States presidential election will be held on November 4th.  You don’t need to use any of your airtime minutes, or text messages to cast your vote, you don’t even need a cell phone (OMG how effing cool is that!), all you need to do is register (it’s FREE!) and show up.

Mother of Girl Behind Me #1: See Above.

Everyone Else: Please share your ‘really good ideas’ with me.  As you can see, I’m a great person to discuss them with because my goal is to foster a comfortable environment where you can be open and honest without fear of ridicule. Also, they can’t be any dumber then this girls.

I often leave the beach hut late at night just to get away from the computer screen and get some fresh air.  I’ll pick up some pineapple from the corner store and stroll around while I eat it, taking in the sights and sounds of Waikiki.  There are always many characters to be found: the tourists, the street performers and vendors all trying to make a buck, and let us not forget those ladies of the night.  Like any other popular tourist location, they are abundant if you are looking, and pretty obvious even if you aren’t.  I’m positive some of them are not ladies despite their and Mary Kays best efforts, but you deserve an ‘A for Effort’ boys.

One night during one of my strolls, I happened to turn-off one of the major avenues (to return home) and wandered down a mostly empty street.  I say mostly empty because there were at least 3 other people on the street with me, all three of them prostitutes.  I won’t spend any lines here justifying why I looked at each of them (they were the only other people on the street!), but it only takes a glance to discern the workings of the caste system in the kingdom of whore.

One was ugly.  Not just unattractive, but ugly.  The kind of ugly that not even her mother would feel comfortable lying to her about. She was out by the curb in plain site of everyone who passed by, cars included.  The second was halfway between the bank (convenient location, just in case you don’t have enough on you) and the curb.  She was unremarkable, nothing to write home about, just your average Jane prostitute.

The third, was leaning against the bank wall.  She was set furthest from the street but stood out the most.  It could have been because of the way the light placed above the ATM hit her natural golden locks as she chewed her gum (I bet it was one of those unpretentious gum brands, like Trident Xtra Care).  Or it could have been because she was gorgeous. She was the kind of gorgeous that you don’t even bother looking at the tag because you know they charge you to look at the tag gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that deserves it’s own paragraph.

As I walk by, my attention is focused on only two things: 1) See paragraph above, 2) Making sure that the next 50 steps are not any of those in which I trip over my sandals with the lazy shuffle that I have while walking in Waikiki eating pineapples because tripping and falling in front of tourists is fine but I’m not sure how I feel about tripping and falling in front of 3 pros.  As I pass by, the second woman poses a point of personal inquiry directed towards me: “Hey honey, do you want some company tonight?”

This was standard procedure for her I’m sure. She delivered it well, it didn’t sound over-rehearsed, but I could tell she had asked the question a few times before. I don’t know how people ‘normally’ react, whether they ignore it, say ‘no thanks’, giggle and ask what the going rate is.  What I do know is that I responded without missing a beat: “Ideally, but not from you thanks.”

Really?  Did I really just drop a hint to a professional limited-time companion that I would be down with some company, but just not from her?  Way to insult her.  For the 10 minute walk back to the hut I convince myself that I meant ‘ideally’ from someone who I love and cherish, and not that I was just bitter that the hot whore didn’t ask me.