Day 15: Marlboro Bea and The Dikes

Catchy title, right?

A story of coincidence. Years ago when I was living in Cedar Falls and going to UNI, I lived in the downtown district which contained a lot of college-style bars (as in, skanky chicks with tramp stamps hanging above their thong lines and dudes that put on their freshman 75 but still think they're in football shape and always wear backwards baseball caps). The lone exception to the college-style cluster of bars was a dive shit-hole called the Blue Cat. This was the type of bar that hearkened back to my hillbilly roots: where you can walk in and see real, hardcore drunks just having a hap-hap-happy time during their 25cent draft happy hours, hear hank Williams on the jukebox, and meet some real "characters." The character with the most character was a woman (I think) named Bea. Aged, travel-worn, crude, and sporting a mullet of epic proportions, she was loud and obnoxious in her flannel overalls and entertained a wary group of young musicians from UNI for an entire evening. She had recently bought a new cat, so her catch phrase all night was "Who wants to see my black pussy!" Yeah, classy. (and of course I did- it was beautiful). So, years later, I happen to mention the name to some old farmer guy buddies of my dad who live in McCausland- hours away- and when I tell the story of "Bea," they all jump up and tell me about how they know her. Yup, apparently she's famous! I marveled at the coincidence.

Which brings me to this past weekend. After a long, successful night of cool concerts (and cleavages) I'm about to go to bed. Eager for my last Friday-smokeday cigarette, I eagerly flip open my box of Marlboro reds. Out! Zip, zero, nada: apparently my last cigarette is hiding out with Sadam's WMDs in a desert bunker somewhere. Bummed, I turn to go inside. But, I hear a voice say "you need a smoke?" And I turn to see someone proffering (great word, btw: you can use it if you want) a box of Marlboro reds. I look up, and guess who it is? Yup. There she (it) is, Bea, years later and looking exactly the same. In fact, probably wearing the same clothes. I suppose it's rude to hail her as your cigarette savior on one hand while denouncing every conceivable trait she has on the other, but such is the contradictory nature of life. Regardless, it's this kind of ultra-coincidental shit that makes me believe in Nessy. Cool, right?

Also this weekend I want to throw a shout-out to the drunken nest of lesbians that I met and hung out with on Saturday. Okay, I suppose they couldn't really be lesbians with the amount of penis-themed paraphernalia they had bought for the party. Penis-shaped wine charms, penis-shaped candy, penis-shaped bowls for the candy; it was all there. Apparently there is an entire store full of penisery out there that I didn't even know existed. Now you tell me. I survived the night, so for that I'm thankful. And, I learned about lots of reasons why never to get married. Oh, and did you know that they make New Kids On The Block trading cards? And you thought YOUR job sucked.

Today I got to thinking that I haven't shared the secret of why women and men are different. Got any guesses? It's not a trick question: I really have the (an) answer. I'm going to hold onto it until Friday, so if you have what you think is the right answer feel free to shout it out, otherwise just anticipate.

Monday... blech.

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