Caught

When I was younger and unmarried, I was an enthusiastic fan of pulchritude. Yeah, I’ll admit it. I liked to wear a pair of dark shades on a sunny day, sit in the park and allow my blood pressure to elevate while watching a lovely woman walk by.

This does not mean that I was given to wolf whistles, howls, panting, or tongue lolling. Inside I may have been drooling, but on the outside, I was cool. Public displays of lechery were unacceptable, and the clowns that crane their necks go, “hubba hubba, Hubba,” needed to get a life. That sort of behavioral clowning was so un-hip.

Generally, I was not interested in meeting the young woman I ogled. I was never good at pickup lines, ” Hi, Honey, want to go to the bookstore and then visit the coffeehouse?”

I was in my thirties before I found out that women did the same thing with guys and that some of the descriptive terminology used was, at the least, impolite. I was sitting in the park with my friend Irene. Rather casually, she dropped a comment on the gluteal development of a young male jogger. I was shocked. Just shocked. Irene looked at me and commented, ” you know that turn about is fair play, don’t you?” I insisted that I’d never stoop so low as pandering to mere physical lust…I was interested in personality, intellect, and quiet evenings reading Proust together. “Bullshit!” was her response. Then, before I could react, she whispered, “Hey, look at the blonde!” I swiveled to look, and Hubba Hubba Hubba…off to my side Irene was laughing, snickering, and giggling. I was caught.