The town I live in is…well…pleasant enough though not much
of anything. One of those rather limited
college towns with surprisingly few (multi)cultural amenities and no
restaurants to speak of. It is also, due
to its mild winters, a retirement community; a fact of which I am physically made
aware every time I go swimming and have to pant my way through a workout
because the pool is kept at a minimum of 83 degrees to avoid complaints from
the “retired” who fool themselves into thinking they are doing water aerobics
when in fact they basically loll around draped over foam tubes jabbering to
each other. But I digress…
As I was walking out of the gym the other day, an older
gentleman asked me if I knew anyone from The Downs. At this point, one unfamiliar with it might
wonder what exactly is The Downs. No,
it is not a race track as the name could indicate, but one of the many retirement
habitations around here. That being
said, every time I see the sign, yes, I smile, riff on the name, and wonder who
on earth thought it was a good idea to name a retirement community The Downs.
Like I said, the gentleman asked me if I knew someone from
The Downs... I told him that I didn’t and
asked him if he needed a ride; and that if so, I would gladly take him if he
didn’t mind my filthy and cramped car. He
said he didn’t, told me his name, made a pun about mine, and off we walked into
the midday sun. As soon as I opened my car
door, I remembered that I had forgotten about the plastic magnetic penis poking
out of my dashboard. One might wonder
why it’s there. The short story is that
a friend had it hanging off of his refrigerator and gave it to me when he and
his wife had their first child and he decided he had to become an adult. Having no children of my own, I feel no such
compunction. The long story is why he chose me to give it to… And there it was, my pink plastic penis staring at the nice southern gentlemen I had just offered a ride to. Oh well, by then it was too late to remove it,
so off we all went….
I had also forgotten that I wanted to get gas on the way
home because my gas gauge was acting unpredictably; and as I drove off, I noticed its needle was on empty and asked the
gentleman if he didn’t mind my stopping at the gas station on the way to The
Downs. He said no problem. And as I was getting out of the car to “fill ‘er
up”, though clearly my car is a “he”, I saw the gentleman taking out his wallet
from his back pocket... I filled up the
car and off again we went, this time straight for The Downs. We made small talk, I found out where he was
from, about his daughter and her husband, and also how much it costs to rent an
apartment at The Downs. I asked him about that in case, one day, after having failed to put a bullet through my head, I had to choose to live in a retirement community. I am not, as it were, putting down The Downs and firmly do believe in "à chacun son gout", it's just not mon gout. But I digress once more...
Without further incident we arrived at his apartment complex. As he was thanking me and getting out of the
car, he told me he had had a car once until his daughter made him stop driving
it, and that he knew it took money to maintain them. And indeed if you took a look at my car and
at the tattered way I dress around here (plus, of course, the plastic penis
sticking out of the dashboard: a clear indication of instability), you would
think I am in serious need of money to maintain it and myself, though he did
not say so. What he did say was that he had left me a
little something in the compartment next to the penis. Okay, he did not say that either; but that's
where he left me two bucks which I tried mighty hard to give back to him. He refused to take the money back and wished
me a Godly day. And off I went to have one.
