Chick Magnet

Get this. After brunch Sunday afternoon I go to my “office” and read the New York Times Sunday Edition. Eventually the cooks finish cleaning the kitchen and walk-in refridgerators and join me, and then we decide what to do that evening. That was the plan anyway. I got to my barstool, isolated from the rest of the patrons in the corner of Bukowski’s, and spread out all the sections of the NYT that I enjoy reading on Sunday; Sunday Styles, Week in Review, Escapes, the Front Page and the Sports. A girl entered my space, about three barstools away. She had on horn-rimmed glasses.

I paid no mind, other than to put the bulk of unread papers in between us as a kind of physical barrier. Nothing says, “I don’t feel like talking” like a teetering eighteen tower of Sunday Globe and NYT newspapers. Basically she had a choice: either grab a section and start reading, or the chances were good that the pile would fall and she would be engulfed in an avalance of newsprint. She chose wisely, and began reading. The calm would last only so far. As I finished the Week In Review (and truth be told I’d read Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd at 7AM that morning, so I had a headstart on the section), folded up and returned that section to the public pile of newspapers, her eyes widened in those horn-rims, and she drawled, “There’s a spider on you!”

Indeed, a small white spider was on my black hoodie. I brushed it off my sleeve like Jay Z would dirt off his shoulder, and it dropped to the floor. The white spider rolled into a ball and didn’t move. I assumed it was dead, and resumed perusing. That the white spider was not dead sparked what became a conversation between this girl and I. “Look,” said she, “Its gone. I thought it was dead.” The idea that she might be hitting on me never entered into my head. I mean, I had not showered in 24 hours at that point and was covered with tiny scraps of scrambled eggs, and the greasy film of many eggs over-easy. My face glistened as if I’d washed it with poached, runny eggs.

I guess that perhaps one might say that chicks dig the Egg Man, then. About twenty minutes into conversing with this girl, she told me that she was on a walk. Her boyfriend was at home, and she didn’t have her phone. She’s a Texan, and I began to suspect that she was speaking the language of bidness. All suspicion flew out the window, however, after I told her that on Sunday brunch I am the shepherd’s dog. Sous-chef Jason Lord, the Lord, is my shepherd I shall not want. Her response was to ask if I’d been raised Catholic, to which I replied yes, and told her I’d been an altar boy. At this point she moved very close to me and began asking if it was true that Catholic boys had trouble with spontaneity because of guilt. I believe her exact question was:

“I mean, would you feel comfortable having sex with someone you just met?” She was touching me, too. Our conversation wound down. She had to get back to her boyfriend, and when she left she hugged me like I was some kind of good ol’ boy. Twice. I got back to my “office hours,” and read my paper, but you know I was thinking about how weird it was to get hit on. I guess I’m kind of a big deal. Some might even say I’m a chick magnet.