van who?

an older lady walked into the store today...years of internal smoke and external sun put her appearance somewhere in between a shar pei and an old leather car seat...so she asked me where the true crime was...go figure...anyway...just before her a teenage girl came in with her parents...she had on pajamas and her sneakers with a heavy winter coat...just in case she had to run somewhere cold in her dreams i guess...she also adorned a pink baseball cap that read "BITCH" on the front...hey, why wait for people to get to know you...just tell them up front...

so old leather face is ready to checkout...as i am counting her change she looks up over my desk and says "did you paint that?"...so here is the deal...i have a 3X4 framed print of van gogh's stary night above my desk...all i could muster was a simple reply, "no i did not"...then she grabbed her bag and left...by then, fashion girl and her parents had arrived in line with her book in hand...i guess they overheard the short conversation between the walking bomber jacket and myself because the mom looks at me and says, "i knew you didnt paint that"...she seemed proud of her bare minimum knowledge of art history...wow, she recognized the fact that i was not the artist of one of the most famous paintings of all time!...and then, pj's chimes in, "yeah, everybody knows it was van damme"...at first i thought it was merely a freudian slip...then she added "he's so hot in his movies"...up in til now dad had remained silent with no expression to indicate he was even coherent, which he changed with the comment "he's a real bad-ass, bloodsport was awesome"...i couldnt resist, i had to, of all the options of verbal splendor i chose, "yeah, ole' jean claude van damme, hot guy, royal bad-ass and world class painter, lucky guy!"...

and the fact that this happened in a book store as opposed to a convenience store etc. is the most intriguing part of the story to me...i think this may top the lady who knew van gogh painted it but genuinely asked mrs. bookman if it was the original...

many of my days are plagued with plain and ordinary social food, which makes these occurrences of social dessert all the more delightful!...

later from 3rd St.