The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Friday, March 21, 2008

Death at the Seven-Eleven

I love kid stuff. Every night, Tananarive tells our son a "Jason Bear" story, basically a teaching story of some kind that she makes up on the spot at "snuggle time"
at night. Well, a couple of nights ago, she was telling him one, and he liked it. And so he asked for another one, and she did it. And then he asked for another,
and she gave him a very short one,proud of herself for having completed the bedtime tasks. He gave her a fish eye and said: "that's not a story. That's a commercial."
Hah! Who says kids don't learn from television?
#
I'm at Norwescon in SeaTac. Walked over to the 7-11 at 10:30 last night to buy a deck of cards. A drunk girl in the line ahead of me asked if I was going to play strip poker. "No.." I answered queasily.
Her boyfriend was standing right there next to her He was HUGE. "Well my friends and I love to play strip poker," she said. "And we always win."
"Well, thanks for the warning," I said. "I'll know never to play with you, right?" "Oh, no," she went on. "We'd have fun."
Her boyfriend cracked his knuckles, but didn't turn around. Good lord. After she left,
the Arab night attendant cracked up so hard I thought he would bust a vein. But...I survived the night.
And what was YOUR most inappropriate public come-on?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm male and I went to school in San Francisco. Back then I was in pretty good shape, and I would sometimes wear clothes that, hmm, emphasized my physical conditioning. One night, several of my friends and I went out to dinner in the Castro. I was wearing a soft, textured short sleeve shirt. Our waiter commented that he liked my shirt, and I responded: "Oh, you should feel it, it feels great." He decided to take this statement as an invitation and proceeded to run his hands all over my upper body. He then agreed that it did feel great. My friends were all falling off their chairs laughing. I was stunned and amused at the same time. I didn't feel threatened, so it wasn't a bad experience. Whenever we went to the Castro, there was a better than even chance that I would be propositioned by some men, but the waiter incident was the most inappropriate of the propositions.

Irene said...

When I was in college working as a cashier at a fast food joint, one of my customers said, "Me and my buddies is beaver-huntin', know where we might go lookin?" With a broad wink.

I turned around and called to my 300+ lb, heavily bearded manager, "Bobby, these gentlemen have a question, perhaps you can help them."

Anonymous said...

My future wife and I, with another couple, were walking on 6th Ave near the Village, on our way to dinner. Two young ladies joined our party and had a short conversation with us two men. When we were at dinner, my wife, literally "the small town girl in the big city", asked, "Why in the world would those girls think that you wanted to see how they decorated their apartment?" The three of us had the traditional drink up the nose occasion.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

nice blog man, do stop by my spot one day, maybe we can exchange rolls, and i had a new book come out yesterday

Daniel Keys Moran said...

We got rid of the tv at our house a couple years back. Haven't missed it. We do still watch shows, via dvds, but that's it -- no news, no cable, no channel surfing. It's been such a huge improvement in the quality of our lives, I can't imagine going back.

As to inappropriate -- I used to work at a fast food restaurant on Holt Blvd. in Pomona in the early '80s. It was just like working in a whorehouse -- the girls sat at our outside tables and waited for customers, and had negotiations while waiting for their orders, yelling back and forth at the men parked at the curb. "Twenty-five? For up the butt? How cheap do I look, motherfucker?"

An education, as they say.

Steve Perry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve Perry said...

Back in the day, at a big science fiction convention, I was at a room party. So crowded people were sitting on the floor. I started to leave. A young woman, thin, intense, grabbed my leg. "Don't go," she said. "I want you."

She was one of the science fiction groupies -- there were, I think, all of two of them back then -- and this one had slept with more Big Name Writers than would admit it. On the one hand, it was flattering, because I was just getting started and had yet to sell much.

On the other hand, there were all those jockeys who'd been there before me ...

I disentangled myself and went on my way.

Unknown said...

Unfortunately, most of the inappropriate public come ons I've gotten have been pretty dull. But there was one time that I was visiting some friends at a college dorm, and a guy took to telling me about how God had given him messages in streetlights and what not, telling him to find again and pursue a certain woman that he'd been previously involved with. Then he said that I resembled her, and "you look romantic next to that post." I excused myself for a moment, found a friend, and asked him to drive me home right away, never mind about collecting my bike, and asked that no one in the house tell this guy where I could be found.

Unknown said...

Hahaha,

Funny stories. I currently dress to avoid lame come-ons... so it's been a while.
You all have priceless stories.

Anonymous said...

Okay....my story: I was at an SF convention, when this *extremely* hairy kinda short guy *bellydanced* up to me, minus his shirt, and said 'Hey babe, wanna chew on me?" To which I replied, "No, thanks. I've already flossed my teeth today."