Charmed Life

Last Friday, I was feeling a little low. They were yelling at me at work that I had gotten my Department into debt again. Crunching the numbers with Sally and Grace, it looked like maybe we were not doing quite as badly as the bean counters thought, but it was still a little scary to recognize, right before Christmas, that at the rate we were going we needed another half million to get through to July. So if we compromise and spend at a lower rate, maybe 300,000. Hey, that’s doable. Maybe.

If we need it, I will get it, of course. Maybe not by July, but then again we were in debt until August this year and still brought the funding in. And now that there is one company with two successful trials, it looks like lupus is about to become a very profitable business. Some big companies have been contacting me.

Still, I have a nagging worry that one day it will all escalate out of control and I will singlehandedly bankrupt the Ardmore Medical Research Foundation, at least with the help of the other 22 people on my staff, some of whom buy stuff like computers and xerox machines without telling me.

I drove to the grocery store with a howling winter wind tearing South across the prairies all the way from Kansas and buffeting my car. Although I have now gone at least 10 lbs over my “time to exercise” weight, I have been ill for two weeks with a severe virus, which made me cough so hard I got pleuritic chest pain. Pain is not good for me, psychologically. Even eight years later, it gets me all paranoid that maybe I have cancer metastasis in my ribs. That's not funny. Try being a cancer survivor and listening to the clock tick. So I was going to get some extra sharp chedder cheese to melt over yesterdays leftover spaghetti. Cures everything. Trust me. Except obesity.

In the grocery store, my spirits picked up a little. I am a charming woman living a charmed life and it does not take much to make me happy. Naturally, as a Jew, I adore Christmas, especially the commercialism part, and there were poinsettias for sale, and chocolate reindeer and red and green lights and it was so warm in that grocery store that I immediately stopped coughing and forgot to worry about cancer. Or money.

I got the cheese and a case of beer and was checked out by the friendly little man with the high pitched voice who often runs over to my register to give my checker a break, and checks me out, even though he is probably an Assistant Manger or something like that. Evdently he likes me. Either that or the checkers don’t like me, I suppose.

“Merry Christmas,” he said in his high pitched voice. “Did you bring your Super Saver card?”

“Merry Christmas,” I said, handing it to him. Our fingers touched. He did not let go right away the way you would in normal circumstances. Yikes. I do not find him attractive. And yet, I always enjoy it when they seem to like me. He swiped my card and I got 6 cents off.

When I got out to the parking lot, my key would not turn in the ignition. You would think if I am a witch that this kind of thing would not happen to me. You would be wrong. Cars are just machines. I have no magic that affects machines. People are a different story. As you will see. The minute I get in trouble I conjure up an ex boyfriend or two. And they all show up at once.

I had been having trouble with my car key for about four months. At first it was pretty bad, frustrating me every time I wanted to start off for work, or go to the mall or drive to an appointment with my psychologist, without whom what do you think my chances would be to get through the week without screaming at somebody? Nevertheless, I soon learned how to jiggle the key, and wiggle the wheel, and not to park with my steering wheel lined up sideways, and some other tricks that I am not sure how to explain, having to do with twiddling all of these things in random sequences while pressing very hard on the brake, and for a while the broken cylinder or aging key (or whatever the cause) was not impeding me too badly. So my plans of getting it fixed soon had been delayed for at least four months while my world remained reasonably intact.

When I had left work 30 minutes ago, the key had turned without any glitch that I can remember. But now it would not turn at all. I tried for over 30 minutes while other people parked, shopped and drove off again around me, expressing no curiosity at the middle aged woman cursing and jiggling the steering wheel in her Ford Focus.

“Ahhhh.” I drew the inevitable conclusion. “Time to call a man.”

The man I decided to call first was Atticus Finch. He isn’t really Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” and it is not my habit to fantasize relationships with fictional characters. I am a sane woman, after all, so all of my fantasized relationships are with real people.

I call him Atticus Finch because he is a competent and liberal Southern lawyer from a small town who quotes Latin and has deep insight into the human condition even if he does drink too much. I met him a number of years ago on an internet dating site and we spent several months talking on the phone every night because his heart had just been torn to bits by a beautiful 30 year old redhead who bankrupted him in Las Vegas and then ran off with another sucker. He was so heartbroken, that it took me a very long time to realize he was not just some really smart, liberal, emotionally innocent Southern lawyer from a small town, but in fact a pathologic man addicted to alcohol, gambling and cheap women who are built like Barbie dolls, and sadly incapable of any real relationships, unless heartbroken. And even then it was only possible by telephone. But he was wonderful within those restrictions.

After three months he started to feel better, went back to his life of distinguished law practice, mediocre golf, too much drinking, and weekends in the casinos losing his pension and picking up 30 year olds with no brains. As for me, he dumped me like a hot potato. Sort of.

We correspond on email whenever one of us feels like it, and I am smart enough not to make that too often. Without discussing the slightest possibility of our ever being anything other than pen pals, (Good Lord, I am almost his age!) he has made it clear to me that he is forever grateful to me for nursing him through a bad time. So if my toilet is ever broken or I need a handy guy with an electric drill to hang a picture or something, he is my man, and he will drop everything at any time and come right over. But I am so pathetically unable to seal the deal with any man, even a home maintenance deal, that all I usually do is call for advice once or twice a year and tell him he does not have to come over if he can just consult with me on the phone.

Which I intended to do now. But he did not answer.

So I called Joe Hatfield.

Joe Hatfield is a distinguished diabetes researcher who once almost potentially had an affair with me but you can't pin that on him. And I came very close to having one with him too, except that I am not stupid.

He was part of a large team from the University of Oklahoma recruiting me from New York City at the time, and he was also married. Come to think of it so was I, and my husband did not like the way Joe Hatfield was looking at me all the time which either directly or indirectly led to the breakup of our marriage, although that was, in retrospect, a great relief to us both.

I left my husband and moved to Oklahoma and Joe stayed married, and there was no doubt that we both felt something, but both of us cared very much about our careers, so we knew better than to let that pressure cooker whistle, and NOTHING EVER HAPPENED. In fact, the whole thing cooled off rapidly once I was officially hired at the Ardmore Medical Research Foundation and moved in a few blocks from his lovely home and wife, got cancer, underwent bilateral mastectomies and completed my chemo.

Karen Hatfield, the wife, was wonderful to me when I first got diagnosed with cancer. As soon as she heard about it she took me out for ice cream and invited me to dinner with her and Joe and told me that if I ever felt scared, to come on over and bang on their door, even if it was after midnight. This put a one hundred percent damper on any romantic feelings I might have had for her husband. Imagine banging on his door to get a hug from his wife! She, it turned out, was a very nice lady. I was so over him.

Which was a good thing as I watched him interact with the junior staff at the University of Oklahoma, flirting with every woman who came within three feet of him. My thwarted romance with this man wasn't even about me. This was a classic woman-loving maniac who did not know how to keep his eyes in their sockets. In the scheme of things, my role was minor.

It seemed pretty obvious that his wife must know what he was up to, since he frequently got up to it right in front of her at major social functions. But she never lost her composure. She would treat each of the women he got interested in with the same kindly, but cool graciousness that she used on me. And none of his flirtations would last very long. I doubted that he ever got all the way down the road to any real adultery, she had some kind of a brake on him.

Then, when I was about halfway through chemo, Karen Hatfield was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent bilateral mastectomies just like me. Not that I recommended it to her, I would never do that, but she may have decided to follow in my footsteps, thinking that I knew what I was doing. Which was true.

If you don’t believe me, you probably read the data on 95% five year survival with lumpectomies. I would like to refer you to Medline. (Google it, it is free). First, I advise you to read about ten and twenty year survival from breast cancer, which they don't tell you about in Ladies Home Journal. Survival does keep dropping after five years, sister, and that's because once you have had cancer, if you leave all that vulnerable breast tissue in there, you are at significant risk to get cancer again. Sooner or later.

Then read about what happened when they took a bunch of women with high genetic risk for breast cancer (do a search on BRCA and you will find this) and offered them the choice of either close monitoring or bilateral mastectomy. The risk of getting cancer was cut 90% in the women who chose bilateral mastectomy. If you get rid of most of the cells that are at high risk to convert to cancer, then you get rid of most of the risk for future cancer. Not all of it. But you have upped your odds dramatically.

About the alleged feminists who try to sell you on "non-deforming" lumpectomies instead of mutilating mastectomies: these are people who think that preserving your breasts is more important than preserving your life. You call that a feminist? I call that....men.

I do not know whether Karen Hatfield knew all these facts, but she did know what I had chosen to do and she made the same, relatively rare choice. This upset her husband. He told me he thought that she was making a thoughtless decision. I was worried that he thought that I had said something to make his wife mutilate herself. But I was innocent. Unless she knew more about what didn't happen between him and me than I imagined.

That is the rule. If you don't sleep with somebody's husband and they don't find out about it, you are innocent. If you don't sleep with somebody's husband and they have any reason to think you might have, you are guilty.

He stood by her side through a year-long ordeal of surgery and chemo while a few blocks away I had to handle my nightmare alone, dreaming jealously of how nice it would have been to have a handsome man bring you a cup of tea where you were lying in bed, exhausted from Adriamycin, 5FU and taxotere.....instead of where I really was, down in the basement changing the filters on the furnace or out in the yard, raking the leaves.

And he would rub your feet. And....oops. Wrong fantasy.

I survived. She survived. Then she dumped him.

Actually her story is that he dumped her. I ran into her at the mall one day, and she told me that one day she was making dinner for him and out of nowhere he said “I don’t want to be married anymore,” and moved out of the house.

His story was, that after she drove him out of the house with her inaccessible, self-contained coolness, they had agreed to a temporary separation. Then, one day out of nowhere she showed up with divorce papers.

I believe them both. To her, he was a philandering, insensitive jerk. To him she was cold and distant, and had no need for him (or sex) driving him into temporary fantasies about other women. How would you be if you had that husband? How would you be if you had that wife? Yes, I believe them both.

Here is the interesting part of it. Would you not expect him, in the very next chapter, to take up with one of those women he was used to have fawning all over him? That is not what happened. Well maybe it happened, we do not know everything he might have done that year, but whatever he did do, it could not have lasted very long.

He became quiet and depressed, lost weight, stopped flirting with any women at work, wrote a whole bunch of new grants and received a ten year merit award, an unheard of honor from the National Institutes of Health.

Before too long he had six new grants, doubled the size of his staff, and was well on his way to discovering the ultimate cause of diabetes. He spent every evening until midnight sitting at his desk at the University of Oklahoma writing more and more brilliant grants and getting drunk on Merlot. And crying.

I do not know if he loved her, you would think that noone would behave the way he used to if they loved their wife. But apparently he missed her, and in some odd way his spirit was broken by that divorce.

He and I have since served together on committees, co-authored multi-disciplinary grants, discussed university politics, and watched each other give plenary lectures at the FOCIS meetings. Sometimes an old spark lights up when he is talking to me, but he will quickly snuff it out, making it clear that he regards me only in the way that both of us earned legitimately, friends and colleagues, and there can never be more to us than that. We do not get together alone very often, but I think we both enjoy each others company equally on those rare occasions, and maybe we both allow the old fantasy to creep in for five or ten seconds at a time, but if so, we would never tell each other about that, it remains a secret from us both.

My side of things is that I feel the same way his wife does about his philandering, and I scoff at myself to imagine that if he ever cheered up enough to get a real girlfriend he would not return to his old ways.

Sometimes I imagine that I understand his point of view about me, too, although it is possible that I do not. My idea is that after years of living with a cool, uncommunicative wife, he fell in love with me for five minutes, got over it quickly, fell in love with lots of other women, both before me and after me, got over all of them as rapidly as with me, and later worried that perhaps I mutilated myself unnecessarily, then made Karen mutilate herself, and that somehow his actions were to blame for all that. I may be dead wrong about what he thinks, and if he thinks it then he is dead wrong about what happened, but isn't it romantic?

So I imagine that we both share some subconcious knowledge of a special place in the others heart, that is full of love and darkness, but we can’t get together very often, each suspecting a touch of evil in the other, even though neither one of us have committed the crime we are suspected of, he was not a real philanderer and I did not set out to hurt his wife.

Given all of that, in case it is true I mean, are we still attracted to each other? It is hard to say. I am a google star, fed up with men, and getting fat. He is a brilliant scientist at the peak of his career who has lost weight and gets drunk on merlot every night. It is very hard to say. Especially if I am wrong about the whole thing, since it remains possible that I am nothing to him, and he has a hot young chick he is hiding out there somewhere, away from the University.

At any rate, since Atticus Finch was not answering his phone, and my key would still not turn in the ignition and I was already dysphoric enough from being told that my department was half a million dollars in debt, I speed dialed Joe Hatfield on my cell. I knew he would help me. Men love to help.

He came right over in his pickup truck and tried to start my car. Men never believe anything is broken until they try it themselves, and often they are right, but unfortunately not this time. He then explained to me that there was nothing more I could do in the freezing wind in a dark parking lot at 8PM, and that he would drive me home. He instructed me to go back into the grocery store first and inform the manager that my car had broken down so they would not have it towed.

Now do you see why I call a man like a helpless little 1950's chickadee when I get into any kind of mechanical fix? They know things about car towing risks at grocery store parking lots and whether you can or cannot get your car repaired on a cold night, that I simply do not have the experience to judge. Imagine what trouble I could get into without the good advice of these men,I am from New York City, what do I know about suburban smarts?

The manager promised not to have my car towed. Joe helped me transfer my groceries from my car to the back of his pickup truck. Then he drove me home and told me to call Swanson’s “WE FIX EVERYTHING” in the morning because they would be much cheaper than the Ford place. He asked me whether I belonged to AAA and reminded me that I could call AAA to get a free tow to Swanson’s.

When he pulled up in my driveway, I opened my door and jumped out before I realized he had gotten he gotten out on the driver's side and had started around the front, presumably to open my door for me. I always mess up that gentleman's maneuver because I don't like any man to think I expect anything from them.

Instead of getting back in his truck, he went to the back and helped me carry the groceries up the porch stairs. I unlocked the door and he followed me with the groceries. Apparently he was coming all the way into my house, and I tried to be neutral about that. Of course I did not want to scare him off, I really wished he would come in. On the other hand I did not want him to think that I thought…..

He peered around at my living room and the dining room on the other side of the arch. It is an old fashioned house, built in 1918, with an original Southwestern brick fireplace and lovely furniture (for the provenance of my furniture you can read my blog entitled “How lupus mends a broken heart”). My multi-paned windows gave a panoramic view of the overblown and tasteless Christmas decorations across the street. “I don’t have my Christmas tree yet,” I said.

“Your house is beautiful.” He said softly. “I used to live in a house just like this.”

My cell phone rang. I looked at the incoming number and it was Atticus Finch, returning my call. I hesitated.

“Go ahead,answer that," said Joe, looking as if he was developing a case of hives and was about to leave my house. Maybe because he wanted to. Maybe because he thought I would want privacy.

Which was true. I would not want to talk to Atticus Finch in front of Joe Hatfield. One of them might wrongly mistake the other for a boyfriend of mine, and then I might lose both of them forever. Or the fantasy of both of them.

I let it ring, giving a dismissive wave of my hand. Joe waited politely for it to stop ringing, but he still seemed poised to go. When it stopped ringing he started to say something, and, as usual I interrupted him. He winced. He hates being interrupted! He explains that to me frequently.

“It would be impolite if I did not offer you a drink.” I said.

“I know what, “ he replied. “I will offer you a drink. Wait here.” He went out to his truck and came back with a bottle of some kind of red wine.

We sat at my beautiful dining room table which I had ordered from the best furniture store in town after I found out there was no cancer in my liver. We sat under the glass chandelier, and each of us drank slowly from a small glass. It was good for me to be sitting together there with him, and we talked for a few minutes about a few pleasant things slowly sipping our small glasses of wine. Then he got up to go. The way he always does. We never get too close. I don't think we have ever even sat on the same couch.

“I will call you tomorrow,” he said, “to make sure you are OK and...”

“Oh thanks,” I hurriedly replied, interrupting him again, ”but I will be OK. I can walk back to the grocery store tomorrow morning and AAA will tow me to Swanson's and I can walk home from there.”

It is always important for me to let a guy know that I am 100% self-sufficient and independent. In case he might suspect the truth.

"I really appreciate how you helped me out tonight," I concluded, but I'm sure I won't need you tomorrow."

“But maybe,” he said nervously, “....maybe I need to be needed.”

“Oh, you do?” I said. “Great. Then I promise to need you tomorrow. I am sure I can find some more trouble to get into by then.”

“I meant it,” he said softly, and walked out of my house.

Had I hurt his feelings? Or had I scared him away? And how can people our age be so vulnerable?

I washed out the wine glasses, then I poured myself another one and sat for a while at my front window, letting my neighbor’s Christmas lights blink at me. It was pretty clear that he had meant what he said, but what was it that he meant when he said it?

Then I remembered to call Atticus Finch back. We talked for a while, and I annoyed him by interrupting him a couple of times, too.

"Now that you have finally shut up," he eventually said, "I will tell you what you need to do."

Then he told me a whole bunch of smart things about how ignitions work and what could possibly have gone wrong. I did not understand much of it, but from time to time, the concepts would fall into place in my mind.

Just before we said goodbye he instructed me, as adamantly as Joe had, not to call the Ford place in the morning.

“They will try to put a whole new ignition system in,” he said. “You don’t need that. Call the local locksmith and see if they can just replace the cylinder for you. That will only cost 50 or 60 bucks. Do not call the Ford place. That is likely to cost you 500 dollars.“

“OK, I will not do that,” I said.

“And don’t forget to call AAA. You can get a free tow.” he said.

“Gotcha,” I said.

"Are you sure the ignition won't turn. Do you want me to go over tomorrow and try it?"

"No!" I yelled. I am sure it won't turn!

“Well let me know what happens,” he said.

“I will, I promise,” I said, sipping up the last of Joe Hatfield’s wine.

The next morning, nobody answered the phone at the lock place recommended by Atticus Finch or at Swanson's "WE FIX EVERYTHING” which had been Joe Hatfield's idea for a cheap alternative. Well it was Saturday morning and this is Oklahoma. So I called a few of the Ford dealerships and found one that was open.

Not that I was underestimating the risks of being overcharged for unnecessary repairs, but I explained in advance to Lou from Bicker's Ford that I am a cheapskate, and I didn't want the thousand dollar fix if the hundred dollar fix will work. Lou said they could send a pick up truck immediately to get my car, and all he thought it would be was maybe a problem with the cylinder. Very cheap. Probably no more than five hundred dollars.

I sighed, but what was I supposed to do? While I was still on the phone with Lou from Bicker's Ford, I got an instant message from Atticus.

“Well?” he typed

“I am working on it,” I typed back.

“And?” he typed

“Give me time.” I typed. “If this was about fresh produce or designer shoes I would have had it handled by now. I am in the process of educating myself on the options about cylinders.”

“OK,” he typed back. “Just remember to call AAA. And don't go to Ford”

I explained to Lou from Bicker's Ford that I would arrange for the car to be delivered to his dealership through AAA. He said that he understood and would call me when my car got there.

I phoned AAA and they said they could send a man to pick me up at my house in the next few minutes, to take me to my car at Super Savers.

I came out of my house and found that a branch had fallen off my pine tree just in time for Christmas. This happened last year too. My poor trees are dying, which is sad, but they are giving up a big branch to me every Christmas season. Did I mention I lead a charmed life?

Of course, this was a very large branch, so it would need to be cut up in order to get the part with pine needles on it inside. I figured that I would solve that problem when I got home.

A big flatbed truck rounded the corner. It said AAA on the side of it. I stepped down to the curb and climbed into it. The driver was a big fat, filthy man named Paul, looked like he had just crawled out of being underneath a car with an oil leak, but he was very nice. He explained that he never goes to grocery stores, his girlfriend does all the shopping for him, and in another two blocks he was explaining to me all the reasons why he won't marry his girlfriend.

“She’s real nice and like that…
....but....
sometimes she won’t stop yappin at me...
....about nothin.....
Sometimes a guy just likes peace and quiet.

“Does she take over your kitchen?” I asked with interest.

I had been unable to let go of this idea, ever since Thanksgiving when I found myself replaced in the heart of my ex-boyfriend Frank by a woman who had taken over his kitchen and acted as if she owned it when they had only been dating at most for a couple of months. And he seemed to prefer her to me, a wonderful woman who does not try to control the people she loves. In case they find out the truth.

“Takes over my kitchen? I don’t know about that,” he said. “But she makes real good chicken fried steak.”

I love Oklahoma. You can find out so much about people in such a short time.

We arrived at the grocery store parking lot and thankfully my car was still there. Paul said he would get my car hooked up shortly and asked me if I wanted to ride to the Ford place with him or just be left off back home. I said I would be happy to let him take the car to the Ford place by himself and I was planning to walk home by myself.

Paul tried to argue with me about that. He suggested that my neighborhood was not safe. I explained that I am from New York and not very scared of any place in Oklahoma City on a bright sunny day. Paul said that it was too cold to walk. I said my coat was warm. Paul said that it was much too far to walk. I said that it was only 20 minutes. And tried not to cough.

Paul gave up on that, and asked me for the car key to get my car out of "park" so he could roll it onto the truck. I explained that the key would not turn the ignition so he would not be able to take the car out of park. "Let me see," he said.

I followed him to the car and he tried to turn the ignition a few times. Here is a riddle: how many men have to double check to see if your key will turn in the ignition when it doesn't.

Which it still didn't. Paul grunted, and reached down to a little round cap near the gearshift (I SWEAR TO YOU THIS WAS MAGIC I NEVER SAW ANYTHING THERE BEFORE, NO LITTLE CAP AT THAT SPOT), he lifted the cap and put the key in there and it loosened the gear thing and he took my car right out of park.

"Wow," I said, "I never saw that little round thing before."

He grunted again, humbly but proudly.

I gave Paul a twenty dollar bill. I always tip the AAA guys plenty because I want them to like me. I am afraid they will eventually get onto me, that I use my ex-husband's New York AAA number and I sort of don't mention when I call the roadside service that I don't live in New York. I worry about this deception a little bit every time they come out to tow me, or crack open a front window when I locked my keys inside. (These are events which occur frequently enough to make the AAA yearly fees that my ex husband pays an incredible bargain, I am pretty sure).

"Wow," said Paul, "20 dollars! That's real generous."

"Merry Christmas," I replied.

"Hey,you know what?" said Paul. "I have something for you, too." He reached into his truck and pulled out a pair of neon orange work gloves. "Look at the price tag," he said. “What does it say?”

It said $10.99.

"Yeah," he said "It says 10.99, but I got 17 pair for a dollar each down at Ardreys. Not a dollar for each glove, a dollar for each PAIR. And I want you to have one. I mean one pair. Then, if you're out walkin' at night wearing them black clothes everybody can see you. And right now they can keep you warm if you insist on walkin' home when I am a perfect gentleman and I said I would take you."

"Thanks,Paul." I said. "Actually I have to cut up a pine tree this afternoon, and I don't have a saw, so I could use a pair of work gloves like this"

"Well, don't your husband or your boyfriend have a saw?" he asked, giving me a hopeful look. "Speaking of which, I got a saw."

"Uh...." I replied. "With these gloves, I will be just fine!"

"Are you married?" he asked me.

"Excuse me," said a timid voice in a Spanish accent behind us. "My car is broke down, can you tow me too, mister?"

I turned around and there was one of the guys who mows my lawn. "Hi," I said.
Thinking, "whew!"

"Buenos dias,senora," he said. "You know me? I take care of your house!"

"Sure," I said "I know who you are."

"Funny to meet you here," he grinned.

"Even funnier that our cars both broke down in the same parking lot." I pointed out.

Paul was all business now, he radioed in the new request and told my lawn mowing guy that someone could be there in ten minutes or less. This poor guy, who apparently does not belong to AAA, was offered a price of 50 bucks to hook up and 3 dollars a mile after that. He said he would pay cash. Yikes, he must be an illegal alien.

Then Paul crawled under my car and attached some chains from his truck, pushed some other button on his truck and it scooped up my car. I waved at him as he drove resignedly away without lovely me by his side. If he were just a little better looking, he would have been giving up too easily. Anyway, he seemed like a very sweet man.

It was cold, but it was a beautiful day, with only a little bit of wind. Halfway along one of the tree-lined streets, my cell rang.

"Where are you?" said Joe Hatfield.

"Walking along 18th Street I said. "On my way home from the Super Saver."

"I am coming to get you," he replied.

A block later, my phone rang again. "What happened?" asked Atticus Finch.

"Everything is under control," I said.

"Did you call AAA?"

"Yes I did, they are towing it to the....now." I interruped myself.

"Are you having it towed to the Ford place?"

"Would I do a thing like that?"

"It's going to cost you at least five hundred bucks," he said.

A block later my phone rang again. It was Lou from Bicker's Ford. "I got your car here." he said.

"Great," I said. "What do you think is wrong?"

"Well," he said, "we won't know for sure until Monday. But I wanted to let you know that I tried to put the key in the ignition and you were right, it won't turn."

"Thanks Lou," I said. Men.

I heard a honk. It was Joe Hatfield, coming up behind me.

"Some rescue," he complained. "You are three blocks from your house."

"Hey," I said, with a sudden inspiration. Do you have any kind of saw in that pickup truck?"

"Maybe," he said, and I climbed into his truck.

I love Oklahoma, all the men drive around in pickup trucks with handy stuff behind the drivers seat. Yes, he had a little hand saw that was just right to cut up the branch in my yard. He was much too well dressed to be sawing up a big branch like that, but he did a beautiful job without worrying about the dirt in my yard or the sap grease from the tree.

He helped me carry the trunk parts down to the curb, and he helped me put all the other bits with fir on them up on my porch. Then, apparently satisfied that he had been needed, he hurried back to his pickup and drove off without coming in my house again. He literally burned rubber at the end of my street. I figured maybe he was scared I might offer him some more wine.

I spent several hours fixing my Christmas decorations. I put red ornaments on the two little branches which I had in flower vases. Then I set up the big pieces in a Rubbermaid trashcan full of water. My "tree" is shaped very haphazardly, but I like it. I had Christmas music playing on the Classical music station, and I put the leftover ornaments on it from my childhood that my sister sent me three years ago after she took all the good ones. I made some egg nog with real whisky in it and as the sun set, I sat in front of the fire, watching the blue and green and red tree lights from Walmart ooze on and off, twinkling into each others colors. I was thinking about Atticus Finch’s beautiful sister who died in a Christmas tree light fire, so I reminded myself to turn them off before I went to bed. My cell phone rang.

It was Frank. If you don’t know who Frank is read my column entitled “Happy Thanksgiving Act” in which he invited me to Thanksgiving dinner and introduced me to his new girlfriend who had taken over his kitchen and his entire life and was calling him hon after knowing him only a very short time. Something that I would never have the nerve to do to a man. Which might be why I live with cats.

“Hi,” said “Frank, “I got a question for you.”

“OK” I said, pretending not to care that he was calling me or why.

“I am going to an evening event,” he said. “and they say 'black tie optional.' What can I wear?”

“A dark suit is fine,” I said. “You wore a dark suit to your nephew’s wedding. That would be perfect.”

“I don’t have that suit any more.”

“You wore a dark blue blazer and a really nice looking grey shirt a couple of years ago when we had wine on the roof of the Art Museum,” I recalled. “That’s probably OK."

“I know, but….”

“These days people don’t get all crazy about what you wear.” I said soothingly.

"Do you always have to interrupt me?" he said.

"Sorry," I said. What were you trying to ask me?"

“Can I wear my Christmas tie with Santa Claus on it? Or should I wear a more conservative tie?”

“Gosh,” I said, “That would depend on what kind of event this is. What kind of event is it?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s a dinner dance for singles.”

Huh?

“Huh?” I said. “You are going to a singles dinner dance? What about your girlfriend?”

“Oh, I got rid of her on Friday,” he said.

“You got rid of her?”

“Yeah.”

Oh my God, maybe he dumped her because she took over his kitchen, I thought. Maybe my instincts were correct all along and women should not get proprietary about men or their kitchens. But if this was true, how come they always dump me when I never do stuff like that? On the other hand, I was pretty sure that I lasted longer than her in his life. Twice.

I was dying to know exactly what happened, but given that he is a man from Oklahoma who drives a pickup truck (two pickup trucks come to think of it) and may not be much further along the evolutionary tree when it comes to communications than Paul the AAA guy, it was fairly clear to me that eliciting the skinny on this bustup might require some advanced and highly subtle conversational probes.

“Why did you get rid of her?” I asked.

No answer.

“…Hello?” I said.

“I’m here,” he said.

“I mean, she seemed, uh….” I eliminated a few stock words one might use to describe somebody's girlfriend, such as lovely, interesting, smart…..”…she seemed….very nice…”

“She was very nice,” he said.

“So why did you get rid of her?”

“She had herpes.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought," he said. "Oh.”

“Gosh.” I replied. “She didn’t seem all that modern to me.” Actually I was wondering how a conventional, clingy woman her age had scored so many men. Men who got around enough to have herpes that is.

“She said she had it since she was a teenager,” he explained. “And after that she was married five times. So she didn’t think I would be upset about it after all of her husbands accepted it.”

“Five times?????” I sqwawked. “She was married five times?”

That insipid old boring woman who was practically smothering Frank in his kitchen right in front of his female friend with uncertain provenance had gotten five guys to marry her?

That did it. Proprietary maneuvers must work really really well! Most of the time, anyway.

On the other hand, they don't seem conducive to lasting relationships.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he said.

“Yeah.” I said “When did you find out she had herpes?”

“Just before Thanksgiving.”

Hmmmmmm, I thought, remembering his last minute invitation for me to join them in that hot little kitchen on that warm family holiday.

“So,” I said thoughtfully, thinking that women don't act like they own a guy before they have reason to believe they do. “I guess she didn’t tell you she had herpes before you had sex?”

“No, she didn't” he said.

“Then you were right to dump her,” I concluded.

It occurred to me now that he might get herpes too now, although I did not think it was the time and place to mention that. How insensitive would that be? Suggesting he might get herpes while he was picking out clothes for a singles dinner or calling me to discuss what he ought to wear while he was....

This was getting confusing. Why was he calling me, anyway?

“What if you get herpes now?” I asked him.

“I hope I don’t.” he said. “I read about it on the internet. I hope I don’t.”

“Maybe you should take her back if you get herpes,” I suggested meanly. "once the cat is out of the bag."

“I thought about what I should do for over a week." he said. "Then I made up my mind, and that was that. I don’t change my mind once it is made up.”

I decided not to remind him that he has been with me twice in the past.

“Frank, exactly how did you tell her she was fired? You didn’t actually say it was because of the herpes,did you?” I said.

“Sure I did. That’s exactly what I told her, I am very direct in the way I deal with people.”

Said the man who has dumped me three times without even letting me know I was dumped (even if he was not aware of it the third time).

Does that make me special? Or non-existent.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

I was genuinely interested in exactly how he got rid of that clingy woman, due, in part, to my irrepressible curiosity, that noble gift of fascination in life that I possess, which saves me every time from sadness and self pity. I was thinking about my column, too, since, if I am to dispense romantic advice, maybe I should try to learn something from other peoples breakups, especially when my own remain so obtuse and difficult to interpret. Also I am nosy.

“Well I told her that I had thought about it for more than a week, and the herpes thing was not going to work out for me. She wanted to talk about it. It went on for a couple of hours. She begged and pleaded.”

FYI for a much better method to handle these situations than begging and pleading, see my column entitled “Take Charge When Your Man dumps you.” If you follow my lead, you won’t get your man back, but you might gain his admiration while he runs screaming away from you.

“Wow," I marveled. "She begged and pleaded? How did that make you feel?”

I have always wanted to know what a guy really feels while he is dumping a clingy woman who is begging and pleading. Do they feel claustophobic? Do they feel flattered? And above all, what could she have done that WOULD have worked?

“Once I decide a thing, nothing’s gonna change my mind.” he repeated patiently.

Typical response. No information whatsoever about how he really felt.

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think that if you loved her you would not have minded about the herpes. I mean if you married her, you could both take Valtrex every day so what’s the big deal?”

“I thought about that,” he said. “I considered it. But it just didn’t work for me.”

Or his penis.

“Maybe you didn’t really love her.” I hinted.

“Hard to say.” He said. “And besides she was a financial disaster.”

“Oh in that case I perfectly understand,” I said. “If a woman is unemployed and has no money of her own saved up at this age, and no equity in real estate or anything, nothing at all after five divorces, you have to wonder how stable a person she is, and maybe you should not jump into marriage with her.”

“I don’t know anymore, I thought I wanted to get married,” he said, “but when I was married it was the worst years of my life. Sometimes its better if you are….”

There was a long silence.

“….the word is alone…” I said. "And you are right. Sometimes it's better."

“I don’t want to be alone, but it’s hard to find somebody,” he said. “somebody who is not a financial disaster or an emotional wreck or had five failed marriages, who is nice to be with….”

In other words, me!

But that was the problem. In other words me, but not in the words he was actually speaking. My name was not being used.

As usual, he was describing me as if I did not exist. Men do that all the time. Should I be jumping up and down and waving at them when they do that?

“Well, gotta go,” I said. “I advise you to wear anything you want tonight. Wear blue jeans. Wear boxer shorts. If they don't like it, point out that black tie is not required.

He laughed.

“….and by the way,” I continued, “I wish I had known you were about to get rid of your girlfriend, because I would have gotten her stuffing recipe.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s too bad. It was very good stuffing. And she made it from scratch.”

Who the hell did this guy think he was, and why was I beginning to think he might be correct?

“Bye Frank,” I said.

And probably not for the last time. You never know when one of your ex-boyfriends might call you.