Meeting Mom

The King of Produce agreed to entertain my irascible foul-mouthed mother last Thursday afternoon. He KNEW she would like him as most old broads, likely, do. The man is charming, if not completely disingenuous, to a fault.

He amused us driving a small boat throughout Newport Harbor (the largest recreational harbor on the West Coast). In no time my mother and The King were laughing uncontrollably. He was blowing her kisses -- it was ridiculous.

Then she started the “sales pitch”. “Oh no”, I thought. “Not the SALES PITCH”.

My mother has been trying to sell me into sexual slavery/marriage since I was 18. The sales pitch sounds like this: “Charmaine is a very intelligent girl, did you know she used to be a ballerina? She was in the Nutcracker. When she was young her father used to say, “most people walk on the ground but Charmaine walks a foot above”. ”When we walk down the road everyone looks at her, both men and women, she is completely oblivious”.

I blacked out due to acute, rapid onset mortification.

Still, it was fun. He and I went for drinks later that night. A change had taken place. I lost power.

Something was off. Who was I kidding something was always off. Hell, this was a man that left me in restaurants.

When he hadn’t called by Saturday (today) my mother went from planning the wedding to “Fuck him”.

Then, as if on cue, The Gardener showed up. He is a single, masculine, affable man. He is a friend of my neighbor. He agreed to help her start a vegetable garden in a small patch of land we share. I accidentally ran into him, literally, as her young son chased him with a tire pump. The boy blasted The Gardener with air pockets after which he pretended to be shot. He kept dying and dying while complimenting the lad on his aim. (A single man being kind to a child...be still my beating heart.)

He walked back to my house, trying to catch my eye. He suggested we meet Tuesday so he could “supervise” ME during the planting stage.

He asked me to take his number. You know, in case I need help with “the vegetables”.
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Trust me, I’m gonna need help.