Thursday, May 25, 2006

Heartbreak In Frederick

"The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken." ~ Homer

I was looking for a story I heard about on the Laura Ingraham show but can't find it. Is about how the 9th circuit court of appeals in California ruled that it is ok to practice Islam in public schools in California. This is the same court that ruled that schools could not say the pledge of allegiance because the words, "under God" is in it.

I was going to post a blog entry about the obvious hypocrisy, but I need more information and I can't find the story. So that will have to wait.

So, since I can't write about that, I will tell an amusing anecdote about something that really happened to me last Friday night.

I went to a dance club in Frederick, Maryland. I do not go to clubs and bars ordinarily, and I rarely drink. But circumstances conspired to draw me to this particular place at this particular time. At least, that's what I kept telling myself as I drove to Frederick.

The circumstances? Well, I was driving home from Lititz, Pennsylvania, and was detoured away from the highway by a 12 car pile up on the interstate, in Harrisburg, PA. I do not know my way around in Harrisburg, but eventually found myself on U.S. Highway 15 heading south. There are several places along 15 that I could have turned west to go directly home but I was absolutely certain that I was being led to Past Times Cafe in Frederick. Ok, that, and the fact that I know a lady that frequents the place.

Once there, I quickly located my friend, who soon let me know she wasn't interested in someone as old and broke as me. So, I moved from stool to stool, trying to get lucky, but there wasn't gum under any of them.

It soon became apparent that my time would be wasted there if I didn't engage in the time honored ritual of dancing, something else I rarely do, and when I do, I resemble a fish out of water, with my thrashing and flopping about.

So, I set about the task of searching for a likely vict.....er ...candidate to dazzle with my footwork and charm.

Armed with the courage of the accumulated effects of two bourbon and cokes, which to my tea-totaling brain was equivalent to most people drinking an entire bottle of rotgut in it's effects, I eventually approached a beautiful blonde, about half my age and asked her politely if she would care to dance.

The following is a true re-creation of our entire conversation:

Me: Would you like to dance?

Hot Babe: (with undisguised disdain) No, thanks, I'm an engineer.

Me: (incredulous) Oh. So, you drive trains?

Increasingly not-so hot-Babe: (frostily) I am a Mechanical engineer.

Me: (with alacrity) Oh, so you just work on them!

Hours later, when I awoke, I questioned the veracity of my belief in fate.

10 comments:

Lone Ranger said...

I found a couple of sources on the Islam story: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25997 and http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/byronislam.htm There is also this: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21197

Just google California Schools Islam. I got about 350,000 hits.

What an odd thing for her to say. Not that anyone would ever ask me to dance or that I would ever go anywhere where that possibility could occur. But I imagine if I responded with "No thanks, I'm a journalist," it would be enough to put off even a female serial killer.

Mark said...

LOL! Sheila didn't get it!

Gayle said...

"No thanks. I'm an Engineer." That is an extremely weird thing for her to say when being asked to dance. You are lucky she didn't want to dance with you...

Amusing post, Mark, although I'll bet you weren't amused at the time. :)

Gayle said...

Regarding that story about the 9th circuit court of appeals in CA ruling it's ok to practice Islam in pulic schools; I hadn't heard about that. If true, then California has gone completely down the tubes. That is horrendous, and that's the best thing I can say about it.

I will be interested in reading your post on this when you do one. I would appreciate it if you would send me an e-mail when you have finished that post. Thanks!

Lone Ranger said...

By the way, I have two sons. One is a robotics engineer. He went to private schools. One still aspires to be a rock star. He went to California public schools. Both have IQs of 145 -- matching mine. Were I to have the chance to do it over again, I'd sell pencils on the street rather than send my second son to California public schools.

Al-Ozarka said...

Another link to the "California school thingy, Mark.

Francis Lynn said...

Gee :( guess ya haven't visited my blog. Posted on the 9th Circuit decision the other day with a link to the story. Included is a story about a school removing "In God We Trust" from nickels.

Pamela Reece said...

Wanna hear a really good one I used once when a guy asked me to dance? "I have to warn you, I'm a lawyer." Talk about scaring people off!!

tugboatcapn said...

I don't get it.

Don't Engineers dance?

Was the woman who worked on the trains a mechanical woman? (I was not aware that we had perfected that technology...) (Maybe that's why she couldn't dance...)

I once went out with a girl who told me that a couple of years before, she had gotten interested in Wicca.

"That's GREAT!" I said. "I think that's really cool!"

"Really?" she said. "Most people who are not into it are a little bit spooked when I tell them that..."

"No! I love it! I replied. "I think it's great how you guys can make furniture out of straw! Could you knit me a couch?"

She didn't think it was funny.

Mark said...

Pamela, I believe this woman was being intentionally condescending to me... Personally,if I want to scare a woman off, all I have to do is say, "I love you...I want you to have my children."

Sometimes they leave skidmarks.