Suds And Scrutiny
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman
Your Darling, Your Diva, Your One True Love shares an apartment and a phone bill with the brainy and relentless Paulie Gonzalez. Paulie's recent work-related escapades have taken him across the Potomac and the Atlantic. This is murder on the household budget. When conversation costs $8 a minute, you quickly learn brevity:
"Fine. You?"
"Fine. Work?"
"Fine. Project?"
"Fine. Friends?"
"Fine. Food?"
"Awful. Cat?"
"Fine. Weather?"
"Gray. Writing?"
"Yes. Pubs?"
"Everyone. Sleeping?"
"Nah. You?"
"Nah. Home Saturday."
"Can't wait."
Click!
Maintaining a household while one of its two human members is regularly absent is no picnic. It requires a long term commitment to monitoring the expenses and an understanding that the person left at home will find this situation amusing. Your Dearest, more Ozzy and Sharon than Ozzie and Harriet, chose this division of responsibilities:
Still, sometimes Paulie's home for 24 hours to launder his Calvin Klein skivvies and replaces a head gasket. It's a visit brief enough to make a less patient gal consider taking out her formal stationery and penning a plaintive note:
Dear Mr. Srinipasqualebenbenhashinian-Smith,
Please send Paulie home long enough to fix my ailing automobile.
Sincerely,
The Lady Taking Cabs All Over New Brunswick, And Have You Heard How Those Things Jangle?
We learn from these experiences what we wish to, and what we must. Paulie learned Europeans derive their understanding of Americans from television, particularly from our most civilized representative Jerry Springer. While Paulie's youthful antics sometimes ended up on the police blotter, he was terribly amused by the impressions of local drunks:
"Americans are so violent!"
"What?"
"Everyone's got guns! Do ye have a gun?"
"What?"
"Did ye ever shoot anyone?"
And in Washington, D.C., Paulie visited the Reagan Building, currently filled wall-to-wall with tributes to the former President. "It's kind of like that scene in that movie. Great Communicator Great Communicator. Malkovich Malkovich…"
Oh, help!
©2004 Robin Pastorio-Newman