MAN PURSE

Single in Sandpoint: Scarlette defeats the Dark Side

     What do you do when you’ve been unceremoniously dumped by a man who carries a purse? I tell you, of all the injuries I have had it seems as though pride takes the longest to heal.

     That said, I spent the first weekend post-Man Purse, lying on my couch eating flaming-hot Cheetos and watching “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” four times in a row.

     My pity party hit its apex when I started washing down the crunchy red delights with vanilla flavored non-dairy coffee creamer.

     I started imagining that Man Purse was probably – no, definitely – a Dark Sith Lord. Obviously I needed help. So I reached for the phone and dialed my love advisor back in the big city.

     When choosing a love advisor, you should go, ideally, for someone who is married. That way their own befuddled quest for affection from the opposite sex won’t get in the way of their ability to give you quality advice.

     You should also base your selection on your needs; if you need someone to baby you and enable you to continue making the same stupid mistakes choose your mother. Personally I need someone to keep me in check. I’m a little undisciplined.  

     My love advisor is like Charlie, and I am her Angel: she gives me dangerous missions and I try to handle them armed with aqua net and my feminine guile. That or she’s been married for a while, is inevitably bored and likes to live vicariously through me.
    I like her no-nonsense approach, and the fact that she’s actually a licensed therapist makes for some quality insight.

     It was Saturday night and I was on my third viewing of “Revenge of the Sith.” I dialed Charlie’s number, and, of course, she picked up the phone. (Note: another good reason to have a married love advisor – they’re never out tearing up the town when you need them).

     The short version of our conversation is as follows:
     Me: “I’m never going out again. I hate it here.”
     Charlie: “Put down the Cheetos Now.”
     Me: “I got dumped. He had a purse. I’ve been dropped in the middle of the wilderness and all my hick instincts have to be relearned if I’m ever going to make it. What am I going to do?”
     Charlie: “Are you serious? You’re just pissed off he dumped you first. You’re going to get off your ass and pound the pavement. You can’t let one hairless fool wielding a purse destroy our, I mean your, social life.”
     Me: “Okay….”

     I thought a lot about what Charlie said, and decided to brave the town the very next weekend.

     Almost immediately I regretted my decision.

     It was literally three degrees out and I had to wear a parka to keep from freezing on the short walk from my car to the 219.

     Pounding the pavement…what does Charlie know about that? If you pound the pavement in Sandpoint the antique cement will crack, creating a pothole the size of a VW bug. Then after you’ve driven over it for several months you have to spend hundreds of dollars fixing your vehicle’s alignment. Finally the city will cough up the dough to fill it in, but it’ll take at least six months. This is because, in Sandpoint, road construction can only be done during rush hour traffic.
    Entering the 219 for the first time in three weeks was like returning to a dark master, (no more “Star Wars” after this, I swear).

     It’s a great place to meet your friends and start out; cheap drinks, friendly waitstaff, a juke box so loud there’s no way you can hear the person next to you and, finally, there’s enough cigarette smoke to create a dreamy vignette.

     Ahhhhh…. after you get nice and inebriated at the 219, you can go dancing at the Eagles, if you are 45 years old – or wish to be – or at Synergy if you’d like to be ogled like a piece of meat.
    Call me filet mignon… I chose Synergy.   

     I danced with a fireman, a construction worker and a cowboy. If I could’ve found a man in a head dress I would have danced with all the village people.

     It was a good time, and the dancing and drinks were a far better elixir than flaming-hot Cheetos.  Not a bad start to the weekend; but not really a smorgasbord either.
    Where do you look for other single people in this town? Urban legend has it that there is a bevy of blond bachelors that live on North Boyer Avenue. Their utopian lifestyle nearly came to an end this fall when a freak garage fire claimed all their sporting goods, and out of the ashes rose a noble pug. It’s been said he’s since become their mascot.

     Or so the legend goes. Clearly this should be investigated.
    In the city, I would spend Saturdays using retail therapy to cope with dating travesties. There’s no “real” mall here and the closest thing to a shopping social scene is Wal-Mart.

     I can’t do downtown Sandpoint two nights in a row, so I braved what can only be described as the scariest parking lot on earth: Wal-Mart on a Saturday night.  

     My mission was to find light bulbs and an economy-sized bottle of conditioner. What I found instead was a date.

     I kid you not.

     I walked through the doors of Wal-Mart past the checkout line. At the end of the line closest to the produce there stood a very attractive gentleman. He was looking at me and smiling – like he knew me.  

     Shit… do I know him? Did I forget his name? Or even worse…Did I meet him last night and have forgotten already?

     I turned the corner, and started thinking. Charlie’s voice was ringing in my ears, Pound the pavement…. Use the force… Get off your ass.
   Well it just so happened that I was off my ass, and I had the feeling that someone might actually be staring at it, so I spun around in the aisle at and walked back toward the smiling man.

     “Excuse me, where do I know you from?”

     It’s as good an ice-breaker as I am willing to come up with in Wal-Mart.

     We had a short discussion about all the possible places we could have known each other from; and, apparently, we went to high school together.

     Then there was an awkward silence that he filled by blurting out, “Are you single, or what?”

     Holy There’s-Something-Going-Down-In-The-Produce-Department!

     I dropped my jaw. I think I said yes or showed him my bare ring finger, I honestly can’t remember what my response was.

     My thought was, “Damn, he has balls. What a pleasant deviation from the virginal, fashion-challenged, purse-toting set.”

     We exchanged numbers and next time I’ll let you know how this ends… or begins…. 

Until then, keep in mind that Wal-Mart really is one-stop shopping.
Scarlette Quille