The Trailing Edge

In my teenage years I discovered the cure to the They don't love me back dilemma: Horoscopes.  In my pre-teen days, I suffered from love sickness. The adults around me called it puppy love. It's only now that i realized that they were not referring to the young girls as puppies but to me as puppy. That how boys are trained into men are dogs.  I remember my first love, Laura. Actually there were two Lauras. I remember Laura the First as very pretty and I remember lots of wonderful baby fat. She was the class queen.  Since I was not the class king, she did not love me back. A dilemma that haunted me deep into my teenage years. I might add that I do not remember Laura the Second other than her name. The horoscopes was on the same page of the newspaper as the comics, although I had not noticed the horoscopes before. My horoscope that day said auspicious day for love . One thought led to another and I ended up in the library borrowing Linda Goodman's Love Signs . ...

It was the day before Valentine's Day and Harry was walking back to his desk at the end of his lunch hour. He chanced to look down the hallway and saw the curvy figure of Sally, a pretty administrative assistant chatting with Max, one of the production analysts. Harry had often seen Sally and Max enjoy lunch together. They seemed to be good friends. He wondered if they kept company after work too. Irritated by this tête-à-tête, Harry changed his direction and headed toward them. As he approached, he overheard Max, "...and I like the paddle shifter. It's cool." Harry interrupted, "What car is that?" Max answered, "BMW 650i." Harry said, "Man, that's an expensive car. Who would spend a year or so salary on a car? It's a foolish waste of money." Max shrugged and replied, "Some people like that sort of thing." Harry said, "Absurd. A car is a depreciating asset. In the end, you have nothing." Sally ...

           For a thousand years, writers have been sitting in coffee shops (and bars) writing stories. It's early morning, 5am or so, and I am waiting in Starbucks for the Barista to prepare my commuting coffee. I see this fidgety guy at a table, let's call him Joe, and I start to make up a story about him. Joe’s arms rested on the table holding his cell phone. He looked up and stared out of Starbuck’s window. He watched the sparse number of pedestrians passing by. About what he expected for early morning. He looked down at the picture of her, the one he secretly took of her in the office. Her hair was up in a bun showing off her beautiful face and cleavage. If there was a flaw, it was her nose, a little bulbous. Could use a bit of reshaping and a wee bit less width. Joe smiled. At least better looking than the last girl he perused. And what a leech she had been at the end too. Couldn’t accept when it’s over, it’s over. ” Your turn baby,” he wh...