Psycho Chicks

 One of my favorite bloggers is Wirecutter, over at Knuckledraggin My Life Away.  If you haven't read him, find a free half-hour and go see him - he writes an excellent blog.

One recurring title from the Wirecutter is Psycho Chicks - We've All Had 'Em.  Maybe, maybe not, but by the time you've hit forty if you haven't met one you aren't living right.

Now me, I'm old enough and wise enough to know better than to get mixed up with a psycho chick, but every once in a while even someone with my experience gets blindsided.

Warning: If you're some kind of feminazi whack job or a left wing tool or something - save yourself a lot of grief and Xanax by visiting your favorite loonie lefty site.  Forget you ever came here.  The rest of you can keep reading.

Back in the 1980s I worked at a nuclear power station during a refueling outage.  The place employed a lot of contractors, most of the direct employees being idiots.  That means a lot of guys from out of town who made a lot of money (they were all hourly) and who, from time to time, wanted entertainment.  They got together and decided a strip club was in order.  Me, being local as well as somewhat, shall we say, lacking in moral convictions, was consulted as the local strip club oracle.

My best advice to these gentlemen was to stay away from the downtown Canal Street and Cocaine Alley area, and go to the mob owned joint out on Telegraph road.  The place was cleaner, for one thing.  Safer for another.  They wouldn't listen, and insisted I take this Hawaiian guy out for a scouting expedition.  We'll call him Palm Tree, or PT for short.

Speaking of short, I'll cut right to the chase.  There were three joints in a two block area back then.  We parked, and I told him that rule number one was do not go anywhere by yourself.  Rule two, if I say it's time to go, it's time to go.  Don't argue, just get up and head for the door.  Okay?  Okay.

We go to the Body Shop, which you can find by the smell half a block away.  We had one beer, one lap dance, then it was time to go.  Next stop was Aladdin's Lamp, which featured nude girls but no alcohol.  Vee-Eye-Pee dances were available in the back.  We had one coke and one lap dance.  PT now smells like cheap perfume covering an outhouse.  Then it's onward to the third joint - I can't remember the name of the place.

We get seated and one of the dancers comes over and sits next to PT.  She's half in the bag and wants to talk.  I think her name was Penny.

Penny: So how are you?

PT: Oh, I'm fine.  You?

Penny: Fine.  Well, I could be better, you know?

Jack: Tell me.

Penny: Huh?

PT: Tell me.

Penny: Oh, yeah, well, you know, I think respect is important.

PT: I agree.

Penny: Yeah.  You gonna buy me another drink?

PT: Sure.

Penny: Okay.  I kinda like you.  But I think respect is important.  You don't got respect in a relationship, you don't got anything.  You know?

PT: Oh yeah.

Penny: Yeah.  People don't respect you, I say shoot 'em.

PT: What?

Penny: My boyfriend didn't respect me, so I shot him.  He didn't die or anything...

Jack: Time to go.

And we did.  We brought the scouting report back to the office the next day, and the guys opted for the club on Telegraph Road.

What brought that particular memory to mind is this.  Yesterday I got a complaint about the landscaping crew not trimming a bush that needed it, so I got my camera and went out to see what was up.  Sure enough, the bush is overgrown and needs a haircut.  I take a few shots and the lady of the house comes out and brings her attitude with her.

"What are you doing out here, taking pictures of my house?" she asks, advancing on the errant senior citizen with a clear forty rod gleam in her eye.

I explain what I'm up to, then remind her that I met her once before.  She smiles and becomes a little friendlier.  She's from South Carolina, and whatever happens in South Carolina stays in South Carolina.  I take the hint and talk about something else, like the weather.  We talk for a while, and she's nice looking, and friendly, and she smiles when she looks at me.  Somehow we get around to home safety, and I ask her if she keeps her shotgun loaded.

"I'm not allowed to have guns," she replies.

"You're not?  Why is that?"

"Oh, I shot my boyfriend," she says, kind of casually.

"Ah..."

"I didn't kill him - just winged him," she continues.

"Oh, well, in that case..."

"Yeah."

Time to go.