I
Am Now A Dirty Old Man
George
Motz
First
of all, let me tell you that I don’t feel like I am a dirty
old man. I feel that I am innocent of any and all charges. So
therefore I don’t deserve that label, but it has been placed
upon my undeserving head just the same. Contrary to public opinion,
I am also not a misogamist. I may be a ‘Back-sliding Methodist,’
but never a misogamist. I love women. And I think that marriage
is a wonderful institution. But then who wants to be institutionalized
at my age?
But
labeled I am. And I will leave it up to the court of public opinion
as to whether I deserve this title or not.
It
started out all so simple. A few forms needed to be filled out.
A friend and I were on a buying trip at a warehouse I frequent,
and we were directed to the desk of a new secretary, a very well
endowed young lady. Now, don’t get me wrong. I was a dairy
farmer, and I know fully well the function and purpose of these
mammary appendages, and normally, I would not stare, as I firmly
believe that if you have seen one, you have seen them both.
Therein
lies the start of the problem. She was wearing what one could
call a "barbed-wire" outfit. It sort of protects the
property, but does little to obstruct the view. It was low-cut,
so low that it could be best defined as the cut-out of an exclamation
point, with her naval being the dot on the bottom! You get the
picture? When we were kids, we called them Atomic Bomb outfits—Big
Cloud, and lots of danger of fall-out!
I
have been at this establishment many times previously, but now
they were demanding some new tax forms to be filled out, and I
was directed to the desk of this young woman, and she had me take
a seat, as she leaned over and withdrew the needed tax forms from
a lower desk drawer.
Now
I’m not trying to be vulgar, but I issued a silent prayer
when she shut the desk drawer, as she was bent over so far that
there was eminent possibility of bodily damage, and she must have
been near-sighted as well, to be that close to her work. That
outfit and that desk drawer were an accident waiting to happen,
to my way of thinking.
Luckily,
she suffered no bodily damage in retrieving the needed tax forms,
and now, to my amazement, she stood up and leaned over the desk
and pointed out what parts of the form she needed me to fill out.
It
was at that time that I was aware of my neck becoming very warm.
My traveling companion, who is over ten years older than I, was
now standing behind my chair, and he was breathing, hard, down
the back of my neck, as he obviously wanted to see that I was
filling in those tax forms properly.
In
fact, he was leaning over so far that he was pushing my body even
more forward, so that I was almost lying on top of the desk. I
was afraid that, as he is older than about 98% of the population,
he might have a coronary right there and then. The coroner could
rule it "Death By Excessive Cleavage."
I
tried to fill in the needed spaces, as the young woman remained
leaned over, supervising me, and when I happened to glance up,
it was sort of very revealing. For those of you who don’t
know me, I am near-sighted, very near-sighted, to the point of
being legally blind without heavily corrected glasses, but at
that moment, I felt like a kid again, a very young kid.
Now
I have never been too good with forms, of the paper type, and
not really trusting the government, I tried to read what was before
me, and she stayed leaned over, unintentionally distracting me,
as I tried to peruse those proper papers.
You
have to realize that I was sitting down, leaning over her desk.
She was standing up, leaning over her desk. My friend was standing
up, leaning over my back, and forcing my body even further up
on her desk. And I was getting an eyeful.
Finally,
the distracting ordeal was over. I beat a hasty retreat from the
office, dragging my reluctant friend behind me. Outside her office,
I turned to him and said, "Have you ever seen anything like
that before?"
"Not
since I was a baby!" he replied.
We
got to the warehouse where I am known and one of my acquaintances
there said, "So, did you get to see the boss’s new secretary?"
"Yup!"
I reply.
"You
know, he hired her just after he and his wife separated."
"No
kidding!" I exclaimed, sort of figuring out the whole arrangement,
as she didn’t seem too competent.
Well,
now the whole thing was behind me, or so I thought, until I had
to go to town the other day. I don’t normally go to town,
as I am rural, and we have a tavern where farmers and rural people
sort of hang out. My friend hangs out in town mostly. But yesterday,
I needed something from town and so I swung into the local diner
to grab a soda and catch up on local gossip.
"You
are a dirty old man, you know that?" came a comment from
a normally friendly waitress, who was filling up the half-empty
coffee cups of my companions.
"I’m
not that old," I retort, not knowing what had brought about
this venomous remark from her, outside of my normal miserly tip.
"I
heard about you looking down the front of that young woman’s
dress," she continued. "And that makes you a dirty old
man, in my book."
All
my coffee drinking companions quickly agreed with her.
"Me?"
I protested. "I’m the innocent one here. Probably the
only one."
"But
you looked!" she countered. "Didn’t you?"
"You
couldn’t miss them," I said. "Look at it this way.
She was displaying them—willingly. If she didn’t want
anyone to look at them, then why would she wear an outfit like
that? I had to be there. She put herself in a position
where I couldn’t miss them. Would you think that I was rude
if I hadn’t looked, if it had been you wearing that outfit
instead of her, and acting as she did?"
Ever
get a lap full of hot coffee? Thought of going to the Emergency
Room. I think I have second degree burns, where one doesn’t
want them. But who knows? Maybe at the hospital, they had heard
of my episode at the warehouse, too!
***
George
Motz is a retired farmer with a dozen books in print. CONFESSIONS
OF A COUNTRY BOY! is a group of shorter works. DWCM-51 is another
journey into humor. COON CRICK CROSSING is the book which gets
most often mentioned by the good folks out in Fox Creek, as they
threaten to sue him over it.
©
George Motz