I'm making this up. "Bob" is actually is a harmless guy who's currently perfecting the art of McGuyverism. His 13+ yr. old glasses broke, snapped right between the lenses, and he fixed them up with a bit of hollow model wire and some glue. They broke again, so he improved his repairs with some sodering iron magic and a nail file. I wouldn't put it past "Bob" to eventually craft himself a new pair of glasses out of twisty ties and Dr. Pepper (yum-yum) bottles.
Why doesn't "Bob" get himself new glasses? Who knows? I don't. Maybe he really wants to be known as McGuyver "Bob". Once he made a lamp with a lightbulb-heat propelled spinning shade out of watercolor paper, copper wire, some nails and a 2x4. It didn't last--and was rather a fire hazard--but that shade spun for about 2 minutes or so. "Bob" likes lamps.
My other friend, let's call him Ripp, doesn't. Ripp likes African music, Guiness (eh, nuthin' special) and museums. Ripp also likes me. I'm "Ripp's hobby. Sort of like some people like chess, except Ripp doesn't get to play me, much as he'd like to. And why not? Because Ripp is generic and scrawny.
That was mean. Mean but true. I just talked to Ripp about half an hour ago. He had just gotten home from hanging with the guys in the band--Ripp is in a band; he's the drummer--and was happily sloshed on Guiness, which is giving him a sorry little beer gut, btw. So in his wankered state, he gets online, finds me minding my own business and interrupts to ask me if I want to go have coffee.
I go, "what? now?" "No," sez Ripp, "whenever." Which pretty much amounts to now, which isn't an option because right now I'm doing this and I doubt Ripp could drive himself anywhere just now. After I refuse, he asks me lots of pointless questions--pointles to me, obviously--and ends up using the words "nudge" and "wink" a lot, along with that tacky horned smiley, like so ---> };), at least six times. I'm actually impressed he found all the right symbols for it, unless whatever IM prog he's using has a drop down menu, in which case I downgrade from impressed to amused.
Ripp never asks me for drinks because he thinks I don't drink, which is incorrect. I drink but don't get drunk. I hate being drunk, except on sake, which is about the happiest drunk there is. Used to be vodka (Grey Goose from the ice box, though there is that gallon of Smirnoff I'm not s'posed to mention), lotsa ice, twist o' lime, then a short-lived martini craze. Gin martini, splash vermouth, olive juice, olive x 2 (so dirty and so good). Not vodka, never vodka. That's for cast parties and funerals.
Which brings me back to Ripp. He always asks me for coffee. We smoke and talk until the shop closes. He flirts with me sometimes, in a stilted adolescent way. But it always ends there. Supposedly he's hung like a rhino, which is what a mutual friend, let's call her Olga, told me once when she was pissed on Mudslides (ewww). She knew because back when they were both in their teens, Ripp had a habit of streaking at parties. No, this wasn't in the 70s. The only streaking Ripp was doing in the 70s was in his diapers.
These days Ripp streaks no more. He sits on the sidelines and watches most of his male friends have wives, careers and babies, sometimes in that order. His female friends, myself not included, he hugs a lot. Me, he doesn't hug, except to say good-bye once in a while. I like it that way. It's the lack of physical contact that defines our relationship.
Hey, not bad. In less than an hour I've gone from having private thoughts on "Bob" and Ripp, to sharing said thoughts. How special. I should file this under Time Productively Wasted.
Unlike all those hours I spent getting Mortimer to maximize his Body skill...
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