Facelift
Page 6
CHAPTER 6
I can run faster with my dress up than you can with
your pants down.
I'm catching a cold. No. I have caught a cold, and now I am feeling the symptoms. I trace this back to the cinema. The movie was Shakespeare in Love. Now, if you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it. It is well written, nicely paced, and well acted. Unfortunately, the people sitting behind Kathy and me were obese, obnoxious, and ill. They both suffered from some sort of upper respiratory infection that presented itself with irritating frequency on the back of our heads in the form of a viral mist from rumbling coughs and sneezes. We would have, should have, moved to another seat, but the theater was nearly full and so we did our best to cope with an uncomfortable situation. We covered our faces with our coats, tried to avoid breathing when they were coughing, and finally in a last ditch attempt to stave off the viral bombardment, I placed my umbrella over my shoulder and opened it in response to a thundering cough. The offenders didn't say a word—a sure sign of guilt.
What's wrong with people! How can a person, in this case two, come to a theater full of people and cough, wheeze, and sneeze through the entire show. What's wrong with people! And, what about barking dogs! There is nothing more disruptive to one's sleep than a barking dog. You wake up in a rage and since you don't own a gun you search your house for Halcion to stuff in a hot dog that you can fling over the fence. Of course, you end up doing nothing; rather you lie in bed with your ears twitching like a rabbit, and even if the dog quiets down you still don't get any rest because you lie there anxiously waiting for the next round of barking. And, naturally, while you are lying there, you wonder why the owners of the dog don't do anything. Eventually, you get around to mentioning to the owner that his/her dog's barking, which vaguely resembles the sound of Godzilla in heat, kept you awake. "Oh, that's strange I slept perfectly well, didn't hear a thing." Someone needs to do a scientific study to find out why dog owners can never hear there own dogs bark. It must have something to do with a part of the brain shutting down the minute you buy a dog. Or perhaps it speaks to an inescapable fact, most people are jerks!
So, at any rate, thanks to someone's discourteous behavior, I have a cold! When I have a cold, it is hard to remember what it is like to be well. Plus, since I remember in great detail virtually all the previous colds I have had, it is easy for me to convince myself that I am a chronic cold sufferer. (In actuality, I have a cold about every 12 months.)
Yes, I can remember colds with exquisite detail. Take for example the big cold of 1973. In 1973 I was teaching at a major midwest university. During the winter break, a group of us decided to drive a motor home to San Diego, purportedly to attend a conference. We decided to travel straight through, a journey of about 36 hours. I hadn't been on board for more than a few hours when one of our party started showing signs of a cold. The coughing and sneezing got worse, and soon one after another of the group started showing signs of a cold. I kept trying to isolate myself from the cold sufferers. I was determined not to be sick in San Diego. By the time we reached Nevada, almost everyone was sick--but me. I kept my head out the window so much I started to feel like the group's pet dog. When we arrived in San Diego I was the only one not showing symptoms of a cold. "Yay for my immune system!" I checked into my hotel, got comfortable and just as I was about to meet the group for dinner, I noticed a dry tickle in my throat and tightness in my chest. I spent the next two days in bed with a fever, coughing and aching. By this time most of the other members of our group were over the worst part of their colds and enjoying the beach! Fortunately, my cold abated quickly, and I joined my group.
When I sensed that I was recovering from the cold, I called a friend I once dated and asked if she would like to get together. She replied in the affirmative and volunteered to pick me up, and as an added bonus she invited me to stay at her place until I was to return back east. Now, let’s put things in perspective, she was an actress who was cursed with a stunning resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. The only work she got seemed based on her similarity to a cinematic legend, otherwise she was a part-time student and model. She also still liked me, and that may have been because I never made reference to her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, and I genuinely liked her, as they say, as a person. Since most my group was in Ocean Beach, and since she lived in Pacific Beach, she suggested she pick me up at the place where my group was staying.
What an amazing sense of superiority and well-being I had when she strode into the room. Mouths were agape, grown men were stuttering as they watched this goddess in the off-white blouse and dark brown Capri pants stride into the room and slide up next to me in a suggestive greeting. I could have fallen in love with that girl, but at the time I was operating on a simple axiological dictum, “The only obstacle between you and the next woman is the one you are with.” After a few days of rapture, I left and returned to Illinois. She shortly left San Diego to join the Auroville commune in southern India.
I never saw her again. I doubt that I had anything to do with her decision to leave California for India, it was most likely a function of looking like a cinematic goddess, and neither wanting or being capable of meeting the stereotypes foisted upon her by an adulating and endless audience. But, that was then and this is now, and the cold I have now doesn’t want to give up as easily as that time in San Diego. And, there is no golden haired beauty to tend to my weary bones and dripping nose.
I always seem to catch colds at the most inopportune time--like when you are about to go on your first date with an incredible woman that you have lusted after for months. And, what do you do, you pretend you don't have a cold, and you continue to pretend until only a fool would believe you are having an allergy attack. You take so many antihistamines that not only do your sinuses dry up but your eyes start to shrivel and roll around in their sockets. And, if she catches your cold, and you are lucky, she will start to show symptoms before she catches on that you gave it to her, and then you can relax and blame her for giving you a cold. Now, I'm not saying I have done that, but I have heard of people who have--Jerry Seinfeld for example.
It seems that no matter how hard you try to organize your life so that barking dogs or rhino viruses don't mess up your life, you just can't win. It's like Marie, the entertaining waitress at the Corner Stone said when talking about her encounter with an over aggressive suitor, "I can run faster with my skirt up than you can with your pants down." No matter how fast you run, you never can catch the life that you want. There will always be a barking dog or some nasty virus that catches you with your pants down.
And, so I have a cold, I Chesterfield Belton Oldenberger, a paragon of good health practices, have fallen victim to a virus, discourtesy of two discourteous theater-goers. Yes, I know: lots of fluids and bed rest. But would someone please do something about that dog! The good thing is that since I haven't had a date in months and have no immediate hope of ending this sexual drought, I don't have to wrestle with the moral dilemma of having to decide whether or not to try and conceal the miserable fact that I have a cold from some attractive woman. Maybe getting older has its virtues. I’d like to think that I am sufficiently mature to keep my cold to myself regardless of the circumstances. And, there is an upside: now that I have some free time, I suppose I could log some time on my novel!