My Unfunny Valentine
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to give all of you the gift of NOT writing about Valentine’s Day.
Nor will I bore you with my thoughts on love, romance, candle-lit dinners, or any other mushy-gushy, touchy-feely, ridiculous notions……….Why?
Because Valentine’s Day is a lame holiday. Oh wait, that’s right, it’s not even a REAL holiday. No one gets out of work, no one gets out of school, and if there’s someone special in your life who has any significant significance at all, you HAVE to give them something. Bleh.
In lieu of love-chatter, let’s talk about something only randomly related to Valentine’s Day – like the fact that men never hit on me. EVER.
Oh wait, there I go lying again.
Actually, there’s a former Marine who works at the local hardware store who likes to sneak up behind me and bellow out the Marine mating call, HOO-RAH! – causing me to startle, drop whatever I happen to be holding, and pee my pants a little. Then he tries to give me his phone number. Now, I know that he knows that I’m an Army wife, because I get a 10% discount when I show my military ID at the register. Knowing this, I assume he’s hitting on me for one of the following reasons:
One, the Marine Corps brainwashed him to believe that ‘Army-Wife’ is synonymous with ‘Easy-Target-Tail’. (I’m not trying to say I’m tail mind you, I just…Ugh. Never mind, I’m not even going to try to fix that.)
Or two, he finds it entertaining to watch my eyes bug out while my face morphs from flushed, to pink, to red, to deepest scarlet, and my incomprehensible stammering and subsequent scampering out the door is immediately followed by loud guffaws, and possibly clapping, from the peanut gallery.
Clearly, this doesn’t count as a center-mass hit. It’s not even a clean shot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out looking to get hit on. (Not that OtherMe would mind at all.) On the odd occasion that I leave my house, I’m typically wearing jeans and flannel, no make-up, and my hair is rarely washed. If someone were to hit on me in this condition, I would question that someone’s mental faculties. There was one occasion however, that plagues me to this day…
I was in the commissary doing my grocery shopping, and I HAD actually washed my hair. In fact, it was still dripping all over my husband’s sweatshirt, which I had yanked from the bottom of a dirty laundry pile ten minutes earlier. I had my blinders on, and I was careening around corners and knocking things over in an attempt to hurry home and make dinner and pretend I had done something all day, besides devour Nicholas Sparks’ latest tragedy.
As unluck would have it, my NASCAR moves brought me cart to cart with a tall, dark, handsome GI with a heart-pounding smile. “Excuse me miss,” he calmly drawled, “can you tell me where the sausage is?”
My brain fumbled and tried to put the pieces together… gotta hurry gotta hurry gotta hur-what the?!…nice smile…okaaaay, sausage, sausage…he’s got a cart full of hamburgers and hotdogs and buns…young…fatigues…cute!…three-kids-dogs-husband-remember?…he’s goin’ to a cookout, WTF does he need sausage for?…the kids want something more than baby gherkins for dinner…oh, maybe he means Brats…or maybe he just wants some breakfast sausage for the mor-GOTTA HURRY!
“Breakfast sausage is in the freezer section on aisle twelve. Brats and Knocks are by the prepacked meats on aisle three, and the deli has the pricey fresh stuff at the back of the store-”
Why is he still staring at me with that smile?…geez, does he need me to SHOW him-wait..did his eyes just crinkle?…did his smile just get bigger?…his mouth just opened…is he…is he about to crack up laughing?…DID HE JUST ASK ME WHERE THE SAUSAGE IS?!!!!
I hauled ass. I was long gone before he could fall out on the floor, racked with hilarity. And every now and then I find myself wondering… Was he hitting on me? Nah. That stuff only happens in Valentine’s movies.
-TMarie
unfunnyme™ 
Prepackaged meat? Isn’t that a redundancy? Sorta like “PIN number”?
I once had a woman asked me if I had a chorizo in my pocket. Should I have taken this as a complement, or an insult?
So what would you say if you could rewind the encounter? Top three replies – why not send a unfunnyme t-shirt to the person with the winning retort? Here’s a few from yours truly;
A. “Why? You appear to have all the sausage you need.”
B. “I see you’ve got your buns. Are you going to a sausage-fest?”
C. “Sorry – I don’t know. I’m just in town for a reunion bash with my sorority. Have you seen whip cream for an indoor slip-and-slide?”
D. “Check your drawers slim, ’cause I think your full of it.”
Tall, dark and handsome GI: “Excuse me miss, can you tell me where the sausage is?”
TMarie: (in her best Mexican bandit impression) “Sausage? We don’t need no stinking sausage!”
“Excuse me miss, can you tell me where the sausage is?”
“Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City “Sailor wanna hump-hump” bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at her whiskey? Sell sausage someplace else, we’re all stocked up here!”
G.I.: Excuse me miss, can you tell me where the sausage is?
TMarie: You want answers?
G.I.: I think I’m entitled to them.
TMarie: You want answers?!
G.I.: I want the sausage!
TMarie: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE SAUSAGE!