Postcards and Poems

I met a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic the other day. Having common ground is good, right? After a mutual friend introduced us, she mentioned wanting to revisit my “boyfriend application”. Then before I knew it we were alone in the front row of Theatre 11 tossing popcorn at each other and finding ways to laugh through a horrific film in which half the audience walked out on. That was fun.  

Wait, an application for what? I literally applied to become her boyfriend over a year ago. I filled out an extensive questionnaire and divulged honestly every unfiltered bit of personal history and information it requested. The document was available to download from her column published online by the local newspaper and returnable via email. I never got the call for an interview.

Anywho, we met again with our friend the very next evening, but this time she invited some dude. He walked in, looked her up and down like a rabid dog at a meat market, smiled at me behind her back, and then told her he doesn't sweat. I was stuck somewhere between pity and laughter. If I wanted to compete, I would sign up for the next episode of 5th Wheel or ElimiDate. So when she asked me stay, I got up and when she asked me to play darts, I put my truck in gear, rolled down the windows, and turned on some country music…

He can't even bait a hook…
Knows how to throw out a line,
But not the kind in a field and stream book
- Justin Moore

My friend told me the next day, I lost. It felt like that…kinda…briefly…but what is this, little league? A woman worth fighting for doesn’t play games.

So while it’s still national poetry month and we’re talking about hopeless romantic fishing stories, here’s another one to relish (minus the dreaded cliché about dating and fish in the sea…please let me never hear that again). I was tarpon fishing a few years back with a childhood crush that had crossed my path again, and she caught a shark instead. This blacktip must have been jealous, angry, hungry, or all the above because he decided to chomp on my knee. The pain wasn’t much, but I lost blood donor eligibility for a while. Days later I received a card in the mail complete with camouflage band aids. I was so taken away, this became my reply...

Postcards and poems
These things that I do
All kinds of meaning
Just to say I like you

I’ll read them out loud
And write them by hand
Stand out in a crowd
Or scribble in sand

I’ll pick up a stone
Wherever I may go
Hold in my pocket
For her, don’t you know?

A dozen red roses
Well that sure is nice
But this girl deserves
More than sugar and spice

If I had a plane
That’s broke and can’t fly
I’d light up a sparkler
And spell names in the sky

I’ll mow half the lawn
And cut out some rhyme
Between blades of grass
Says, will you be mine?

In time, ink will fade
And sands wash away
But good old memories
They always will stay

Good memories indeed, but I never mowed half the lawn. That was something my brother did in our youth…he mowed names out of the tall grass to see before cutting the whole yard. I did however create my own grade school signature while laboring in summer yard work. Zorro was popular at the time, so at some sweltering point in the day I began spraying the letter “Z” in lawns with weed killer. If only I had a cape.

Anywhat, let me know if someone with musical talent desires to convert the above lines into a song...yes, the same non field and stream related lines I'm guilty of writing. A friend developed something along these lines with his guitar...the Key of A (played in the Key of G with capo on second fret). Chords are basically G, C, and D. Harmonica tabs, please?

Anywhere, returning to last weekend…my friend also told me to stop calling out lame Jimmy Buffett quotes that kept randomly popping up that night. Yea they were corny, but so is popcorn and who’s keeping score? Plus, now this song just fits in too many ways...

Boys keep her high as the months go by,
She's getting postcards from the road…
Just behind the reef are the big white teeth
Of the sharks that can swim on the land
Can't you feel 'em circlin', honey
Can't you feel 'em schoolin' around
You got fins to the left, fins to the right
And you're the only bait in town
- Jimmy Buffett

The last shark I caught got released in a frying pan one hour after biting the wrong line.   

Anywhy, did I forget to mention the most embarrassing part? Several months before, I had retracted my application to the hopeless romantic and requested she forward it to her friend from Kansas City. So perhaps either interview was a gift to begin with. There was also something about sending a dozen red roses on April Fool’s Day, but that doesn't make sense.

Anywhen, let me stop asking dry hypothetical questions and tell you the strangest coincidence. In the midst of writing this, I decided to dust off an old shoebox from last century and go nostalgia diving. The first thing I found was a postcard from my long lost pen pal girlfriend in Kansas City.

Enough nonsense. I’ve clearly had too much to think and The Gambler by Kenny Rogers just came on…I should listen carefully.  

Anyhow, did anyone notice I never said anyway until now but instead wrote anywho, what, where, why, when, and how in that order up above?