In 199~ I was a manager at a restaurant-coffee house next to UNM. It was owned by two women and was a pretty damned cool place to work if you didn’t mind being somewhat poor.
Anyway, since the buisness relied on UNM, things would get really slow during breaks. Just me and someone else would work during the slow times.
One evening I was working with Fara during spring break. Fara went out to smoke a cigarette. Two women walked in and ordered a Caesar salad, a Cobb salad and 2 cups o’ Joe. I gave them their coffee and went to make the salads.
When the two women were done eating Fara was in the back closing things down. I was up front cleaning and doing the same. One of the women came up to the counter and ask me for the person who made her Caesar salad. I thought she was going to bitch about the salad. Anyway, I told her that I had made it. The woman then told me that it was the best Caesar salad she had ever had and that she was a food critic for the NY Times. She then dropped a 50 into the tip jar and left. (The total for the food was about 15 bucks which had already been paid)
The next day I checked and there was some sort of food critic thing going on at UNM that week.
The only proof I had was the $50 tip. Which Fara and I spent on food and beer at a local pub.
I actually can prove this one, since a friend was with me when it happened, but it was a really bizarre occurance for me so it stands out.
We were pulling into a parking garage in Chicago. (Going to a Beatlefest, if memory serves.) I was in high school then (or just out) and still skinny, had just dyed & permed my hair and cut it myself and by some freak accident I’ve never been able to replicate, it turned out fabulous. I can remember the exact dress I was wearing and I had these funky Buddy Holly style hornrimmed glasses. We get out of the car and this guy walks up to me out of nowhere and says “Excuse me, I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re really, really attractive.” and walked away. My friend and I sorta looked at each other like “whaa?!?!?!” Later that night we ordered a pizza from room service and the guy who brought it stared at me for a few minutes and said “are you from France?” I laughed and said “Um, no. Why do you ask?” He said “Oh you just look really fascinating, like someone from France.” (Repeat of “whaaaa?!?!?!”)
I would pay a hundred million dollars to look like that again. No joke. I bet good-looking chicks must get that all the time so it’s no big deal, but I guess I’m lucky I was able to pull it off for one day. Some gals probably never even get that.
Two years ago, I had just transferred to a new dept at my company and an Analyst from another dept, who I did not hardly know at the time, approached me saying that she was in a meeting with the VP of my new dept, a few other VP’s, and about a half-dozen directors. She did not give me any context, but said that the VP of my new dept, who I had never met, said “… and that Lorenzo is smarter than everyone in this room combined.”
I ran into Hugh Downs at the ticket counter at the Denver airport.
I said, “I love to see you on TV, your voice is so charming.” He said “Your voice is charming, too.”
Nobody would believe I’d seen him, much less that he was complimentary.
I’ve received some very cool compliments about my talents beyond what I post on my website. I’m not at liberty to discuss them, however, and you will just have to lay awake all night wondering what they are and what was said.
Nah, nah…I’m not sure this is the route you wanna go. I mean, if I try to stay awake all night, I’ll end up falling asleep and my dreams, I’m proud to say, are so much nastier than those fleeting daytime thoughts. So, for the diginity of the you in my dreams, perhaps you better 'fess up. Unless you like being in the center of leather-wearing midgets riding plucked chickens.
As for the OP: I vaguely recall an incident in my elementary school years where my class visited a health center and I ended up having the quickest reflexes amongst the twenty or so of us lil’ chitlins.
On the last day of classes, “Bermuda Shorts Day”, of my final year at University I was doing my best to stay vertical when a pretty girl asks me if I can call her a cab. I said I’d see if there was someone who worked at the bar who could get her a phone to use. She replied “Your not the bouncer?”. I then got the goofiest grin on my face and assured her that I was not the bouncer but would do my best to find her a phone to get a cab. I did so and kept grinning until I finally went home and passed out.
I took her mistaking me for the bouncer as a compliment because I was really into bodybuilding at the time and still considered myself to be a little guy. Of course I have no witnesses to confirm that I was indeed mistaken for someone who could have been the bouncer.
A woman driving the same car as I was pulled over just as I was parking and said “I just wanted you to know that I saw your car every day going to work and I thought it was the coolest car I’d ever seen. This week I finally bought one for myself.”
What makes it kind of strange is that I was driving a Ford Festiva.
Someone once said “You’re cool. Kind of a bit like Kim Gordon” Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth is the coolest woman on the planet. I was tickled mauve that someone should be as deluded as to consider me even “kind of a bit like” that kind of cool.
During my undergrad days one hot summer afternoon I was walking back to the dorms with a friend. Then suddenly he said, “You have a lot of common sense. Most people don’t.”
