Kill Your Television

So Jack called me last night to tell me he was home from Nevis, and to apologize for having called me on his way to Nevis to explain to me again why he wouldn't — couldn't — take me to Nevis.

This time, I accepted his apology.

The thing is, I didn't really want to go, I just wanted to be asked. I don't know whether I would have gone, had he asked. Maybe, maybe not. OK, probably. But the reason I didn't want to go is because I'm no bagel. Jack's had a dozen of those, in a variety of flavours and all half baked, and he took one of them on one of those sales reward junkets a couple of years ago.

I do not want to go where bagels before me have gone.

Besides, there are other places I'd rather go, other things I'd rather do, with Jack. Lots of them. Like walk on the beach at Half Moon Bay again. And go dancing at The Starlight Room in San Francisco again. And let him take me to a diner and buy me corned beef hash to cure my hangover.

Attend a performance of La Bohème at The Met.

Put on my pink chiffon shill dress and watch him play baccarat in Monte Carlo.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, but let me tell you, Gentle Reader, when you find a man who will let you sleep as late as you need to, to try to cure that hangover, then go get you a grande latte from Starbucks even though he doesn't drink coffee himself, to try to cure that hangover, then take you to his favourite diner because you said you thought something good and greasy would cure that hangover, and risk having you throw up in his car because of that hangover, and never once make fun of you, not even a little bit, even though you mightily deserve it because you brought that hangover on yourself by drinking too many martinis like a big ass, well, that man is...

That's a man you keep the promises you've made to, that's what that man is.

In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't go to Nevis. Jack told me very little about it, so I can imagine what I like, and what I imagine is a bunch of drunken salesmen cutting it a little too loose in a tropical paradise where the rules of civilization don't apply. Worse than the company Christmas party when they get drunk and photocopy their bare asses. That's what you get when you work for a Big Ass American Software Company that refers to its head office as a campus, and operates an eponymous university: spring break for grownups. The Valley where the sky is the colour of television is full of Big Asses.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "You don't know shit, because you've never been there."

But I have, Gentle Reader, I have.

Been there. Done that. Bought the album.

Jack says that next year Big Ass will reward its biggest asses by taking them to Maui.

I've always wanted to go to Maui.

A whole lot can happen in a year.

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In the next story, Sass takes her friend Zee to The Banknote to get her drunk.