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Howdy Ma’am! Wanna …

I was around 15 years old. My best friend’s family had me as a guest to a beach house at Ocean City, New Jersey. At this point in my life my hormones were raging. There was one constant thing on my mind. Swelling inside of me. The frustration causing my temperature to rise and my heart to pump, pump, pump with sweat pouring down my body until all was ready to explode!

My southern accent in New Jersey drew one of two reactions. Humor or ridicule. My friend’s father found it humorous and commented to me, “Doug, you’re the kind of guy that I’d expect to walk up to a woman and say ‘howdy ma’am! Wanna get laid?'” And it suddenly dawned on me that I’d never used that line. A mere couple of hours later my friend and I (and some others I don’t remember) were on the hunt. Five of us were crammed into an MG Midget, topless and shirtless of course, cruising down the strip looking for babes. We hooted, cat called, hollered, whistled and otherwise flushed out our prey. The hunt was ripe! The savannah was fresh and certainly not barren.

We parked and broke down into teams as five would easily startle even the most experienced of the tenderloins. I quickly honed in on my target, aimed my bolt and fired. The words poetically cascaded through my lips, bolstered by the charming twang of my southern accent, “Howdy Ma’am..Wo..Wo” and my string broke. “Would you like to go see a movie tonight?” She replied, “yes” and we parted company until the evening.

I never did get laid on that trip but we sure did have one helluva popcorn fight in the closed balcony of that movie theatre. I’ll never remember the movie as we were removed from the theatre shortly into the flick but man did we ever have some good laughs and share some strong kisses for one evening walking barefoot on the Jersey shore.

n.b. She later confided that she accepted my invite because no one had ever said “Howdy ma’am” to her before.

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From the mouths of babes

At the zoo event on Saturday I ask Amy if she wants to say “Free ice cream” over the microphone. She stood up tall and with great confidence and seriousness clearly announced, in a toddler’s patentable squeakish voice, “Free ice cream on the stage. Free ice cream for everyone. Free ice cream.” I was stunned! Granted, most people in the tent probably needed a translation but to a parent the words were quite clear and of her own creation! She did it twice more.

Noah approaches me and asks if he can make the announcement. I say sure and hand him the microphone. He stepped away from me, got an impish grin on his face and loudly blurted out “Free ice cream” in the most demonic voice, chuckling all the while.

Tommy turns to me with wild eyes and a wicked ear to ear grin and says, “Can I say it?” to which I firmly reply, “no!”