CRAZY CATHY
When I walk in the front door my partner always asks me if I made any new friends while I was out. Don’t be alarmed, we’re not swingers and ‘friends’ is not some code word for new prospects (those of you that are swingers, no judgement, go for your life!). He just amusingly thinks that every time I step into the park or go to a coffee shop, I will have met a new fellow mother of the neighborhood and start swapping recipes or fabric samples (I don’t cook or sew, so that’s not likely to happen). I guess he thinks women just give out their numbers to any fellow member of the female tribe. Little does he know how discriminating we women truly are. I take this preoccupation of his to mean that either he thinks I need more friends and worries that I am lonely or he secretly wants me out of the house so that he can play video games and leave his clothes all over the floor.
So the other day he and I were at a coffee shop – the breeding ground for friend making apparently - and he clocked this woman drawing at the table behind us, or as he put it, ‘illustrating.’ He immediately, and excitedly, turned to me and exclaimed ‘babe, you should make friends with her!’ You can imagine the puzzled and alarmed look on my face as he said this. I usually try my best to look at him with a blank expression and ask him, 'um why would I do that?' (Why I bother even responding is beyond me). He then explained that as I’m a writer and she is an illustrator – something he of course decided that she was – she and I could work together on a creative project of some sort. The man is just too adorable for words some times. Or nuts, I’m not sure which. What he failed to notice however was that the woman in the corner was tucked into the chair like she was afraid to the touch the floor, she was wearing slippers and looked like she hadn’t showered in days, not to mention brushed her hair. There was also a slightly crazed look in her eyes, but I didn’t want to burst my partner’s bubble quite yet. He was still so excited he found me a new friend.
So my partner gets up to get a coffee and on the way back to the table he checks out my new friend once again. Suddenly his face looks a bit worried as he sits down. He then confesses that my new pal…let’s call her Cathy – is not actually illustrating, but drawing in a coloring book…a kid’s coloring book. Ah yes, my dream of starting a creative enterprise with Crazy Cathy just went down the tubes. Cathy then shifted in her chair, raised the binder that she was using to lean on, and on the back of it in big BOLD black letters, was the word SUICIDE written over and over and over, all the way down the back of the binder.
This was the point where I looked at my partner, and politely explained why I don’t come home with fists full of phone numbers when I venture out of the house. Not to mention, I wasn’t sure someone with a preoccupation with death was a good influence on the King. (And if Cathy really was serious about ending her life, I hope she gets the help she needs!) My partner - now with a fearful look on his face - of course agreed wholeheartedly and decided that perhaps I had enough friends at the moment.
You have to love the guy for trying.