The Pilchards Left Monterey! Why Shouldn't the Tourists? Plus Margo Kidder Redux

[mallorys_camera]

I'm totally bored with My Troubles (the psychological equivalent of the Irish potato famine hence capitalized in homage) but honestly see no way out absent winning lotto or winning a MacArthur genius grant.

So damn it, I'm gonna write about them.

We did a lot of sales yesterday but they were all for single items. So we didn't make my sales projections.

Plus there were a ton of people who came in, did the chili bar and then attempted to engage me in dialog about the time they ate a whole habanero four years ago and omigawd it was hot, ha, ha, ha. Many of those people were very well dressed and looked as though they could easily afford to buy something. But they didn't buy something and I didn't really fucking care about their culinary misadventures. If they weren't going to give me money then I wanted them to get the fuck out of my store.

"So what is the hottest chili in the world now?" a well-dressed woman asked around closing.

I'd already wasted enough time on her talking up Ring of Fire Garden Fresh. "It is really good!" she'd twittered in agreement but made no move to pick up the bottle. I was so-o through with her!

I smiled vaguely at her question but did not take my eyes off the exciting game of Alchemy I was pursuing on my computer. I'd finally gotten up to the second level! I didn't realize the screen changes when you get up to the second level.

"What's the hottest chili?" Damn, that woman was persistent! She must live in Mill Valley or something; she dressed like a rich hippie. Lady, this is not Colonial Williamsburg, I wanted to tell her. I am not here to give you educational lectures. You wanna know something? Look it up on fucking Wikipedia!

I realized at that point it was time to go home.

Woke up very early this morning and began accounting. On the tube: a heart-warming BBC program on Animal Planet about animal therapy. Jester the parrot could not bear to be separated from Marilyn, his owner. Also Smartie the pony had developed a pig phobia. The ads were devoted to this wonderful as-seen-on-TV device called Peticure that I immediately wanted to buy.

Sadly the program ended and then – believe it or not – Animal Planet switched to religious programming for pets, something called Faithful Friends I was forced to switch to AMC which was showing an American remake of Jules & Jim with Margo Kidder in the Jeanne Moreau role.

I had a trifling connection with Margo Kidder through the writer Tom McGuane a billion years ago or so when I was young and beautiful. I couldn't figure out why Margo Kidder was considered beautiful: she had the thinnest lips I'd ever seen on a human being. If she'd been a guy, she'd have had to grow a mustache. Men liked her though. Men liked her a lot. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. She was a species of predatory airhead.

Some years later, she went mad and ended up having some bag lady episode that was duly chronicled in People Magazine although by then doubtless none of its readers knew who Margo Kidder was or had been.

Alas, so few of us follow through on the promise of our youths!

Comments

[hotelsamurai.livejournal.com]

I hate them on your behalf. The stupid cheapskate customers, that is.

[original-broad.livejournal.com]

First of all, I continue to enjoy the fact that you, my most erudite LJ buddy, are the one who keeps me up to date on what they are currently showing on the Tee-Vee.

Second of all, I have to comment on that Mill Valley reference -- I didn't grow up there, but might as well have. As a teenager I worked in their little main-street bookstore. I fuckin' hate that town. It is useless to try to humor those people.